Completing the Year by Carol Zizzo

Over twenty years ago, I participated in the trainings offered by Landmark Education Corporation (LEC). The trainings offered me the tools to examine my life experiences and what I had to say about them. I also learned to identify beliefs I had adopted from those experiences and to consider whether they were still serving me. If not, I could work on ways to leave these beliefs behind or create new ways of seeing them. If these beliefs were still serving me, I could carry them forward in ways that enhanced my leadership and my life. Through the trainings of LEC, I also learned how to complete the past.

Since that time, I have developed a practice of completing my year by writing myself a summary letter at the end of each year. I reflect upon the previous year’s accomplishments and failures. I consider unfinished business details or difficult situations that I may have avoided during the busyness of day-to-day work. I note my appreciation of others; assess my overall health and the vitality of my relationships. Reflecting on my year in this way often fills me with compassion for our shared humanity and empties me of what will not be needed in the year ahead.

Harvard Business School business theorist and professor Chris Argyris’s model refers to this activity as “double loop learning.” Double loop learning points to the importance of leaders and organizations taking time to reflect on their past decisions and to create new ways of doing business. Using data and feedback from the past, taking time to identify and question current assumptions that are influencing business decisions keeps individuals and organizations healthy and learning.

As a team practice, we complete the year as part of our company’s annual December retreat. We reflect on the past year’s business results, accomplishments and setbacks. We take time to acknowledge and appreciate the ways in which each team member has contributed to our success.

If a practice of completing the past year seems like it would serve you as a leader, or your team, here is a simple process to consider.

1. Schedule some quiet uninterrupted time.
2. Gather your calendar, journals, notepads or any other means of helping you remember the key events of the past year.
3. As you identify and reflect on these events, ask yourself the following:
• What happened this past year? (Describe the experience and how you experienced it/them)
• What did I learn from it?
4. Record your responses in a completion summary letter.
5. If this is a group process, engage these same questions via a thoughtful team discussion.

Remember, keep learning and expanding. It is one of the keys to success.

Accessing Gratitude for All Things

by Dede Henley

I recently heard the story of a boy standing in a barn, in a stall filled shoulder-high with manure. He’s shoveling away, whistling happily. His friend asks him how he can be so light-hearted with such a miserable and daunting task. He replies, “With all this sh*t, I figure there must be a pony in there somewhere!”

It’s easy to forget to be grateful and optimistic, especially when events, circumstances or people seem difficult or challenging. We don’t consider that everything that enters our life bears a gift. The challenge, of course, is it to look for that gift.

After the death of our beloved daughter, Carly, we have struggled to find what there is to be grateful for. Some days, it seems there is nothing. And yet, life continues to deliver grace to our door. A neighbor walks up with a warm loaf of pumpkin bread, tears in her eyes, and says, “We love you.” A rainbow appears at the end of the storm over near Vashon Island. The beautiful golden leaves of fall hang on longer than ever. I stumble upon hours of video of Carly, singing and being her beautiful self. A client offers me patience and deep generosity.

Consider that any difficulty can be a gift, and that the greatest fruits come when you can begin to feel grateful—even on the most difficult and challenging day—using everything for your own growth and development. Experiences we call “negative” often bring us the greatest teachings. Experiences of pain can help us develop empathy. Challenges can help build character. 

Research shows that gratitude is beneficial to your health (McCollough, Emmons, 2003). In this study, one participant group recorded a diary of daily events, while another group wrote down unpleasant experiences, and a third group wrote down a daily record listing things for which they were grateful. The gratitude group was more likely to help others, exercise, and complete personal goals while reporting more determination, optimism, alertness, energy, and enthusiasm.

It is interesting to note that this study also found that people who take time to deliberately record their gratitude were more likely to feel loved, and found more kindness reciprocated to them. The grateful people were grateful regardless of whether special events happened in their day or not. In other words, they did not just have moments of gratitude, but grateful attitudes.

An attitude of gratitude is welcoming. It resists nothing. Its arms are wide open saying, “Yes, this too.”

How can you develop an attitude of gratitude? With practice. Take time, each evening before you drift off to sleep, to think about the things for which you feel grateful from the day. Remind yourself about what is good, and end your day on a positive note. Make some notes in a journal. This positive attitude seems to carry over from one day to the next. 

Every time you are frustrated, overwhelmed or sad, remember: there is a pony in there somewhere!

Little Big Things by Shanon Olsen

In Tom Peters’ latest book "Little Big Things" he states the following:

(1) Organizations exist to serve. Period.
(2) Leaders exist to serve their people. Period.
(3) A team well-served by its leader will be inclined to pursue Excellence.

