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Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of July 20th
July 20, 2015 | No Comments »
Heroic Leaders Surround Themselves with Strong Teammates
When reflecting on the mythic image of King Arthur and his famed Knights, the image of the Round Table comes to mind. As its name implies, the Round Table at which Arthur and his Knights met had no designated head, implying that everyone assembled had equal honor, a valued voice, and an obligation to contribute. This obligation to be present, to think and act, and to value strong teammates, was considered the highest order of chivalry at King Arthur’s Court. As modern leaders, we too should possess the strength of character to seek out, and welcome, strong teammates. Attracting strong teammates requires us to have an abundance mindset where we are not afraid of others’ strengths; where we are willing to share credit and good fortune. Additionally, attracting strong teammates helps us hear contrarian voices and not fall prey to group think. Strong teammates, welcomed to our own Round Tables, help us avoid blind spots in our personal thinking.
Heroic Leaders Embrace Intuition
The acme of battlefield generalship, most often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, is the term coup d’oeil, which means the “power of the glance.” A general with coup d’oeil can arrive at a battle, observe the emerging conditions and situation, and trusting his well-honed instincts, plan his strategy intuitively. It isn’t that facts or intelligence aren’t important, they are. However, the dynamism and fluidity of the battlefield demand agile, integrated, and rapid “deep knowing.” Modern Leaders must learn to hone and trust our intuitions too, because there is no such thing as certainty in leading. The only exact science is retrospect. Our modern world prizes complex analysis, as if complex analysis automatically equates to deep knowing. Too often, complex analysis results only in decision-making paralysis. So what is intuition? It is pattern recognition! Once a leader detects a pattern, he must trust his rapid cognition, and decide intuitively. Heroic Leaders know, and value, the power of the glance.
Heroic Leaders Speak the Language of Leadership
Communicating–deeply connecting to and resonating with others—is the key distinction between great leadership and basic management. Heroic Leaders understand they must first speak to hearts before they try to appeal to minds, and in connecting with hearts, leaders must provide answers to these three elementary questions: Who? What? and Why? Armed with answers to those three questions, followers will naturally activate their inner motivation, unleash their passion, and rally to noble purposes. The language of leadership has a unique style using basic conversational tones, an active voice, and a personal and clear delivery. The language of leadership avoids tech-speak and mind-numbing bureaucratic jargon. Heroic leaders make extensive use of metaphors, parables, and stories to paint mental pictures and to portray galvanizing end states. The language of leadership gets us out of our heads and into our hearts—the source of all championship performance.
Manufacturing Wins and Leveraging Success
Great leaders create positive momentum for their teams. Be they in sports, business, or the local community, great leaders create opportunities for “small wins” and, once achieved, the leader publically celebrates these team achievements to create a centrifugal force of positive energy, optimism, and confidence. In this sense, great leaders serve as catalysts—or maestros—orchestrating wins by expertly applying pace, flow, and tempo. When leaders manufacture wins and leverage success in this way, they create an organizational affect we can think of as “patterns of achievement.” This is what in sports is often referred to as “learning how to win.” Once we master a pattern of success, we come to expect it, and we know how to achieve it. Success, like heroic leadership itself, is both a mindset and a habit. By paying attention to small things and small rules, great leaders create a rising tide of success. Why? Because great leaders understand that the accumulation of small things, done well, has big consequences!
Heroic Leaders Focus on Virtues
I find it compelling (and telling) that Aesop’s Fables, written by an ancient Greek who lived in the 6th century BC, remain so relevant today. I believe Aesop’s Fables endure, even in our modern world, because Aesop wrote principally about virtues, not values. There is nothing wrong with values, per se; however, values tend to be of thinner substance than virtues. Values can be situational, relative, and easily won or abandoned. Think of it: Anyone can have values, even criminals, gangs, and despots. Virtues are sturdier because virtues require personal judgment; often require personal sacrifice and moral courage to uphold; take time to master and turn into habits; and point to timeless wisdom anchored in humanity’s most noble aspirations. By anchoring ourselves on classic virtues such as honor, courage, service, wisdom, altruism, and merit, these virtues help form a sturdy bulwark against what Lincoln called “the silent artillery of time” and thus help us stand most upright when times get tough.
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Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of June 29th
June 29, 2015 | No Comments »
We are excited to celebrate the milestone of sharing 365 morning coffee posts! We have officially written a leadership reflection for every day of the year. We hope you have enjoyed sharing in these with us.
Mining a Deep Vein of Gold
Leadership capacity is buried deep within us all and this capacity is highly diversified. Capacity is like a deep vein of gold that, to someday reach the surface and expose its excellence, must be slowly mined and gradually summoned. Some people are early bloomers; their leadership ability emerges quickly and breaks through when relatively young. Others are late bloomers, needing time, seasoning, and extended travel down the path to reveal their excellence. Unfortunately, much leadership training today ignores this truth, and ignores this great diversity in capacity and growth timelines. We incorrectly view everyone as on the same timetable and same glide scope. We must mine each vein of leadership capacity differently, depending on the readiness of the person. Therefore, we must create the conditions under which greatly diverse leaders can emerge and flourish. This is not so different than a gardener who carefully cultivates the soil allowing many different varieties to flourish.
