PC Party of Alberta – Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. - Pope Benedict XVI

I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one's strengths and weaknesses are. - Ray Dalio

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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It was a quiet evening in the church as the parish priest waited in the confessional in silence.  He sighed, looked at his watch and prepared to leave for the evening when he heard someone enter the confessional.

He drew open the small door between them and waited.

“Bless them, Father, but I honestly have no idea how many years it’s been since their last confession”, said a voice quietly.

“Bless them, my son?”, the priest asked quizzically.

“Well, of course”, replied the confessor, “We have worked for a very long time to convince the people that we are the only solution for their every need and they just don’t get it.  Clearly they have an issue that they need to deal with and I am here to discover how to help them.”

“I see”, replied the priest as he frowned in the darkened confessional, “And what makes you think it is they who have the issue when it potentially may be you?”

“I have no idea what you are referring to”, said the confessor huffily, “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“We?”, asked the priest, “Why don’t we just focus on you, shall we?”

“I don’t see why that is necessary”, replied the confessor, feeling his agitation begin to rise.

“Well”, began the priest, “While I don’t ordinarily do this, I see we are an impasse and so I have no choice but to identify you.  While I won’t name you specifically, my son, I know your voice to be that of a well-known politician in the Province.  Why don’t we begin our conversation again with that understanding, shall we?”

“Hmmmmm”, the confessor frowned, “Very well.  Here is my struggle, Father.  We lost the last election badly and now in the current by-election, people are all over us claiming that we have not changed at all and that we don’t deserve to win this by-election as a result.  Their argument for this has absolutely no merit at all and I am struggling to understand what they need to do to change their outlook on things.”

“Is this in regards to the candidate who has some issues in his background that portray his campaign and your support of his campaign as slightly dishonest?”, the priest asked quietly.

“Sort of”, replied the confessor, “But it’s more than just honesty or dishonesty.  Yes, we are being sort of dishonest about his background and I will admit that we are ignoring calls for transparency around this, but dishonesty for the greater good is a noble principle, is it not?  I mean , when it comes to winning, whether it be in politics or business, isn’t it better to do whatever it takes to win?  A small amount of dishonesty doesn’t hurt anybody, especially when it gets the best person elected for the job.”

“Perhaps”, answered the priest, “but how do you define the difference between a small amount of dishonesty and a lot?  Who defines what is an acceptable amount of dishonesty?  And if we accept a little dishonesty now, can we claim to be disappointed later if other examples of dishonesty are found within the individual or the Party he represents?”

As the priest spoke, the confessor listened carefully to his voice and suddenly a light dawned on him.

“I know you”, said the confessor, ignoring the priest’s observation, “You used to be a well-known politician.”

“Very true, my son”, replied the priest quietly, “But after what I thought was going to be a lifetime of public service, I decided to leave that Life and begin a lifetime of atonement for what I did in my political career and to really serve the people.”

“So you know what I am going through, Father”, said the confessor earnestly, “You should be able to tell me what’s wrong with the voters.”

He shivered in excitement as he realized he was getting closer to the answer he sought.

“Slow down”, replied the priest, “I have been watching the demise of your political party for some time.  I remember some years ago when a member of your party wrote about the struggles within your party and he suggested that there was either a mole in your party who was deliberately tearing the party apart or that your party was the victim of excessive ego or incompetence.  Let me think …… ah yes … if I remember correctly, the piece was called The Trojan Horse of the 21st Century.”

“That’s preposterous”, expostulated the confessor, “There is no mole in our party trying to deliberately undermine us.”

“Well”, replied the priest, “He did suggest that it was either a mole, excessive ego or excessive incompetence.”

“Like I said”, emphasized the confessor, “There are no moles in our Party.  I am sure of it.”

“Well that leaves only two options, doesn’t it?”, the priest asked somewhat sarcastically, “Listen my son, when you come here to seek the forgiveness of our Lord, you must do it with a humble and contrite heart.  Otherwise, I can’t help you.”

“So you are saying there is nothing you can do for me?”, asked the confessor.

“Not at this time, my son”, replied the priest.

“Hmmmmmmph”, grunted the confessor and he stood up to leave, “I expected much more of you than this, Father.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you, my son”, replied the priest, “Tell me.  I am preparing to retire for the evening.  Is anyone else waiting for confession.”

The confessor opened the door and looked at the long line of people waiting, most of whom being his colleagues.

“There’s a lot of them”, he said as he stepped outside, “Goodnight, Father.”

“God bless you”, replied the priest, “Remember what I said.”

As the confessor walked away from the confessional, the next confessor in line gestured with his hands and asked, “Well?  How did it go?”

“Very well”, smiled the confessor, “He said that I was so good that there was nothing he could do for me.”

The confessor in line smiled and gave him a two-thumbs-up as he entered the confessional.

And with that, the confessor walked to the back of the Church, blessed himself and walked out.

To be continued.

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© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

When I watch a group that has been as badly burned as the PC Party of Alberta was in the last election and when I watch that same group show no change in transparency, accountability, leadership, awareness, strategy or execution as they are exhibiting in the current by-election in Calgary-Foothills, I can’t help but wonder if this continued behavior is because someone:

• wants the Party to die (a mole)
• doesn’t believe the Party did anything wrong, either in the past or in the present (excessive incompetence, indifference or ego)
• doesn’t know how to fix the execution and the results of the Party but doesn’t have the humility to ask others for help either (excessive ego).

Unfortunately, unless a cranial defibrillator is applied to members within the Party, any of these will produce the same result, none of which are in alignment with what the PC Party of Alberta desires.

A Final Albeit Important Thought:

Is it fair to throw Calgary-Foothills candidate Blair Houston under the bus for their failings or is he ruining their chances with his failings (or is it a combination of both)?  Either way, by sticking it out when he should have stopped running, he and the Party are inviting people to find more dirt on him in a rabid attempt to skewer him. 

It’s one thing for people to strongly encourage him to stop running.

It’s another thing to ruin him if he doesn’t comply.

In such situations, he runs the risk of being ruined personally and professionally as well as politically if he persists in running anyway.

The question is:

Is he persisting willingly, begrudgingly or blindly?

The answer would be very revealing of both the party and the candidate.

Unfortunately, some answers may hasten the demise of the Party as well as the candidate if they are not careful.

This reminds me of a post I did some time ago, National Security: Saying Everything By Saying Nothing, where I referenced The 9 Ways of Being an Accessory to Another’s Sin as described in the Roman Catholic Daily Missal:

I. By counsel
II. By command
III. By consent
IV. By provocation
V. By praise or flattery
VI. By concealment
VII. By partaking
VIII. By silence
IX. By defense of the ill done

I’d say many people have checked most, if not all, of this list off in this by-election.

What do you think?

