Cultivating Mindful Leaders

One topic I am passionate about is growing future leaders.  Having worked in large corporations over several decades, I have been repeatedly disappointed at how little attention is paid to selecting, nurturing, and building leaders.  The habits and behaviors, attitudes and philosophy new leaders establish when they experience their very first position as a supervisor or team lead usually cement in place the type of leader they will become.  Unfortunately, people are often selected for their technical competence with little thought given to their preparedness to lead.  Worse still is they are rarely given the time and attention, coaching and mentoring, critical to building the skills necessary to become truly great leaders.

Of all the qualities that seems to be lacking in leadership today, mindfulness is at the top of my list.  For me, the quality of mindfulness is the very foundation on which other skills should be built.  Mindfulness is like the still waters that run deep.  There is tremendous energy beneath the surface yet the mindful leader maintains a sense of calm around them.  The mindful leader brings strength and confidence without creating confusion and chaos.  Mindfulness is the by-product of awareness, and when people are aware (they are sensitive to) of who they truly are and what is going on around them, they make better decisions, treat others with greater respect, and take into account innumerable factors that others would easily miss or overlook.  Mindfulness requires an individual to be in touch with how their ego affects their actions and they take steps to avoid decisions where it's their ego that is leading instead of their true self.  Authenticity is another by-product of awareness.  They are consistently the same person regardless of situation and their words can be counted on to align with their actions.  Leaders mindful of who they are exercise greater respect for the views of others and aren't intimidated by alternative viewpoints.  They respect each person as a uniquely equipped individual with particular talents that when combined with others, can generate great results.  Mindful leaders are construction specialists.  They build other people and through building others, they help to create great organizations.

So why is it then that organizations choose to largely ignore newly-selected leaders?  Some continue to believe that leaders are born, not cultivated and they leave it up to chance that the new leader will pick it up as they grow.  Instead, what most of these people pick up are the bad habits and behaviors they see in others more senior then they.  Left to themselves, new leaders will surmise that the behaviors they see in those who have gone before and been "successful" must represent what it takes to be great.  Is it any wonder then that when those people achieve higher levels of leadership, they fail?  Remember that the consistently #1 reason why people leave a company is their manager, and those habits and behaviors were likely established when they were a new leader.  In my experience, mindful leaders are able to retain great talent because people know they are valued and treated fairly.  If you're trying to build a high performance organization then, you need to have a substantial supply of mindful leaders.  We are what we teach, and so if you want truly great leaders, you must start today to cultivate the values and behaviors you want in the future.

What happens all too often in most organizations is that new leaders are given few tools and support, and what they do receive is often focused on compliance and policy versus personal growth.  And even companies that may have initially supported their new leaders with personal development resources, quickly jettison them when financial difficulties arise.  A friend of mine who specializes in mindful coaching was recently notified by a very large, well-known IT company that his services would no longer be paid for by the company due to budget constraints.  So new leaders get help in ensuring HR compliant performance reviews are completed, company policies are understood and followed, and project performance metrics are collected and reported on time, but they are left on their own when it comes to developing personal awareness and development.  While it's not the company's sole responsibility to provide this support, it is the environment they create, the mentoring and coaching they provide, and the resources they make available that ultimately determine the success or failure of a leader, and by extension, the company itself.

I would encourage you therefore to build mindful leaders.  Make it a point to carefully select new leaders not based entirely on how competent they are, but also the qualities you observe in how they treat others, the degree of empathy they exhibit, how they support their colleagues, and look for the tell-tale signs of awareness.  From there, focus on building those attributes and deliberately surround the new leader with coaches and mentors that are themselves mindful.  For leaders already in place, consider doing a leadership reset in your organization to correct past errors when you may have promoted someone who really wasn't ready or lacked the qualities of mindfulness.  Finally, where it becomes necessary, replace leaders who aren't willing to focus on becoming more mindful.  You will be doing your organization, employees, and the individual a great favor in the long run.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.

