Cerulean

Eyes are sometimes referred to as the windows to the soul.  The breadth and depth of information processed and emotion expressed through these enchanting instruments can be both subtle and powerful. When we talk about opening our eyes, we’re commonly describing the act of raising the lids and lashes that encase us in darkness during sleep, but the true openness of our eyes is a tightly regulated and nuanced system, controlled by the beautifully colored iris; the jewel that captivates us when we stare into the eyes of another.  As light enters into the pupil, that fetching iris is in control, regulating the aperture and therefore the amount of light that gets in.  Pupils can dilate and contract on a dime, wide open to grab every speck of light one second, and, without warning, completely shut down the next.

Interestingly enough, we possess the capability to exhibit the same phenomenon when it comes to our openness to receiving others. Peter Bregman, in his most recent blog post asks the question "How do you become a great receiver?"  When someone has something to give us, whether it be constructive feedback on our performance at work, perspective on challenges with our children, or love and affection in a personal relationship we regulate our openness to receive this. When we can listen openly instead of defensively, ask questions to understand rather than to refute, and use the information to inform positive change we cement lasting relationships.  And - I love this - we create an environment where people can “speak the unspoken."  Sounds great, right ?  But in reality, this is extremely hard to do.

Lots of us have a pretty good idea of where our strengths and weaknesses lie.  We’re attuned to aspects of our behaviors and emotions that are healthy, and those maybe not so much.  We know we’ve got some personal baggage, opportunities for improvement, maybe a somewhat skewed perspective on some aspects of life, work or relationships based on past experience.  These realizations are hard to reconcile, but we feel relatively safe with the belief that we keep them to ourselves.  Sure, we know these are our issues, but we tell ourselves nobody really notices.  And if nobody notices we don’t have to do anything about them. The thing is, people do notice, and those who see tremendous potential in us, really care about us or want into our lives, they speak up. The really, really scary part about being a good receiver is not only the necessity to acknowledge our hang-ups and imperfections, but that we’re forced to admit that maybe we’re not hiding them so well if there is someone out there who can so clearly see them and call us out. 

So what do you do?  You can be defensive, hurt and defeated, but all this gets you is permanent residence in your self-created fortress.  If the suit of armor never comes off and you’re always ready for a fight, nothing’s ever going to change.  You stagnate in your career, you’re in a perpetual state of battle with your children and you never get beyond the first date.

“Feedback is a gift," a particularly straightforward mentor once told me as she delivered some especially stinging and honest observations about my work.  I think I cried for the next week.  But she was right.  And when I decided to act on the insights she shared, my career took off.   

 "When we wait to be perfect, we wait too long," one of my favorite bloggers, Kristen Armstrong, says.  Likewise, in Reid Hoffman’s world of entrepreneurship, “if you’re not embarrassed by your first release, you launched too late."  The point is, we need to be willing to put ourselves out there, accept that we may not get it right the first time, and see that the people in our lives who are willing to point out where we could be better are truly here to help course correct, not judge. 

There can be as many version upgrades of you, the person, as you’re willing to put out there. Each has the potential to be better than the last. To be really courageous and open to what others have to say is to find true joy.

There are countless people out there who see nothing but beauty and possibilities brimming in your baby blues.  This is not about them; it’s about what you see reflected in the mirror.  What could you change in your world if you had the courage to give the exquisite iris of your soul permission to conquer her fears and just dilate? 

Yare

“I have to remind myself that it's impossible to know where the next conversation will lead.”  These are the words a wise friend shares with me last week as she explains how she moves forward in life with positivity.  We’re talking about the disappointment we feel when our expectations don’t match reality and how we slam the door shut on the limitless possibilities out there for us when we put too much definition around what our end game looks like and how we’ll get there.

We all like to think we know what’s going to happen next.  Who doesn’t arrange the conversation in her mind, whether it’s what you might say disciplining your wayward teenager, counseling an underperforming direct report, or enjoying easy banter with the guy sitting next to you on the couch?  We’re steeped in our biases and perspectives.  Pervasive and ingrained, they’re conditioned to swoop in stealth-like and color any situation while we’re in it. We can get really far down the path imagined inside our head, so far in fact that we feel almost jolted into reality upon the sudden realization that there is another living, breathing human being in the encounter, with his own tangled thoughts twining just as feverishly as our own. We can’t even fathom what those might be, of course, because we’ve taken the situation by storm, complete with preconceived notions so firmly rooted it’s impossible to entertain any viewpoint other than our own.

