Bob Perkins Consulting

Markers

My wife’s birthday was last week and we celebrated by spending a fabulous day in New York.  We went to the theatre (Mary Poppins – her choice) and enjoyed two fabulous French meals (La Goulue and Brasserie Ruhlmann – my choice).  Birthdays, it seems to me are ‘markers.”  They mark something.  They are a stake in time that say, “stop and realize that another year has come and gone.” They are benchmarks that help us assess where we are in life and what we’re doing.  They make us more aware of the reality of our lives and help us navigate the direction of our future.

Some birthdays are bigger than others.  Forty is a big birthday.  So it fifty.  At forty I was looking back on my life and assessing what I had accomplished.  In my fifties I am looking forward and asking,  “what will I do with my remaining years? “

I heard that part of the reason Caroline Kennedy is posturing for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat is that she is fifty-one and wants to do something significant with her remaining years.  I get that.

At this point in my life I am looking forward – not backward - and making the changes that need to be made in order to “finish well.”  I look at my life and think, “I have at most thirty years left and I don’t want to waste a minute.”  I want to spend more time in France and less time in my office. I want to drink only great wine.  I want to spend more time with the people I love and less time with the people who drain me.  I want to spend more time doing the things that will last for eternity and less time focused on things that will be gone tomorrow.  I want to spend more time enjoying my life and less time worrying about potential disasters.  I want to spend more time being “me” and less time being the person I think I have to be in order for people to accept me.

Life is short and I don’t want to waste it.

January first is another benchmark.  It is the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, and it is a good time to assess the previous twelve months and to look forward to the next twelve.  It is a time to ask difficult questions  - “have I been fully “me?” and “have I been working toward my STAR?” – and to ponder the steps for change. Time speeds by.  Another year is gone- a benchmark - but what does it tell us about our lives and our futures, and what changes  we will need to make?

It is perhaps at this time of year that we are able to take stock in what is important to us; what really matters.  We can look at our lives and decide what areas need change and what areas we are thankful for. 

I’m thankful for my family – a fantastic wife and two amazing, wonderful boys.  I am thankful for a loving father, siblings and their families that I cherish and a mother who is gone but will never be forgotten.  I’m thankful for being in Philadelphia and for the ease of this transition.  I am thankful for you, my friends and clients, who have given me great joy in my work and have encouraged me to continue on.   And I am thankful that at this time of year – this marker – I can celebrate when God became a man.

Christmas marks the most significant benchmark of all eternity - God entering the world in the form of a human – or as the song on Mandissa’s CD says, ‘What could be stranger than God in a manger?”  This is the benchmark that makes me stop and say “thanks” to a God who loved me and gave himself for me. 

This, the greatest gift of all, is the reason for the greatest benchmark.

Merry Christmas,

What We Can Learn From The Auto Industry

As Congress debates a bail out bill for America’s big three automakers it strikes me that what has happened to the once all-powerful automotive industry can happen to any of us.  If we lose sight of who we are at our core – and focus instead on what is secondary – we will be doomed.

 It is well documented that America’s auto industry has an over-inflated cost structure  that has made it difficult to compete against foreign rivals in the market they once dominated - cars.  But soaring sales of trucks, mini-vans and SUV’s covered lagging car sales and gave the illusion of success.  In the last ten to fifteen years, the American automotive industry relied on sales of trucks, mini-vans and SUV’s to provide the cash to keep it afloat, while it ignored the plunging popularity of it automobiles. 

As I walked down our street the other day I took non-scientific, random survey of the automobiles in this basic American neighborhood. There was not one GM, Ford or Chrysler car on our street.  It seems impossible doesn’t it?   There were a couple of American mini-vans, and SUV’s ( I have one of each) but when it comes to cars, there was not a single GM, Ford or Chrysler on my street.  This is astonishing to me in a macro sense, but in a micro sense it’s not surprising.  When I think about my friends, I realize that I don’t know anyone with a GM, Ford or Chrysler car.  What happened and why is important to Vision For Your Life.

The “Big Three” lost track of the core of their business and became intoxicated by the illusion of success in trucks and SUV’s. When the bottom fell out of the truck and SUV market, the automobile industry was left with what used to be their greatest strength, as their greatest vulnerability.

I asked my friend Regis about this.  He owns three fabulous French restaurants in New York City ( Orsay, La Goulue, and Brasserie Ruhlmann)  and I wondered if what had happened in the auto industry was comparable to people in the restaurant business relying on the sale of alcohol instead of food to make their restaurant a success.  He said, “The only thing we create is what’s on the plate.  Someone else created the wine and we are simply serving it.”  In other words a restaurant is in the food business and if it makes the mistake of focusing on the bar it will fail because it is not focusing on the one thing it creates – the food.   I remember my first time at Orsay last summer and the food was fantastic. For days and weeks after we were still talking about how great the food was.  I liked the wine too, but I can get the wine anywhere – I can only get that food at Orsay.