The Employee Engagement Fad

Business is full of fads just like consumer electronics and other products or services.  The latest trend seems to be focused on employee engagement.  The root of this movement is noble and long overdue.  A number of surveys confirm that employees feel disengaged and not aligned with the organization they work for; clearly there is a problem.  However, the typical reaction of business is to create yet another set of tools, principles, authors, and consultants, all hoping to ‘cash in’ on the latest thing the executive suite seems to be fixated on.  In just the last several years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of companies and the amount of material available to address the employee engagement challenge.  But do you really think employees are not engaged?

Believe it or not, employees have always been engaged.  The real challenge for most companies is that what many of their employees are engaged in, isn’t aligned with or supporting the direction of the company.  Employees may be engaged in everything from their own outside interests, to the ‘coffee klatch’ in the office, or even in efforts to preserve their own niche in the organization.  Employees are engaged it’s just probably not in the way you would like them to be.  No number of surveys, workshops, or other initiatives is likely to have a significant effect on improving the alignment of the workforce to the organization’s strategy.  Engagement is an emotional response that is relatively immune to more information or training.  Improving employee engagement must begin with understanding ‘what’ is engaging people’s interests and commitments now and from there, you can begin to build upon and tap that energy.  You see, employee engagement is a full contact sport requiring leaders at all levels to be personally invested and authentically supportive. 

A carefully constructed approach to improving how actively supportive and strategically aligned employees are begins with leadership engagement.  This is nothing new; we just put a fresh label on it.  Organizations with leaders who are involved on not only a professional but a personal level with their employees have always experienced better performance, consistent alignment, and higher retention.  Remember that employees don’t leave companies they leave managers.  So before you invest significant money in a new employee engagement initiative, you may want to consider first, how engaged your leaders are.  It’s more common sense than you may think.  No magic formula, tool, or seminar is going to replace good ol’ fashioned care and empathy.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.

Complexity - the Enemy of Strategy

In many organizations today, strategy has become increasing sophisticated as companies struggle with the complexities and variables in the market.  The reasons for this are many, but I believe one of the most fundamental flaws of most strategies I’ve seen is that they have been rendered irrelevant because company actions don’t align with vision and intent.  Strategy is hard, but not for the reasons most think.  It’s simplicity that makes strategy difficult to formulate and execute, not complexity.  In fact, the more complex and detailed a strategy is, the more likely it will fail to ignite the kind of action that delivers results.

Many of the leaders and executives I work with voice a consistent and persistent concern that they can’t seem to get employees engaged in, excited, and supporting the organization’s strategy.  The results on the front line are completely disconnected with what the front office believes is important.  Then in spite of numerous attempts to communicate the strategy to the workforce, it seems that things just don’t change.  Much of the problem in my experience is that the strategy itself isn’t easily understood or comprehended nor is it consistent or relevant to the work of individual contributors; therefore, the message is largely ignored.  In some cases where the strategy is so detailed, regimented, and metricized, it actually stifles creativity and limits agility even in the face of obvious market forces.  When results don’t come (or you get the wrong results), it’s often easy to blame the strategy instead of examining the way it’s being communicated.  Too many companies abandon a viable strategy too quickly when execution falters instead of assessing why the organization isn’t embracing it.

The real task of a strategist then isn’t in developing a masterpiece with intricate details and multiple threads, but to simplify it into a short, easily understood mental image that guides decisions and actions throughout the workforce.  When employees can quickly assess a situation by asking a question such as “how would this change impact our ability to be the lowest cost widget supplier?” then the actions they take are more likely to be consistent with the direction and intent of the company.  I worked with a client recently where we boiled down their strategy to three simple dimensions.  From there, we were able to easily translate how any individual in the company could contribute results around one or more of those three elements.  It made ignition so much easier and the workforce experienced higher ‘connection’ with the strategy. 

If employees need a decision tree or are forced to navigate a convoluted path of values, objectives, metrics, and plans, they’ll likely resort to the way they’ve always done things rather than embracing and championing the strategy.  The results then will be ‘more of the same’ instead of the change in direction or velocity that was intended.  So keep your strategy simple and your message will be more likely embraced and acted on in the way you intended.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.