Hope and Humility
If I read all of these daily leadership reflections, now numbering nearly 365, and listed all of the maxims reflected throughout, it would be easy for someone to say, “Look at our modern world; most of what you extol hardly exists in reality.” Yes, it may seem so. We extol honor but too often we see bankrupt behavior. We speak of responsibility and accountability yet find few stories of it on the evening news. We point to grit and resiliency as foundations of lasting excellence yet see so many falling pray to instant gratification and a thin culture of self esteem. So I am left with hope, even when there are so many examples contrary to what I hope for. I hope that having a clear sense of ideals still matters. I hope that standing somewhat against the modern tide is not only necessary but helpful in reminding me that excellence is never really lost, but at times, just needs reawakening. And with this hope I find growing within me a deeper sense of humility. Hoping yet not fully knowing. Do the best we can, with what we are given, and towards the task at hand. Semper Fidelis. The rest is in Someone else’s hands.
Turning Around
Because this is the 365th reflection in this series I thought I would contemplate the “one big thing” I’ve learned so far. Here it is: Turning around. When I look at everything I believe to be true about life and leadership, I cannot escape the insight that development follows this timeless pattern: We leave home (our comfort zone), move inward to conquer our limitations, and then outward to engage the world in community, hopefully transformed and better able to serve. It seems life, no matter how you parse it, follows this path of growth, failure, and rebirth. Or as others describe it: advance, retreat, advance. Life and leadership development never follow a neat, linear, or straight line. The journey is a lifecycle requiring constant turning around; conversion periods where we both let go of our old self while simultaneously adopting a wiser, better self. This turning around doesn’t happen once but repeatedly through life. We must move down, and break open, to then rise up and outwards to higher realms of excellence. We must first move down, to then gain great height later. And so I conclude again; heroes are made, not born.
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Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of June 22nd
June 22, 2015 | No Comments »
Choices
Watch the nightly news and its easy to become cynical about our modern world. Lots of problems, chaos, strife, and confusion in terms of standards of behavior. What is the answer to this modern maelstrom? Choices. When we choose well, our choice redeems both our own lives and redeems the path of those we lead. Yes, we can and often do drift off course. The question therefore isn’t, “Why did this happen?” The question is: what better choices can I make now to redeem the path? If our personal behavior and attitude are the problem, then choose better. If our group’s performance and behavior are the problem, then demand they choose better. Standards and accountability. When we look at history we see the fatefulness of choices ripple throughout time. Lincoln, MLK, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, or young Malala Yousafzai; their choices redeemed themselves and redeemed their groups. We are often on the wrong path, but there is always time to get back on the right path if we choose well. The path can be lost, but it can also be redeemed.
Going In, Moving Out
A cornerstone principle in my leadership philosophy is the paramountcy of self leadership. We can only lead others when we’ve learned to lead ourselves. We must first sculpt inner character and a moral foundation before we can resonate with others. Thus, the first crucial movement in leadership is inward; going deep within ourselves to develop character and excellence. And though going inward is the necessary first move, it is not the final end state. To become wise and significant we must next move outward and upward–into community. Why? Because it is in community, in shared ethos, where the fullness of our character, the steel of our will, and our moral texture is made. Once we have cultivated self mastery we must then find a place in community to pull us towards commitment to something beyond ourselves. Only communities can do this because they provide a way to find communion with others. Great leaders move inward first, but then move outward, and upward. They reorient themselves to higher purpose, elevated meaning, and ultimately, to significance within the context of community.
Neither Expedient Nor Assured
If not careful, we can adopt a fatal flaw in perceiving leadership that goes like this: I am, therefore I lead. Some mistakenly believe that if they hold a position, title, or rank, that attainment itself will confer and convey leadership. On the surface, maybe. In affect, hardly. Here’s a brutally honest truth of gaining leadership excellence: It is neither expedient nor assured. Greatness–true and lasting excellence–defies instant gratification or any guarantee of success. Why is this insight so important? Because it teaches us the timeless wisdom of the journey; that each person must be willing to work hard, persevere, apply grit and determination, and remain resolute in purpose. We’d like to think we can somehow avoid this hard path, hoping technology will alleviate the crucible of tests and trials. Yet no matter how much we may try to truncate the path, the path prevails and teaches us again its timeless lesson: Becoming a great leader may be our destination, but the journey is our destiny. Greatness is never free, inescapable, or decreed. It is earned through earnestness to the task at hand and faithfulness to the course before us.
Mentors
They guide.
They inspire.
