Cathy Scott writes in Forbes on how to leave an unsatisfying job and pursue your dream career: How-to guides are regularly published about the process of pursuing new careers. I, however, don’t believe a guide can show you exactly how to do that. You have to first believe in yourself, and then take a risk. (my emphasis) Otherwise, you will stay in a dead-end job afraid to step away from your comfort zone. I see a lot of people who keep looking for those "how to" guides. They want steps, a road map, an expert who will show them exactly how to do it. But what they really want is certainty and safety of the kind that they think they have with their unsatisfying job. The devil you know is better than the devil you don't.  Having struck out on my own to create my own dream career, I know that what Cathy says is correct. It isn't about "how to" guides. It's about being willing to choose what you love, being willing to choose happiness over safety.  It starts with believing that you can do it and then taking the risk. It's about making the leap.  Sure, eventually you will want and need practical information about how to move forward. Maybe you will need new education or training. Maybe you want to start your own business and will need help in doing that.  But the biggest step you will take in pursuing your dream is to allow yourself to have it. The second step is finding the courage to pursue it. Don't look for the "how-to" guides that will make you do this. The only place you can look is within yourself.  _______________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter!   If you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

In a comment on last week's post about how to have meaningful conversations at work, Jean Tower points me to a post on her blog about the tension between advocacy and inquiry at work. In it, she points out that we can often become so entrenched in advocating for our own position, we fail to inquire into the positions of others. In addition to hindering our ability to find real solutions to problems, Jean mentions in her comment on my post that this also make it difficult for us to have meaningful work conversations.   I agree that this tension betwen advocacy and inquiry can be a major block to meaningful discussion. I find that when we are in "advocacy" mode, we are more likely to be defensive, to be focused on our next "argument" and to be trying to get other people to agree with us.  For me, meaningful discussions have to be grounded in a spirit of inquiry, where we are trying to understand both our own position and the positions of other people we are talking with. Conversation is not debate and too often when we start to stray into touchier territory, we can end up trying to shore up our own view of the world, rather than trying to illuminate the issue we are discussiong.  Partly this is because meaningful discussions are really about our values and what we believe is important in the world. These values are part of our identity, so a discussion about something meaningful can end up being a discussion about who we are and how we choose to live our lives. Your choices can somehow make me feel like my choices have been "wrong."  Jean's advice for bringing a spirit of inquiry to the workplace is spot on and her suggested questions are wonderful: I know I’m passionate about this, can someone else jump in and play devil’s advocate? I know I have an opinion - I want to know how others feel (or what others think). What would you like to see happen next? Sometimes, if I have presented an issue and a possible solution to my department, my questions or prompts are intended to invite dissension. OK guys, what am I overlooking? What could go wrong? Am I being too optimistic? Have we thrown something off the table too quickly? Or, perhaps the whole group agrees on something, and they agree (a little) too quickly and vehemently? An echo chamber is as unhealthy as a one-sided meeting in which one person pushes their opinion relentlessly. OK, let’s put the brakes on and think about this? Are we rushing to an answer? Do we need to consult some others to check in on our plan? Bringing inquiry to work is something we have to do intentionally. For most of us, the subconsious, preferred behavior we are most likely to turn to is advocacy for our own position. But we need inquiry to create a safe space for learning and for challenging our own sense of identity and understanding. I am far more likely to develop professionally when I approach conversation with a spirit of inquiry and learning than I am if I bring only my own advocacy to every discussion I'm in.  Meaningful conversations require some sort of "advocacy" in that we need to try to illuminate our own positions and the values that underlie them. But they require us to do so with an inquiring mind, where we are open to the questions that our positions raise and the to the positions of those with whom we are talking. Even in our advocacy, we must still leave room for questions.  ______________________________________________________________________ Want a chance to have some more meaningful conversations about work? We'll be talking about meaty stuff in Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9. Info on the Camp and the sign-up form are here.   

Reflective Practice View more presentations from Michele Martin Earlier this week I was  honored to do an online presentation for educators in Australia on reflective practice as part of the Sidney Institute's online course, Designing for Flexibility. Their topic was "taking risks and celebrating failures" but it really ended up being a conversation about key aspects of the reflective process, as well as some ideas for strategies to try out.  I also set up a page of follow-up links here.  (EDITED 12/15/11--Here's the link to the actual presentation in Adobe Connect) Serendipitously, yesterday Beth Kanter pointed me to an article in the Harvard Business Review,"Why I Hire People Who Fail." (Note--Beth is also curating a Scoop.it on Failure and Learning--great stuff!) In the HBR article, Jeff Stibel shares one of the strategies he uses to encourage risk-taking and learning from failure in his company--a Failure Wall.  . . . we started by collecting inspirational quotes about failure. Among my favorites: "Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill "I have not failed, I've just found ten thousand ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison "Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life." - Sophia Loren One random Thursday night, I returned to our corporate headquarters afterhours with a bottle of wine and a box of acrylic paints. My assistant and I used stencils to paint about three dozen such quotes onto a large white wall in our break room. As first time stencilers, this project itself seemed destined to end up a byline on the (slightly gloppy) failure wall until we gratefully accepted some much-needed painting assistance from my wife. After we finished painting around 1:00AM, we fastened a dozen Sharpies to the wall alongside these simple instructions: (1) describe a time when you failed, (2) state what you learned, and (3) sign your name. To set the tone, I listed three of my own most memorable (and humbling) failures. In the beginning, the wall was met with surprise, curiosity and a bit of trepidation. We didn't ask anyone to contribute and we didn't tell people why it was there, but the wall quickly filled up. Some of the entries are life lessons: "After 7 years of practicing, I quit playing violin in high school to fit in. Lesson learned — who cares what other people think." Some are financial mishaps: "I thought buying Yahoo at $485 a share was a good idea." Many are self-deprecating: "My successful failure is working in online marketing when I came to LA to work in showbiz." Some are more than a little amusing: "I thought it was spelled 'fale.'" This is a powerful way to do public/collective reflection on a key theme. How awesome would it be if workplaces had a new wall, new theme every month? I also think that a Fail Wall would be a great addition to a FailFaire.  One reason I enjoy doing presentations like this webinar on reflective practice is because the process of putting information together for an audience forces me to take another look at things, bring in new resources and then engage in conversation with people on what I share. The act of preparing and presenting becomes a form of reflection that's valuable to me. In fact, from that session, new ideas are bubbling to the surface that I think I can further develop and build upon. Stay tuned for those. _______________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter!   If you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

I think that every profession has it's "important questions"--the big questions that start to drive us in new directions, that ask us to reflect on what we are doing and why we are doing it. What are the questions that keep us up at night?  For me, I'm thinking about the "big" questions when it comes to career and professional development. What do we need to be talking about? What are the ideas, trends, etc. that seem most pressing to work on and work out?  Here are some that I think are important: One third of us are currently self-employed. Some have called it "The New Industrial Revolution." This is something I wrote about a few years ago and I see the trend continuing. How does this impact the kinds of professional and career development we do with ourselves? How do we keep ourselves current in an economy where we can't rely on a company to pay for or drive our development?  And if much of learning is social, how do we develop if we are a nation of freelancers? How do we learn from each other? How do we create "freelance" learning communities?  Even for those of us who are employed by corporations, evidence suggests that training and professional development are not high on the list of priorities for many companies.  (See here, here and here for more on this). Again, what does this mean for ongoing career management and professional development? How do we decide what skills to develop? Who pays for it? How do we keep learning?  As technology continues to change the nature and availability of work, what does this mean for our careers? If we follow the natural evolution of technology, we can see that more jobs will be eliminated and those jobs that remain will change substantially.  It's conceivable that jobs as we know them could become obsolete for many of us. If this is true, what does it mean for us? Should we be looking at building a different kind of economy? If we do, what role does work have for us? How do we redefine work?  A majority of US workers are disengaged from their work. I believe that workers in other countries feel similarly disillusioned. What does this mean? What, if anything, should we be doing about it?  One of the reasons I think we're disengaged is because so many of our workplaces are dysfunctional and toxic.  What can we as individuals do to start changing these dynamics? If so many of us are so unhappy, what can we do to change things?  These are some of the questions that are running around my brain. What do you think are the most important career and professional development questions for us to be talking about? What big questions about your own career keep you up at night? 

