On Becoming Mundane

Resurrecting a reflection on an experience from 31 years ago that’s as relevant today as ever…

It’s 1993 and I am 34 years old. I have planted a church in Canada and in Indonesia. Along the way I've gained experience in preaching, teaching, and administration. I'm gaining insights into leadership and organizational development. Now I am in Phnom Penh Cambodia, establishing the leadership structure for the international church I lead.

Life is good. Got to thinking about my future, and the thought crossed my mind that I could probably make it through the rest of my vocational ministry career without much more effort. I could ride that resume into the sunset of my career with no further effort. That was a very presumptuous thought. But more dangerous is the crippling attitude it reveals in me.

While I'm entertaining this perspective, I listen to a cassette tape by John Maxwell, a well know leadership author, pastor and coach. I don’t remember the topic, but I do remember the bomb he dropped into my world that day. He cautioned that the leader who is not on the growing edge is in danger of becoming “a mundane man or woman”. That word blows apart my presumptions and my comfortable world. My life is in danger of becoming commonplace, inert, mundane.

I had some choices to make.

Significant and developmental growth in our lives is determined or denied by the winner of the battle between choosing Courage or Fear. The challenge with Fear is its double edge. We fear launching into the new and unknown, but we also fear the consequences of inaction. At some point Courage must be exercised or we will remain immobilized between the two sharp edges of Fear.

I was immobilized. 

Not long after the challenge to my mundane-ness, I was presented with an opportunity to move outside my comfort zone, and build on my emerging interests and passions. I came across a master’s program in Organizational Leadership. Funny how the LAST THING I ever wanted in life was to go back to school. Certainly, there had to be other ways of developing myself. There were, and there are. But at that point in my life, I knew that I had to do something that would create a structure of accountability for my development. That program was it. I overcame Fear, borrowed Courage from my wife, and launched. The end result was not a degree on my wall, but the lifelong learning ethos it developed.

Why strive to grow? Growth inherently brings change, and change is hard. Why not remain content with where and who we are? There’s enough change in the world. We’re all tired of it. Is it not more virtuous and advantageous to be anchored? Is existence on the ‘growing edge’ worth it? You must answer this for yourself, but here are a few of my learnings and contributions to the thinking around this. Please add your own in the comments of this blog.

1.  'Mundane' in some contexts means the ordinary, the everyday.  Learning to be content with that kind of 'mundaneness' is an antidote to the hurry-up, never satisfied life. 
   
2. “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.” (Daniel Boorstin). Reflect on that as you think about discovering more about yourself, your abilities, your potential.
3. “Fan the flame” of what has been entrusted to you. (2 Timothy 1). You’re a steward of the Creators’ design in you, and of the input of the community that has nurtured you. They all believe you have something to offer. 
4. The answer to the prayer “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth…” is fulfilled through inquisitive, growing, courageous and engaged people. We are not meant to sit back and wait for some divine rescue event. We are meant to engage, so engage well. Hone your life so it is a net contributor.
5. A commitment to growth leads down the path of discovery. That inherently opens new horizons, new reasons and new opportunities to influence and effect change for human flourishing. Be prepared to course correct. 
6. Personal development costs. So does a lack of development. Which cost are you willing to bear? What lost opportunities and unrealized dreams are you willing to exchange for your need of security and comfort?
   

I am now 65. The ‘mundane’ challenge is still (and again) before me. This is a time of life where most people would not begrudge me pulling back and ‘coasting’. I don’t have the energy of that 34 year old in Cambodia, and I still face the battle between Courage & Fear. But the only way to face it is to face it. So, I am launching into endeavours and engagements that will press me to learn. I will need to calibrate my energy and expectations at this stage of life. But I am throwing off the bowlines and setting sail.

Let’s see where this goes.

Harv

WIFM Radio – your Transition Station

If you are in a career transition (as I am currently), tune in to WIFM.

Millennials get a bad rap for always listening to this station. However there are times where you should dial into this frequency. 

During the recruitment and interview process employers play their favourite stations. Songs about performance expectations, previous relevant experience, and the favourite country tune: “Tell me about a time when…”. Now is the time for you to play the songs from WIFM: "What's In It For Me?"

As I pursue my next vocation and encounter the recruitment processes of various organizations, the words of Dr. Nancy Adler come to mind: 

"Organizations that believe people can change emphasize training and development whereas organizations that believe people are incapable of change emphasize selection systems".   (International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior - 2008)

Getting the right answer to “What’s in it for me?” will let you know if you would be:

• Participant in a learning organization, or...

• Employee # __ in an organization that prefers status quo. 

If you want to determine whether the organization is one that will develop your skills and potential, below are some things to look for when you are in the process. Make the effort to interview the organization just as they are interviewing you. You could formulate questions to pose when you are in the interview, but it will likely take some personal effort beyond that by speaking to current/former employees and searching their website for any clues pointing to a learning and development culture. 

