Hope and Expectations

I've been combing through my old papers and files recently and coming across some real gems.  There's a lot of dross in there, too, of course, but it's amazing the things we learn that we forget we learned.

Just now I read this:

"Jesus dared to raise people's expectations, to give them hope.  And when he didn't fulfill it, in the way they expected, they were not willing to wait, to give him the benefit of the doubt, even for those two days [between Good Friday and Easter].  That is why they had shouted for him to be crucified.

"Our problem is that we don't want to disappoint people, so we don't raise expectations.  We don't give hope for fear of failing them."

That really is pretty profound, isn't it?  We all recognize that we fail at times, that none of us can perfectly fulfill anyone else's expectations.  So we're left with a choice.

We can, on the one hand, live our lives lowering people's expectations (think Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes here) so we don't disappoint them.  That absolves us, so we think, of being the cause of anyone's depression or spite or envy.  The problem with this approach, of course, is there is no least common denominator of expectations.  You'll have to keep going lower and lower in this cycle, until at some point you become who you have tried to project yourself to be: not worth expecting from.

On the other hand, we can live our lives the way we know we should and take the risk of disappointing people.  And we will.  But this provides me opportunities, certainly, to engage people in relationship and dialogue about their expectations, and mine, and how those interrelate.

Will there be hurt with this latter approach?  You bet.  But can I really afford to live my life doing all I can simply to avoid hurt?  And if I do, will I ever accomplish anything worth doing?

Leadership and Garage Sales

Today has been our family's sale (with contributions from a few others).  We weren't very prepared for it: we didn't do the go-through-each-room-in-the-house and get-rid-of-everything-we-can routine.  Maybe we'll do that next year.

But yesterday my wife and I went through a lot of stuff, and last night I set up, indoor at our church.  We were going to do the parking lot and have multiple families participate, but the weather forecast was chancy and we haven't been organized enough lately to really pull the latter together.  (I need not point out that after about 11.30 a.m. it's been a beautiful, sunny day, but there is no way I'm moving everything outside.)

Sales like this are interesting.  You see a whole different side of people.  I often say that I love helping people move, because when you start helping them pack or move or unpack you get to know what they are really like: you see that they have kept their elementary school claywork (which usually can't truthfully be called pottery) or their mug collection from all 50 states or their book and CD collection.

Hosting a sale gives you similar insights.  You can watch people's eyes as they scan the mounds of items, looking for just that one item that will jump out at them.  For one woman it's a book with buggy frog eyes, for one man it's playing with the toy lawnmower and smiling at the thought of playing with it with his son, for a kid it's grabbing a toy -- any toy -- and loudly proclaiming that she wants it.

I had two favorite customers today, so I'll share briefly about them.

The first was a former coworker of mine.  She, her husband, and their two kids drove about 30ish minutes to come visit, with the sale as the excuse.  And they found a lot of things they liked, I'm glad to report.  But Dannie used something going on in my life as a connection point, a chance to share an experience with me.  And next time I go to her house, you better believe I'll be looking to spot the things she and Bryan bought today.  :)

The second was a woman who came in with her three daughters, ages 8-14 maybe.  They looked around for a bit and didn't seem interested, but then she spotted some picture frames and started sorting through them.  Meanwhile her girls had opened one of the games (Whoonu) and were looking it over.  "What are you looking at?" she said, somewhat sharply.  Then her tone changed. "Oh, look, it's Chutes and Ladders! I used to play that all the time."  After she was done shopping, I said, "How would you like to have Chutes and Ladders for free, too?"  She and her girls were very excited, and she said thanks several times.

Both these stories illustrate what I think is one of the things that separates good leaders from not-so-good is this individuation: the ability to see each person as a person, and to understand, respect and honor them as an individual.  It's too easy -- and never works -- to see any group (employees, team members, family, etc) as monolithic, as the same.  Treating people equally does not mean treating people the same: I must adjust the words I use and the feeling I put into those words, the actions I take, to best show I'm on their side, that I am with them.

Go with the flow

I've just taken a few minutes to read through some blogs that I've fallen behind on reading.  Which prompts me to wonder how I can "fall behind" on reading blogs ... never mind.

Of course, that tells you something about me.  I am a very list-oriented person.  If something doesn't make it on my list, it's very likely to not get done (though of course many things on my list don't get done either; that's a different post).

So yesterday was my wife's birthday.  She's very spontaneous.  For those into Myers-Briggs, I'm an INTJ and she's an ENFP -- the J(udging) referring to my love of structure (and I'm a very strong J) and her P(erceiving) referring to her love of spontaneity.

So for her birthday I gave her a P gift: I just went along for the ride all day.  Literally.  We rode Portland's light-rail train from about 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.  We went from our home to the central transit station, then transferred to a line that took us to the airport; back on, we went as far east as we could go.  Then we got back on and went as far west as we could go.

