Author Archives: solidgoldcreativity

Situations pertaining to leaders #3

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In 2008, a new police sergeant arrived in a disadvantaged suburb of a major Australian city. He had been groomed for the line command with a stint in a neighbouring district, but it didn’t prepare him for what he found in his new patch.

Each Thursday night, hundreds of youths from different local ethnic groups, as well as agitators from more distant suburbs, would congregate in the local shopping centre and engage in violent brawls.

Residents were frightened for their lives and abandoned the shopping centre, while shopkeepers faced each Thursday night with dread. Security guards employed by shopping centre management did what they’d been trained to do: shut down the trouble-makers and move them on, often meeting violence with violence, abuse with abuse.

One or two senior officers, long-timers, counselled acceptance. “It’s been like this for years,” they told the sergeant.

But the sergeant felt otherwise. He set out to have things be different, and soon the slow and steady work of building affiliation began.

First up were the security guards from the shopping centre. The sergeant went to them and made a request. He requested they speak respectfully to the youths when having them leave or move along. If a youth didn’t do what was required, he told the guards they should take whatever actions they were entitled to take. Thus, he made a request and reaffirmed their discretion in one stroke.

This was the beginning of the transformation the sergeant wrought.

***

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Situations pertaining to leaders #2

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After a string of unspeakable difficulties, including the sinking of his ship, Endurance, which left he and his men scraping a precarious existence on the unstable ice floes of the Antarctic, and an extraordinary journey in the three open life boats to the penguin-shit-covered speck of Elephant Island, Sir Ernest Shackleton faced his most severe challenge. There was no other option. The men couldn’t last on Elephant Island.

Surely, they would starve or die of exposure before anyone passed by. They had only five weeks’ worth of rations, and the polar winter was about to set in, forming a widening barrier of ice between them and passing seals and penguins. After six months of living outside the ship, the Boss had to admit that there was little more he could do to keep his men together: ‘The health and mental condition of several men was causing me serious anxiety.’

He determined that he and five others would take a boat and “make a bid for South Georgia, eight hundred miles away, as impossible as that sounded.” He explained,

The risk was justified solely by our urgent need of assistance.

***

Now came the matter of choosing who to take. He called for volunteers, “though he already knew the crew he wanted.” Not only did he have to think of the task ahead, he had to think of the “consequences for those left stranded on bleak Elephant Island.”

Which is why he knew he couldn’t take his most precious comrade, the inimitable Frank Wild. All of Wild’s skill and intelligence and experience would be needed to keep the men together on Elephant Island. For similar reasons, he knew he had to take the two trouble-makers, McNeish and Vincent, for they couldn’t be left to poison “the already grim atmosphere on Elephant Island.”

He took Crean who begged to go, and was “tough and levelheaded”; and McCarthy, “whom everyone liked” and was “a quiet, highly efficient Irishman brought up in sailing ships” who never “groused or gave any backchat”.  And of course, he took Captain Worsley, the navigator, for if they

missed their mark they would be lost in the vast open waters of the South Atlantic.

On 24 April, 1916 they set off on the voyage that

nearly a century later is still hailed as the greatest boat journey ever accomplished.

By the time they arrived at South Georgia Island 17 days later by some miracle of the human spirit, both McNeish and Vincent were lying at the bottom of the boat, incapable of doing anything. Vincent had been like it for most of the journey. In the midst of hurricanes and ice storms, and bailing for their lives, he had been useless.

Shackleton and his party had not only survived, they had done so carrying two men. Four men did the work of six. It was no accident, Shackleton noted, that the two slackers were the “two most pessimistic members of the entire Endurance crew.”

***

All references from Shackleton’s Way by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell.

Image: The Endurance, by Frank Hurley

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Writing that’s almost right

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It’s become a cliché, to kill your darlings when writing. There’s even a literary journal by the same name. But no matter how often I hear the injunction, it doesn’t make it any easier to do the deed.