The same principle is true for us.  When we focus on what might give us the most immediate benefit we can get caught sacrificing the attention we should be giving to our core.  For example, let’s say you graduate from college and there is a job available in the accounting department so you take that job.  Over the next few years you get promotions and an advanced degree and when you are forty years old you are an accountant.  But that skill set, and the accompanying paycheck may have kept you from living out of your core and leveraging what was the best of who you are. 

When you live out of gifts instead of your “Core Motivator” it is like eating French food.  The best part of French food is the sauce, but if you only eat the sauce you will starve of malnutrition.  You get your sustenance from the meat, and in the same way you get your personal sustenance from your “Core Motivator.”

At forty you are being passed over because you have reached the end of your gifts set.  You’ve reached the end of trucks and SUV’s and discover that people haven’t been buying your cars for years.  Or, people have stopped coming to your restaurant because the food isn’t very good and you are no longer the trendy bar in town.  Now you are in crisis because someone else has spent their time focusing on their core and they are outpacing you.  While you were building trucks and SUV’s they were building great cars.  While you were expanding your “happy hour,” they were perfecting great food.

You can catch up, but it will be difficult and painful.  You can recover, but you don’t need a quick cash infusion that will only enable you to continue moving in the wrong direction.  You need a new  (renewed) vision based on your “Core Motivator” – who you are – and you need to focus again on that which is uniquely you.  You will only really succeed by leveraging “who” you are to your greatest advantage.

You must regain – or perhaps obtain for the first time - the confidence that you can build a better car and make better food than your competitors because it is congruent with your “Core Motivator.”  You will succeed if you focus on living fully out of who you are.

As the economy continues to go south it will be tempting to gravitate to those things that can provide immediate cash flow.  Don’t’ make the mistake of sacrificing the core of who you are in order to get an immediate, temporary provision.  Being out of work now is not as bad as being out of work again in eighteen months because you took the wrong job now.  Sacrificing your core to focus on immediate gratification is a long-term mistake and you might just end up – like the automakers - begging the government to bail you out.

Know Who You Are And Be It!

The Top Voice: Levi Stubbs

From “Baby I Need Your Lovin” to “Indestructable” his career spanned fifty years and brought us some of the greatest music the Motown Sound ever produced.  Last Friday the powerful voice was silenced after a long battle with cancer, but the great music he gave us will last forever.  The voice of “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch,”  “Bernadette,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “Ain’t No Woman Like The One I Got,” Audry, the man-eating plant in the movie “Little Shop of Horrors” and too many more hit songs to mention in this space died last week after living a full life and bringing musical joy to millions around the world.   This icon of music history was Levi Stubbs and he was the lead singer of The Four Tops, or as the marquis on the front of Vintage Vinyl  in St. Louis posted it:  The Top Voice Levi Stubbs RIP

I first saw the Four Tops in concert in 1969.  A friend’s mother had arranged for about eight of us to see Iron Butterfly for her son’s birthday. The concert was to be held at the Merriweather Post Pavillion in Columbia, Maryland, but when rock concerts were canceled because of too much rioting, she exchanged the tickets for The Four Tops concert.  We were none too pleased with the substitution, but went along anyway out of politeness and respect for my friend’s birthday.  By the second song we were out of our seats dancing to the powerful sound of Levi and the Tops, and eight fourteen year old boys were all hooked.

Over the next thirty years, I saw them perform more than twenty times and I never tired of the experience.  Levi brought pure power and raw emotion to every song.  He once described himself as more of a stylist than a singer. (As a want-to-be singer myself, let me tell you, the man could really sing.)  He believed that you had to “live a song,” and that unless the words really meant something to you, the song would never have the emotion necessary for a great performance.  As a fan in the audience you felt the emotion flow from the stage, past the footlights, and reach up into the back row of the audience.  Even his recordings seemed to jump out from the speakers and into your soul, because he wasn’t just singing the notes, he was bringing emotional power to every note and beat, and thus bringing the songs to life.

But, Levi wasn’t like other superstars who lost sight of their home, family and friends.  When Motown moved to California the Tops stayed in Detroit. Detroit was their home. It was where Levi had been born and raised. It was home to his wife of 45 years and their five children. He never left the group to become a solo act; something he could have easily done. While other opportunities came his way, he stayed the course. Though he was the front man, and clearly the one people came to see, he shared the proceeds from the group’s success equally with the other three members. His gift, and his success did not define his life.  He was “grounded.” He knew who he was and he never let the heights of stardom or the depths of the “oldies circuit” change him.

The ability to hold it all in perspective – the money, the ego, the priorities of family and career - made for a well lived life.  He solved the simultaneous equation of life in a way that very few others in the spotlight ever seem to manage.

One of my favorite memories is of the night he sang the song “Mean Green Mother From Outer Space”  (from Little Shop of Horrors) at the Academy awards.  With all of Hollywood assembled, and the world watching, it could have been an intimidating experience for any singer, no matter how many hit records they had in their career.  But from the moment Levi walked onto the stage he owned the place.  He commanded the stage, held the audience in the palm of his hand,  and his performance was over-the-top fantastic.  It seemed to be just another gig for him and there was no fear or intimidation in him.  For Levi Stubbs every performance was an opportunity for him to open himself up and pour forth the great emotional depth of who he was.  The congruency of his life, the security in who he was, the ability to be himself in every situation these qualities were the power behind a voice that drove the music deep into your soul and made you long for more.