This musing is related to earlier blog posts, including but not limited to:

• Politics and the Mutability of Human Values
• PC Party and Blair Houston–Isn’t Honesty Still the Best Policy?
• PC Party of Alberta–Who Will Bell the Cat?
• PC Party of Alberta–Proving Einstein and Churchill Right?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

Creating Allies Versus Antagonists–When Ego Makes the Choice

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. - Edmund Burke

Remember that when you meet your antagonist, to do everything in a mild agreeable manner. Let your courage be keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword. - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

As the dusts settles from the Alberta by-elections, a children’s story comes to mind regarding how certain parties executed during the election and the results that they produced.  The story goes like this.

There was once a hen and a pig who were thinking about starting a breakfast restaurant together.  “Let’s call it Ham and Eggs”, said the hen excitedly.  “That’s no good”, replied the pig sadly.  “Why not?”, asked the hen.  “Well”, sighed the pig, “You are only participating in it while I am fully committed.”

The story came to mind as I reflected on how people who are fully committed to an endeavour tend to make smarter choices about whether they create antagonists or allies in their day-to-day execution because they have much more to lose if they choose poorly.

In the case of the by-elections, I had had interactions with the Alberta Party in the past and believed them to be a genuine voice of change, representing a non-hyped, data-focused leader of change that the Province (and other jurisdictions for that matter) needed.

In the public debate that occurred, I mused about how Greg Clark, the leader of the Alberta Party, appeared to win the debate.  I tweeted such during the debate and wrote about it later here - Greg Clark–A Refreshing Change Or Just Another Politician?

However, in subsequent interactions with Stephen Carter (his lead strategy person for the campaign) and before I made a decision regarding the Alberta Party one way or the other, Mr. Carter, without caring who he was speaking to, decided that I served better as an antagonist rather than an ally (or at least leaving me neutral at best).

With taunts regarding how much I did for others (or not) without any knowledge of my service to others and in providing flippant answers to serious questions (which I wrote about in Greg Clark–Politicians and the Importance of Optics), it appears that his ego and his belief that a win was “in the bag” invited him to discard myself and others as potential allies and in doing so, invited us to become potential antagonists instead.

Observing the traffic in social media, it appears that the Alberta Party’s selection of Mr. Carter’s raw online style backfired, drawing the desired attention but also creating a large pool of antagonists who may not have cared otherwise about the Party had it not been for how he interacted with people. I realized when people were actively campaigning against the Alberta Party because they believed it to be the Arrogant Stephen Carter Party that something had gone amiss with the Party’s strategy.  In certain groups, such as in schools, the actions of some of the Party’s faithful would have been considered bullying – hardly the role model for young people.

How large an issue this was in regards to the final result of no wins for the Alberta Party will largely depend on who you ask.  Whether the Party will be honest in its post mortems will also be a large matter of conjecture.

However, it causes me to stop and reflect upon how we choose our antagonists, enemies and allies, not only in politics but in Life.

Sometimes we may not be able to secure a person, people or organization(s) as an ally but we would do best not to awaken them as our antagonists also.

Because while the Burke quote at the beginning of this blog post may generally be true, the strengthening of our nerves and skill that is produced by antagonists is only apparent when the ego is such that it allows such learning lessons to be acknowledged and absorbed.

Otherwise, people just end up creating scenarios of themselves versus the world and in such cases, it is always better to bet on the world.  In other cases, they just end up bitter as illustrated here in this delightful quote from Despair.com.

The Bottom Line

Life has enough complexities as it is and there are many times when we wished that there were more powerful people in our corner.

In such situations, I think we are better off choosing our allies carefully, lest our thoughts, words and actions produce the exact opposite effect, creating antagonists or enemies when we least need them.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS In the blog post Answering The Cry For Help, I referred to the true story of a predator who was assaulting and in some cases, extorting things from women once they had been put in compromising situations.

The warning of choosing enemies wisely extends in these situations also.  People who exist to hurt others shouldn’t forget that they will eventually run into someone more powerful than they are and that their actions are creating very powerful enemies that will eventually produce justice.

It’s only matter of time.

Our thoughts, words and actions produce a steady stream of allies, antagonists or people who are neutral to us.

We must choose wisely in order to maximize the nature of the people we create around us.  They will, after all, often decide the result that we produce in our Life.

We should choose as if our Life, personal or professional, depends on it.

Because it does.

Coffee Shops, Premiers and Ticked Off Customers

Customer Care: If we really cared for the customer, we'd send them somewhere better. – Despair.Com

Apathy: If we don't take care of the customer, maybe they'll stop bugging us. – Despair.Com

For the last year or so, I have been struggling with a particular coffee shop whose teas were something I’ve really come to enjoy.

Unfortunately for that coffee shop, they’ve been struggling with serious quality issues.  While the corporate people I have been speaking to are very passionate about quality and are doing the best they can, I just had one too many incidents with dead flies (hundreds), dead fish, food that had gone off (are muffins really supposed to smell like rotten eggs) and staff that forget that a welcoming smile makes all the difference instead of appearing to be put out when a customer interrupts their newspaper reading.

In fairness to the fine corporate folks, the privately owned coffee shop skated just under the guidelines of what would have enabled them to take the coffee shop from the owner and so the situation remained for some time.  While it is likely that corporate could have taken action if they really wanted to, they played it safe and will now pay the price for it.

Now the owner is leaving but it doesn’t matter – the damage to the brand is complete and while the owner will move on to create success or destruction elsewhere, the brand will remain tarnished in the local area and will need some time and investment to repair.

In fact, when I see the logo, I see dead flies and fish on it.  Ahhhhh the persistence of memory when it comes to branding – Salvador Dali knew what he was doing when he painted this:

Meanwhile in the Alberta Legislature

The ongoing distraction in the Alberta Legislature regarding personal use of government aircraft by the Premier, allegations that caucus meetings often turn into “my way or the highway” sessions, lousy communication execution and other concerns have me worried about the brand being promoted from Edmonton.

When I think of the Alberta Government these days, I have a thought that keeps coming to mind that is best described by this poster:

Now the truth is that I don’t believe that elitism is the prevailing thought or belief amongst the many elected officials who work tirelessly in the Alberta Legislature.

However, the message that is being sent out speaks to the complete opposite, whether in the stand that the Premier has taken regarding use of government resources or in the bullying, intimidating, “I’m untouchable” style adopted by some of her communications staff.

And speaking of persistence of memory, when I hear warnings from the Alberta Motor Association about wide loads travelling on Highway 63 between Edmonton and Fort McMurray, I can’t help but think that maybe the Premier’s ego is travelling up the highway but then I’m reminded that she prefers to fly.

The Bottom Line

As in any organization, the attitude projected from a government to its partners and customers (i.e. voters) is often a reflection of the attitude embraced and projected from a single person - its leader (in this case, the Premier).

