Servant Leadership

This topic has been turning over in my mind for several days.   Last week I was invited into a group for Servant Leadership. I’m not sure yet if they accepted me.  Nor am I clear on the qualifications.  I’m tempted to believe, as Groucho Marx once said, that “I wouldn’t want to join any club that would have someone like me as a member.”   Nevertheless, I do style myself as a servant leader, believing that the only one truly suited to lead is one who does it for the good of those he or she is leading.

Holy Thursday this past week, and as it has been every other time Christians commemorate the Last Supper of our Lord, the story is told of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.  The Gospel of St. John alone tells this story, although certainly others have references to servant leadership as a concept Jesus taught.  With so many things to emphasize in the remembrance of that night,   it is the washing of the feet and the re-dedication of the leadership of the church that is the message to be taken home.

It’s an awkward thing to either have your feet washed, or to wash the feet of another, as this particular church asked those in attendance.  It’s not something common to the 21^st century, really, to touch a stranger in any way.  In this part of the world, this time of year we all have shoes and socks, and most bathe every day.  I have traveled where sandals are more common, to places where it’s either mud season or dust season, and I can imagine those times when a basin of water and a jug at the door would have seemed like a good idea.  But it’s far removed from contemporary, day to day experience in America.

But as a leader, I understand the duty to serve.   Every day people are challenging my team, with work they need to do, work they wish our team would not do, with questions, with policies, with different interpretations.   And there will be the escalation to me – the manager – needing to tell someone to do something, or not do something, that they need to spend some time away from their family, or that their pay raise will be delayed.  It’s my job to do all that.   It’s my job to serve my company, its management and stockholders, to make sure my people do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.

It’s my duty to serve my people as well – to speak up when what’s being asked of them is not reasonable, to manage my budget the best I can to insure that not only do we take care of today but don’t get ourselves in a mess for tomorrow.  I need to make sure they have the time they need in this crazy world to have some semblance of a relationship with their spouses and their families.  I need to insure they take time not only to do what needs to get done today, but are aware of their needs and have their opportunities to prepare themselves for what tomorrow demands.  I need to represent back to all those others I serve the thousand things my people do that they do not see, yet rely on every day to accomplish their own tasks.  When they fail I have to take my share of the responsibility, and make sure we all do our best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

I have had managers and leaders who understood this – who did it instinctively.  People would crawl over broken glass for these leaders.    We would soar, and go far out of our comfort zone if we knew our leader had our back.   The very same team, however, for another leader, was very capable of covering its backside and doing only what it knew to be safe .   People know if you are serving them, even if what you ask is difficult.   People also know when you are using them only to cover for your own deficiencies.    In those lonely moments, when there is no easy way, the servant leader somehow finds a way to get the job done, if it can be without destroying the people doing it, or finds a way to change the job so that it is doable.  And if his team is going to take the consequences, the servant leader receives them at the same time, as the people reap the rewards when they deserve them, whether or not the leader receives any credit.

Servant leadership is an uncomfortable place, even if you are comfortable acting as that leader.  Your reward must often come from within, as you will be perceived as not aggressive enough, not willing to “stretch”.   Rewards of the soul and spirit are seldom short term rewards – though they can be very good for your business.  Integrity and courage are words that are in vogue for businesses to seek, even if they are unprepared to deal with the actual examples.  Servant leaders, however, can look themselves in the mirror, and over the course of a career know they did the right thing.  Your people and your leaders are watching. So is whatever faith and spirit you serve.

Act accordingly.

*Today's picture is the author standing before The Gates of Hell at the Musee Rhodin in Paris. Credit to Mme. Lezarde for her superb camera work.

Facing Fear

One of the elementary learnings on my spiritual journey is that God is love.  Lifetimes have been transformed, classical books written, and civilizations changed because of that fact.   Nothing can be created without love in some form bringing its energy to the process.  When we are strong and filled with love, we can be strong in faith and make even the most difficult choices with grace.

Starting out, I would have told you that the opposite of love is hate.   But hatred is an active choice, made because of a more fundamental force.  Expressions of hatred almost always trace themselves back to fear.  One of the great spiritual teachers once put it this way:  “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”   Although he never existed in the flesh, Master Yoda’s teaching could come right from any pulpit.   People act and react because of fear.  Fear cuts us off from the spirit and from one another.  It is in fact the opposite of love.