In the teams we work with we encourage our leaders to strive for excellence, to engage in ongoing development, and to choose that which would best serve their team and organization. By moving to a paradigm of "service" we step into a place of contribution, appreciation and the experience of being on purpose. We have found that this is often what people long for, knowing that what they spend their energy on matters. By shifting our language, we can shift our experience of life. Tom Peters redefines the use of three words: Serve, Service and Servant.

"Serve." This is what you do everyday for your team, your organization, and your community. Energy could be expanded or restored by simply asking yourself "How will I serve today? In our course called "The Power of Collaboration," we teach that effective collaborative teams have a compelling purpose for working together. A compelling purpose is the larger reason to do what you do. When a team is aligned on their "Compelling Purpose," energy, enthusiasm, and productivity rise.

"Service." Service is what you provide. It could be called a product, a widget, a task, a process. Most of us provide service to someone or something. Tom Peters describes service as beauty encapsulated. Imagine seeing what you provide as service, and therefore beauty. This could be a fun place to serve from!

"Servant." We are servants to all sorts of things in life. Often we unconsciously become servants to things that drain us. We are not talking about this type of servitude. We are speaking of choosing to become a servant. By coming from a place of choice, being a servant allows for deep commitment, full buy in, and the willingness to do what is needed for success and excellence. Being a servant to what matters most, is a great use of your energy and time.

As you look to 2011, we challenge you to take three actions:

1. Work with your team to create a compelling purpose.

2. Look to see what agreements can be made that will support your team in coming from a place of service.

3. Consciously choose where you will be a servant leader. Identify the best use of you.

Learning to Support in a New Way

by Dede Henley

Sometimes life throws us a curve ball like nothing we’ve ever experienced before. In those times we can learn new skills for coping and living, or we can stay stuck in the pain of the experience.

A month after the death of my daughter, Carly, I am in the midst of learning the landscape of grief and finding new ways of living my life. I am attempting to allow for grief and to stay in the present.

So many compassionate and concerned people have told me that they simply don’t know what to say to me and have asked what they can do. I don’t always know at this point, but I am grateful for their care. The following suggestions by Bob Baugher and Jack Jordan in After Suicide Loss offer some ways to support survivors that help us heal:

• Be a good listener – realize that while you can’t fix grief, you can listen attentively.
• Don’t offer empty words of reassurance (It’ll be okay”) or clichés (“I know how you feel”). The best gift you can give someone who is grieving is to realize that you do not know how he or she feels, but that you are open to being taught what this experience is like.
• Tell survivors that you care and show them.
• Don’t be afraid to say the name of the person who died, or tell stories about his or her life.
• Allow the survivor to be in emotional pain. Don’t look for a silver lining – there isn’t one. Don’t say things like, “At least she’s out of pain.”
• Allow the survivor to cry and cry – or to shed no tears at all.
• Be ready to hear, over and over, the story of the person who died; the circumstances of the death; and the current problems of the mourner.
• As months go by, don’t be afraid to ask, “How are you doing with Carly’s death?” If the survivor answers your question, be prepared to simply listen. If the survivor would rather not talk about it at that time, respect the decision.
• Remember the birthday and death day of the person who died and be sure to make a call or mail a card on those days. 
• Realize that each person grieves in his or her own way. Allow the person to feel whatever emotions arise. This includes guilt, anger, and sadness.
• Find practical ways to help the survivor, such as offering to do errands, mowing the lawn, driving the survivor to an appointment, helping with chores, praying together, or simply sitting quietly with the survivor. Ask, “How can I help you?”
• Watch for unhealthy coping behaviors and suggest resources or professional support. Otherwise, accept what may seem to you to be a prolonged period of intense grief reactions.
• Don’t set a timetable for the survivor to be “over it” or “back to normal.” If the survivor seems to have an upsurge of grief even many years later, let the person know that this is quite normal.
• Realize that the suicide has changed this person forever, and that the survivor may carry aspects of grief for the rest of his or her life. Suicide survivors will never be the people they used to be, but they can become stronger and more compassionate as a result of their tragedy. 

Support like this has allowed me to return to work part time with clients that are willing to be flexible with scheduled meetings, to engage with my team as needed to ensure the healthy future of our business, and to continue to honor the human need to grieve.

Compassionate Leadership in Times of Trauma

by Carol Zizzo

When faced with unexpected trauma, a company’s first response is usually shock, followed by a basic survival response. But companies and leaders in trauma must find ways to move forward in the face of an overwhelming urge to stop everything.