Resiliency: A Radical Redefining for Turbulent Times

I'm sharing this article below from Eileen McDargh with her permission.  Eileen's contact information can be found at the end.

Consider some events of this decade:


The stock market gyrates with unpredictable and heartburning results. Icons of solid companies become straw figures before balance sheets. Children are abducted from their front yards and networks of terrorists spiral throughout the world. Religious institutions cast shadows of duplicity while El Nino brings strange fish to the California coasts. Out-of-control fires gulp huge swaths of Texas.  Tornadoes rip through the Midwest and South. A tsunami of apocalyptic proportions devastates the northeast coast of Japan. 


It’s enough to cause all of us to stand like the proverbial “deer in headlights”, mutter “the sky is falling”, or else spring into action. The latter would be fine but it’s often a knee-jerk response based on what we’ve done in the past. The trouble is that the present doesn’t look like the past.
Whether you’re leading a Fortune 100 company, a small department, or an enterprise of one—whether you are trying to reinvent your career, launch a new product, or juggle the demands of aging parents and children, resiliency skills have never been more important: radical resiliency.

FIRST: Define the terms.


Throw the dictionary definition away. In 1824, Webster defined resilience as: “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress.”  That definition works for explaining metal but not for the mettle of the human system or an organization. This very definition gives rise to the popular two-word definition: “Bounce back.”
No! Not! Never! Going back to an original state might feel comfortable but it denies the very opportunity of personal and organizational growth. In a constantly changing world, returning to old habits, old structures, and old behaviors can actually be counter-productive.


Second, Webster’s very definition implies that resilience is needed only in the time of stress, of crisis or a bad situation. Not so.


I define resilience as: “The capability to GROW THROUGH adversity or opportunity so that one becomes wiser, stronger and better able to create a sustainable future.” Now, throw in the word “radical” which means extreme. “Extreme” resiliency means one is willing to turn right when everyone else turns left. It implies courage, tenacity, and taking the uncharted course.  For an individual, it also means listening deeply to one’s inner voice rather than the chorus that surrounds you.


SECOND: Develop the skill of adaptability.


Adaptability is predicated on finding multiple responses to any given situation. It is foundational for resilience and literally rests upon our ability to challenge old ways of doing things, to actively seek different viewpoints, to beware of sacred cows, and to know that solutions can come from anywhere or any one.


Adaptability requires one to challenge common knowledge. The critical questions are: Why? What if? Who said so?


When a leader and her followers begin to ask why something happens a specific way and dig at least five layers down, many startling discoveries can be made.  For example, years ago Ameritech had an employee who spent 3 full days a month creating a quite extensive report for wide distribution.  Then the question was asked, “Why are we doing this?”  “Who reads it?”  They discovered that few read it and of the ones who did, only a few pages were relevant. 


Courage comes into play when we own up to our own reluctance to look for personal and professional blind spots.   The very person we don’t want to listen to might be the very person with that one critical idea. Might I suggest that leaders look for guide dogs.  Guide dogs lead the blind safely through many life situations and often, despite the owner’s insistence, refuse to do certain things because the guide dog senses danger. In short, the guide dog is the one who really SEES what is going on.  Every organization has people on the ground, people who “see” what is happening. Unfortunately, management can be too removed to even consider asking for input. I spoke to an operator at a steel plant who was just weeks from retirement.  He had many ideas to improve the plant but said management was not interested in talking to him.


Adaptability also requires a change of heart, an ability to work on intelligent optimism, reframing what is possible rather than what is impossible. For example, a road crew drilling through a mountain discovered a fresh water spring, such an occurrence can wreck havoc in trying to complete the road. However, this company decided to divert the spring and now sells bottled water while, at the same time, completing the road. That’s reframing.


