females can’t sing
Image: The Girl Can Sing. (John Young) via http://www.abc.net.au/rn
I was told it is true. They can’t.
Ever since Darwin determined it to be so in The Origin of the Species birdsong has been defined as something that males do. The primary role of the female is to listen and then choose a male to mate with. If you don’t believe me look up “birdsong” in a dictionary or a text-book. Males have the power to vocalise their desire, females listen and choose. Males use their song to compete, to get ahead, to defend their territory and secure a nest for their mate.
And yes, I can already hear your objections, there are some females who sing. They are rare and they are considered atypical. That is how it has been for, well, hundreds if not thousands of years. That is the story we and all the researchers since Darwin’s time have lived in. It is what we are taught in schools and in Universities and, like everything else we learn, that makes it true. Females can’t sing.
Except it is not true. Turns out we got the story wrong.
Recently publicized research from the University of Maryland, the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and Leiden University in the Netherlands overturns what has been a long bias in songbird research. It concludes that female song was present in the ancestors of all songbirds, and today remains in 71 per cent of the songbird species surveyed. Dr Naomi Langmore, from the Research School of Biology at ANU, found Australian species including include lyrebirds, fairy-wrens, honeyeaters, fantails, whistlers and magpies feature bird song from both males and females and that female birds are able to ‘whistle up melodies equal to those of their male counterparts’.
Dr Langmore concludes, ‘Female song can no longer be considered an evolutionary oddity.’
We got the story wrong and that is important because the story prevented researchers from seeing what is right in front of their ears. No one has ever disputed that birdsong is a powerful capacity to use in the competition for food, nest sites, mates and territories. Despite daily evidence to the contrary the common wisdom was that only the male of the species had that power.
As of today you know different.
The stories we live in determine our futures. Believing I am too skinny, too old or not funny looking enough to achieve my goals will mean that any evidence to the contrary, like female birds singing, will be considered an anomaly. A belief that I have always been a bookish type and not good at sports will present a huge barrier to my participation in any sport at any level at any time in my life.
Believing that I am not capable of leading will mean that, despite evidence to the contrary, I will not look for opportunities to lead and I am likely to decline them if they are offered to me.
More damaging though are the stories we tell ourselves about other people. The media, Government and others in positions of power know this to be true. It doesn’t matter what the actual qualities (positive or negative) of the person or group concerned, if I can get you to buy into my story about them then I have enormous influence over how you treat them.
Good CEOs know it too. They know they need to do more than just hold the vision. They need to tell the story about what it is all about. If they have no story, they have no influence.
When you have finished here read this HBR article “Stop fixing women and start fixing managers“. Notice the call for the CEO to frame the issue differently?
It is a call for CEOs to tell a different story.
The lesson beginning to emerge as companies’ progress on gender balance stalls is that we have relied on the wrong analysis of the problem [the wrong story!]. We have spent decades thinking that the lack of balance in business was caused by women doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing or even wearing the wrong thing.
We have spent far too long believing that females can’t sing. They can and they do, as well as or better than males.
But it goes further than that. The stories we tell ourselves about what qualities are needed to succeed in business date back two centuries to before Darwin. Are you certain they still hold true in the face of evidence to the contrary? What if we held a story that said that empathy, collaboration and teamwork are the critical capabilities we need to succeed in this century and the next? What would our leaders look like then?
Your ability to become aware of the stories you live in, to be open to and welcome evidence (new or otherwise) that shifts or changes or completely overturns your stories is a skill that will determine your success as a leader and the quality of the future we all will live in. It will be difficult but if you agree with me that change is required then that is where we need to start.
Change the story, change our future.
***
If you would like me to come and share with you and your team the insights that come from the experiential learning environments that I create, make me an offer via the Contact Me page.
If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts and you would like to read more, you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your friends. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post and three more who could use a bit of shaking up… seriously. Do it now. You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
breaking, bad is good
Walter White did more than make chemistry “bad” in the best possible way, he demonstrated what we are capable of when faced with all the worst kinds of adversity. So while the results, the human cost, of Walt’s achievements caused me to turn away about half way through the first season he is still a wonderful, fictionalised, example of what we all know – difficult situations, situations that we fear might break us, provide us with an opportunity to achieve things we never thought we were capable of.