I think and talk a lot about having passion for your work. This great article on The Creativity Post on how your passion for your work may be killing your career has me thinking differently though.  It differentiates between two different kinds of passion: harmonious passion and obsessive passion based on  Robert J. Vallerand's Dualistic Model of Passion: Those with harmonious passion engage in their work because it brings them intrinsic joy. They have a sense of control of their work, and their work is in harmony with their other activities in life. At the same time, they know when to disengage, and are better at turning off the work switch when they wish to enjoy other activities or when further engagement becomes too risky. As a result, their work doesn't conflict with the other areas of their lives. When they are at the opera, for instance, or spending time with their children, they aren't constantly thinking of work, and they don't report feeling guilty that they aren't working. Questionnaire items measuring harmonious passion include: "This activity reflects the qualities I like about myself", "This activity is in harmony with the other activities in my life," and "For me it is a passion that I still manage to control." Obsessive passion is a different story. Like those with harmonious passion, those with obsessive passion perceive their work as representing a passion for them, and view their work as highly valued. A major difference is that they have an uncontrollable urge to engage in their work. As a result, they report feeling more conflict between their passion and the other activities in their life.  Not surprisingly, those who feel harmonious passion for their work, have better life outcomes all the way around, compared to those whose passion for work is obsessive.  Harmonious passion is associated with higher levels of physical health, psychological well-being, self-reported self-esteem, positive emotions, creativity, concentration, flow, work satisfaction, and increased congruence with other areas of one's life. These effects spill over into other areas. Because people with harmonious passion can actively disengage from work and experience other parts of their lives, they report general positive affect over time. In contrast, those with obsessive passion display higher levels of negative affect over time and display more maladaptive behaviors. They report higher levels of negative affect during and after activity engagement; they can hardly ever stop thinking about their work, and they get quite frustrated when they are prevented from working. They also persist when it's risky to do so (just like a pathological gambler). A reason for this is that their work forms a very large part of their self-concept. To protect their selves, they display more self-protective behaviors, such as aggression, especially when their identity is threatened. Those with obsessive passion also have a more negative image of themselves, being quicker to pair the word "unpleasant" with "self" than those showing lower levels of obsessive passion. This suggests that their persistence doesn't come from a place of intrinsic joy, but an unstable ego. This distinction is critical to evaluate in ourselves. Harmonious passion is a wellspring we can draw from, while obsessive passion is an addictive compulsion that drains us. We need to understand and be clear about which type of passion is driving us at work. Key questions to ask ourselves here include: Are you getting intrinsic satisfaction from your work or do you feel like you have to constantly work to prove yourself? If it's the latter, you may be obsessive. Do you feel a compulsive need to work or are you able to easily disengage and enjoy other actitivies in your life?  Do you feel "driven," as opposed to "engaged"? Obsessive passion is about "addiction" to work. The more you feel you MUST be working, the more likely you are driven by obsessive passion, rather than harmonious passion.  On an organizational level, I think it could be a huge issue, too. Are we encouraging and rewarding people who are obsessive, rather than harmonious? How many workplaces, for example, seem to place a higher value on the obsessive type of passion? These are the people who have little work/life balance and feel a compulsion to work. In many organizations, these are the people who are rewarded and promoted and who end up setting expectations for their employees. If they are also the people more likely to bring negative behaviors to work, there's no wonder we are seeing more dysfunctional workplaces.  Sorting these two types of passion out is important for us to do, both individually and as organizations. Where do you think you stand?  ________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my online Career Clarity Camp, starting January 9. You'll get a chance to look at the role that work plays in your life and to see what you can do to find harmonious passion for your career. 

As we adapt to an ever-changing world, I've come to believe that a necessary career management skill is the ability to create your own job. Whether it's work you do for a company or work you do on your own, re-inventing yourself on a regular basis is going to become more and more important.  How to re-invent yourself  is the question, of course. Via Angela Maiers comes a link to an interesting report on Jobs of the Future that suggests three strategies for creating new jobs: Retrofitting--Adding new skills to an existing job. Blending--Combining skills from different jobs or industries to create new specialties. Problem-solving--Identifying key problems and then inventing jobs that will solve them.  I want to talk about each of these in a little more detail. Retrofitting for a New Job This is probably the easiest strategy to employ and for many of us working for a company or organization, the clues to retrofitting may lie in that "other duties as assigned" clause of the job description. Keep an eye out for ways in which you are being asked to stretch beyond your typical job duties. Is this something you could do more strategically? Watch what's happening with co-workers in similar jobs. Are there skills or duties they are developing that would be a good fit for you? Another thing to watch is the the trends in your occupation that may indicate a need to develop new skills. How can you combine those skills with your current job to create something new?  This is also where I think you look at your core strengths. What do you excel at? Is there a way to develop your current job into something that more closely matches those core strengths that in effect creates another job altogether?  Blending Your Way to a New Job This one is a little trickier, because it involves blending two different jobs or looking at two different industries. That means that you have to be much more willing to explore and be open to trends, skills and paradigms that occur outside of your particular industry and occupation.  In the past few years, I've been blending skills in social media with my core career and professional development skills. This has opened up new opportunities for me in the industries where I work, but it has required me to be open to and active in what's going on outside of my core profession. I've had to continually look at what's happening across industries and then look at how to adapt the skills, tools and processes for the places where I'm doing work.  If you're someone who's interested in and willing to expose yourself to a variety of industries and occupations, then blending your way to a new job can be a key strategy. I personally believe that this is also key to being innovative and creative in your work, but that's another post.  Problem-Solving Your Way to a New Job This strategy for creating new work may be the most difficult to do, but I think could also be the most rewarding and beneficial. There is no shortage of problems in our world and inventing work that solves those problems is a key way to make yourself indispensable.  To do this, you need to start looking for problems that people need solved. This can be surprisingly hard to do, as it requires us to be on the lookout for questions, complaints, etc. It means we have to be great listeners, something that many of us aren't terribly good at doing. I've found it helpful to spend time just talking with people, finding out what frustrates them, where they feel like they need help. In those conversations are the first inklings of the problems, at least as they are understood by those who have them.   Of course, once problems are identified, we also have to come up with solutions and find a way to turn that into a job. This is where it can be useful to be looking across industries and occupations and paying attention to trends. Often the seeds for solving a problem in one industry can be found in what's going on someplace else.  The problem-solving approach to job creation is one you can apply to working for yourself or for someone else.  One thing I've heard repeatedly from companies and organizations is that they need people who are problem-solvers. If you can combine skills and approaches to address a need, then you will be able to find a job.  This approach clearly lends itself to self-employment as well. It is the heart of enterprise, really, this ability to combine skills and talents to address specific problems.  Although I think there can be value to understanding and responding to job trends in the market, I think that in the end, there may be greater security and growth in creating your own work, by applying one or more of these ideas throughout your career. These strategies are also a way to play to your core strengths and passions, which can provide greater happiness and satisfaction at work.  _______________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter!   If you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.    

I've had a lot of conversations with people about the choices they face in their lives. We can spend hours trying to get clarity, trying to narrow choices and get to the heart of things. Days, weeks, months, even years can be spent trying to "figure things out."  Most of the time this process is for naught because they are chasing the wrong question. Instead of asking "what do I want to do?' they should be asking themselves "Why can't I bring myself to do what I know I want to do?" I've found that deep in their hearts, most people DO know what they want. The real problem is that they lack the will to do it--an entirely different problem.  If you truly don't know what you want to do, then by all means, explore and gather information. But, if you know in the deepest parts of yourself what you really want, but you're just afraid to go for it, then stop wasting time on getting clarity. Start looking at how you can find the courage to do what your heart already knows.  Clarity or courage--which is it you really need?  _______________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter!   If you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post on social artistry, on how I am shifting my understanding of what I do and how I do it, seeing myself more and more as a "social artist." Since then, I've been doing a lot of reading, thinking and exploring on the concept, particularly on how we can better use conversations for learning and to dig into the meaningful issues that we aren't addressing right now.  This has opened up a whole new world for me and how I think about the work that I do.  If I go back to what I loved initially about blogging, it was the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions with other people through the comments and back and forth blog posts. If I look at my face-to-face work, it has always been about finding ways to facilitate and engage in meaningful conversations because in my experience, that's where learning and change take place. Always.  I'm currently reading Meg Wheatley's Walk Out Walk On: A Learning Journey into Communities Daring to Live the Future Now. In it, there's a chapter on Columbus, Ohio, where leaders are giving up on being heroes and learning to become hosts, instead.  You can read more about it here, but I wanted to pull a quote that gets at the concept of leader as host, not as hero.  America loves a hero. So does the rest of the world. Perhaps it’s our desire to be saved, to not have to do the hard work, to rely on someone else to figure things out. Constantly we are barraged by politicians presenting themselves as heroes, the ones who will fix everything and make our problems go away. It’s a seductive image, an enticing promise. And we keep believing it. Somewhere there’s someone who will make it all better. Somewhere, there’s someone who’s visionary, inspiring, brilliant, and we’ll all happily follow him or her. Somewhere . . . Well, it is time for all the heroes to go home, as the poet William Stafford wrote. It is time for us to give up these hopes and expectations that only work to make people dependent and passive. It is time to stop waiting for someone to save us. It is time to face the truth of our situation—that we’re all in this together, that we all have a voice—and figure out how to mobilize the hearts and minds of everyone in our communities. . .  If we want to transform complex systems, we need to abandon our exclusive reliance on the leaderas-hero and invite in the leader-ashost. Can leaders be as welcoming, congenial and invitational to the people who work with them as they’d be if they had invited them as guests to a party? Leaders who act as hosts rely on other people’s creativity and commitment to get the work done. Leaders-as-hosts see potential and skills in people that people themselves may not see. And they know that people will only support those things they’ve played a part in creating—that you can’t expect people to "buy in" to plans and projects developed elsewhere. Leaders-as-hosts invest in meaningful conversations among people from many parts of the system as the most productive way to engender new insights and possibilities for action. They trust that people are willing to contribute, and that most people yearn to find meaning and possibility in their lives and work. And these leaders know that hosting others is the only way to get largescale, intractable problems solved I hope you took the time to read that quote in it's entirety. It is profound. This is where I try to be, acting as a host, not a hero, on this blog and in the work that I do face-to-face and online. One thing I'm realizing, though, is how hard it is to play this role, especially when so many of us are looking for a hero to save us from the tough decisions and the hard work of figuring out where to go next. I see this a lot in the career creation work I do. People just want answers and I become the Answer Woman.  I'm clear that there's a part of me that WANTS to be the hero, to play this role. Most of us who are in the business of helping people tend to have at least a little bit of the savior complex in us because it makes us feel important and good about ourselves. But that's ego and it's not the best way to get things done.   What I'm seeing ever more clearly is how damaging this hero/expert dynamic can be. It implies that somehow the power for change  is in ME (or whoever else we are turning to for leadership), not within YOU. I know in my heart how wrong this is and I work hard to stay out of my tendency to be pedantic, to have all the answers. But I can tell you it's hard. And you have to be mindful of what you are doing.  I think that in many ways, I'm trying to be a good host, both on and off-line. But I see that there are places where I can make shifts, get better at inviting conversation and helping people feel welcome, rather than acting as though I'm the white knight riding in to save the day.  It's clear to me that as I transform my practice and the ways that I work with people in the world, I need to pay closer attention to how I act as a host. How do I invite and facilitate conversations? How do I create space for people to have meaningful discussions and gain from our collective wisdom?How do I become a better listener? Better at connecting conversations and people and building up the heroic potential in all of us, not just in my own ego?  This will be hard work, I think, but fun and exciting and where I need to go. I don't want to be the hero. I want to be the host. How can I be that with you? 

