an e-newsletter

If you would like to receive Reflections, which is published no more often than weekly, please send an e-mail to janet@janetmccallen.com and put Reflections in the subject.

2005

2004

Reflections on Scottie

June 18, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

A really good friend died last night – a border collie named Scottie.  I don’t know what he died of; he was only 9, and he’d been not feeling great… then seeming okay again, for the past few weeks.  His breathing grew labored, and he just expired in a short time.  I hope it was painless – he deserved painless.  I was literally sick when I heard he was gone.

 

Scottie had one of those charmed – and yet not so charmed – lives.  He was beloved by the family with whom he’d lived since he was a puppy.  But he had a couple of medical problems early on, hard to identify and resolve, and partially as a result, he was really skittish around strangers.  Guess one too many vets had done things that hurt. 

 

Scottie, like most border collies, had to have a job.  His first choice for jobs was to fetch the ball (the slimy wet ball) that he would keep putting into your hand or on your lap.  If that duty got rejected (or when whomever inevitably got tired), then he’d be happy to guard the truck.  Ferociously, I might add.  Woe be to whomever might get near that truck!

 

Our Jenny (the Kerry Blue Terrorist) shamelessly took advantage of Scottie’s good nature, taking his toys, despite weighing quite a bit less.  Scottie was ever the gentleman, saying “Hey, Jenny, if you want that toy, you can have it.”  And he followed her into the lake, swimming with her as monkey in the middle when the football was thrown.  Both Rory and Jenny perked up when Scottie’s boat came near; they knew their friend was close by. 

 

Yesterday we had fun on the lake.  Scottie was on his float, and Jenny fetched the water toy.  Then Scottie fetched the toy and took it back to his float, where he proceeded to tear it to pieces – usually what Jenny does to toys (Rory observed calmly from the boat).  Jenny’s torn up quite a few of Scottie’s toys, so I watched with amusement as Scottie had his fun. 

 

At one point in Jenny’s swimming, she got close to Scottie’s float and climbed aboard.  Like the gentleman he always was, he let her, and they shared the float until her highness’s desire to swim prompted her to jump in again.

 

Later, I was floating, and Scottie’s float came alongside.  I reached out to give him a scratch, and he licked my hand.  In light of what happened last night, that was quite a benediction.  He was quite a dog.  And he will be sorely missed.  Good-bye, dear friend.

 

Wishing you the blessings of pets you love,

Janet 

Reflections on Swirls

June 11, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I was watching the mist on the lake one morning recently, fascinated.  We get mist when the temperature at night falls below the temperature of the lake (which is almost 80 degrees now!).  Usually the mist moves along in one direction or another, blown by the breeze, or following the current.  But for some reason this particular morning, it was swirling in circles.  Big circles and little circles, swirling and coming full circle.

 

I’m honored that you’ve allowed me to reach out to you weekly for the past few years with my Reflections.  I’ve enjoyed writing them, and many of you have written to tell me that you’ve enjoyed reading them.  This isn’t to say that I won’t ever send out Reflections again, but it is to say that they will probably be less frequent, at least for a while.  Other things are swirling in my life, and I am drawn to explore them.  As I find insights worth sharing, I’ll continue to send out periodic Reflections.

 

Wishing you new adventures to keep you young,

Janet

Reflections on Cesar's Way

May 28, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

Those of you who know me know that we have two wonderful, intelligent, loving, and very stubborn dogs – Jenny and Rory.  They are Kerry Blue Terriers – or, as is sometimes more accurate, Kerry Blue Terrorists.  Owning such strong-willed dogs is an enormous responsibility, requiring us to constantly demonstrate that we are the pack leaders – because either will sense any vacuum in leadership and rush in to fill it. 

 

For example, Jenny always rushed past us on the stairs, getting to the top (or the bottom) first.  I’ve learned that that’s not “cute” – it’s a sign she feels she is the leader.  So I’m usually careful these days to command “Wait!” and insist that she wait until I’m up (or down) before she follows.  Rory learned early on to wait for me, and even if he runs up behind me, he’ll stop himself until I am off the stairs.  He’s the easier of the two to train.

 

So when Cesar's Way hit the best seller list, I was intrigued.  Then a customer recommended it to Pat, so I ordered the unabridged CD version.  Wow!  I had never seen Cesar Milan’s “The Dog Whisperer” on the National Geographic Channel, but I was quickly drawn into his story.  (He reads the book himself for the audio version). 

 

The revelation that the book held for me is that he believes that most dogs need to be walked at least 90 minutes a day.  Letting them out in the yard to run is no substitute, Cesar says, for walking with their pack leader.  He claims that many behavioral problems our pets exhibit are due to too little exercise – thus, the dogs have nervous energy to burn, and they do.  Also, a dog who’s reminded of who the pack leader is for 90 minutes a day has an easier time of remembering it during times of stress, like when that nasty UPS man comes to the door. 

 

If you own a dog, or ever think you might, I highly recommend Cesar's Way.  And besides, the additional exercise isn’t bad for me, either!

 

Wishing you the joy of a canine companion,

Janet

Reflections on Building

May 21, 2006

Dear Friends,

 

As I was walking around our yard-to-be with a fencing contractor, planning how to fence a yard so that Jenny and Rory can run and play, he commented on how building a house is the closest most couples come to getting a divorce.  I looked up in surprise, since I’ve enjoyed this process.  I mean, at this point it feels like being 7½ months pregnant – I’m ready to be moved in, and we’re still more than a month away. 

 

So I reflected on why so many couples find building a painful, conflict-producing process – and why we haven’t. 

 

And what popped in my mind was a scene from the original “Yours, Mine and Ours.”  The one starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.  Near the end, when they’re adopting each other’s children, the judge says “How do you feed and clothe and keep 18 children clean?  My wife’s got full time help and only one child, and she can’t get dinner on the table half the time.”  Lucille Ball smiles sweetly, and replies:  “Well, it takes a lot of love, and hard work… and a husband who doesn’t criticize!” 

 

Oh, and our builder’s been great, moving windows and walls after they’d been built, providing good advice.  And I really get a kick out of seeing things get built that I had imagined:  the niche for the phone in the kitchen, for instance, or the arch over the pantry.

 

But our secret, I think, is that the only thing Pat’s offered has been praise for the choices I’ve made.  If he thinks any of them were less than optimal, he’s keeping that to himself, and he makes me feel good about the home we’re building.

 

That reminds me of the definition of a nurturing person:  someone whose eyes light up when you enter a room, and who has few – if any – plans for your improvement.

 

Wishing you many nurturing people around you,
Janet

Reflections on Mother's Day

May 14, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

My Mother just turned 80, and that’s pretty special.  To make it even better, this summer when we move into the house we’re building, she’s buying our townhouse and moving up here to Hiawassee.  It will be great to have her close by.

 

My Mother has taught me a lot of wonderful lessons.  I could not catalogue them all, but I’ll share a couple:

 

- We do what needs doing, using the skills we have.  After Daddy’s stroke, Mother (who had always kept the books for Daddy’s businesses) took a more active role.  When he died, he left a big hole – but the business kept on just fine, thanks to Mother’s oversight. 

 

- It’s never too late for an adventure.  Mother cruised to Antarctica in January of this year.  My role model!

 

- Family is very important, and you nurture those relationships by loving acceptance, and by not criticizing.  That way, everyone is happy to see you!

 

Mother’s Day is a reminder to stop and remember how blessed we have been.  Whatever the stresses that may have been in your relationship with your Mother, I’m sure there’s some sweet, loving memory that makes you smile.  If she’s still alive, share that with her.  And if she’s not, give thanks and share the story. 

 

Wishing you the blessing of unconditional love,
Janet

Reflections on The Tipping Point

Reflections on Check-In, Again

April 24, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

I’ve been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.”  I know, it’s not a new book.  But I didn’t read it when it came out, and a friend invited me to go to a local book club meeting, with “The Tipping Point” as this month’s book.  So I ordered it, and have really enjoyed it.  I may write about it in a week or so.

 

What sparked my Reflections today was a passage about “effective institutional transactive memory.”  Gladwell is explaining about how and why Gore and Associates limits its plant sizes to 150 people.  “How” is that they put 150 spaces in the parking lot.  When people start parking on the grass, they build a new plant.  “Why” is because they can operate a flat organization, with little bureaucracy, with 150 or fewer folks, because people know each other. 

 

Here’s how Gladwell paraphrases one associate (everyone’s title at Gore) as describing it:  “…it’s knowing someone well enough to know what they know, and knowing them well enough so that you can trust them to know things in their specialty.  It’s the re-creation, on an organization-wide level, of the kind of intimacy and trust that exists in a family.”

 

I highlighted this passage (thanks, Mark, I’m still using that Levenger highlighter!), and wrote in the margin:  check-in and check-out.

 

That’s what regular check-in and check-out does for a group:  helps build effective institutional transactive memory.   As people reveal more and more about themselves as fallible, hopeful individuals, we are more and more likely to trust them.  To attribute to them good intentions, to give them the benefit of the doubt. 

 

And that’s very important, since we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions, and to judge others by their actions.  If we are suspicious of “the other,” we will attribute ill intentions to their actions.  If we know and care for “the other,” we will tend to attribute good intentions – to the same actions. 

 

And here's something important:  in an atmosphere of caring and mutual support, most of us will tend to behave with more integrity and commitment to purpose than we would in an atmosphere of suspicion and back-biting. 

 

So by using a practice like check-in and check-out, we can help to create the situation we want:  commitment to purpose and integrity in those with whom we associate.

 

Wishing you integrity in those with whom you associate,

Janet

Reflections on Good to Great

April 16, 2006

Dear Friends,

 

I came late to the appreciation of Jim Collins.  A friend gave me Good to Great and I started it reluctantly, resisting one more book crammed with business success stories.  Good to Great is research-based, but that wasn’t a selling point for me – it just meant more business data – which doesn’t always translate well to voluntary organizations.

 

But I got sucked in and sold.  The principles Collins developed about how some businesses go from good to great (and others don’t) were sometimes counter-intuitive, but once I read them, they all rang true to me.  And so, before Collins spoke to a Financial Planning Association convention (and spent some time with the FPA Board), I also read his first book, Built to Last.  It was also excellent.  In working with associations, though, I found a few of Collins’ principles that I felt needed tweaking.  Here’s a summary:  Good to Great:  Janet’s Thoughts.

 

Fast forward a few years.  Collins has been working with the ASAE Foundation on applying his principles to not-for-profit organizations.  The research isn’t finished, but he’s thought enough about it that he wrote and published a monograph to help voluntary organization leaders apply Good to Great principles to their organizations:  Good to Great and the Social Sectors.  It was given to me by the very same, very good friend who originally gave me Good to Great.  Predictably, I put off reading it until recently. 

 

All I have to say is – Wow!  Every tax-exempt organization leader should read it.  If you haven’t read Good to Great, it contains enough of an explanation of the principles that you can understand it – and you’ll probably want to read Good to Great next, because you’ll be hooked.  If you have, you’ll really appreciate the thought and the examples that Collins brings.

 

He offers some valuable thoughts on applying the Hedgehog concept (especially economic drivers) to voluntary organizations.  He maintains “first who, then what.”  I’m not sure I’m convinced, but it would make a great conversation for thoughtful folks. 

 

And best of all – it’s quite short, and an easy read.  I highly recommend it. 

 

Wishing you the blessing of a great organization for which to work,
Janet

Reflections on How Boards Work - Beginnings

April 1, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

In addition to the introductory items I wrote about last week, there are a couple of additional items you should consider for the beginning of your board meetings. 

 

The first is an elaboration of my remark last week that if you can tie your brief review of the agenda to your strategic plan, and illustrate how each item on the agenda supports one of your strategic goals, the value of the agenda review will increase by a power of ten.  So this suggestion is that you explicitly review your mission and strategic goals at the beginning of the meeting, and show how your agenda advances them.

 

Some of you may be reflecting on your recent agendas, realizing that many items on your agenda do not directly support your strategic goals.  So why are those items on your agenda?  One example is the proposal by another organization that yours join it in doing so-and-so.  Most precisely because it doesn’t fit in your strategic goals, the staff or executive committee has no way easy way to make a decision about it, so it goes on the board agenda.  And if it goes early on the board agenda, it may eat up precious board time.  But if you follow the discipline of organizing your board agenda around your strategic goals, it will be obvious that this doesn’t fit.  So if it goes on the board agenda at all, it should go near the end, when it will likely be given less time – which it probably deserves.  If this sort of proposal is approved, it frequently leads to “mission creep” – the organization doing lots of things not precisely mission-oriented, because someone else suggested it.  This is especially easy to slip into if there is a grant or other financial support involved.  So guard your agenda with your strategic goals. 

 

The second suggestion is an inspirational reading.  Before each meeting, ask someone to volunteer to bring a brief inspirational meeting to share with the group.  This need not take more than 1-2 minutes, and in my experience it’s often uncanny how the reading selected will illuminate some board conversation, providing additional depth.  Plus, having the group focus on something inspirational (in the broad sense of the word) helps elevate the tone of the meeting.  It reminds us that we aspire to do and be good, in the world and in this meeting.

 

My third suggestion will come as no surprise to those of you who’ve been in a meeting I’ve facilitated:  that you begin each meeting with a check-in.  I’ve written on check-in before (The Practice of Check-In and Check-Out).  Check-in is simply a practice of going around the room (you are all seated so that you can see each other, aren’t you?), with each person sharing whatever they feel important about what’s going on with them, especially as it relates to the meeting.  For a more complete explanation, please see The Practice of Check-In and Check-Out.  

 

Although it initially is time-consuming, groups soon learn to self-monitor and keep the time reasonable in relationship to the length of the meeting.  And the reason it is initially time-consuming is that most people have a great unmet need to be heard.

 

Groups who regularly practice check-in find that their trust level in each other goes up dramatically.  The group makes better decisions, because the conversations are deeper and more perceptive – because the people know each other better.  Does it take time?  Yes.  But it leads to increasing effectiveness as a board.

 

Wishing you participation in effective groups,

Janet

Reflections on How Boards Work - Introductory Items

March 26, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

How do you start your board meetings?  This Reflections is about those introductory items that set the tone for your meeting.

 

First, of course (and maybe most important) is that you start on time.  If your meeting is scheduled to start at 2pm, start at 2pm.  If you don’t, if you wait for those who haven’t gotten there yet, you “train” everyone to come late, because you will not start on time anyway.  Don’t be rude to those who showed up on time in order to be polite to those who didn’t.  Set the tone for integrity, for doing what you say, by starting on time.

 

Next, welcome and thank everyone for coming.  Those who serve on nonprofit boards do so because they want to contribute to making the world a better place.  They have displaced family, work, and other obligations to be there.  Thank them.

 

Review the agenda for the meeting and ask for any concerns (see Reflection on How Boards Work - Agendas).   The Board should concur that the agenda is appropriate, that nothing urgent has been omitted.  If it has, add it, at the appropriate place.

 

This review is more powerful by a factor of ten if you can tie it to the purpose and goals of the organization.  Explain how the agenda items relate directly to your strategic objectives.  Keep reiterating your purpose, your values, and how you are bringing them to life by the conversations you’ve planned.

 

Ask if there are any corrections to the minutes of the last meeting – which you will assume that everyone has read.  If you do, everyone will have read them.  At least the next time.

 

What does not belong at the beginning of the meeting?  Announcements.  Do not use up the precious beginning of the meeting, when everyone should be most focused on the big issues and long term interests of the group, to remind members of upcoming events, etc.  If there are announcements that must be made verbally, do them right before the group breaks for lunch, or right before the meeting adjourns.

 

Review any ground rules that are important to the group.  Generally speaking, ground rules need to be reviewed until the group has so internalized them that it will enforce them without prompting if they are ever violated.  Some examples of ground rules:

·         We will disagree in our meeting, but once a decision is made, the entire board supports it.

·         Disagreements are about issues, not about people.

What ground rules are important to your group?

 

Launch into the most important topic on your agenda, and enjoy the conversation!

 

Next week:  some ideas to add to the beginning of your meetings.

 

Wishing you meetings worthy of your time,
Janet

Reflection on How Boards Work - Agendas

March 19, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

Who sets the agenda for your board?  Last week I explained why I think the order of business as set down in most rules of order will lead most boards to sub‑optimize, to fail to live up to their potential to help their organization achieve its objectives.