Bad can be good for us.
Research supports this view. Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons from the UQ Business School, in his Doctoral research on CEO appointments in Australia, found there are five things that the vast majority of the small number of female CEO’s have in common. One of them was that they had met and overcome a significant and traumatic life event before the age of 15.
Malcolm Gladwell explores the same theme in his book David & Goliath. He finds that the loss of a parent at an early age is a common experience for many who are successful in the political arena. Is your child struggling to read? Take heart in the fact that they share that life experience with the likes of Kerry Packer, Dick Smith, Stephen Spielberg and Lindsay Fox. It is very much a case of the old adage “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
So if dealing with the difficult makes it easier for us to succeed in the longer term why do we spend much of our lives avoiding the difficult? Why do we demand that everything be made easy, provided to us in 15 second sound bites or blog posts of 700 words or less? In one of his recent LinkedIn posts, author Daniel Goldman (Focus, Emotional Intelligence) was criticised in a number of comments because his post on working with untrustworthy people didn’t provide “the whole answer” and included multiple links to other material he suggested people read. The view seemed to be that Goldman was deliberately manipulating them to get them to read additional material – rather than seeing that it is a complex and difficult area that cannot be explained let alone solved in 700 words. Stone, Patten, Heen and Fisher’s book Difficult Conversations: How to discuss what matters most runs considerably longer than that, and, while it is recognised for making significant and lasting contribution to the field I suspect the authors would be the first to tell you there is more to it than is contained in the book.
Why is that?
Because human beings are not simple. Our complexity makes the myriad responses we are capable of difficult to understand. It is how we respond to the difficult that is the key to determining whether we are harmed or strengthened by the roadblocks life puts in our way.
The evidence points to early success in dealing with the difficult breeding ongoing success and conversely, early failure leading to on-going failure. (Gladwell points out that prisoners are between two and three times more likely to have experienced the loss of a parent at an early age.)
But how does that help you?
Take just one of the challenges I am working on at the moment, the lack of women at Board, CEO and senior management levels in organisations world-wide. How can we increase an individual’s chance of success without taking what seems to be the logical but drastic step of depriving them of one or both parents at an early age?
The solution, I think, lies in developing the skills needed to respond effectively to difficult situations in organisations. That much is obvious. What is less obvious but more important (and more difficult) is providing the opportunity to practice those skills in meaningful ways. That means creating breakdowns for people to respond to – difficult, challenging and engaging work that has zero associated financial and reputational risk. It can be done. But as I am already over my 700 word limit, exactly how you can go about doing that will have to wait for another day.
If you would like a hint you could read other posts that I have written as my thinking around the solution has fermented:
- a “fine” argument
- death to the facilitator, long live the difficultator
- the best leaders don’t teach their teams how to fish
- the first tee has never seen your résumé
***
If you would like me to come and share with you and your team the insights that come from the experiential learning environments that I create, make me an offer via the Contact Me page. If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts and you would like to read more, you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your colleagues. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post and three more who could use a bit of shaking up… seriously. Do it now – it isn’t difficult! You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
death to the facilitators, long live the difficultator!
I am calling for a revolution.
Facilitators need to rounded up and run out-of-town. Making things easy must be outlawed.
And you know why. You’ve been there. A room full of people looking at “The Problem” where nobody trusts anyone else enough to let them lead the conversation. Enter the Expert Facilitator, engaged to make things easier. Plausible solutions start to appear and are captured (like wild animals) to be tamed into tasks that other people will be given accountability for completing. The Problem has been solved! Or it will be after a few more meetings to sort out the specific details with the individuals involved…
Backs are patted and thanks are given.
Success is declared.
Except you know there is little chance it will be. A success that is.
Dorothy Gale’s ruby slippers. http://americanhistory.si.edu/press/fact-sheets/ruby-slippers
And you know why. Because the facilitator made things easier. The truly difficult conversations didn’t take place. The plausible solutions are only plausible if you can acquire the corporate equivalent of a pair of ruby slippers and you know they don’t sell them in your size.
Training is the same.