On October 6^th, our company experienced a traumatic shock. Our leader, Dede Henley, received the news that her twenty-year-old daughter Carly had committed suicide. We are a small, closely-knit group, and we all knew Carly. Our entire company has experienced a trauma. Now we are faced with the need to work together in new ways to take care of our clients, ourselves, and our business. 

In Leading in Times of Trauma, Jane E. Dutton provides a roadmap for action during times of trauma: the way of the compassionate leader.

During times of collective pain and confusion, compassionate leaders take some form of public action, however small, that is intended to ease people's pain and inspire others to act. Compassionate leaders uniformly provide two things: a "context for meaning"--creating an environment in which people can freely express and discuss how they feel--and a "context for action"--creating an environment in which those who experience or witness pain can find ways to alleviate their own and others' suffering.

Our team and our leader have taken this advice to heart. We are working together to create context and meaning both inside and outside our company. We are providing a context for action that encourages a full range of emotional expression and ways to channel those feelings into something that can make a difference, to the grieving and to those who never knew Carly.

As part of creating an environment for people to freely express and discuss how they feel, Dede has courageously embraced thousands of grieving young people and has accepted the support of our colleagues and our clients. As the rest of us continue to deliver our work, we are having open conversations about what has happened, as they seem appropriate. We are left with even more appreciation for the courage it takes to lead authentically and compassionately during times of great challenge.

We are seeking actions that help us move toward healing and purpose. One of the ways our company and Dede’s family have responded to our crisis is the creation and support of the Carly Henley Project. This context for action is helping us address our grief openly and to move our experience into the community with purpose.

We are different now. Each day we are stretched into new experiences of collaboration and leadership. We have a much deeper and richer context for our work and for what is possible when a team is faced with a traumatic event. We are leaning into the relationships we have built over the last seven years for the support we need to take great care of our business.

We are learning that catastrophe speeds up a collaborative process. We suspend the obstacles that the mind creates; the heart opens; and actions that didn’t seem reasonable or possible take flight. As we follow Dutton’s advice, we are coming together in new and surprising ways in our work and our relationships.

We are deeply grateful for the amazing community generosity, the acts of service and support from our clients and professional colleagues, and all the shared moments that are impossible to adequately speak. We are learning new meanings for compassionate leadership.

Creating a "Workable" Life

Part of being a true leader is being able to be honest about both what is working well and what’s not working in any given situation. To do that, you must be paying attention – mostly to your own gut and sensibilities. You know when something isn’t working because generally people are suffering and struggling. It doesn’t work to force an outcome, to make something happen. I’ve come to trust that if I have to force something, it may not be time for this particular thing to come to fruition.

Consider that life can be much more effortless. You really can find the path of least resistance. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyicalls this “Flow.” According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In “flow,” the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.

I say, to get there, you need to identify what’s not working in your life – at work, at home, in all the roles you play. Make a list (yes, it might be long!). Then, ask yourself what’s needed to have each of the things that currently doesn’t work, work?

As many of you know, I have traveled to clients as part of my consulting practice for many years. My children have grown up with this. As they grew, my middle daughter became more vocal about her unhappiness with my work. I felt guilty every time I went to work. It was an area of life that wasn’t working for me.

I know this is a challenge for many women. Carol Evans, CEO and President of Working Mother magazine, calls this “The National Guilt Trip.” It’s what happens when you take 24 million working mothers and put them into offices and communities that cling to the concept that men should work and moms should stay home. This cultural contradiction plagues us. We want to work, in some cases we need to work, and many of us love to work. And we love our families. Women become paralyzed by this contradiction.

One day, my daughter, Carly, met me at the door at the end of a five-day business trip. She was 15. She said to me, “I need you at home. I need a mom right now.” She was clear. She knew what would work for her and what wasn’t. The truth was, after nearly 20 years on the road, it really wasn’t working for me either, though I could not see the alternatives. But, my daughter’s truth rang clear. I needed to work closer to home.

Within six months, I was off the road. I had cultivated clients right here in the Seattle area, something I had not considered doable before. I could now enroll in classes and actually be able to attend them. I could now participate more actively in my community. I love life off the road. And it works for me, for my family and for my consulting practice.

What’s not working in your life? Listen to the complaints of those you love. Underneath it may be something that really doesn’t work. Start to create workability in every area of your leadership and life.

Virtual Leadership

Today I got an email suggesting twenty-five things about to become extinct in America. Some were surprising only because they seemed to be already extinct: the milkman; drive-in theaters; mumps and measles. But also on the list were some long-standing staples of everyday life: the U.S. Postal Service, the Yellow Pages, and personal checks. It’s shocking to imagine them going away completely, yet the Internet age has rendered them obsolete and redundant.