 

But if you don’t follow that order of business, what should be on your agenda?  And who decides?

 

Unfortunately, many organizations with paid staff expect the chief staff officer to prepare the agenda.  This leads to agendas where the board primarily responds to staff initiatives and staff needs.  And that’s not what boards are for, responding to staff needs.  Boards are to lead, to govern, to set direction.  (If your organization doesn’t have staff, boards may also do a lot of the work and need an “unpaid staff meeting”, but that’s a separate responsibility.)

 

If your board intends to lead, to govern, to set direction, who is responsible for its agenda?  Why the board itself.  Of course, I’m not recommending that everyone show up without an agenda and then spend the first part of your meeting creating one.  But I am recommending that at the end of each meeting, there be a time when the board is asked what it would like to have on its next agenda. 

 

So the board chair would take this input, along with input from the chief staff officer, and create an agenda.  One of the most ubiquitous problems I see is too much on an agenda, leaving little time to deal with any one issue.  If the issues aren’t important enough for some real conversation among the board (and if they are, 15-20 people can’t talk about them in 5 -10 minutes!), what are they doing on the agenda anyway?

 

Then there’s the question of what order topics should be on the agenda.  Generally speaking, in order of importance, since boards will tend to “dig in” and talk at length about the first substantive topic they come to.  That way, if some topics get short shrift, or even get postponed to the next meeting, they will be topics of lesser importance.  

 

Where do reports belong on the agenda?  As I said last week, reports should be sent out ahead of time, and the board should behave as if everyone has read them.  If the board does this consistently, everyone will develop the habit of reading them.  So the agenda should include, very near the end, an item of questions on reports.  If there’s not a question, no need to talk about them.

 

And finally, one of the introductory items (more on those next week) should be a brief conversation about the agenda.  The chair should review it briefly, and ask for any concerns.  It’s not necessary for the board to formally approve the agenda, but this brief conversation allows any board member who feels something important was omitted to ask for it to be included.

 

Wishing you substantive agendas worthy of your time,
Janet

Reflections on How Boards Work, II

March 12, 2006

Dear Friends,

 

More this week on how boards work.  Again, I want to start with affirming that Rules of Order (whether Robert’s or Sturgis) can have an important role in large assemblies, especially to protect the rights of the minority.  And again, I’ll contend that their use in boards of 20 or fewer members can sub-optimize the board’s ability to help the organization achieve its goals.

 

Specifically, let’s talk order of business.  Here is what www.rulesonline.com has to say:

 

Order of Business. It is customary for every society having a permanent existence to adopt an order of business for its meetings. When no rule has been adopted, the following is the order:

(1) Reading the Minutes of the previous meeting [and their approval].

(2) Reports of Boards and Standing Committees.

(3) Reports of Special (Select) Committees.

(4) Special Orders.

(5) Unfinished Business and General Orders

(6) New Business.

 

Robert’s Rules of Order were (was?) written around the time of the Civil War, well before mimeograph or photocopiers, much less ubiquitous e-mail.  At that time, the only way to provide the minutes and committee reports to everyone was to read them.  Out loud.  But I can’t think of a worse use of a board’s precious time today than having minutes read, or reports given verbally to the entire group. 

 

A board’s time should be reserved for conversation about important issues.  It should not be used to hear reports.  Reports (and minutes) should be written and sent ahead of time to the members, and members should be expected to have read them.  If the board acts as if everyone has read the reports, everyone will develop the habit of reading the reports ahead of time.

 

But the most important point I want to make about the order of business is this:  most groups gather with an instinctual desire to get involved in a substantive conversation.  They will engage in a “substantive” conversation (unless they’re frustrated by an authoritarian chair) on the first opportunity.  That second substantive is in quotes because if the group follows the order of business in Robert’s, the first topic is unlikely to be substantive.  But that won’t stop the members of the board from having opinions, and questions, and other opinions, and offering experiences, and disagreeing with each other, and generally getting into a tangle of discussion, using up precious board meeting time.

 

How to avoid using up precious board meeting time on relatively unimportant issues?  The simple answer is to order the agenda according to the relative importance of the issues.  The most important issue should be the first substantive item on the agenda, after the introductory items.  That way, when the board dives in and gets engaged on that issue, it will be a good use of the group’s time.

 

More next week on the order of business.

 

Wishing you boards that use your time well,
Janet

Reflections on How Boards Work

March 5, 2006
Dear Friends:

 

In his seminal work Boards That Make a Difference, John Carver talks about how incredible it is that most boards are made up of really bright, capable, dedicated people, who, when on a board, act in ways that waste time, frustrate themselves and each other, and sub-optimize the organization’s chance of achieving its objectives.  (If many of my books weren’t packed away until our house is built, I’d give you Carver’s exact quote.)  Why is it that bright people come together on a board and then act dumb?  Essentially, Carver’s answer is that the traditional way most boards work doesn’t work.  At least not well.  And he offers the prescription of Policy Governance, which is a radical departure from the way most boards work.

 

My intent today isn’t to summarize Carver for you (the link above will take you to a description of his book on Amazon.com), though I might do that later if there’s interest.  My intent over the next few weeks is to talk about some the assumptions many of us have about how boards are supposed to work – and to question some of those assumptions.

 

Many of these false assumptions come from one of the most venerated books of all time.  No, not the Bible, but Robert's Rules of Order.  Now Robert’s (and Sturgis, which I happen to prefer when I need rules of order) can serve a real purpose, if you have a cantankerous group in which one faction is prone to run roughshod over another.  It is a system for protecting the rights of the minority, and is probably essential if you’re conducting a business meeting with several hundred people.

 

But if the board or committee you’re on includes fewer than 20 (and I hope it does!), then following Robert’s is not only probably unnecessary most of the time, but leads to sub‑optimization.  Here’s one example:  according to Robert’s, there is no discussion unless there’s a motion on the floor.  So a group shouldn’t surface a problem and explore it verbally together, searching for a solution that feels right to most of the participants.  Instead, someone is supposed to decide what the solution should be and propose that to the group in a motion.  If someone else agrees with him/her, they second the motion, and only then can discussion of the topic take place.

 

And I’m using the word “discussion” deliberately.  I’m not talking about dialogue here, since dialogue is effectively prohibited by rules or order (whether Robert’s or Sturgis).  This is discussion plain and simple, because (other than questions), each person who speaks to a motion should state up front whether they are “for” or “against” the motion.  In other words, make up your mind before you listen to anyone else. 

 

Does this sound like it promotes good decision-making?  I don’t think so. 

 

I think good decisions come out of asking questions, and wondering, and exploring, and listening intently to each other and what is and is not said.  Good decisions come out of knowledge and sensitivity.  Good group decisions require allowing for the possibility that we will learn from each other, that by being open to new perspectives we might be able to create a better solution together than any of us could conceive by ourselves. 

 

Wishing you groups that are open to learning,

Janet

Reflections on Fresh Eyes, II

February 26, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

Last week’s Reflections on Fresh Eyes wasn’t really about word games.  It was about how our brains take clues and organize them into patterns based on what we expect to see.  For another example, read this excerpt that Don Pitti sent me:

 

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg

 

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt

 

Fascinating, isn’t it?  Your brain can decode it because it uses patterns it’s previously learned. 

 

But I’m less interested in how to get better at word games than I am fascinated by my brain taking a few clues and producing a meaning, a “truth” for me.  I can see that if I’ve previously felt (decided?) that someone is arrogant and pigheaded, in my next encounter with them, it wouldn’t take much for my brain to organize what I see and feel into “proof” that that person is arrogant and pigheaded.  (Or silly and self-centered…. or witty and erudite…)  My brain will pick out a few “clues,” discarding what doesn’t fit my expectations, and reinforce my previous impressions.

 

In one of my favorite quotes, Abraham Lincoln said that “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  If you seem to continually encounter rude, ignorant people, perhaps it’s because that’s what your brain is programmed to see.  The next time it happens, push yourself to go out of your way to treat them nicely anyway.  If saying something nice feels like a stretch, just smile.  You can smile at some nice memory of your own (somebody loves you), but share it with the other person.  You might get a smile back – and be surprised at how a smile back can change your impression of a person.

 

Wishing you fresh eyes,

Janet

Reflections on Fresh Eyes

February 19, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

I’ve been playing a word game called Super Text Twist lately ($19.95; sold at many game sites).  It provides you with six or seven letters, and you make as many words as you can from the letters available.  It either allows or disallows each word you try.  You can click on the “twist” icon and it will scramble and re-scramble the letters, offering new views and – you hope – inspirations for words you haven’t seen yet in the letters.  If you find the longest word possible, you can move on to the next level, even if you didn’t get all the words.  And when it fills in the words you missed, you can click on a little icon to get a definition of the word, in case you don’t know what it means.

 

I have found that I have the most success when I concentrate first on the longest word, scrambling and re-scrambling the letters until the little light bulb goes off and I see the longest word.  Then I can go back and fill in the shorter words, the three and four and five letter words.  (Why is it that I can rarely see “emu” or “sari” or “deli”?  You’d think the third or fifth time I missed them that I’d start remembering!)

 

But sometimes the shorter words just seem to jump out at me, and I start filling them in.  Some are easy – when you have e, a and t, you can always spell “ate,” “eat,” and “tea.”  And those lead to longer words – “eaten” or “teal.”  And before you know it, most of the shorter words are filled in.  And they become imprinted on my brain.  And I keep scrambling and re-scrambling the letters, looking for the longest word – but what I keep seeing is the next-to-longest words, not the longest.

 

Because of what I already know, my brain hinders the “fresh eyes” necessary for me to see the longest word embedded in those letters.  My brain can’t see the full potential of what’s there, because the lesser words are already imprinted in my mind.

 

How many times does that happen to me in the real world, with people?  Where I can’t see the potential that’s really there, because I’m seeing what I already “know”? 

 

Wishing you the blessing of fresh eyes,
Janet

Reflections on Making Room

February 12, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

Many of us lead lives so crowded that it’s hard for anything new to wedge itself in. 

 

As I’ve written about previously, I’m certainly familiar with the physical manifestation of this phenomenon:  so much stuff crammed in my living spaces that it’s hard to walk around.  I’ve been on a slow journey into lightening up my “stuff.”  I’ll tackle a drawer here, or a shelf there, and clear out.  Some gets thrown away, some gets donated. 

 

I’m trying to adjust my mindset from “how many” or “how much” of these can I have to “how few” or “how little” of these do I need?  It’s a slow process to reverse years and years of acquisitiveness.  To reverse years and years of assuming that more is better.  I’m discovering that more choices do not necessarily make life easier; they can make life more difficult.  And that richness can come from simplicity as well as complexity.  Maybe more easily from simplicity than from complexity.

 

This clearing out can have a mental and spiritual aspect as well as a physical one.  In order to have the room for new learning to come into my life, I have to let go of my preoccupation with old “stuff.”  I’ve done this before, of course.  It’s usually pretty painful when I realize that I’m going to need to let go of some old assumptions and find new ground to walk on.  In fact, it feels something like Peter must have felt when Jesus called on him to step out of the boat and walk across the water.  Like when I realized that my superb organizational skills would never, could never be sufficient to the challenges I was facing and I would have to stop figuring out how to do more, but instead figure out how to do less.

 

I had built my whole persona around those organizational skills, around the ability to take on ever more.  Who was I if I wasn’t that person?  As I shed that skin, something like a snake, I discovered yet again that there’s life after. 

 

Here’s a passage from a newsletter called The Rose (published by Emmanuel Church, 498 Prince Avenue, Athens GA  30601), written by The Rev. Susan Sims-Smith:

God is always making a space for more wholeness, and this requires very specific sacrifices.  This is part of the beauty of the dream process.  Each of us will be told specifically what to surrender.  And the ego gets stronger and stronger, just like a muscle.  Instead of putting up so much resistance, it beings to say, “Okay this sounds really hard, but I’ve tried it before.  My little kid and I have lived through it, and something so fabulous has always come from it.  So I’m going to dive off that diving board and try it again.”

 

Wishing you the courage to make room in your life,
Janet

Reflections on the Upside of Anger

January 29, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

Have you seen the movie “The Upside of Anger,” starring Kevin Costner?  If you haven’t, and you want to, stop reading now, because I’m going to give away the plot.

 

***********

 

I didn’t like the movie, but I thought it was a striking illustration of how we can be prisoners of the stories we make up to explain why other people act as they do.  According to one plot description:  “When her husband unexpectedly disappears, a sharp-witted suburban wife and her daughters juggle their mom's romantic dilemmas and family dynamics.”  The woman (played by Joan Allen) decides that he’s left her and his family and run off with his secretary.  She’s very angry at him (thus the title), at being treated like that.  She’s incredulous that through most of a year, he doesn’t contact them.  She remains angry – angry at him, and at her daughters for not being as angry as she is.

 

At the very end of the movie, it’s discovered (stop now if you intend to see the movie!) that he didn’t run off after all – he fell in an old well and died.  He didn’t leave them.  For a year, she was so angry at him for leaving her without a word – and he was moldering in the ground, unmourned and unburied.  For a year, she’s consumed by anger caused not by reality, but by the story she made up to explain what happened.

 

Most of us won’t find ourselves in quite that dramatic a story (thank goodness!).  But many of us, if we slow down and look closely, may find ourselves feeling anger, or hurt, or some other emotion, based not on reality, but on the story we make up to explain why someone did what they did. 

 

The next time a strong negative emotion washes over you, see if you can get just the little bit of perspective to ask yourself whether it was caused by what really happened, or by the story you’ve made up about why it happened.  Using those stories we make up, we then justify doing (and not doing) things that can sour relationships unnecessarily – starting or feeding a negative spiral.

 

If you’d like to read more about how this can affect you and how to break the habit, there are a couple of good books I’d recommend:  Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box is a business fable, and an easy read.  Bonds That Make Us Free: Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves  is a longer treatment on the same topic, and very worthwhile. 

 

Wishing you no troubles from stories you’ve made up,
Janet

Reflections on Stone Soup, II

January 22, 2006
Dear Friends,

 

Do you remember Rodney Dangerfield’s movie “Back to School”?  Rodney’s character, who is very rich and goes back to college to spend time with his son, hires Kurt Vonnegut to write a report on a book that Vonnegut wrote – to fulfill Rodney’s literature assignment.  He gets a bad grade – the professor says the interpretation of the book is all wrong.

 

Just like Rodney and Kurt, I’ve always detested being told that what I got out of a story or poem was wrong, and I suspect you have, too.  So I want to offer a view of the Story of Stone Soup to add to – not replace - whatever you took from it when you read it.

 

I’ve used that story with groups (boards, staff groups, etc.), to help them see the value of everyone’s contribution to the conversation.  In many groups, there are a few folks who rarely speak, fearing they have nothing to contribute.  There are usually a few folks who talk a lot, seeming to have the answer to everything.  Most conversations, like most soups, are enriched by a balance of many perspectives and ingredients.

 

In fact, just as in soup it can be the small amount of salt, or green onion, or Tabasco that “makes” the taste, in conversation it can be the “small” contribution of someone who’s been listening and assimilating that can provide the perspective the group needs. 

 

As long as everyone is prayerfully focused on the group’s intent in conversation, it can be the “I wonder…” or “I wish….” or “If only….” that can help the group see possibilities that a linear drive to decision might not illuminate. 

 

When a group comes together for a common purpose, and asks for what it needs to reach wise conclusions, each person has a role to play.  The more each of us learns to contribute from reflection and intuition, rather than habitual roles, the more inspired the group will be.

 

Wishing you soups and conversations with just the right seasoning,
Janet 

Reflections on Las Vegas

January 16, 2006

Dear Friends,

 

Because it was the location for a couple of presentations I gave, Pat and I spent a couple of days in Las Vegas last week – the glitzy capital of glitter.  The home location for America’s most popular TV show, CSI.  The adult equivalent of Disneyland, where you can move easily from Malaysia to Egypt to New York, New York, to Paris, to Venice. 

 

Hotel rooms in Las Vegas, however large and expensive they may be, aren’t designed for you to linger in them.  There are no coffee makers in the room, no mini bars.  The hotels want you out of your room and in the casinos.  The hotel in which we stayed (Mandalay Bay) has, someone told me, 27 restaurants and 31 bars.  And a theater, where we saw the show “Mamma Mia,” a musical featuring Abba’s songs.  Can’t go to Las Vegas without seeing a show!

