The Bamboo Project

We Have a Leadership Problem

"Leadership" has been on my mind lately, maybe because of the many conversations I have with people about the "lack of leadership" in their organizations.  It also came up in the comments on my recent post on "Managing" People.  Everywhere I go, people are talking about "leadership." 

But I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the last thing we need right now is more leaders or even better leaders. The entire frame is fundamentally flawed. 

The Problem with "Leadership"

When we talk about "leaders," implicit in the notion is that there are going to be "followers." There is a power dynamic in the idea of leadership that is often unexamined and that makes it virtually impossible for us to address the complex issues that lie before us. 

Leadership has an heroic quality to it. It implies that a leader can save us from whatever situation we find ourselves in. It puts the onus on the leader to find answers, divine the way and to move us along that path. The leader determines the course of action and we decide if and how we will follow. 

In our mythology of the leader, they are lone gunslingers (or maybe a team of a few), riding in on their white horses to save the day. They are the saviors, the heroes, the dragon-slayers. They are exalted and somehow different from ordinary mortals, imbued with special powers and skills that the rest of us can only wish we had. 

Some leaders are better than others at inviting participation in their leadership. Certainly this is better than a dictatorship. But still, at the heart of any notion of leadership is a fundamental power imbalance where the leader wields power that followers do not. 

This is its fundamental flaw. "Leadership" mark some as "special" while others are not. 

Even when we pay lipservice to the idea that we are all leaders, we secretly know this is crap. The very word "lead" means that someone is in charge and others are following.  We may not want to admit this is true, but it is. 

Why Do We Love Leaders?

We love having leaders (even when we chafe against them) because it relieves us of any responsibility or accountability for where we are or where we want to go. I can sit back and blame what's happening on "a lack of leadership." I can operate from my stance as a helpless victim of the leaders who will not lead or who lead poorly.  We see this at work all the time--the people who want "leaders," but then who blame the leaders they find for not being sufficiently heroic in saving them. 

And for those of us who aspire to be leaders, there is that secret wish that we will be the hero. We love leadership because if we become leaders, then it casts us in that mystical glow that comes with our status as leaders. We see ourselves as participatory leaders--and maybe we are--but still, as leaders, we are "the ones in charge." 

Lately it seems to me that we are workshipping at the altar of leadership  because we are desparate for new solutions and ideas. If we can only build leaders, then we can all be saved. We are like children, looking for our parents to swoop in and save the day. Leaders are the heroes and we are looking for them to rescue us. Or we are looking to BE the heroes and do the rescuing. 

But this is a damaging, disempowering way of operating in the world. All this worship of leaders and leadership merely perpetuates a dynamic of savior/victim. It makes it harder for those who feel that they are not leaders to contribute their strengths, ideas and gifts to the collective good. And it causes us to expend energy on all the power struggles that go with this idea--who's the leader, who isn't, how does the leader preserve his/her special status as hero, how do the rest of us respond to that? 

From Leader to Citizen 

I think we need to retire the words "leader" and "leadership" and begin to talk differently about how we are working. "Leaders" are about hierarchy and if we are working in a dense collection of networks now, we cannot look to "leaders" to solve our problems. 

We need to find a different way of talking about what needs to be done, that engages all people in the work. I like the word "citizen," which to me implies that we have rights AND responsibilities in the communities where we operate--including responsibilities to participate in contributing to the collective good. 

What would happen if we stopped talking about ourselves as "leaders" and developing our "leadership' and we started talking about ourselves as "citizens" and what it means to be good citizens in our world?  How could that change the ways we interact and the solutions we find? 

Some Thoughts on "Managing People"

I've been thinking lately about our focus on "managing" people. I spend a lot of time with front-line supervisors in various capacities and they are obssessed with how to control people's behavior.

The discussions are of two basic types--How do you get staff to do the things you want them to do? How do you STOP staff from doing things you DON'T want them to do? There are variations, of course, but only in the details. Mostly we are talking about carrots and sticks and, for me at least, the conversations devolve into a sort of "how do we herd the cats?" kind of thing. It's animal husbandry, not working with people. 

There's a lot of frustration in these conversations--on both sides. The supervisors are frustrated that they can't control people's actions. And I'm frustrated that they are so focused on control. 