I’m up to what I think of as the second practice writing. It’s the writing after the first practice writing, and before – long before – the real writing which will occur one magic day in the future when a glorious, effortless stream will commence pouring. So long as it’s practice writing I can just about manage to sit down in the meantime and do the daily target of words I’ve set myself.

The problem with the second practice writing is the high proportion of darlings, the felicitous words that pop from nowhere, the delectable turns of phrase, the evidence of my subtlety. Every one of them leads me on a frolic that can last for days, though it’s a rather limp frolic, overcast as it is with the feeling of defiant deferral.

It’s not that they’re wrong, the darlings; that’s the problem. It’s that they’re almost right. And they can flourish in all kinds of situations, not only writing. Take the world’s most famous knitter, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka the Yarn Harlot. She’s just held her nose and kept on knitting to an advanced stage of a very intricate baby blanket, even though she knew there was a niggle at about the six inch mark. She’d checked and re-checked, and it wasn’t an error. An error would have been easy to face. No, it was just something not quite right, a “line”, she said, that had appeared in the work. Eventually, of course, she had to face it, and come up with a solution.

That’s how it is with darlings. You can run but they always, always, catch you up.

The best words I’ve ever heard on the matter come from W. G. Sebald who also links the challenges of writing with the making of fabric. That a writer of such grace and power knew the problem intimately gives me comfort. Maybe you too.

That weavers in particular, together with scholars and writers with whom they had much in common, tended to suffer from melancholy and all the evils associated with it, is understandable given the nature of their work, which forced them to sit bent over, day after day, straining to keep their eye on the complex patterns they created. It is difficult to imagine the depths of despair into which those can be driven who, even after the end of the working day, are engrossed in their intricate designs and who are pursued, into their dreams, by the feeling that they have got hold of the wrong thread.*

***

* W G Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

The value of coaching, use in case of resistance

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Whenever I take my glasses off (usually they fall off), I panic. For one split moment, the grass becomes green fuzz, the sun, an overflowing cup of honey. There’s nothing ugly or aggressive about nature blurred. But I don’t know where I am. I can’t recognise friends. At any moment I could trip. That’s how I felt with Hanui’s playing – beauty glimmered all around me, but nothing was defined. I was helpless in a blur of colour. The transformation Hanui underwent brought clarity, and with it, a more intricate, true beauty. The pristine architecture of Bach finally rose up to its aching glory.

Music student, Amanda Burr, on the performance of a fellow student from The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.

***

Image: courtesy of Liquid Paper

Funny-looking objects

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World, I gotta tell you, there’s a new baby boom headed your way and it’s originating in this middle-sized city at the bottom of the world, namely, Melbourne, Australia.

When the boom arrives on your shores you’ll know the babies by their outfits. If I have anything to do with it, they’ll be wearing one of the knitting world’s most covetable patterns, a knitting pattern so famous it has its own acronym.

The BSJ, or Baby Surprise Jacket to the uninitiated, was created in 1968 by the very droll Elizabeth Zimmerman. There are thousands of sites on the internet dedicated to the knitting of this garment. Holding the pattern in one’s hand is akin to handling a recently unearthed ikon, coming as it does via only one route: snail mail from deep somewhere in the American prairie.

And it’s unlike any other pattern I’ve read. Here’s Elizabeth at about row 10:

Work will start to look very odd indeed, but trust me and press on.

Here she is a little later:

Hope you are still with me.

And when you get to the end, there’s this:

Funny-looking object, isn’t it?

By which she means an object looking a bit like my first 20 rows above, only bigger and curlier and even less baby-jacket-like. Still, after 44 years of cult status, I’m prepared to believe the object does somehow turn into a baby-jacket. By which time, she says,

The baby will probably be unmoved by this offering, but the parents may well be charmed and your friends will be amazed.

***

Yarn is Sirdar’s Sublime, Baby Cashmere Merino Silk in Shade 0124 which is a lot more aqua than it appears in the photo.

Situations pertaining to leaders #1

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There is an extended family: husband and wife, two small children and another on the way, grandparents, aunts and uncles. The husband has had some difficulties with alcohol and gambling. He is highly-strung, a perfectionist; things around the home have to be ship-shape all of the time. He is irritated if the childrens’ toys are lying around, if dinner is not ready when he’s used to it being ready.