And just like the coffee shop corporate folks, I wonder how long Alberta Progressive Conservative “corporate” is willing to wait until their brand is severely tarnished or destroyed by the actions of this one person. 

The coffee shop corporate folks waited until the rogue owner damaged the brand and moved on and now they are left to repair the damage.

The question for the PC Party of Alberta is this:

Is the PC Party of Alberta willing to wait too long also, creating a situation of “too little too late” before they take action or will they do what’s right for everyone they serve?

I guess it comes down to how much they care about their brand and their “customers”, doesn’t it?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS This scenario presents an interesting dilemma.  A weak or crippled leader is something that an organization would ordinarily seek to rid itself of.  However, being this close to a general election and with so little time having passed since the last PC Party leadership race, changing the leader creates a potential risk for the PC Party while retaining the leader also poses a risk.

Meanwhile, most opposition parties would want such a weak leader to remain, since they would be an easier opponent to face in a general election.

So one ends up with the intriguing irony of a PC Party unwilling to change its leader even though it may wish to and an Official Opposition that seeks to disparage its opponent but not too much for fear that they will force a leadership change and possibly create a stronger opponent in the process.

It is the ultimate game of chess.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if the people of the Province of Alberta are winning as a result.

As for the PC Party, standing still and taking no action is as risky as taking action with the hope of future success.

I think that standing still is actually more risky and plays into the strategy of the Official Opposition.

What do you think?

Addendum – March 15, 2014 – Tensions Erupt

As reports of altercations between MLAs at an Edmonton bar are revealed (Calgary Herald: Political tensions erupt between MLAs at downtown Edmonton bar) and news of the sudden departure of interim PC Party ED Kelley Charlebois is announced (Calgary Herald: Redford faces showdown with party directors), we see the unfortunate tension that is created when leadership qualities are lacking and are not addressed.

When a leader is considered too heavy-handed, too confrontational or too non-collaborative, pressure cracks develop within what ordinarily should be a cohesive team.  If the leadership concerns are not addressed, the cracks threaten to tear a team apart, a philosophy that is not new and novel nor is it limited to politics.

It is true in Life.

What happens next is anybody’s guess but I wonder if we are witnessing a pivotal moment in Alberta politics that others will look back upon and point to as the moment when Alberta politics and the condition of the Province of Alberta got better …. or worse.

Time will tell.

“Beware the Ides of March” – the timing seems almost ironic, doesn’t it?

Psychokinesis and Cellphones–Understanding Cause and Effect

I’ve come across an interesting phenomena with my cell phone battery that I find to be quite intriguing.  As far as I can tell, the more pressure I am under, the faster my cellphone battery runs down.

If I were enterprising enough, I would engage in a government / university study to explore why this is the case and how widespread the phenomenon is.

If my study were to produce a result similar to the many that David Freedman documents in his great book Wrong, I would probably come up with one of the following as the reason for my hastened battery depletion:

1. When I am under pressure, my brain emits strong brainwaves that interfere with my cellphone, thus fouling the battery in some way.

2. When I am under pressure, my brain experiences an energy deficit and draws power from my cellphone battery.

3. I may be a member of a select group of people known as sliders whose very existence interferes with electrical / electronic components.

However, I might overlook the obvious cause of my battery depletion.

4. When I am under pressure, I fiddle with my phone a lot more, thereby running the battery down.

As in this example, using exotic hypothesis to explain away our problems often sound a lot more exciting than the actual problem  definition and therein lies a problematic temptation.

In such situations, a deliberate or accidental misinterpretation or over-complication of cause and effect often lead to the creation of projects that appear to be more glamorous, challenging or resource intensive than is warranted or projects that are a lot more frustrating than they should be. 

With that in mind, people either happily run off in the wrong direction to solve the wrong problem without giving it a second thought or remain mired in “why isn’t this working better” syndrome.

Either scenario could be avoided if the people holding the problem stopped for a moment and asked the right questions, using the right data to answer those questions.

Some examples from my journey

a. A local church, while lamenting the fact that only 10% of their parishioners attend service on a regular basis, wonder what’s wrong with the people who are not attending instead of asking themselves what they can do to attract more people.  The church is suffering financially as they wait for the other 90% to magically come to their senses and start attending weekly service.

b. A business entity that is running a project with two agendas, a public and a private one, that are diametrically opposed to each other and create confusion as a result.  Despite the obvious issue of the conflicting agendas, the leaders constantly express high levels of frustration (and anger) that their team members and the user community always seemed confused for some reason unknown to everyone.

c. A certain charity whose leadership staff members make over $250K each per year and yet they can’t understand why more people don’t want to work for free for such a great community-minded charity.  They are blind to the conflicting message being sent out of deep coffers for internal staff versus an impoverished, barely-getting-by charity status that is projected to outsiders.

While it’s easy to quote Occam’s Razor in these and other situations, the belief that all thing’s being equal, the simplest solution is most likely the right one, the truth is that the real answers can be found in being able to ask the right questions … or allowing an objective observer to ask the right questions.  As an aside, I mused about “Asking Questions That Get Answered” here.

Having allowed the difficult questions to be asked, the second part of the solution is to put one’s ego in check long to enough to listen to the dialog that ensues.

That’s when the real breakthrough occurs.

Now if you will excuse me, I’ve noticed that as my current deadlines approach, my cellphone appears to be levitating about a foot above my desk.

It must be the draft blowing in from the window.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

What’s More Painful–Needing Help or Asking For It?

I was reminded this weekend when a friend reached out for help that so many people who need help are afraid or hesitant to ask for it.

Anyone who has ever been in a place where they needed help but couldn’t dare to ask knows the paralysis that such a dilemma can create.

On the one hand, they may face terrible consequences if they don’t find a solution to whatever challenge threatens to steamroll over them.

On the other hand, even if they have identified someone who can help them overcome these challenges, their pride may not allow them to ask for help.

Their ego attempts to convince them that the pain they will face in the act of asking for help will be FAR greater than the pain experienced when the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train.

While this is almost always never true, we somehow manage to rationalize such a belief anyway.  I know full well what the pain of this structural tension feels like – I’ve been there.

And even though there is nothing wrong and everything right about asking for help, many people can’t seem to do it.

Ironically, many of these same people will get frustrated if someone they know needs help and won’t accept it.

I’ve been there too! :-)

While the reasons are probably as diverse as the number of people who hold such beliefs, I believe Ray Dalio said it best when he noted:

I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one's strengths and weaknesses are.

Asking for help forces us to recognize where our strengths and weaknesses are and forces (or at least invites) us to do something about them.

And while many of us chalk up our resistance to asking for help as being based on pride, independence or something similar, in truth, by not asking for help we are able to avoid being realistic about something inside that we would rather not think about.