Here's the thing. Anytime we are focused on "managing" something, we are really talking about controlling it.  We want to control the outcome AND how people get there. We often want to control people's reactions, too. Not only should they do what we want them to do, they should like it, no matter how ridiculous the expectation. 

But no one likes to feel controlled. I think it's something innately human. The reason we talk about "the Terrible Twos" is because even children resist our attempts to control their behavior. Children resist by kicking and screaming. Adults tend to resist in less obvious, more passive/aggressive ways. But they are still resisting. 

This is why. Control is about power. When we "manage" people, we are exerting our power over them, but pretending we are not. People know this. They are not stupid. They know they are being manipulated and they don't like it. 

There was a time when employees were more willing to accept this kind of arrangement, when they felt like they got something from the deal--"If I submit to your "management" of me, in return I will receive a paycheck and some meaningful guarantee of ongoing employment." But that contract is broken now. It becomes harder to submit to control when you know that it's really a form of servitude, not a choice you've made to exchange your independence for a paycheck.

I think that people are becoming harder to "manage," not because they are spoiled or entitled (as I've heard many managers say), but because on some fundamental level, they know that they are getting the raw end of this deal and they aren't happy about it. Employees are afraid to resist in more overt ways (they still, at least, want that paycheck), but deep down they know that the contract has been irrevocably altered and they are not interested in such one-sided exchanges. 

 How to get out of this impasse? 

I think that we must first understand and accept that "management" is another word for "control." While I can control inanimate objects--financial and physical resources--I can't control people. I can try, but in the end I won't get what I want. And I'll exhaust myself in the process. 

We have to give up the notion of control and accept that we live in a world where many things are uncontrollable--especially those things that have to do with other people.  We can become resilient and able to deal with what life throws at us, but we cannot control how and when the ball comes over the plate. To believe otherwise is to live in a world of illusion. 

To work effectively with people, we need to take a different approach. We cannot manage them, but we can create space for them to do their own work. We can help them tap into their own innate motivation by helping them find autonomy, mastery and purpose in the work that they do. 

I also think that we have to bring humanity back to work, understanding and accepting that we are working with PEOPLE, not machines and that people have feelings and baggage that they can't just check at the door.

We don't want emotions at work, because they are messy and sticky and, well, uncontrollable. So we tell people to be "professional," which really means, "Keep your emotions to yourself, please, because I already feel like the world is uncontrollable so the last thing I need is you adding to that burden." But what we create, then, is a culture of repression and when we repress our emotions, they are going to come out somewhere, usually where we least want that to happen. 

Ultimately, I think that this post is a plea for us to remember that we are working with people, that our institutions (including our workplaces) should exist to serve us, not the other way around. We want work to be this antiseptic, controllable place, devoid of human messiness. But it is not. It is a reflection of our very human selves that we should embrace, not resist. 

What bothers me most about these issues of control is that they divide us from one another, creating an "us vs. them" culture. It's sad. And also unnecessary. 

What I think is this: If we worked harder to understand and embrace our humanity at work, we might find that our concerns about control evaporated. If we worked harder at understanding and working with each other as human beings, not machines, we might find that we're all  in this together. 

Announcing a Virtual Knowledge Cafe on Social Artistry

Yesterday I posted on how to make your career dreams come true. One of my dreams is to work with people from around the world to explore the concept of social artistry and how we can use the skills of the social artist at work and for learning.  So I'm going to make it happen. . . 

Announcing: The Virtual Knowledge Cafe on Social Artistry

Brent MacKinnon and I are organizing a 9-week Knowledge Cafe that we plan to run online, starting February 20, 2012. 

It's open to anyone who's interested in learning with us about the skills and talents of social artists and who wants to explore how social artistry might fit into their professional practice.

We'll be adapting David Gurteen's Knowledge Cafe model and Bo Gyllenpalm’s Virtual Knowledge Cafe as a learning framework.

A few things you should know:

• There will be no instructors, no learning objectives and no formal curriculum. The group will work together to decide on the topics we want to explore, based on our interests and passions. Each of us will take the lead in directing the learning through the questions we ask and the knowledge and resources we share. If you are looking for a formal course in social artistry, we are NOT the group for you. 

