Archive | 2014

The Real Indian Experience

by on May 6, 2014 in insight, Paradox, Work

When I was offered the opportunity to work and live in India for a couple of years, it was the proverbial offer I could not refuse. I had been seeking professional and personal transformation, and what better place? The exotic, colourful, and transcendent images that had been built in my mind’s eye over the years about India danced before me – it was like a visual siren call. I had to go.

Reality is almost always different than our dreams, especially when it comes to personal transformation. Sometimes we seek it, sometimes it seeks us. Most often we meet transformation someplace between what we thought we wanted and something quite outside our comprehension.

India is so intense that people believe they get her quickly. This is because she overwhelms the senses so utterly and completely, even on the shortest of trips. I listen to other business travellers talk expertly about her, as if though they know her intimately, all the while staying at 5-star hotels and working with the best and the brightest of the Indian business world. And I also listen silently and somewhat proudly, because of the knowledge that the sliver of shimmering heat, pulsating energy, eye stinging aroma and multi-tiered chaos that they sense through the hotel window or while being driven from meeting to meeting is only the beginning of understanding the depth of diversity -and the difference- that is India. Visiting India is much different than living in India. And I lived in Mumbai, which is India on steroids.

I am profoundly grateful for my time in India and for the person I am as a result. I am, at my core, different than the woman who went there. What follows are the critical lessons that I learned that affect how I view the worldnow. To me, this was the real “Indian Experience.” It is not a story of spiritual transcendence, or a story of developing a razor sharp commercial edge through working in the emerging market. It is more a story of easing into myself and the world, beyond how I defined myself as a person or as a citizen of the US and western world. Paradoxically, this did indeed lead to somewhat of a spiritual awakening and heightened my commercial edge. These are some of the lessons I learned:

  • Relax, it will come to you. Our real estate broker said this when he sensed I was particularly frustrated with trying to execute my western style, lengthy to-do list. I wanted everything done, as you can imagine, now. So I tried to relax and this is what I learned: In India, merely talking to others about what I needed would set a social network in play whereby the things you needed found you. This is how we found our maid, got our car fixed, the mold in our flat removed, found French Vanilla Coffee Mate, and taco shells. I found this process mysterious and amazing. I now employ it everywhere in the world and it works.
  • Nurture your entourage. Most people who work in what is traditionally called “the middle class” and higher in India have an entourage that consists of at least two people: your head maid and your driver. The maid controls your household and can save your life. Your driver controls your “outside-the-house” experience and can save your life, too. This can be the beginning of a empire enabling you to accomplish and acquire most anything available in India, legal or not. One important tip: choose a really good maid and make sure she, your driver and any other person you hire permanently, or temporarily, knows she is in charge. There is a hierarchy that it is best to work with and not fight against. At times, I felt the chain of the command in our flat was Maggie, our maid, then Jim, my partner, then me and then our driver Michael. Our entourage increased by 20 sometimes depending on the task or project. We were brought in to solve major and minor conflicts over roles, processes and outcomes and were seen as benefactors to a slew of family members, activities and holidays. Being American, it was hard for us to position ourselves in a hierarchy, but the learning was that it really was not about us, but about how we could make life easier for those around us, and thus, we found our lives were easier, too.
  • Getting things done is about setting critical priorities. Activity and getting things done can be seen as the same thing in India. Many times, we had to follow up innumerable times to get things completed. Often we would get a lots of running around, people quickly walking to and fro, looking intently at the water heater, the electrical socket, the mold, etc., and then more talking and explaining. Yet often things never quite got fixed. Our conclusion was that people honestly thought they were doing their best to help us, but did not know how. Saying “no” was not an option and even considered rude. Thus the continued swirl of activity without resolution until we eventually gave up on things that were less important. These things were taken off the to-do list. And that was getting it done.
  • Structure is a good thing. Agreement does not necessarily mean something will happen. I had many intense conversations with people and it would seem we would unanimously agree on what to do and the next steps. I was use to everyone immediately beginning to work on our agreed task and next steps. What I learned was that I had to set clear timelines, boundaries and schedules, and inject rigorous follow-up into the process. In other words, I had to work to get things to work. Otherwise, these commitments seemed to be tossed out to the vast social network to get done by other means. If at all.
  • Now I really know what resilience means. The lack of infrastructure makes doing anything in Mumbai difficult. Going to and from work, running errands or even attending social events becomes a struggle. Yes, the roads are rough with holes. Yes, the traffic is horrible. People squeeze five lanes into a two lane road all while people are walking in the middle of the street, holding a hand out indicating they are going to walk in front of an oncoming car without even a mere glance. But there is also an emotional cost of being on the road in Mumbai that can tear on your soul. The sights, the sounds, the smells are riveting, startling, intoxicating and shaming. I would sometimes imagine what the power of India would be should all the infrastructure issues be magically fixed overnight. The power and resiliency that I saw on a daily basis to merely survive could be released into something quite powerful and transcendent.
  • Health is everything. Since I had completed land and water survival courses in the military and travelled throughout the world, my belief was that I was physically resilient, and as a former naval officer, pretty tough. Yet, I had never lived daily within a crowded population with easy access to antibiotics. This environment creates new and highly resilient strains of some of mankind’s long-term diseases like the flu and TB. During my first six months in Mumbai, I had illnesses ranging from pneumonia to an atypical mycobacterium related to both TB and leprosy, along with numerous cases of food poisoning. I dropped 20 pounds in two months and at a certain point could hardly walk. Eventually, I figured out how best to live in Mumbai. Now, I seem super-resilient to whatever bug my American colleagues pass around to one another. My Doctor, who is Indian, says I could go any place in the world now because I have honed my immune system in one of the toughest places. I have a new found appreciation for healthy eating, thinking and existing that I devote considerable time to because I truly know what it means to be sick.
  • American politics look even more ridiculous than I thought they did. Perspective and distance makes us look even sillier and small minded. Enough said.

