Tag Archives: Self-development

Great Expectations

I’m preparing for another visit to Nicaragua next week.  The staging for each trip usually begins a week or two before I actually travel, as I contemplate our itinerary, the partners with whom we might visit, what I think I can learn, what opportunities for impact we might have, and why I never learned to speak Spanish.  There is not only the physical readiness of packing, but also the mental preparation for being in a very different place from where most of my life is lived.  And the weeks leading up to every visit are always filled with an internal excitement, an uncertainty, a familiarity, and an anxiety about leaving my comfort zone- if only for a week.  I’m looking forward to all of that and more next week.

If someone asked me what, exactly, I expected to accomplish or to experience during the week, I’d likely have to look at our intended partner visits in order to respond with any detail.  We haven’t completed that roadmap quite yet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t carry with me certain hopes and wished-for outcomes for my time there.  And lately I’ve speculated about how our partners might anticipate our visits during the week.  Do they feel excitement?  Hope?   Anxiety? A sense of necessary obligation?  I’ve decided that my visits are only half-complete if I haven’t thought about expectations from both sides, so that I  do whatever I can to help attain those outcomes.

For my part, I’m always hoping to come away from every visit in Nicaragua with a better understanding of the elements that conspire to keep poor Nicaraguans in deep poverty.  The causes range widely (take your pick from issues such as politics, natural resources, history, education, economics and culture) and there are complex connections between all of these factors and more which make a complete comprehension very unlikely.  But each time we’re immersed in the life issues of rural Nicaraguans, we inch closer to a true understanding of life’s realities for them.  If Winds of Peace can acquire an authentic  understanding of those circumstances and their root causes, there’s a better chance for us to make an impact.

I don’t travel with many preconceived notions.  (I’d like to claim “none,” but I’d be inaccurate.)  But I do hope to meet Nicaraguans who are focused on exploring their realities with objectivity and passion, so that best possible solutions become more clear.  My expectations are not that we hear presentations from organizations who have become good at saying what they think we, as funding partners, will want to hear.  My expectations are that we connect with potential partners who possess at least an emerging sense  that there are certain universal truths about successful organizations and leadership and sustainability, and that those partners intend to seek the keys to those truths if given the opportunity.  Those keys are pretty well stated in the “Cornerstone” considerations from Winds of Peace:

1.  Sustainability

2.  Participation of people in projects based on local analysis and plans

3.  Social Change

4.  Accompaniment of oppressed people

5.  Community-based and self-directed development

6.  Transformational education and training

7.  Relationships and partnerships in grantmaking/microlending

8.  Accountability and responsibility

If these Cornerstones resonate with the organizations with whom we meet, then my expectations are that Winds of Peace can be a resource for strong development.

No matter what my expectations might be, they will always be tempered by whatever our Nicaraguan partners might be expecting.  Their perceptions of Winds of Peace, Mark, me, our funding criteria, or our Cornerstones will impact their real expectations.  As they anticipate a meeting with us, I know there exists a hope that financial assistance is possible; I suppose it’s technically their bottom line.  I know that they expect to make a representation of themselves and their needs as humbly and sincerely as they can.  They hope to “make a case” for consideration, citing whatever important words or concepts they think might capture our attention favorably.  Maybe they even have goals that are well-aligned with our Cornerstones.

What do our partners anticipate from our visits?  Do they wonder why we’re in Nicaragua?  Are they frustrated by our criteria and demands for information?     (I recall hearing feedback from one organization which characterized us as “easy.”  If they were referring to our openness to taking risks with unknown or unproven organizations, then I might agree with the label.  If they were thinking about a long-term partnership with us, they might have been in for a surprise.)  Whether their expectation is that we are truly seeking a partnership of development, or that we are simply another global organization looking for opportunities to place funds, I am certain that we have funded partners that fit both descriptions.  It’s true regardless of the sincerity or the insincerity which may be written in the pages of a proposal.  But naivete is not a characteristic of the Foundation.  My curiosity about their curiosity stems from a strong belief that if the expectations on both sides of the development equation are in synch, if the desire for reciprocal teaching and learning is real, then the expectations of both of us can be met and exceeded.  That’s not easy, but it’s worth doing.