You know before you go that you cannot fail. The trainer will ‘facilitate’ your learning. But you know what? Having someone there to make it easy for you turns it into a lose-lose situation. You lose because you don’t retain the skills or knowledge that is the whole point of the training. The organisation loses for exactly the same reason plus they paid to have you there. This is thinking at the level that created our problems and it is not going to help you solve them.
A revolution is required to bring about an end to the facilitator. An end to the trainer who makes things easy for you.
As the statues of Expert Facilitators are toppled in towns and cities around the world I would erect nothing in their place – that would only make it easy for you. And easy will not help us.
If you want to make a difference you need to find yourself a difficultator. They are not interested in hearing that you don’t have time, that your resources are limited or that Jo from Engineering is the source of all your problems. They are not interested in easy.
If you are lucky enough to find one you can be sure they will put the obstacles of reality into the path of you and your team. Provocations will be offered, unspeakable questions spoken. Easy to agree with solutions blocked and ruby slippers held up and shown to be movie props – simple and elegant for sure but props just the same. Stakes are taken from their holders who are sent back to try again – this time taking account of a deeper understanding of the prevailing conditions within the organisation. A mirror is held up to help you stay focused on the question “for the sake of what are we doing this?”
Like the Fate of War in the Samurai Game, the serve you best when they are arbitrary, capricious and unfair. Why? Because the world is all that and more and easy will not help you.
Give up on calling a facilitator to make things easy for you. If you want solutions and you are prepared to do the work that is required to get you where you want to go (Kansas or otherwise) start searching for a difficultator. It will make all the difference.
(Perhaps I am being too quick in calling for the death of the facilitator. There may be a role for them yet – documenting the results of the process. Nobody likes to do that…)
***
This post was inspired by Augusto Boal’s idea of the difficultator or Joker in his Theatre of the Oppressed. If you would like me to come and share with you and your team the insights that come from the experiential learning environments that I create, make me an offer via the Contact Me page. If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts and you would like to read more, you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your friends. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post and three more who could use a bit of shaking up… seriously. Do it now. You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
unbroken
Late in 2013 I got to spend two weeks as an extra on a big budget, Hollywood movie set*. And let me tell you that Hollywood is not a place for the easily bruised ego. Or the easily bored. Most days were spent standing in the sun in clothes that haven’t been washed in many, many days while holding a paper cup filled with water, waiting and wondering. Waiting for someone to look at me and decide I might be useful to them.
As it turned out, they mostly decided that I was not.
Not skinny enough. Not young enough. Not short enough. Not funny looking enough…
And I took it personally. Other extras got used so much that the Director not only knew their name but would call for them to be included in the shot. It was like being at school and being picked last for the team. Who wants that?
And if you are like me, most times that can feel like a rejection of who you are. But it isn’t.
The Director had a vision for her movie. She knew what she wanted in order to bring her vision to life. And in the context of that vision I was too fat, too old, too tall and too edgy. As I saw the playbacks of the scenes that had just been shot, I saw her vision forming. It was stunning.
The continuing rejection was still hard but I came to see that it wasn’t that I was a bad actor, it wasn’t that I was incompetent, unskilled or a fool. In this context, on this day, all they were saying to me was they were looking for a man who looked like he had survived for years in a prisoner of war camp, fighting off dysentery and starvation and was close to death. And so what I had to offer was not what they were looking for.
If you have to sell you will be familiar with those feelings. To sell things you have to make offers! So it doesn’t matter if you are selling a widget, software, an innovation, a system, an idea or just offering to solve their problems with your particular set of skills – you are going to be rejected at some point. It will be too expensive, too complex, too simple, too hard, too big, too much or too little.
And sometimes that can feel like a rejection of who you are too.
But it isn’t. It is only that what you are offering is not what they are looking for.
And while it is not easy, that realisation is the key to getting past a “no” from someone. That is the key to super charging the productivity of your organisation. If someone says “No thanks” they are not rejecting you – they are telling you that on this day, in this context, what you are offering them is not what they are looking for. It might not seem like a huge distinction but it makes all the difference.
It opens up a space where you can make a different offer. You can ask questions to find out why what you are offering doesn’t meet their needs. Maybe you will find that you haven’t helped them to understand just what it is you are offering? Maybe you know someone you can introduce to them who has exactly what they are looking for? Maybe they will give you an important piece of information about what you are offering that is the key to unlocking a market you had never considered?