The last time I saw the Four Tops they were with the Buffalo Symphony. I took my family to share the experience.  We had front row seats and I wanted to give my boys a memory they would never forget.  There was a point in every show of Levi’s where he would stand alone on the stage and sing, “I Believe In You And Me,” and every time it brought the house down.   This night with the symphony behind him it was especially powerful.  His voice resonated throughout the great concert hall and from the front row the last row we felt the song because he felt the song.  When it was over the entire audience felt a connection that drove us to our feet and made us cheer for more.

In a world where most of us hide our emotions for fear of being perceived as weak, Levi Stubbs put his emotions front and center on every record and every stage every night, and said to the world: “This is who I am, this is what I feel, and I’m stronger because of it.” 

The Top Voice: Levi Stubbs   RIP

Know Who You Are And Be It

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX_jmV1tsgs

www.youtube.com/watch?v=27zvHNjdGlU

Simultaneous Equation of Life

Grade eleven math was a killer!  When I was on the school board of the private school my sons attended in Canada, it seemed that almost every kid was having trouble jumping this hurdle.  We had many discussions around what we as a board could do about it.

Math is the kind of thing that once you “get it” you feel a great deal of satisfaction.  I remember struggling with “simultaneous equations” and the sense of satisfaction once I “got it.” You remember simultaneous equations don’t you?  This is when you not only solve an equation for X, but you solve at least two equations – for X and Y – at the same time.

It seems to me that more often than not, the key to a great life is solving its simultaneous equations.

Most of us live in a world that involves solving for more than two factors at any one time and the equation gets more complex as we get older.  We often have to solve for multiple variables.  We must be successful at work and at home, engage our neighbors and community, then make it all congruent with our faith and our level of personal satisfaction.

A life well-lived is one in which all the variables are successful, not just one variable.

We all know the stories of the very successful executive who has conquered the business world only to have his family life fall apart.  Here in Philadelphia we have a head coach of a major team whose two sons are in jail for drugs and guns.  As a father of teenagers I am not passing judgment on anyone else’s kids or parenting abilities, because I know how tough it can be to raise teenagers, but the principle remains true.  In order to be truly successful we must solve the simultaneous equations that represent the totality of our lives.  It’s not an easy equation, but a life well-lived requires solving all the variables at the same time. 

You cannot live a great life by solving the equations one at a time; you must solve them simultaneously.  This is no small point.  You can’t say, “I’ll solve the career variable when I’m young, and solve the family variable when I’m older,” because when you are older it is too late to solve the family variable in the simultaneous equation.  This is true for all the different variables in the equation that is your life.  You must solve for all the variables at the same time.

The key to solving multiple equations is in finding the right starting point.  Where you begin will determine not only the correct answer for the first variable, but also the correct answers to all the variables.

If, for example, you begin by solving the variable of career success, you will almost certainly fail to successfully solve the rest of life’s equations because you will have dropped the ball with your family, faith and the other important areas of life.  The same is true if you begin by solving the variable of family, because you will invariably drop the ball of career success or friends and the other important areas of life. 

To solve the simultaneous equation of life you must begin with you – who you are.  This may seem counterintuitive, but it is like the warning they give on airplanes – “place the mask over your own mouth first, then your child’s” - because only then can you save both of you.  It seems counterintuitive because our first response is to take care of our kids in a crisis, but by putting on your own masks first, then you can really help your kids. 

The same is true for working the simultaneous equations of life.  By beginning with who you are, you will find the right perspective and congruence to then be able to apply who you are in a congruent way to the rest of your life - your family, your faith, your friends and your work.

This is not the same as “balance.”  We have all heard that what we need is “balance” in our lives.  Balance invariably translates down to a kind of “rob from one area to give to another area” of our lives.  In the end we find that none of the areas of our lives are getting the best of who we are.  Every area is compromised and it seems that we would be better off having given all to one area, and at least been successful in that one area.

The simultaneous equation requires that you solve all the areas of your life by bringing all of who you are to each area. 

The greatest hurdle we have in solving the simultaneous equation is not knowing who we are in order to bring all of who we are to each area of our lives. 

Are you being fully who you are at work, with your spouse, kids, friends and spiritual life?  The problem that most successful executives have with their families is not the lack of time they spend with them (although there is no substitute for time invested) but rather that when they do spend time with their families they do not bring all of who they are to the experience.  They take their kids to the baseball game but their mind  - and more importantly their emotions - are somewhere else.  They sit in church but never engage the experience because their minds and emotions are not there.

Solving the simultaneous equations begins and ends with knowing who you are and being it.  You must first know who you are  - your long suit – and be able to leverage that by being that person - in every area of your life.  This is the answer to a successful life.

Know Who You Are And Be It!