They teach.
They coach.
They listen.
They advise.
They counsel.
They lead.
That is all.
That is everything.
Things That Don’t Get Lost
The older I get and the longer I lead, the more I cherish things that don’t get lost.
- Camaraderie.
- Companionship.
- Esprit.
- Mutual Affection.
- Soulful bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood.
We may lose touch with those we once led or followed, but we are forever united in our shared memories.
Check back next Monday for a round up of this week’s social media shares. Or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest to see our posts every day!
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of June 15th
June 15, 2015 | No Comments »
Trigger Moments
At times in life we’ll find ourselves mired in ruts; plateaus of growth where we feel more victim than captain of our destiny. I’ve had several of these plateaus in my life where I was in a state of doldrums marked by stagnation and slump. But in each of these doldrums, break out occurred only when I reawakened to a trigger moment; a catalytic spark inside me when, after long periods of feeling a lack of internal agency, I then rediscover it. These trigger moments, as far as I can tell, occur when we reawaken our motivation and the internal criteria by which we want to lead our lives. When we lack this inner criteria we move into the doldrums and drift sideways. When we rediscover our agency a positive wind fills our sails and we move more purposely toward the horizon. Why is this important? Everyone will find themselves in the doldrums; that’s a fact. The key is to break out and to know the breakout will always be a mysterious combination of personal agency and grace. The trigger moments are not automatic; we must push ourselves forward to find and ultimately harness the wind.
M2
When working out yesterday a fellow gym rat asked me what I thought it took to become a premier athlete. I contemplated this for a moment and answered: Mindset and Means. M2. A truly great athlete has both the proper mindset (optimism, focus, determination, grit) coupled with the means to excel (practice, opportunity, and experience). The same is true of great leaders, who also must learn to master M2. Great leaders constantly work on their mental paradigm while simultaneously seeing every day, and every moment, as a chance to hone their craft. This insight is very important for all of us because it helps us understand how best to cultivate leaders; we must attend to both elements—mindset and means. All of our leadership training and development should intentionally combine activities intended to nurture and strengthen our leadership mindset while also exposing us to opportunities ripe with experiences calling forth excellence. Like a great boxer, leadership excellence is defined both inside and outside the ring.
Submitting to Excellence
When we think of true championship performance, whether in business, sports, or academics, we often try to measure the difference between good or great in terms of costs. We seek tangible measures, things we can readily point to. I think this can be somewhat misleading, for though I do agree there are elements of excellence which can be quantified, the deeper, and ultimately more crucial elements to greatness, cannot. Excellence is not something we procure at cost, it is, in the final analysis, something we submit to. Only until individuals and the collective group willingly submit to excellence will champions and heroic ambition emerge. And we submit by acknowledging a purpose beyond our self, and equally, by bowing to a meaning greater than self. Excellence is not a matter of counting the cost; it is arriving at a state of mind where we strive, and sacrifice, without counting the cost.
Commitment
A growing characteristic of our modern world is what I call Opportunity Mania. Due to technology and the hyper-connectivity it affords, many people are increasingly bombarded with endless choices and options. Not bad, per se; but we have to wonder if, in the pursuit of endless choices, we are losing our appreciation for commitment? When we become mired in opportunity mania we become attracted to the endless choices; it’s like an opiate. But in truth we may never actually make a choice and commit. We like the stimulation of the choices. Excellence, as far as I can discern, involves hard choices and yes—commitment. Greatness comes when we move from a fragmentary life into a committed and cohesive one. We must move from opportunity mania—the constant hopping from one lily pad to another—to a life of fidelity, purpose, and meaning. The goal is not mindless choices, but rather, choosing, and choosing well. I believe greatness is born not of endless opportunities, but from actually closing off some of the mindless opportunities and actually committing to something larger than self.
Better Than You Used to Be
It’s easy to get confused in terms of leadership development. There’s so much information available now; so many choices. So I thought; how can we simplify the goal of leadership development? Here’s my answer: Be better than you used to be. That short and crisp objective contains all the basic elements of significance. First, the focus of getting better is put squarely on our shoulders. We need to be accountable for our development, our behavior, and our attitude. Second, the goal is not a final destination, but a process. “Be better” implies we must keep being better; day by day, activity by activity, encounter by encounter. Third, this goal cautions us to not get comfortable with status quo. Getting better suggests self awareness, grit, determination, and accountability. Finally, this goal reminds us that character development and excellence are slowly imprinted. Development simply takes time and is often imperceptible. Want a leadership goal? Be better than you used to be.
Check back next Monday for a round up of this week’s social media shares. Or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest to see our posts every day!