• We are building this plane while it's flying. We will be providing an online "home" for the Cafe and some basic structural framework, but the content and practices we develop will evolve as we go through the process. We think this is an exciting, interesting way to learn about a topic like this, but it can also be a little challenging for people who are used to more "polished" products and structured learning. If you participate in the Cafe, be ready for some messiness. 

• We have no idea of the outcomes for the Cafe. We're hoping that the Cafe can be the start of a Community of Practice for people who are interested in social artistry. We're thinking there's a possibility that through the Cafe we might identify some cool projects or ideas to work on together. But we really have no way of knowing what will result from the Cafe. And we're OK with that. If you join us, you will need to be OK with that too. 

This is an experiment in using some of the tools and techniques of social artistry to learn about social artistry. As with all experiments, it has the potential to be a rousing success or an abysmal failure. But either way, we will learn something from it. 

If you're interested, check out our course invitation here and sign up here. 

Here's to learning together!

Two Steps for Making Your Career Dreams Happen

I'm at the end of Week 1 with my Career Clarity Camp and we're heading into Week 2, where we'll start to turn our career visions into some meaningful action. 

One thing I'm realizing as we go through this process is how often we sideline our dreams. We worry that we may fail in our efforts or that we will do something stupid or embarrassing. Sometimes we wait around for someone else to go first. We can also consume ourselves with activities that SEEM like they're moving us forward, but they really aren't. 

Here's what I've discovered in my life. If you want to make a dream happen, there are two things you need to do:

1. Acknowledge your dreams without shame or judgement. 

Too many of us are ashamed of our dreams. We feel like there is something wrong with us for wanting what we want.

A lot of people I work with, for example, are creative, artistic souls and they judge themselves for wanting more beauty, freedom, connection and  joy in their professional lives. These are typically not valued at work, or we pay them lipservice, so people get the message that these are frivolous desires. Nice if you can find them, but not practical. 

Have we all really bought into the notion of our society as simply a vast machine for "productivity" and "return on investment," such that wanting something more soul-filling is frivolous? I'm afraid that we have, based on the shame and judgement I see in people who say they want something more. 

And it is this judgement--both internal and external--that holds people back from really pursuing what they want. They hear that they must be "practical" and "realistic," which really means that they must give in to a culture that has lost sight of its humanity at work. So they do it, because it's expected, but they are dying inside. 

So the first step in making a dream happen is to embrace it, to love it and accept it without reservation, judgement or shame. You must name it and claim it for you to move ahead. 

2. Make them happen.

For those of us who have finally embraced what we want as necessary and worthy, the second step is to make your dreams happen. That sounds obvious, but it's not. Too many of us wait for someone to come along who will say "Hey--I hear you have a dream. Let me make it a reality for you." If you want to talk "unrealistic," that's where we get into trouble. 

To make a dream happen,  you will have to move it. You have to take risks. You have to experiment and explore and be willing to fall on your face. You have to accept the dark side of creation and be kind to yourself in that process. 

You also have to be willing to take the lead and be in charge, to put yourself out there in the world and be willing to be identified with your dream. You have to talk to people around you, let them know what you're dreaming. You'll be amazed at what comes your way when you are finally acting from a true place of acceptance and inspiration. 

Making your dream happen isn't an event. It's a process. It's doing something each day that moves you closer to what you want. It's a series of steps you take, one foot in front of the other, until you arrive at your destination. There will be stumbles and missteps, but the journey itself will be far more rewarding than staying in place without dreams. I promise you that. 

Accepting your dream and then acting on it--that's all it takes to make things happen. So simple, yet so hard to do. . . 

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My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 31! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here. 

 

A Conversation Manifesto

I believe in the power of conversation.

I believe that when two or more people gather together to talk about what really matters to them, the most amazing things can happen. 

I believe that revolutions begin with conversations around a kitchen table or in a living room or on lunch hour or at a coffee shop. Big change comes when we are willing to engage with the important questions. 

I believe that as human beings, we are built for conversation. It is how we learn as babies. Our first societies were formed through conversations around a fire. Our greatest institutions began as conversations about what could be. 

But, I believe we've lost faith in the power of what conversation can do for us. We've lost sight of how our conversations can shape who we want to be and what we create in the world. 