Listen around your organisation over the next few days. Can you characterize it as an organisation where you hear people making more offers to others than they are making requests of others? If not, you are missing out on easy opportunities for increased productivity and increased innovation from your team, not to mention an increased sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment.
Who wouldn’t want that?
***
* The trailer for the movie has just been released and you can see it on YouTube here. (If you stop the video at 1:42 you will see the side of my head!)
If you would like me to come and share with you and your team the insights that come from the experiential learning environments that I create, make me an offer via the Contact Me page.
If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts and you would like to read more, you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your friends. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post and three more who could use a bit of shaking up… seriously. Do it now. You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
the best leaders don’t bother teaching their team how to fish
“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” – Proverb
Rubbish! It might be the common wisdom but it is incredibly short-sighted. Teaching your team how to fish only delivers value while they can stand beside the river or piece of coastline that your presence gives them access to. What happens when you leave and the next leader can’t provide the same resource access or doesn’t understand the value of fishing? Or worse, doesn’t even know how to fish?
Your team starves. Unless of course they leave the organisation first.
If you are a leader and you are spending your time teaching your team how to fish then you are wasting your time and theirs.
If you want to join the ranks of the best leaders in the world today teach your team how to teach other people how they fish.
Let me tell you a story to illustrate…
It was a Friday. I was with a client on the morning of his last day with the organisation. It was a time for reflection on what had been achieved and whether he was leaving a legacy. Despite having built a highly productive, efficient and safe team; despite overcoming many of the tensions that come from running a mixed office and field based team; despite having delivered an ambitious program of works that dealt with major organisational risks on time and on budget; despite all that he was melancholy.
His concern was not whether those who followed him would be able to build on the foundation he had established. He was worried that they would not even be able to maintain the team’s current level of performance. And he is not alone. It is a common concern for many managers in today’s highly mobile employment environment. What happens after you move on to the next role? Was it worth expending all that time and energy building something if the next person in the chair is just going to tear it down in another departmental reorganisation?
He had invested a significant amount of his time and energy teaching his team how to fish. And he had done it well. The team were known in the organisation for their ability to fish well and to fish efficiently. They were the team that dropped by your desk in the morning and offered to help you with a problem they had heard you were having. He had been an excellent leader and the team responded. But that didn’t guarantee a lasting legacy.
What he wasn’t able to do was to make it clear to them what it was that he as their leader was doing that allowed them to excel. He had taught them how to fish, but he hadn’t taught them how to teach others how they fish.
That is because many natural leaders are just that – natural. They do what they do and they do it well… but they are not able to put into words just what it is that they do. As a result, when they are promoted or head-hunted into their next role the team that they leave behind don’t know what it is that they need to ask for from their next leader. They don’t know how to identify what is missing and you end up with vague comments like “There was just something about her. She made it easy for me to do my job. This new guy they brought across from canning in a development move has no idea about fishing!”
Can you as a leader make explicit to your team what it is they need to ask of you, what the work is that you need to do for them so that they can do their job? If you can, you arm them with the capacity to see what the next leader is failing to provide for them. You open a space in which they are able to ask for what is missing. A space where they can teach their next leader not only how they fish, but the value of fishing and the sorts of access to resources they need to do their jobs and do it well.
If you can do that, then and only then do you feed them for a lifetime.
If you can do that you will leave a lasting legacy.
***
If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
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be careful what you say, it will be
What if I was to say that I know that there is only one reason that you open your mouth to speak? It doesn’t matter the circumstances. There are no exceptions.
Only one reason.
How would you feel if I said that? Well, let’s see!
I know there is only one reason that you speak.
Words come out of your mouth for only one purpose – to create a future.
Words are powerful beyond our understanding.
Collateral: adjective, aside from the main subject, course, etc.; secondary.
We use words to describe and then invent tools, we invent systems and processes that use those tools and sometimes, when we come up with something never-before seen, we invent new words or phrases to describe them so that we can tell others how incredibly clever we have been. Other times the words make it clear how incredibly stupid we are.
Collateral damage: noun, any damage incidental to an activity.