I woke this morning in fear, which surprised me greatly as that hasn’t really happened in many years.    Anger, yes, frustration, crying out to God in the shower for relief from some problem in my life (generally self-created). On some days I am that frustrated.  But fundamental fear has not crept into me, in a big way, since the days of my divorce.   It’s been over for more than 10 years now (including custody battles), and really, pretty much a feature of the past for about 15, when it comes to obsessive fear.   I knew those days well, when the world was heavy, when hope had faded, when the reality was I had no rational expectation that tomorrow would bring any relief of the problems I faced today.

  “There are good days and bad days” is a mantra one hears in many suffering situations, whether it be Alzheimer’s or cancer, recovery from addiction or mental illness, loss of a loved one, failure of a relationship, or a crisis of career.  The good days can bring growth, insight, and understanding  – excitement by contrast.   Good days looks forward – bad days look back, and they look like they are never going to end.  Ground Hog Day is another great spiritual icon, a story of a man trapped in time until he accomplishes growth.  This morning I woke up and except for Sonny and Cher on the radio, it might as well have been Ground Hog Day again – cold and dark, with a winter that is never going to end.

Fear, anger, resentment, and the entire suite of self-doubt it entails seem intractable and inescapable at the same time.    Together all that is inside cries out for release from the torment.  The mind offers up solutions in the form of quick fixes and identifies targets for elimination.  Pride screams: “I am better than this.  I don’t deserve this.  How can this be happening?  Why?”  Statements are made to God and to self, in themselves serving no purpose, for fear cannot create, it can only destroy, whether it be self, life, property, businesses, relationships, dreams, or people.  Knowledge of the darkness is important for it can allow us to see the light.  But to live, we must always go to the light.

Jesus knew where he was going in the garden the night before he died.   They say he sweated blood, that he prayed that “this cup pass me by”, but submitted to the will of God and embraced his fate.  He’d seen miracles, wrought them by his own hand.  He was transfigured before his friends.  The heavens opened to proclaim his birth and baptism.  To those to whom much is given, much is also expected.  He knew all that and yet fear of the singularity of death drove him to the point of madness.  How weak then am I standing before this, and really all the other points of “courage” confronting me in my life?  Get up and dry the tears and thank God for all the blessings in my life.  There’s no cross waiting for me out in the back forty.

I’ll skip all the theology in that.  My career is not (yet?) as a writer so I’ll save that for when people are paying for my books and blogs.  I’ll let the love in and let it transform me.  I will go towards the light and look for the best outcomes.   Instead of paying back, I will pay forward.    Some days we can keep our fears at bay.  Some days we have to overcome them.    But always we must find our strength in the Spirit, and in the love which surrounds our life.  Only then can we create the reality we are called to live.  

Only that way can we create the world to come.

*Todays picture is from the National Weather Service - it is in fact the last Advisory map before Hurricane Iselle change the face of my beloved Orchid Isle forever.

The Say - Do Ratio

I’ve heard it expressed many ways in my time.  In Agile of course we call it the Say-Do Ratio, the comparison of the number of story points accepted to the number of story points planned (multiply by 100 to express as a percentage).   Teams starting out often find their numbers sorely lacking, less than 50%.  A good, experienced, team taking reasonable risk might crack 90%.  An effective team uses this ratio to guide their future planning in order to become more predictable.  An effective product owner uses it to make sure he’s not asking his teams to do ridiculous things.  I find an effective architect often finds him / herself marveling at the lack of ability of some of the population to learn from experience.

Learning from experience is something most people intuitively understand.   More than listening to what people say, we look at what people do.  St. Francis of Assisi had a couple things to say on it: “The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today”.  I believe this with all my being – I have seen it in my co-workers, and in my children, and all those with whom I interact.   Francis was way out on the fringes in his day – renounced his family, his wealth, all worldly goods and set out to understand, live and explain the Gospel.   We have the image Francis in our gardens, reminding us of the Spirit in Nature, we have our Nativity scenes, of which Francis is credited the invention.  One time an entire church offered itself as converts to his religious order after one service.    A life passionately lived in genuine belief in the truth of the Gospel can have an effect that lasts for thousands of years.  Some day a Pope might even take your name and live out his life in the same spirit. *

 “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”   Here in Wisconsin, we are prone to a bit of hero worship, especially between September and the start of February.  Some of it, like the image of St.Vince in the stands, or perhaps in the parking lots near Lambeau Field is amusing and relatively harmless.   But this St. Francis quote is reputed to be a favorite of a man I am pretty sure would not accept the mantle of hero, and yet seems to live it out in his daily life, by his work as well as the causes he supports.  His colleagues seem to refer to him as simply “12”, and the rest of us know him as Aaron Rodgers.    His quiet intensity in all that he does, coupled with never taking anything about himself seriously (except criticism), sets an example which many would be served to follow.   I imagine what we can’t see – the hours he puts in addressing those criticisms, and the much harsher self-criticism a guy like that must have – turns him into a transcendent force in his chosen profession and beyond.