Accountabilty is the willingness to acknowledge that we have participated in creating, through comission or ommision, the conditions that we wish to see changed. Without this capacity to see ourselves as cause, our efforts become either coercive or wishfully dependent on the transformation of others.  Community will be created the moment we decide to act as creators of what it can become. This requires us to believe that this organization, neighborhood, community is mine or ours to create. This will occur when we are willing to ask the question "How have I contributed to the current reality?" Confusion, blame and waiting for someone else to change are a defense against ownership and personal power.                      --Peter Block, Civic Engagment and the Restoration of Community One of the most challenging practices I've been engaging in this year is asking myself "How have I contributed to the current reality?" Another way to ask the question is: What have I done to contribute to the very thing I complain about or want to change?  I've found that repeatedly trying to answer this question is both empowering and ego-threatening. It's also well worth continuing to ask.  It's empowering because it puts the power for changing the situation into my own hands, rather than having it rely on getting someone else to change. It gives me another avenue into figuring out how I can create a new situation or dynamic.  At the same time, it is ego-threatening because it invites me to consider the ways in which I am all the things I complain about the most. How am I apathetic or not present or too focused on problems or constantly complaining about what's wrong? How often am I critical, refusing to challenge my own world view, listening poorly and pushing my own agenda?   When it comes to career and work life, I've found that too easily, I can embrace the idea that bad situations are created by other people. I am the victim or else the savior, riding in to save the day. Either way, I am on one side of the situation and everyone else is on the other side. This "me vs. them" dynamic can be very damaging. Forcing myself to see how I co-create the very things I want to change, though, has given me another way to be.  It is teaching me to be more understanding and compassionate of where other people may be coming from. Not that I'm always able to feel this understanding, but when I can, it has shifted my interactions.  More importantly, it consistently reminds me that I must be clear about what I want more of and that I must embody those things in my interactions with people and situations where I want to see change.  I can't control what other people do, but I can bring more of what I want to create change.  For example, a few weeks ago, I asked where the meaningful conversations are at work. Since I asked that question, I've been looking at the ways that I have created situations where meaningless conversations continue. How much work do I put into crafting questions that help people go deeper? How am I expanding my skills and tools so that I create the space and opportunity for those kinds of conversations? How does my own inertia, sense of helplessness, difficulties with conflict and discomfort with being in a place where there are no clear answers contribute to these situations?  This question--how am I contributing to the situation I want to change?--has been one of my most powerful tools in shifting my understanding of how I fit into any situation. Not only can I see the negative ways in which I contribute, I also become accountable for finding the positive strategies I can use to shift the conversations.  This question is critical to my reflective practice. Although challenging to ask and answer, it's been well worth the effort.  ______________________________________________________________________ Career Clarity Camp starts January 9. Info on the Camp and the sign-up form are here. 

Given the work that I do, I'm a sucker for skill lists. As our work worlds grow ever more complex and challenging, it seems that the skills themselves become more complex too.  Increasingly, though, I've begun to believe that these lists are distracting us from the real skills of success. While working with big data, operating in virtual teams and"cognitive load management"all sound great, I think there are far more fundamental skills we should be developing first.  My 21st Century Skills List I think there are 6 fundamental skills we need to develop for success in this or any other century. I would also argue that we are not nearly as good at these skills as we think we are.  In no particular order, my 6 21st Century skills are: Self-Awareness Asking Questions Empathic Listening Authentic Conversation Reflection Seeking and working with multiple perspectives Let's take a closer look. 1. Self-Awareness We humans can be amazingly robotic. And by that I mean responding to commands and conditions without really questioning what we are doing or why we are doing it. This habit of going through life without really being aware of our own internal motivations, mental and emotional habits, assumptions and belief systems is remarkably common and remarkably damaging.  The first and most fundamental skill we need to develop is the ability to look inside to see how we respond to the external world. What are our values systems, assumptions and mental models? What strengths and gifts do we need to bring into the world? What are our habitual blind spots? What are our insecurities, vulnerabilities and sore points?  All of these aspects of ourselves, when they are unexamined and unacknowledged, contribute in major ways to our ability to function in the world. The more aware we are of our own mental and emotional processes, the more skilled we will be in all other areas.  2. Asking Questions I agree with Seth Godin that as adults, it is often stunning how few questions we ask. I'm not sure why. Maybe we think we know the answers already. Or maybe we just lose our sense of curiosity and wonder about the world.  What I do know is that our ability to ask good questions is critical to success, not only professionally but in our personal lives as well. And it's a skill we have to cultivate and refine, because the questions we ask will frame the solutions we find.  We first need to re-learn the practice of questioning, period. Too often we accept what we are told, without going any further. We also need to learn how to ask different kinds of questions--important questions, positive questions, reflective questions. We need to carefully cultivate and nurture our curiosity and use it to keep asking "why?," how?" and "what if?" We need to look at how we ask questions, when we ask them and what kinds of questions we ask. Developing our ability to question, rather than to simply accept what is, is the foundation of growth and development. It is also at the heart of creativity and innovation.  3. Empathic Listening Stephen Covey writes in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that we should "first seek to understand." He calls this empathic listening and it is the most difficult form of listening for us to cultivate.  It is not waiting for the other person to stop talking so you can relate your story.  It is not listening to find places where you agree or disagree. It is something much deeper than that:  The essence of empathic listening is not that you agree with someone; it's that you fully, deeply, understand that person, emotionally as well as intellectually. Empathic listening involves much more than registering, reflecting, or even understanding the words that are said. Communications experts estimate, in fact, that only 10% of our communication is represented by the words we say. Another 30 percent is represented by our sounds, and 60% by our body language. In empathic listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning. You listen for behavior. You use your right brain as well as your left. You sense, you intuit, you feel. Raise your hand if you regularly engage in this form of listening. I know I don't, but that when I do, amazing things happen as a result. (See this excerpt for more on empathic listening)  4. Authentic Conversation Creating the space for authentic, meaningful conversations is one of the most valuable skills we can develop. Last week I wrote about moving from being a hero to being a host and when I talk about authentic conversation, I mean our ability to act as a host and participant in deep, authentic discussions. Conversations are how we learn and how we do our work. They are how we identify and solve problems and how we build collaboration and community. The capacity to create and hold the space for authentic discussion is under-valued and much needed in work and in our personal lives.  Self-awareness, questioning and empathic listening all contribute to our ability to engage in authentic, meaningful conversation. But there are other related skills and strategies we must employ.  Our ability to host and engage in authentic discussions is critical for success in and out of work.  5. Reflection On one level, the ability to reflect on your actions and work could be considered part of self-awareness. However I see reflective practice as something related, but separate. Self-awareness is one thing we can develop through and as part of our reflective practices, but reflection also is a skill that can help us develop more technical expertise, too.  Reflection is both an internal, introspective process, as well as a social one. Reflection can happen alone or in groups. It can happen while we are in the midst of action, as well as after the fact. Reflective practice helps us learn from experience and use our failures and mistakes as fodder for development, rather than for self-flagellation and blame. Reflective practitioners know what they don't know and can devise experiments and activities to help them continue developing. The ability to adapt to ever-changing and more complex environments is directly related to our capacity to effectively reflect on what we do and how we do it.  6. Seeking and Working with Multiple Perspectives Homophily--our human tendency to connect to people like ourselves--is both a blessing and a curse. It's important for us to find and connect to our tribes, yes. But we also benefit from our ability to seek out and work effectively with a diversity of perspectives and frames of reference. This is even more true in a global economy. I've written before about combating homophily and even as I've become increasingly aware of the negative impact of connecting to only those people who share my perspectives, I still find it difficult to intentionally create space for working with multiple viewpoints. Like most people, I tend to see people who have a different worldview as being "others." I either want to convert them to my own viewpoint or ignore them, neither of which is beneficial.  As a 21st century skill, I think we have to look at not only how we listen to and engage with people who see the world differently, we also need to look at the strategies we use to find and connect with them in the first place. How intentional are we about diversifying our networks? How effective are we? And more importantly, how willing are we to be shaped and influenced by these differences?    From a career perspective, I think it is these 6 skills that offer the most "bang for your buck." They are the skills needed for success in all aspects of our lives (not just at work) and they are core to most other skillsets.  As I think about 2012 and how I want to develop myself, it is these core areas that I will focus on. What do you think? How do these skills resonate with you? And what are you doing to develop them?  _______________________________________________________________________ Sign up for my newsletter!   If you sign up now, you'll also get 15 days of activities to help you reflect on 2011 and plan for 2012.  