I believe that the solutions to our problems, the inspiration we need to build the institutions relationships and communities that are important to us, lie in our ability to engage in conversations that matter.  Conversations about what's important to us will nurture us and help us grow individually and together.

To this end, we need to re-claim our human legacy, our ability to engage with each other around our desires and passions and our vision of what could be. 

We need to make time for important talks, to make space in our lives for real conversation about our most pressing questions. 

We need to grow and encourage meaningful discussions where ever they crop up. They are happening. We need to join and support them and spread the word to others so they can join too. 

We need to provide safe space for ourselves and for the people around us to talk about the things that are most important to us. We need to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable and to help others be vulnerable too. 

We need to ask more questions and listen more deeply. We need to seek first to understand, rather than to be understood. 

We need to be the sparks for challenging, inspiring, engaging talk, willing to ask the hard and important questions and to provide honest and authentic answers.

We need to be comfortable with the messy, wonderful process of truly engaging with each other around what is important to us. 

We need to use conversation for good, not for evil.  We need to stop conversations that divide us--from each other and from our humanity.

We need to use conversations  to re-discover our common vision and re-define the Common Good. We need to use them  to find our gifts and to bring them into the world.

We need to use conversation to rebuild our connection to ourselves, our relationships with family and friends and our larger communities. 

Conversation is our human birth-right. It is what defines us and shapes us as humans. "Words create worlds" and we need to use our conversations to build a better place for us to live. 

Are You Sharing Positive Impact?

In the past few days, I've had some amazing conversations with people about how things I've written here have affected them. Since having a positive impact is one of my most important values and motivators, hearing from people that what I write here makes a difference to them is tremendously rewarding. 

What occurred to me, though, was how often we DON'T tell people how something they've done has positively impacted us. We may be quick to point out where a screw-up or problem has occurred, but how often in the course of a work day do we stop someone and tell them of the positive impact they've had on us? 

I've been observing in myself, lately, my tendency to somehow withhold this information from people--to not take the time to express my appreciation for the gifts they give me in the form of insight or support. I'm great at thanking them for resources ("hey--really appreciate that link!"), but not so great at saying things like "I've been thinking about our conversation earlier and let me tell you how it helped me with something." 

I've been trying to be more intentional about acknowledging these gifts and engaging people in thanking them for the positives they provide in my life. More specifically, I've been trying to thank them for the impact their insights or wisdom or ideas have on me. I'm trying to take it deeper than just "hey, thanks for sharing," to show them the positive effect they have on me. 

Doing this has helped me build more positive work relationships, but it has also helped me to better see the positive forces at work in my career. By reaching out and letting people know that I appreciate their efforts and their gifts, I am more aware in general of the strengths and talents of the people who surround me. It has created a strange and wonderful "energy field" around me, a virtuous cycle where the more I acknowledge gifts, the more easily I can see them. 

I also realize, based on my own experiences with people sharing impact with me, how motivating it can be to hear that what you do makes a difference to someone, that it really matters. This is powerful stuff and it's what is missing in a lot of people's work lives.

I know a lot of people work in places where they feel invisible and unappreciated, where their efforts seem to go into a deep, dark hole. But we could start to make that feeling go away, simply in choosing to interact differently with each other. We could do a better job of reaching out to people who have a positive impact and letting them know that, for us at least, who they are and what they do really DOES matter.

Imagine the shifts we could start to make at work if we did this. I'm not talking in a generic, "You matter" kind of way. I mean specifically and authentically, an intentional act on our part to connect with the impact that people have on us and to share with them how important that is to our lives. 

I think we'd be surprised at what we could make happen if we did. . . 

The Dark Side of Creation

Via Robyn Jay, a wonderful post from Harriet Wakelam on the "dark side" of creativity and how our participation in social networks may help or hinder that process.

First, Harriet puts her finger on something I've experienced myself:

I have recently been through one of those 'life reinventions'.  Unlike the current 'sexy' portrayal of creativity the process was absorbing, consuming and sometimes dark and scary.  During the process  I switched off from my networks. One minute I was talking, the next I was disconnected. 

It was however a rich and a valuable time, productive and exciting, if challenging and complex.