We expect that we will somehow orchestrate the conversation, or better yet, the unfurling of events, especially when we’re in situations with the prospect of delighting us.  Who hasn’t salivated in hungry anticipation while still at the drawing board, already envisioning the shining masterpiece of a “what-if” situation painted inside her head?  It’s all going to magically happen the way we sketch it out, right?   Wrong. 

Both the challenge and the opportunity lie in the fact that you are the only person behind the scenes inside your head rehearsing how you experience life, but once the curtain rises, life’s experiences always involve at least one other person; the wild card, so to speak. No matter how well you think you might know that person, he still possesses the capability to surprise you at every turn.  Unless you’re planning to go through life alone, you can either live in the perpetual state of unmet expectations your finely crafted script often nets, or be open to improvisation and the possibilities the other person in it with you brings to the stage.  The trick is in allowing the moment to unfold, and yourself to be truly in it, without getting distracted, or disappointed, by what it isn’t, or what you hoped it would be. 

Approaching disappointments as misunderstandings can be oddly powerful. “Explain it to me differently” is my request when I find myself missing the point.  There are two sides to every story, a unique and varied perspective from each individual in the situation.  Sometimes it’s nothing more than semantics; sometimes it’s a lack of any experience in an area someone else may be dealing with; sometimes it’s an unwillingness to see ourselves for who we really are.  But every time you ask, and really listen to the answer, it means better understanding and a chance to reset expectations.

Your ship can feel almost effortless to steer when you are solely at the helm.  In your competent hands she’s easy to handle and responsive. You think you know exactly where you’re going, you’re charting the course.  But what happens when someone else jumps on board and wants to go in a different direction?   Or the team you’re assigned at work doesn’t report to you, but they are the resources to implement your vision?  Or children are no longer too young to talk back and have their own ideas about life?  At some point in order to move forward you’re going to need to open yourself up to understanding what’s inside the heads of those around you and contemplate a new course.

Sure, the path will not be what you expect it to be, but it doesn’t need to end in disappointment.  Even on the most circuitous course you can still keep your eyes squarely on the horizon of your dreams.  You’re not giving them up, after all.  In fact, if you let others in, those same dreams just might become even bigger than you ever thought possible.  

Impel

"Power today is about influence rather than control."  So say 81% of the 64,000 people in 13 countries responding to a survey about the qualities of the ideal modern leader.  When you think about it, it feels like society as a whole is moving from control to influence. Maybe it’s the fact that the world is becoming better connected, and as we all work more closely together across the myriad of cultures that circle our globe we need to find new ways to manage the enormous diversity.  Maybe it’s the discovery that when we move out of business unit silos, hierarchal in nature and traditionally control-based, and even reach beyond a given industry, we realize break through innovation that changes the world.

I like to think women are contributing to this shift as well. Little more than a generation ago we were still promising to “obey” our husbands when we took our vows.   As today’s women pursue successful careers, achieve financial independence and are empowered to make their own choices, decidedly feminine traits like “collaboration”, “flexibility” and “selflessness” creep into the vernacular of leadership.  As more women rise to power in corporations and government, we’re becoming a more collaborative society as a whole.  Will this cause influence to someday render control extinct?  

Influence is not an easy concept for many of us.  There are still plenty of leaders who rely on the permission a structured reporting relationship dictates to dole out negative consequences in attempts to drive behavior change.  Years ago when a former manager introduced the concept of managing by influence I had to think about it for a while.  What did he mean someone who is not in my direct reporting line is going to act on what I say?  Obviously this was back in the days before I truly believed I had anything meaningful to say.

Yet while I wasn’t always certain I could exert influence anyone would notice,  when I really consider this leadership philosophy my first tack in driving behavior is always influence, even with those who report to me in such a way that would allow control to be an option. It’s possible I shy away from control because I harbor this fear that if I lay down the law I won’t be loved.  But it’s also equally possible that I favor influence because I’m good at it.  I’ve been told that no one is better at “arranging a conversation” than I am.  Being able to spell out the case for change and explain the benefits in the language of my audience more times than not brings people over to my way of thinking, and preserves the love I’m fraught I’ll lose.