His wife works hard to ensure he is not upset. She cleans diligently but sometimes her husband still finds something wrong. The couple has experienced a deep sorrow with the loss of a stillborn child some years earlier. Being pregnant again fills the wife with joy and fear in equal parts.

One of the grandparents, the wife’s mother, is fearful too. Most weeks, she spends time with the couple and frequently minds her grandchildren. She has noticed her son-in-law’s behaviour and is uncertain and fearful. She is uncertain whether her son-in-law’s behaviour towards her daughter could be characterised as abuse, and she fears what might be happening behind closed doors.

She is caught between feeling something’s wrong and not knowing how to proceed. She feels intimidated by her son-in-law’s mood swings, and also by the shadow of the loss he and her daughter have suffered. She feels called on to intervene in some way – sometimes she has to cut short her visits because the protests are there in her mouth – but she dreads the potential repercussions. She fears if she says something to her son-in-law or daughter her access to her beloved grandchildren might be revoked. She also fears it would cause fresh suffering.

One day, nothing much happens except for one thing. The grandmother chooses to act. She looks at the fear and then picks up the phone anyway.

***

A question of trust

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The Carnival of the Lions and Christians, also known as the Festival of Stupidities, also known as Australian politics, is back on stage after the summer break, and the players have taken up where they left off.

All that time! Four weeks in mid-fatuity! How galling!

Thankfully, normal stream-of-fatuity has resumed. And first up we have the same old, same old: the issue of trust. Namely, that all Australians will be outraged if Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, does not deliver on her promise to introduce poker machine reform, and once more, breaches the trust of a nation.

Over and over again, the media exhorts us to equate delivering on promises with trust, and not delivering on promises, with moral turpitude.

Yet say if it weren’t true?

Say if we actually had very little idea about what generates trust?

Say if it were the non-delivery of promises that provided the greatest opportunity to generate trust?

Que?

When a person or organisation handles the non-delivery of their promises in a certain way they generate trust, and the trust they generate is deeper and more lasting than the trust that may have accrued if they had delivered on their promise.

What is that certain way?

If the person or organisation: (1) acknowledges the non-delivery and its impact; (2) makes amends for the impact (this might include apologising, making financial or other reparations, arranging replacements, etc), and (3) re-promises.

These actions are the path to generating trust. To take them requires courage and risk.

While ever courage and risk remain inimical to politics, questions of trust will be used to sabotage leaders and gull the public.

***

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Personal archaeology

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2

Remember I wrote a letter from six months in the future? It was addressed to Benjamin Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic orchestra, and of course, myself.

In the letter I described a version of myself I’m inventing during these six months: self as a conduit for expression and creativity to pour through, just as the famous cellist, Jacqueline Du Pre, with whom Ben played Schubert, was a conduit for music.

He tells this story of her.

When she was six years old, the story goes, she went into her first competition as a cellist, and she was seen running down the corridor carrying her cello above her head, with a huge grin of excitement on her face. A custodian, noting what he took to be relief on the little girl’s face, said, “I see you’ve just had your chance to perform!” And Jackie answered, excitedly, “No, no, I’m just about to!”

“Even at six,” Ben notes, “Jackie was a conduit for music to pour through.”

***

A week or so after I wrote the letter I came across an old photo of myself. That’s it above. I think I must be about three years old.

Looking at it, I’m struck by my freedom and delight. I have the same joy Ben describes in Jackie at age six, and it’s the exact expression of self I was groping towards in my letter.

So I see this new self I’m inventing is a revealing or reclamation of a previous self.

***

When I found this photo I looked more closely at other photos that were lying around from when I was about ten years old.

These are a whole other matter.

In photo after photo, the freedom and delight has been replaced by something else, something cautious and watchful.

I’ve previously mentioned the fact of the ruthless conditioning girls receive. It was the subject of the “Beyond Wanting to be Wanted” series. It’s a conditioning that suppresses and seeks to obliterate what a girl feels, what a girl thinks, what she looks like, her very being. It colonises her soul.