Unfortunately, by not thinking about it we are also avoiding an opportunity to overcome it once and for all.

When we are unable to ask for help, we are denying ourselves and others the opportunity to explore our true potential and the Life lessons that await us.

Even if the Life lesson is merely … how to ask for help or how to accept it.

As Paulo Coelho notes:

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

I see this problem in business all the time.  Many people would rather see companies explode, destroying the livelihoods of their employees, rather than admit that they need help.

We need to help others more by reaching out and making it easier for them to ask.  Sometimes when someone perceives the door to assistance as being locked, it is important to leave the door slightly ajar, allowing the light and warmth from within to invite inside those who struggle.

Don’t force them to come inside.  It must be an act of their own volition in order that the help offered be most effective for the receiver and the provider.

Someday it may be one of us knocking on the door … unless we are as fearful as those that we once judged for not wanting our help.

And if you need help, you will be surprised (and relieved) to discover that asking for it is usually not as painful, embarrassing or humiliating as you’ve built it up in your mind.  In fact, the release that is produced in overcoming the fear of asking is often just what is needed to propel your Life closer towards your ultimate potential (which includes better enabling you to help others).

Ego can be a great enabler and a great disabler.

We need to make sure we know which way it is guiding us.

Do you know?

Are you sure?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum – March 18, 2013

A reader indicated to me that my opinions in this blog are wrong and imply that I am promoting an apathy-laden, passive or “dormant” response to people who need help.  He went on to say that “the helpless” can’t wait for people to respond to their needs – that action is needed immediately even if help is not requested.

My musing is not in reference to those who are so far gone that they are doomed unless someone steps in on their behalf or the people without a voice who need a hero to enable their voice.

There is a big difference between feeling powerless and being powerless and everyone who needs help is not necessarily helpless.

The subject of helping the truly helpless is a different, more complex subject that also demands answers.  After all, we as a society are only as enabled as the weakest or meekest in our society.  How we deal with those who are most in need is an indicator of how empowered (or not) our society is.

Life and Software–When The Obvious Is Not So Obvious

Some years ago, I was working on a project on Wall St. where one of the Big 4 consulting companies had just implemented a very expensive IT system.

Its architecture was glorious in theory, perfect in its purity and yet one day, this glorious manifestation took down the entire internal network of a major bank.

What happened?

Without getting too technical, the application was designed to get any message that needed to be displayed to its user from a centralized database of messages.

One day, someone inadvertently took the message database offline and the application realized that an error occurred when it couldn’t retrieve the messages it needed to display.

In order to display the error message describing what happened, the application naturally went looking for the error message in that database and it couldn’t find it, producing another error.

That error in turn caused the application to look for the same database to obtain the same error message to display and then ……

You get the picture.

The application architects and developers had failed to plan for the fact that the message database itself could disappear.

The application “panicked” and tried harder and harder to obtain the information it needed and in doing so, spun itself into oblivion while producing nothing in the way of a positive result.  Thousands of PCs started doing the same thing and the network came down.

A multi-million dollar system had been brought to its knees by a simple oversight.

Life Is Like That Sometimes

Sometimes Life is the same.  Something that we thought should be happening in Life is not happening and so we try again.

But instead of doing something different, we try the same thing and produce the same result.

Getting frustrated (or panicking) we do the same thing again.

It feels natural to do this until someone points out that in fact we are doing the same thing over and over. 

And if n0body points this out or they do and we ignore them, eventually our “network”; our brain, our strength, our courage or our faith in ourselves and others fails.

And then comes the inevitable crash just as the crash that occurred within the Bank I mentioned.

All it would take to avoid this crash is a slight change in our approach or a slight change in our understanding of the environment that we live within.

But sometimes when we are in the thick of things, the slight modifications needed in our actions or our environment are not easily visible – we’re too focused on rapidly finding a solution.

And when we get caught up in our ever-increasing need to find a solution, the solution we seek will evade us with ever increasing speed …. causing panic, pain or failure as a result.

The Objective Observer

In the case of the application I mentioned, the architects came to me and said “We’re stuck – what can we do?”.  They had spent weeks of meetings trying to sort it out.

I looked at the architecture and said “Perhaps if the error routine already had knowledge of the “Message database is not available” message without having to go get it, it could report the error without spinning itself into oblivion”.

A simple answer – easily discerned and seemingly obvious to me because I wasn’t buried in the weeds of the thing nor did I have any concern around admitting I had created the problem.

Life is the same.

Sometimes when we find ourselves buried in the weeds of something that doesn’t appear to be working, we need to find the objective observer who can point out what is obvious to them.

It took the Big 4 consultants with their $2500 per day bill rates a long time to suck up their ego before asking me what the issue was.

But eventually the embarrassment (and potential punishment) from failure was more powerful than the ego that was holding them back.

Einstein’s Law of Insanity applies here, the notion that we shouldn’t expect a different result from the same actions. However, I wonder if it should be renamed Einstein’s Law of Ego.

When we finally push our ego down enough to ask “Can you help me understand why this is not working?”, we open ourselves up to new results that are dramatically better.

Isn’t that better than spinning ourselves into oblivion?

Our level of perfection as human beings may be perfect in potential, just as this application’s architecture was perfect in theory.

But potential means nothing if the results don’t match the potential.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS  I was reminded as I wrote this about a conversation I had with an NTSB investigator years ago.  He mentioned that in some situations, a pilot was able to avert disaster when, as an unanticipated event occurred, he took 10 seconds to stop and ask “What is happening here?” instead of just instantly reacting to the situation and possibly making it worse if not fatal.

An interesting thought and somewhat related.

Quarantine Area - Fragile Ego Present

I have noted with interest and concern in recent years, a sharp increase in a terrible disease that can destroy individuals, projects and even corporations.

No one is exempt from this dastardly scourge and many of us have witnessed it’s deadly impact or been adversely impacted by it.

It is also highly contagious and we must be wary lest we become infected, caught up in its deadly embrace.

The disease is known as egofragilis, better known as fragile ego.

We all know about ego, the oft-explored, well-documented element of our psyche that provides us with the confidence to do what needs to be done and the cockiness to destroy it all in the process.

When we embrace and direct our ego appropriately, we create the opportunity for our unlimited skills, talents, strengths and abilities to create things that stagger the imagination.

When we allow our ego to control and direct us in turn, we nullify our opportunity to create these amazing things, limiting our results and the results of others to a small fraction of it’s ultimate potential.

If we allow our ego to be crushed altogether, we become a doormat to the world and feel like we have little of value to contribute.

