Often duplicated, never replicated

A few weeks ago I was watching an episode of “Parts Unknown” (Anthony Bourdain’s travel and food show on CNN) where he was visiting Japan with Chef Masa Takayama and I was introduced to the concept of “ichi-go ichi-e” that describes a cultural concept of treasuring meetings with people. The term is often translated as “for this time only,” “never again,” or “one chance in a lifetime.” As I read more about this, I was struck by the implications of this in our lives.

Admittedly, I am probably more interested and/or attuned to this as a Vistage Chair because my entire professional life is based upon meetings with both groups and individuals. Then, it occurred to me that everyone’s lives are really an ongoing series of both professional and personal interactions regardless of your chosen profession. It is at that point the concept truly takes on weight & raises the following questions:

• Don’t we have to admit that each interaction we have with another human being is absolutely and truly unique because, although you might meet with them again in the future, you will both only be the people you are at that moment so that meeting can never happen the same way again?
• Don’t we have the responsibility to uncover and discuss the state of mind (if only briefly) of all attendees at these meetings and determine if there are meaningful conversations that could happen that would benefit some or all of the attendees?
• Isn’t there an inherent opportunity to then abolish “small talk” because we don’t want to waste time “talking around things that don’t matter” because we could then focus on “talking about things that matter”?
• How will this impact both the number of meetings you are willing to have as well as the time you set aside for each meeting you schedule? If each meeting truly was an opportunity to intentionally engage at a meaningful level, what would your criteria be? How would you communicate that to others? How would you prepare?

I will conclude with a few more open-ended questions that are actually not rhetorical in nature because I would like for your to answer them for yourself. If your answers are positive in nature, then would you be willing to give it a try?

• Would this be meaningful to you?
• Would it meaningful to others?
• Would these meetings build up or tear down walls & barriers?
• Would you walk away energized or drained?

About 2,500 years ago Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for its the not the same river and he is not the same man.” We cannot slow time down nor do I believe we should try. We can, however, embrace the opportunities that the passage of time presents to us and that is the ability to learn & change. The real challenge becomes providing others with the space and safety to do the same.

I believe Mother Teresa summed it up best with the following, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

Changing the narrative

Recently I went to Cleveland with an old high school buddy to see John Waite perform at The Music Box Supper Club. It was a great show and terrific venue as well.  He started the show by explaining that he would taking questions between songs which was a pretty cool way to engage the audience and his answer to one of these questions was the genesis of this post.

About midway through the evening someone asked him if we was every going to reunite with The Babys.  (For those of you who do not know about John Waite, he was the leader of The Babys from 1979 until they broke up in 1981.  He then went on to a solo career until 1987 when we became the lead singer for Bad English until the broke up in 1991.) His response to this question was insightful and a way of thinking we all could and should embrace.  He said, “No.  They are in a good place and have another singer and are doing quite well and that is great for them.  I am in a different place and feel like there are other things I am supposed to write songs about.”

As I listened to him sing a few of his more recent songs and thought about what he had said, it struck me that many of us never take the scary step of evolving and becoming something different than we used to be.  I am not sure if it is fear of just laziness…guess it really doesn’t matter.  What also stuck out to me was that the audience really did not want to hear his new stuff…they wanted “the hits”.  Not only are do we have to overcome our own inertia but we also may have to break the gravitational pull of others who don’t really want us to move ahead.

How do you want to change your story?  What new songs do you have to write?  Are you satisfied with playing your old hits or are you ready to try out some new stuff?  I know it’s scary because, quite frankly, it might not be very good and some folks may not like it.  Does that really matter?  It’s called a creative process because it is iterative and takes failure to create something beautiful.  As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned”. 

 

 

 

How “Spiky” are you?

(It is funny to me how one thing leads to another and then to an idea for a blog post…and this is no different.)  This morning I replied to a post by Jim Canterucci in his Emerging Leader group in LinkedIn which set me off on a quick research effort for articles on “followership”.  (the discussion was actually about employee engagement but it made me think about what it means to be a follower).

I found the article, “To understand leadership, study followership” and within that article, I found this gem:

“We follow people who are ‘spiky.’ Great leaders are not necessarily “well rounded,” they have unique strengths and weaknesses which make them real.”

This really resonated with me and I thought it was a fantastic and playful way to address the fact that no one is perfect…especially when it comes to leadership.  I think sometimes we try to put leaders on a pedestal and expect far too much from them.  Leaders are people just like everyone else and they will have rough edges.

I think we ought to embrace our “spikiness” when it comes to who we are what we do.  Over the past several years, I have developed the attitude that building a team is all about finding the right “fit” and really not all that much about the specific skill sets.  I know that within each role there is a certain base set of skills required but I will always hire attitude over aptitude.  I think we can all agree that in most cases when someone does not work out with the team, it is more likely to be over personality issues than it will be actual work performance.  This is why I always spend an inordinate amount of time telling the potential team member about the people and culture.  I want them be able to be themselves and not worry about wasting energy trying to hide their “spikes”.

In fact, the role of a leader is to hire folks who have complementary spikiness…that is what a team is all about…they fill gaps.

I will let Rocky explain as he is much more eloquent than I could ever be…enjoy and, to blatantly rip off the World’s Most Interesting Man…”Be Spiky My Friends!”