I look forward to an interesting week, and I remain full of great expectations….

 

When I’m Sixty-Four

“When I get older, losing my hair, Many years from now…. Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?”

The Beatles recorded a song in 1966  called, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” a whimsical tune sung by a young man to his girl, an inquiry about their life in future.  The song is also a cute reference to the generation gap, as the young singer tries to imagine life at that ripe old age.  History says that Paul McCartney wrote the song at a very young age and when his father was about to turn sixty-four.  Anyone of my generation hearing the song back in the 1960’s were a little curious to think about becoming as old as sixty-four, an age that seemed nearly as ancient as the planetary system.  For a teenager, imagining a life at such an advanced age was a bit like envisioning life on the moon: it was distant, other-worldly and unlikely.  But suddenly, I am at the threshold of turning sixty-four.

It’s not a cataclysm or even a very important milestone.  I mean, I’m still gainfully employed in a role that I cherish, I’m in good health, physically and mentally active, with a wife whom I love very deeply still, with four grown children who still call and visit.  Life hardly seems to be ebbing away.  Yet statistically speaking, I’m well within the last quarter of my life.  So The Beatles’ tune has given me pause, to think about whatever impacts I might have created thus far, whether good or bad, to consider accomplishments yet to be achieved, and to wonder out loud whether my being here has demonstrated good stewardship of the life with which I’ve been blessed.  It’s a tenuous exercise born out of both a need for affirmation and an avoidance of fears: I hope to leave good tracks, yet fearful that I will not.

I suspect the same uncertainties stir within many of us.  We have been told by others that by simply asking the questions we have demonstrated our awareness of a stewardship obligation, which by itself might assure the high character of our passage on this earth.  I’m not too confident in that conclusion.  Questions make for a good start but an incomplete finish.  So I continue to look for that “report card” to tell me whether I’m passing this stewardship class called life.  And I have anxiety that the test isn’t likely to be graded on a curve, but rather according to more absolute measure.  I look over my life notes, including my “top ten list” of stewardship measures, and see issues like honesty, generosity, respect for others, environmentalism, conservation, lifelong learning, spirituality, care for my physical self.  I wish I knew what was on the test for each of these.  Have I already been quizzed?

Give me your answer, fill in a form…”

Management author Peter Block wrote a book about stewardship years ago (1993) called, appropriately, Stewardship.  It’s still some of the best writing on the subject that I have ever encountered and one portion of that work stays in my consciousness even today, twenty years after my original reading and long after my corporate management roles.  Block referred to stewardship as “choosing service over self-interest and creating redistribution of power, purpose and wealth.”   In other words, Block suggested that the in the interest of becoming good at stewardship (in this case, organizational strengthening), the key would be found in the elevation of others.

About the same time, Robert Greenleaf was teaching much the same thinking in his paradoxical booklet, The Servant Leader.  “The servant leader makes sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.  The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they,while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?  And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will he benefit,or, at least, will he not be further deprived?”  The words of both authors opened up vistas of thinking for me that dramatically shaped my behaviors, both at work and in my personal life.  But I still wonder whether they ultimately made me a better steward.  I wish I had studied harder for the test.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds, who could ask for more?”

So as I approach McCartney’s mythic sixty-four,  I cherish the life that has evolved over those years by claiming that I am, in fact, the most fortunate man on the face of the earth.  I really believe it.  But as blessed as that sounds, it simply raises my introspection about good stewardship.  Can one be a truly good steward while at the same time feeling the good fortunes of a lucky man?  Maybe I’ll come to understand the answer to that sometime over the coming year, when I’m sixty-four….