Authenticity has power.  So does inauthenticity.    Imagine if you will that you are a very visible executive, and one of your pet peeves is the expense of internal employee travel.  Now granted, most of your travel involves customer contact at one point or another.   But even if they understand, some of your employees get pretty frustrated when they are up in the middle of the night, the breaking of dawn, needing to be actively involved in hour or day long teleconferences because sometimes, no matter how simple and distributed a global organization is, the global pieces need to communicate.    So you might be a little more sensitive than naming your blog “From The Road”, and including pictures of your global staff, when some cannot even travel to onboard new members of their direct staff.

And don’t make one of the pillars of the company’s strategy “People are Our Most Important Asset” just before embarking on a major reduction in force.    I remember a number of the parodies that my colleagues came out with after that one – “People are our Most Expensive Asset” was one of the kindest takes. “People are Our Most Important Problem” was heard as well.   If memory serves “Walk the Talk” was on that list as well.  I know it has to be done sometimes.  But at least feign some semblance of remorse.  Also, check your acronyms, and have the courage to point it out to your boss if he names the team Platform Integration Services, or Technology / Medical Integration, or even the Computer Resource Allocation Project, especially if you suggested it.

Once authenticity is gone it can never be recovered.  Whatever you say, people are watching what you do.  Even when you think no one is watching.  The Say Do ratio isn’t just for Scrum planning any more.

*Apologies to my Jesuit friends  –  St. Francis Xavier was a pretty cool guy too.

** Today's picture is a Say-Do - Sandy and I said we would lead trips to Hawaii and this is the first one, for the transit of Venus in 2012.   Sometime we'll get to The Rest of the Story

The Silly Walk

A major Fortune 5 company once upon a time decided that it would encourage its employees to become healthier by launching a major initiative encouraging employee health.  Being in the healthcare division of that same company , a group of employees decided to take to heart the advice to get up and move about more.  At first it was perhaps 8 – 10 of us going out and walking a mile or a mile and a half.   A few folks had aches and pains that kept them from wanting to go the whole distance.  Those who remained took up a faster pace (it turns out the employees of this company are very competitive people, especially when a simple, fun activity can be turned into an inappropriate competition).  Soon we were walking 2.3 miles (measured by GPS) in approximately 40 minutes every day.

Spring became summer, cold spring rain and winds became magnificent summer breezes.   Three, four, sometimes even 5 of us continued to walk, most days.  I made it a point to walk every day because in addition to the companionship, the fresh air, the sunshine, the turning of the seasons in the woods, the tall grass, and the wetlands out on the campus “back 40” kept me in touch with reality.  I could see the spirit poured out on the earth in its cycles of death and rebirth, and I could see that in the midst of Midwestern suburbia, far more life was going on than meets the eye.

By winter I was walking alone most days.  I brought boots as I had previously brought in walking shoes.  I remembered how to dress for even sub-zero weather.   The starkness of winter, which I once treasured in my youth, cross-country skiing to class, flooded back into my consciousness.  I remembered tracking in the snow, coyotes, deer, mice, rabbits – even the impressive wing prints of a hawk that had swooped down to make a kill.   I was reminded that in my younger days, I had said “the outdoors is my church”.  Although strapping on a 30 pound pack and disappearing from sight for 4 or 5 days is no longer in the sensible plans I might make for a weekend, touching base with the woods often helps me see a fresh approach to a problem.

Now I’m probably 7 or 8 years into this habit, and I almost always walk alone.  I do walk indoors now when the weather is miserable, as I feel it more in my bones.  But I live for days like today when it is only March, and yet the pond has thawed and the frogs are singing.   The geese are here early chasing one another through the hair and honking loudly.   The turkeys were strutting on the hill this morning, the Tom strutting his stuff for apparently indifferent hens.  And I flushed the Sandhill cranes as I walked down the path – they barely cleared the fence. I would have recommended a different traffic pattern.