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of June 8th
June 8, 2015 | No Comments »
Deep Imprints
When I reflect on my character development, I realize much of my inner cultivation was imprinted on me through key mentors in my life and via rigorous experiences. This tells me character, and interior depth, are imprinted slowly and incrementally over time. We’d like to think we can study our way to character excellence; this is why book shelves are saturated with self-help literature and “Top 10” lists. Sounds good, but in reality, excellence doesn’t work that way. Yes, throughout our lives we want to be good right away. We want expediency and the quick fix. That’s human. But the character growth and excellence we ultimately attain, in truth, come about by gradual imprinting, much like pressure and heat slowly form a diamond within coal. And interestingly, the diamond cannot form without the pressure and heat. Rigor, experience, tests and trials; these are all necessary to imprint character and to carve deep deposits of excellence within ourselves. Excellence, it seems, is cultivated only this way.
Why Ideals Matter
In the age of the “Selfie” we are increasingly falling victim to a paradigm David Brooks calls The Big Me. Today it appears we’ve turned the lens almost exclusively towards us, which leads to thin perspectives and almost no timeless patterns. When the lens is turned towards us we gain only a sense of our private and limited needs and our growing appetite for self-gratification. In the past, people were taught to train their lens outward to capture broader vistas, wider themes, and larger parades of meaning. When our lens is turned outward we gain a sense of transcendent ideals and we gain an unambiguous definition of high standards of excellence. Are people less moral today than yesterday? No. But I think a case could be made that today we lack timeless ideals, and thus, our standards may be wrong. Without an appreciation for timeless ideals, we don’t know what greatness looks like. And when we don’t know what excellence looks like, we don’t aspire to, or hold ourselves accountable for, those things. In order to do what is right, we have to know what right looks like. We must start to turn our lens outward and away from The Big Me.
The Box
We are all challenged daily by what I call The Box. Here’s what I mean. As leaders we are asked to think and live outside the box; have a vision for the future, depict compelling end states, plan succession, and strive to leave a legacy. This essentially heads-up orientation is the necessary state of the leader; looking forward and pulling us towards the horizon. However, if all we do is think and live outside the box, well, pretty soon our box will begin to deteriorate if no one is living inside the box. This is the realm of the manager–focused on today, with a heads-down orientation, ensuring the mechanisms, processes, and procedures catalyzing production are in high repair. This balance between leading outside the box while managing inside the box is tough; however, when done well, great things happen. If we get out of balance, we get into trouble. Too much leadership and too little management creates unrealized dreams. Too little leadership and too much management creates rigidity and ultimately, atrophy. Great leaders are equally great managers, and over time they learn to coexist both inside and outside the box.
An Inheritance
When I reflect back on the two most influential experiences shaping my professional life, sports and the Marine Corps, I wondered: What was it that touched me so deeply and made me feel such fidelity to my companions? What caused within me a conversion to slowly think less of myself and more of others? God knows it wasn’t me alone; I was your typical self-absorbed and immature youth. I think the reason was this: In these two experiences, sports and the Corps, I was called on to sacrifice, and strive, shoulder-to-shoulder with other people. And it was through this crucible of sacrifice, of giving one’s all for something selfless, which created within me a sense of covenant with my team. I began to sense I had been given something of deep intrinsic value earned by those who had gone before. And through this covenant I knew I had been given a special inheritance; a boon meant to be passed on to others. When we are given such inheritances we become debtors to those who helped us, and the only way to repay those who helped us, is to pay it forward to others who will follow us.
Companions
It is not lost on me that the terms company and companion share the same root. But in our modern world and workplace, many things are conspiring to ignore the timeless truth that excellence emerges mostly through bonds of mutual affection. There is no doubt we can, and increasingly do, exploit technology to create workplaces mostly devoid of close, personal engagement. Telecommuting, outsourcing, warrens of walled-off cubicles, and oceans of emails and chats. Efficient? Maybe. Effective in terms of creating companionship and camaraderie? Doubtful. Here’s what I know for a fact, though like most qualities of excellence it would be hard for me to fully quantify: When we purposefully cultivate companionship through bonding and real shoulder-to-shoulder interaction, the line between giving and getting vanishes. The distinction between you and me is eliminated. The wall between yesterday and tomorrow falls. We become fused. And interestingly, in groups animated by deep companionship, it actually feels better to give than to get. Leaders must first grow great companions, to then create great companies.
Check back next Monday for a round up of this week’s social media shares. Or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest to see our posts every day!
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of June 1st
June 1, 2015 | No Comments »
Service
What do you need to do?
Do what needs doing!
The Paradox of Character
When we think of our growth as leaders we tend to focus on happiness. We dream of who we may be someday, what we might achieve, and the roles and titles we may earn. And thus we seek ways to get this happiness. But here’s the paradox: When I look back over the arc of my life, I find the opposite to be true. The events shaping me most were often those that broke me. It was the ordeal–the tests and trials—that was most profound in etching my character and forming my nature. Isn’t that interesting; we aim for happy, yet we end up being formed most by failure and sacrifice. The pursuit of happiness doesn’t form our character; the experience of, and conversion through, sacrifice and grit, does. It seems to me that pursuing happiness leads only to temporary satisfaction, whereas the experience of sacrificing for some deeper purpose, and surviving the crucible of the pursuit, is the real road to depth of character. Timeless truths are often paradoxical, and such is the case with character: The road to depth is not smooth, but rugged.