Pauline just lost her husband Bill, a brilliant nuclear physicist, who could not even form coherent sentences because of the ravages of Alzheimer’s. Pauline’s comment was, “At least he is at peace and his brilliant brain might offer some clues for researchers.”  Reframing.
Adaptability is about thinking and feeling. Agility, on the other hand, is about action and movement.


THIRD: Develop the skill of agility.


Agility is the ability to move quickly and easily. It implies nimbleness, flexibility and speed. It is one thing to intellectually create multiple actions. It is another thing to move forward. Action is the antidote for anxiety.


The trick is to move wisely. Analysis paralysis might take over. Instead, the resilient individual and organization figures what small steps can gain a foothold. There’s ample feedback while actions are taken. Rewards center on the willingness to act, to take risks, and to share results.
Action also looks at physical action. In short, care of the human body. Exercise, sleep, nutrition demand attention in growing through challenge or opportunity. Sometimes, the greatest step one can take is to sleep. Refreshed, the mind has a better chance at being creative and innovative.


Sometimes, when faced with a feeling of powerlessness, doing anything that gives a sense of control can be immensely beneficial. One woman, when fired from her job of 30 years, created a network group at her church for people looking for work.  Another company, caught in the grip of the recession, pulled employees together to explore how costs could be cut without cutting people. Some employees volunteered to work part time so that those with less financial resources could continue.


FOURTH: Develop the skill of laugh-ability


Victor Borge said, “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” It is also the shortest distance between your brain and your body. The ability to find humor and generate a sense of playfulness actually increases creativity. Laughter separates the serious from the trivial, the trite from the tremendous.


Recall the Chilean mine disaster. Against all odds, these men survived, adaptability (multiple rescue methods and listening to many experts) and agility were paramount.  And they also employed laugh-ability, or at least a way to keep a sense of humor about this very serious predicament.  When a camera was lowered into the mine, one miner gave a tour of their “home”, showing a table where they played cards and held meetings.  At the end of the video, the trapped men burst into a hearty rendition of the national anthem. In short, the men took control where they could, added some spirit to the horror of being trapped, and—as a waiting world discovered, kept everyone alive until rescue.
Play belongs in the realm of laugh-ability. It was the jester of old who spoke the truth in a non-threatening way by using humor and play. Free-form play and improvisation not only break barriers but open up a world of potential ways to handle situations.


 “Play is the exultation of the possible” - Martin Buber.


 FIFTH: Develop the skill of alignment


In 2008, I trekked a portion of the remote western Indian Himalayas, visiting villages as well as ancient monasteries. These still-standing structures, looking fragile in a terrain of rock and stone scoured by wind, rain and snows, have survived because of one thing: they are built on bedrock. The main buildings are lined up on the strongest part of the mountain.


To remain standing, humans too need bedrock. As Viktor Frankel stated, “Man can survive any what if he has a why.” Resilient people and individuals have a reason greater than themselves for keeping on. Whether a child to raise, a song to sing, a book to write, or a community to protect, there is a sense that something or someone matters. That alignment guides adaptability.


SIXTH: Look for what energizes.


Lastly, the current that flows through all these skills is human energy. Energy is the result of meaningful connections that add the spark of potential and possibility, the catalyst for forward momentum. Think of this as a DNA molecule in which energy is the thread that weaves through all four skills and, in turn, generates more energy as it crosses.

© 2012, McDargh Communications.  Publication rights granted to all venues so long as article and by-line are reprinted intact and all links are made live.

Eileen McDargh is a Hall of Fame speaker, business consultant and top thought-leader in leadership.  Visit http://www.eileenmcdargh.com for more information.

The Death of Curiosity and Critical Thinking

I remember vividly when my oldest daughter was 4 years old and she was in a phase where everything she encountered was greeted with the question “why” and her curiosity about all things was a constant presence in our lives.  At times, the perpetual drumbeat of “why, why, why” drove me crazy, but I admired (with a high degree of patience) her quest to discover and learn.  Best of all, as an adult now, she hasn’t lost that curiosity.  How often though we grow out of that phase rarely to return to it.  I have been gifted with a spirit of perpetual curiosity, but I’m saddened that I don’t see that spirit as often in other people, both young and old.  What causes us to lose or grow out of that childhood phase where everything in life is a new discovery?