What’s most refreshing for me about influence is it brings a new way to think about how I view myself as a leader.  I’ve lived under the mistaken notion that as a manager or a mother, even a wife, people see me as the woman behind the curtain, operating the strings of the marionettes in my life.  When someone on my team or in my home takes a misstep or can’t get on board with our program, I imagine all eyes are on me:  “Why aren’t you yanking the string to get everyone back in line?”  “If you can’t get control of this situation you must condone it.”  This is the Greek Chorus in my head.

The irony about control is that if we use it exclusively we risk closing the door on influence altogether.  When we expect people to repeatedly act blindly without entertaining their questions, understanding their perspective or listening to their ideas they tune us out. Think sullen teenager who feels like he hears nothing but “no”.  Think member of the team who stops bringing ideas because his manager kills them on the table in favor of her own way of doing things.

While we can, in the short term, control some behavior with the yank of a string, influence acknowledges that lasting change can’t be sustained when dictated; it rests within each individual. It’s the old adage at work:  “You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make her drink.”  Successful influencers make certain they have the freshest, purest and coldest water along with an enticing value proposition that compels her to choose to drink.  But at the end of the day it’s up to her.

Influence is not for the faint at heart.  Success comes to those with patience and tenacity, and a little faith.  It takes time and repetition to outline the vision, explain mutual benefits and connect your stakeholders to them.  You need to be engaged and attentive to steer your team in the right direction. You need to understand and accept that despite perfectly arranged conversations and the best water ever sourced, you may still fail to bring someone on board.  That doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.  It just means they chose not to drink.

What I love most about my influence is its capacity to reach right inside of others and pull out the greatness that I just know lives inside.  Think about those possibilities.

Read more from Fast Company about the ideal modern leader survey and how leaders around the globe are creating win-win situations with influence. 

Anodyne

Another one of my beloved stiletto –stemmed wine goblets bit the dust the other night, breaking from the sheer strength of my hands, it seems, slicing through the tip of my ring finger as I attempt  to rub the remnants of my heavy-duty Stila lip gloss from around the rim.  The sink is suddenly murky as the crimson liquid flows freely, staining the dish water beneath the frothy suds.  I’m a big baby with personal injury; I can’t make myself take a peek.  I choose Nate to attend to my wound; he responds immediately as I look the other way, cringing and howling at the same time.  Ouch!  It’s painful. 

I allow my fourteen year old to make the assessment as to whether or not I need stitches.  He says no, and I trust him.  He took first aid in middle school, after all. He’s almost an MD.  I am glad he is here, pressing a paper towel on my finger in attempts to stop the bleeding, being my eyes when I can’t bear what I might see, calmly assessing the situation as I am in too much pain to say what is right. 

Help is not a bad thing, although it’s something I’ve always felt I shouldn’t need. I’ve decided this mindset is strangely selfish, a choice that affects those around me, who by my reluctance to admit I need them are essentially denied of the very nourishment of the spirit that being needed provides.

Recently I received the most beautifully messaged SOS from a friend, her mother nearing the end of her life. While informing this group of friends on the distribution list of the situation, the e-mail also conveys her desire to tell us how much she values our friendship, and to ask for our help.  Specifically she requests for her mother prayers to give her the strength and courage to move beyond this world.  I’m not doing her message justice in recounting it here, but I was so moved tears sprang up in my eyes.  At a time when most of us feel helpless despite a fierce desire to be helpful, my friend gives a tremendous gift by telling us the most meaningful way we can oblige. 

So here are my new-found truths about help:

“Help!” is a way to engage those who are eager to contribute. Asking for and accepting help is the most basic form of inclusion.  Everyone wants to feel like they are part of something, like they are an integral piece of the task at hand.  Showing people what they can do to help the cause allows them to participate in a way that matters.