 

 

 

 

Universal Truths

One of the hopes that I had held during my years at Foldcraft Co. was that some day we might be able to compete successfully enough to acquire one of our local competitors, Waymar.  We actually engaged in conversations with the owner of the company who was contemplating his own retirement, but we never could advance the conversations in any substantive way.  You might imagine my sense of satisfaction, then, when last month Foldcraft completed the process of acquiring that company and its subsidiary in Seattle, Washington.  Some good things just take time to develop.

The acquisition wasn’t free, of course.  The employee owners of Foldcraft have their work cut out for them in order to make a success out of this acquisition.   They will have to learn new things.  They will have to familiarize themselves with the way that Waymar conducted its business.  They will have to envision changes that can be made to blend the two manufacturing operations.  They will have to learn about an entirely new set of customers and their demands.  They will have to make Waymar a profitable enterprise if they are to cover the debt incurred from the purchase, and almost certainly surprises will be encountered along the way.  The two cultures will have to be blended into one, and a collaborative workforce will have to be fashioned out of two previously competing ones.  A great deal of education within both companies will be required.  When you stop to consider all of the hurdles that exist in such a transaction, it sounds downright risky.

That’s one of the realities about being in business of any sort: every one has both its risks and rewards.  It’s never any different.  If success was guaranteed in any particular economic undertaking, everyone would be doing it.  But the tensions between the risks and rewards are what make the success stories so compelling to us.  We marvel at the obstacles that successful enterprises have overcome, and we listen longingly to tales of financial success, often concluding that we should be able to accomplish as much.  Whether a cooperative in rural Nicaragua or a factory on the plains of Minnesota, we love to hear stories that affirm the notion that unlikely- even miraculous- things can and do happen despite the odds.

As a member-owned company, Foldcraft will tackle the challenge in the manner that best assures success, a process that will draw upon some truths and methodologies which pertain to organizational life everywhere.  The first thing that management will do is to recognize that people need to know.  Leaders will ensure that members understand clearly the risks mentioned above and what exactly will be required to counter those risks.  Truth will not be a luxury but a necessity, because where information is lacking, rumors will fill the void and success cannot be built upon innuendo.  There will be nothing automatic about success in this venture, and the owner-members absolutely must know the truths of their new organization, good and bad.

Engagement will require that the members of the organization- Foldcraft and Waymar both- become educated in the new organization’s success equation, those elements that must occur in order for the new business to succeed.  Unfortunately, in all too many organizations even today, members simply do not have knowledge about what creates success for their business.  They only know that they perform certain activities which they have been directed to do, without knowing why or how those activities synchronize with the efforts of others in the organization.  As in any game, the objective is to score, and the players need to understand how those points are made, how certain actions and reactions mesh within the company to reach the goals.  They want to know how to win.  In the case of Foldcraft, principles of open book management will teach members exactly what needs to happen for success and then will track success (or failure) so that members know whether they are winning or losing the game.

Foldcraft will create ways for its members to be involved.   The transition difficulties encountered simply won’t be able to absorb people who not fully engaged in its success; that’s a reality of any business.  Participation of every member becomes magnified in an undertaking such as this.  The company will continue to assemble teams and special project groups to address issues, and for at least two reasons.  First, even when members are excited about contributing to change and improvement, they may not fully recognize what role they should play or where to begin.  The leaders of Foldcraft can help with that by “positioning the players.”  Second, sustainable and effective change needs the wisdom and experiences from as many sources as possible, and that means broad member involvement from all areas of the organization.  Foldcraft has already utilized this approach as it was performing its evaluation of Waymar as a possible acquisition.  Teams of Foldcraft people were involved in assessing factors such as financial health and transparency, company ethics and integrity, employee safety, production methods,  opportunities for improvement, marketplace strategies and more.  Members of Foldcraft shared the responsibility of gathering and evaluating this information under the belief that “no one of us is as smart as all of us.”  As a result, the evaluation was performed more rapidly and thoroughly than it would have been with only a few involved.