The Season Ticket Holders

A client called one day to tell me that his boss was acting inappropriately and he didn’t know what to do about it.  He had a tape recording of his boss lying, but to his dismay his boss’ boss – the President of the organization - wouldn’t hear any of his complaints.  Instead, he simply blamed all the problems on my client, and ultimately fired him.  It reminded me of what happened when I went to the Yankees game this summer.

Yes, in honor of the last season at Yankee stadium a friend invited me to a game a couple of months ago and I had a wonderful time in amazing seats, ten rows behind home plate.  Sitting next to us were two men who consumed an unending flow of beer and by the eighth inning were blubbering, obnoxious, disgusting drunks.

The older gentleman in front of them finally turned around and said, “Would you please stop spitting on me.”  The drunk next to us replied, “What are you going to do about it?”  Then began the most horrific exchange of insults I’ve ever heard (and that is saying something) ending in the guy in front appealing to the ushers.   As the old man talked to the usher the drunk leaned over to us and said in slurred speech, “they won’t do anything to me; I’m a season ticket holder.”  Sure enough, the game ended and the ushers didn’t do anything. 

Back to my client.  I related this story to him and told him that his problem is that his boss is a “season ticket holder” and he is not.   The President is showing loyalty to a member of his team by not even listening to criticism of one of his guys, and in part that is a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing.  Sometimes you need to kick the season ticket holder out of the stadium in order to maintain your integrity and credibility as a leader.

One of the nuances of leadership is how you handle loyalty.  If you are not loyal to your key people you will never get them to perform at their highest level,  But if you are too loyal – if you can’t see their failings and you don’t treat others with respect also – then you undermine your leadership with the rest of your entire organization.

Last February I heard the columnist and author Peggy Noonan speak to the John Locke Foundation, in North Carolina. Ms. Noonan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, and has written several best-selling books including “What I Saw At The Revolution” and “When Character Was King.”  She is one of my favorite authors and I look forward to reading her column each Friday at www.opinionjournal.com.

As part of her speech that evening she made an interesting observation about the Hillary Clinton campaign.  She said that early in Hillary’s campaign she looked for those who were most loyal and promoted them.  When the campaign was in crisis she was surrounded by people who were very loyal to her, but not necessarily the best and brightest thinkers she could have had on her team. 

Peggy Noonan didn’t stop there.  She went on to say that the same problem has afflicted the Bush White House.  This was no small statement for Ms. Noonan.   She penned the line “a thousand points of light” for W’s father, and took two months off without pay to work for W in 2000.

She compared the current Bush White House to the Reagan White House.  Reagan, she said, loved debate.  He wanted the best and brightest to fight it out and come to him with solutions.  He was secure in what he believed and wasn’t intimidated by having strong people around him.  He liked people who were strong, opinionated and willing to defend a position without fear of reprisal.  He liked difficult but top-notch people and was loyal to them.

Loyalty is a good thing.  It is a good thing on a team and in followers, but it is not the only thing.  The proverb says, “Better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses of an enemy.”  The true friend, and the best team members, tell you the truth even when it seems disloyal.  The best leaders are loyal to their team, but aren’t afraid to hear the truth about a team member and do something about it.

Ms. Noonan wasn’t being disloyal to President Bush when she wrote in January that she believed he was destroying the Republican Party.  She was giving her opinion and she was “truth telling” to not only the President, but also to her compatriots in the party.  Sometimes it isn’t fun to hear the truth.  Sometimes it is painful to hear the truth and we avoid hearing it by surrounding ourselves with only those who will tell us what they think we want to hear. This is particularly true in politically dysfunctional organizations where everyone is afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing and having their career affected by it.

Leaders – especially leaders of leaders – must rise above this.  Great leaders must surround themselves with great leaders; people who will tell them the truth even when it doesn’t feel good. 

Building your team is one of the – if not the single most – important things a leader must do.  You must establish a sense of loyalty among your team, but you cannot be so blinded by loyalty that you allow a single team member to undermine what is best for the organization as a whole.   How you handle your “season ticket holders” is one of the key elements of great leadership and it is the road every leader must navigate.

Know who you are and be it.

Julian Dabbagh

Julian Dabbagh was a great guy.  We say that about a lot of people and sometimes I fear the phrase has lost its meaning, but for Julian this was more than true; he really was a great guy.  We spent three weeks working together at a camp several years ago, where he was my assistant – the two of us trying to serve and facilitate other leaders.  During that time I grew to know and appreciate him in many ways.  I was impressed by his humility, kindness and genuineness.  I loved that he could laugh with the same intensity as he could be serious.  I can still see him leaning forward intensely, piercing me with his eyes and saying, “Do you mean….?”  I can also see him throwing his head back and laughing harder than anyone in the room.