As a team we have been discussing the same question leaders everywhere ask themselves: how will we adapt our structures, services and delivery to such a rapidly changing world? How will we develop leaders from the inside out—working at the personal level—when more and more of the world is impersonal, remote, and virtual? Despite any arguments that it can’t be done, the fact is that we must create new ways to provide powerful, relevant, results-producing coaching without being face-to-face with our clients. We must imagine new development modalities that will serve future leaders.

We’re exploring webinars, virtual meetings, weblogs and more. We are twittering, blogging and Facebooking. These modalities are likely a pre-cursor to the way we will stay connected, learn and develop in the future. We are listening to people who are imagining the future. Bob Johansen, from The Institute of the Future, has published a great book called, “Leaders Make the Future.” This is the challenge for us all. Will you wait to become extinct, or will you make for yourself a future where you can serve and offer your highest and best?

Leadership Fundamentals

Legend has it that Vince Lombardi, head coach for the Green Bay Packers, used to begin spring training by standing in front of his team, holding a football. He would say, “Gentlemen, lets return to basics. THIS is a football.” So what are the basics of leadership? As you know, there are many authors and speakers out there sharing their ideas on leadership. After nearly 30 years as a coach, consultant, and leader, I offer what I consider the five fundamentals.

1. Create alignment and engagement. An engaged employee is one who works with passion and feels a profound connection to their company and their work. This doesn’t just happen by accident. You, the leader, have something to do with it. You cause engagement through encouraging two-way communication about expectations and responsibilities. Remember, we have left the days of command and control leadership. It’s a two-way conversation now. This is what causes people to feel connected, and valued. You can help to create enthusiasm for the work and a desire to excel by recognizing and motivating team members. Do you know your employees well enough to know what motivates them?
2. Empower others. This essentially means to share your power with those who work with and for you. How? Ask them for their ideas and best practices. Be intentional about building effective relationships. Figure out how to work well with all types of people – even those who are very different than you. Share as much information, knowledge and expertise as you can. And finally, reward employees for innovation and calculated risk-taking.
3. Produce results. You won’t be a leader for long if you don’t make stuff happen. You must produce results. Your job is to keep yourself and others focused on the bottom line. Zero in on key business opportunities and go for them. Challenge yourself and others to exceed their goals. Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan wrote a book called, “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.” I highly recommend this book to increase your muscle for producing results.

4. Encourage learning and adaptability. Several years ago, Peter Senge coined the term, “learning organization.” These are organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, and where people are continually learning how to learn together. As a leader, you must challenge and stretch your employees to go beyond what they know how to do. Hold frequent discussions to provide coaching and feedback for development.
5. Embody the mission, vision and values. You must walk your talk. Ask your employees if you live the mission and vision. They will tell you. Then, ask what you can do to be better at it. This will help others to translate the company’s vision into action.

As you can see, these five fundamentals could take years to master. And that’s the true nature of leadership. It will challenge and stretch you. It will make you a great person. Congratulations for saying “yes” to the adventure of a lifetime.

Accessing Intuition

I don’t know about you, but I love having women in the room. They add a different perspective; they bring a kind of simplicity and realness, especially when they speak from their intuition. Intuition is one of those gifts we all have that we can use or ignore at anytime. For our purposes, we’ll use this definition for intuition: “The faculty of knowing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.”

Let’s face it. Many women are good at connecting to their intuition. People count on it. In meetings, the rational conversation will take place, and then someone will ask the “diviner” in the group what she thinks. This is the person in the room with the quickest access to their intuition, their gut, and the courage to speak it, even if it means opposing the rational thinking. We count on them to get to the heart of the matter in a meeting. I often ask a woman who seems confused, “What does your gut tell you?” She will answer immediately, almost surprising herself. This is her inner knowing.

The ongoing chatter in our minds is NOT intuition. It reminds us to pick up groceries on the way home, to return that call from two days ago, to finish the conversation with our boss. This “monkey mind” starts its chatter immediately upon waking for most of us and doesn’t shut up until we fall into bed again at night. I once heard someone say, “We’re exhausted! We’re not tired from the work we do, we pass out from our thoughts!” And if you listen to this litany going on inside your brain, you will find that there are certain repetitive thoughts – mostly fear-inducing – trying to get you to avoid a life of adventure, passion and joy. The laundry list of to-do’s alone will keep you in survival forever! Have you ever gotten everything done on your “list?”