The wind blows as spirit.  The warm energy of the sun reminds me of the presence of light in the world, and in ourselves.  The coming and going of the water with the seasons reminds me that life marches on.  I’ve had some of the big experiences in life – literally mountaintop experiences looking down on the mountain’s shadow on the clouds and seeing the earth rotate, seeing it lengthen and watching the stars rise, planets aligned in the same plane.   And I’ve had the little experiences – of seeing the crane’s chick, spotted running through the grass as Dad threatens to skewer me with his beak.   I’ve chuckled at the turkeys generally choosing to roost outside the executive offices in the trees.  I figured out what the critter is that leaves strange tracks where the trail crosses the drainage ditch (it’s a mink).  And I saw the snowy owl that had ventured to far south in the crazy cold winter a couple years back.

Some days I need to know there is a world out there.  I need to let God open a hole in the clouds to let the sunshine, or have the odd crayfish crawling across the path.  I need to know the world is alive and drink it’s spirit to refresh my soul for the afternoon.  And that regardless of who is on the next telecom, life will go on.

The Journey

Like everything else in life, a career is a journey.   A lot of people – especially successful, goal oriented people - think only about the stops on that journey.   For many, it’s about the roles, the positions, the accomplishments, the money, and all the other various ways we keep score.   For me it is about the journey – the flow of events, the relationships, the lives, the reasons and purposes.  In my mind, and in my heart, I know that there’s always something underneath the apparent reality that is more important.

I do let the things that I believe guide me, even in my career.  I do see the spirit move through all the events of a life.   I believe in a higher power, in the form of the Christian Trinity, and by way of disclosure, I am a practicing Catholic.   I do not believe these facts could be hidden for very long in any writing I do.  But I do not think they will be overbearing, just a guidepost to my language in these matters.

I always worry when the sermon at church seems to be pointed my direction, whether positive or negative.   It’s possible to go for years in a stable, generally positive direction, only to be suddenly blindsided for the “opportunity for growth”.   Yes, when I was young there were minor periods of spiritual enlightenment, of growing up and discovering right vs. wrong, of having the moments when one of my grandmothers would call just at the point of crisis,  when suddenly the whole world existed in one place at one moment and everything made sense.  But that was fleeting, enough to awaken the soul, and enough to keep me going to church.

Twenties and early thirties were a forced march of marriage, children, jobs, and generally making the world around me conform to my will.  Doing what was right guided my decisions, be they in my behavior, in my relationships, or in my work life.  And I always knew what was right and had no hesitance at all in sharing it.

My first real spiritual journey started – and it seems so many of them do – with a loss.  In this case it was the loss of my marriage – the loss of my innocence -   the loss of the life I thought I was going to live.   It was the first time death truly touched my life and took a part of me that could never be the same.  I watched myself do things I never thought I could do, one after another, for several years until I finally learned the lessons I needed to learn.

Lessons like:  Never say never (as in “I will never get divorced”).   Never judge people for the relationship decisions they have to make.   Never give up on your children, no matter what they have done to you.  Sometimes you do have to fight for what is right.

Many of you know what it took to learn those lessons even without my laying it out.   Last week our priest talked about God “fertilizing us” for spiritual growth.  And as he generously pointed out, the best fertilizer, as he put it, is manure shoveled on thick, messy and fragrant.  And as we dig out, as we ask for help, from God and from people, we find the grace we need, and we grow.

Resurrection – accepting death in our life, and accepting that we will be transformed beyond the death of what we hold dear – our relationships, our careers, our health, and yes, someday our lives – and that in the end it will all be OK.   That’s what this journey seems to be about – transforming ourselves and the world every day.  .  From that death emerged a new relationship, a new understanding of love, a new closeness to my children, and a new discovery of who I am.  And excitement to see what will emerge from the next.

Now, would someone please pass me the pitchfork?

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Today's picture - the road to Haleakala, circa 2006.

Welcome

Welcome to The Soul of Work.

Sometimes it seems we live our work lives totally differently than the way we live our personal lives. There is one set of behavior and rules for home, and another for the office.  We go to church, temple, synagogue, or mosque, and we hear the messages.   But in the heat of our work, we often leave them behind.

Here's what we hope to do here:

1. Tell stories - lots of stories.   Stories are how we share the soul of our lives.
2. Share ideas and think about life and work in a little different way.
3. Show how the spirit moves through our work and our lives.
4. Bring a little hope and cheer into what can sometimes be a very fearful place.

Here's what we won't do:

1. Use any religious text to criticize anyone or blame anyone.
2. Preach or try to covert anyone's point of view.  God speaks to all the people of the world where they are,
3. Get hung up in social and political argument.

I think it can be that simple.   Let's give it a try.