 

We aren’t gamblers, but we took a little money to play with.  I took three rolls of quarters from our change collection, and found that in Las Vegas, coins are pretty much out-dated.  They’ve covered over the coin slots in most slot machines!  You need to insert a bill or a bar-coded ticket instead. 

 

Our favorite place to try our luck isn’t one of the glitzy new casinos, though.  It’s not the splendor of Bellagio or Caesar’s Palace.  It’s a little old casino called Barbary Coast.  The ceilings are low, the carpets are multi-colored, multi-patterned, and it’s crowded (unlike most of the other casino floors we wandered through).  If you can make your money last long enough at the slots, the waitress will bring you a “free” drink.  We did okay, with a couple of modest wins that offset our “investment.” 

 

The highlight of the trip was an extravagant lunch at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.  We had a window seat, overlooking the lake in front of the Bellagio, and got a personal demonstration of the water show in the Bellagio’s lake - one of Las Vegas' truly free entertainments.  They were testing the fountains, and it was pretty spectacular.

 

What a country this is!  That someone can go out in the desert and build this monument to glitz and glamour and greed… and it can become such a entertaining destination.  I wouldn’t want to live there (and thank goodness we didn’t meet any CSI’s!), but it’s a fun place once in a while.

 

Wishing you frivolity and fun in your life,
Janet

Reflections on Stone Soup

January 7, 2006

Dear Friends,

 

Many times I have told the story of Stone Soup to groups with whom I was working.  I first heard the story when Mother read it to me from my “How and Why Library” – part of a series of books she and Daddy bought me.  Recently, in trying to clear clutter, I found the book and reread the story.  Frankly, I was disappointed – I like the version I’ve been telling better than the original!  So I want to tell it here, for you.

 

The Story of Stone Soup

 

It was a hard time in the land.  Crops had been poor, and people were struggling.  Many had been turned out of their homes and were camping as they wandered to find a better life.  One night, a disconsolate group gathered around a campfire, hungry and tired.  They were losing their hope. 

 

A man limped down the road and into the circle of light cast by the campfire.  He was greeted by a couple of lifted heads, a few grunts, and not much more.  “May I warm myself at your fire?” he asked.  There were a few more grunts, and a voice grumbled “Yer welcome to the fire, but we aint’ got no food to share.”

 

The man  nodded, extending his hands to the fire.  “I could make some stone soup for us,” he said, “if someone has a pot and water.”

 

Stone soup?  No one had ever heard of it, but soup sounded good to hungry folks.  Someone found a pot and filled it with water and suspended it over the fire where it began to heat.  The man removed a smooth stone from his pocket and dropped it carefully in the pot.

 

He extended his hands to fire again.  “The soup will be even better if anyone has any vegetables to put in,” he said.

 

One woman came forward with an old potato, which she washed and chopped.  Another added an onion, a third a turnip, a fourth a carrot. 

 

Smiling to himself, the man said “If anyone has some meat, or bones, that would add to the taste.”

 

“I have a chicken carcass,” one man said.  “And I have some leftover chicken,” said another, and they added them to the pot.

 

The man nodded.  “That will make a fine soup.  It will be even better if anyone has some spices to add.”

 

Casting a suspicious look, one woman brought forward a pinch of salt, and another a dash of pepper.

 

They watched the pot companionably for a while, enjoying the delicious aroma that wafted from it. 

 

“I believe the soup is ready,” the man said at last.  “It will be even better if there is bread to eat with it.”

 

“I have a rind of bread,” a man said.  “It’s hard, but I guess it will be edible if dipped in the soup.”

 

And so they all ate soup, with bits of bread to dip in it, and went to bed with their bellies full for the first time in weeks. 

 

When they woke, the man was gone, but the soup stone was wrapped in a bit of cloth and left for them – so that they could continue to make stone soup.

 

Wishing you the courage and faith to contribute what you can, even if you don’t understand how your small bit could help,

Janet

Reflections on New Year's 2005

December 30, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

2005 is racing to its end.  Where did this year go?  Summer (which I’d be happy to prolong for a loooonnnnnngggg time) was here – and then not.  Fall wasn’t, wasn’t – then was brilliant, then brown and nothing.  It seems I was sweetly anticipating Christmas, then all of a sudden it was here – and gone.  And this week in between; how did it evaporate?  Well, it did.  Soon it will be 2006, with all the promise a new year brings.

 

I’m reading Light from Heaven by Jan Karon.  It’s the last of her Mitford series (though a new series is promised in 2007).  It’s a sweet book, full of kindness in the face of human foibles and misery.  It’s a great benediction for 2005 – and a marvelous prayer for 2006.  Here are a couple of quotes Karon includes that make me smile:

 

“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

                                                            - Oscar Wilde

 

“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads but what he rereads.”

                                                            - Francois Mauriac

 

I think this is a book I’ll be rereading.

 

Wishing you the happiest and healthiest of new years,
Janet

Reflections on Christmas 2005

December 22, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I’m sending this Reflections early, since I doubt many of you will be checking e-mail on Christmas, and I don’t plan to be sending any.  By now I hope any presents you’re buying are bought and wrapped.  If you’re traveling for Christmas, your plans are made and maybe you’re en route – and if you’re having company your baking and your last minute grocery lists are done and your house is decorated.  You’ve got time, I hope, to sit down with a cup of spicy tea or eggnog and light a fire or a candle. 

 

Many thanks to those of you who sent Christmas cards.  This is my way to say Merry Christmas to each of you. 

 

In cleaning out computer files (decluttering of the virtual kind), I found this quote from Mother Theresa, and want to share it as a Christmas aspiration:

 

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

 

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

 

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;

Succeed anyway.

 

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

Be honest and frank anyway.

 

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

 

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

 

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

 

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;

Give the world the best you've got anyway.

 

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;

It was never between you and them anyway.

 

Those of us who made it through the year alive, and relatively healthy, know that many did not.  Those of us who have someone to love, and to love us, should think of some special little way to say how grateful we are.

 

Wishing you the quiet to appreciate the blessings of Christmas,
Janet

Reflections on Not-So-Big Houses

December 18, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Several times recently I’ve written about Sarah Susanka’s books on Not-So-Big Houses (The Not So Big House Collection: The Not So Big House and Creating the Not So Big House and others).  Have I confessed that I came to Susanka through now-dead architect Christopher Alexander? 

 

In the 70’s, Alexander wrote a book called The Timeless Way of Building, about the pattern language of architecture – the patterns that make buildings feel good, feel welcoming, feel like home.  Peter Block, one of my favorite authors, recommended Alexander’s book in The Answer to How is Yes.  Block explained that Alexander’s book was about the pattern language of architecture, and postulated that it had interesting implications for the pattern language of organizations.

 

I once had ambitions to study architecture, so I figured I’d give Alexander’s book a try.  I found it profound (though fairly esoteric, especially if you didn’t have an interest in architecture).  And I happened to be reading it when I was staying at Marsh House on Whidbey Island.  Joy, the eccentric owner of Marsh House, saw me reading it and informed me that Marsh House was designed by one of Alexander’s students, and that it was in a book about applying Alexander’s principles to modern homes. 

 

I came home and got interested in designing a house, and bought a book by Taunton Press on Patterns of Home: The Ten Essentials of Enduring Design.  It was about applying Alexander’s pattern language to modern homes.  And as I was browsing through it…. there was Marsh House!  I’ve relaxed in that hammock!  I’ve slept in that bedroom! 

 

Somehow it all felt (as Robert Barrone might say) “Meant To Be.”  In case you’re interested in some of the principles I’ve gleaned about pattern language and not-so-big houses, here they are:     

 

Ø       The caveat that not-so-big houses are all different – they’re designed (or renovated) for the people who will live there, not for an architecture award or a generic family.

Ø       You trade square footage (and cubic volume) for design detail.

Ø       Eliminate rooms that are primarily for show – the flashy entry, the formal living room, formal dining room, etc.

Ø       Plan multi-use spaces, instead of discrete rooms for each function.  Use techniques such as alcoves, ceiling height variety, etc., to differentiate spaces for different functions.

Ø       Ceiling height variety, both within a room (for example, an alcove off a larger room with a lower ceiling), as well as variety between rooms, helps create an interesting experience in a house.

Ø       Light from at least two sides of each room keeps rooms from feeling like caves.

Ø       Each adult should have his/her own space for hobbies, meditation, etc., however small, to decorate as they will.  Even if you’re really happily married, you may have some tastes your spouse doesn’t share.  You ought to have a place to indulge them. and to retreat to for a little alone time.

Ø       Outdoor spaces (porches, decks, terraces) are considered as rooms, and planned for how they contribute to living in the house.

Ø       Diagonal views (even glimpses) from one room to another, increase the perceived spaciousness.

Ø       Built-ins – bookcases, window seats, benches and other customized pieces eliminate the need for (almost always) bulkier furniture.

Ø       Plan circulation carefully so that people won’t need to walk through conversation areas, kitchen work areas, etc.

Ø       Plan a gradient from public to private spaces in the house.  The private spaces in the home should be removed, spatially or by other signal, from easy access by visitors.  

 

Not-so-big houses can be traditional or contemporary.  They are about knowing who you are and living that fully.  And that’s a thought that makes me take a deep breath of coming home.

 

Wishing you a house that’s home for who you really are,

Janet

Reflections on Simplifying, III

December 10, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Here is a panoply of tips on simplifying your life, thanks to many of you.  Some of them are a bit drastic, but what’s drastic to me might not be to you.  And some of them may prompt you to think “I already do that!”  You can feel good about not having that issue.  Others may strike you as the opposite of simplifying… there’s no one right answer; it’s about what works for you.

 

So, in no particular order:

 

Ø       If it's something you need to file (copies of bills paid, investment info), put away (items that need to go back to the basement - gift wrap, decorations), whatever it is - DO IT NOW!  If you keep pace with the little stuff as it happens, you won't have a project that takes an entire Saturday to complete.

Ø       When something that I like to wear begins to wear out (even socks), I stop wearing it, and put it in my drawer for special occasions.  Well, my tip is, wear it out!  You’ll have more space in your drawer, and you won’t be saving a pair of socks that is getting so thin that you know it’ll have a hole soon.  Same thing with other consumables:  if I really like the scent of a particular bubble bath, I hoard it instead of using it up and recycling its bottle – so a half-empty bottle of bubble bath takes up space under my bathroom sink, etc.  My tip is wear it out, use it up, and get over it! 

Ø       Don't buy it the first time you see it. Go home and decide if you really need it and then go back and get it.

Ø       “Adopt” a family who really needs clothing, shoes, food, computers, TV etc. and give, give, give.

Ø       Hold a neighborhood garage sale annually.  You get more foot traffic and can make a party of it.

Ø       Hire a personal shopper to go through clothes closet.  You’ll learn a lot about what works and doesn’t work anymore. 

Ø       When you have the time set aside to clean out one or two closets or rooms go to the library and get an audio CD of a book you have wanted to read.  Then read with your ears as you sort and purge.  The book's plot will drive you on perhaps to another closet or two.  This is best done when you are home alone.

Ø       (From a friend who had to evacuate due to Hurricane Katrina):  If sadly, some important piece of memorabilia goes out w/the trash, well we have the memories of it or that occasion stored in our minds and hearts somewhere. That's what I figure the victims of Katrina have resolved...that even if the tangible things are no more, they have memories.  That's what several of my friends who suffered total losses have shared w/ me.

Ø       Invest the time to make ongoing, regular chores more efficient.  Build a shopping list in Excel that is set up like your grocery store and have one printed out and available to mark on at all times. 

Ø       Shop for groceries online, having them delivered, if that service is available where you live.  Not only does this totally simplify grocery shopping, it also eliminates impulse purchases. 

Ø       Pay bills using online banking.  With automatic payments, e-bills and the general convenience of online bill paying, this turns a dreaded chore into a 5-10 minute job every few weeks. 

Ø       I simplify my bill-paying and finances by doing it all online - and opt out of the paper statement if that is an option. 

Ø       When we bring something into the house -- 2 items have to go out. 

Ø       If you need to buy a gift for someone, buy them a consumable --- most of us have enough stuff, so this way whatever we receive we can enjoy.

Ø       Each quarter, focus on one room or closet in your home/apartment and donate unwanted items to charity.  By looking at only one room or closet the task will not be overwhelming. 

Ø       I once found myself with little piles of so many books on simplifying my life and controlling clutter that I had to laugh out loud of the irony of it all.  I, like many, fell for the big house thing - it was within easier reach for people in Atlanta than it is here in Washington - and we had a living room, family room, dining room, kitchen, and four bedrooms, (including master suite with a sitting room and two walk-in closets) and garage, plus an attic loft.  I, of course, believed that no space should go empty and kept filling it up.  Part of it was thinking that there was some freedom in having enough things (clothes, games, books, etc.) that there was enormous choice surrounding me always - what to cook, what to wear, what to read, etc.  This seemed to be the American Dream realized.  All too late I realized that in having all those choices, I was totally paralyzed most of the time and the majority of things went unused because there was too much and I wasn't the most anal person about organizing it all.  I had so many options of everything that I wasted time trying to make decisions.  Only when I narrowed my choices to the things of best quality - and I think that can be clothes, books, friends, relationships, activities, etc. - did I free myself from the paralysis of so much and truly enjoy what I cared about.

Ø       Having a glass of wine with my tossing helped loosen up my inhibitions about parting with things.  I would get my husband to haul away the bags and boxes to Goodwill, and that helped.  Seeing how little others have really got me to be able to find better homes for my belongings.

Ø       Give the kids what they want now to reduce "stuff" in the house.  They may need it now but not when you die!

Ø       If I want to take on a new activity, I stop doing another one—I try to be intentional about what I take on at one time.

Ø       Don’t unpack your cosmetics bag; keep it packed for the next trip.  The extra travel sizes cost very little.  If you run out of something on your trip, replace it as soon as you get home so you don’t have to open the cosmetics bag before you travel again.

Ø        A few years ago, I gave up clothing with patterns.  Solids only, from then on. Oh, of course, there are a few hangers-on, scarves with prints, blouses with swirls of some pseudo Italian origin like the end papers of old books, but since that year, I haven’t bought clothing except in solid colors.  I read that designer Donna Karan has five identical black suits that she wears everyday, a solution that appealed to me mightily. Simplify! I narrowed the scope of clothing to a few examples of each category: 2 dress pants, 2 suits, 2 skirts.

Ø       The only other thing I could think to de-complicate was how I drink my coffee. At the time, I was a cream and sugar drinker, always intent on achieving the right shade. I decided the only thing I could do with any success to simplify my life was to start drinking my coffee black—yes! Black!

Ø       Less media leads to more time to be thoughtful, reflective, relational, dog-walking... Whatever gives you pleasure. I glean news from afternoon errands in the car during All Things Considered, and reading headlines as I pass news boxes, and from selectively going out and seeking news on the Internet.

Ø       NO Magazine subscriptions.

Ø       Move often enough so you don't receive junk mail and don't need to wash the windows.  

 

I hope some of these brought a smile.  I hope you can pick at least one thing from the list and give it a try.

 

Wishing you the joys of less clutter,
Janet

Reflections on Re-gifting

December 9, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I keep seeing references to “re-gifting” recently.  Money magazine had a Q&A where someone asked about re-gifting something.  There’s a Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine re-gift.  And with my recent thinking about de-cluttering, I’ve certainly been thinking about giving away some of the things I’ve collected received accumulated over the years. 

 

The Money columnist said that if the gift wasn’t to your taste (and if it was, you wouldn’t want to re-gift), don’t re-gift it, since you shouldn’t give something you don’t like, and people who know you would know that you didn’t like it.  The Seinfeld episode implied that re-gifting was tacky and self-centered.

 

Deep sigh.  I’m not the first, by any means, to observe that there’s entirely too much emphasis on gifts during this season.  What a travesty, to have so many people go into debt trying to fulfill a fantasy of a gift-filled holiday season.  What a travesty, to have desire to show our affection and love for each other warped into a spending spree. 

 

One of the oft-offered pieces of advice is to give hand-made gifts (cookies, crafts, whatever) instead of buying gifts.  But if you are already over-worked and stressed with too little time, how do you find time to make gifts?  You don’t.  You stress and spend. 