I’ve also been reflecting on the apparent lack of critical thinking in the organizations I work with.  It’s as if people are either unable or unwilling to embrace a situation with a spirit of discovery or a willingness to question the conventional.  In talking with numerous executives in business, they also seem to share the same experience, namely that people no longer regularly use the wonderful and mystical power of the mind, to solve today’s problems both simple and complex.  When people don’t speak up for whatever reason, the opportunity for learning and exploration is lost.  This is where creativity and critical thinking begins to die.

It appears as if our society is losing its curiosity and with it, the ability to think critically about the world around us.  With so much information (and answers) at our fingertips, its easy to use Wikipedia or a search engine to get an answer rather than trying to solve things on our own.  While this may work fine for simple things, we eventually train ourselves to quit asking the simple “why” question or “how” when faced with a new situation.  Yet the critical thinking part of our minds is like any skill that will languish over time if not exercised.  Based on my own observations and experience, I would conclude we are a society that is rapidly becoming mentally out of shape!

I recently met Frank Kowalski, a physics professor at Colorado School of Mines who has been working on a great project that uses modern tablet technology to improve critical thinking skills in the context of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education.  Frank has experienced some of the same challenges while engaging students to get them to think critically and be willing to question what they are being told or what they observe.  In my conversation with him, we reflected on the fact that so many of the world’s most significant scientific breakthroughs have come at the intersection of analysis, critical thinking, and intuition.  When people stand back and ponder what mechanisms, forces, and motivation are causing something to occur or when they take a complex issue, break it down and question, analyze, and solve the pieces before putting it all back together, they open the door and have access to that wonderful world of creative thought often present in the form of intuition. 

Yet in today’s world of technology, connectivity, and ubiquitous information access, we are training people to simply reach out to the Internet or a database and grab the answer rather than trying to really solve the problem directly.  Frank described for me experiences where students were ill prepared to solve a problem or afraid to ask critical questions yet could give you the right answer simply by looking it up.  We both mused about whether or not a physics student would notice or even question a professor who changed Newtown’s Law – an interesting experiment indeed.  Nonetheless, his work is focused on trying to find a way to bridge the gap between the power of technology and the social/cognitive skills of curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.  I’m encouraged and anxious to learn if he will be able to somehow find a way to reignite that childhood need for discovery.

I wonder if in leveraging the power of technology, we have somehow lost touch with the social and cognitive skills critical to creativity.  While social networking technologies have created vast networks of connectivity between people, it has also dramatically changed the dynamics of relationships.  It seems like people are more comfortable asking a question through a computer anonymously than they are raising their hand in class or speaking up in a meeting.  When critical thinking breaks down, so does the ability of any organization to address its most challenging situations.  I believe that critical thinking fueled by a culture of curiosity can be a very transformational force.  So next time someone asks you “why” I encourage you to join the expedition and seek to discover something new.  More importantly, I exhort you to become the chattering "why, why, why" voice in the room and bring others along with you on life's adventure.

Synchronicity - From the World’s Highest Mountains-Lessons for Leade

I'm attaching below an article by Eileen McDargh.   Eileen is one of those special people who are truly connected and inspirational.  I've found her wisdom to be timeless and soul-building.  With her permission, I've copied the entire piece below.  You can learn more about Eileen at the end of the article.

From the World’s Highest Mountains-Lessons for Leaders

One of Carl Jung’s favorite words was “synchronicity”, that unexplainable convergence of  unplanned events which offer insights and opportunities. When I agreed to join a trekking expedition through two remote provinces of the Indian Himalayas, I had no way of knowing that this adventure would coincide with the publication of my latest book, Gifts from the Mountain- Simple Truths for Life’s Complexities.  Ah, synchronicity!