One night he shared his story to a group of staff and volunteers and I watched as he held the room captive for twenty minutes, talking about his life and the difficulties he experienced as a teenager.  Julian had a rare disease that caused him to lose all of his hair at an early age and he had withdrawn into a shell of protection, constantly wearing a “tuke”  (a Canadian word for ski cap) on his head in an attempt to hide what was otherwise obvious.  It was one of those unforgettable experiences -  everyone in the room sitting motionless, completely enthralled - as he shared from his heart the pain of being different, and the hurt of adolescent rejection.  He shared that as he found love and acceptance he shed the “tuke” and exposed himself – what he thought was his weakness – to the world.

After the meeting we talked about it.  The power of his message was in his weakness - those emotions that all of us relate to and connect with – and I encouraged him to be wise about sharing his story and the power it would have with people.  Not thirty minutes later we were standing together and a group of girls surrounded him wanting to hear more.  I walked away, letting him have his moment, and he looked over at me and smiled, knowing that he needed to be wise and would be.

Julian died last week in a tragic car accident, his great life taken unexpectedly and unexplainably.  As those of us who knew him grieve, I am reminded of that day back at camp, and I can still see the look on his face as he smiled at me.

I heard a statistic recently that 85% of the regrets we have in life are of things we wish we had done, and only 15% are of things we’ve done.  In other words when we look at our list of regrets in life, only 15% of those regrets will be things we’ve done but wished we didn’t, but 85% will be things we wish we had done but didn’t.

I wish I had spent more time with Julian, and that we had laughed together more.  I bet a lot of us who knew him feel that way. 

I believe that when we look back at our lives most of us will regret that we didn’t take off our own “tukes” and embrace our own weaknesses.  One of the surprises in Vision For Your Life is the paradox that exist around discovering your “Core Motivator.”  As I have worked with many clients I have discovered that most of us believe our “Core Motivator” is our weakness.  Somehow we have become convinced that what is actually our greatest strength is our weakness.  In many cases we have worked hard to hide or suppress the very core of who we are in a vain attempt to be stronger; tougher.  The paradox is that what we believe to be our greatest weakness is actually our greatest strength.  Our “Core Motivator” is our longest suit, and most of the time we try to hide it under a “tuke” of outward toughness that isn’t fooling anyone.

The most important challenge any of us face in this life is to live out of who we are - our “Core Motivator”.  When we are able to live out of our “Core Motivator” we are able to be all of who we were created to be and we can experience the joy of living our lives to the fullest. 

It is then, in our perceived weakness, that we are able to be the leaders we were meant to be.

“Know Who You Are And Be It!”

 

Intentional But Not Contrived

Imagine you are at a party where you don’t know anyone.  You are tired.  You are smiling, shaking hands, engaging in idle chit-chat – and wishing you were home watching TV.  The small talk is about to make you want to jump from the balcony and then you spot someone you know and like.  You make a bee-line to that person and soon you are joined by a couple of other guys you also know and like.  You spend the rest of the evening talking to them.  The night is saved.

You get in the car to go home and your spouse says, “ It wasn’t lost on me.”  You look at her and say “What?” knowing full well what she means.  She replies, “It wasn’t lost on me that you intentionally avoided all my friends and only talked to your buddies.”

Then you reply, “It was intentional but not contrived.” 

You intentionally sought out the people you know and you engaged them.  You didn’t have to fake it; you did what was natural for you.

OK, so this has never happened to some of you.  Some of you are extroverts and you love meeting new people.  Your idea of a great evening is going to a party where you don’t know anyone and seeing how many new people you can meet.  In this case perhaps the illustration takes on a different twist. 

You get in the car to go home and your spouse says, “It wasn’t lost on me.”  You look at her and say, “What?” knowing full well what she means.”  She replies, “It wasn’t lost on me that you intentionally avoided me and talked to everyone else there.”

Then you reply, “It was intentional but not contrived.”  OK, you’re in bigger trouble but the principle is the same.  You didn’t fake meeting new people, it was natural to you and you intentionalized it. 

The point is that there is a quadrant of possibilities for us regarding that which is intentional, not intentional, contrived and not contrived. 


                                Not Contrived                    Contrived
                                    (Natural)                       (Not Natural)

Intentional                Q1: most optimized        Q2:most difficult


Non-Intentional        Q3: most opportunity        Q4: most draining



We are at our best – most optimized - when we are intentionalizing what is most natural for us – Q1. 

Too often we focus on getting better at our weaknesses – Q2 – and this is the most difficult quadrant to live in.  We go to the party trying to meet everyone because we know we “should.”  Or we go to the party trying to have a significant conversation with just one person because we think it is the right thing to do.  But that exercise is futile and it carries little or no leverage for us.  We’re not that good at doing what is not natural to us, and we miss out on our greatest point of leverage when we concentrate on our weakness instead of our strength.

We all know who’s faking it.  We know who is trying to make small talk when they are obviously bad at it, and we all know who is trying to have a deep conversation when all they want to do is meet ten new people.  Most of us are bad actors.  We can’t fake it and we shouldn’t try.

This is not to say that there aren’t some activities that we must do simply because we must do them.  Sometimes I go to an event where it is very important for me to meet and greet everyone.  I do it.  I’ve learned to do it.  It is not natural for me, but I do it because I need to do it.  Sometimes you are required to have a significant conversation with someone and you can’t avoid it.  You have to do it, but by being intentional about the activity you can recognize the degree of difficulty and navigate it as best you can.