“Help!” is a means to build personal strength, a way to improve results by soliciting just the muscle that’s required for the job.  Those who are skilled at asking for help recognize this, and deliberately choose those who possess the knowledge, expertise or perspective for the problem.  With my latest assignment at the office, I am targeting Gen Y’s for their familiarity with social media and technology to help me think more broadly about the challenges we need to solve for.  They have a passion and intelligence around these concepts that I simply cannot match.

“Help!” is a cry for the human connections we all crave.  There really isn’t a higher compliment than being asked to help.  It can mean that the requestor trusts you enough to let down her guard, put the microscope on an area where she’s not so strong, to let you in. Every time we practice vulnerability we understand each other a little better.

“Help!” soothes.  When you find the person with the prescribed tincture or salve for your wound, no matter how simple or complex it is, it can feel like nirvana.  Allowing yourself to receive it floods you with tremendous relief.  It’s First Aid 101 in the life of a mother.

For those of us who are mothers, we spend our lives helping others.  It’s understandable that it could take a little time to adjust to turning the tables and allowing others to help. But you can start any time, like Mother’s Day, for instance. Take a small step and fully immerse yourself in being queen for a day, instead of feeling guilty about the attention. You could even ask for a little help.  Possibly washing glassware?  I hear it can be dangerous.

Found in skirt! magazine this weekend:

 

The United Skirts

Of America

The United Skirts of

America was founded

on the blood, sweat

and estrogen of our

foremothers, who

won us the freedom to

choose. . .to break The

Rules, to wear combat

boots or high heels, to

run for office or run a

marathon, to form our

own rock groups instead

of being groupies, to

shatter Glass Ceilings

and Glass Slippers, to

shoot hoops instead

of settling for hoop

skirts.  The ones who

came before us made

it possible for our

daughters to dream

bigger, to have the

chance to grow up to

be President and turn

the Oval Office into

the Ovary Office.  In

the United Skirts of

America, every day is

Independence Day!

 

Wont

“What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” is the question he poses to us at the lunch table.  An inquiry like this never fails to incite mild panic inside me; “crazy” is largely absent from the vocabulary of my life.  I’m with a group of colleagues at a conference in Charleston, SC and feeling some pressure to come up with a respectable, yet sufficiently zany, yarn to tell.  We’re sitting at a little nautical- themed restaurant on the water, finally the relaxed feel of vacation in the air, out to experience the city before most of us head to the airport. 

I’m reminded of my spur of the moment trip to Ft. Lauderdale several years ago.  Alone.  Over Christmas.  Most definitely out of character.  More than the decision itself to take a last minute junket, the risks I take to get from here to there are most unlike me.  It is snowing.    On my way to the airport I receive a text message that my flight is cancelled.  Not just delayed, cancelled.  Alarmed, I wail over my cell phone to a friend, a seasoned traveler, who advises me to continue to the airport and get on any flight I can.  Upon arrival I am somehow able to get a new ticket, at no additional cost, and check my bag.  People all around me are advised to wait a day to leave the city; the airport will be closing. At the gate adjacent to mine, there’s an open door, an empty seat and a promise from the airline employee that this flight is absolutely certain to leave Chicago.  I’m torn, having never willingly hopped on a plane knowing my luggage is not joining me.  Do I start my vacation now or risk no vacation at all?  Buckling my seatbelt, my heart swells with satisfaction.  This is living, I tell myself and the guy from Alabama next to me.

Sitting in the middle seat I can hardly believe myself.  I am going to a place I’ve never been, on my own, with the possibility that I’ll have nothing more than the clothes on my back for some time.  Good thing I like my dress.  Am I crazy?  Not according to my favorite HBR contributor Peter Bregman, just allowing myself to enjoy the feeling of taking a risk even though it may be an epic fail.

Bregman writes in "The Unexpected Antidote to Procrastination"  that when we practice taking risks we can condition ourselves to accept the negative feelings that accompany failure or a bad outcome.  He makes this observation as he watches surfers, noting that all have one thing in common:  No matter what, they always end up falling into the water.  Knowing that a fall is the inevitable outcome of a decision to ride each and every wave they choose, trains surfers to get back on the board and do it again, even if the fall might hurt.  This logic begs the question:  If we knew that a fall is a non-negotiable part of the deal, wouldn’t we learn to throw caution to the wind and take risks all the time? 