Collateral damage is a phrases you will have heard before. Often used in relation to another just war, it is used to describe the negative impacts experienced by things you would prefer not to damage in the process of doing damage to the things you do want to damage.
Of course it doesn’t just happen to things, it happens to people too. People we would prefer not to hurt get hurt in the process of hurting the people we do want to hurt. And so, as it is designed to, the words create a future in which we are distanced from, and desensitised to, the appalling consequences that are “collateral damage”.
And in that regard we are incredibly creative and imaginative creatures. If there is a negative we can find a way for it to become a positive. And if there is a positive, well, we will surely find an inventive way to make it negative.
And so it was in the context of delivery of humanitarian aid (surely a positive?) that I heard a new phrase that, while it might sound better, is much, much worse than collateral damage. Much worse because in speaking just two words a future had been created where providing shelter, security, water and food to tens of thousands of refugees became incidental to the main game. The words?
Collateral success.
“Your job”, he had said, ” is to make me look good. If we achieve some collateral success along the way that is fine, but what I am focused on is getting promoted out of here.”
There, among those most in need of help, someone had found a way to make their lives something secondary, an aside from the main subject – the promotion and advancement of the individual who had spoken. Those words powerfully created a new future. A future where providing shelter, security, water and food to tens of thousands of refugees became incidental to the main game. And it was.
And so I stand by my claim. I know there is only one reason that you speak. Words come out of your mouth for only one purpose – to create a future.
So be careful what you say. It will be.
***
If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your friends. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post… seriously. Do it now. You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
the first tee has never seen your résumé
“Don’t play games with me!”
“This is not a game, you need to take this seriously!”
What do people mean when they say that and why do we connect behaviour with games?
Have you ever played a game against someone who wasn’t taking it seriously? Played tennis or a board game against someone who wasn’t even trying? There is no juice in it. Nobody gets anything from the experience.
Then there is the old saying “It isn’t whether you win or lose it is how you play the game.” And I know that you often hear the ‘winner’ saying that to the ‘loser’ as some sort of consolation when we think that what she really means is it doesn’t matter because you lost and I didn’t.
But think about that saying again. As the winner there is no real joy for me if you didn’t bring everything to the game. And if I lost because I didn’t try – well, then we both lose. There is a part of us that wants to say that games don’t really matter. They are just games after all and, unlike the wizard chess in Harry Potter, there are no real physical consequences if we lose.
Except that games do matter and there are real psychological consequences.
Which is why it all comes down to how you play the game. Because what we all know (but perhaps are reluctant to admit) is how we play the game provides others with a strong indication of how we live in real life.
I heard a story about a CEO who conducted final executive position interviews on the golf course. In response to a criticism that he was being discriminatory against people who don’t traditionally play golf he replied that it was quite the opposite. Golf, he said, is a game. It treats everyone equally. It isn’t about being good or bad at golf, winning or losing: it was how you played the game that was the most telling.
And what better way to see how your future hires behave under pressure than in a game? Played somewhere where a poor decision isn’t going to damage the share price, where an appetite for risk is demonstrably visible and not just discussed in abstract terms? Responses to challenges on show for all to see? Where it is clear just how much of a team player you actually are? That’s what games do.
So play games with me anytime. Serious games, seriously played. Or don’t. But when you do, remember, how you play the game will determine if you have won or lost.
***
*For more on just how extensive some people see the opportunities are on the golf course see “Golf for Enlightenment” by Deepak Chopra.
If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your friends. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post… seriously. Do it now. You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
it ain’t about the journey
I have just had a revelation of sorts. I am all about the destination.
des·ti·na·tion [ dèsti náysh’n ]
1. predetermined end of trip: the place to which somebody or something is going or must go
2. intended or destined end: a purpose for which somebody or something is intended
Journeys make me anxious.
jour·ney [ júrnee ]
1. trip somewhere: a trip or expedition from one place to another
2. process of development: a gradual passing from one state to another regarded as more advanced, e.g. from innocence to mature awareness
In recent days I have headed out to a couple of destinations that I haven’t been overly enthusiastic about. The most notable being a small coral island that is an hour and half by boat off the coast. Boats and I do not mix, although to be fair it is only my stomach that objects – rapidly and repeatedly.