Finally, success of the new organization requires that there is a reward for all of the effort and responsibility-taking exhibited by members at both worksites.  In addition to strengthening their job security by forging a stronger company, the members of Foldcraft are owners of their enterprise.  By participating in the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) of the firm, the members are the ones who benefit from stock growth.  And that wealth accumulation can have a major impact on those members who remain with the company for many years.  The incentive to make this acquisition successful is firmly in place, for those members who want the chance to make a better future for themselves and their families.

Of course, Foldcraft knows that success is not fated.  It’s only an opportunity, as any enterprise is.  The good news is that the truths and methodologies mentioned above are ones that resonate with most of us.  They feed a human need to belong, to understand, to contribute, to succeed, to be part of something bigger than ourselves.  It’s a truth that transcends national and cultural boundaries because it touches something deep in our psyches, something innately human.

Some organizations allow opportunity to slip through its hands, whether through leadership power struggles or greed or lack of transparency or too few members being seriously involved; good ideas die every day at the hands of ignorance and self-centeredness.  Success stories, though, emerge from the foment of universal truths that absolutely lie within our reach when we’re willing to stretch….

 

 

 

Garden Redux

In comments written here on October 28 (“Community”), I related the story of our visit to the community of Santa Maria de Wasaka and how this remote area had been both ravaged by flash flooding and yet restored in its commitment to regroup and flourish with new garden methodologies.  The experience of meeting people faced with difficult circumstances is usually pretty emotional, and often there are few or no opportunities to revisit them later to discover how they might have fared.  Fortunately, that has not been the case with the folks at Wasaka.

My most recent mental image of that visit was a hike back to our truck, which had been parked some distance away due to the loss of a bridge from the same rains that brought the rushing waters through many of the planted areas of the community and even took the life one one young child.  Darkness had fallen upon us during that walk, rain had started to fall again and, frankly, I was feeling badly for the people just met.  The restoration work before them- both in the gardens and in their spirits- seemed considerable.  My strongest hope stemmed from the work that the NITLAPAN technicians were doing within the community through a Winds of Peace grant.  I remember thinking that the final evaluation of this effort would be one that I would read with anticipation, in hopes that the outcomes might prove to be better than what I was currently envisioning.

Then late last month I received an e-mail which contained a couple of photographs taken by one of the technicians working on the project.  Knowing the great challenges facing the community of Wasaka at the time of our visit, the technician must have delighted in forwarding pictures that portrayed a very different outlook than that which we might have conveyed in October.  I share those photos here, in part to dispel any pessimism that crept into that October blog entry:

I don’t know whether the produce shown here is representative of other gardeners.  I don’t know whether what is shown here is representative of the production of these two producers.  I don’t even know whether the impressive yet modest harvest shown here is at all representative of other producers in the community.  All I can report is that when presented with the evidence of these photos, I smiled a wide smile.  There is vicarious joy in seeing these tangible results from people who just a month earlier rallied around each other after the loss of many community gardens.  The note accompanying the photos provided further encouragement: “He [the technician] says that there are photos of some of the produce coming out of the gardens of some of the folks in Santa Maria de Wasaka, and that there will be soon by more. They are improving their diets with these type of vegetables, the source here is supporting loads of wildlife and plants.”  

Technical assistance by an organization such as NITLAPAN can make a significant difference in the lives of its clients.  Insatiable spirit to persevere and never give up is an immeasurable power.   The two elements together are enough to ignite hope, even if only in the production of vegetables from the earth…

The Wealth of Peasants

In one sense, it’s entirely appropriate that Winds of Peace would take on the field of education as one of its priorities, since there is so much education to be had from our interactions with the rural populations in Nicaragua.  Each and every visit  for me has revealed perspectives that I might never have known but for my visits with a wide range of Nicaraguan “teachers.”  In some cases, I think these educators know that they are teaching the gringo something new; in other cases, the teaching moment may pass with no recognition of impact or import.  In either case, I have been the beneficiary of a graduate degree worth of lessons at the feet of some incredible professors.  One such lesson emerged a couple weeks ago on the final day of a two-day workshop with rural coffee cooperative members.