Breaking Bread
A great team, whether in sports or the workplace, is experienced by its members as a community. Every excellent organization I’ve been part of felt like the close-knit neighborhood of my youth; deeply personal, alive with camaraderie, and rich in mutual affection. Which got me thinking: How does this feeling of community arise? I think it is cultivated through shared sacrifice towards common purpose, shared peak experiences, and the regular celebrating of kindred feelings. We bond deeply when we strive together and when we celebrate this striving through breaking bread together. Yes; eating and drinking in a social setting. When we gather to eat and drink together, there is formed a quality of relating far deeper, and more robust, than mere casual workplace relations. This insight is crucial for leaders, because leaders must intentionally create conditions allowing for shared purpose and common sacrifice for higher ends, and then the cultivation of mutual affection through breaking bread. Much goodness comes at the dining table, and deep bonds grow over the sharing of food and a cold pint.
Universal Truths
I am often asked why I use mythology, history, parable, and classic hero tales in my leadership teaching. I do so because this method helps me understand universal truths of life and leading. Throughout recorded human history, and regardless of time or culture, humans have told the story of development, growth, and transformation essentially the same way. Yes, each culture dresses its heroes in unique costumes and calls them unique names, but the basic theme of the hero path is the same. When we see this pattern we begin to understand this key insight: all problems are essentially the same problems. Understood correctly as metaphor, we can see Lincoln in Odysseus; Martin Luther King in Theseus; modern politicians falling from grace like Icarus; or the common hero path walked by Gandhi and Aung San Suu Kyi, though separated by many decades, gender, and race. Universal truths revealed through specific cases. And why is this important to us? Because heroic tales of timeless excellence can raise our spirits, and elevate our ambitions, even today.
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Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of May 18th
May 18, 2015 | No Comments »
Intrinsic Value
I was fortunate as a Marine to have spent so much time in a vocation anchored in meaning. One rarely joins a vocation for material gain; the calling is generally of more intrinsic value. And what an ultimate gift this is, because a life spent in pursuit of intrinsic value is so much richer and rewarding than one devoted purely to material gain. If leaders can build their groups around a center of meaning and elevated purpose, they will then construct a sturdy bulwark protecting their people from becoming dependent on ego gratification metrics like money, popularity, stature, esteem, or other thin veils of ego reinforcement. Equally, groups rooted in intrinsic value gain incredible fortitude over time, equally protecting them from negative headwinds like fear, jealousy, spite, infighting, and small mindedness. For groups founded on intrinsic value, the payoff isn’t monetary, it is in the currency of satisfaction, gratitude, thankfulness, and mutual respect for having toiled, and jointly sacrificed, for something good in and of itself.
A Reclaimed Vocabulary
There are classic words such as reverence, vocation, dignity, sacrifice, honor, and submission, which have fallen somewhat out of vogue in our modern world. I am not entirely sure why that’s the case, but I sense it has something to do with the decades-long march we’ve been on to elevate the self. A culture valuing “doing whatever makes you feel good” doesn’t have much use for words that have nothing to do with feeling good. Some would say; these are just words, what does it matter if they’ve become dormant? I’d reply: It means a lot. The words we use reflect our values and our collective conscious, and they illuminate the qualities towards which we aspire. When our language is pregnant with heroic words, terms demanding personal accountability, we tend to aim higher and establish a standard truly capable of producing heroic ambition, real wisdom, and yes–humility. So, it is time to reclaim our heroic voice, reclaim the language of leadership, and modernize that language in accord with our times.
The Largeness of Small Acts
We mistakenly associate leadership with magnitude; wrongly believing we lead only when we have the right rank or position or when the stakes are high. But a closer examination of history and human enterprise proves this assumption false. Great progress, and real change, are accomplished via small, localized actions and often by unexpected people being accountable for their space and time. Small acts and faithful leaders are the real engines of progress. If we learn to master our space–to be the right leader for this right time–then we can develop the inner discipline to make a real difference. Greatness, we find, is not determined by the magnitude of the challenge but through the quality of response. See a problem; fix it. See a person who needs help; reach out your hand. See an opportunity for growth; exploit it. Hear notes of discord; harmonize them. We simply can’t climb large peaks unless we start with small steps.
