Being Chased

...is vastly different than being followed. Chasing is frantic, erratic, error prone, exhausting and often born from a position of must and even anger. Following is methodical, calculating, voluntary and born from desire. Most people would rather follow, not chase.

Reactivity leads to being chased. Missed commitments, being behind and a general last minute posture sends a strong signal we want to be chased. We don't count on people we need to chase. Eventually, tired takes over and we stop.

Are we being chased or followed? Worth considering if we care to.

For or To?

How can she...

  • help me get where I'm going?

  • help me see things I'm not seeing?

  • help me get through the hard parts?

  • help me improve my work?

  • help me become the person others want to follow?

  • help me persuade the others?

Will she help me become more like her?

Most people don't want a leader to tell them what to do. They want someone to help them get there. We need to decide which leadership culture we're building, the one which does things for people, or to people. Choose wisely.

Fear's Job

Fear is fear. But fear attached to self preservation, life safety, is different than other fear. What's the other fear for? How can we reframe this fear to be useful? How can we unpack our fears, the story we tell ourselves about failure, ridicule and embarrassment to help make things better?

Fear is crafty. It distracts us and paralyzes us. Fear tells us our better might not be good enough, no matter what. Fear doesn't care what's really good enough or better. Fear only cares about getting us to stop. That's its primary job, to shut things down in order to make us feel safe. Fear doesn't discriminate. It only works harder when life safety is on the line. Otherwise, it treats all uncertainty with extreme caution and works to diminish it, to create a safe harbor.

The unknown is scary precisely because it's unknown. Left to its own devices, our fear of the unknown uses our past experience, or worse, someone else's experience, or even a made-up experience to generate a fictional story of our future self as a failure. The presentation surely won't be good enough. The speech will most certainly sound dumb. The essay can't possible make a clear point. Fear generates a horror story, perhaps our worst nightmare, and puts it in front of us, especially when it senses we lack confidence. It gets us to believe in the worst possible outcome, despite any evidence to the contrary, or no evidence at all.

But, if we can acknowledge what's really at stake, that we aren't going to be eaten by a lion, or die at the hand of an enraged audience, or never find work again because the board didn't like our talk, we can enlist fear to help us. We can use fear to serve as a catapult, to help us act, and to make something better. We can even use fear as a signal to dig deeper, to work extra hard, to do the thing which scares us because it scares us, not despite it.

We can't make fear go away. But we can choose not to believe the story it's trying to sell us, because unlike fear, we can distinguish reality from fable. Go sit over there...and watch this.

Habits and Work

Habits are involuntary acts done primarily to serve ourselves for immediate gratification. It's all the things we do without thought, both good and bad, which make us feel good, safe and secure. And, we would miss them if they were gone. It's why breaking them is so hard to do.

Habits also create an image, how we're seen by the outside world. Our cleanliness, sloppiness, reading and eating habits, all define who we are to the people around us. They make up our posture, approach and attitude towards things. So, they count.

Habits aren't work. Work is what we do with intention for someone else whether we feel like it or not. It's our regimen, process and systematic effort to produce a specific change in the world. There's an outcome in mind when we do our work. Our work might become routine, and probably is, but it's not a habit because we need to choose to do it.

The key then is to develop habits which better serve our work. And to break the ones which don't. We can also change some things we consider work into habits. The goal is to work to create unintentional acts for the benefit of those around us. Eventually, how we're seen improves, our work improves, results improve and we feel better.

Some habits to consider forming...

  • smiling

  • neatness

  • punctuality

  • listening

  • cleanliness

  • personal hygiene

  • attentiveness

  • cheerfulness

  • eye contact

Worth a shot.

It's a Choice

Leadership is a choice. It’s not a given thing, somehow bestowed on the gifted and talented. It’s not natural, and it requires hard work, practice, failure, experience and a lot of patience. And, most of all, it’s not for everyone. But, it is for those who choose to do it by pouring themselves into the craft of leading people to make things better. And I do think it’s a craft. Just like learning to carve driftwood, play Spanish guitar, or any artful thing you can think of...it’s something unique to the individual who makes it. It’s handmade, often starting out as a rough idea, and then carefully and meticulously honed into something useful and appreciated by others.

Humans are unique. All leaders are different. They must be because the journeys are different. The people they lead are different. But all leaders have the same posture, the same characteristics, the same qualities which make them so attractive. Part of it is their uniqueness. But most of it is their actions.

Please choose your actions wisely. But please do choose to act.

The Comfort of Inconvenient Habits

The habits most likely to help us make progress are the ones we're most challenged by, the ones which get in the way of going about our day. Convenience is the enemy of discovery, creativity and adventure. But, it's this sort of pioneering, doing the hard, and often inconvenient thing which leads to innovation and better. And, it almost never happens by chance. It happens because we decided to go there, then to build a regimen and endure the slog.