But it is not just when boats are involved. For days before any notable journey I often exist in a vague cloud of anxiety and concerns over a million “what-ifs?” My mind seeks solutions to problems that do not yet exist and alternative destinations that seem to hold lower or less probable risks. Staying put and avoiding the journey entirely appears to be for me a popular and often-times default choice.
And I know it is supposed to be all about the journey. I do. I have read all the ebooks.
The journey back, the journey home is something I can get into. The further along that journey I am the better. Ticking off the landmarks in reverse, counting down the kilometres or the hours until I arrive back where I started. That sort of journey, the kind when the destination is where I started from, is the kind I love. I have a pretty good idea how long it will take, how it will end and what is waiting for me and so my sense of anticipation and joy rises as the beginning gets closer and closer to being the end.
And I know it is supposed to be all about the journey. I do. I have seen most of the movies and listened to more than a couple of the podcasts.
New Years are the same for me but worse. The end of a calendar year is an arbitrary marker I know, but a marker none-the-less of the beginning of another year of journeying without the prospect of turning around at June 30 and heading back over familiar ground until sometime late on December 31st you know that even though time has passed you are back where you started on January 1st.
That doesn’t happen because when it is January 1st (again) I still don’t know what the destination is and I know I am going to have to start journeying again anyway and there are a million more what-ifs floating in the vague cloud of anxiety and problem-solution pairings.
Which is where I guess , if I am honest, my default choice of staying put and doing nothing kicks in.
And I know it is supposed to be all about the journey. I do. I am pretty sure that I have even counseled others along the way on the importance of the journey over the destination.
In fact, I know I have.
In the online leadership and teamwork program I coach in, it happens at many levels. The participants expect there to be a new destination each week – somewhere they are headed towards. We provide them with one but we know that whether they get there is far less important than how they get there.
Being a completely virtual program means coordinating eight people and their technology so there are endless combinations of what-ifs that can, and often do, go wrong. As a coach, with “extra responsibility” it is easy to get caught up in trying to plan for things that have not yet gone wrong, create alternative destinations or, when the inevitable occurs, to say it is all too hard and call it off.
It is at those times that I remind myself that whatever happens, that will be the learning. And what I have come to see is that it is the days when Jane can hear but not be heard, when Peta cannot log onto the platform and Michael can do everything but has a 3-5 second delay … those are the days that are rich with learning. So much so that on the days when everything works, when everyone reaches the destination and gets back home again with time to spare you start to wish that something had gone wrong so that the journey would have been a little longer.
Except of course if there is a boat involved.
But I suppose that even then the learning might just be that sometimes the journey is the price you have to pay to reach the destination.
***
If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your friends. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post… seriously. Do it now. You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
a “fine” argument
Fine. That’s how arguments often end don’t they?
Them: “Fine.”
You: “Fine!”
Two people separated. Ironically, at some point the argument often includes the improper use of something that is meant to hold things together.
Them: “Screw you…”
You: “No. Screw you!”
Assignment of blame occurs.
Them: “I cannot believe you could be so insensitive.”
You: “Me? You’re the one who called me fat.”
Them: “I didn’t say you were fat, I simply said that the clothes dryer wouldn’t shrink your pants that much.”
You: “You meant that I had put on weight.”
Expressions of disinterest follow.
Them: “Look, I don’t want to have this discussion again. I didn’t mean anything. I have enough to do with an inbox full of crap.”
You: “Well you may as well get comfy in the study because you aren’t coming back in here!
And then it is all fine.
Them: “Fine.”
You: “Fine!”
You don’t have to have been on this earth for all that long to have been a witness to, or a participant in, some version of that conversation.
When we are in it it takes almost no time to realise that our reactions are making things worse. We know in our gut and from the look on their face that we have been a contributor to the damage that was just done to the relationship. Someone said or did something apparently minor that provoked a response that triggers attack and counter attack and before you know it the argument has spiraled out of control.
It might have started over a perception about physical characteristics – height, weight, skin or hair colour, tattoos and piercings (or lack thereof); it could have been around race, religion, nationality, tribal group, sporting group, employment status, occupation, competency, writing style, dietary preference or sexual orientation.
In the end it doesn’t really matter.