Ends and Means
Leadership and management are essentially the interplay of Ends and Means. Leadership is art of end states; how we exert positive influence, create resonance, and inspire others to move towards the future. Leadership is akin to alchemy; the artful cultivation of raw materials and the gradual conversion of this raw ingredient into gold. Management, on the other hand, deals with means. Management is like a catalyst; gaining higher levels of productivity and production right here and now. A leader’s disposition is essentially “heads up” with a viewpoint outward toward the horizon, whereas a manager’s disposition is generally “heads down” with a viewpoint to the needs of the moment. Each person is at one both a leader and a manager; we lead people and we manage things. And in this duality we must be able to balance within us the passion of the leader and the pragmatism of the manager. We must be afire about end states yet at the same time coolly deliberate about the means. Ends invigorate our souls; means focus our minds.
High Endeavor
Let’s face it—work conceived only as function can be a grueling slog. A purely transactional work climate, where I get a dollar’s effort for a dollar’s pay, quickly becomes a wasteland experience for everyone because it is devoid of transcendent purpose. The reality is, the functionality of work is what it is; we can’t dramatically alter the nature of repetitive processes and procedures. But we can do a great deal about the ethos and climate in which these functions take place. Therefore, a leader’s sacred obligation is to create a culture of high endeavor; a sense of elevated meaning that likewise elevates peoples’ experience for, and commitment to, the Why of our work. Think of it; most companies focus only on the What of work, and occasionally, the How. However, a rare few go one step further: They devote energy to understanding and articulating the Why. Imbedded in the Why is meaning, purpose, and unifying intentionality from which excellence rises and champions are born. Want to be great? Start with Why, and set your peoples’ sights on high endeavor.
Check back next Monday for a round up of this week’s social media shares. Or check us out on Facebook,Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest to see our posts every day!
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of May 11th
May 11, 2015 | No Comments »
Different Questions
In pursuit of excellence we mostly focus on seeking the right answers. As a result, most leadership training is devoted to simply providing the student with lists; here’s the top 10 traits, over there are the 5 prized qualities, and over there the 6 keys to such and such. I believe a better method is to focus on the right questions. If we focus on the right questions and force ourselves to wrestle with the imbedded truth, then, and only then, can we appropriate truth for ourselves. Not only do we need to seek the right questions, we need a different set of questions. What does life ask of me? What problem am I asked to deal with? What are my own unique conditions asking me to do? Instead of focusing on what will someday make us successful or happy, leaders need to ask questions placing them squarely in the here and now, and squarely confronting challenges and opportunities of this time and place. I call this, mastering your space. Excellence is a summons; a call to act in accord with the essential needs of the day. And as such, the most vital question is this: Will we hear, and respond today, to this summons?
Three Shadows
Too often on our journey towards leadership excellence we forget the hard truth that our someday is actually being determined by today. What we do each day will ultimately determine the strength and quality of our character and our group. Daily decisions, lifetime impact. To remind myself of this truth, I created an image of a silhouetted person who casts three distinct shadows. One shadow I labeled Seeing. Each day we must see ourselves as leaders, see the world as leaders do, and see what life calls on us to do that day. The second shadow I labeled Acting. Each day we must act in accord with our character, aligning inner purpose and outer behavior, and act on whatever task is laid before us to do. The third shadow I labeled Giving. Each day we must commit to mentoring and coaching those we lead. We must give away our gold to strengthen the next generation of responsible citizens and able leaders. If all leaders could daily cast these three shadows–seeing, acting, and giving–then we’d find excellence being sown in places far and wide, and across arcs of time short and long. Daily decision, lifetime impact.
What You Do Versus Who You Are
We often mistake leadership with management. This is why, despite the enormity of leadership information available today, many people remain confused and, ultimately, become disillusioned, by what they see masquerading as leadership in the workplace. How can we simplify and clarify? First, leadership is not management; we lead people and manage things. Second, leadership is a master craft, akin to art, music, dance, poetry, etc. A master painter picks up her paintbrush; painting is not simply something she does, she is a painter. A sculptor picks up his chisel; sculpting is not simply something he does, he is a sculptor. A leader steps into a room and purposely engages other people; leading isn’t simply something she does, she is a leader. Leading is who you are. Leading is a way of life, a vocation. Leading is a calling to be something of value greater than self. Such callings require submission to purposes higher than mere functions or tactics. Vocations require us to move beyond private happiness and demands faithfulness to the work laid at our feet and people placed in our care.
A Rigorous Life
An elemental memory of my life as a Marine was the forced march. In the Corps, the forced march is a time-tested ritual to cultivate within individuals, and equally, groups, virtues such as resilience, fortitude, industriousness, and esprit. The forced march viewed functionally is about conditioning and getting from point A to B. But in a grander sense, it is much more. Enduring the crucible of the march is alchemic; it unifies, galvanizes, and calls forth a sturdier steel than had previously existed in the participants. All my life I have witnessed the unifying affect of rigorous living; how striving, shoulder to shoulder, against tough odds, calls forth inner strength and group dynamics far richer than individual effort. In our modern world, so dominated by technology and increasingly ensnared in virtual engagements, we need to remember the need for rigor in forming character. A well-cultivated team is born from hurling ourselves headlong into struggle and challenge. Classic wisdom reminds us of this maxim: Those who pursue a rigorous life devoted to arduous causes end up far more satisfied than those who pursue only fun and pleasure.