I love how she calls out the "sexy" portrayal of creativity that is so ubiquitous online. Rarely do people share the "dark and scary" parts of creativity. As Harriet points out, we are most likely to see just the finished product--the result of the creative process:

I have always thought that networks are non-linear.  Am I wrong though, are they very linear, our online social places being,  not places where thought can evolve, but a place to report the results of the thinking process?

There is no word, no hash tag, no convention for being present but processing.  If you are not 'present' then you are 'absent'.  

I have seen very few people I admire talk about the dark spaces of the creative process. 

My question: are our online networks missing an important facet?  Are they 'safe' enough for  emergent thoughts, or do we do our 'composting'  alone only presenting when we have visible evidence of growth...?           

Seems to me that would be a sad place falling well short of our expectations of ecosystems...

There are issues that I find interesting  here. First, is the nature of the creative process itself, with all its complexities and "dark and scary places." When we are going through career transformation, the process is very similar, in part because we are creating new selves. 

The second is the impact that social networks have on this process, particularly as they become more a fact of life for so many of us as we pursue our creative and career work. 

The Dark Side of Creation

In my own experience, creativity has consisted of two types of processes. One is active and more social. It includes  gathering information, reading, asking questions, interacting with other people, creating products and processes and blog posts. It is the productive, doing side of creation.  This is the side that we see online all the time. It has been enhanced by the ready availability of networks and people from around the world. It is the "public face" of creation, the side that we all see and admire. 

But there is another side to creativity that is not so action-oriented. I like Harriet's use of the term "composting," for that's what it is. It is a gathering and churning of bits of organic matter, half-formed ideas and thoughts, an inability to really put them together into anything that feels right for public consumption. In those times, my head will swirl with bits and pieces of connection and ideas that never seem to coalesce. It's a stew of  . . . something. . . but what it actually is, I don't know. 

I find that in those times, I am impatient with myself. We are such an action-oriented culture, so concerned with turning creativity into a commodity. If I cannot count on something actionable or valuable coming from the creative process, then why do I even bother?

These are the times when I tend to withdraw from the world, to cut off my conversations and connections. Partly it's because I need the space and time for the thoughts to just germinate. Partly it's because there's something almost shameful about not being able to "produce."  And we are a society that values what people can do. 

Yet in my experience, creativity and transformation is like pregnancy. There is a gestation period, during which it looks like you aren't doing much, but HUGE amounts of growth and development are occurring inside. Of course, we aren't able to observe a growing belly to tell us that work is happening, so it's harder to accept gestation as part of this process. There are no visual cues to let us know that something is developing. 

But eventually, you will give birth. There will be a product or a process or a new you that emerges. That is when you will receive the congratulations. You have produced something.

Without the gestational period, though, you would have nothing. And how often do we stop that gestational process or try to push it along faster than it should go, simply because we are impatient to have something to show for our efforts? 

Social Networks in the Creative Process

Harriett asks what role social networks can play in this process. Are they a place for us to be able to share these quieter, gestational moments in the creative proceess? 

In the end, it isn't about the technology as much as how we are using it. In my experience, because of the public nature of social networks and the fact that there's such pressure to build that "personal brand," we are reluctant to share with others those times when things are not so clear and perfect.  What will people think of us? If I share confusion or half-baked ideas, will it look like I don't have my act together? If I try out different ideas of myself that aren't part of that "personal brand" will I seem fragmented or confused?

I would love a world where our participation in online networks could more realistically and effectively encompass our humanity. Where we didn't feel that we had to portray ourselves as always being "together." Where we could feel more comfortable exposing our vulnerabilities and half-formed thoughts without fear of judgement from others. 

There's a saying I've heard that goes like this:

We judge our insides by other people's outsides.

I think online social networks exacerbate this problem. Everywhere I turn, there are people who seem endlessly inspirational and chipper,  full of energy and quotes and general awesomeness. To share those moments when I'm in the darker aspects of creation, when I'm questioning myself and what I believe. . . that can feel incredibly dangerous. 

I do think we have a choice. Technology is a tool and we can choose to use our networks to support or hinder our humanity. We can use technology to connect to other people who get that creativity is complex and isn't always about being able to produce the shiny new product or person. It's full of dead ends and weird ideas and things that don't pan out. It's also full of self-doubt and self-recrimination. Even, dare I say, shame.  