Perhaps you have seen these symptoms (not a definitive list):

• A specific individual who needs to take the credit on a project and will do what it takes to get it, at the expense of anyone
• People who are afraid to admit they have made mistakes or are wrong, for fear of being perceived as weak, less intelligent or less capable in general
• People who are afraid to hire people who may be perceived as more intelligent or enabled than they are (even if the truth is to the contrary)
• People who are afraid to say “I don’t know”
• People who hide their self-observed weaknesses behind bullying or bravado
• People who insist on doing everything themselves, assuming that no one can do it as well as they can as they embrace the mantra of “if you want to do it right, you have to do it yourself”
• People who are so proud of their humility that they brag about it and highlight it constantly, unintentionally creating an excess amount of hubris, the very thing they brag that they do not have
• Conversely, people who martyr themselves at the expense of everyone because they feel that they are incapable of contributing anything of value.

The worst part of this terrible affliction is that while it is easy to diagnose it in others, it is not always easy to self-diagnose it in ourselves.

And that fact alone makes such a disease so dangerous, that we could become afflicted with something that could be destroying the potential of others as well as our own potential and we wouldn’t be aware that it is happening.

Never be afraid to stand up to ego when one sees it steamrolling over others.

But more importantly, be open to the suggestion that one’s own ego may be doing the steamrolling.

We can’t always improve the behavior of others.

However, we are accountable and responsible for our own behavior –it is something within our power to improve.

And since we are responsible for such improvement, we have an obligation to strive every day to be a better person ….

… including eradicating the terrible affliction of egofragilis.

Sometimes it takes a cranial defibrillator to fully get rid of egofragilis – but it’s worth it. :-)

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Quarantine Area – Fragile Ego Present” can be found here.

When Ego and Common Sense Collide ….

…. or ….

“The noise in your car will go away if you turn the radio up loud enough”.

This thought came to mind today as I spoke to a good friend and Wall St. client as we exchanged Thanksgiving pleasantries.

My friend, whom I will name “Frank”, is working on a project of considerable cost and complexity that, after starting and being cancelled three times mid-project, is now gaining traction for a fourth go-around.

As a strategy guy, I was intrigued by this and asked him what was different about this version of the project versus the previous incarnations that had gone down in flames.

Are the measurable outcomes different than before? –> No

Are the tools and processes being used different than before? –> No

Is the technology that it is built upon different than before? –> No

Are the regulatory influences different than before? –> No

Are there different people designing the solution? –> No

Are there different people implementing the solution? –> No

Is the solution being developed for a different group of users? –> No

Is there ANYTHING substantially different between this incarnation and the previous ones.

“Not that I can see.”

So, Frank, how do you know this one will be successful when the others failed?

“Well, Harry, there are no guarantees in life.  You do the best you can with what you have and hope for the best”.

Well, Frank, you are about to be burned by the Bread Recipe Rule (first coined by Gerald Weinberg) which states:

If you take the same baker, ingredients and recipe, you will always bake the same bread.

Frank paused and then acknowledged that given everything he could see, the fourth incarnation will probably end up being the same as the rest.

If you know this, Frank, why are you participating in the project?

In the conversation that ensued, Frank described a process where past project experiences could not be discussed. To do so was considered a negative practice and thus a distraction from the bright future they were manifesting.

He described a process where it was decided that to rethink a different way of doing things was deemed unnecessary.  After all, the best solution, process and team had already been created and so why should anyone waste time revisiting everything from the beginning?

For those on the project who had a sense that they were about to bake another loaf of the same bread, their voice of reason was drowned out in a cacophony of accusations of “not being a team player”, “being a pessimist”, or some other insult, most of which was encouraged by the project leadership and dutifully shared by the project team members.

Some people who strongly expressed their opinion that they were repeating history were transferred out of the project. 

Two were fired for being a negative influence on the project, for daring to suggest that the fourth incarnation will probably follow in the footsteps of the prior attempts.

Ego Overrules Common Sense

The ego of the team, particularly within the leadership of the project, is shouting so loudly that it is preventing them from seeing that they are repeating history – a very expensive history.

The killer for me was when I asked Frank, if he knew that what they were doing was wrong, then why he didn’t just find somewhere else to work.

His answer summed it up:

Do you know how much I would give up in stock and perks if I walk away from my employer?

His personal values, common sense and life experience, which told him that what they were doing was wrong, had been compromised by the extrinsic motivator of money.

The life experiences of the team’s leaders and how they viewed the knowledge of the team members were being compromised by their ego.

Common sense, like Elvis, had left the building.

I realized as we spoke that many of our corporate leaders still don’t get it, despite assurances to the public, to shareholders, etc. that bailouts, regulatory changes, a few rah-rah team building exercises and other things have produced a different way of doing business.

Key Element of Leadership – Influence and Values

They miss a key element of leadership.

You can regulate a business all you want.

You can offer incentives and punishments to organizations and the people within them all you want.

You can write corporate rah-rah statements that make people jump up and down with excitement.

You can hang those nifty motivational posters all over the office and feel smug that you have changed an entire culture with a couple of cute expressions.

However, if you forget that the demonstrated values of the leadership at the top of the organization grow and amplify as they move down through the rank and file, then the leadership has missed the whole point of leadership.

The point is that the leaders influence their entire organization through their actions and behaviors and that as they demonstrate their personal values on a daily basis, so will the people within the organization embrace and emulate those same values.

This is the power of strong leadership, good and bad.

And so when I see poor actions taking place within the bowels of a large organization, I don’t think that the core of the problem, the “thing” that needs to be fixed, is at that specific level of the organization.

Instead, I look at the leadership of the organization, the behavior of the leaders and the values that they demonstrate.

And when I do that, I can tell exactly what type of “bread” their organization will bake throughout the different levels of the organization.

Avoiding the Negative Impact of Excessive Ego

Many leaders use their ego to brazen and bully their way through many situations, ignoring or covering up the issues that are all around them.

So will the people who follow them.

The problem is that, as with a car that is making a bad noise , “turning up the radio” can provide you with an opportunity to ignore the problem.

But sooner or later, you end up broken down in the middle of nowhere – just as we were in the spring and summer of 2008.

The only way to avoid breaking down is to turn down the radio and honestly assess the problem.

With a focus on collaborating.

With a focus on acknowledging the respective skills, knowledge, talents and life experiences of others that may shed light on a better way of doing things.

With a focus on mutual respect and trust, in an environment where every opinion matters.

Without excessive ego.

Otherwise, the organization may be about to experience a significant problem.

It’s like car brakes that make a very loud screech when you apply them.

You can always turn up the radio.

And that makes everything ok.

Doesn’t it?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my Musings-in-a-Minute version of “When Ego and Common Sense Collide”, please click here.

How Easily Intimidated Are You?