(Socrates) introduced the idea that individuals could not be intelligent on their own, that they need someone else to stimulate them. . . His brilliant idea was that if two unsure individuals were put together, they could achieve what they could not do separately; they could discover the truth, their own truth, for themselves.                          --Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity For many years, I suffered from undiagnosed depression. Eventually medication and great therapy freed me from the worst effects, but one thing I discovered in the aftermath was that through the years of living with the disease I had learned to be alone. Depression causes us to isolate ourselves from other people. We feel like crap, think we are alone in feeling like crap, and so we learn the habits of withdrawal and loneliness. Just when we probably most need to be around other people, we are least likely to seek their support.  I was reminded of my years of withdrawal today as I prepare for my upcoming Career Clarity Camp. In the past year in particular, I've become acutely aware of our need as humans to come together for strength, support and conversation. Unfortunately, we are most likely to seek this when we are feeling good about ourselves and our lives. When we are confused or sad or angry or ashamed, we tend to withdraw, just at the moment when we most need human connection and understanding.  I love the quote above (via David Gurteen) because I think it captures perfectly what I've realized works so well--that when we bring together two unsure individuals, the truth--their truth--will emerge. The challenge for us is to be willing to come together in our uncertainty. We have to fight our natural tendency to withdraw in those moments of fear and confusion. The answers we seek lie within, but we are most likely to find them in pursuing our connection to others.  Learning alone, having reflection time is important. But even more critical is reaching out to others in our uncertainty and being willing to learn together. This is how we uncover our true brilliance.  _______________________________________________________________________ Join me in January to learn together about getting unstuck. I'll be running a 7-day course to create movement that will help you start to move toward the things you want most.  More information and the sign-up form are here. 

In the past few days, I've had several people tell me about new jobs and plans that are finally panning out for them. After weeks or months of muddling and messiness, they find themselves back on the road--and it feels good.  What shifted for them was that they became very clear about WHAT they wanted. They put work into clarifying their vision for the careers they wanted to create for themselves, what was important to them and what wasn't. They delineated what they needed and became willing to shed what they didn't.  In gaining clarity about the "What," they began to let go of HOW they would get there. They stopped putting energy into all the steps and worrying about how they could make their vision happen and just worked on the vision itself. Once they did that, the "How" began to move. In a few cases, this movement took them in surprising directions they hadn't anticipated. But they were willing to go with the flow and it took them to the "What" of their vision.  Why does this work? A few reasons, I think.  First, often when we are focusing on the "How," we are going in many different directions without a clear vision. We are a culture that values action over reflection and pursuing the "How" feels like we're doing something. But if we aren't clear about the "What," then our actions will be ineffective at best. We are engaging in activity, not real action.  I also believe that focusing on the "What" makes action clearer to us. All of a sudden the path is illuminated  because we are clear about exactly where we want to go, at least for the next few steps. We know what to leave behind and what to take with us. We know the steps we need to take.   Ultimately, though, the reason that focusing on "the What" works is because it is a focus on possibilities, not problem-solving. In his wonderful Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community, Peter Block talks about the "Possibility Conversation": The possibility conversation frees people to create new futures that make a difference. Problem-solving and negotiation of interests makes tomorrow only a little different from today. Possibility is a break from the past and opens space for a future we had only dreamed of. It may be that declaring a possibility wholeheartedly is the transformation. The leadership task is to postpone problem-solving and stay focused on possibility until it is spoken with resonance and passion. As Werner Erhard has so clearly stated, the possibility works on us, we do not work on the possibility (my emphasis).  Focusing on "the What" is a focus on the possibilities, on the future. The clearer we are about those possibilities, the more passionately and wholeheartedly we can state those possibilities, the more that possibility will work on us.  If we want to create a future that makes a difference for ourselves and the people around us, we need to let go of tinkering and problem-solving around the edges. We need to define and embrace the power of "the What."  ______________________________________________________________________ If you want to embrace the power of the What for yourself, there are still a few openings in my upcoming Career Clarity Camp, which starts next Monday.  For more information and to sign up for the Camp, check out this link. 

Last week I wrote that one of the key 21st century skills I think we need is a more advanced capacity for questions. Questions are a topic I've explored frequently here and they are a skill I'm trying to develop in myself for both professionald and personal reasons.  Tenneson Wolf has an excellent post on different types of questions that can be asked that I think provides us with some great fodder for conversation. This is his list of question types: "Wait-a-minute" -- The ones that make us pause and realize there is more to discover.  "Sit-on-it" -- Questions that can’t be answered when they are asked. They require some time to think, and perhaps even let go of for a time. "Address-the-grand-assumption" -- Or as Hani, one of the participants challenged, address even the smaller assumptions. Karen, one participant from a team of county planners, asked this type of question regarding her work -- "well, when did we start believing that we needed to pave all of our roads?" She was thinking systemically, aware of the cost and resource implications of that assumption. "Name-the-elephant" -- The unspoken that many people know and feel, and that if left unaddressed, renders the work less meaningful or real.  "Still-cooking" -- The ones that keep us actively learning. Or even better, reaching, stretching, letting go, reorganizing, innovating.  "Antenna-out" -- Yes, another variation of continuous learning and attention giving. But even further, an invitation to be learning on behalf of the whole.  "Me/I" -- These shift responsibility back to fundamental accountability and relationship of us as individuals, rather than unintentionally being lost in the bigness of we or them questions. I’ve seen this shift many times. Me/I questions harvest what emerges in expansive thinking to give clarity and responsibility of first next steps of action. All of these questions can be applied in a career/professional development context. For example, an "address-the-grand-assumption" question I frequently ask people is "Is working for a company (as opposed to working for yourself) the best way for you to find career satisfaction?" I find that many people think in terms of "jobs" and that they haven't considered the possibilities of working for themselves.  A good "wait-a-minute" question is asking people to consider what would happen if they think about their current job as a home base, rather than as a prison. How does that shift their understanding of their situation and how they can use it to their advantage?  One of the hardest types of questions to ask in a career context is the "name-the-elephant" question. For example, people may be reluctant to make a career change because they've assumed financial responsibility for their families. But what happens if they ask the "name-the-elephant"question about their partner (or other family members) assuming that role for awhile?  And "Me-I" questions are critically important. One of the most crucial is "Are you the cause or the effect?"  I'm constantly working on trying to find the great questions that will help me move my work forward. This framework can be a really helpful way to do that.  What questions are you asking? How do these types of questions help you expand your questioning ability? How do they help you improve your work environment? _______________________________________________________________________ I'm running an online career visioning session on January 17 to help using the awesome VisualsSpeak online Image Center. You can find more information and the link to register here. 