The workshop process- facilitated by researchers Rene Mendoza and Edgar Fernandez- has been chronicled at this blog site in previous entries.  The workshops have sought to create new understandings and alliances among the various participants in the coffee growing and commercialization chain of a given territory.  It’s valuable technical information that is shared, but there is also ample opportunity for participants to become eloquent about the other factors which play into the success or failure of the rural producers.  They broach topics such as strategic strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  They talk about the political and cultural obstacles that impede their progress.  On this occasion, they also articulated dozens of myths- assumptions deemed true by many but false in fact- whose acceptance often stands in the way of positive change.

The list developed by the participants was long and impressive in its inclusiveness; brown butcher paper with the entries covered two full walls of the meeting room,  nearly surrounding all of us with fictions as diverse as the participants themselves.  It’s really rather amazing what we will allow ourselves to believe.    And among the 115 citations was this one which stood out to me: “God made the poor and the rich, and he made me poor.”

I stopped reading the list of myths for a while when I reached this one.  Of all the untruths and misrepresentations on the wall, this one struck me as the most egregious on many fronts: it invoked the presence of God as an entity which deliberately targeted these people to be poor; that in God’s judgment, they would never be anything except poor; their poverty was irreversible; that for whatever capricious reasons, the peasants’ poverty was simply “meant to be,” while the wealthy were ordained to live comfortably.  The implications of this one myth contained enough defeat and sorrow to keep simple, rural families in their places forever.  It implied a finality which takes away all sense of hope for the future, the one lifeline to which all people must cling if they foresee a future at all.  The hopeful news was that the participants had recognized it as the lie it was.  The sorrowful news was that there were likely to be many more in the countryside for whom this notion rang true.

I took my place around the workshop table and for two days listened to presenters and participants envisioning their futures.  The dialogue created a hopeful atmosphere, one in which participants could muse, at the very least for a while, about a better way of existence and offer reasons for their optimism.  Their ideas, plans and laughter combined to form an antidote to that sobering myth I had read earlier.   But as if to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind as to such  resolve, Don Edmundo, president of one of the participating cooperatives, took the floor and offered an even stronger repeal of the myth of my notice.  “We are not poor,” he offered.  “We have an abundance of many things.  We are wealthy.”

Now, I have heard many courageous things said in Nicaragua.  I have observed many courageous people who have refused to break under the yoke of extreme poverty which they have born.  There are nearly endless stories of personal bravery by rural peasants simply trying to survive a nearly endless barrage of injustices, natural disasters and man-made misfortunes.  But this was the first time I ever heard anyone from the impoverished countryside tout wealth as part of their patrimony.  Don Edmundo went on to enumerate the sources of wealth which gave merit to his claim: family, community, land, communion with the environment, and belief in the very God  implicated in the fickle injustice of the myth.  He itemized these gifts as though tallying the treasure of a counting room, weighing each talent in his words like they were ounces of gold, only more precious.

I’m not sure how his classmates felt about the pronouncement.  There were nods of assent across the room, but who knows whether the affirmations came from recognition of reality or courtesy for the speaker.  Just maybe, some recognized the same truth which I heard.  That truth had little to do with riches as we in the west have come to think of them.  It did not address the romanticized ability of the poor to regard the little they have as more than it really is.  The truth spoken in that classroom revealed that deep within each of us is both the longing and the instinct to have created something of value, to have struggled for a measure of dignity through our lives, and to have achieved some semblance of that.  That does not diminish the pain, anxiety or loneliness of the poor, but it just might render the truth less obscured for them than for those whose lives are filled with the distractions of western-style riches.

In an ironic twist, the impoverished and disenfranchised may live closer to understanding that truth than most, and therein lies a portion of the wealth of peasants….