It has been said that I intimidate people.  To the casual eye, I guess I might appear to be intimidating to some people.  It seems to them that I don’t waver under pressure (wrong).  In their eye, I seem to be comfortable in any situation, from a private one-on-one in a coffee shop to a presentation in front of thousands (not always).  As far as they can see, the bigger the fire fight, the more I rise to the challenge, wrestle it to the ground and solve the challenge without any effort (couldn’t be further from the truth).

For many people that I am blessed to interact with, it seems to them (according to what they tell me and others) that such an individual is intimidating to be around. This intimidation produces in some people’s minds, a wrestling match between their ego and the other person’s (even though the other person is unaware of it).  The wrestling match produces one of three outcomes from the perspective of the observer:

1. My ego is ok with this and we can find things to collaborate around.

2. My ego feels it is not worthy and I don’t understand why he would bother with me, therefore I will not participate for fear of not living up to his expectations.

3. My ego feels it is threatened, that his ego will exert influence over me or have knowledge that I don’t (thus making me look bad) and so I will avoid the opportunity to collaborate.

For those in categories 2 or 3, when they discover that I want a true win-win collaboration, this throws their ego off even more and suggests to them that I must have an ulterior motive on top of an inflated ego.  This deepens their reasoning that their ego must be protected from embarrassment and ridicule at all cost and so a collaboration must be avoided.

Meanwhile, those in category 1 know that the only difference between arrogance and confidence in the one they observe is usually just perspective - notice I said usually :-).

People may be surprised to know how many people there are in categories 2 and 3 who are in high positions of power; whether in government, business or other institutions.  I believe that categories 2 and 3 make up a significant percentage of people in positions of leadership.

What a Waste of Potential

We waste so many opportunities to collaborate and to create positive results for the greater good when we fail to realize that we all bring incredible gifts, talents and strengths to the table. 

With such gifts, there is no need for ego-wrestling.  We all need each other.

The threatened observer, while perceiving a large ego in the observed …. 

is merely observing the gap in egos between the observer and the observed and not the ego of the observed.

In other words, it’s not that the observed person has too great an ego ….

it’s that the observer may have too small an ego.

A More Insidious Intimidation

While we choose to work with people (or not) based on this ego gap, there is another type of intimidation going on in the world that we accept but I believe is potentially more crippling or debilitating in our lives.

I call this intimidation “information or intellectual intimidation”, the use of facts, figures, credentials or a majority opinion to force people into a desired action even when the facts are nebulous, inaccurate or downright wrong.

One could write thousands of pages, citing many examples.  Let’s look at just a few.

1. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking place allegedly for our freedom and protection.  When one presses for the proof, we are told “it’s obvious” but when we demand the ultimate proof, we are told it’s a national security issue and so we accept that we cannot be told.  Meanwhile, cancer, heart disease, stroke and car accidents will kill far more people on an annual basis and yet don’t get anywhere near the funding to solve.  If we voice an opinion against the war, we are told that we are unpatriotic, we are allowing the terrorists to eventually win or that we are not supportive of our troops (who are great people that we should feel a deep level of gratitude for) and so it is a hot potato that many people will not touch.  None of these reasons are true – but our voice is a small one against the cries of the majority or the powerful (who are not necessarily smarter than we are).

2. The stimulus money in the US artificially and temporarily propped up the economy, providing a band aid to keep it moving.  The proponents of the stimulus money cite the positive statistics as proof that it works and yet when people ask “what happens when the stimulus money, which is not infinite, stops flowing”, the querents are told to stop being so pessimistic.  Not wanting to go against “the positive signs of the recovery” or wanting to hope that the designers of the stimulus programs are smarter than they are, people stop asking questions.  Now as the stimulus funds start to dry up, foreclosures continue to be high, new house sales are down, national and personal debt levels skyrocket and unemployment numbers remain high, people who are trying to ask questions are being shouted down as pessimistic, un-American, misinformed, etc. and so they keep their opinion to themselves.

3. We spend billions on airline security on an annual basis to prevent terrorists from killing us in the air.  When we ask how effective this investment is, we are told the proof is self-evident – look how no terrorists have taken planes out of the sky recently.  When we ask for proof that the investment is directly responsible for this, we are told we cannot know the details because of “national security”.  Meanwhile, people like the “underwear bomber” can STILL get explosives on planes (as admitted by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano) while we can’t bring nail clippers on board.  Insiders in the airline industry tell me that they routinely find firearms and other weapons planted on certain overseas routes.  The professional terrorist will do what they wish to do but we accept what we are told by “the experts” as what is best for our protection.  When someone hides the facts and details under “national security” or they embarrass people who question what is going on in the airline industry, the intimidated stop asking questions or making public observations.

4. Corrupt politicians (not all are corrupt) pass laws that make scrutiny of their spending habits to be beyond inspection (again, for national security reasons, privacy reasons, etc) but tell us that this is ok because they have our best interests at heart anyway.  We begrudgingly accept this but then we are surprised and angered when one example after another appears where the same politicians then dipped into the trough repeatedly, illegally and without concern (or any semblance of morals).  So we get angry, demand an atonement, accept their apology and hope it never happens again. Sure – until the cycle repeats itself.

There are many more challenges that trouble people privately and professionally and yet they are kept quiet for fear of losing their job, their friends, their family, etc.

The “emperor is not wearing any clothing” but for a variety of reasons, we stay quiet or look the other way. Meanwhile, our challenges grow – we just don’t discuss them publicly.

This seems to be to be the ultimate intimidation. and given the potential impact, a very dangerous one.

We Need To Decide What is Really Important

So our ego works to protect us from what it perceives as immediate threats against itself when we engage in one-on-one interactions, when many of those interactions may have produced results far greater than anything we could ever have accomplished by ourselves.

Meanwhile, greater threats to our prosperity and well-being are at play every day and yet we don’t see them or we are afraid to have an opinion about them, for a variety of reasons.

I wonder if our egos need to choose our battles more intelligently.

On the one side, our ego rises to protect us without having any facts to justify its behavior.

On the other side, it accepts things from certain people with specific titles, again without having any facts.  However, many of us make the mistake of assuming that having a title makes some people superior in intention, morals or values and so facts aren’t important in these situations.

When we strip the titles off those people, they are all just people and so our ego should hold them accountable to the same set of rules.

As Neale Donald Walsch wrote:

Be aware

Be honest

Be responsible

Let’s apply our ego consistently across the board – to collaborate, to question, to see the gifts in ourselves and others and to make a difference for ourselves and the greater good.

Better yet, don’t let your ego do the talking or thinking for you.  What does your spirit or instinct tell you?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS I’m only as intimidating as you think I am.  Don’t believe me?  Rather than guess or assume, reach out to me to find out for yourself and to see what we can create together.  :-)

For my Musings-in-a-Minute version of "How Easily Intimidated Are You?”, please click here.

Ego Versus Spirit

Being a servant leader is one of the most challenging and rewarding endeavors that one can embrace.