One of the things I love about the social web is the serendipty of finding just the thing you need when you need it. Sometimes it's like magic and it's what keeps me coming back for more.  This morning, via a Facebook comment from Beth Kanter, I was led to Sahana Chattopadhyay's blog post on Trust, Tacit Knowledge and Social Business. One of the links Sahana referenced was this TEdTalk from Brene Brown.  It's one of those talks I had to watch a few times because it had so many relevant, important things to say about courage, vulnerability and connection. If you haven't seen it, take the next 20 minutes to watch it--some amazing insights from her 12 years of research.  So some highlights that I think connect to work and career . .. First, Brene very clearly lays out that as human beings--and no matter what, we must start from the premise that we are humans--what gives our lives meaning and purpose is a sense of connection. Feeling connected to people around us is critical.  From a practical perspective, work must be done in teams and with other people, so connecting with them is clearly important. But on a deeper level, a feeling of connection helps keep us motivated and engaged in the work.  It's hard-wired into us. Without it, it's hard to continue, especially when times are tough.  Brene's research was about connection and she says that 6 weeks into it, she found that there was something in people that absolutely unraveled their efforts to connect. It turned out to be shame and fear. In fact, according to Brene's defintion, shame is most easily understood as a fear of disconnection--is there something about me that if other people see it will make me unworthy of connection? And underneath shame, she found, is a feeling of excruciating vulnerability, that in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen.  (Image from graphic recording of Brene Brown session)  So her research continued and what she discovered was that what separated the people who felt connected from the people who didn't was their own inner sense of worthiness. In other words, those who felt they were worthy of connection felt the most connection. Those who felt unworthy, felt disconnected.  In looking at the people who felt  worthy of connection, she found that they were "whole-hearted." More importantly, they had a sense of courage. And here's the definition of courage that she worked with: The root of the word courage is cor -- the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant to speak one's mind by telling all one's heart. Over time, this definition has changed, and, today, courage is more synonymous with being heroic. Heroics are important and we certainly need heroes, but I think we've lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we are, about what we're feeling, and about our experiences (good and bad) is the definition of courage. Heroics are often about putting our life on the line. Courage is about putting our vulnerability on the line. If we want to live and love with our whole hearts and engage in the world from a place of worthiness, our first step is practicing the courage it takes to own our stories and tell the truth about who we are. It doesn't get braver than that.   (Image from graphic recording of Brene Brown session)  Whole-hearted people had the courage to be imperfect. They had compassion for themselves in their imperfection, which gave them greater compassion for other people's imperfections. And they had authenticity--the courage to give up their image of who they thought they SHOULD be, in order to be who they actually are.  Most importantly, they fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful.  They didn't see being vulnerable as comfortable, nor did they see it as being "excruciating." But they did see it as necessary. And they were willing to do things where there were no guarantees, no certainty in terms of how other people might react or behave.  So what does all of this have to do with work? Last week I wrote about the six workplace skills I think we need in the 21st century.  Self-awareness, the ability to engage in authentic conversations and empathic listening were on that list, all of which are tied to this issue of living whole-heartedly and with courage, of being willing to make ourselves vulnerable and to see our vulnerability as necessary, not something to be avoided.  I don't think it is easy to make ourselves vulnerable, especially at work. It feels like there are so many traps and hidden land mines. How will our vulnerabilities be used against us? But the thing is, when we hide these things, when we retreat into perfectionism and/or shame, we lose the sense of connection that is fundamental to our ability to live effectively in the world. We guarantee our disconnection at a time when we need connection the most.  One of the things I'm exploring this year is how to be more vulnerable, how to show this kind of courage in my work, where  I let go of being the hero and focus on inviting connection by exposing those places where I feel vulnerable. When I've been able to do this, I've found tremendous growth, not only for myself, but for the people I work with. But it's a challenge. I can't lie.  So how do you feel about courage and vulnerability at work? What do you struggle with here? How can we do a better job of supporting each other in allowing for vulnerability in our careers?  ________________________________________________________________________ My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 30! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here. 

To freely choose barter as the basis for work is to commercialize our relationships and ourselves. I treat myself as a transaction in the making. I value myself according to what I can get for myself. My market value becomes my only value. I am now worth what the market will bear. So why shouldn't I get the highest price possible? Part of the price of becoming a transaction is that we allow our value to be defined by others: an organization, a boss, a recruiter, a partner, a lover. I become a commodity whose worth rises and falls according to the marketplace. I place my self-esteem in the hands of forces that I cannot control (my emphasis) I am happy when the price rises and feel depressed in periods of depression--and I am literally depressed in times of deflation.                     --Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters Over the holidays, I read  Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything by F.S. Michaels, who argues that we have an underlying cultural narrative that treats all human enterprise--work, education, spirituality, even our relationships-- in economic terms. In this economic model: Everything is a market, governed by the laws of supply and demand.  People become commodities with little intrinsic value.   Relationships become transactional, based on "what have you done for me lately?"  We are constantly looking to "maximize value" and measure the worth of any project or activity in strictly econonmic terms. If it can't show "return on investment" then it must not be worth doing.  More from The Smart Set:  "[E]conomic beliefs, values, and assumptions are shaping how we think, feel, and act." It’s not simply consumerist greed, that sort of predatory capitalism wildly on display on Wall Street. In Michaels’s definition, the economic story is one in which communities are not as important as individuals, in which one’s placement and performance in society is the result of an honest assessment of abilities, in which progress is driven by people’s desires and the fulfillment of those desires. In other words, each individual person is an entity striving to satiate their wants through rational economic decisions and their success or failure to achieve those goals is a direct result of the quality of their performance. As the "winner takes all" hierarchy spreads and the middle class bottoms out in nation after nation, a competitive "If you have what I want, I have to take it from you" system takes over. Or, as Intel president Andrew Grove put it, "If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person anywhere in the world who is capable of doing the same job. There are a lot of them and many of them are very hungry."This story affects every aspect of our culture, from a medical system that punishes the ill with massive debts and withholds care from the poor, to the corporate ownership of our artistic treasures (Bank of America’s art collection stands at more than 60,000 pieces, and they are happy to rent them out to museums strategically in order to increase their estimated value), to the increased instability in almost every job market. Most of our politicians, if not all, would agree this is the most efficient way to run our world. And they will fight to the death to maintain this status quo, if not drive us deeper into the story.The result is that everything in our lives is evaluated by its economic value. If you’re making an argument for putting a stop to mountaintop mining, best couch it in terms of lost revenue from pollution, the economic burden of those in the area made ill, and the potential for lawsuits. Fights for worker rights such as paternal leave are framed with stats showing that rehiring and retraining a new worker is more expensive than allowing a new father to stay home for a few weeks. Even human rights groups, charities, and environmental advocates have taken up the language of economics because, when we talk about what things cost us these days, we generally mean "financially" and not "morally." This grand story, unexamined and invisible, is behind the rise of "personal branding," where we are marketing ourselves on a regular basis, to "prove" our value to current and potential employers. We treat ourselves as a product to be bought and sold on the open market, rather than as human beings with intrinsic value. (Olivier Blanchard has a great take on this in R.I.P. Personal Branding). It is also the story behind our willingness to treat workers as interchangeable cogs in the machine, as "costs" to a business to be kept to a minimum in order to retain shareholder value.  In the economic worldview, nothing is worth doing unless there is a reward for it. Everything and everyone must provide "value" in the marketplace. All things must be quantified and ultimately measured financially.  It is a de-humanizing view of the world that distracts us from talking about "value" in anything other than economic terms.  Here's the thing. Whether we realize it or not, most of us are buying into this narrative. We make our career decisions based on what the market will bear rather than on any considered thinking around what really matters to us. We put endless effort into maximizing our value and competing with others, into proving our ROI.  But this is how we find ourselves trapped in work that saps our souls and in organizations that leave us feeling abused and invisible. This economic understory reduces us and distracts us from talking about what really matters to us as human beings, rather than as rational economic actors.  Peter Block has some interesting questions to help us step back from this economic view of ourselves: What does it mean when we lose contact or faith in our ideals, or our dreams and desires? Why would we give up the pursuit of our desires, of what matters to us, if the right offer doesn't come along? Why have we placed our desires up for auction? When did we decide that we could live without what was important to us or postpone our desires until we have implemented an exit strategy?  To this list I would add: What would my career look like if I wasn't worried about selling to the highest bidder? What really matters to me, regardles of how much someone else is willing to pay for it?  Seeing the economic monoculture at work has helped me understand so much of our frustration and confusion right now. We know on some deep level that seeing everything in financial terms is reductionist and de-humanizing. Until we really understand how this story plays out, though, it's hard for us to put a finger on what's wrong.  Seeing this, we can start to tell a different story. We can start framing discussions not in economic terms, but in more holistic, human terms. We can start asking different questions about what matters and about how we can define success and value beyond the financial. We can start to build for ourselves lives and careers based on what is intrinsically important to us, rather than on what someone else says is valuable based on what they're willing to pay.  How do you think the monoculture impacts you? How could you think differently, not just about your career, but about other facets of your life?  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 31! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here. 