 

 

 

 

Useless Things

Part of my recent travels to Nicaragua included participation in a workshop on cooperatives, the most recent in a series of workshops focused on the rural coops in the northern coffee region.  Winds of Peace has been sponsoring these workshops over the past two years, allowing tier one coops to meet and discuss issues with tier two groups, buyers, funders, technical assistance organizations and more.  These have proven to be unique opportunities for these groups to assemble for several days, discuss production and commercialization issues, to learn of each others’ concerns, and hopefully to create alliances among one another  that will strengthen all.  The sessions have proven to be enormously popular among the participants;  other, non-invited cooperatives have consistently inquired about the possibilities of their own participation.  Time will tell whether the organizational strengthening work that they are doing will create significant development, but the early indicators are positive.

Between Sessions with Freddy

In this most recent workshop, we heard presentations on topics of innovation, and primarily from the youth of the region.  In turn, each of the nine stood before the other sixty  participants and carefully described the business plan of an economic initiative of their creation.  The plans were articulated with detail, enthusiasm, and realistic expectations.  They ranged from a regimen of plastic bottle recycling to the raising of honey bees.  PowerPoint presentations brought the ideas to life as each innovator spoke to issues such as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to their plans.  Each had thought through the myths and misconceptions that might have prevented others in the past.  And the plans examined the initiative from a full range of perspectives, including intellectual, social, emotional, spiritual, occupational and physical dimensions.  I was impressed; frankly, I have read business plans in the U.S. that were not nearly as well-crafted and holistic as these.  I noted in particular the confidence exuded by each entrepreneur as he/she laid out the plan of attack.

Abraham Cruz

One idea caught my attention in a big way.  Abraham Cruz is an impressive, young family man who has been raised within the GARBO cooperative lands beneath the towering presence of Peñas Blancas.  His life and worldview in that beautiful natural environment have clearly shaped his thinking, as he presented an idea unique in my experience: he outlined the development of a “colibrario,” a preserve, or sanctuary, for hummingbirds.

Within the restricted confines of his own yard, Abraham decided to act upon his interest in these tiny creatures.  He began learning more about their habitat, the types of plants that attracted the various species- five found within Nicaragua- and commenced a regimen of planting and cultivating around his yard.  In fact, he spent a great share of every day developing this environment, sometimes to the derision and even unhappiness of others.  “Why do you plant flowers all day?” people would ask.  “Who cares about these hummingbirds, anyway?  This is lazy work.  You are interested in useless things.”  Conventional thinking regarded Abraham’s commitment to this small aviary a waste of time.   Fortunately, Abraham was far more attuned to his own inner voice than the noise surrounding him.  He persisted in cultivating his yard space to attract and nurture the proliferation of the tiny birds.  And the endeavor has worked.  As Abraham toured us through his densely-packed yard, he pointed out one dazzling aerial acrobat after another.  As we enjoyed the array, Abraham talked about the future plans he has in mind to attract even more birds, to invite more  of the native species into view, to document their habits and behaviors, and to introduce tourists to this amazing world of laser-like flight.  Abraham is nothing less than a self-made ornithologist.

You-Know-Who

For me, personally, hummingbirds occupy space in that niche of wildlife that commands a deep awe and attention.  Like giant pandas, penguins and porpoises, there is something intensely attractive about hummingbirds, a quality that captures our imagination and love for them.  We set out all kinds of devices to attract these kinetic creatures: sugared water cones and brightly flowered feeders and large flowering plants.  Maybe it’s due to their tiny size that we recognize their vulnerability and feel instinctive desires to feed and protect them.  Like newborn puppies, hummingbirds are nearly irresistible.  And in this visit, I was able to be as close to these creatures as I have ever been.   I had the opportunity to feel the communing experience that Abraham described in his earlier presentation, an up-close and personal connection with a part of nature which somehow fulfills us in ways we can’t always explain.     But that space is an essential one for each of us, whether we always recognize it or not, whether the world at-large sees it or not.