One of the benefits of being a continual learner is that we are constantly overtaken by ah-hah moments which serve to not only whack us on the side of the head, but also hold lessons which can have universal application for anyone in leadership. The following are but some of the principles gleaned as our group drove along the highest roads in the world and wound up in the regions of Lahual and Spiti which are often closed to the outside world for seven frozen months. They come from trekking with tribesmen herding sheep and goats at elevations up to 16,000 feet and from crossing white water rivers on foot and encountering the Dalia Lama in a remote monastery near the China/Tibet border.

Watch for patterns. Different trees grow at different elevations.

The apple trees of the Kullu Valley  could no more have survived at Rohtang Pass then a trout could swim at the North Pole.  The natural world allows for adaptation but only to a point. As leaders, we must know where we belong, what adaptations we can make, and then how to help those around us find the best match for their growth and abilities.

Ankit Sood, our wise guide, demonstrated this principle during the trek. As the journey became more difficult, he voiced his concern in such a way that it allowed all of us to gracefully examine our skill levels. Four of our party self-selected to not continue when the trekking became more difficult and demanding on both a physical and emotional level.  That’s wisdom and courage on display. Had they continued, it might have caused harm to themselves as well as to the rest of the group. Ankit, as our leader, paved the way for that decision yet was also prepared to take them to a lower elevation had they insisted on continuing.

A leader gives the follower a chance to evaluate his own performance but is also prepared to make the difficult decision of transferring or terminating an employee. When an employee is not able to do the job at hand, it damages the morale and the performance of a team if that employee is left to struggle in work that does not match competency or innate potential.

Expect the unexpected and deal with it.

Change is one thing. The unexpected adversity or opportunity is something else. Great leaders live in the present moment and make decisions based upon what is before them.. As we climbed higher into Spiti, the Himalayan cold semi-desert region that has been described as one of the highest, most remote and inhospitable places on the planet, Ankit learned that the Dalia Lama would be teaching at a monastery in the village of Nako. To venture to Nako meant changing plans on a dime, jumping through mounds of bureaucratic paperwork, and going through time-consuming checkpoints. However the chance to see a world leader in a special setting was an unexpected opportunity not to be missed.

The same is true  in the business world. Had 3M ignored an engineer’s idea that a less-than-sticky glue could be useful, the world would never have known Post-It-Notes™.  Had Larry Page and Sergey Brin not paid attention to the unexpected response to their simple search engine methodology, the word “Google” would not have become a common word in our vocabulary.

The more critical the effort, the more teamwork is required.

The rivers of the western Himalayas cascade from melting glaciers. At night, when the glaciers freeze, water level is reduced.  The timing of a crossing is critical as water rises along with the sun. Rocks and debris swirl into tumultuous rapids. Crossing alone can be suicidal. We created a human chain, grasping each other by wrists (not hands) and alternated smaller team members with larger ones.  We succeeded, cold and battered, but safe.

How often do we encounter the leader or employee who insists on “going it alone” in a critical situation?  To ask for help is perceived as a weakness. Yet, it is the strength of collective brains and maybe even brawn that can produce a better result. Equally important is knowing how to optimize the varying strengths of team members for the best results. The adage of  “strength in numbers” bears consideration.

Action is the antidote for anxiety.

We made it in time to cross the dangerous river that had already claimed six lives. But other members of our expedition crew were not so lucky. Their pace had been slowed by rounding up pack horses. In horror we watched these men attempt three times to cross, spinning against rapids and almost drowning. There was no choice but to stay on the granite rocks and wait until early morning.

I could see the anxiety in the eyes of our leader. While we hiked ahead to make camp, he devised a plan. With another team member, he filled a water proof barrel with food, warmer clothes and a small tent. He hurled a rope to the stranded crew and together they created a pulley system for retrieving the barrel. While everyone was still concerned, taking action provided some comfort.

Hand-wringing never accomplishes anything. Action gives a level of control over what, at face valuable, might seem uncontrollable. A leader helps people take that action.