Using our networks to support us in the darker sides of creation takes courage and a willingness to be authentic. It requires us to be vulnerable. And it requires us to reach out to others, to show ourselves and to accept others when they are willing to show their own vulnerabilities. 

We can use our networks to support the gestational parts of our creativity and I think that we should where it makes sense. Sometimes we will need the quiet moments of disconnection to get clear within our own minds. But there are also times when it makes sense for us to share those half-formed thoughts and ideas with others. We just need to find and create that safe space where it's allowed. 

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I have another career visioning session coming up on January 17. It's a great opportunity for you to get a clearer picture of your career in just a few hours. More information and the sign-up form are here. 

Dreams for Sale: The Economic Monoculture and Its Impact On Your Career

To freely choose barter as the basis for work is to commercialize our relationships and ourselves. I treat myself as a transaction in the making. I value myself according to what I can get for myself. My market value becomes my only value. I am now worth what the market will bear. So why shouldn't I get the highest price possible?

Part of the price of becoming a transaction is that we allow our value to be defined by others: an organization, a boss, a recruiter, a partner, a lover. I become a commodity whose worth rises and falls according to the marketplace. I place my self-esteem in the hands of forces that I cannot control (my emphasis) I am happy when the price rises and feel depressed in periods of depression--and I am literally depressed in times of deflation.

                    --Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters

Over the holidays, I read  Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything by F.S. Michaels, who argues that we have an underlying cultural narrative that treats all human enterprise--work, education, spirituality, even our relationships-- in economic terms. In this economic model:

• Everything is a market, governed by the laws of supply and demand. 
• People become commodities with little intrinsic value.  
• Relationships become transactional, based on "what have you done for me lately?" 
• We are constantly looking to "maximize value" and measure the worth of any project or activity in strictly econonmic terms. If it can't show "return on investment" then it must not be worth doing. 

More from The Smart Set: 

“[E]conomic beliefs, values, and assumptions are shaping how we think, feel, and act.” It’s not simply consumerist greed, that sort of predatory capitalism wildly on display on Wall Street. In Michaels’s definition, the economic story is one in which communities are not as important as individuals, in which one’s placement and performance in society is the result of an honest assessment of abilities, in which progress is driven by people’s desires and the fulfillment of those desires. In other words, each individual person is an entity striving to satiate their wants through rational economic decisions and their success or failure to achieve those goals is a direct result of the quality of their performance. As the “winner takes all” hierarchy spreads and the middle class bottoms out in nation after nation, a competitive “If you have what I want, I have to take it from you” system takes over. Or, as Intel president Andrew Grove put it, “If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person anywhere in the world who is capable of doing the same job. There are a lot of them and many of them are very hungry.”

This story affects every aspect of our culture, from a medical system that punishes the ill with massive debts and withholds care from the poor, to the corporate ownership of our artistic treasures (Bank of America’s art collection stands at more than 60,000 pieces, and they are happy to rent them out to museums strategically in order to increase their estimated value), to the increased instability in almost every job market. Most of our politicians, if not all, would agree this is the most efficient way to run our world. And they will fight to the death to maintain this status quo, if not drive us deeper into the story.

The result is that everything in our lives is evaluated by its economic value. If you’re making an argument for putting a stop to mountaintop mining, best couch it in terms of lost revenue from pollution, the economic burden of those in the area made ill, and the potential for lawsuits. Fights for worker rights such as paternal leave are framed with stats showing that rehiring and retraining a new worker is more expensive than allowing a new father to stay home for a few weeks. Even human rights groups, charities, and environmental advocates have taken up the language of economics because, when we talk about what things cost us these days, we generally mean “financially” and not “morally.”

This grand story, unexamined and invisible, is behind the rise of "personal branding," where we are marketing ourselves on a regular basis, to "prove" our value to current and potential employers. We treat ourselves as a product to be bought and sold on the open market, rather than as human beings with intrinsic value. (Olivier Blanchard has a great take on this in R.I.P. Personal Branding).

It is also the story behind our willingness to treat workers as interchangeable cogs in the machine, as "costs" to a business to be kept to a minimum in order to retain shareholder value. 