At the end of our two days in the workshop, as the youth from the various cooperatives prepared to set off on their varied project journeys,  I found myself hoping that they had found the time to visit with Abraham at his home and to experience the project that was already unfolding there.  I know that they heard his story about his hummingbird dream.  I know that they understood all too clearly the hurt that comes from derision of new ideas which don’t comport with conventional thought.  I even thought for a moment about offering the famous quote from Albert Einstein, when he said, “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”  But in the end I can only hope that they share the same resilience that Abraham has displayed in remaining true to his own muse and that they, too, continue in their pursuit of useless things….

The Secret of Wisdom

I spent some time last week with the Founder of Winds of Peace, Harold Nielsen.  As usual, we had plenty to talk about: what’s happening in Nicaragua, the state of the global economy, progress on several Foundation initiatives, the presidential campaigns here in the U. S., and more.  It may not seem unusual for two people to engage in conversation about such items, but I always regard my discussions with Harold as somewhat unique opportunities to learn, since he is now 96 years of age.  The breadth of his experiences and perspectives grows more valuable every day, and his views of the world and human behaviors in it are lessons rich with insight.  Whenever I’ve had the chance to sit with Harold and engage in such discussions, I find myself speculating about where Harold gained all that wisdom. I’m reminded of how infrequently we in the U.S. look to our most seasoned citizens for wisdom.  All too often we see our elders as being out-of-date. out-of-touch or irrelevant to modern-day issues.  Too bad; there’s a lot that we need to learn and in many cases they’re just the ones to teach us.

 

There were any number of perspectives that Harold shared with me last week worthy of reflection and consideration.  But perhaps the most valuable of all came not from something he offered, but rather from something he asked.  (It’s not unusual for Harold to bring me to a salient realization by asking a question rather than stating an opinion.)  We had been talking about our education initiative in Nicaragua when he quite unexpectedly changed the subject.  He asked me to describe what it had been like to work for him over the years, what his strengths and weaknesses had been, what he could do in the future to be a better leader, mentor, and influence, and how he could become better at seeing those characteristics in others.

I was startled for several reasons.  First, I wasn’t prepared for a question that required such a personal, candid response.  Second, even though Harold and I have worked more as collaborators than as employer-employee in recent years, my response required me to think back to his earlier roles in my life, when he was company owner, CEO, foundation patron, and I was his employee.  Third, in my work experiences, Harold turned out to be, by far, the easiest and most effective “boss” I ever had; analyzing his weaknesses and areas for improvement never occupied much of my thought.  While I am rarely at a loss for words, his questions left me speechless for the moment as I tried to formulate a response that was both candid and useful.  Unfortunately, I doubt that I offered him anything that he regarded as helpful.

Long after our time together, I was still thinking about those questions and wondering what there was about them which continued to hold my attention.  I’ve been asked the same such questions many times over my managerial career, but never before did the query strike me with the same degree of surprise as this time.  But I finally figured out what was so different.  The difference was that the question came from a 96 year-old man who, well after most people have ceased to breathe let alone ask piercing and introspective questions, still seeks to learn about himself, still aspires to know more about his relationship with others, still wants to know how he might become better at life.  What startled me was the recognition that his questions revealed the source of the wisdom that I have respected for all of these years.  That source lay in the unquenchable thirst for learning that Harold has had, a never-ending curiosity about himself and others and the world around us.

Far more than simply a function of advanced age, true wisdom is cultivated in the continuous drive to ask and understand, not only for one’s own edification, but for application to the circumstances of the world at-large.  Wisdom eschews the notion of retirement of any kind, giving no quarter to withdrawal, forbidding us to stop the flow of natural inquisitiveness that spurred the younger versions of ourselves.  The answers to the contemporary questions facing the youth of today might well be discovered in the curiosities of their elders over a lifetime of seeking.  And those of us in-between are in the best position of all to benefit from the realization if we can allow ourselves to do so.  Maybe all of this is well-known to psychologists and gerontologists, but it’s a first-hand observation to me.