We got off once to walk through IKEA, getting ideas for the international microenterprise ministry we co-direct, again for lunch at a nice little Thai place (Thai is her favorite ethnic cuisine) on the east end of town, and again at the far western end for a short walk (where we popped into a Mexican grocery and she bought a coffee and a wonderful taco).  Then it was back to central station and to pick up our kids.

We both have so many things going on, and I'd been thinking about "what to do" for her birthday ... but it turns out the best thing to do for both of us was just to be spontaneous, to go with the flow.

Maybe we don't need our whole life to be structured, after all.  Maybe sometimes leadership is not all about planning but is also sometimes about simply being with others.

Running and Leadership

I've recently restarted exercising for the first time in years.  And while running (a very short distance) this morning several thoughts occurred to me about the similarities between leadership and exercise, more specifically running (but I think they apply to other exercise as well).

Wise runners know that you must prepare for the exercise.  Once I got past about 25 years old, I realized I had to start stretching before I ran or I wouldn't be able to run as far, and I would pay for it later.  I can't just jump in and start doing but must get ready first.  Good leaders also recognize that sufficient preparation enables people and projects to go further and lessen the negative repercussions later.

Wise runners know that you build endurance.  When I started running three weeks ago, I didn't run a marathon.  Shoot, I didn't even run a mile that first day!  Now I'm up to about 2.5 miles, but it's been a slow endurance-building process.  Similarly, good leaders recognize that almost anything worth doing, and requiring leadership, takes endurance.  You don't ask family members, or new employees, or friends, to run a marathon right out of the gate.  You let them get used to an idea, and to doing bits of the work required, before asking them to go 26.2.

This point bears elaboration.  So much of our society focuses on people "hitting the ground running" as though there were no learning curve.  There is always a learning curve: even if I've done the same task 100 times in other places, or with other people, or at a different time, something is guaranteed to be different when I do it again.  New technology, new or changed personalities, my own life experiences, all these things make the way I approach a task different.  So instead of using the phrase "hit the ground running" maybe we need to change our terminology to recognize that there will always be a ramp-up time.  I think it's fine to delineate which elements are most important to have coming in, but people need to know there is space, and grace, to learn as well.  Running is the same way: I need technique, equipment, endurance, speed, strength ... and I need to know which of those are the most important to start exercising.

Wise runners know that you must push yourself beyond what you think you can do.  Already I've had many days where I think, "I can't run any further, I'm tired."  It probably doesn't help that my runs start by going uphill!  But I've set low enough goals for myself here at the beginning that I can encourage myself through the mental barrier.  And once I did that a couple of times, now I know I can push myself just a little more.  And it doesn't hurt that I know my return run will be downhill!  Good leaders also know that people are typically able to do more than they have done before but may just need a little encouragement (the "push").  Good leaders provide the opportunity for people to do something new, or something old in a new way, and empower people by affirming the skills and abilities they have to bring to bear on the task.

Wise runners know that the finish line is never the last finish line.  Each day I am glad to get back home, but I know the next day there is another run ahead of me.  I enjoy the satisfaction of finishing the day's run but I don't stop there or I lose everything I just worked to gain.  Similarly, good leaders help people to celebrate crossing the finish line but also set the stage for the next time.  Lessons learned sessions, project debriefings, exit interviews, or the like, help people process what they went through, what they learned and how they can use it in their ongoing lives.  This also shows a commitment not just to the task but also to the people, affirming their value as people.

Weakness and Community

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about weakness and leadership.  We all have weaknesses as individuals, even the best leaders -- though some of the less self-aware of us won't admit it and may not know what those weaknesses are.

It seems to me that the remedy for lack of self-awareness is community.  I suppose I can sit and reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses and figure some of it out, but to really see myself truly I need the reflection I can only get from the mirror of community.

As a simple example, think about a performance review for a job.  I've received and given many, and I am always struck by the interaction of reviewer and reviewee.  In good reviews, there is trust on both sides and willingness to listen and to speak by both parties. This is community: the ability on the one side to speak into someone else's life a truth that may be unrecognized or unwelcome, and the willingness on the other side to hear what is being said and to ingest it, to see whether it rings as true, why or why not, and what if anything I need to do about it.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when King David has been beaten in a battle and, as his army is walking past a hill, a man named Shimei calls out curses on him.  (Not the best method or timing for a performance review, you might say.)  David's men want to go kill Shimei, but David says, "No, let him speak.  It may be that he is speaking God's will to me."  Wow.  In the depth of despair, David has the willingness not just to listen to someone he respects, who he knows loves him, but even to listen to one who hates him and calls out curses upon him.

It is only when we have this attitude, when we are willing to listen to others in community, that we really come to know our weaknesses and how we should compensate for them.  And then we must take those steps, the first of which is generally to have someone near us who is strong where we are weak, and we must let them operate in that strength.