Via Robyn Jay, a wonderful post from Harriet Wakelam on the "dark side" of creativity and how our participation in social networks may help or hinder that process. First, Harriet puts her finger on something I've experienced myself: I have recently been through one of those 'life reinventions'.  Unlike the current 'sexy' portrayal of creativity the process was absorbing, consuming and sometimes dark and scary.  During the process  I switched off from my networks. One minute I was talking, the next I was disconnected.  It was however a rich and a valuable time, productive and exciting, if challenging and complex. I love how she calls out the "sexy" portrayal of creativity that is so ubiquitous online. Rarely do people share the "dark and scary" parts of creativity. As Harriet points out, we are most likely to see just the finished product--the result of the creative process: I have always thought that networks are non-linear.  Am I wrong though, are they very linear, our online social places being,  not places where thought can evolve, but a place to report the results of the thinking process? There is no word, no hash tag, no convention for being present but processing.  If you are not 'present' then you are 'absent'.   I have seen very few people I admire talk about the dark spaces of the creative process.  My question: are our online networks missing an important facet?  Are they 'safe' enough for  emergent thoughts, or do we do our 'composting'  alone only presenting when we have visible evidence of growth...?            Seems to me that would be a sad place falling well short of our expectations of ecosystems... There are issues that I find interesting  here. First, is the nature of the creative process itself, with all its complexities and "dark and scary places." When we are going through career transformation, the process is very similar, in part because we are creating new selves.  The second is the impact that social networks have on this process, particularly as they become more a fact of life for so many of us as we pursue our creative and career work.  The Dark Side of Creation In my own experience, creativity has consisted of two types of processes. One is active and more social. It includes  gathering information, reading, asking questions, interacting with other people, creating products and processes and blog posts. It is the productive, doing side of creation.  This is the side that we see online all the time. It has been enhanced by the ready availability of networks and people from around the world. It is the "public face" of creation, the side that we all see and admire.  But there is another side to creativity that is not so action-oriented. I like Harriet's use of the term "composting," for that's what it is. It is a gathering and churning of bits of organic matter, half-formed ideas and thoughts, an inability to really put them together into anything that feels right for public consumption. In those times, my head will swirl with bits and pieces of connection and ideas that never seem to coalesce. It's a stew of  . . . something. . . but what it actually is, I don't know.  I find that in those times, I am impatient with myself. We are such an action-oriented culture, so concerned with turning creativity into a commodity. If I cannot count on something actionable or valuable coming from the creative process, then why do I even bother? These are the times when I tend to withdraw from the world, to cut off my conversations and connections. Partly it's because I need the space and time for the thoughts to just germinate. Partly it's because there's something almost shameful about not being able to "produce."  And we are a society that values what people can do.  Yet in my experience, creativity and transformation is like pregnancy. There is a gestation period, during which it looks like you aren't doing much, but HUGE amounts of growth and development are occurring inside. Of course, we aren't able to observe a growing belly to tell us that work is happening, so it's harder to accept gestation as part of this process. There are no visual cues to let us know that something is developing.  But eventually, you will give birth. There will be a product or a process or a new you that emerges. That is when you will receive the congratulations. You have produced something. Without the gestational period, though, you would have nothing. And how often do we stop that gestational process or try to push it along faster than it should go, simply because we are impatient to have something to show for our efforts?  Social Networks in the Creative Process Harriett asks what role social networks can play in this process. Are they a place for us to be able to share these quieter, gestational moments in the creative proceess?  In the end, it isn't about the technology as much as how we are using it. In my experience, because of the public nature of social networks and the fact that there's such pressure to build that "personal brand," we are reluctant to share with others those times when things are not so clear and perfect.  What will people think of us? If I share confusion or half-baked ideas, will it look like I don't have my act together? If I try out different ideas of myself that aren't part of that "personal brand" will I seem fragmented or confused? I would love a world where our participation in online networks could more realistically and effectively encompass our humanity. Where we didn't feel that we had to portray ourselves as always being "together." Where we could feel more comfortable exposing our vulnerabilities and half-formed thoughts without fear of judgement from others.  There's a saying I've heard that goes like this: We judge our insides by other people's outsides. I think online social networks exacerbate this problem. Everywhere I turn, there are people who seem endlessly inspirational and chipper,  full of energy and quotes and general awesomeness. To share those moments when I'm in the darker aspects of creation, when I'm questioning myself and what I believe. . . that can feel incredibly dangerous.  I do think we have a choice. Technology is a tool and we can choose to use our networks to support or hinder our humanity. We can use technology to connect to other people who get that creativity is complex and isn't always about being able to produce the shiny new product or person. It's full of dead ends and weird ideas and things that don't pan out. It's also full of self-doubt and self-recrimination. Even, dare I say, shame.   Using our networks to support us in the darker sides of creation takes courage and a willingness to be authentic. It requires us to be vulnerable. And it requires us to reach out to others, to show ourselves and to accept others when they are willing to show their own vulnerabilities.  We can use our networks to support the gestational parts of our creativity and I think that we should where it makes sense. Sometimes we will need the quiet moments of disconnection to get clear within our own minds. But there are also times when it makes sense for us to share those half-formed thoughts and ideas with others. We just need to find and create that safe space where it's allowed.  ______________________________________________________________________ I have another career visioning session coming up on January 17. It's a great opportunity for you to get a clearer picture of your career in just a few hours. More information and the sign-up form are here. 

In the past few days, I've had some amazing conversations with people about how things I've written here have affected them. Since having a positive impact is one of my most important values and motivators, hearing from people that what I write here makes a difference to them is tremendously rewarding.  What occurred to me, though, was how often we DON'T tell people how something they've done has positively impacted us. We may be quick to point out where a screw-up or problem has occurred, but how often in the course of a work day do we stop someone and tell them of the positive impact they've had on us?  I've been observing in myself, lately, my tendency to somehow withhold this information from people--to not take the time to express my appreciation for the gifts they give me in the form of insight or support. I'm great at thanking them for resources ("hey--really appreciate that link!"), but not so great at saying things like "I've been thinking about our conversation earlier and let me tell you how it helped me with something."  I've been trying to be more intentional about acknowledging these gifts and engaging people in thanking them for the positives they provide in my life. More specifically, I've been trying to thank them for the impact their insights or wisdom or ideas have on me. I'm trying to take it deeper than just "hey, thanks for sharing," to show them the positive effect they have on me.  Doing this has helped me build more positive work relationships, but it has also helped me to better see the positive forces at work in my career. By reaching out and letting people know that I appreciate their efforts and their gifts, I am more aware in general of the strengths and talents of the people who surround me. It has created a strange and wonderful "energy field" around me, a virtuous cycle where the more I acknowledge gifts, the more easily I can see them.  I also realize, based on my own experiences with people sharing impact with me, how motivating it can be to hear that what you do makes a difference to someone, that it really matters. This is powerful stuff and it's what is missing in a lot of people's work lives. I know a lot of people work in places where they feel invisible and unappreciated, where their efforts seem to go into a deep, dark hole. But we could start to make that feeling go away, simply in choosing to interact differently with each other. We could do a better job of reaching out to people who have a positive impact and letting them know that, for us at least, who they are and what they do really DOES matter. Imagine the shifts we could start to make at work if we did this. I'm not talking in a generic, "You matter" kind of way. I mean specifically and authentically, an intentional act on our part to connect with the impact that people have on us and to share with them how important that is to our lives.  I think we'd be surprised at what we could make happen if we did. . . 

I believe in the power of conversation. I believe that when two or more people gather together to talk about what really matters to them, the most amazing things can happen.  I believe that revolutions begin with conversations around a kitchen table or in a living room or on lunch hour or at a coffee shop. Big change comes when we are willing to engage with the important questions.  I believe that as human beings, we are built for conversation. It is how we learn as babies. Our first societies were formed through conversations around a fire. Our greatest institutions began as conversations about what could be.  But, I believe we've lost faith in the power of what conversation can do for us. We've lost sight of how our conversations can shape who we want to be and what we create in the world.  I believe that the solutions to our problems, the inspiration we need to build the institutions relationships and communities that are important to us, lie in our ability to engage in conversations that matter.  Conversations about what's important to us will nurture us and help us grow individually and together. To this end, we need to re-claim our human legacy, our ability to engage with each other around our desires and passions and our vision of what could be.  We need to make time for important talks, to make space in our lives for real conversation about our most pressing questions.  We need to grow and encourage meaningful discussions where ever they crop up. They are happening. We need to join and support them and spread the word to others so they can join too.  We need to provide safe space for ourselves and for the people around us to talk about the things that are most important to us. We need to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable and to help others be vulnerable too.  We need to ask more questions and listen more deeply. We need to seek first to understand, rather than to be understood.  We need to be the sparks for challenging, inspiring, engaging talk, willing to ask the hard and important questions and to provide honest and authentic answers. We need to be comfortable with the messy, wonderful process of truly engaging with each other around what is important to us.  We need to use conversation for good, not for evil.  We need to stop conversations that divide us--from each other and from our humanity. We need to use conversations  to re-discover our common vision and re-define the Common Good. We need to use them  to find our gifts and to bring them into the world. We need to use conversation to rebuild our connection to ourselves, our relationships with family and friends and our larger communities.  Conversation is our human birth-right. It is what defines us and shapes us as humans. "Words create worlds" and we need to use our conversations to build a better place for us to live. 