 

Yes, like most things I write about, I’ve lived the worst of this excess.  I’ve had Christmases where the tree had to be heaped with gifts, all around.  Where one gift to someone wasn’t anywhere near enough – there had to be four, six or more.  And I’ve been on the receiving end of Christmases where there were so many gifts that I couldn’t begin to write adequate thank you notes.  The good news for me is that I had so much of it that I got worn out with it.  Would I like a few Christmas gifts?  Yep.  Do I want a slew of them?  No, no way.

 

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is the white elephant gift exchange.  Everybody wraps something they don’t want (or no longer want) and brings it to the party.  Everyone draws a number and the person with #1 picks a gift and unwraps it.  If the next person wants that gift s/he can take it, and the first person selects another gift.  If not, the 2^nd person selects a wrapped gift.  And so forth, until all the gifts are taken. 

 

Sometimes you get something you take a liking to.  Sometimes you don’t.  But everyone gets to open a (at least one) present, and the best part is that no one had to spend any money to generate this fun.  It’s just a matter of looking around and finding something you’re ready to pass along to another owner.  The IAFP staff turned this practice into an art form.  Several gifts reappeared each year, much to everyone's amusement. 

 

Is it the solution to every gift-giving situation?  No.  But we could all use it more than we do.  So here’s my raspberry to Money magazine and Seinfeld.  Find a situation where you can re-gift this year.  Suggest a white elephant gift exchange instead of “normal” gifts for your office or other group of friends.  Slow down the gift-giving and give hugs and the gift of listening instead.  Give to a deserving charity.  Plan a new ritual (a long walk, eggnog by the fire with stories of the past year, reading from a favorite book) to replace an orgy of gift opening as the centerpiece for your holiday.

 

Wishing you many gifts this season – of the less-tangible kind,
Janet

Reflections on Simplifying, II

December 4, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Many, many thanks to those of you who responded to my request for ideas on simplifying.  Thanks to you, I have a better handle on the theory of simplifying.  Now it’s a matter of “want to.”

 

Based on your feedback, I have an observation.  You can divide the world into two kinds of people:  those who keep things simple easily, having learned the habits early – and those whose natural tendency is to let things get complicated, and for whom simplifying requires much discipline.  Like any habit, the longer you practice it, the easier it is.

 

There seem to be four different categories of simplifying – or, from the other end of the kaleidoscope, four ways your life gets more complex than you want.

 

Relationships – There’s no doubt that relationships complicate your life.  A hermit’s life is simpler than mine or yours.  One tip for simplifying (which no one shared) is to not have children.  Life is simpler without them.  Okay, so most of us think that’s going a bit too far.  But one person did suggest eliminating toxic people from your life.  Is there someone who always leaves you feeling frustrated, guilty, or angry?  Can you minimize or eliminate contact with them?

 

Organizations – Whether they’re religious, community, school, or professional, when we make commitments to organizations, it complicates our lives.  It adds appointments to your calendar, obligations to your to do list.  I’m not suggesting you eliminate all those commitments – just that you carefully select the ones you make.  That you not say yes because it’s easier than saying no.  That you prune the ones that you dread, and focus on the ones that fill you with joy.  And that sometimes you need to phase one out to make room for some new opportunity to come to you.

 

Habits – Most of us have some habits that suck up time – whether it’s excessive TV watching, reading the paper, smoking, or whatever.  Maybe all your habits support the life you want to lead… but if they don’t, realize that you could simplify your life and “find new time” by changing your habits.

 

Stuff and Things – The more stuff you have, the more time you spend taking care of it, storing it, cleaning and maintaining it.  I have a collection of Santa Clauses.  I really enjoy them… but I spend a couple of days in the fall getting them all out, putting away things to clear space for them, and arranging them for display.  Then after the holidays, there’s at least a day to put them all away again, clean, and put out the stuff that I had put away to make room for them.  I have the time now…. but life would be simpler if I didn’t have this collection. 

 

Clothes and shoes you haven’t worn in years, records you don’t even have a player for any more, pots and pans you started housekeeping with and have replaced…. but haven’t gotten rid of.  Books you don’t refer to and won’t reread.  Boxes of miscellaneous stuff that you packed up and moved because you didn’t have time to go through it prior to the move… and it’s still in the box, years later.   Sheets that no longer fit any bed in the house.  Magazines that you might want to refer to or look through… sometime.  Gifts that someone gave you that you don’t particularly like or want to use… but it’s new and you don’t want to hurt their feelings by giving it away, in case they visit and want to know if you are using it.  I could go on and on…. from personal experience. 

 

I’ve pretty much broken the habit of saving every box from every gift we ever received, in case I needed the box next year…. now I save gift bags for reuse.  Do they take up less room than the boxes?  Maybe….

 

Next week I’ll share the tips I got from many of you.  In the meantime… I’m going to clear some clutter.

 

Wishing you the ability to let go of something to make new room in your life,

Janet

Reflections on Thanksgiving Foods

November 27, 2005

Dear Friends:

 

What special foods are important to your personal Thanksgiving feast?  Oh, turkey, of course.  But turkey is ubiquitous – it defines Thanksgiving generically, but probably not specifically.  What do you want to go along with your turkey, to make Thanksgiving perfect?

 

I’ll bet it’s whatever you always had at childhood Thanksgivings – those foods that were family favorites.  For my family, Thanksgiving always included dressing (not stuffing) made from leftover cornbread, leftover biscuits, stale bread, cornflakes and oats, with broth from cooking the turkey.  And the turkey was always cooked the day before, so that the broth was available for soaking the dressing overnight.  This year, mother supervised me making the dressing at my request – though she’s the one who baked the cornbread and biscuits so that we’d have leftovers.

 

Our family Thanksgiving also always included a wonderful squash casserole – eggy and cheesy and topped with buttered cracker crumbs.  The other dishes (something green, sometimes green beans, sometimes broccoli or broccoli casserole) came and went.  Some years there were congealed salads (one I remember had cherries and cream cheese and nuts).  There was usually some sweet potato dish – this year it was sweet potato pie.

 

My husband’s family Thanksgiving always included mashed potatoes, and noodles cooked with the giblets, which gives them a wonderful flavor.  And cucumbers in a sour cream dressing – I think that is a German dish.  And raw vegetables – green onions and celery and olives and radishes.  And for dessert, pumpkin pie.

 

What special foods make an appearance on your Thanksgiving menu each year?  I’d love to hear from you.  (Next week I’ll pass along all the tips on simplifying that I got after last week’s Reflections – there were some good ones.)

 

Wishing you an abundance of thanks for the blessings in your life,
Janet

Reflections on Simplifying

November 20, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Preparing for a presentation I’m going to give on “Balance in Your Life,” I wrote down this advice:  simplify, simplify, simplify.  Sounds good, right?  Congruent with the goal of balance, I think – the fewer things you’re juggling, the easier it is to balance.  But as I thought about how I’d talk about simplifying, I got stuck.  I may not be a good spokesperson for this particular advice.  Generally, I like to talk about stuff that I’ve done, so I can, with integrity, recommend it and vouch that it works. 

 

In Not So Big Solutions for Your Home , Sarah Susanka (yes, I have most of her books!) says that most architects who go into homes to design a remodeling at some point wish to be able to say “Get a good cleaning service!”  In other words, if you got rid of a lot of your “stuff,” your house would be less crowded. 

 

I’m sure she’s right.  When we moved out of our Marietta house, we had a huge garage sale, and then donated all the stuff that was left after the sale was over to an upcoming church garage sale.  And yet we have a whole house full of stuff here, plus stuff stored elsewhere!  I’m not a good role model for getting rid of clutter – I think I have a “pack rat gene.”

 

But I know that the goal of simplifying is a good one.  So I did some internet research, and came up with these ideas:

 

Ø       Keep a “donations” box going at all times, and add to it frequently.

Ø       Whenever you bring something new into your home (clothing, shoes, decorative items), make sure that at least one of those items goes in the donation box.

Ø       Resign from any organizations whose meetings you dread.

Ø       Work where you live, or live where you work.

Ø       Learn to live with less information.  Stop reading the daily paper, or stop watching tv news.

Ø       Instead of buying gifts for people you work with, organize a white elephant gift exchange, where everyone brings something they don’t need, wrapped, and the gifts are distributed by number.

 

I’d really love to hear from you – what are your tips for simplifying your life?  Help me beef up my ideas for this part of my presentation.  If each of you contribute just one tip, I’ll have hundreds!  (And I’ll compile and share them with you.)

 

Wishing you the joy of a simple life,
Janet

Reflections on a Custom-Designed Life

Reflections on Storms

November 6, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Tornadoes ripped through Kentucky and Indiana overnight, creating much destruction and killing several people.  It’s been a year for storms, hasn’t it?  We’re up to Beta in named tropical storms – they’ve never had to go to the Greek alphabet before to accommodate the named storms.  These tornadoes are unseasonable, adding to the feeling that Mother Nature is just piling on, you know?

 

Some people have a need to figure out “why?” we’re having all these storms.  I heard Jesse Jackson attribute the number and severity to global warming.  Well.  I’m not a scientist, and I don’t think Jackson is either.  I’m content to know that storms such as these seem to form cycles, when viewed from the perspective of geologic time.  And even our weather records cover barely a century – hardly a significant period in geologic time.  Kind of like trying to analyze and predict one of Beethoven’s symphonies by looking at two bars of music.

 

More relevant, I think, is our human tendency to feel that the sunny fall day we’re going to have here on Lake Chatuge (the leaves are at their peak this weekend and there’s no better way to see them than reflected in the lake, from a boat) is “normal,” and anything else is the aberration.  But the truth is that storms are just as “normal” as sunny days.  They’re both natural, both part of the way the world works.  Rivers change course, and deposit new land in one area while eating it away in another – no matter where the surveyor said your property line was.  Ocean beaches get eroded.  High winds topple trees.  Forest fires aren’t all set by negligent humans; some are caused by lightening and other natural causes, and those fires help create the opportunity for new growth. 

 

Sometimes our emotional growth requires a storm, too.  Rarely do human lives progress naturally and safely in easy steps that cause no distress.  Usually we’re going along, thinking things are finally pretty good…. and then something wrenching happens.  A spouse walks in and says “I think we should get a divorce.”  Or the job you thought you wanted is suddenly yours – if you’ll rip your family out of the community they love and move them across country.  Or the job you define yourself by is no longer yours, thank you very much for all you’ve done for us, but we think different leadership is required going forward.  Or the doctor says “I’m afraid it’s cancer.”  Or…. well, you get the idea.  The list is endless.

 

All of a sudden, the world’s painful and scary.  You get hurt or angry, according to your nature.  You move through the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, and finally acceptance.  You do what you have to do.

 

Sometime later, you look back and realize that good has come out of whatever it was.  It cleared away “stuff” in your life that you might not have let go of willingly.  You may have lost someone you loved, and you still miss them, but with less agony and with more appreciation of the blessing of having them for the time you did.

 

We may not like the storms.  We certainly don’t ask for them.  But they’re part of life.  The best we can do is reach out and help where we can.

 

Wishing you the faith to get through the storms,
Janet

Reflections on a Good Read

October 30, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I’ve been enjoying several new-to-me mystery series lately.  The Kate Shugak series, by Dana Stabenow, is set in Alaska, and are delightful and engaging stories about a place I cannot imagine living (too cold and dark too much!).  The other series, by Margaret Maron, is set in the North Carolina piedmont, much closer to home.  I first picked up “Uncommon Clay,” because the characters included several families of local potters, and I’m a fan of the indigenous pottery.  Then I picked up the first book in the series. “Bootlegger's Daughter,” because Maron captures the dialogue and tangled family situations of rural Southern counties so perfectly. 

 

In “Bootlegger's Daughter,” Maron introduces each chapter by quoting from an old hymn, and I could hear many of them being sung in my head as I read the lyrics.  In “Home Fires,” the chapter introductions are taken from the signs in front of churches.  Some of my favorites include:

Ø       When things go wrong, don’t go with them.

Ø       Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Ø       Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Ø       A trying time is no time to quit trying.

Ø       One rowing the boat has no time to rock it.

Ø       Carry a grudge and it gets heavier with every step.

 

These aren’t great literature.  They’re good stories, told with authentic local flavor.  When Maron describes the barbecue or banana pudding, I could taste it.  And when I finished these books, I felt like good friends were leaving after a fun visit.  If you want a good easy read, pick up one of Maron’s books.  Or one of Stabenow’s. 

 

Wishing you the luxury of reading for pleasure,
Janet

Reflections on the Wake We Leave Behind

October 23, 2005

Dear Friends,

 

Several weeks ago, there was a tragedy on Lake George, NY:  47 senior citizens wanting to see fall leaves from the water (beautiful!) went out on a tour boat.  It overturned, and 19 people died.  Witnesses claimed that the wake of a larger vessel caused the boat to roll over.  The boat may have been overloaded (based on weight, though not based on number of passengers).  At least some of the passengers had limited mobility and said that immediately prior to the accident they slid to one side of the boat.

 

I don’t pretend to know anything special about this accident. When we’re riding in our pontoon boat on our small lake, though, I know that if another boat passes us, in either direction but generally parallel, the resulting wake can rock us severely.  I can easily see how, if we were overloaded and people were sitting where they could slide with the roll of the boat, we could capsize. 

 

It’s for that reason that those driving any boat have to be aware of the wake they leave behind. 

 

Big boats, with deep V hulls, moving fast, generate a really big wake.  Smaller boats, with shallower hulls, moving slowly, generate lesser wakes.  There is even something called “no wake speed,” and any boat within 100 feet of a dock or a moored boat is supposed to travel no faster than “no wake speed.”   This is to prevent tragedies, as well as damage to boats by being banged against a dock or other boats. 

 

But many boaters like to go fast.  That’s why they bought those big boats with big motors in the first place.  They like to go fast, and they do, heedless of the wake they leave behind or the damage it may cause.

 

Boaters aren’t the only ones who generate wakes, though.  We all generate a wake as we move through the world.  Some of us, due to position power, force of personality, and speed, generate big wakes.  Others of us, moving more slowly with less outward power, may generate smaller wakes. 

 

I remember a conversation with FPA leaders at one of its early meetings, when we realized that the wake we had left with some well-intentioned decisions wasn’t acceptable to us.  We realized we needed to slow down (reduces wake) and check in with some others about the impact of our decisions.  To pay attention to what happens after we moved through.  To be aware of the wake we were leaving and its effect on others.  It was a good reminder that good intentions aren’t always enough.

 

Wishing you only wakes you can deal with,
Janet

Reflections on Today

October 16, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

It’s a beautiful October Sunday morning, the first with that nip in the air that tells me it’s slipped into the 50’s overnight.  I’ve pulled the collar of my thick terry cloth robe tight around my neck, because I’m sitting on our glass porch with all the windows open.  The view is spectacular – deep blue sky (indicative of low humidity), the sun edging over the roof to light up leaves which are a mix of still-summer-green, dogwood reds, and yellows and browns against the blue of the lake, so still that the other side of the cove is reflected in a mirror image.

 

It makes me a little sad.  We’ve had a warmer than usual fall, and I floated in the lake into the first part of October, glorying in the ability to look up from my book to see the lake and mountains sparkling in the sun.  I’m not ready for summer to be over.  I am not ready to trade shorts and t-shirts and Teva sandals for long pants and sweatshirts and socks.  But whether I’m ready or not, the leaves will fall, the temperature will drop and we will have winter.

 

Oh, there are aspects of fall and winter I like – I enjoy watching football, especially good college football, after the weather gets cool and floating in the lake isn’t as appealing.  (If it were up to me, football wouldn’t start until mid-October.)  The winter holidays are fun, especially since my collection of Santa’s (some of which are 4’ and 5’ tall) transforms our home.  Lately we’ve added several bears in Santa hats, carrying Christmas trees… well, maybe you have to live in the mountains to see the appeal.  

 

But sometime less than a week after the Super Bowl, I’m ready for spring.  I’ve never been a napper, so the opportunity for winter hibernation doesn’t appeal to me.  We’ll have done all the big holiday dinners and bowl and playoff parties, and I get really, really tired of it getting dark at 5pm.   