So this week I encourage my friends at the lunch table to join me in my "crazy" and extend their stays in Charleston another day.  My decision already made, having conditioned myself over the years to do this vacation thing alone when chance puts me in a city I’d like to explore, I have nothing to lose if my attempts to entice a few partners in crime fail.  I am here either way. The wonderful world of mobile airline apps doesn’t allow them to spend too much time weighing the pros and cons; making it possible to book new flights before we even make it back to the hotel. Decisions made, my friends spend next to no time in the hell that is imagining negative consequences, meaning we jump immediately into the fun. No surprise the unplanned excursion ends up being the best night of the entire trip.

According to Bregman we actually prolong negative feelings when we protract the decision making around taking risks, spending far more time in the angst of procrastination than we ever would in the anguish of a bad outcome. I think he’s right.

I find that the simple exercise of pretending those around me have no opinion of the decision I’m about to make frees me to move out of my comfort zone and take a risk.  Who cares if I stand in the middle of King Street to capture a breathtaking row house with my camera?  Is anyone really noticing that I’m at a table for one dining alfresco at Amen Street Fish & Raw Bar?  Are people talking about the woman sitting alone at the pool enjoying her coffee?   I doubt it. But wow, not only would I have missed out on stunning photography, sumptuous She Crab soup and fish tacos, a glorious morning in the sun if I had been concerned, I would have been kicking myself all day for my self-inflicted paralysis. 

My risks may not seem risky to you at all.  But the common denominator is that we all get stuck at times.  To keep moving forward we need to add a little crazy to our lives, whatever that means. Timely that I should happen upon this quote today from Marcus Aurelius:  “The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.”   I think it’s apt to say that the time we spend wrestling with ourselves sometimes gets in the way of a life that could be spent dancing.

Progenitor

My maiden name starts with the letter “A”, so whether I like it or not I know a thing or two about going first.  Much of my life I viewed this as a curse, a bad card I had been dealt. This unfortunate branding meant I was perennially in the first row of the classroom when teachers defaulted to a rote seating chart, first in line, first on the attendance or any other list for that matter.  Forever cursing my misfortune, the question I remember running through my head more than once was why couldn’t I have been born into the family with a last name that started with “Z”?  Seriously.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was involuntarily working my leadership muscle. It was painful, especially when alphabetical order was invoked to determine who would be first to read her paper aloud to the class, get down on the floor for push-ups in gym, or some other equally dreadful task this waif-like wallflower believed herself ill-equipped to perform. 

Fast forward too many years to count, and I find myself being sought out to lead. Just this week, I held the kick-off meeting for one steering committee and was asked to lead two more.  Ghosts of my childhood apprehension still linger, in the form of a queasy stomach or a few moments of self-doubt before the calls start, especially when I’m leading colleagues who are more senior than I am.  But I’ve discovered that when I lose myself in the material and focus on getting through our agenda, I don’t have time to freak out about who I’m working with.  Being the leader feels like an occasion to shine or receive accolades instead of asking for criticism or failure.

So how do you make a shift like this?  It’s in the questions.  There is no better way to endear someone to you than to ask for their expertise and listen, really digest, the information they share.  It takes the spotlight, and therefore the pressure, completely off of you.  And you get the best from the people you lead.

The leader doesn’t need to have all of the answers, in fact, she shouldn’t.  If she did, she wouldn’t need her team.  After today’s call I received a message from one of the participants.  She said that I had “facilitated without putting a personal spin on it --- something that is always hard to do!”  Her comment is a testament to my theory; while I tried hard to prepare for the call and to have the answers, in the end all I could do was put out a list of questions knowing that I’d get the most valuable information if I allowed the voices of the team to be heard.

Some of the questions I asked today were hard.  They required admitting to a few shortcomings.  But nothing I asked was something I wasn’t willing to answer myself.  I put my flaws out there, and the ensuing vulnerability from others following my lead was a beautiful sight to behold.   

Sometimes being a leader is nothing more than being willing to go first. 