Leadership and Weeds

For the past week I was on a business trip.  Before I left, I'd noticed that spring had started to arrive.  The main indicator of this was that the weeds in our yard were starting to sprout.  So for the week prior to leaving, I weeded one section of yard -- and when I say yard, I'm not talking about flower beds, I'm talking about "lawn" -- each day.  Got through four of the six sections, and mowed three of them also.  Those three were looking all right.

The day we left, three hours before leaving for the airport, I put in one last-gasp effort to weed the two worst sections.  I filled our yard debris bin (very large) 2/3 full before I had to quit.  And those two sections of yard didn't look much different.

We arrived home late Sunday night (actually Monday morning at 1 a.m.), then I got up yesterday and got my third-grader off to school.  During both pre- and post-nap 3-year-old nap sessions, I got back to weeding those two sections again.  And a couple of critical leadership thoughts came to me that I thought I'd share in this brief post:

• Most tasks look fairly manageable from far away.  I learned this doing project management in the corporate world, and again while weeding.  The further away someone is from the work that needs to be done, the more reasonable it seems.  The deeper into the weeds you get, the more extensive the work gets.  This is important for leadership: never assume that someone else's job is manageable just because it looks that way from where you sit
• A lot of work takes place unseen.  People walking or driving by my house this morning undoubtedly still thinks my yard looks terrible.  The "grass" is still too high, there are still way too many weeds, and things are not neatly trimmed and edged.  If you asked one of my neighbors how much work I had put in on my yard in the past two weeks, they'd at least be tempted to say "none."  Truth be told, I've probably put in 25-30 hours in that time frame.  Again, leadership must acknowledge the amount of work that goes into every task.  Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, loves to skewer project leaders for padding their project estimates.  But there's a valid side to those estimates: a lot of extra work will be done that no one will notice
• The best work is preventive and proactive.  This occurred to me as I plucked the 1000th wispy-white dandelion head to prevent it from seeding.  If I did a better job "taking care of" those weeds between November and February, maybe March and April wouldn't be so nasty.  This may be the great flaw in our current economic and social systems: we are so busy that we can't work ahead much of the time but instead just do what's next on the list.  Leadership must find a way to recognize -- and do -- the future tasks even if no one else sees them.  We have a million things to do for SEED, but the most important ones are the tasks that will prevent our having to do ten times as many later.  And that means more visible tasks may not get done when, or as fast as, others expect them to be done

Sometimes leadership is unpleasant, or unpopular, or even invisible, isn't it?

Politics, the Other Kind

It seems everywhere I go lately I've ended up in conversations with people about "politics."  Not the elected, government kind but the office and organizational kind.  Numerous people have commented that they hate politics -- a common lament.  Sadly, however, they have been following that with another comment: that they are withdrawing from full, active participation in the organization and some of its crucial conversations.

I don't remember who it was (apologies, especially if you're reading this) but a friend recently had an insight on this topic.  She (he?) said it's absurd to rail against "politics" because politics is really just about people.  She was right: what we refer to as politics is really just individuals and groups of people working hard for what they believe is best.

Now, I'm certainly not naive enough to think that everyone is always working for what really is best. And I'm not foolish enough to think that everyone is working for what is best for the organization, or for all involved.  Sometimes people work hard for what will be best for them, even though that might not be best for the organization, other employees, customers, etc. (Exhibit A: Congress).

Regardless, it is hard for me to be a part of something and not be willing to work to make it better.  It's part of what makes me: improvement, development, is my heartbeat.  Almost every group I join I end up either leading or trying to coach others.  This, as you can imagine, sometimes makes me unwelcome.  Some groups don't want to rethink the way they do things, don't want to look for ways to make it better.  Maybe they just went through a change, maybe the rest of their lives are full of hard work and they don't want to add another place of hard work.  I get that.  No need for me to be offended by it.  I am a change agent, and in a system that isn't ready for change, get ejected.  No problem.

But I don't think "politics" is a sufficient reason to stop trying.  Politics, in its real sense, is how groups of people make decisions.  I want to understand where people are coming from, why they think the way they do and want what they want.  Then I want to work with them to craft a solution that meets what they -- and others! -- want without all the hard feelings.

By God's good grace, he has gifted me in the very area of my passion.  I both thrill and excel at getting diverse groups of people to see each other's needs and collaborate to satisfy all.  You can see this in the work I did at Kaiser Permanente, my former employer; in my work with AllOne Community Services, striving against history to bring a group of churches and pastors into dialogue about collaboratively meeting community needs; and in my work with SEED Livelihood Network, encouraging pastors, lay people, resourced and un- or underresourced, first- and developing-world, to dream together about ways to promote economic justice and sustainable livelihoods for all people.

So to politics I say, "Bring it on!"  Let's enter into healthy, effective ways of making group decisions about our workgroups, our churches, our organizations, and let's keep the dialogue going.