Now this is not a matter of blame. I’m not blaming my parents or my society or my culture. My parents loved me dearly and always wanted the best for me.

It’s just the way it was, the way it probably still is.

And by acknowledging that I also had a choice in the matter – the choice of not submitting, of rejecting the conditioning, of keeping my soul alight – I’m not blaming myself either. I was a child, dependent on my parents and my society, and I didn’t even see the possibility anyway.

No, I’m not interested in blame. I’m interested in reclaiming that earlier free and delighted self, that unabashed, untrammelled young girl and letting her roam.

It’s her time again.

Even the most captured woman guards the place of the wildish self, for she knows intuitively that someday there will be a loophole, an aperture, a chance, and she will hightail it to escape.*

***

* Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés

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Leaders! We want you

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This is a call for people to participate in a new book project. The book is part of The Leadership Project, started in October, 2011.

We want interview subjects, people who have views about leaders and leadership.

The views may be gleaned from your own practice as a leader, or they may be views about other people being leaders.

Perhaps you’ve been touched, moved or inspired by someone being a leader.

Perhaps you’ve been being a leader in a way that’s had others touched, moved or inspired.

We want to talk to you.

How does it work?

If you’re in the US or UK or somewhere other than Melbourne, Australia, interviews will be conducted by phone. Interviews take about an hour.

If your views are referenced or quoted in the book you will have the opportunity to review the draft text.

To arrange an interview time, contact me at solidgoldcreativity@gmail.com

Happy leading!

***

Who is a leader? Post-mortem on a definition

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I’ve been attempting to define what I mean by a “leader”. I’ve been doing so under the provocation of a book called Leadership for the Twentieth First Century by Joseph C. Rost, a man outraged that the majority of people writing and thinking about leaders and leadership do not attempt to define their topic.

Well, Mr Rost, I’ve attempted it, so count me in.

What have I concluded about defining a leader?

1. Being in the enquiry is what counts

The definition doesn’t matter as much as the trip one takes to get to a definition. Being in the enquiry is what counts, not the answer.

2. Leaders matter to me

The most important distinction is the distinction between leaders and leadership that was preliminary to the definition. I’ve discovered I’m more interested in being people leaders than in this thing called leadership, and I suspect it’s people being leaders we need more of, not leadership per se.

3. Leaving responsibility implied

I’m happy to leave the question of responsibility implied. Many people would say that taking responsibility is the mark of someone being a leader. I heartily agree, but I want to leave the act of taking responsibility implied within all five points.

We could say that responsibility is a condition of possibility for a person being a leader; ie, no responsibility = no leader.

4. To do or not to do morality?

The big question is one we’ve been tripping over a little: what to do with the question of morality or ethics?

I’ve chosen to leave it out, mainly because I see it as part of the evaluation of a leader. I’m interested in something prior to this: what it means to be a leader. I’m not interested for the moment in what it means to be a good leader.

5. Integrity

I’m still umming and ahhing about what to do with the question of integrity. By integrity I mean the wholeness and soundness of a person as given by the practice of honouring one’s word; I don’t mean something to do with morals or ethics, right and wrong, and so on.

Here’s the practice, a little simplified:

Honouring your word … means you either keep your word, or as soon as you know that you will not, you say that you will not be keeping your word to those who were counting on your word and clean up any mess you caused by not keeping your word. By “keeping your word” we mean doing what you said you would do and by the time you said you would do it.*

On the one hand, we could say integrity is another condition of possibility for a person being a leader; no integrity = no leader. On the other hand, integrity is fundamental to every person, regardless of their being a leader or not.

For now, I’ve chosen to leave it out of the definition because including it might imply it’s only required for leaders.

***

* Integrity: A positive model that incorporates the normative phenomena of morality, ethics, and legality – Abridged by Werner H Erhard, Michael C Jensen and Steve Zaffron. To read the paper, click here. It is a 30-page abridged version of the full 100+ page paper I’ve previously linked to.

Image: The Hare, 1927, Joan Miró

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