 

And so today, when the sky is blue and the sun is warm and the fish are jumping, I shall enjoy this day.  I will wear my shorts (even if I need a sweatshirt) and sandals (sprained ankle notwithstanding) and will sit in the sun (walking being awkward these days).  I will soak up the soothing peace of the sun and the lake and be grateful for the blessings of today.

 

Wishing you gratitude for the blessings of today,
Janet

Reflections on How to Talk About the "Undiscussable"

October 9, 1953
Dear Friends:

 

In last week’s Reflections, I suggested that if your board has one or more topics that are “undiscussable,” talking about them may be the highest and best use of your board’s time.  But if they’re “undiscussable,” how do you talk about them?

 

First, you have to be willing to use some board time on a topic that will not yield short-term decisions.  Many times, the best way to provide this time is to suspend the official “board meeting” and call the session something else – retreat, strategic thinking time, etc.  That will help board members understand that this session won’t be like their normal board meetings.

 

Second, and most importantly, the leaders need to undertake this conversation without an expectation of resolution.  I’m sure some of you are thinking:  “Why talk about it if you can’t resolve it?”  There are a lot of reasons, but one of the most important is that if we can’t talk about it, each “side” will make up stories about what the other “side” is thinking and about why they do and say what they do and say.  And then each will act “as if” those stories are true…. leading to a negative spiral of communications, with trust as victim.  So even if “all” we accomplish is to get everyone to share their assumptions, perceptions, and experiences, without any resolution of the underlying issue, understanding and trust and respect will tend to rise among the participants.  It’s almost magical.

 

If you’re nervous about this conversation, bringing in a professional facilitator is a great idea – especially if board leaders and/or the CEO are strongly invested in a particular position.  If others on the board know this, it may be difficult for them to perceive board leader facilitation as neutral, even if it is. 

 

How do you get started?  Make sure that everyone is seated so that they can see everyone else in the room (a circle is ideal for this).  Someone should briefly (and neutrally) describe the issue and its implications for the organization.  Then use a “talking piece council” (see http://www.janetmccallen.com/Books/Calling%20the%20Circle.htm for more information) to open the conversation:  one person takes a symbol of having the floor (a koosh ball, a feather, something with the organization’s logo on it) and offers his/her perspective on the issue.  Only the person holding the talking piece can speak; no questions or comments are allowed.  When that person is finished, s/he passes the talking piece to the left, and that person talks.  It’s okay to pass if someone really doesn’t want to talk.  No one needs to take a position; feelings and “wonderings” are encouraged.  Passing the talking piece to the left continues until everyone has spoken.

 

The first several times a group undertakes a talking piece council, someone needs to be ready to remind everyone of the rules – no crosstalk, no interruptions (even for questions), etc.  This will be particularly hard on those members of the group who usually dominate the conversation. 

 

And the first several times a group uses this format, it will likely take a while to get around the room.  This is not a waste of time!  The reason participants will “go on” about the topic is that it is important to them, and they have not felt heard before.  The rest of the group’s silence and listening may help them feel heard for the first time.  Time taken here will pay off in increased trust and respect among the group.

 

After everyone has spoken in talking piece council, take a moment of silence to honor everyone’s contribution.  Then begin a general conversation on the topic.  You may want to continue to use the talking piece, passing it from person to person as they ask for it (not around the circle), to ensure that no one is talking except the person holding the talking piece.  This slows down the conversation, which is frustrating to Type A personalities, but helps all focus on the issues emerging.  Good starter questions include:  “What perspective did you hear that you hadn’t considered before?”  or “What assumptions did you hear in what was said and not said?”

 

Let the general conversation go for a while, and conclude with another talking piece council, this time passing the talking piece in a counter-clockwise direction.  The leader or facilitator needs to remind the group that they are not trying to “resolve” the issue, they are trying to understand everyone’s perspective.

 

My experience is that if a board talks about even a very divisive issue in this manner (2-3 hours at a time), over 3-4 meetings spread over a year or more, the issue will resolve itself, in a way that likely could not have been envisioned when it was “undiscussable.”  And perhaps even more importantly, the board’s level of trust and respect in each other will rise dramatically.

 

Wishing you the space and time to tackle tough issues,
Janet

Reflections on Too-Small Conversations

October 3, 2005

Dear Friends,

 

I’ve gotten several queries recently about facilitating strategic planning for association boards under circumstances that I worry won’t allow for genuine strategic conversations.  The most extreme was a national association who wanted 28 people (board and staff) to do strategic planning in one afternoon! 

 

There are processes which can produce a plan – goals and strategies – in one afternoon.  I have long known the value of goals; I’m not knocking them.  And I don’t think the conversation in that afternoon is going to be strategic. 

 

When I started my association career, I worked with local school boards.  One phenomena we noticed was that many school boards tended to spend much more time discussing topics such as which roofer’s bid to accept to re-roof the transportation shed, or which dairy would get the school system milk contract, than they would spend asking why the system’s students were scoring below the state average on standardized tests, and what could be done to improve student performance.  Why?  Because boards tend to spend time on topics on which they are most comfortable.  And those are exactly the conversations that should probably be delegated to staff.

 

To produce goals and strategies for an organization in an afternoon, a board has to bypass the big, troubling questions and focus on tangible “stuff:”  membership growth, education programs, government relations objectives, PR priorities.  And if an organization hasn’t been managing that sort of “stuff” capably, maybe that is where its planning time should focus.

 

But a relatively effective organization, with a relatively functional staff and/or volunteer structure, probably has other issues that would be a higher priority use of its board’s time.  What might those be?  What questions loom over the organization but feel “undiscussable?”

 

If your board typically splits on predictable lines when making major decisions, what’s the bigger underlying issue on which they disagree?   You might be surprised about how many boards have underlying disagreements about whether the association should primarily serve individuals or the industry.  This may be not be discussed, per se, but rather get played out again and again in frictional compromises about funding priority projects.  Or result in “positioning statements” that include everything and the kitchen sink – and thus fail miserably to convey a clear message for the association.

 

Whatever those “undiscussable” topics are – that’s where most boards could profitably spend time.  Those conversations could be truly strategic, if they’re conducted with an understanding that the conversation is where the value is, not in some premature conclusion.  Let me say that again:  the value will be in the exploration, the questions, the assumptions revealed – the value will be in the conversation – not in any premature conclusions.

 

If your board has predictable disagreements, ask yourself what the underlying issue is.  And consider how it would feel to put that topic on your agenda, and plan for the board to talk about it, seeking to understand what assumptions each is bringing to it.  And what common values both might agree to.

 

Wishing you conversations big enough to challenge you,

Janet

Reflections on Reinventing Your Life

September 25, 2005
Dear Friends:

 

If you’re starting to have thoughts of your routine being stale or you’re just tired of things, perhaps it’s time to reinvent your life.   What dreams or desires do you have that you’ve been deferring or postponing?  One clue might be to ask yourself how you envision your retirement:  what do you want to do then that you’re not doing now?  Or what do you want to stop doing? 

 

There’s a subset of financial planning (sometimes called “life planning,” but this label is not universally well-regarded) in which practitioners focus on these kinds of questions with clients.  The financial assets and strategies then become tools to help the clients start living the life they want now, rather than slaving now to build financial assets to enable freedom in retirement. 

 

James Hillman wrote a wonderful book called The Soul’s Code, in which he explained that he believes each of us are born with a “daimon,” or a calling in life.  He posits that if we don’t seek to understand and honor it, it will keep popping up in more and more destructive ways to get our attention.  What seems to be trying to get your attention lately?  Finish this sentence with the first thought that comes to mind:  “I wish I could….”

 

When most of us feel “boxed in,” with few choices, it’s because we’re unwilling to consider letting something go.  Usually, major changes require letting go of some things in order to create the space for something new to come into our lives.  What would you let go of, if you could?

 

Inevitably, compromises must be made.  Every choice we make eliminates hundreds of other choices.  I’ve heard two examples that might help illustrate the point:

Ø       If you’re producing printed materials, there are three criteria for success:  high quality, fast, and inexpensive.  You can have any two of those, but not all three.  Choose.

Ø       If you’re at a meeting, you can stay up late, drink more than usual, or be sharp in the morning.  Pick two.  J

 

Do you know someone who’s reinvented their life?  Author Jan Karon worked in advertising, pulling herself up by the bootstraps.  In her 40’s, she cashed out and sat down to write – and produced the marvelous series of Mitford novels (Mitford Years Boxed Set).  A financial planner I know decided to move his practice to someplace he didn’t have to store his boat for seven months out of the year.

 

And after 30 years in association management, I’ve realized that it’s my past, but not my future.  And I’m so happy about it!  With no regrets for my career in association management – and no regrets for turning away.  How have you reinvented your life?  I’d love to hear your story.

 

David Whyte, one of my favorite authors, says in his Clear Mind, Wild Heart:  “A good diagnostic feature that you’re doing something unique, something that is true to the complexion of your character…. is that other people should not understand entirely what you’re doing.  And if they do understand completely, the direction in which you’re going, you might want to think about it… that perhaps it isn’t the right direction after all, that perhaps it’s too available, it’s too common, it’s too much a life that anyone could lead.  I take it as a compliment if people do not completely understand.”

 

Wishing you the courage to ask yourself what dreams you need to honor,
Janet

Reflections on Safety in the Circle

September 19, 2005

Dear Friends:

 

As most groups begin to learn Circle process, because Circle is generally thought to be a “kinder, gentler” form of group process, there is an unfounded assumption that being in Circle means that others will not say something that will hurt my feelings or jeopardize my feeling of support and safety.  Unfortunately, neither Circle nor any other group process that I am aware of can ensure that my feelings will not be hurt.

The reason, of course, is that whether my feelings get hurt depends not on what someone else might say, but on how I hear and interpret it.  If I am feeling tender and raw, a sideways glance might cause me to burst into tears – and that’s neither the fault of the glancer, nor of the meeting process.  If I am feeling aggressive, a chance remark might cause me to feel attacked – and that’s not the fault of the person who made the remark or the meeting process.

On the other hand, Circle can help create safety in a number of ways.  Because using dialogue rather than debate reduces the likelihood of one participant trying to prove another wrong, most experience Circle conversation as more supportive and less confrontational.  Because as a group develops its ability to work in Circle, members tend to offer tender, vulnerable comments, and the group develops an appreciation and caring for each other that makes snideness less likely.  The practices of check-in and check-out also support this understanding of each other as whole people.  And because trust in each other’s good intentions grows in Circle, most become less sensitive and more open to what can be learned together, even from conflict.

Circle offers another advantage to help deal with the issue of safety.  Circle itself is a safe container into which to pour conflicting ideas, and offers supportive ways to illuminate the issues, always looking for ways to honor the truth of each person’s experience.

 

Circle helps people learn a new way of talking with each other.  It helps create a shared language that focuses not on blame, but on possibility.  It helps create a shared expectation that even though no one of us has the answer, together we can tap into the spirit of the group and go deeper, creating new insights.  It helps develop faith that issues, genuinely explored, with good intention, will eventually resolve themselves if we are willing to stay in the fire of the conversation long enough.  And it deepens and enriches our appreciation of the leadership that can emerge from a group when given the right tools and opportunity.

 

Wishing you many conversational circles in which you feel safe.
Janet

Reflections on Competence

September 11, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about competence this past week, in the face of the appalling, massive incompetence we initially saw in addressing the disaster in New Orleans. 

 

As an aside, most Democrats blame Bush, and most Republicans blame Blanco, Nagin, Brown and Chertoff.  Check it out with some friends and colleagues and see if you find the same result.  I don’t think that tells us anything except that we tend to assign blame through our personal filters.  If you’re curious for more perspectives, put the words “blame Katrina” in your favorite search engine.

 

What is competence in the face of a massive disaster?  A cluster of skills, abilities, and knowledge needed to address the situation – and the will to do whatever is needed.  Competence requires shared values and purpose on which to base decisions.  Competence requires the ability to perceive reality as it is, not as we would like it to be.  Competence requires appropriate preparation, and acting on that preparation.  Competence requires the ability to hear the truth without attacking the messenger.  Competence requires seeking information from all sources, particularly those that criticize us – to search for the germ of truth in the criticism.  Competence requires acknowledging that every choice has consequences and costs and eliminates other options.  Competence requires focusing on the task at hand, rather than blaming others.

 

Competence requires the kind of commitment Apollo 13 Flight Director Gene Kranzt demonstrated, saying “Failure is not an option.”  And “I don't care about what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do.”

 

Although it’s an oblique connection, I was reminded of this quote from John W. Gardner:

"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."

 

Wishing you theories, pipes and levees that hold water,

Janet

Reflections on Hurricanes

September 2, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Written Wednesday:

As Katrina bore down on New Orleans, I remembered the Financial Planning Association’s 2002 convention there – which we slipped in between two hurricanes (which caused minimal damage).  Since FPA’s 2001 convention in San Diego had been scheduled for Sept 13-16 – and was cancelled, stranding the staff and board in San Diego – we were relieved not to be pre-empted again. 

 

New Orleans (and FPA) was spared in 2002, but not so in 2005.  Though Katrina didn’t hit the gracious city of gourmets (residents of New Orleans traditionally eat out more than those of any other city, and with good reason) head on, the levees were breached, and water is still rising in the city, days later.  There is no power to run the pumps, and no fresh water.  The 9,000 who were sheltered in the Superdome are to be evacuated elsewhere, since its roof was breached by high winds, there’s no power, little water and food – and the water’s rising around the building.  News cameras show residents wading through muddy water, amid the flotsam of flooded buildings, looting the stores downtown.  Officials are talking about the need to evacuate everyone, because it may be months before they can repair the levees, get the pumps working, pump all the water out, and get power and water restored.

 

How did New Orleans end up so far below sea level?  According to www.slate.msn.com, “The city sits on the banks of the Mississippi, where sediment from the river had created areas of elevated land called "natural levees." New Orleans' earliest buildings sat on top of these levees, but as the population grew, houses were built farther inland at lower elevations. To create usable land, water had to be pumped out of the area, which in turn caused the ground to sink even lower.” 

Why didn’t the levees hold?  According to the Houston Chronicle:  “Subsidence has caused the levees to sink. Also, 50 miles of tidal wetlands that once stood between New Orleans and the Gulf are eroding.

The erosion largely is the result of damage to the ecosystem caused by the construction of river levees, which interrupt natural flooding cycles that replenish the marshes, and the dredging of oil canals, which allow intrusion of vegetation-killing salt water.

"We lose 1,000 acres of tidal marshes a year through erosion," Cowan said. "The marshes are our buffer. If you lose that buffer, that means the tidal surge will hit you much quicker and with much more force."”

And so it did.  Usually flood waters recede pretty quickly.  In this case, they are not predicted to subside quickly, and the destruction to the houses whose roofs we see barely visible above the flood waters will be enormous.  In many cases, I suspect, they will be bulldozed, with nothing to salvage. 

 

I have wonderful memories of New Orleans – wandering around the French Quarter, sipping something cold (and lethal) at Pat O’Brien’s, eating lavishly at any number of fabulous restaurants.  One spring I went on a Tour of Homes there, seeing what was behind the walls of 10 French Quarter private homes.  It’s a gracious city, a fun city – and it was a beautiful city. 

 

My heart goes out to all those affected by Katrina’s passing.  For me, it’s a reminder to live each day fully – because we never know when it will be our last.

 

Wishing you the joy of today,

Janet

 

P.S.  From Friday:
As the days pass, the news from New Orleans just gets worse, and the damage to buildings fades to insignificance beside the human horror in New Orleans.  One of our production technicians, recently returned from Iraq, got recalled and sent down to help restore order.  We sent him with prayers. 

Reflections on Floating

Dear Friends,

 

One of my joys, living on the lake, is to float.  I know a lot of folks think getting in a tub full of hot water is one of the most relaxing things to do…. but I prefer soaking in the lake, when the water is 80+ degrees and the surrounding air is warmer – 85 or 90 is just fine, as long as you’re wet.

 

Just as Alaska natives have many words for snow, I know many variations on floating.  First, of course, is the basic float, requiring no extra equipment – just sufficient body fat (no problem!).  That’s fun for a few minutes, particularly if you’ve gotten hot.  But it does require some movement – waving your hands or feet to keep your face up.