Acclimatization

NASCAR racing, the theme of our recent management conference, is something I can relate to.  I work in pretty much one gear:  High.  I tend to have a lead foot, not just on the gas pedal of my car, but on the accelerator of my life.  I walk fast; I schedule tightly; I respond quickly; I turn on a dime.  Slow is not a word that is in my vocabulary. It doesn’t help either that time appears to speed up with aging, like the wildly spinning hands on the dial of a cartoon clock, taking everything I’ve got to keep myself out of the sinkhole  of frustration that opens up when I feel stuck, or worse yet, move backwards. 

As I settle into my new role at the office working on massive, multi-year initiatives, I’m learning to define success differently.   I’m also finding unexpected synergies with my experiences at the office and my experiences raising adolescents.  Four years into life with teenagers, this project feels like one unforeseen condition after another, the contingency nearly exhausted, so far beyond the schedule I anticipated expediting, quite possibly unable to recover from unexpected delays.  I still struggle to see light at the end of this tunnel.  

The projects at work impact thousands of people, have big price tags and need to succeed in order to mitigate tremendous financial risk.  As I work on developing my goals for the year, defining performance targets I’ll be expected to meet, I find success is less about delivering a final product, and more about showing progress.  After years of working with clients expecting the near impossible, projects completed in ridiculously short time frames, changing gears is jarring.  It’s a good thing, though, that there is this time to exhale; these days deep breathing to calm myself is circadian. 

Climbing Mt. Everest is an exercise in endurance I can’t imagine myself ever embarking on.  It’s 29,000 feet to the very top, a journey that takes even the most skilled climbers two months to make.  Spending that kind of time in extreme weather conditions has no appeal to me.  However, I found myself fascinated listening  to the keynote speaker at the conference explain what she learned on not one, but two, journeys to the highest summit on earth.  She captured her whole experience in an exquisite parable that made it easy for her listeners to apply her lessons to both the mountains we climb at the office and the ones we climb at home. 

She spoke to photographs of her trips, bringing the treacherous environment to life while explaining that nearly everything a climber experiences from the weather conditions to the health of herself and her team mates is completely out of her control.  Success is about how a climber handles what nature throws at her, with no choice but to make the best possible decision in the moment.

What surprised me the most is the amount of time climbers spend descending the mountain, and I’m not talking about the way down from the summit.  Once they reach base camp at 17,000 feet, the teams will climb several thousand feet higher only to come down to base camp.  They do this multiple times, each trip up slightly further than the previous, but all ending in a return to the base camp once again.  The process is more than tedious, but an absolute necessity for survival:  Our bodies need this to adjust to the altitude. But as she describes, after climbing 17,000 feet just to get to base camp itself, the idea of going up only to come down again is brutally defeating. 

What I love about this though, and what is causing me to think differently about the sliding back part, is that she describes the backward movement as essential.  You can’t move forward without it. When you’re climbing Mt. Everest, if you charge ahead to the top without giving your body the time it needs to adjust, your body will fail you completely; it’s a certainty. 

So what if I think about the transformation to adulthood as a kind of climb with occasional returns to base camp to become accustomed to this new phase of life?  What if I stop thinking about this difficult hike between boyhood and manhood as something my kids can’t seem to get right, but instead something that’s required for safe passage?  Could this perspective help me be more understanding and love my boys and myself a little more through the process?

The higher you ascend on Everest, the thinner the air.  Our speaker described in detail the excruciating difficulty of movement in the 20,000 feet range, you literally put one foot forward, stopping to take 5 to 10 breaths before you’re able to take another step. 

So this struggle for air brings odd comfort, a sign that I am achingly close to my summits, both climbing the corporate ladder and ushering my kids up through their teens.  Part of it is sheer panic, hyperventilating into a paper bag before presentations that just keep coming or as I’m once again warily placing trust in my child.  Part of it is the shot of pure adrenaline unleashed by the arresting views at this altitude, as I move impossibly close to being peers with the most senior leaders in my organization, and my boys become visibly closer to becoming peers with me. 

And fairly often I fear I’m not going to make it.  As our speaker described what it felt like to be so close to her goal, and so mired in exhaustion she didn’t think could get there, she talked about the power of breaking the climb down into manageable pieces.  Hasn't the trick always been to resist getting caught up in the prize at the top, and pour your energy into the next object you can shine your light on?  The rest should take care of itself.