Like most personal transformations, mine is not what I expected. Through my physical, emotional and intellectual changes, I learned from India in some way to be more myself and let other expectations I had about myself go. There was a sharpening of focus on what was most important and a releasing of things that were not so important. After having lived in an environment where many of my American friends would find horribly intolerable, I found myself truly appreciating, for the first time in my life, the gifts that had come to me merely by being born where I had been born. Without many creature comforts, I found comfort in my relationships. I cared less about anything in popular media save my FB account. I have been back in the US about two months and I still do not know the latest movies or television shows, and the recent rising stars all seem the same to me. The pressure to buy, buy, buy, is never ending, and I understand that I actually don’t need very much, just my health and my relationships. I had searched for peace of mind my entire life. For many, there is peace in this world anyplace you go if you know how to get it. For me, it was through the chaos, drama and the kaleidoscope of my Indian experience that I found peace for the first time in my life.

Written March 2013

The Battle for Alignment

by on April 25, 2014 in insight, leadership, personal energy, Psychology, purpose, unconscious, Work

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight Eisenhower

I think of this quote often. I live it daily and so do my partners and clients. Not only do I consult to leadership in a variety of different organizations, but I also lead within organizations in which I’m employed. I have made this choice, as opposed to being an independent consultant, because I think there is great value in the insight gained from being a leader in a complex organization when you consult to leaders within complex organizations.

Without fail, there is a time each week when this quote comes to mind. Although I’m someone who enjoys spontaneous and evolving conversations, I prepare in advance as much as I can. I do this through reading, talking to colleagues and in general, collecting and organizing a variety of points of view so that I feel I understand the landscape – as I think it is going to be – in an upcoming “battle.” In this instance, I liken gaining alignment between people to a battle as sometimes it can feel that way. I find this to be the essential requirement of leadership, to bring others together for the sake of getting something done in a certain timeframe. Underlying this is energy engagement, which I feel is what a leader “really” does, but that is a topic for another day.

Even after the alignment is created, which can be a battle in and of itself, the plans that are created don’t work. People change their minds, other priorities emerge, technology doesn’t work, one person is left off an email, or perhaps organizational priorities shift. Clausewitz once opined, “Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.” The same is true in getting things done in organizations.

What do I recommend to clients and what have I learned to do myself?