I'm at the end of Week 1 with my Career Clarity Camp and we're heading into Week 2, where we'll start to turn our career visions into some meaningful action.  One thing I'm realizing as we go through this process is how often we sideline our dreams. We worry that we may fail in our efforts or that we will do something stupid or embarrassing. Sometimes we wait around for someone else to go first. We can also consume ourselves with activities that SEEM like they're moving us forward, but they really aren't.  Here's what I've discovered in my life. If you want to make a dream happen, there are two things you need to do: 1. Acknowledge your dreams without shame or judgement.  Too many of us are ashamed of our dreams. We feel like there is something wrong with us for wanting what we want. A lot of people I work with, for example, are creative, artistic souls and they judge themselves for wanting more beauty, freedom, connection and  joy in their professional lives. These are typically not valued at work, or we pay them lipservice, so people get the message that these are frivolous desires. Nice if you can find them, but not practical.  Have we all really bought into the notion of our society as simply a vast machine for "productivity" and "return on investment," such that wanting something more soul-filling is frivolous? I'm afraid that we have, based on the shame and judgement I see in people who say they want something more.  And it is this judgement--both internal and external--that holds people back from really pursuing what they want. They hear that they must be "practical" and "realistic," which really means that they must give in to a culture that has lost sight of its humanity at work. So they do it, because it's expected, but they are dying inside.  So the first step in making a dream happen is to embrace it, to love it and accept it without reservation, judgement or shame. You must name it and claim it for you to move ahead.  2. Make them happen. For those of us who have finally embraced what we want as necessary and worthy, the second step is to make your dreams happen. That sounds obvious, but it's not. Too many of us wait for someone to come along who will say "Hey--I hear you have a dream. Let me make it a reality for you." If you want to talk "unrealistic," that's where we get into trouble.  To make a dream happen,  you will have to move it. You have to take risks. You have to experiment and explore and be willing to fall on your face. You have to accept the dark side of creation and be kind to yourself in that process.  You also have to be willing to take the lead and be in charge, to put yourself out there in the world and be willing to be identified with your dream. You have to talk to people around you, let them know what you're dreaming. You'll be amazed at what comes your way when you are finally acting from a true place of acceptance and inspiration.  Making your dream happen isn't an event. It's a process. It's doing something each day that moves you closer to what you want. It's a series of steps you take, one foot in front of the other, until you arrive at your destination. There will be stumbles and missteps, but the journey itself will be far more rewarding than staying in place without dreams. I promise you that.  Accepting your dream and then acting on it--that's all it takes to make things happen. So simple, yet so hard to do. . .  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My 7-Day Getting Unstuck Course starts January 31! If you're feeling stuck and need some help moving forward, you can sign up here.   

Yesterday I posted on how to make your career dreams come true. One of my dreams is to work with people from around the world to explore the concept of social artistry and how we can use the skills of the social artist at work and for learning.  So I'm going to make it happen. . .  Announcing: The Virtual Knowledge Cafe on Social Artistry Brent MacKinnon and I are organizing a 9-week Knowledge Cafe that we plan to run online, starting February 20, 2012.  It's open to anyone who's interested in learning with us about the skills and talents of social artists and who wants to explore how social artistry might fit into their professional practice. We'll be adapting David Gurteen's Knowledge Cafe model and Bo Gyllenpalm’s Virtual Knowledge Cafe as a learning framework. A few things you should know: There will be no instructors, no learning objectives and no formal curriculum. The group will work together to decide on the topics we want to explore, based on our interests and passions. Each of us will take the lead in directing the learning through the questions we ask and the knowledge and resources we share. If you are looking for a formal course in social artistry, we are NOT the group for you.  We are building this plane while it's flying. We will be providing an online "home" for the Cafe and some basic structural framework, but the content and practices we develop will evolve as we go through the process. We think this is an exciting, interesting way to learn about a topic like this, but it can also be a little challenging for people who are used to more "polished" products and structured learning. If you participate in the Cafe, be ready for some messiness.  We have no idea of the outcomes for the Cafe. We're hoping that the Cafe can be the start of a Community of Practice for people who are interested in social artistry. We're thinking there's a possibility that through the Cafe we might identify some cool projects or ideas to work on together. But we really have no way of knowing what will result from the Cafe. And we're OK with that. If you join us, you will need to be OK with that too.  This is an experiment in using some of the tools and techniques of social artistry to learn about social artistry. As with all experiments, it has the potential to be a rousing success or an abysmal failure. But either way, we will learn something from it.  If you're interested, check out our course invitation here and sign up here.  Here's to learning together!

I've been thinking lately about our focus on "managing" people. I spend a lot of time with front-line supervisors in various capacities and they are obssessed with how to control people's behavior. The discussions are of two basic types--How do you get staff to do the things you want them to do? How do you STOP staff from doing things you DON'T want them to do? There are variations, of course, but only in the details. Mostly we are talking about carrots and sticks and, for me at least, the conversations devolve into a sort of "how do we herd the cats?" kind of thing. It's animal husbandry, not working with people.  There's a lot of frustration in these conversations--on both sides. The supervisors are frustrated that they can't control people's actions. And I'm frustrated that they are so focused on control.  Here's the thing. Anytime we are focused on "managing" something, we are really talking about controlling it.  We want to control the outcome AND how people get there. We often want to control people's reactions, too. Not only should they do what we want them to do, they should like it, no matter how ridiculous the expectation.  But no one likes to feel controlled. I think it's something innately human. The reason we talk about "the Terrible Twos" is because even children resist our attempts to control their behavior. Children resist by kicking and screaming. Adults tend to resist in less obvious, more passive/aggressive ways. But they are still resisting.  This is why. Control is about power. When we "manage" people, we are exerting our power over them, but pretending we are not. People know this. They are not stupid. They know they are being manipulated and they don't like it.  There was a time when employees were more willing to accept this kind of arrangement, when they felt like they got something from the deal--"If I submit to your "management" of me, in return I will receive a paycheck and some meaningful guarantee of ongoing employment." But that contract is broken now. It becomes harder to submit to control when you know that it's really a form of servitude, not a choice you've made to exchange your independence for a paycheck. I think that people are becoming harder to "manage," not because they are spoiled or entitled (as I've heard many managers say), but because on some fundamental level, they know that they are getting the raw end of this deal and they aren't happy about it. Employees are afraid to resist in more overt ways (they still, at least, want that paycheck), but deep down they know that the contract has been irrevocably altered and they are not interested in such one-sided exchanges.   How to get out of this impasse?  I think that we must first understand and accept that "management" is another word for "control." While I can control inanimate objects--financial and physical resources--I can't control people. I can try, but in the end I won't get what I want. And I'll exhaust myself in the process.  We have to give up the notion of control and accept that we live in a world where many things are uncontrollable--especially those things that have to do with other people.  We can become resilient and able to deal with what life throws at us, but we cannot control how and when the ball comes over the plate. To believe otherwise is to live in a world of illusion.  To work effectively with people, we need to take a different approach. We cannot manage them, but we can create space for them to do their own work. We can help them tap into their own innate motivation by helping them find autonomy, mastery and purpose in the work that they do.  I also think that we have to bring humanity back to work, understanding and accepting that we are working with PEOPLE, not machines and that people have feelings and baggage that they can't just check at the door. We don't want emotions at work, because they are messy and sticky and, well, uncontrollable. So we tell people to be "professional," which really means, "Keep your emotions to yourself, please, because I already feel like the world is uncontrollable so the last thing I need is you adding to that burden." But what we create, then, is a culture of repression and when we repress our emotions, they are going to come out somewhere, usually where we least want that to happen.  Ultimately, I think that this post is a plea for us to remember that we are working with people, that our institutions (including our workplaces) should exist to serve us, not the other way around. We want work to be this antiseptic, controllable place, devoid of human messiness. But it is not. It is a reflection of our very human selves that we should embrace, not resist.  What bothers me most about these issues of control is that they divide us from one another, creating an "us vs. them" culture. It's sad. And also unnecessary.  What I think is this: If we worked harder to understand and embrace our humanity at work, we might find that our concerns about control evaporated. If we worked harder at understanding and working with each other as human beings, not machines, we might find that we're all  in this together. 