Mostly, convenience is for our comfort. And no creative act or art comes from comfort. Rather, it's born from pushing ourselves towards inconvenience and the discomfort of it. The paradox is the practice of building in habits of discomfort ultimately becomes comfortable. It becomes our new normal. And this in turn demands more discomfort. And so the ratchet turns.

Small, intentional inconveniences eventually make things better. It's a habit worth forming.

Go or No Go

Learning and growth comes from trying something new, which means we haven't done it (like this) before. We haven't given this presentation, we haven't tried this technique, we haven't had this conversation, we haven't gone this far. So, it might not work. It might not turn out like we hoped. It might not create the change we seek to make. Perhaps it's because we weren't qualified, didn't have enough experience or didn't prepare enough. Perhaps the timing wasn't right, the audience was in a bad mood, the lighting failed, or the conditions changed unexpectedly. Or, perhaps we were just unlucky.

Whatever story we tell ourselves in advance of why something won't work is probably wrong. It's worth telling to sort out some real traps. But, it's just a story. No one knows for sure...until we try. Go or No Go...choose wisely.

Resolve Small

By now, the vast majority of New Year's resolutions have failed. It's a recurring theme. State an ambitious goal, make a plan, start with enthusiasm...and fade. The problem lies in using the goal as the target. And the size of the goal doesn't matter much. Whether it's 10 pounds or 50 is incidental. There's a good chance we won't lose all of the weight not because the goal is too aggressive, but because the focus is on the outcome, not what it takes to get there.

The resolve should be centered on habit forming. And furthermore, it should begin with really small habits, which eventually will lead to bigger ones. Want to run a first marathon in the upcoming year having not run more than a mile since grade school? The marathon shouldn't be the resolution. Forming habits to become a runner should be the resolution. Then, start small. Put on sneakers every morning at 5:30 am and walk to the mail box. Every day, without fail, rain, snow or shine. Do this every day and you'll be walker. Then, you can add in running. Over time, you'll be a runner. And if nothing else, you'll be sure to check your mail.

Goals are important. Who we become is more important. We become what we do, day after day.

Being Present

What is showing up for? Who's it for?

How does our time at work, in a meeting, giving a presentation, coaching someone, benefit the others? How does it make things better for them? What happens if we show up even better, more engaged, with more empathy, better listening, with better questions, with more energy? Will it make things even better? What if it's our last one, our last chance to make things better? What if our legacy depended on it? Would we try harder?

Every time we show up it might be the last time. And, every time we show up we have a chance to give the performance of a lifetime. We can act is if showing up matters. Or, we can do just enough to get by. It's our choice. Choose wisely.

Alignment

The key to making progress is to connect and align the flow of time, where we've been, what we've learned, and how it serves what's important now and where we hope to go...who we hope to become. How does being here, working on this project, doing this job, practicing this craft, being with this group fit in? Does the work support our why, and our purpose? Does it help us achieve our dreams? How does our point of view, our expertise and our work benefit those around us? Who does it serve? Will it make things better? Or, is it a placeholder, a myth or facade of some sort. Perhaps it's what we're supposed to do according to someone else's plan, and their why.

Why are we here, now? Where are we going? These might be be the two most important questions we can ask, both ourselves and anyone joining our team.

What's Now For?

What is what we're doing right now for? What and whom does it serve? How does it serve our future self?

What happens if we don't do it? What might the future look like if we choose a different path?

Is what we're doing right now for now? Or, for later? How does eating the Oreo now help later?

How much of what we're doing now is for now vs. later?

Worth considering if we care about later. Thankfully, most of us do.

Letting Go

Our past, including just a minute ago, clarifies why. It shows what we stand for, what we believe and what we prioritize. We tell by our actions if we're organized, financially driven, caring or careful.  The proof is in the pudding as they say.

Our why changes. As we receive inputs, we form new points of view and new priorities. We change our minds. It's one of the fortunate and unique abilities of being human. We can modify almost any behavior if it's important to us, if it helps us get to where we're going. What we choose do in the present determines our future, who we will become. So, if doing what we did yesterday doesn't help make a better tomorrow, we can change it, both for ourselves and for those around us. The key is to choose to see a better tomorrow, to define it...and then do something to get there, which might include letting go of the why we had yesterday.

Failing Specifically

The more specific we define the outcome, the greater the chance we won't achieve it. In most cases, the more we define the spec, the tolerance, the result, the likelihood of meeting it decreases. We'll likely miss the target, albeit just slightly. But still, by definition we failed. Naturally, we want to avoid failure. And as a result, we often avoid being specific. We make the target bigger to decrease the chance of not making it. Losing weight is more achievable than losing ten pounds within three weeks. Reading more is different than reading fifty books this year.

Being vague reduces risk. It creates comfort and lets us off the hook. And, comfort is the enemy of success. Comfort allows us to put things off, to reduce our standards and to accept a result which could have been better. And, better requires being specific, which leads to failure. Better is born from failure.