Becoming Steadfast
For anyone who endured it, boot camp was a singularly defining moment in their life. Your former self was thrown into a crucible of experience for which you found yourself woefully ill prepared. Most arrive at boot camp with some heroic aspiration, but they don’t know how to act on it. Boot camp guides a heroic conversion, but does so in an artful way. It doesn’t tell the person they are great, or awesome, or marvelous; it shows them they must first confront their inner weaknesses. Before it ever elevates, the crucible takes the person on the journey of descent, shattering illusions and egoism, and begins to create a true heroic lens founded on self mastery, accountability, and right action. The crucible first pushes one down so that, through a conversion of character, the individual can then push themselves back up. It is only through such conversions that people can become steadfast, fortified, and fully turned around. The person is not simply stronger, they are different. Not everyone will go to boot camp, but we all can find crucibles of experience to cultivate the same affect. Heroes are made, not born. Excellence is summoned, not given.
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Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of May 4th
May 4, 2015 | No Comments »
When the Leader Becomes the Lesson
When I was struggling to identify my core philosophy on leadership, and the end state of my leadership course, I wanted to identify a phrase suggesting what I believed was the highest manifestation of leadership excellence. I finally chose, When The Leader Becomes the Lesson. I didn’t select this phrase because I thought it had any marketing value. I chose it because I believe our highest aim as leaders is to leave to others the lesson of our life and how we lived it. The greatest gift we’ll ever give to those we lead, those we love, those we coach, and those we teach, is the example of a continuously confronted and mastered life. If we rightly put our focus on mastering ourselves, developing genuine inner authority and a rich inner life, then the example we leave, much like footprints in the sand, remains long after we are gone to help guide those who follow. The totality of our life, its ups and downs and twists and turns, defines and ultimately makes us, if we let it. The lesson is the person. The message is their life honed over a lifetime of struggle and mastery. The smallest part is what we teach; the greatest part is who we were and how we lived.
Inner Cohesion
When I think of truly masterful leaders I find in each a kind of inner cohesion distinguishing them from the rest. This inner cohesion, a kind of moral and principled center, allows these leaders to avoid the disjointed behavior typifying mediocre leaders. Masterful leaders are deeply rooted and have internal integration in which how they see themselves, how they see the world, and how they interact in the world, are one. Inner cohesion produces resonance and authenticity. When we perceive these qualities in a leader we connect to, and are inspired by, them, because their message and their behavior are aligned. Leaders with inner cohesion are not easily buffeted by headwinds; they do not fall apart when things get tough and they do not sacrifice honor for glory. And interestingly, they tend to be humble and generous people, prone to restraint, dignity, a generous nature, and respect. Inner cohesion comes from a confronted life; a willingness to challenge our inner motives and master ourselves, so that we gradually summon forth our best self and our most honorable behavior.
Self-Respect Versus Self-Esteem
What’s the difference between self-respect and self-esteem? In the past, the virtue of self-respect was prized, where today it seems self-esteem is the goal. You know; everyone gets a trophy. I’m not sure exactly when this transition from respect to esteem happened, but I am sure the difference matters especially for leaders seeking to create heroic cultures. Self-respect, a by-product of inner growth, comes from realizing, and accepting, we are broken and bent, and then, through long periods of confrontation and conversion, gaining quiet confidence in knowing we can overcome our crookedness and live more upright lives. A person gains self-respect from overcoming inner weaknesses. The question isn’t, what makes me happy? It is: what does life require of me? Self-esteem, conversely, comes from outer comparison. Am I as good as others? Do I get respected like others? Esteem is a feel good, not a do good, lens. Self esteem is a brittle, thin, and ultimately character-destroying paradigm. Self-respect is born from a transforming crucible that elevates us; self-esteem mires us in mediocrity because it questions why there needs to be a crucible at all.
Rich Soil
An ecosystem is a good metaphor for healthy organizations. Too often, however, we tend to use the opposite—an industrial metaphor–which works fine when generating widgets but badly for cultivating human relationships. In an ecosystem, we see how independent subsystems come together artfully to form a larger, wiser, and more effective whole. Each part matters and the excellence of the ecosystem is derived from the equilibrium within, and between, the systems. So, we need to see ourselves as cultivators of our organizational ecosystems. And where do we start? By tilling rich soil. The soil of our groups is made of foundational and perennial elements like ethos, meaning, and purpose. Rich soil produces the galvanizing why around which any how can be confronted and managed. In this role of cultivator, leaders should look for these three qualities to see if they are succeeding: camaraderie, companionship, and gratitude. If we see those three sprouts then we know our subsoil is healthy and we’ll have the shared intentionality that has, and always will, define champions.