Everyone deserves to be welcomed home.

When the stranded crew appeared over the horizon at day break, we cheered, sang and welcomed them “home”. Their faces glowed with a sense that we weren’t just customers to serve, managers to follow, but rather individuals who cared for their well-being.  They redoubled their efforts to work for us in the days that followed.

There’s universality in wanting to be welcomed and cheered. Whether in the remote regions of India or the meeting rooms of Wall Street, employees deserve to feel that someone has seen their effort, their hard work and their long hours. The degree of engagement and retention might increase exponentially if leaders welcomed them “home”.

Gratitude transcends latitudes

Regardless of nationality or geography, humans everywhere respond to expressions of gratitude Not only do we seek a place where we are welcomed, but our spirits rise when others let us know that we matter. The more personal the expression, the deeper is the human connection.

While it is customary to pool monies and give a bonus to the trekking crew, our expedition wanted to extend a more intimate thank-you. After all, these men had put our well-being ahead of their own.  They paid attention to our personal needs, even found a way to bake a cake at 15,000 feet when they discovered that two of us had birthdays.

Our solution was to gift them with personal items we knew could be used by themselves or their families. My new Timberland boots, thermal jacket and ski hat went into the box along with my husband’s favorite space-aged parka. Our party left gloves, socks, medicines, thermals, and even unopened bags of trail mix and jerky brought from home. We gave money to have everything cleaned and restored if need be.

When gratitude comes from the heart, is personal, unexpected, and out-of-the-ordinary, amazing linkages are created. The gifts demonstrated that we had observed their life, their needs, and responded appropriately. Spontaneous appreciation that recognizes the uniqueness of an individual beats standardized reward programs any day.

As for our band of intrepid explorers, my expedition partners who were strangers until we gathered at Chicago O’Hare for the fifteen-hour flight to New Delhi, we’ll continue our relationships that were forged with shared experiences. You might say we have created a new company through collaboration, cooperation, and consideration. That’s not a bad final lesson to carry into our respective places of work.

© 2009, McDargh Communications.  Publication rights granted to all venues so long as article and by-line are reprinted intact and all links are made live.

Since 1980, Hall of Fame speaker Eileen McDargh has helped Fortune 100 companies as well as individuals create connections that count and conversations that matter.  Executive Excellence ranks her among the top 100 thought-leaders in leadership development.  To hire Eileen to teach your leaders and staff Radical Resilience visit http://www.eileenmcdargh.com/.

Six Words to Banish From Your Organization

Poet e.e. Cummings isn’t always the easiest author to follow.  His writings are often veiled in deeper meaning.  In his poem, “Effie’s Head,” he describes an encounter with God at the death of Effie.  There is tremendous wisdom in this poem that calls to mind the great intentions of humankind often thwarted by lack of action.

cummings speaks to six crumbs as God looks inside Effie’s coffin, each which speak to what could have been but never was.  These six crumbs (or words) are ones you should banish from your organization.  They are:  may, might, should, could, would, and must.

These words used in organizations are barriers to action.  I “may” be able to get the task done by the deadline speaks to a lack of commitment.  You “might” consider using the prototype only speaks to what is possible but lacks specificity on how to take action.  I “should” change the proposal to address the customer’s need for schedule flexibility only talks to what options you have but no path to implement them.  The team “could” talk to the customer to see what they need has no commitment to closure and lacks accountability.  I “would” like to implement the product change to align with the market will never get you to realize the potential.  Finally, when you “must” finish a task, you speak to the obligations you have to address, but lacks the energy to make them happen.

How many times have you left a meeting believing that others (or yourself) are committed to action only to find things left unfinished just when you needed them?  In my experience, discussions at meetings are often filled with these six words.  When used to evaluate alternatives, these words can open doors, but when it comes to commitment, they have no place in the discourse.  Are these six words keeping you from making progress?  If so, make a commitment to eliminate them from your vocabulary when you know it is action that is required.  Intention alone—no matter how well meaning—is the enemy of results.