 

If you don’t want to concentrate that much, you can add a life vest – either buckled on or just to buoy yourself up.  I have a “floating seat,” with a horseshoe of Styrofoam and a seat of crossed webbing.  It’s pretty good if you want to remain in a sitting position – but if you want to engage in water frisbee, a life vest is better, because you can dump yourself out of the seat.

 

There’s always the traditional float, of course.  Ours are plastic-coated foam rubber, and still the dog claws do their damage.  The inflatable kind wouldn’t last long with our dogs.  Traditional floats are great if you want to lie flat and snooze or soak up the rays.  I tie a rope to the float and the boat or dock to keep the currents from carrying me too far away.

 

But for reading, I have two “more advanced” floats.  One, the Comet, was originally meant to be pulled behind the boat, and the dogs and I have had a few rides on it.  Most of my hours in it have been spent happily reading, sometimes with dog company, sometimes not. 

 

And then Pat bought me a fabulous float with a mesh bottom and a massage pillow, for the ultimate in floating luxury.  By tying up to the dock and maneuvering to one side or another, I can either choose shade or sun (well sun-screened, of course).

 

Whether reading or just contemplating the mountains and sky and boats and the universe… floating is a great stress reliever.  I highly recommend it!

 

Wishing you some relaxing floats,
Janet

Reflections on Trust

August 21, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Coincidentally, the week after I sent Reflections on Not Trusting Others, I facilitated a Knowledge Café at the American Society of Association Executives annual meeting, and the question I posed the group was “How do we create trust in an association?”  Trust between leaders and members, between board and staff, between the association and sister organizations… at all levels.

 

As I moved from group to group, I heard a lot of key concepts:  Openness and transparency.  Honesty and truthfulness, even when the truth is painful.  Getting to know people in more than their official roles.  Having a clear, shared purpose and values.  Being trustworthy.  Being willing to converse on any topic important to the other.  Explaining yourself and your thinking, so others don’t have to make up why you acted as you did.

 

One group asked whether they should define trust, and I was moved to share something my good friend Cate Bower shared with me:  “Trust is the residue of promises kept.”  I still think that’s one of the most useful explanations of how to create trust I’ve ever heard. 

 

Another useful concept is the idea that “Trust is the expectation that the other will act congruently with shared values.”    

 

In Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore wrote:

“People sometimes put their trust in a … leader and are terribly betrayed if that person then fails to live up to ideals.  But a real trust of faith would be to decide whether to trust someone, knowing that betrayal is inevitable because life and personality are never without shadow.”

 

“Never without shadow.”  Sadly, we’re all doomed to occasionally betray the trust of those for whom we most want to be trustworthy.  (I’m reminding all those perfectionists out there, like myself.)  The appropriate response is conversation.  An apology, probably.  Clarifying each experience, clearing up stories and motives.  A renewed commitment to shared purpose and values.

 

Wishing you the residue of promises kept,

Janet 

Reflections on Not Trusting Others

August 15, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

As I talk about open, authentic conversations, often I am asked how you can have an open, authentic conversation with someone you don’t trust.  The short answer is:  you can’t.  That is, you can extend to anyone the invitation to be part of an open, authentic conversation, but if he or she repeatedly behaves in ways that let you know they’re not being open and authentic, too… it just won’t work.

 

I had a frustrating experience this week, meeting with a politician. I went into the meeting hoping for an open, authentic conversation (I know, I’m naïve that way).  Sadly, I got bluster and platitudes.  And the distinct feeling that he knew much about this subject that he wasn’t going to share with us, because we wouldn’t like it.  And because it wouldn’t stand up to the light of day. where people openly and honestly talk about disagreements. 

 

In an ideal world, I would simply never work with someone I don’t trust.  Thankfully, I live in pretty close to an ideal world.  But occasionally there may be someone in a position of power whom it’s impossible to ignore. 

 

So what are my options in that kind of situation? 

 

Sometimes confronting the person with my experience and how it makes me feel and even the story that I’m making up to explain their behavior may work.  It may shock the other person into honesty.  It won’t work in this case, as I suspect the politician is so steeped in this type of sneaky maneuvering he thinks his behavior is righteous. 

 

Above all, I need to carefully maintain my own integrity, and avoid being sucked into the whirlpool of half-truths, lies, innuendo and flattery that such people are used to.  I need to calmly state my understanding, my feelings, and my positions – even without hope that he will be swayed. 

 

It’s important that I remind myself that the stories I make up to explain his behavior are just that – stories.  They may or may not be the truth.  I may not be able to check them out with him, but I shouldn’t start acting as if I know why he has acted as he has. 

 

And in this case, since he represents me, I can choose to work for his opposition the next time an election comes around.  If I can find someone to oppose him whom I trust.

 

Deep sigh.

 

Wishing you the lightness of heart brought about by working with those you trust
Janet

Reflections on Down Times: Lesson 3 - What might be the blessing?

August 6, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

When I would talk with my wonderful coach Marybeth Fidler (www.marybethfidler.com) about something that was distressing me, after offering sympathy and letting me vent, she would often ask:  If this happened for a good reason, what could it be? 

 

I would frequently be stumped, being too mired in my misery and frustration to even imagine a “good reason” for whatever was stressing me at the moment.  Marybeth didn’t pretend to know why something had happened, but she could usually come up with at least one (and sometimes several) possible “good reasons” why something might have happened.  They ranged all over the board, but here are a couple of categories:

- Maybe I was clinging to some old expectation (of myself, or of others) that I needed to let go of (of which I needed to let go?).

- Maybe I’d been bottling up hurt, frustration or anger, and needed a trigger to get it all out.

- Maybe it was time to change a situation that I’d been tolerating.

- Maybe I was trying to control a situation beyond my control, and needed to give up the notion and just accept it as it was.

- Maybe it was a call to appreciate the blessings in my life, to live each day savoring it as if it were my last.

- Maybe I needed to face the fact that some folks didn’t have my best interests at heart.

- Maybe I needed to consider that my best interests might not lie where I thought they did.

 

Generally, when we go through the valley of the shadow, we emerge somewhat changed on the other side.  It might be minor changes – just not caring quite so much what others think, perhaps.  Or it might be major changes – like metamorphic rock, changing its chemical structure under heat and pressure.  But the valley, while usually not a pleasant place to be, is a necessary passage.  It gives us time to contemplate what to let go of…. and what the blessings might be.

 

Wishing you the wisdom to find the blessings in your down times,

Janet

Reflections on Down Times, Lesson Two: Life is not fair

July 30, 2005

Dear Friends,

 

When I’m down, one of the first places my mind goes is “It’s not fair!”  Without conscious intention on my part, it will shoot out all kinds of reasons why I don’t deserve whatever it was that triggered my melancholy.  “It” (my mind, without conscious intention) is good at that.  As if by “proving” that I deserve better, circumstances will change.  Funny thing, in the zillion times I’ve been through this ritual, the circumstances have never changed because I thought they should, because I thought up all kinds of good reasons I deserve better.  Life is not fair.

 

When Pat and I were dating, I said something that provoked him to say “That’s not fair!”  “Life’s not fair,” I responded.  “My mother always said it was,” he said.  “Well, it’s not,” I responded.  (Fascinating dialogue – no wonder he fell in love with me!)  “Are you saying my mother was wrong?”  “No,” I replied, “I’m saying you must have misunderstood her.”

 

Well, the first time I visited with his parents, over dinner he said something that caused his mother to respond, “Life isn’t fair, Patrick.”  My eyes widened.  “But you always said it was,” he protested.  “No, Patrick, I said life should be fair, but it isn’t,” she replied.  Needless to say, I burst out laughing and relayed our earlier conversation.

 

And so, with all my experience and my mother-in-law’s, too, I can categorically state that Life Is Not Fair.  And all the wishing, hoping, and rationalizing any of us can do won’t make it so. 

 

Acceptance of the circumstances that are making me melancholy (or scared, or hurt, or whatever bad feeling it is) is the second lesson.  It’s probably not fair.  I can think of all kinds of reasons it shouldn’t have happened to me.  And yet it IS, or it DID.  Deep sigh. 

 

Wishing you the serenity to accept those things you cannot change,

Janet

Reflections on Down Times, Lesson One:  I'm Not in Control

July 25, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

If you want to really learn about something, prepare to teach it.  I discovered this long ago.  I would feel “expert” on a topic and agree to talk about it to a small group.  I would start to prepare my notes for presentation, and I would realize all the holes in my knowledge – which would drive me to the books, to other sources, seeking to fill in the gaps.  And as I went over my notes again and again, I would reach a deeper level of understanding of the subject, and how it related to its context. 

 

I suggested some topics to a client for a presentation, and they selected the one in which I was most interested -- finding the silver lining when clouds are hovering over you.  I know that life includes sad times, scary times, times when it seems to take all you have to keep going.  When you feel like Job and want to cry “Why me?  What did I do to deserve this?” 

 

Nothing we can do will prevent our lives from weaving through these down times.  Trying harder won’t keep them away.  Being smarter won’t avert them.  Good works, deep faith, and a sunny personality – none of these will make us immune to the down times.   They come to us because we’re human.

 

I have accepted intellectually that there will be times when melancholy will wash over me, when I’ll feel unfairly treated by life, when it seems that things are harder – much harder – than they ought to be.  Just because I’ve accepted it intellectually, though, doesn’t mean that I’ve accepted it emotionally.  I still resist, and cry (at least to myself) “But this isn’t fair!”   I still wonder what I did wrong, what I should have done differently.  In other words, on some level, I still think that I’m in control.  Which, of course, I’m not.

 

And that’s the first lesson of the down times, I think – that I’m not in control.  I believe in a higher power, not subject to my whims or wishes.  And I believe there’s a grander plan at work than I can understand.  When I acknowledge that I’m not in control, that though much may be my fault, not everything is… a peace washes over me.         

 

To be continued….

 

Wishing you the peace of faith,
Janet

Reflections on Family Reunions

July 18, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Summertime brings family reunions.  Whether your family reunions tend to be the BIG kind, with dozens of people you don’t even recognize, or the smaller variety where you just get to spend time with family you don’t see very often, they are often highlighted by unexpected remembrances.  Like the way my brother teases his daughter before plucking out a splinter – just like my Daddy used to tease me. 

 

Or the way, when my niece asks “Can I take my life jacket off and jump in the lake?” I automatically answer “Yes!” to my Mother’s distress.  Mother never did understand the attraction of going underwater.  But to her credit, she raised a family with a love of water in all its forms – pool, lake, or ocean.

 

It’s fun to recall incidents from our childhood, and tell the stories to the youngsters.  It’s fun to introduce the youngsters to things – first swim in a lake, riding the tube behind the boat, homemade ice cream…. and remember those from our childhood.  It’s fun to see expressions on my nephews faces that remind me of my brothers at those ages.  And it’s fun to hear (at least for a day or two) “Aunt Janet?” over and over.

 

And speaking of homemade ice cream – the food.  Family reunions tend to be characterized by an abundance of food.  Way too much.  Banana pudding, warm from the oven.  Homemade ice cream, with chocolate sauce and strawberries.  Barbecue.  Hot dogs and hamburgers.  Buns for our hamburgers in every variety – white bread, seeded, whole wheat – because we can.  Gourmet breakfast cooked by my brother.  Isn’t the abundance in this country incredible?

 

And mostly, of course, it’s the love.  The love of family, and good times.

 

Wishing you joyous visits with your family,
Janet

Reflections on Coming Home

July 11, 2005
Dear Friends:

 

Pat and I just got back from a convention in Washington D.C.  All the way home (we drove – about 10 hours), we were like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, chanting “There’s no place like home!  There’s no place like home!”  Not that we didn’t enjoy the convention or feel it was worthwhile – we did and it was.  We met lots of nice and very helpful people.  We learned LOTS.  It was altogether a thoroughly worthwhile trip – and we were SO glad to get home.

 

The first couple of hours of our trip (going) and the last couple of hours (coming home) were on US highways.  Otherwise, we were on interstates – I-40, I-81, I-26, and I-66.  Since I’m the navigator, I had lots of time to think about what I was seeing – ribbons of interstate, the swath it cuts through the countryside, the areas where mountains have been blasted away to make way for it. 

 

And the traffic.  There was a section of I-40 where trucks were prohibited from the left lane, and that was the most enjoyable section of interstate we drove.  Otherwise, it seemed we were frequently getting boxed in by two truckers who were driving shoulder to hip, slowing down on the hills and preventing more nimble vehicles from getting by. 

 

I started thinking about how the construction of the interstate highway system exacerbated the decline of the railroads, since it shifted the burden of maintaining the infrastructure from the transportation company to the taxpayers.  I contemplated how much more pleasant the trip would have been if containerization had been used to transport cargo the long distances by rail, and then only the local distribution would need to be by truck.  But that likelihood went away a long time ago – an unintended consequence of building the interstate system. 

 

I feel sure that some of the communities we drove by are happy to have the interstate, with its development:  large distribution facilities, factories and quarries, not to mention the ubiquitous fast food outlets and low-end hotels.  Some of us are less enamored of industrial development, transfer trucks, and congestion.  It seems only right to me that some pockets of the country – particularly in the mountains – ought to be left for those of us who’re willing to spend the time to drive the two lane roads.  Who prize the views, the access to nature, and the absence of crowds.  It certainly strengthened my resolve to keep I-3 out of our mountains.

 

I know that my heart soared as our mountains came into view once again.  When I knew that we’d left the interstate behind, and ahead of us was home.    

 

Wishing you a home you love as much,
Janet

Reflections on Our Country's Strengths

July 3, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Tomorrow is the 4^th of July (and it will probably have come and gone by the time many of you read this).  This year Pat and I will miss our beloved 4^th on the lake because we are driving to Washington D.C. for a convention.  We do plan to see the fireworks on the national mall.

 

Today what’s on my mind is less the annual celebration of our country’s creation than the assumptions, beliefs and values which underlie its success and longevity.  The wisdom of our founding fathers when they met that hot summer in Philadelphia is still astounding.  The tales of their meetings and negotiations that we heard when we toured Constitution Hall (following FPA’s 2003 convention in Philadelphia) prompted us to get the DVD of the musical 1776, which is well worth watching.

 

So what assumptions, beliefs and values have been important to the resilience and success of the USA?  Here are a few that come to mind:

 

Ø       The checks and balances ensured by separating the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government.  It is surely not the most efficient form of government (Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship was much more efficient), but it has proven remarkably effective over the long haul.

Ø       The belief in God, spirit, or a higher power underlying our founding documents and motivating our founding fathers.  We were guaranteed freedom of religion, and there is an expectation that we will order our lives to serve a power higher than ourselves.

Ø       The inalienable rights of the individual.  The extent to which the needs of the state could be placed above those individual rights was explicitly limited in our Constitution.  The assumption is that moral individuals (see the item above) seeking their own best interests will over the long haul make decisions which will ultimately serve society best.

 

This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list.  What do you think are the essential assumptions, beliefs and values that have served our country well?  I’d love to hear from you.

 

Wishing you the blessings of freedom in our great country,

Janet

Reflections on Private Property

June 25, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I am appalled at the recent Supreme Court decision allowing local governments to seize private property for developmental purposes through the use of eminent domain (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=04-108).   One of the nine families to be turned out in this miscarriage of justice is a couple in their 80’s, who were married in their (soon-to-be-torn-down) house, raised their kids there, lived there 50 years – and don’t want to sell.  They live, along with eight other affected families, in a middle class waterfront area of New London, Connecticut.  Some developers want to bulldoze 15 properties and put up a large mixed-use development.   These nine property owners (whatever that now means) didn’t want to sell.  Thanks to our Supreme Court, they don’t have a choice anymore.

 

There will be “just compensation,” of course.  Will that “just compensation” allow them to buy another waterfront home in Connecticut, surrounded by their neighbors?  Not likely.  Not likely at all.

 

I’ll admit that there are a couple of properties right here in Hiawassee that I wouldn’t mind seeing condemned.  There are some trashy looking places that ought to be cleaned up.  But I believe there are ways for local governments to deal with these eyesores short of taking those properties and putting them to some use that’s projected to yield higher property taxes.  And if someone wanted to build a new resort or shopping center but couldn’t get the property owners in the area they’d selected to sell – well then those developers just need to look elsewhere – and if that costs our county and city, tough.

 

Because the property doesn’t belong to the government.  It isn’t just lent to us, on sufferance, as long as the government can’t think of a better use for it.  Or at least, it didn’t use to be.