To get to intuition, you must quiet the chatter of the monkey mind. It takes practice to become still enough to hear something more relevant, even useful. If you can get to this quiet space, then you will hear the voice of your intuition. If we listen, we are always being instructed. This voice in each one of us and it knows what is needed, what will make the difference. Maybe it guides you to hold your tongue at just the right moment. Perhaps it invites you to listen behind the words being spoken to hear the real message. Sometimes it provides outright instruction “go left here” when one feels lost in an unfamiliar city.

I urge you to listen to and then follow your intuition – your truest sensibilities. We’ll all be better off.

As a Leader, What is Your "Primary Aim?"

Some years ago, Peter Drucker said,” One of the central challenges facing leaders today is that they are not taking the time to think the big thoughts.” I’m just returning from a three-day retreat at the Whidbey Institute (a lovely place to retreat) where my business partner and I were able to think all kinds of “big thoughts” about our business and where we are headed. It is daunting to lay down all of the “small” stuff for three days and tuck away out of cell phone and Internet range. But I believe it is critical to do so.

We had a road-map to follow on our retreat: a book by Michael Gerber called, “The E Myth Revisted.” Through his writing, he encouraged us to consider our “Primary Aim.” To get to this, we asked ourselves questions such as, “What do I wish my life to look like? What would I like to be able to say I truly know in my life, about my life? What would I like to be doing two years from now? Ten years from now? Twenty years from now?”

These “Big Thoughts” helped us to get very clear about what our business will be now and over the next five years. Surprisingly, I was able to identify what Michael calls my “Primary Aim”: to create a stable, happy family. I could see that I had chosen my line of work, consulting, out of my commitment to my children. I wanted to be available to them as much as possible during their growing up days. I had a home office for many years and later, an office very near to our home. My family has been a big part of all of the choices I’ve made as it regards my work.

This clarity is a relief to me – like a cool drink of water. Once I named what I most care about, I could see how I have been working with leaders of organizations to help them create happy, stable places for people to work. We have trained leaders across North America in the Power of Appreciation, Generous Listening, and Clean Communication. We have worked hard to support teams in working well together; all an extension of my Primary Aim.

We returned from our retreat inspired, engaged and ready to lead our small consulting business into the future. Our “business” retreat positively impacted my personal life as well – I returned so grateful for the opportunity to be a member of my family. And professionally, I am excited to share with our team what we have learned and imagined.

If you are a leader of a small or big business, I challenge you to “retreat” from the day-to-day and take the time to think the “big thoughts.”

Can you accept it, enjoy it or best of all, be enthused about it?

In light of the devastating mess washing up on the shores of our nation, it’s a good time to look to see what kind of messes we are making ourselves, unconsciously.  When faced with challenges, most of us default to the easy stuff, complaining, being annoyed, getting cranky.  In other words, we create suffering for ourselves and others.  Now, I know you are NOT committed to creating messes and suffering.  So how to avoid this?  Author Ekhart Tolle describes three possible responses to any circumstance that allow us to stay in our power and presence. These are the states of acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm.  Let’s look at each of these states in turn. 

Even if there is something you do not enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do.  Acceptance means this: “for now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do and so I do it willingly.”  Taking an action from acceptance means you are at peace while you do it.  You do not complain.  This state will be a wonderful relief to those that work and live with you!   If you cannot bring acceptance to what you do – stop.  Do not continue to cause suffering for yourself and others.  This is a way you can take great care of those around while at the same time taking care of yourself.

The second state is of enjoyment. You gain a sense of aliveness when you actually enjoy what you are doing.  You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, where the activity is not just a means to an end.  This could include routine, everyday activities, like paperwork, email, etc. See if you can’t bring a sense of joy to these activities.  Enjoy them.  Is it possible?  Do you have the ability to bring joy even to routine activities?

The third and most fun state is enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm means there is a deep enjoyment in what you do plus the added element of a goal or a vision that you work toward.   For example, as a leader, you may have a goal of helping to fulfill on the vision of your organization.  If you keep this vision in mind and know that your actions and words and behaviors can and do add up to this outcome, you will bring enthusiasm to your leadership.  You are doing something important. You are involved in the act of creation. You will feel like an arrow that is moving towards its target.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm. With enthusiasm, you will find that you don’t have to do it all by yourself.  In fact, there is nothing of significance that you can do by yourself.  Sustained enthusiasm brings into existence a wave of creative energy, and all you have to do then is “ride the wave.”  Enthusiasm brings abundance. 

If you are not in the state of acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm, look closely and you will find that you are creating suffering for yourself and others.  So, I ask you, are you adding to the mess, or cleaning it up?