How does a 96 year-old man expect to effect change in the way that he is perceived by others, the way in which he interacts with them, the extent of his positive impact upon them?  I’m not sure of the answer, but I love the question.  And I may have unwittingly affirmed a secret to real wisdom….

The Castle Paradox

I’ve had this poster hanging in my office for perhaps the past 30 years or so.  I don’t even recall where it came from, but I was immediately taken with its message of holism and strength and living an integrated life, so I kept it as a reminder of how I thought I should try to build my own life.  Or, at the very least, to remind myself of how out of balance I can become and how easily the imbalances can happen.

The components of the castle construction are insightful and beg reflection, but it’s the heading of the graphic that poses The Castle Paradox: “A Dream Is A Goal Taken Seriously.”  It states in very economical terms an entire philosophy of personal and organizational development.  (Naturally, I am drawn to perceived truths that seem to make sense in my own life.)  And the idea here is essentially that any dream of mine- as nebulous and sometimes impractical as it may seem- might be nonetheless achievable if I will be resolved to wrestle with the enormity of my vision and conquer its small component parts, if I can harness the power of my very own spirit, if I will treat it as an objective or reality as opposed to a fiction.   After all, objectives are things that simply need to be done, while dreams too often occupy the realm of fantasy, well beyond my reach.  I like the idea of grappling with something tangible.

But the paradox is both  encouragingly simple and maddeningly problematic.  Our loftiest aspirations might well be within our reach but only if we can teach ourselves how to re-imagine their achievement.    Sometimes the path to succeeding is, indeed, by the “road less taken,” and that can be a path that is difficult to discern.

The Castle Paradox and the puzzlement that it brings to most of us in real life remind me of the lessons from one of my favorite books, The Paradoxes of Leadership, by Charles R. Edmunson.  Ostensibly written for leaders in employee-owned companies in the U.S., the book is a compendium of lessons that apply equally well to individuals simply trying to get along in life, and with others, as well as they can.  What makes them unique is the way they challenge the traditionally-held beliefs about our interactions, attaining success and the nature of organizational relationships; what they reflect is quite contrary to the views of the status quo:

* We have more influence when we listen than when we tell;
* Profound change comes from a feeling of safety, not from fear;
* We are stronger when we are vulnerable;
* Even when we are effective, we doubt ourselves;
* Our strength is our weakness;
* Less is more;
* Our strength comes through serving, not through dominating;
* We correct better through grace than through confrontation;
* We gain respect not by demanding it, but by giving it;
* We learn by talking, not just by listening;
* With people, the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line;
* The hard stuff is the soft stuff;
* Sometimes we have to get it wrong to get it right;
* A full life is achieved not by grasping but by giving.

What Edmunson learned from his own leadership experiences was that a willingness to see things from a very different perspective often generated some very different answers to life’s issues.  The value in his observations lies not in whether one agrees with each of the statements as he wrote them, but that one would invest the time in considering them and discovering perhaps new meanings imbedded within them.   (Life itself is paradoxical in nature: in fact, Edmunson’s own greatest paradox was revealed through the writing of his book, at a time in his life when a neurological disease had robbed him of his ability to speak or even move.)  It seems as though our circumstances can sometimes create dramatically new solutions to the “castle walls” we seek to climb.

Much of what we think we know to be true is actually something less than that; there are few immutable truths to which we can cling for comfort.  Elements of tradition, history, culture, politics, religion and family heritage tend to shape what we believe as much as actual truth does.  Perhaps that’s the reason for so many paradoxical situations in which we find ourselves.  We cling to ideas that we have gathered along the way, worldviews that we have grown up to embrace, perspectives that we hold because “they have always been that way.” These eventually feed and complicate the paradoxes we face.    But recognizing the paradoxical presence in our lives should give us some degree of confidence in resolving these seemingly impossible quandries.  They may be little more than everyday realities which beg for a fresh look, an engaged mind, and an open heart in order to achieve a new resolution.

Solving The Castle Paradox: encouragingly simple and maddeningly problematic….