  • Be clear about and “in love” with the effect you want to achieve.
  • Maintain emotional distance and do not be “in love” with a specific way to achieve it. It is OK to shift and do things differently even if the decision has been made to do it a certain way. Consciouly chose the right path, not the default path.
  • Take your own emotional pulse – if you fall “out of love” with what you’re trying to achieve, others will too and maybe your intuition is trying to tell you something. What is shifting your focus?
  • Be prepared for wildcards and the unpredictable, something unplanned will happen. Knowing this can take the emotional edge off when things go astray.
  • Be open to new information to build or shift your vision

The battle for alignment is an ongoing process that requires renewal and revisiting as the twists and turns of execution unfold. Eisenhower had it right, planning is necessary while plans go astray. And they always will. How we adjust to it is what organizational life is all about.

The Frog, the Dolphin, and the Giraffe

by on April 17, 2014 in archetypes, insight, Jung, leadership, personal energy, Psychology, Uncategorized, unconscious, Work

This past weekend, I found three stuffed animals in a storage box that I had kept since I was three years old. Now 50 some years later, I pondered why I had kept them so long. There was a Frog with a crown, a silvery yet furry Dolphin and a speckled Giraffe with a little red tongue dangling outside its mouth. Presently, they were sewn together piles of dust that “should” be tossed. In the middle of a cold, wet Lake Michigan day in April I could not bring myself to do so, despite my sense of urgency to get my spring cleaning done. As I stood pondering, struck by the fact that they were still with me and wondering why that might be. Remembering that Socrates was attributed with saying “the unexamined life is not worth living,” I continued to reflect. I realized I had not examined the difference between the lifeless artifacts in front of me and the life-filled archetypes they had represented to me as a child. They had somehow remained one in the same, my childhood imaginings captured somehow in these dull lifeless forms.

What is an archetype and why is it important? In Jungian psychology an archetype is a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, or image which is universally present in individual psyches. For instance there is an archetype of a Mother, Father, Hero, and Victim that are well known to most of us. Literature uses these archetypes through their fictional characters to speak to us about their greater truths that lie beyond fact. The media uses archetypes to create connection with their ideas and views beyond what might come about with an interaction with a simple product or consumer item. Individually, we have archetypes which are generalities or stories about ourselves and the world. These stories form scripts that we often follow unconsciously, whether they are correct or not. Many times they operate out of our awareness, guiding us without our knowing. The more closely we examine our stories and scripts, the more we will have examined our lives. My hope is that we all move away from “living a life of quiet desperation” (Thoreau).

To what archetypes did my dust balls speak? It was easy for me to understand the Frog – he was the smart one who could be relied upon for logical, practical and straightforward advice. He was wise and kind, a natural and benevolent leader. He saw things as they were, made things happen and had a realistic view of the world. The Dolphin was equally easy to understand as she was at the opposite end of the continuum, a free spirit looking for adventure, love and laughter with a sweet sense of humor. She had a good nature and was supportive and loyal to her friends. She strived to make her impact positive on those whom she met.

But the Giraffe, named “Baby Giraffe” was a mystery. What had he represented? He was awkward looking, could not stand on his own even when he was new and had big soulful eyes too large for his oversized head. His neck was too long, even for a giraffe, and his back too short, his tiny feet were incapable of holding his weight, his legs too weak. Through the years his long neck had buckled under the weight of his head and his tail had been chewed apart by a dog. Yet, he had been my favorite of the three despite his apparent imperfections. Baby Giraffe had been the joyful one, who ran about getting into mischief, going places he was not supposed to go and saying things he was not supposed to say.

My realizations when I looked at what each represented was that I was all those things, but had let the Frog dominate most of my life and only recently had I reacquainted myself with my dolphin self. She had reentered my life as I tried to free myself from issues that held my energy down. This had occurred through several significant life changes that still have me reverberating. Yet, they had set me off on adventures of travel and love I had only dreamed of. Now, perhaps it is time for me to acknowledge that the frog and the dolphin were really servants of the flawed, fragile, beautiful yet ugly giraffe I had always felt I was underneath it all, but was afraid to acknowledge. Baby Giraffe, the playful, wounded mischievous one, is fully formed as the archetype I adore most in my life, now that the Frog and the Dolphin have made it safe for him to come out and play.