We are most drained - Q4 - when we are unintentionally doing that which is most contrived.  These are the activities that are not natural to us, which we do without intentionality.  This is the illustration at the top of this article.  We are having chit-chat with strangers unintentionally, or fall into a deep conversation unintentionally when it is not our long suit. 

The area of greatest opportunity is in quadrant three.  There are activities in our life which are natural to us, but we have not intentionalized them.  These are the areas that we are not leveraging to get the most out of being who we are. 

The key is to be aware of what is contrived and not contrived and be intentional about every opportunity in your life Q1 & Q2.  By intentionalizing those things you do naturally, as well as those things you must do, you become more effective and productive, and a better maximizer of your time.  This is navigating out of your strengths.

In baseball, great hitters know how to hit balls that are in their strike zone and they also know how to let the bad pitches pass for balls.

Look at your schedule for the week and become intentional about the opportunities you face.  Look at your priorities.  Which of these are the most natural for you – the most in your strike zone - that you need to hit out of the park.  Which are outside of your strike zone but still need to be hit – if only fouled off to keep you in the at-bat? Which things need to be avoided, so you are not swinging at bad pitches and striking out?

How will you intentionalize a meeting with someone– whether or not that is a natural thing for you.  How will you intentionalize a  strategy time – whether or not that is a natural thing for you.   How will you intentionalize time for study and reflection – in the midst of busyness and chaos?  How will you intentionalize time for your spouse and family?  How will you intentionalize your week, your month, your year, your life?

The point is to live out of intentionality, whether you are intentionally swinging for the fences or intentionally laying off the curve ball that will land in front of the plate. 

The most important thing however is to become intentional about your life.   This is Know Who You Are and Be It!

Experience and Drama

Life is good.  Last month I spent twelve days in France selecting wines for our wine club ( www.bandbsfrenchwineclub.com ) returning just in time to take my son on  a couple of college visits and be back for Opening Day.

As I stood in a long line at Customs I began chatting with the woman behind me who had arrived on the same flight from Paris.  She and six of her friends had spent a week in the City of Light and had managed to see most of the sights.  She rattled off the checklist: Arch de Triumphe, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, breezed through the Musee D’Orsay, and Louvre and walked the Champs Elysee.  They had seen Paris, but her hapless expression revealed that she had not experienced it. 

You can tell by the looks on their faces, the people who have completed their checklist of places to see and things to do – yep, been there, done that – and those who have been captured by experiencing a place. The women in the group behind me had that look – this year Paris, next year Dollywood – and I knew they hadn’t really experienced Paris.

One experiences Paris by lingering over a two hour lunch, strolling past the booksellers along the Seine, and breathing deeply of the perfumes of it’s beautiful women.  You revel in sitting for a long dinner over fabulous food and great wine and you linger in the Musee D’Orsay and let the Impressionists effect you, and you stand in Rodins’ garden and engage the art.   You venture into the Metro and are pleasantly surprised that in the depths of the underground you are entertained by a small orchestra of 14 musicians playing their violins, cellos and bass’, and you decide you are not in as much of a hurry as you thought you were, so you linger for a few minutes to be enveloped by the delightful sounds of classical music reverberating through the tiled walkways.  You wait in line at Angelina’s and have late afternoon Chocolate Afrikan and experience what people have been delighting in for over a hundred years because, really, there is nothing else in the world quite like this chocolate.  Then at night you stand on the balcony of your hotel room and look out across the skyline and realize that there, before your eyes, is a city, a culture, a way of life that surpasses any museum and it has captured you.  You don’t check it off your list because you realize that this experience was never on your list. It crept up on you and surprised you.  You’ve experienced it, not just observed it and you have learned anew that what you experience is far more valuable than what you observe.

I wrote an article several years ago in which I said that most people miss the drama of baseball because they are waiting for the action.  It’s not the lead-off home run that makes baseball great, it’s the 3-2 count with two outs in the bottom of the 9th, down by a run with a man on 2nd that is the drama that draws you and thousands of other faithful fans to your feet and makes you want it to last all night.  It’s the drama you experience -where seconds seem like days as you wait for the next pitch, click off in your mind the count, calculate the type of pitch that should be thrown - not the action you observe that makes you love it.

We have been created in such a way that in order for us to experience the fullness of life we must engage the drama. Sure, sometimes that means life is difficult and we are stretched and challenged by our experiences.  Sometimes the drama can be painful and the experience unpleasant.  We never forget the first love that crushed our heart, the first big loss on the athletic field, or the first disaster in our career.  We also know that we wouldn’t be the people we are today without those experiences and we are thankful for them because they helped shape us, make us better and give us a deeper appreciation for the victories in life.