For some, the concept of leadership invites thoughts of power; the notion that “I have earned this dominion over others so that I may direct them as I feel they need to be directed.” Others believe that with their talents and life experiences, the awarding of the title, “leader,” is an entitlement; some type of reward they are owed based on what they have accomplished.

The true servant leader sees leadership as the opportunity to serve others, to influence the team and surrounding environment to produce long-lasting, impactful results and to encourage development of similar leadership traits in others.

With any of these beliefs, leaders often find themselves confronted by something that is both one of the greatest gifts AND one of the single largest enemies of leadership. This combination of gift and enemy within one entity can be confusing and beguiling. We need this gift in small doses in order to move forward with confidence. In these situations, it is a necessary companion on our Life journey. However, when it grows sufficiently, it passes the point of empowering us and instead, destroys us and everything around us.

What is this “thing” that is both an empowering, enlightening gift and a disempowering, destructive foe?

It is our ego.

Our ego, in the correct amount, provides us with the self-confidence that propels us to use our gifts appropriately in the service of others. It enables us with the oomph to keep moving when times are challenging. As ego helps us move forward, the Universe often rewards us by manifesting blessings in many ways.

However, many times our ego, which has been our healthy and enabling companion, takes a look at this manifestation and thinks, “Hmmm … I must be pretty good to manifest this. I wonder what else I can manifest if I put my mind to it?”

The ego, having forgotten that the “royal we” produced the abundance together, begins to assert itself as the master of its domain. It takes actions assuming that only it knows the right way to do things; that only it has the knowledge needed and, in the end, it can only count on itself to gets things done. It embraces the belief that “if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.”

What further exacerbates the situation is that ego has, as part of its self-defense mechanism, the belief that everyone else has an ego that is intentionally conspiring to knock it down from its lofty perch. To protect itself, it proactively attempts to weaken the ego of others with thoughts of distrust, hurtful words, action to disable others, and other non-collaborative efforts.

This results in leaders and the teams they serve dissolving into a tense, combative, exhausting conflict of wills, and a struggle to establish who is smartest, most able, most capable, or most whatever. However, what the ego most fears is our Spirit, the part of us we can’t see but we know is there.

The Spirit recognizes our gifts and allows us to recognize the gifts of others. It allows us to embrace the belief we are all in this together, and the best way to make a difference and exert impactful influence is by bringing our gifts together.

Just as a leader who leads with ego finds egos responding in kind, the leader who leads with Spirit finds the Spirit of others responding in return.

• The Spirit that says, “I honor the gifts within you as I know you honor the gifts within me.”
• The Spirit that is built upon love, trust, collaboration, learning and sharing.
• The Spirit that is built upon serving others, not ruling them.

If you have too little ego, you become the world’s doormat. If you have too much, you think the world is your doormat. Neither extreme is healthy and the servant leader seeks to find a balance between the two extremes. As a servant leader, have enough ego to propel yourself to action, but let your Spirit be that which takes action.

My many years of consulting on Wall Street have helped me to ascertain, in a matter of minutes, the level of success enjoyed by a leader and their team. How do I know? It’s simple really. In the first five minutes, I can sense whether the Spirit on the other side of the table wants to hug me in welcome or the ego wants to choke me in an effort to control me.

Our ego says, “I am perfect.” Our Spirit says. “We are perfect.”

When I am sitting across the table from you, does your Spirit or your ego do the talking? How do you know?

In service and servanthood.

Harry Tucker

This blog was also posted on Northfork Center For Servant Leadership on May 6th, 2010.

While my Musings-in-a-Minute versions of my detailed blogs are usually an abbreviated version of the original blog, my Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Ego versus Spirit” is the same given the short nature of this entry.

Can You Ask For Help?

A former schoolmate of mine was buried yesterday.

As we get older, we know that death is part of life and we come to accept it as a natural part of living that we will face someday.

However, what made her end-of-days so tragic in my mind was that she died by her own hand at an early age (under 50 years of age).

She was significant to me in junior high and high school.  While I am 6’3” now, back then I was much smaller and was a regular target of bullies.  My friend would step in often and would chase the bullies off, telling them to leave me alone.  She was my hero when I needed help.

But many of us didn’t know that she was crying for help and by the time we discovered it, it was too late.

Many people, businesses, governments and the world-at-large are crying for help.

Sometimes the cry for help is not loud enough.

Sometimes the cry is deafening but we are so preoccupied with something else that we don’t notice.

However, the worst cry for help of all is the one that goes unsaid.

When a cry for help goes unheard, bad things happen.

Families suffer - businesses go bankrupt - governments make significant mistakes - ecologies languish - economies collapse.

People die.

We as inhabitants of this beautiful planet carry a two-fold responsibility as part of the “rent” we pay for occupying space here.

The first responsibility is that when we see opportunities to help others personally, professionally, ecologically or in any other way, I think it is ok to stick our nose in to offer help.  If our help is turned down, we should assess how important the situation is before saying “ok” and walking away.

The second responsibility and the one that is far more difficult to live up to is for each of us to not be afraid to ask for help.

If we are the one who needs help, the greatest impediment to asking for it is our ego (which in turn feeds things like fear, insecurity, embarrassment, etc.).  In many of these situations, ego stands between the individual or organization and the unlimited potential that that person or organization has.

Many of the small businesses (under $15 million in annual revenue) that I have seen collapse over the last 5 years have cited shifting markets, the economy, wavering consumer confidence, etc).

When I do post-mortems on these companies to understand why they collapsed, I often discover that many of them couldn’t get past their own ego – to be forced to admit that they don’t know it all and they may have made a few mistakes.

With that, they saw failure as a more effective option than admitting they didn’t know everything.

This demonstrates how powerful the ego is.

We aren’t afraid of failure. 

We are afraid of how failure will be perceived.

Is our ego that important?

I hope not.

Let’s be more aggressive in offering help to others.

More importantly, let’s not be afraid of asking for help.

A person or organization’s life may depend on it.

It may be yours or someone close to you.

Can you ask for help? 

Do you have the courage to ask for it when you need it?

Do you have the sense of obligation to answer the call when it comes on behalf of others?

As for my friend, my prayers are with her family.  We didn’t hear her cry for help. 

Let’s not let the cries for help go unnoticed, unheeded and unanswered, including our own.

That is, after all, an important part of our responsibility while we are here.  Our responsibility to others also includes the fact that asking for help is much more difficult than offering it, so let’s be more cognizant of the needs of others.

We can’t save everybody and everything. 

But I think we can do much better.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Can You Ask For Help?”, please click here.

Be the Salt

In Matthew 5:13, Matthew writes:

"You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (ESV)

There are many people around us who are “the salt”; those people who bring collaboration, sharing, creativity and a new dimension of “getting things done” to everything they do and they do so with a passion that frightens others.