Perhaps we should reframe failure. Perhaps we're achieving difference, not failure.

Things almost certainly won't turn out as planned. They will turn out differently. And perhaps different might just be better.

Thinking On Our Feet

In baseball, both batters and pitchers dance with uncertainty, albeit from different angles. The pitcher is trying to fool the batter with an unexpected pitch (curve ball vs. fast ball vs. slider, etc.) in hopes it isn't hit. The batter is improving the skill of how to read the pitcher, the body language and the pitched ball early in flight in hopes making a hit. They work in opposition, each with the goal of triumph over the other.

Alternatively, we can use uncertainty for synergy to reach common goals. We can develop a skill of receiving uncertainty as a gift, something we see or know now, we didn't a moment earlier. The key is to accept it as such, and then use the new trajectory to add something meaningful to the flow. Accept, "Yes", and then add with "And". Yes, and...the roots of improv. Instead of winning, the goal of improv is to keep playing, and to create an interesting change in the process.

Some of the most memorable service exchanges are born from uncertainty and improv. Predictable is boring. Unexpected is interesting. Improv turns the interesting into delight. An artist skilled in seeing a new possibility despite the uncertainty, and then extending the service game to new, unexpected territory is known for thinking on her feet. She creates a pleasant surprise because it wasn't obvious. She can see what others don't, imagine a new possibility and act on it, all in the moment.

Certainty seems comfortable, the logical place to go. And it works with a lot of things, like buying gasoline, taking an airline flight or turning on our computer. But, we can't create unexpected delight from certain. This requires curve balls, and more importantly, a posture of seeking them out. Innkeeping isn't comfortable because it might not work. This is precisely what makes it worth doing, worth dancing with the discomfort, and making it a habit to say "yes, and".

A Better Option

When we encounter someone who chooses to see things differently than we do, behaves in a way we wouldn't, or represents a culture we wouldn't be proud of, we can still act as if...

it's not personal

we might be persuaded

we might change our mind

they might be persuaded

they might change they're mind

there's middle ground

everyone can be happy

no one needs to lose

everyone should benefit

it might get better

Duels are overrated, thankfully. Most stand-offs are. And sometimes, walking away is the most generous act. But if better is a possibility (and it almost always is), someone needs to choose to go there...someone needs to lead the way. Acting as if things might get better in the face of adversity is courageous. It's also generous, which is precisely what we need when the chips are down.

Seeing the possibility of a better option is the first step to getting there. And it's a skill worth developing.

What's The News For?

How is it serving us? What emotions does the daily stream of news evoke in us? How does it change us?

Does it make things better?

Some alternatives...

  • Do work which matters

  • Make something

  • Serve someone voluntarily

  • Learn a new skill

  • Improve a skill

  • Learn about something new

  • Study history

  • Study geography

  • Go for a walk

  • Read

  • Write

  • Photograph something from a new angle

And if we absolutely must have some news, try this as a substitute. It might make things better.

Welcome Home

Hospitality, or innkeeping as I call it, is personal. It's intentionally designed to change a specific person at a certain time. It's a crafted set of actions to make someone feel delighted, as if it was made only for them. We treat them as our guest, not as a customer.

Innkeeping, because of its highly personalized nature, its lack of uniformity,  is very hard to scale, to make available for everyone.  A person is unique. She sees the world differently than another. Innkeeping is our ability to see what she sees and to respond to her specific wants and needs in a specific way. It's a highly curated, bespoke act. And, bespoke by definition is individual.

Of course, it can be done. Innkeeping can be scaled. It begins with seeing our customers as individuals, as guests which we might welcome into our own home. This requires a different posture when we design our systems, technology, processes and our teams. How would we want a good friend to feel at our front door? On the phone? Or, after a service problem?

Innkeeping is hard, really hard. And it's even harder to serve in larger doses to more people. But, if we care enough to do it for one, we've started. We merely need to keep our promise to do it for the next one too.

Unlearn with Purpose

We live within our boundaries. Some are created for us, like where and when we were born. Some we create for ourselves through actions and choices. And some we learn as we go along. We develop a point of view, values and beliefs through our ecosystem...the connections we make and the culture we choose to live in. And through these experiences we become biased. Sometimes, to our detriment. We tell ourselves stories about being the victim of circumstances, about how it's not for us and that it's too hard. We become prisoners of what we believe.

Learning through a flow of forward thinking helps us resolve some of this. We discover new paths along the way. And part of learning is unlearning, releasing our beliefs and sometimes our ideals in favor of something better, something provable, something more true for us now than a minute ago. Learning is a posture, which leads to a skill. So is unlearning. Actively keeping an open mind, which leads to a new possibility.

What can we renounce in favor of possibility? How can it help make things better?

HT to my friend Geo