In the economic worldview, nothing is worth doing unless there is a reward for it. Everything and everyone must provide "value" in the marketplace. All things must be quantified and ultimately measured financially.  It is a de-humanizing view of the world that distracts us from talking about "value" in anything other than economic terms. 

Here's the thing. Whether we realize it or not, most of us are buying into this narrative. We make our career decisions based on what the market will bear rather than on any considered thinking around what really matters to us. We put endless effort into maximizing our value and competing with others, into proving our ROI. 

But this is how we find ourselves trapped in work that saps our souls and in organizations that leave us feeling abused and invisible. This economic understory reduces us and distracts us from talking about what really matters to us as human beings, rather than as rational economic actors. 

Peter Block has some interesting questions to help us step back from this economic view of ourselves:

• What does it mean when we lose contact or faith in our ideals, or our dreams and desires?
• Why would we give up the pursuit of our desires, of what matters to us, if the right offer doesn't come along?
• Why have we placed our desires up for auction?
• When did we decide that we could live without what was important to us or postpone our desires until we have implemented an exit strategy? 

To this list I would add:

• What would my career look like if I wasn't worried about selling to the highest bidder?
• What really matters to me, regardles of how much someone else is willing to pay for it? 

Seeing the economic monoculture at work has helped me understand so much of our frustration and confusion right now. We know on some deep level that seeing everything in financial terms is reductionist and de-humanizing. Until we really understand how this story plays out, though, it's hard for us to put a finger on what's wrong. 

Seeing this, we can start to tell a different story. We can start framing discussions not in economic terms, but in more holistic, human terms. We can start asking different questions about what matters and about how we can define success and value beyond the financial. We can start to build for ourselves lives and careers based on what is intrinsically important to us, rather than on what someone else says is valuable based on what they're willing to pay. 

How do you think the monoculture impacts you? How could you think differently, not just about your career, but about other facets of your life? 

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My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 31! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here. 

Change Your Frames, Change Your Career Story

“Frames are mental structures.  As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. Reframing is changing the way the public sees the world. . . . Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.”

                                                                --George Lakoff, Don't Think of an Elephant

I first encountered the idea of "frames" when I was reading George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant. I've thought about them more since I've spent time with appreciative inquiry and its premise that "words create worlds," and was reminded again while reading Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything by F.S. Michaels over the holidays. 

Frames are our mental constructs--the ways we view the world. They often act on us subconsciously, which makes their power all the more insidious. 

One simple frame I've written about before is the idea of training and development as either a cost or an investment. 

If we see development as a "cost," then when it's time to "cut costs," training will be on the chopping block. If it's an "investment," then we need to consider what our return is and whether or not we need to make a greater investment at certain times. 

Another potential career frame that can be controlling our stories is thinking of our current job as either a prison or a home base.  When it is a prison, then we are powerless and have no control--other people are controlling what we do and how we do it. We have no choices and can't get out. But if it's a "home base," then it can be a space from which we explore other options. It's something that provides a level of stability while we seek change. 

You see, then, that if we change the frame, we change how we see the situation. We also change the options that are available to us. 

One of the things that I think is helpful when we think about our careers is trying to find the underlying "frame" for our story and seeing if there's another frame that could be more useful to consider. How could playing with different metaphors open up new possibilities?

What happens, for example, if I think of my career as a garden, in which I plant seeds and nurture plants to maturity, a garden where the crops are rotated in order to keep the soil healthy and rich?  How does this change how I approach my career?

Or what if I think of conversations at work as being relational, rather than transactional? In other words, what if I approach my conversations as a way to build up a rich network of relationships, rather than as simply a way to get things done? How does that change what I do? 

What if "failures" are "learning opportunities"? What if "problems" are "possibilities"? What if "I'm stuck," is "I'm resting" or "I'm lost" is "I'm on an adventure"? 

Writing a new career story means finding new frames and new language to describe our journey. One of the most powerful things we can do is to identify and change those frames that are no longer working for us.

When we feel stuck or confused or disheartened, we need to find the new frames that will let us write a better story. 

What career frames help or hinder you? How could you change your frames to help you create something new? 