Each of us experiences the drama of life differently depending on who we are, and directly related to our Core Motivator.  For example, the person with a “Belonging” Core Motivator experiences the dysfunction of a team in an entirely different way than the person with a “Creating” Core Motivator.  The one sees the dysfunction as a violation of their very core, while the other sees it as a challenge to be fixed.  Both see the dysfunction, but each responds to it internally and externally in different ways.

Leaders of leaders must be prepared to engage the drama every day out of who they are and with regard to who they are leading..  They must be energized by the experience of taking people from point “A” to point “B” and be thrilled to experience the drama of changed lives.  It is difficult work.  It is work that is not for the light of heart but it is exciting and rewarding work and it is what a leader is made for.

There is a temptation to avoid this work and to observe others as they toil in the art of leadership, instead of jumping into the drama yourself.  Leaders must fight that temptation.  They must rise up every morning and breath deeply of the challenges ahead of them and feel the excitement of the drama.  They must be the ones who say “I want to be the guy at bat in the bottom of the 9th.  Give me the bat!”

In the midst of that drama, sometimes it good to stop, take a deep breath and experience the symphony that is being played in the depths of your organization, the music of the joy of leading.

Know who you are and be it!

Leading Leaders: Principle #5

Principle #5: For leaders the decision is not whether they can lead or not, it is always a question of whether they will lead or not.

He was the man Americans referred to as “our Marquis.”  He was the only foreigner revered on the same level as the Founding Fathers, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and his close friend, George Washington.  When he was eight years old his father was killed fighting against the British.  At the age of twelve his mother passed away, and he inherited his families’ fortune.  He was subsequently sent to Paris to live with relatives and when he was sixteen he married – by arrangement - a daughter of the aristocracy, whom he fell in love with over the course of time. 

The Marquis de Lafayette was a well-connected officer in Louis XVI’s army and a frequent guest at Versailles. He was inspired by the ideals of freedom and liberty, which were being fought for in America.   At the age of nineteen he decided to sail to America and join the fight for those principles alongside Washington’s army against the British.  King Louis tried to have Lafayette captured and arrested before he set sail, but Lafayette was able to escape his pursuers.  He landed in Charleston with only a smattering of English that he had studied on the voyage across the Atlantic.  From Charleston he made his way to Philadelphia where the Continental Congress – already weary of foreign soldiers - told him that his services were not needed.  This did not deter Lafayette. His passion for the cause of liberty could not be extinguished and through his relentless pleading, Congress finally assigned him to Washington’s’ company, without instructions for the General as to what to do with the young Frenchman. 

Washington kept him in the background until the battle of Brandywine where the young Frenchman jumped into the foray and showed outstanding courage in rallying the troops to stand and fight against the overwhelming British attack. Washington took notice and the two men –one much younger than the other – developed a bond as a father and his adopted son. 

In this the final principle regarding “Leading Leaders” Lafayette is worth noting.

Lafayette worked hard for the  fight for independence, both in America and in France.  After establishing an outstanding reputation in America and when he returned to his homeland for a visit (forgiven by Louis for his escape), lobbied the King to support the Americans. He was instrumental in France sending both much needed cash and ships to assist in the fight for independence. It was Lafayette who pushed the British General Cornwallis and his troops back to the Atlantic Ocean, where they were trapped by French naval forces waiting off the coast of Virginia,; an effort that caused the British to surrender at Yorktown and marked the beginning of the end in our fight for freedom.

When Lafayette made his final trip to the United States his schedule had to be expanded from four months to thirteen because of the crowds that demanded to see him.  Independence Hall, here in Philadelphia, which had been scheduled to be demolished, was allowed to remain standing because there was no other building in the city large enough to hold the crowds for Lafayette.

After the American war, he was greeted as a hero in his homeland and played a key role in the French Revolution.  He became the mayor of Paris and the only person trusted by the murderous mobs that eventually dethroned the king and started a revolution. 

Yet at the key moment when France looked to him for leadership – when they called on him to become President and really lead them – he backed away.  He refused to lead his nation when it was in crisis and he allowed the mobs and their unscrupulous leaders to cause chaos and strife for nearly fifty years.

Principle #5: For leaders the decision is not whether they can lead or not, it is always a question of whether they will lead or not.

As I read Harlow Giles Unger’s biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, I was amazed at the life this incredible leader lived.  Like other great leaders  (I’m thinking Washington, Churchill, Lincoln, or John Adams) Lafayette seemed to accomplish in his lifetime what it would take others five lifetimes to do.  I was struck by his leadership qualities.  He led leaders, inspired great followers, possessed a high EQ, worked with difficult people and could be difficult himself.  (Marie Antoinette once remarked, “Lafayette will save us from the people, but who will save us from Lafayette.”) 

But at the key time in France, it was not a question of whether he could lead the nation, but rather whether he would, and he chose not to lead them.  The leaders of France continually came to Lafayette and begged him to lead the country, to step into the crisis as the only person all of Paris would trust to stop the bloodbath that was the Revolution, but he repeatedly made the decision not to exert his leadership – not to give to his nation that deep part of who he was –not to lead.