There are many egos who feel threatened by “the salt” and will do whatever it takes to thwart the efforts of “the salt”.

When the owners of ego see “the salt” arrive, they get nervous.  After all, their ego needs recognition and control above all else and arrival of “the salt” challenges this need.

Ego is a competitive beast that is in one of two modes at all times – either being on the offensive to seize more control and recognition or seeking ways to defend itself against the perceived efforts of other egos that want to wrest control and recognition away from it.

And so, when “the salt” arrives, the egos rally against this new perceived threat, assuming that every person is motivated by ego.  Since ego always believes that others need to attack it, “the salt” represents another enemy to subdue.

With that, the ego will do anything to prevent “the salt’ from making a difference in the world that the person with ego is in.

This manifests in many ways, including but not limited to:

1. Preventing “the salt” from participating.

2. Keeping “the salt” out of the loop.

3. Actively discrediting “the salt” or playing down the strengths of “the salt”.

4. Making errors and blaming it on “the salt” (for something “the salt” did, didn’t do or whatever else is convenient).

5. Trumping up its own ego-centric plans, intentions, and such with the belief that no one else can dream up something as grand (or be as far along the path), thus demonstrating that “the salt” is not necessary.

6. Intentionally avoiding opportunities to share and collaborate with “the salt”.

7. Tactics that include bullying, intimidation and spreading misinformation.

There is a great irony in all of this.

“The salt” is not focused on competition at all.  It sees what it does as its responsibility on the earth – to make a difference and not to win recognition for its effort.  It is passionately compassionate towards those who need help or those who seek to help others.

“The salt” seeks to do whatever it takes to maximize the intended outcome, which includes ego-less actions such as sharing, collaborating and the pooling and promotion of the talents, skills, knowledge and life experience of others. 

It seeks to live by values such as Stephen Covey’s 4 L’s – to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy.

Ego doesn’t understand this, because ego can only attack and take.

Being “The Salt” is Difficult

Being “the salt” is not easy.

It is often a thankless job.

It is often a lonely job.

It is not something one chooses to be.  One is either “the salt” or not.

Salt is necessary - without salt, we die.

Without those who are “the salt” in our culture; political, professional, economic, religious, educational, ecological, societal, etc., our culture dies.

Ego fights for recognition and survival from the ego’s standpoint while “the salt” fights to do the right thing for others.  The fight is a fruitless waste of time but the ego knows no other way.

Ego takes delight in being able to chase off “the salt” when these skirmishes occur.  It puffs up and relishes its victory, triumphant in chasing off that which challenged its superiority.

However, “the salt” always wins over ego.  Ego just doesn’t realize that it is fighting a losing battle.

Sometimes “the salt” will give up the fight and ego thinks it has won.  It hasn’t.  “The salt” realized that it was wasting its time and energy and has moved on to where its time, talent and treasure can play a larger, more impactful role with the gifts that it has.

Ego delights in its “victory”, not realizing that it hasn’t won anything for anyone.  No one benefits when ego carries the day.

The prize that ego fights for is small, private, meaningless and selfish.  The prize that “the salt” fights for is large, impactful and loving.

Are you ego-focused or are you “the salt”?

How do you know?

What would others say?

Be “the salt”.  Associate with others who are “the salt”.  The world needs it.

Without it, we all die.

In service and servanthood.

Harry

Addendum: In a conversation I was having with a Facebook friend tonight (thanks, Jeannette), it occurred to me that salt is a fascinating and interesting dichotomy.  It is both a source of nourishment and a source of irritation, depending on the circumstance.  I found this to be very interesting as “the salt” is necessary in society but is often a source of irritation to the egos of others.

For my Musings-in-a-Minute blog “Be the Salt”, please click here.

Service and Servanthood

Service - what does it really mean? To many, it means the service we receive, whether it's the service at the local coffee shop, the quality of the customer service we receive during a telephone call, how well we are treated at the local auto dealer, etc.

How often do we think about it from the other side as in, how well do I provide service to others? Do I provide the level of service expected of me as a member of my family, my community, my church, my company or client, my country and of course, the earth itself? How well do I serve others?

The real question comes down to this. How much humility do I really have and is my ego small enough to allow me to serve those around me with a spirit of total giving and total commitment. As a leader, does my ego call me to lord over those who work for me or with me or is my humility more powerful than my ego, allowing me to serve even those I lead, clearing obstacles for them and providing ways for them to achieve ultimate satisfaction, contribution and growth. When I experience situations where my life experience has clearly provided me with more knowledge of a particular situation than the people I am serving (or I think it has), how gentle am I in sharing knowledge and constructive criticism? What's winning the fight - my humility or my ego?

I believe we have all been in moments when we appeared to be the lesser equipped and have born the sting of rebuke, sarcasm or criticism as the other person exerts ego-based influence over us. Instead of learning from the pain of this sting, we are quick to do the same thing when we have the upper-hand, both failing to learn a better way of handling the situation while passing on the sting to someone who will in turn, pass it on to someone else. Merely thinking the thought is as bad as committing the deed, as our body language and actions betray our thoughts as thoroughly as if we had spoken the demeaning thought we had considered. In addition, thinking such thoughts does not provide us with the opportunity to grow our humility and shrink our ego.

We have such high expectations of the world, but are we holding ourselves up to the same expectations? Many of us hold ourselves to outrageous levels of expectations on many levels, but how well are we doing as servants of the world?

Being a servant to the world does not mean being a doormat or a martyr to the whim of every person who would crush us as they execute towards their own goals. It means knowing when to hold ego in check, recognizing that none of us are perfect and that we need each other for growth, learning and success (however we measure it).

Larry Spears captures the spirit of servanthood and servant leadership perfectly in these 10 precepts:

1. Listening receptively
2. Acceptance of (and empathy with) others
   
3. Foresight and intuition
4. Awareness and perception
5. Highly-developed powers of persuasion
6. Ability to conceptualize and communicate concepts
7. A healing influence upon people and institutions
8. Ability to build a sense of community in the workplace
9. Practice contemplation
10. Willingness to change.

Ask someone how you rate based on this criteria and you may be delighted or disappointed by how well you score.

As John C. Maxwell notes:

1. Leadership is getting people to help you when they are not obligated to do so.
2. True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not to enrich the leader.

Since servant leadership is by far the most effective form of leadership and since many of today's leadership experts consider a leader as anyone who exerts influence (which qualifies us all, in the form of parent, guardian, sibling, mentor, employer, volunteer, friend, spiritual leader, elected leader, etc.), I ask one simple question:

Are we serving others or are we expecting to be served?

Our personal philosophy regarding this question determines the quality of our life, the quality of the lives around us and the legacy that each of us leaves for others to muse upon.

Yours in service,

Harry