Here are some suggestions for how to assess the answer to “What’s in it for me?” 

How does the organization provide for ongoing learning and development?

• Is there a policy, budget, expectation or a track record of time provided for ongoing learning?
• Google their staff. Do they publish? Are they present at industry events as a participant or a presenter? 

How does this organization know you are performing well? 

Are there performance reviews? If so, how are they conducted? Here are 3 approaches I have encountered and my take on their usefulness:

• The formal review where you are evaluated to a set of objectives laid out 6 or 12 months prior. Be cautious here – in what universe would you want to be evaluated TODAY on an issue that occurred many months ago? Unless their process has some type of ongoing, real-time adjustment to it, it’s a ‘check off the box’ exercise AND does not see you as a person-in-process.
• The regular ‘check-in’. This may be accomplished via regularly scheduled meetings, or the informal drop-in/walkabout approach. These can be very valuable because they are real-time assessments - as long as they are a ‘check-in’ and not a ‘check-up’. The former approach is about how you are performing and discovering what you need to succeed. The latter is simply to know if you are performing to expectation. 
• The DIY. Basically there is no performance review. Any advancement in competence or skill development is self-regulated. On the surface this sounds awesome. No accountability! High trust! Freedom! Long leash! However, the dark underbelly here is that when you are left to assess yourself, you tend to over-rate your competencies and lack the objectivity needed to assess areas for personal growth. 

What are the signs that this organization has a learning culture? 

• What was their last failure and what did they do with it? (ignore, suck it up and move on, meet for a post-mortem to assess learnings…)
• When they meet as teams, what is a typical agenda? Find out if this is an assessment culture or a task-list culture. 

You can go to work, or you can go to build & contribute to this world. 

Once you have made your choice, then interview the organization to find your fit. 

If you have other suggestions that would help a person tune into WIFM, please leave a post below. 

Your Path Makes You

Many leaders live out of an illusion.

It’s an illusion that we can be the unconquerable masters of our fate and captains of our soul. This illusion has a deep root in the Western psyche, perhaps best captured in the 19th century poem Invictus by William Henley:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.



In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.



Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.



It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

This ‘master of my fate’ life perspective is expressed in the notion of the ‘self-made man/woman’. It is regularly reinforced through the North American child-rearing mantra of: “you can be anything you want to be” and then echoed in adulthood via leadership gurus’ seminars and books. Just Google “you can be anything you want to be quotes” and you would think nothing can ever get in the way of our goals except our own level of belief in ourselves!

Reality check: No one is a self-made. No one finishes their life path the way they initially envisioned.

Truth check: You don’t make your path. Your path makes you.

This phrase "you don't make your path; your path makes you" came to me with particular power after a week of walking multiple paths along the Camino del Norte in August 2017. My experience in the previous 7 years was the crumbling of many of the best-laid plans for my own life and surprisingly, the successful accomplishment of some completely unplanned endeavours. These multiple events and circumstances created a zigzag pattern of experiences. I was reeling, wondering what to make of it all. I took a sabbatical for 3 months to try make sense of things, and this phrase popped up:    You don’t make your path. Your path makes you.

This isn't advocating giving up on dreaming and planning. It is about dealing with emerging reality and your ability to shift direction on the road to becoming resilient as a leader and person. Lets face it, plans get made, hopes are set high and then 'life' happens. Circumstances both within and outside our control determine the path we actually walk. In those moments, some things are demanded of you:

1. What CHOICE will you make? As I see it, there are 3 options. Accept, Refuse or Run. You have to determine in your circumstance what is called for. However, no matter your choice your path has already shifted to some degree.

2. What CHARACTER will you demonstrate? Your choice will call out your character. More important than the path you take is who you become as a result of your choice. Unplanned changes have a way of unearthing what is buried deep inside of us. A leaders' effectiveness derives more from character than skill, so pay close attention to what emerges!  Resilient leaders are not shaped by success so much as they are by challenge.

3. Will you accept the new CONDITIONS? This is the time for realism. Your circumstance and the new resulting path is what it is, so deal with it. The alternative is to keep living in your head and in a reality that does not exist! Acceptance doesn’t mean you must like the new path, but it does mean you receive it as a part of your new life. Only after acceptance can you begin to walk the new path with purpose and intention.

With great thought and planning I have designed many paths for my personal and leadership life, believing that I would become someone and accomplish something as I pursued the path. In all cases, I have experienced redirection and on occasion outright failure to arrive at my original destination. However, I am now the leader and person that I am not because I achieved my original plans, but because of who I have become in the process. I also believe that I am in my current position of leadership because of the character, interests and skills that have been shaped by my circumstances, because:

My path made me


Harv

“We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.” Proverbs 16:9

Leading Beyond the Bottom Line

Every for-profit or non-profit leader has a bottom line.  It’s why you were hired. What is your bottom line? 