 

The rights of private property owners are foundational in our Constitution.  One of my favorite Abraham Lincoln quotes is:

“Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable, it is a positive good in the world.  That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.  Let not him who is homeless pull down the house of another but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”

 

Wishing you the protection of a wiser Supreme Court,
Janet

Reflections on Waking Up

June 19, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I found this poem in a book on the shelf in my room at Marsh House Retreat Center, on Whidbey Island.  I was participating in a Circle Practicum with Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea in 2003 - what a privilege!  When I read the poem, it spoke to me strongly - and it speaks to me still.  Unfortunately, the book is out of print.

 

It All Comes Back to Me Now

Victory Lee Schouten

 

Not willing to be vicious,                   

I lost my voice.

 

Not wanting to be foolish,               

I lost my courage.

 

Averse to being led,

I lost my way.

 

Unwilling to be like them,

I forgot my name.

 

 

Remembering now

is blessing enough.

 

Waking up groggy

is still waking up.

 

Wishing you the blessing of waking up,

Janet

Reflections on Interstates and Our Fair Share

June 12, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I think interstate highways have been, on the whole, a good thing in the USA.  But I was horrified recently to find out one is proposed to go through Hiawassee.

 

Congressman Charlie Norwood and Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss have all co-sponsored bills proposing a study to create two new interstates in Georgia:  I-14 from Savannah west, and I-3 from Savannah through Augusta through the mountains of north Georgia to Knoxville, TN.  Evidently (I'm told by congressional aides) many folks in the flatter parts of Georgia think this is a grand idea, seeing construction dollars coming their way.  Their perspective was reflected in the title of the original act:  The Transportation Equity Act.  Congressman Norwood's aide said that the rest of Georgia (meaning not Atlanta) deserves their "fair share" of federal highway dollars.

 

But up here in the mountains of Towns County, we don't think an interstate is a grand idea, not at all.  We don't want our "fair share" of destruction, pavement, pollution, and congestion.  Many of us are refugees from the Atlanta area, having escaped the congestion, rudeness, and pace of Atlanta.  We cherish the mountains, the lake, the national forests, the quiet, and the slow pace. 

 

So, with about a week's notice, I made calls and we got those congressional representatives to Hiawassee.  The Towns County Homeowners Association hosted the meeting and 650 people showed up to say "We want no part of this road!"  In a county of about 8,000, we felt pretty good about the turnout, especially on a weekday morning.

 

Whether we’ve really been heard is another matter.  The aides say that “It’s just a study,” and “It won’t go through downtown Hiawassee,” and other things that are meant to placate us.  Our State Senator Nancy Schaefer has talked to Congressman Norwood, and he told her that “If Towns County doesn’t want the interstate, it won’t go through Towns County.” 

 

But still the language that’s going to be conveyed to the Department of Transportation includes a proposed route right through Towns County.  And the truth is, I not only don’t want it here, I don’t want an interstate through the North Georgia mountains.  There’s just no need.  There are other routes to Knoxville via interstate.  There are better ways to use federal funds than flattening and paving our beautiful mountains. 

 

So I’m doing something I had resisted all my life – getting politically active.  Go figure.  Former Senator Zell Miller has said (about the local reaction):  “Charlie Norwood doesn’t know what can of worms he’s kicked over.”

 

Indeed.

 

Wishing you something you care about to fill your days,

Janet

Reflections on Apologies

June 5, 2005
Dear Friends:

 

Here’s another excerpt from my letter to my son Alex when he turned 18 – this one on the power of learning to say “I’m sorry.”

 

Learn to say “I’m sorry.”  Don’t be afraid to say “I was wrong; I’m sorry.”  It doesn’t show that you’re weak – it shows you’re strong.  And it doesn’t mean that you’re taking responsibility for everything that may have happened.  It just means that you’re taking responsibility for your part of it.  

 

And I can’t think of any one thing that is more important to sustaining close, loving relationships than the ability to say “I’m sorry”.  Not just because it will soothe hurt feelings and keep others from resenting me because of things I did (though it will certainly help with that), but because it also allows me to let go of trying to justify something (to myself or others) that in my deepest heart of hearts, I know is wrong.  When I say “I’m sorry,” it allows me – paves the way for me - to forgive myself.  And ultimately, that may be the most important reason to learn to say “I’m sorry.”

 

The only times I’ve ever regretted saying “I’m sorry” is when I did it for a manipulative reason:  when I thought my “sorry” would provoke reciprocal “sorry” – and I didn’t get it.  The lesson there isn’t to skip the “sorry.”  The lesson is not to tie expectations of someone else’s behavior to my apology, but to offer it freely because I mean it, and know that the other person’s response is just that - theirs.

 

Wishing you the love of strong people who don’t mind saying they’re sorry,
Janet

Reflections on David Whyte

May 30, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Did you miss Reflections last week?  At least one person did.  (Alright, it was my Mother, but I know someone missed it!)

 

I was in Florida, doing some facilitation and speaking for a client.  I enjoy their members and staff, some of whom I’m starting to know, but the real bonus for me was that I had the opportunity for several long walks on the beach.  I even had the opportunity to get in the ocean, to find a few shells, and to sit in the sun and be soothed by the sound of the waves.  What a blessing that is, to sit in the sun and be soothed by the waves. 

 

This holiday weekend, I was looking forward to some serious sun and lake time.  Teaching Rory to swim off a raft.  Lazy conversations with friends.  A cookout.  Instead, the weather turned cloudy and rainy and cool.  We did go for a long boat ride with friends, and fixed dinner inside (okay, the grill was out of gas).  He had been browsing the book reviews on my website, and wanted to borrow Callings by Gregg Levoy to read during an upcoming vacation.

 

It started me thinking about which books had really meant a lot to me over the past decade or so.  Callings is certainly one of them.  The works of David Whyte came to mind next. 

 

David Whyte is a British poet who now lives on Whidbey Island, and works with corporate America to find a more spacious language for the conversations that need to take place, through poetry and myth.  I’ve never been drawn to poetry before, but Whyte has drawn me to it.  I read his two non-fiction books Crossing the Unknown Sea and The Heart Aroused. They are wondrous books, weaving a gently open philosophy with myth and poetry and acceptance of life as mysterious and miraculous.

 

But the real treasure is a six-CD set called Clear Mind, Wild Heart.  Whyte shares stories, reads poetry, and gently urges the listener to be open to life’s miracles as they are to be found every day, in the dilemmas of our lives.  I keep this set in my car, and have listened to it many, many times.  I find that sometimes it’s one disk that I listen to over and over – sometimes another.  Different parts resonate most at different times.  If you want a true treat for a long drive, some treadmill time, or a long walk, put David Whyte in your CD player and relax into his musings. 

 

What I’d love is to hear from you.  What books have meant the most to you in the past decade?

 

Wishing you the joy of a good book or a good CD,
Janet

Reflections on The World Cafe

May 14, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I admit it; I really ordered The World Café (published in April 2005) because Juanita Brown had interviewed me along with others from FPA and I knew our story would be in it.  But soon after I opened the book, Juanita hooked me.  Maybe it was the beautiful quotes.  Maybe it was the stories from all kinds of organizations.  Maybe it was the clear prose describing how to host meaningful conversations.  All I know is, I was hooked.  I had to ration myself – no more than a chapter a day – so that I didn’t rush through it.

 

The Café process is a way to involve groups larger than 12 in meaningful conversation that creates opportunities for incredible synergy and creativity to emerge.  “Since our earliest ancestors gathered in circles around the warmth of a fire, conversation has been our primary means for discovering what we care about, sharing knowledge, imagining the future, and acting together to both survive and thrive.”

 

Juanita describes seven principles for cultivating conversation as a core process:

Ø       Set the context – clarify the purpose and broad parameters within which the dialogue will unfold.

Ø       Create hospitable space – ensure the welcoming environment and psychological safety that nurtures personal comfort and mutual respect.

Ø       Explore questions that matter – focus collective attention on powerful questions that attract collaborative engagement.

Ø       Encourage everyone’s contribution – enliven the relationship between the “me” and the “we” by inviting full participation and mutual giving.

Ø       Cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives – use the living system dynamics of emergence through intentionally increasing the diversity and density of connections among perspectives while retaining a common focus on core questions.

Ø       Listen together for patterns, insights, and deeper questions – focus shared attention in ways that nurture coherence of thought without losing individual contributions.

Ø       Harvest and share collective discoveries – make collective knowledge and insight visible and actionable.

 

Can conversation change the world?  I think it’s the most powerful tool most of us have.  We just need to be awakened to its power, and how to host and participate in it intentionally.  The World Café is a must read for those in organizations.

 

Here’s a link to a description on my website: http://www.janetmccallen.com/Books/The%20World%20Cafe.htm.  If you follow this link to Amazon.com and buy a book, I’ll get a tiny commission.

 

Wishing you meaningful conversations on questions that matter,
Janet

Reflections on Consensus and Complexity

May 8, 2005
Dear Friends:

 

In the Journal of Association Leadership recently, there was a disparaging quote about consensus, linking it with compromise.  I resisted, and wanted to argue with the author (not an uncommon experience for me.)  There are two kinds of consensus.  One I think of as “faux consensus.”  It is the result of compromise, of group think, of groups whose norms keep members from bringing their fears or conflicting views into the conversation.  In other words, we may say we have consensus, but it is because no one has the courage to oppose the powers that be.

 

The other kind of consensus is a different animal indeed.  It emerges after a group’s conversations have faced and acknowledged the fears, the conflicting views, the hopes, the questions…. and held them long enough for clarity to emerge among the group about a path that honors their values in the face of this challenge. 

 

Usually, especially if the group is diverse (certainly an appropriate composition criterion for a Board), the only way to a clear, simple conclusion is through a lengthy conversation.  Sometimes many lengthy conversations.  The only way out, in other words, is through.

As M. Scott Peck said in Abounding Grace:

 

”So now we are back to the image of that clean pane of glass.  I have two favorite quotes about simplicity.  One by Anatole France is ‘Simple style is like white light.  It is complex, but its complexity is not obvious.’

”The second is attributed to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:  ‘I don’t give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would die for the simplicity on the other side.’  He was not speaking of simpleminded answers but the clarity that can come only when one has waded through the complexity.”

 

That’s the kind of consensus rich, authentic conversation can lead to – the clarity that can come only when one has waded through the complexity.

 

Wishing you the clarity on the other side,
Janet

Reflections on Governance

May 1, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

A former colleague is involved as a volunteer with redesigning the governance of a national organization she belongs to.  She wrote and asked me for some thoughts on governance, including systems designed by John Carver and Glenn Tecker. 

 

It’s an intriguing question.  We implemented Policy Governance (by John Carver) at IAFP.  In FPA, we used something similar to the knowledge-based governance that Glenn Tecker promotes (and which incorporates some aspects of policy governance).  So I’ve lived in various governance systems for decades.

 

My own current thoughts are that there are some patterns of association governance that we know work well.  Exactly how one combines these patterns in individual organizations is less important than that you pay attention to hierarchy - what Carver would call the broadest level issues first.  For example:

- The most important thing is that an organization have a clear, shared vision/mission/purpose (I'm not being particular about semantics here). 

- Then it needs agreement on core values.  These are incredibly important, and there should only be a few of them.  The language we used at FPA (ideals we would cling to even if penalized) is helpful.

- Then we ask what we need to do, congruent with our core values, that will help to achieve our purpose/primary aim/mission/vision.

- THEN we ask how we need to organize ourselves to enable this activity, bringing our core values to life, and achieving our mission.  How shall we organize volunteers and staff in service to our mission?  What kind of governance would honor and facilitate those aims, values and objectives? 

 

In other words, you don't go pick a governance system off the shelf, assuming that it will work in any organization.  You design a governance system (and we know something about what makes good ones, thanks to Tecker, Carver and others) based on the particular aims of an organization.  This is similar to the idea that you always design a house based on the lot you're going to put it on and how you want to live in it.  In FPA, for example, we asked "What would our governance be like if we REALLY meant that we wanted to "be the community" for financial planning?" and that lead us to Circle. 

 

Whatever the answer is for a particular organization, it should be radical and intense.  It shouldn't be a mediocre evolution of the past, tweaking what we've always done.  It should be purely conceived.  It should showcase and always pivot around the organization's values.  They should be the constant reference point - what do our values say about how to handle this?  In a perfect world, how would we do it?  Far better to shoot for the stars and fall short! 

 

Wishing you process and practices that bring your values to life,

Janet

Reflections on the Downside

April 23, 2005
Dear Friends:

 

Here’s another excerpt from my letter to my son Alex, this one on the downside of life… 

 

Joseph Campbell said “It is by going into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.  Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”  Most of us – definitely including me – want (and mostly expect) life to be pretty good.  Even when we’re going through tough times, we want to hurry through them, to get back to life the way it’s “supposed” to be – good.  Right?  Ah, I wish life was like that.  But it isn’t.

 

Near as I can tell, based on my life, it’s about half ups and half downs.  And as sweet as the “up” times are – as joyous, as wonderful, as memorable – I can’t hang on to them.  I can live fully in the moment, and enjoy them as they come.  But I can’t control things, engineer things, or manipulate things to make them last past their time, whatever that is.  And trying to do that probably just hastens their evaporation.

 

And, ironically, it’s the down times that have been my best teachers.  It’s the down times when I have found the courage – through despair – to let go of the parts of myself that it’s time to shed.  When I’ve been able to see past the “fluff” of life to what’s really meaningful.  When I’ve learned new skills and found new resources that will help me to continue on my journey. 

 

My biggest enemy in this learning is my expectation that life should always be good, should always be sweet.  And when it isn’t, I tend to assume responsibility for that – to try to figure out what I did wrong, or at the least, what I can do to fix it. 

 

I’ve been saying the Serenity Prayer a lot lately, and it has helped.  Some.  I even wrote my own version of it:

God, please grant me the serenity and faith to give thanks for what I cannot change, the courage to change what you would have me change,

and the wisdom to understand the difference, according to thy will.

 

I suppose the truth is that I still want life to be all sweet.  But, as I approach mid‑life (no smart comments about my life expectancy here!), I’m gradually accepting the fact that (a) it won’t be; and (b) God really did have a grander plan than I can conceive when He made it this way.  When I’m at my best, I can appreciate the relief and contrast that the tough, sad, hard, or hurtful times provide, and the growth opportunities they present me.  When I’m at my weakest, feeling frustrated, hurt, lonely and petulant, I can take comfort in the fact that it’s not just me – it’s life.  And I breathe deeply and say the Serenity Prayer, to remind myself that I’m not in charge here.  God is.

 

“Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”  So if you don’t stumble, you may miss your treasure.  Or if you won’t admit that you stumbled, you may miss your treasure, too.  It’s too much to tell you that I welcome stumbling… maybe when I’m 100 I will be able to say that, but not now.  Now, I can only tell you that if I stop focusing on my hurt pride, the treasures I find when I stumble are usually pretty sweet.

 

I’ve been rereading David Whyte’s The Heart Aroused (wonderful book about rediscovering soul in the workplace – here’s a link to the review on my website: The Heart Aroused).  Here’s a quote on just this subject of accepting the down times, which he compares to the half of the month the moon is waning:

 

Much of our stress and subsequent exhaustion at work comes from our wish to keep ourselves at full luminescence all month, even when our interior “moon” may be just a sliver in the sky, or about to fade from sight altogether.  It takes tremendous energy to keep up a luminescent front when the interior surface is fading into darkness.  In some ways we are constantly preventing our own rebirth into new cycles and greater lives, and instead work twenty-four hours a day keeping a wraithlike image of our former selves alive long after its time has passed.

 

Wishing you the treasures to be found when you stumble,
Janet

Reflections on Accountability

April 17, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Recently, one member of a board I was working with expressed a desire for “accountability systems” for their strategic planning.  This is generally thought of as a good thing, isn’t it?  The need for it arises especially when a group undertakes planning that they don’t really intend to affect their day-to-day functioning – whether we’re talking about the agenda of the board and the way it functions, or what staff members do and focus on daily.  Most groups do intend that strategic planning affect what others do – just not what they do. 