The cost of great leadership is very high.  Even for great leaders it takes all of who they are, and a total commitment of their very being to fight the battles that are required of leaders.  Somehow, it was easier for Lafayette to fight the guns of the British than the politics of Parisians. 

Leaders count the cost of leading.  They evaluate every situation and realize what be will required of them to lead. They commit themselves to that task, to those people, and to the great expenditure of emotional energy it will cost them to lead.

The most important job for leaders today -  more important than balance sheets, board presentations and sales quota – is recruiting, developing and inspiring the next generation of leaders who will choose to lead.

Take a look at the team around you.  Have you recruited the next generation of leaders?  Are you inspiring them to choose to lead in your organization? 

When the time comes for you to pass the torch will you have developed leaders to take on that role or will there be a void that must be filled from the outside?

Too many leaders, and far too many boards, would rather let the mobs destroy the city than invest in great leaders.

Know who you are and be it.

Leading Leaders: Principle #4

Over the past several months I have been exploring five principles for leading leaders. They are:

Principle #1: If you are going to grow something beyond the number of people who will be directly connected to you, then you must learn to lead leaders.

Principle #2: The paradigm of leading leaders is different from the paradigm of leading followers.

Principle #3: Leaders are difficult.  If you are going to lead leaders you are going to lead difficult people.

Principle #4: The most important factor in leading leaders is to have a high “EQ.”

Principle #5: For leaders the decision is not whether they can lead or not it is always a question of weather they will lead or not.

To read the first three articles click on the "2007 newsletters" icon on the right.

This month I address Principle #4:If you want to lead leaders you must first have a high degree EQ – Emotional Intelligence.

Daniel Goleman coined the term emotional intelligence in his groundbreaking book of the same name.  Through his research Goleman found that the most important determinate of a person’s future success - particularly in terms of leadership - was a person’s degree of emotional intelligence, even outpacing their intellectual intelligence.

In his more recent book, “Working with Emotional Intelligence,” Goleman defines EQ this way;  “Emotional Intelligence refers to the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” He goes on to note five basic emotional and social competencies: 1) Self-awareness, 2) Self-regulation, 3) Motivation, 4) Empathy, and 5) Social skills, which he uses to determine a person’s EQ. 

EQ is the most important key for leaders of leaders because leaders are difficult (principle #3), and constantly challenge those who lead them.  Leaders of leaders must have a level of personal security that goes beyond their intellect - a sense of self- awareness that comes from a deep understanding of who they are and how they interact with those around them.  They must possess a deep security in who they are that is not threatened when they engage other strong leaders. Those who possess high levels of these qualities are able to lead the type of leaders needed to move their organization to the next level.

Goleman’s list can be summed up by the following phrase: know who you are and be it.   

The better you know who you are, and the more comfortable you are in your own skin, the greater your influence will be on other leaders.

Shortly after Ronald Reagan became president, he invited a group of Democrat congressmen to the Oval Office to talk about his economic package.  Some, who had been in congress for over ten years – under fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter - told Reagan that they had never been to the “room without corners.” 

On another occasion President Reagan attended a performance of the Harlem Ballet at the Kennedy Center. After the show, he went back stage to meet the performers, something no other president had ever done. 

In both instances Reagan didn’t calculate the political effectiveness of such moves.  He acted out of who he was as a person and a leader. He was comfortable in his own skin.  He didn’t have to ask a consultant what he should think or if he should engage people. He knew who he was and he was secure enough to be it.

He engaged people –in the oval office and at the ballet - because it was who he was.  His high level of Emotional Intelligence made him a great leader, and it was his high level of EQ that enabled him to lead other leaders.

Very few leaders are committed to developing other leaders.  They don’t’ have the money, the time or the energy to invest in other leaders.  Sometimes those are legitimate reasons; sometimes they’re not. 

I was at a conference recently where I had the privilege of talking to a twenty-five year old rising star in the organization.  This kid is very gifted and a tremendous leader.  Any of you would hire him in a heartbeat.  A couple of weeks after meeting him I spoke with his boss who told me how difficult this young man was. Fortunately, this supervisor is a leader of leaders.  As the supervisor and I talked, I pointed out the redeeming qualities of this young star, and reminded the supervisor why he had hired this kid in the first place. Rather than look at him as a problem, the supervisor was secure enough in who he was – his EQ is high enough – that he engaged in coaching his young star and making him one of his key employees.  I saw the kid recently.  He is energized, growing, leading and beginning to live up to his great potential.

The most important yardstick of great leadership – the most important measure of a great leader - is the other leaders he or she has developed around him or her. 

The question is, do you know who you are well enough to be able to lead the top-notch leaders – especially the difficult ones?  Do you know who you are, and are you being it?

In the Vision For Your Life process the first step is to identify your “Core Motivator.”  Your “Core Motivator” is your “motivational DNA,” and it defines “why you do what you do the way you do it.”  Understanding your “Core Motivator” is the first step in developing your Emotional Intelligence.

If you want to lead the difficult leaders you must be secure in your own Core Motivator and be able to lead out of who your are. 

Know who you are and be it!