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If you'd like a chance to look at your current career story and create a new one, sign up for the Career Clarity Camp, starting Monday, January 9. You can join a great group of people from all over the world who will be working on co-creating their own new stories. Information and sign-up is here. 

Courage, Vulnerability and Being Wholehearted at Work

One of the things I love about the social web is the serendipty of finding just the thing you need when you need it. Sometimes it's like magic and it's what keeps me coming back for more. 

This morning, via a Facebook comment from Beth Kanter, I was led to Sahana Chattopadhyay's blog post on Trust, Tacit Knowledge and Social Business. One of the links Sahana referenced was this TEdTalk from Brene Brown.  It's one of those talks I had to watch a few times because it had so many relevant, important things to say about courage, vulnerability and connection. If you haven't seen it, take the next 20 minutes to watch it--some amazing insights from her 12 years of research. 

So some highlights that I think connect to work and career . ..

First, Brene very clearly lays out that as human beings--and no matter what, we must start from the premise that we are humans--what gives our lives meaning and purpose is a sense of connection. Feeling connected to people around us is critical.  From a practical perspective, work must be done in teams and with other people, so connecting with them is clearly important. But on a deeper level, a feeling of connection helps keep us motivated and engaged in the work.  It's hard-wired into us. Without it, it's hard to continue, especially when times are tough. 

Brene's research was about connection and she says that 6 weeks into it, she found that there was something in people that absolutely unraveled their efforts to connect. It turned out to be shame and fear. In fact, according to Brene's defintion, shame is most easily understood as a fear of disconnection--is there something about me that if other people see it will make me unworthy of connection? And underneath shame, she found, is a feeling of excruciating vulnerability, that in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen. 

(Image from graphic recording of Brene Brown session) 

So her research continued and what she discovered was that what separated the people who felt connected from the people who didn't was their own inner sense of worthiness. In other words, those who felt they were worthy of connection felt the most connection. Those who felt unworthy, felt disconnected. 

In looking at the people who felt  worthy of connection, she found that they were "whole-hearted." More importantly, they had a sense of courage. And here's the definition of courage that she worked with:

The root of the word courage is cor -- the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant to speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.

Over time, this definition has changed, and, today, courage is more synonymous with being heroic. Heroics are important and we certainly need heroes, but I think we've lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we are, about what we're feeling, and about our experiences (good and bad) is the definition of courage.

Heroics are often about putting our life on the line. Courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. If we want to live and love with our whole hearts and engage in the world from a place of worthiness, our first step is practicing the courage it takes to own our stories and tell the truth about who we are. It doesn't get braver than that.

 

(Image from graphic recording of Brene Brown session) 

Whole-hearted people had the courage to be imperfect. They had compassion for themselves in their imperfection, which gave them greater compassion for other people's imperfections. And they had authenticity--the courage to give up their image of who they thought they SHOULD be, in order to be who they actually are. 

Most importantly, they fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful.  They didn't see being vulnerable as comfortable, nor did they see it as being "excruciating." But they did see it as necessary. And they were willing to do things where there were no guarantees, no certainty in terms of how other people might react or behave. 

So what does all of this have to do with work? Last week I wrote about the six workplace skills I think we need in the 21st century.  Self-awareness, the ability to engage in authentic conversations and empathic listening were on that list, all of which are tied to this issue of living whole-heartedly and with courage, of being willing to make ourselves vulnerable and to see our vulnerability as necessary, not something to be avoided. 

I don't think it is easy to make ourselves vulnerable, especially at work. It feels like there are so many traps and hidden land mines. How will our vulnerabilities be used against us?

But the thing is, when we hide these things, when we retreat into perfectionism and/or shame, we lose the sense of connection that is fundamental to our ability to live effectively in the world. We guarantee our disconnection at a time when we need connection the most. 

One of the things I'm exploring this year is how to be more vulnerable, how to show this kind of courage in my work, where  I let go of being the hero and focus on inviting connection by exposing those places where I feel vulnerable. When I've been able to do this, I've found tremendous growth, not only for myself, but for the people I work with. But it's a challenge. I can't lie. 

So how do you feel about courage and vulnerability at work? What do you struggle with here? How can we do a better job of supporting each other in allowing for vulnerability in our careers? 

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My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 30! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here.