 

And so we get requests for accountability systems.  Some way to hold everyone else’s feet to the fire of the strategy we’ve forged.  It’s one manifestation of our desire for control.  I’m as susceptible to the desire for control as anyone I know – and as many former staff members can attest, I have developed control systems that may be unparalleled in their complexity.  My apologies to those who suffered under them… and my confession to you that I never felt like they gave me the control I was seeking.  That desire was a black hole that could never be filled.

 

Control is largely an illusion.  Desire for control is frequently generated by a lack of trust that others will act in alignment with what we perceive to be our highest interests. 

 

The “cure” for this is not the creation of control and accountability systems.  The “cure” is focusing on aligning our vision, purpose and our understanding of our highest interests.   The “cure” is long, spacious conversations with those who are important to us (whether at work or at home) about how we envision the future, developing alignment in our understanding.  The “cure” is ensuring that we are only working with people of the highest integrity who share our values.  The “cure” is develop trust by both being impeccably trustworthy and allowing others to be trustworthy.

 

Does that mean we shouldn’t set benchmarks and periodically assess how we’re doing against our goals and plans?  Of course not.  But it means that instead of doing it to “ensure accountability” we’ll be doing it to develop a shared understanding of current reality as it relates to our shared vision.  That’s a conversation everyone involved will find meaningful.

 

Wishing you trust instead of accountability,

Janet

Reflections on Marketing Warfare

April 11, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Preparing for some work with a client, I was motivated to dig out some of Jack Trout and Al Ries’s books – especially Marketing Warfare.  Now I’m sure some of you will wrinkle your nose at the “war” analogy that Trout and Ries use.  It’s not my favorite analogy, but the wisdom they pack in this small, easy to read book is too critical to let political correctness keep you from it.  Trout and Ries say “,,,we would urge you to consider the results of the warfare analogy rather than the analogy itself.”  They also point out that “…marketing warfare is a mental exercise with the battleground being the human mind.  All offensive operations should be directed at that target.  Your artillery is nothing but words, pictures, sounds.”

 

I was curious, when I dug the book out, if I would find it as helpful as I remembered it.  Darn right, I did!  If your organization has one or more significant competitors, and you need to determine how to compete with them in your marketplace… I can’t think of anything that would be more helpful than this book.  For one thing, it will help you assess your current reality – face “the brutal facts” as Jim Collins said – vis a vis your competition without the rose-colored glasses that many of us tend to wear.

 

Based on your product’s competitive position, Trout and Ries recommend one of four strategies:  defensive (for the clear market leader), offensive (for the first runner-up), flanking (for other strong contenders), and guerrilla (for the other 94 out of every 100 companies in the market).  They specify very distinct strategies for each, and warn that “What’s good strategy for the leader is bad strategy for #2, and vice versa.”  

 

The book was originally published in 1986, and there’s an updated version published a decade later (which I don’t have).  If this has whetted your interest, and you’ve a competitive “situation” that is consuming your energy, I hope you’ll buy and read Marketing Warfare.  Here’s a link to a review on my website – and if you follow the link there to Amazon.com and buy this (or other) books, I’ll get a tiny commission:  Marketing Warfare.  And here's a link to a grid summarizing the four "warfare" styles:  Marketing Warfare summary grid.

 

Wishing you the wisdom of knowing what to do in light of brutal competitive facts,

Janet 

Reflections on Uses of Dialogue

April 2, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Following my Reflections a few weeks ago comparing dialogue and debate, I received this note from a respected colleague:

These are interesting comparisons. I was wondering how dialogue and "deliberation" compare. Looking at association governance, for example, there is a need for open dialogue, just as you describe it below...to include staff perspectives, environmental data, member and customer research (knowledge based decisions, etc.). However, at some point, the dialogue must cease, and the board must "deliberate" and move toward a decision. At that point, points of advocacy must be defended...how does that play out in your perspective? Is deliberation a form of debate? If so, how do you make it meaningful and "healthy" I think it is necessary to arrive at conclusions, or do you see it differently?

 

Here’s my reply:

I agree that sometimes deliberation is important and/or necessary.  And it can be very polite, without some of the more abrasive edges that I was using to describe debate (though they're all on a continuum).  But no, I don't necessarily agree that "dialogue must cease, and the board must ‘deliberate’ and move toward a decision".   If the issue is important (and if it's not, why is it on the Board's agenda?), I like to allow the dialogue to continue until a consensus coalesces in the group.  Then someone (usually a "J," or Judging type in Myers Briggs parlance, who's ready to decide, already!) should say something like "I think I'm hearing a consensus that...."  And the group can test the consensus, either agreeing or disagreeing. 

 

I'm a strong "J," and I tend to hear a consensus before the group's really there.  So my experience is that I posit a consensus, and various group members will disagree... and the dialogue continues.  Sometimes it must be continued from meeting to meeting, even.  The time in between frequently is very fertile for subconscious processing, as well as inviting in other perspectives through individual conversations.     

 

Yes, this can take time.  But if it is an important issue, it is well worth the time... and actually will save time later.  The context created by this sort of dialogue allows rapid decision-making later, in all kinds of subsidiary issues.  I can’t stress this point enough, especially for organizations who are concerned about rapid decision-making.  If you invest the time in the big, really important issues, the subsidiary issues are resolved much more easily. 

 

For instance, if the Board seems to have predictable patterns of disagreement over all kinds of subsidiary issues, it's likely that there is a larger, fundamental issue on which there is no consensus.  Time spent in dialogue on that issue, leading to ultimate consensus, would likely eliminate future disagreements on subsidiary issues, or issues which illustrate the "point."

 

If there’s any pattern I see that’s injurious to good board function (in guiding the organization, setting its direction), it’s the expectation that that a real, big issue in which there are real, hard choices for the organization can be truly resolved in a timed board discussion (90 minutes for this, 30 for that).  No amount of pre-processing (e.g., task force reports) can replace the board having the real conversation, for as long as it takes. 

 

One of my mentors, Roy Diliberto, used to ask us how long you needed to wash a glass?  The answer, of course, is “until it’s clean.”  That’s how long the big issues deserve on your board agenda:  until they’re resolved, until consensus (not necessarily unanimity) emerges.

 

Wishing you time for dialogue on the big issues,
Janet

Reflections on Spring

March 27, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

Spring is coming to Hiawassee.  Technically, spring arrived last Sunday, while I was mired in the morass of a late winter cold and couldn’t appreciate its official arrival.  But this week it’s been shorts weather, and that lifts a load off my heart – a load I didn’t quite realize I was carrying until it’s gone and the lightness of spirit washes over me.

 

The daffodils we planted near the lake are in full bloom, riotous with yellow and orange joy to be free of their winter hibernation.  The forsythia is blooming, in elegant yellow waves.  The tulip trees are showing purple and white, and the Bradford pear trees are white beacons of greenery to come.  The dogwoods are just budding. 

 

Yesterday it was in the mid-70’s, and we took the puppies for a boat ride.  It was Rory’s second boat ride – the first was disastrous.  Super Bowl Sunday was warm, so we went out on the pontoon boat.  Rory went to the front of the boat, to get the wind on his face (or so I thought) – and he leaped over the front of the boat into the lake!  I never in a million years expected that.  Pat cut the engine immediately, which is a good thing, because the next time we saw Rory he was behind us – he’d gone under the boat!  Pat dove in, I backed the boat to them, and we managed to get Rory and then Pat back on the boat.  The water was in the 40’s, and after our ride home it took Pat quite a while to warm back up.  Needless to say, after that experience, Rory hasn’t been eager to go near the water or get back on the boat. 

 

So I kept him leashed yesterday, as well as life-jacketed.  And he shook the whole time, snuggled up against me when he wasn’t literally sitting in my lap.  Jenny sat in front, the wind in her face, thoroughly enjoying being a hood ornament.  She and I know that Rory will come to love the boat as we do, once we overwrite those first memories with better ones.

 

In the tradition of walking the seasons, winter symbolizes willingness to be in inquiry, to be in unknowing.  It’s that time of greyness, of incubation, of not knowing.  Spring symbolizes seeing what your vision is – clarity about intention.  No wonder spring coming brings such joy! 

 

Wishing you all the joys of spring,

Janet

Reflections on Finding Your Authenticity

Reflections on "A Hidden Wholeness"

March 12, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

“We sense that something is missing in our lives, and search the world for it, not understanding that what is missing is us,” Parker Palmer writes in his newest book A Hidden Wholeness.  Many thanks to Jeffrey Cufaude for recommending it.

 

I soaked this book up like I was a dry sponge and it was the clearest, freshest water imaginable.  When Palmer speaks of "reuniting soul and role," it put into words what I've been working on the past few years.  He explains how most of us end up living a divided life, protecting our tender souls with a construct designed to fulfill others' expectations of us... and that the pain and sense of loss this causes us is at the heart of many undefined longings.  “The divided life is a wounded life,” Palmer writes, “and the soul keeps calling us to heal the wound.”

 

In addition to the interior pain such dividedness causes, it also creates barriers in relationships.  “When we live behind a wall, people close to us become wary of the gap between our onstage performance and backstage reality,”  Palmer says.  Others, it seems, have an excellent "dividedness detector," even when we may not realize ourselves that the words coming out of our mouths are being selected by our exterior selves (personalities, egos) instead of being authored by our souls.

 

Palmer describes those living whole lives:  “…reaching in toward their own wholeness, reaching out toward the world’s needs, and trying to live their lives at the intersection of the two.”  He describes how circles of trust can provide support for those of us who yearn for wholeness.

 

This is a wonderful little book, and if I could I'd just send a copy to everyone in my address book.  Since I can’t, you can click on this link to a book description on my website:  A Hidden Wholeness.  If you click through to Amazon.com and buy it there, I’ll get a tiny commission.    

 

Wishing you the deep joy of a whole life,
Janet

Reflections on Dialogue and Debate

Reflections on the 8 D's of Learning Conversations

Reflections on Being Present

February 20, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

In an e-conversation with some colleagues, I threw out the pronouncement that:  “Phenomenal leaders realize that ‘now’ is all there is.  We can control where we place our attention right now.”  A wise friend responded:  “I think the challenge is balancing the NOW with the need to imagine the THEN, being future focused. I think too often I see one being sacrificed to the other.” 

 

Of course, she’s right.  Phenomenal leaders are inspired to seek a better future.  They must have an extraordinary ability to envision and describe what can be.  Their allegiance must be to a dream that serves the people and the values they serve.  Without that vision, they may be excellent caretakers, but cannot lead.

 

And it doesn’t mean that my statement was wrong.  Tim Gallwey (author of “The Inner Game of Tennis” and other “inner game” books) said that the only thing we can control is where we place our attention.  As a leader, it took me quite a while to realize that he’s right.  Especially if you have position power, you may be under the illusion that you control a lot of things.  But it is an illusion.  If you’re lucky, you may get enthusiastic support and help because you’ve inspired those around you.  If you’re not so lucky, you may get compliance because of promises of rewards or threats of punishments.  You don’t control the people around you. 

 

As Gallwey said, the only thing we actually control is where we place our attention.  And I laugh at myself, because as I’ve found when I try to meditate, sometimes it doesn’t even seem I can control that!  Internal struggles aside, as a leader the way I can serve the vision I hold is to choose carefully where to place my attention right now. 

 

Joseph Jaworski commented in Presence:  “Another paradox.  Serving the emerging whole means paying attention to what’s right here within my awareness, what’s completely local, and surrendering to what’s being asked of me now.”

 

I struggle with this.  I am a planner, an organizer, always thinking about something “next.”  If I’m in a meeting, it can be seductive to be planning a different meeting, creating or editing a to-do list, etc.

 

But when I let my mind wander to other “stuff,” I miss the nuances of what is happening in the here and now.  I am less able to notice what is going on with others – if their body language belies their words, for instance.  I am less able to notice what is going on with me, what reactions I am having to what is being said.  I am less able to slow down and describe my experience, non-judgmentally, to others.  I am less able to inquire about their experience, and thus help them slow down and name what is going on for them.  I am less able to listen for guidance about what needs to happen next.

 

Eckhart Tolle wrote the best-selling The Power of Now about being present – and what happens when we’re not.  I recommend it highly.

 

Wishing you the present of presence,

Janet

Reflections on the Aphorisms of a Leadership Guru

Reflections on Throwing a Pot

February 7, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

I spent the past week in pottery class at the John C. Campbell Folk School.  The sprawling campus is about 20 miles away, in Brasstown, NC.  Just getting there and home every day was a meditative experience.  I slowed my habitual rush and drove the winding roads through beautiful valleys of frosted fields even more slowly than the speed limit.  The water rushes over huge boulders in the stream that cut the valley.  I breathe and take the curves at an easy pace.  I arrive eager for class.

 

Our talented young teacher demonstrates:  wedge a lump of clay (similar to kneading, but the purpose is to get the air out), plop it on the wheel, turn the wheel on, wet your hands, and start working the clay.  Any kindergartener ought to be able to follow that, right? 

 

The week was full of life lessons.  The first few days I would get home exhausted, muscles sore from trying so hard, mentally tired from trying so hard.  Then I learned to try easy, and it got better. 

 

We all learned the importance of centering – working the clay to ensure that it was centered on the wheel.  At first we tended to skimp on this step, hurrying to the part where you make a hole and pull the walls up.  But if the clay isn’t centered when you start, the walls won’t be even, and the higher you pull them, the more pronounced the variations will grow.  So we learned to brace our elbows at our sides, lean in to the wheel, close our eyes, and work the clay until it is centered.

 

Our teacher told us not to be attached to any particular piece, and encouraged us to slice completed pieces to see if the walls were even, if the base was even.  Even thickness is important, because unevenness means an unbalanced piece, and can even lead to cracking when the piece is fired.  Most of us found that painful to contemplate – I finally made a bowl (as opposed to the ones that collapsed!) and you want me to slice it?  The space of the week, though, allowed most of us to get to the point that we were much less attached to a piece, and could value the learning even when we “pushed” a piece to the point of collapse. 

 

Trying easy, the importance of being centered, non-attachment, and valuing the learning in “failures” – these are life lessons.  Plus I came home with a few pieces I’m proud of, and even if I never throw another pot, the satisfaction of having pursued a long-held desire.

 

The John C. Campbell Folk School draws students from all over the country, and operates year-round.  Many couples attend together, each finding a new craft to learn.  If a learning vacation appeals to you, check out their website:  http://www.folkschool.com.  The variety of classes is amazing, you’ll have fun, and you’ll make wonderful friends. 

 

Wishing you learning opportunities, whatever you’re doing,

Janet

Reflections on Intention in Gatherings

Reflections on Conversations that Matter

January 22, 2005
Dear Friends,

 

This week I want to share some excerpts from President Bush's second inaugural address.  I know some of you weren't happy about his re-election.  I'm not sending this excerpt for political purposes, though.  I'm sending it because I believe that the most important conversations we can have, at the national level and in our living rooms and coffee houses, is to  develop a common vision for our future.  President Bush has given us a starting point. 

 

So I ask you to read these excerpts, not with the idea that you will accept his vision unconditionally, and not with the idea that you will refute and reject it.  I ask you to read these excerpts, suspending any disbelief in his good intentions (suspension of assumptions, you know, is a key to dialogue).  I ask you to read these excerpts as a participant in an intentional conversation, asking what you are called to contribute to the conversation to move forward the ideal of a common vision for America, at home and in the world.

 

*********************

From President Bush's Second Inaugural Address:

 

We have seen our vulnerability, and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny -- prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder, violence will gather and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

 

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

 

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.

 

This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own.

 

America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal, instead, is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way.

 

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right.

 

America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies. Yet rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators. They are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.

 

Some I know have questioned the global appeal of liberty, though this time in history -- four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen -- is an odd time for doubt.

Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals.

 

Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

 

The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know to serve your people, you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.

 

America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home -- the unfinished work of American freedom.

 

To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance, preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society.

 

By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.

In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character, on integrity and tolerance toward others and the rule of conscience in our own lives.

 

Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.

 

In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love. Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth.

 

We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul.

 

History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the author of liberty.

*************

 

I'd really recommend the complete speech, and you can find it here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23747-2005Jan20.html?sub=AR.

This is the Washington Post website, and you will have to register, but it's free.

 

Wishing you participation in conversations that matter,

Janet

Reflections on Wing-Crafting

January 17, 2005
Dear Friends:

 

Here’s a quote that makes me smile with recognition:

"If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."