The doors of perception.

by on April 10, 2014 in Jung, Paradox, Psychology, unconscious

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”
― Aldous Huxley

When I first heard about The Doors in the 70’s as a grade schooler, I had no idea why a band would name themselves after something so simple as a door. I pondered what kind of door could inspire a band? Was it the pure simplicity of opening and shutting a piece of a wall that was so compelling? Was it a brown door, a white door or a glass door? And then I completely forgot my questions as I trudged through my teenage years reading gothic romances, historical fiction, and Mad magazine. Then, I discovered Carlos Castaneda. Reading his first three books felt deliciously adult and shifted the way I perceived my life and how I wanted to live. From that point on, I was mystified by perception and how different people saw things so completely differently. This is when I also realized I wanted to be a psychologist. Perception has been a lifelong muse ever since. One of my most treasured quotes from him is this: “The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” To me this is the essence of perception. We determine how we look at things, and we must do this consciously, and whether or not you do think consciously, the work of life is the same. Why be miserable? Change your perception of what is happening.

 

If only it were so easy, but perhaps it is just that easy. Having witnessed death in family and friends where long-term illnesses wreaked havoc on people I loved, it is easy to slide into despair and rant about how hard life can be, how cruel a fate, how physically painful, and how fickle it is in whom it blesses with health, and whom it does not. My family and friends chose to be happy even during horrendous and challenging struggles, perhaps because they knew their life was so short. Could I not do the same? It was a matter of perception, what is real and what is not.

 

As an executive coach, my own life experiences cannot help but inform how I work with clients. Perception, my muse, is often the blind spot that hurts many leaders. Their ability to “see things as they are” is difficult when they only see things from their perspective. A leader’s ability to integrate multiple viewpoints and perceptions into a mosaic whole that makes sense is an art that few master. Sometimes I feel my job is to eliminate “how did I not see that?” from my client’s expressions. I do this by helping them to open their own doors of perception about who they are, what matters most, and by expanding their understanding of their current realities through multiple perspectives.

Oh, and The Doors? I get it now.

The slow leak of psychic energy.

by on April 4, 2014 in leadership, personal energy, Psychology, Uncategorized, Work

How we lead our lives can deplete us in ways we cannot articulate. And sometimes the fact that we cannot articulate how we feel is draining in and of itself.

I have worked with innumerable leaders over my almost 30 year career as an organizational psychologist. Some have been entry level and some of been CEO or board members of large, public companies with all levels of leaders in between represented. Irrespective of title, the one common element between all leaders is that each needs to uncover uniquely how to best utilize their intuition in ways that help others and themselves better manage their personal energy. It is this simple. Yet, it is the one element that seems the most elusive. This is as true for those who lead as it is for those that do not lead.

Imagine a balloon filled with helium, floating for joy during a birthday celebration, jubilantly dancing to any slight breeze, yet tied down with purpose to its real goal: being part of a birthday gift. With purpose, the balloon stays it course and for a while it can sustain itself without more helium being injected into it. Eventually though, the birthday celebration ends and the balloon, if not popped, is placed some place where it receives no helium and eventually becomes smaller and smaller to a point it can no longer hold itself in the air. It circles around listlessly, seemingly disconnected from its original purpose, a clear and negative change from its former self. I liken this process to the individual psyche in situations where no new energy is injected. It can happen almost imperceptively and unless we take the time to reflect and listen to our intuition, we may miss that it is happening until we are on the floor. This is the slow leak of psychic energy. People feel drug down, dispirited, minimalized, deflated and disempowered. How does one recognize this slow leak when it is not obvious like our balloon? What is our helium of choice to combat it?

Let’s discover things that fill us, uncover what depletes us, and ponder the mysteries of why there is such a process to begin with. I’ll share the things that I believe give me energy in the hopes it will do the same for you.

Your vision wi…

by on March 18, 2014 in insight, Jung, Psychology, unconscious, Work

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung

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