"Leadership" has been on my mind lately, maybe because of the many conversations I have with people about the "lack of leadership" in their organizations.  It also came up in the comments on my recent post on "Managing" People.  Everywhere I go, people are talking about "leadership."  But I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the last thing we need right now is more leaders or even better leaders. The entire frame is fundamentally flawed.  The Problem with "Leadership" When we talk about "leaders," implicit in the notion is that there are going to be "followers." There is a power dynamic in the idea of leadership that is often unexamined and that makes it virtually impossible for us to address the complex issues that lie before us.  Leadership has an heroic quality to it. It implies that a leader can save us from whatever situation we find ourselves in. It puts the onus on the leader to find answers, divine the way and to move us along that path. The leader determines the course of action and we decide if and how we will follow.  In our mythology of the leader, they are lone gunslingers (or maybe a team of a few), riding in on their white horses to save the day. They are the saviors, the heroes, the dragon-slayers. They are exalted and somehow different from ordinary mortals, imbued with special powers and skills that the rest of us can only wish we had.  Some leaders are better than others at inviting participation in their leadership. Certainly this is better than a dictatorship. But still, at the heart of any notion of leadership is a fundamental power imbalance where the leader wields power that followers do not.  This is its fundamental flaw. "Leadership" mark some as "special" while others are not.  Even when we pay lipservice to the idea that we are all leaders, we secretly know this is crap. The very word "lead" means that someone is in charge and others are following.  We may not want to admit this is true, but it is.  Why Do We Love Leaders? We love having leaders (even when we chafe against them) because it relieves us of any responsibility or accountability for where we are or where we want to go. I can sit back and blame what's happening on "a lack of leadership." I can operate from my stance as a helpless victim of the leaders who will not lead or who lead poorly.  We see this at work all the time--the people who want "leaders," but then who blame the leaders they find for not being sufficiently heroic in saving them.  And for those of us who aspire to be leaders, there is that secret wish that we will be the hero. We love leadership because if we become leaders, then it casts us in that mystical glow that comes with our status as leaders. We see ourselves as participatory leaders--and maybe we are--but still, as leaders, we are "the ones in charge."  Lately it seems to me that we are workshipping at the altar of leadership  because we are desparate for new solutions and ideas. If we can only build leaders, then we can all be saved. We are like children, looking for our parents to swoop in and save the day. Leaders are the heroes and we are looking for them to rescue us. Or we are looking to BE the heroes and do the rescuing.  But this is a damaging, disempowering way of operating in the world. All this worship of leaders and leadership merely perpetuates a dynamic of savior/victim. It makes it harder for those who feel that they are not leaders to contribute their strengths, ideas and gifts to the collective good. And it causes us to expend energy on all the power struggles that go with this idea--who's the leader, who isn't, how does the leader preserve his/her special status as hero, how do the rest of us respond to that?  From Leader to Citizen  I think we need to retire the words "leader" and "leadership" and begin to talk differently about how we are working. "Leaders" are about hierarchy and if we are working in a dense collection of networks now, we cannot look to "leaders" to solve our problems.  We need to find a different way of talking about what needs to be done, that engages all people in the work. I like the word "citizen," which to me implies that we have rights AND responsibilities in the communities where we operate--including responsibilities to participate in contributing to the collective good.  What would happen if we stopped talking about ourselves as "leaders" and developing our "leadership' and we started talking about ourselves as "citizens" and what it means to be good citizens in our world?  How could that change the ways we interact and the solutions we find? 

Tomorrow, I'll be starting a 7-day course on getting unstuck for people who may be feeling like they're getting nowhere fast. (Note--there are still slots available if this is you, so you may want to sign up.) As I'm pulling final pieces together for the class, I'm thinking about the "frames" we set up around being stuck--the stories we tell ourselves when we find ourselves in this situation.  Often it's the stories themselves that are keeping us stuck.  Probably the biggest story we tell ourselves is that we are, in fact, stuck.  Just look at some of the synonyms for "stuck": Trapped Caught Burdened At a standstill Without ideas Up against the wall At your wits end The more I say "I'm stuck," the more real these feelings become for me. All I can think of is my "stuckness," which means all I can think of is how trapped, burdened and caught I am in my situation. And, of course, the more trapped I feel, the more I resist that feeling. But "stuckness" is like quicksand. The more we resist it, the more it pulls us downward. Not exactly a recipe for moving forward is it? The other thing that happens when we think of ourselves as "stuck" is that we immediately start beating ourselves up for it. If you listen closely to your internal dialogue, you'll hear that little voice saying "Well you SHOULDN'T be stuck. What kind of person gets stuck? No one else is stuck--it's just you. There's clearly something wrong here and you SHOULD do something about it." We start judging and berating ourselves which, ironically, only makes us feel MORE stuck! So what happens if we change the "frame"? If we stop seeing seeing ourselves as "stuck" and think of this pause as something else? If we look at our lives as a journey, traveling on a path, then we know that in every journey there are times when you need to stop and rest. Sometimes we choose those moments, but sometimes those moments choose us. In any journey, there's the time you decide to stop for something to eat and there's the time that you get sick because you've been going too hard and have to stop for a few days. It's just how life works. We also know that in any journey, if we look at a particular moment in time, then it feels like that moment goes on forever. But in reality it doesn't. Eventually we start moving again. We never stay in one place. You've been "stuck" before, but you didn't stay there forever. You always moved on. That's also how life works.  So what happens if I stop telling myself that I'm "stuck" and start telling myself that I'm just resting right now? What if I just accept that for whatever reason, I'm not ready to move forward? There's nothing wrong with me, I'm not a "bad" person because I'm not ready to move. It just is what it is.   If I think of myself as "resting," one thing I can see right away is that I can CHOOSE to rest.  I automatically feel better because I'm not trapped into this place where I'm at today. This isn't a burden. I'm not up against the wall. I'm choosing it. In this case, choice is a wonderful thing. It can instantly make us feel better.  Thinking of myself as "resting," is also restorative and nurturing.  We need rest in our lives, so maybe this rest that I'm taking is necessary. Maybe the very thing I need right now is this rest. Maybe I can use it to take a closer look at my situation and see what it's trying to teach me--how can I learn from this place that I'm at right now?  Finally, if we think of ourselves as "resting," then we can stop beating ourselves up so much for being where we're at. We can be kinder to ourselves and stop the negative self-talk that ends up making us feel more "stuck." We can just say to that berating inner voice, "I'm resting right now. I need this.  Leave me alone."  I'm not saying that changing your story from "stuck" to "resting" is going to instantly change your life, but it does open up more opportunities for new ideas and action. It can give us the space we need to see another way. It can also show us the choices we have in this situation where we feel stuck, including the choice to look for new stories to tell about where we are.  This is a strategy I've used several times in my life over the past year for both personal and professional situations. It has opened up some major doorways in my thinking and really transformed how I approach those moments in my life when previously I thought of myself as "stuck."  So what happens if you stop thinking of yourself as "stuck" and start leaning into "resting"? How does it change the possibilities you see? And what other stories do you tell yourself when you're feeling "stuck?" How could those shift too? 

For years, we've had "Take Your Child to Work Day." But lately, as I listen to people talk about the false selves they bring to jobs that feel pointless, I'm thinking that we need another day--"Take YOURSELF to Work Day."  On this day, you would have the joy of bringing the real you to work. The day would be focused on discovering and sharing each other's gifts, removing our corporate masks and creating real conversations and connection with each other as human beings.  We would start with individual greetings and being made to feel welcome as people coming into a new space. It would be clear that we were valuing each individual person for their individual selves. Anything that made it seem like we are interchangeable cogs in the machine would be strictly forbidden.  I'm thinking this day would include some of Peter Block's great questions for the Gift's Conversation including:   What is the gift you currently hold in exile? What is it about you that no one knows about? What is the positive feedback you've received that still surprises you? What is the gift that you have that you do not fully acknowledge? There would be no discussion of what we need to "fix" or "improve" in ourselves, no conversations about our deficiencies. Instead, we would celebrate each other's strengths and assets, the possibilities that are at the heart of who we are.  We would also discuss the gifts we receive from our co-workers, including asking and answering questions like: What gift have you received from another in this room? What has someone in your group today done that has touched you, moved you or been of value to you? In what way did someone here enage you in a way that had meaning for you? Each person, as he or she heard what is appreciated about him/her, would only be allowed to say "Thank you. I enjoyed hearing that." There would be no downplaying of their gifts, no "I couldn't have done it without you."Just a heartfelt "thank you."  On this day, we would not be exhorted to be "professional," but would, instead, be required to be real and authentic, including sharing our emotions about the things that are important to us. We would be encouraged and supported in feeling joy, sorrow, confusion, and any other emotion that comes with being a fully engaged human being. The only emotion that wouldn't be allowed is apathy.  Part of our day would be spent having conversations about the things that actually MATTER to us--the stuff that brings us joy and the stuff that keeps us up at night. Each of these conversations would be received with acceptance and curiosity, not judgement and criticism, because each is part of the real human experience. What matters to us is part of what defines who we are.  We'd end the day by committing to bringing more of ourselves to the work we do. Not in the sense of pouring our every waking moment into work, but instead, bringing our own unique gifts and humanity to work with us every day.  This includes having the space to NOT work so that we were able to stay in touch with those gifts. And we'd commit to supporting our co-workers in the same endeavor.  Of course, ideally, this wouldn't be confined to a single day. But even that one day could make a huge difference, don't you think? Frankly, a day structured like this is a day I would happily bring my daughters to, as well.