The Perennial Campaign
As a Marine the term campaign became a fixture in my lexicon. It is a great word for it so perfectly evokes the art of conceptualizing an end state and then calling forth the many disparate actions that must be harmonized to achieve success. A campaign requires brutal honesty; we must understand ourselves and our foe, internal and external factors, time and space, resources and will. I think of life and leadership through the lens of a campaign. The journey to self mastery, to excellence of character, is the perennial campaign, the internal struggle we must be willing to wage over and over if we want to transform and achieve wisdom. Here’s the brutal truth: We cannot become our heroic best self without undergoing this campaign of inner confrontation. The greatest struggle on the road to mastery is this struggle against, and within, ourselves. It is the ultimate crucible. We must be willing to fall into the belly of the whale, time and again, endure, and call forth the hero within. The cauldron breaks us, but then it defines us. What begins as an austere wasteland is the very terrain enabling ultimate flourishing. Heroes, you see, are made, not born.
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Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of April 27th
April 27, 2015 | No Comments »
When Things Fall Apart
What holds us together when things fall apart? This is a particularly important question to consider because of the speed and complexity of change in today’s world. So, what holds us together when things crumble around us? Ethos, meaning, and purpose! Like the underground root system of a tree, ethos, meaning, and purpose provide the perennial wellspring of vitality, resilience, and shared intentionality allowing the above-ground trunk to flourish, even during times of strong headwinds and draught. Change is always impacting us, threatening our resolve and imparting a centripetal force that, if not countered by a unifying ethos, will gradually rip organizations apart. History is strewn with the rubble of once great civilizations, companies, firms, and teams whose rise and fall played out in this way. With the erosion of ethos is lost the edifying root system once able to positively galvanized the group. Great leaders must always remember their role as cultivators and caretakers; pruning and watering the deep root systems of their organization’s ethos, which in turn allows for the blossoming of meaning and purpose.
The Heroic Lens
“I don’t think of leading as just leading; work as just work; travel as just travel; learning as just learning; failure as just failure; success as just success. It’s all living. Heroic leaders do not differentiate leading from living.”
– Paul Callan
Shooting For Something Higher Than Fun
Our modern world, if we let it, can be awfully superficial. This has nothing to do with the quality of modern people; the young generation has every bit of latent greatness in their DNA as any past generation. I think the problem is, well, life is just too easy for most people and technology provides instant knowledge without any demand for wisdom. We seem on a path of amusing ourselves to death. A steady diet of fun does little to call forth our better angels or provide the crucible needed to develop character, humility, and reverence for something greater than self. So, I think it high time we start shooting for something higher than just fun. Don’t get me wrong; I am a fan of fun. But I’d like to commit my life to deeper meaning, believing that fun is merely transitory, while deep satisfaction, dare I say bliss, comes only from fidelity to higher purpose and doing what life calls us to do. When our lives center on fun, we remain adolescent in character and mindset. When our lives focus on purpose and heroic ambition, we move into the realm of wisdom, maturity, a nobler moral code, and lives of significance.
Two Types of Character
I believe we’re capable of two types of character in life; Character of ascent or character of descent. Character of the ascent is the persona of the public square and ego; our accomplishments, successes, titles, degrees, bona fides. The ascent is generally the first phase of our life, when we see the career ladder before us and we willingly climb it. The character of the ascent places us, the climber, at the center of all stories and all dramas. This is the time of the I; “Ain’t I great?!” Some people reach this stage and remain, even into old age, and thus engage life solely from this ego mindset. Others realize the character of the ascent is limiting and not fully honorable, so they turn and head back down. Thus begins forming of the character of the descent. Descent is a time where humility, brought on by necessary defeats, slowly emerges. Our ego cracks, our successes seem less relevant, and we start to turn away from “I” and instead look to “other.” Great leaders, people of heroic character, followed the descent into the belly of the mythical whale and emerged from this crucible not just better people, but changed people. Such is the hero’s path.
Exemplars
To become great at great, including as a leader, one must have a deep inner yearning to gain self mastery. Therefore, I don’t believe one can think their way to excellence. No amount of academic study will transform one into a master. Example is the best and truest teacher. This is why I spend most of my time reflecting on exemplars of excellence like Gandhi, Lincoln, or MLK. When we contemplate the lives of truly great people from all epochs and cultures we discern a common path, a familiar pattern, among their journeys. Yes, they were unique people, and equally, they were all broken and deeply human at times, but what I find common in them all was a kind of conversion period, a turning around, in which they first confronted their inner self, and through this inner crucible, they transform themselves, from the inside–out, into models of virtue. Leadership, understood correctly, is a matter of the heart and soul. Hearts and souls are not taught in a classroom; they are cultivated and transformed in the cauldron of experience. We are wise to reflect on exemplars of excellence and see that, yes, we can build virtue within ourselves.
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