The participants in the conversation (argument) are now not speaking to each other, stewing over what was said, doing everything they can not to have to face each other and wondering why they even bother maintaining a relationship with this other person.
So after fine arguments like these, why do we bother?
Because you want to.
We all do. We want to be with other people. We need to.
It is possible to survive for a while without others. But even Bear Grylls will tell you he just has to survive long enough to find other people. Other people provide us with what we need to live.
Surviving alone is not the same as living.
We need to be in relationships. That is why we bother and that is why it matters. It is our interest in retaining and maintaining relationships that causes us to respond the way we do. It is our interest in retaining and maintaining relationships that gives us the emotional charge. The stronger our desire to maintain the relationship, the stronger the emotional charge we feel when we feel the relationship is threatened. As a result, many of us choose to fight to protect what we do not want to lose.
So we attack, we blame, we insult and then we withdraw and lick our wounds. It is a textbook example of believing the best defense is a good offense. It works well in a sporting arena but not so well in the relationship arena. It is an option you should definitely consider exercising should someone come at you with a sharp object, but one you should consider putting aside if they come at you with sharp words. Easy to say, but how do you do it?
The key thing to remember is that if you didn’t care so much about the relationship you wouldn’t be fighting so hard to protect it.
Stop, take a breath, and recognise that you are being presented with an opportunity to improve the relationship by making a different choice.
Viktor Frankl tells a story that shows us why the space between the stimulus and the response is where we have the greatest power to change the course of our lives. Create the space. Make a choice.
If the argument has resulted from criticisms of your competency, can you request some suggestions for how you can improve? Is it that you haven’t properly understood the standards that are being applied in this particular situation? If deep down you share their view about some aspect of your work, can you request training or mentoring so that you can improve?
If the argument has resulted from some comment or criticism of some physical characteristic or dietary preference, can you share with them what you have just heard them say to check that what you heard was what they meant? Is there something you can share with them that might help them to see the situation differently?
Of course, none of that guarantees a constructive end to the conversation. You may be speaking with someone who holds deep-seated prejudices and lacks even the basic interpersonal skills. In response to your requests or offers they make increase the ferocity of their attack on you. You might find yourself reacting in kind again. And again. That’s OK. Old habits die hard.
And if you don’t remember any of this until you have come away from a particularly nasty argument – congratulations on taking the first step! Maybe next time (and there will always be a next time) you will be closer to the middle of it all when you remember that you have other choices you can make.
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the courage to give
Apparently I had met Andy before but I couldn’t remember where or when. In just two verses I knew it would be a long time before I forget him.
There were four of us there one quiet Sunday night. Two board games. A six-pack of beer between us – three of us had to drive home. A packet of chips and a stern language warning from our host in an attempt to ensure that his young daughter (sleeping nearby) would not acquire a single new word in her vocabulary as a result of our efforts that evening.
My sudden (but not unexpected) victory in the first game of the evening created a natural break in events. And while it is not unexpected these days for people to excuse themselves from a conversation to make or take a call, it is if they excuse themselves to sing a song.
So there, at the table in front of his boss, his colleague and guy he has met once before Andy made a call and started singing:
“If you go down in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise…”
He doesn’t sing well and to be fair, from the conversation that followed there was an allegation that he had left out a verse … but we both know that doesn’t matter.
Andy’s daughter is eleven. He says she cannot sleep unless he sings to her (although I suspect he sleeps better as well). So every night, where ever he is and whoever he is with, Andy sings Teddy Bear’s Picnic to his daughter.
There are many times throughout the year when gifts are purchased and given – Kwanzaa, Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid, Diwali – but the privilege of listening to Andy reminded me that there are countless opportunities in each and every day to give much more valuable gifts to the people we love – if only we have the courage to take them.
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If you enjoyed reading this or my other posts you can subscribe and receive them via email simply by putting your email address into the Email Subscription box just on the right of my blog home page. You will receive a confirmation email (which some systems will think is spam so keep an eye on your junk mail) that you need to acknowledge to complete the subscription process.
After you have subscribed, send this post on to your friends. Go on. You know at least one person who should read this post… seriously. Do it now. You read this far so send it on! I promise they won’t judge you or think less of you if you do.
finding my own Way 