Social change – shareholder value – product innovation – spiritual transformation – profit...

Before you read on, name your organizations' bottom line here:_________

I suggest you add a bottom-line measure to your leadership:  the personal development of the people you lead.  In the long run it isn’t about what you leave behind for your organization ~ it’s about who you leave behind. 

Although our world places great value on leaders who accomplish great things, it’s the leaders who ‘accomplish’ inspiration in the lives of others who endure in our collective memories AND have left a legacy of change in thinking and behaviour that continues to serve the world.

Look at these pictures (or insert the image of a leader you admire) and describe for yourself the legacies of each leader:

• What was distinctive in their life? 
• How did they inspire you?
• To what extent has their leadership endured beyond their organizational ‘bottom line’?

  

Now, here’s a counter-intuitive point:  the clearest path to influencing the character and personal development of others is to pay attention to your own growth!  Developing others isn’t so much about being an inspiring motivator, providing leadership coaches, or implementing a team-development plan (as helpful as they are).  It’s really based in YOU, in the “quality of you” as their leader.  You best lead others by consciously leading yourself.

A leaders’ self-awareness is the basic building block of effective leadership.  

Leaders who lead themselves acknowledge that there are typical stages and phases of development through which all people travel.  Throughout life we will cycle through these phases.  At times they are painful and uncomfortable.  Effective leaders don’t avoid these stages, but rather normalize them as natural building blocks of their inner life and character.  It’s from that inner life that they lead in the most profound ways ‘beyond the bottom line’.

Here’s my broad description of the phases of:  

Questioning/Clearing/Crucible/Clarity

Questioning

At various points throughout life a sense of ‘dis-ease’ with our context settles over us.  I have often observed this in the lives of leaders when I hear them express: “Is this all”?  After a period of years in their role, after the initial building phases of projects, visions or teams and after the job has settled into some kind of pattern, a dis-ease with life and leadership enters their thinking.

This does not mean something is wrong.  It does mean something in you is stirring.  Something is calling you to self-examination and possibly to re-calibration of your place in life, in relationships, in leadership.  This is a good and healthy place – so don’t shake it off by ramping up your work life or hastily exiting your role.

It’s just good to sit in the place of questioning for a while.

Clearing

Our life/heart/soul longs for something deeper to connect with than the typical bottom-line of a leadership role.  We are inherently connected to something more than money, honour, status or achievement.  It’s a sense of destiny or legacy – the deep knowledge that we are on this earth for a purpose and that when our role is done and our life is finished, we have meant something to someone in this world.  I believe it’s the God who created you that put that stirring there.  Whether you believe that or simply that we as humans are meant to contribute something for the benefit of this world, we find our greatest meaning & contribution outside of ourselves.

Yet through our lives we encounter things that get in the way of living a legacy-producing life.  The fog of deadlines, demands & distractions enshroud our life and we are in desperate need of emerging into a clearing.  That is why “The Questioning” is such a critical phase!  It starts a process where you hear the deepest longing of your soul speak back to you.

“The Clearing” is a place (and a process) where you come face to face with yourself.  In this place the most powerful thing you can do is to give a name(s) to the deficits you are discerning:

-in your personal character

-around your unfulfilled aspirations

-about what you lack to be a ‘legacy’ leader 

I urge you to a ruthless honesty about yourself.  It’s not only critical for you, but for the world!   WHY? Our for-profit and non profit leadership positions need character-leaders who see beyond the hard facts of most bottom-lines.  They see impact on people, on the environment, on communities, on culture, on well-being.  This is ‘another way’ of leadership needed by our world.  This way of leadership isn’t acquired through an MBA program.  It comes through honest reflection on the very nature of who you are as a leader. 

Crucible

Chinese symbols for 'Crisis'

Articulating your deficits and aspirations is one thing.  Owning them to the point of making a choice to act is something else.  Crucible creates personal crisis.  Here we come face to face with the limitations of our current self and realize that without change, we will never become who we aspire to be.  The choice is stark:  remain in status quo, coast for the rest of your life and surely wither on the vine, OR get off of your chair and make some commitments to move your life forward.

Ambivalence at this stage is natural, because change is hard.  We become accustomed to our current state of being and so will ask ourselves: “Do I really want to go through the effort of becoming a different/better person”?

This push-pull between our knowledge of a need for change and our disinterest in the energy required to change creates an internal tempest.  What you choose in that storm of self-analysis forms your character development going forward.

Clarity

“Clarity” is defined as ‘the quality of being clearly expressed’.  It comes only to those who act on (express) their choice for change.  Notice I said it comes to those who act.  Clarity is profound when it first comes to your awareness.  But that’s not true clarity.  It’s just awareness.  True clarity is when your choice is ‘expressed’ not only in words, but action.  You need commitment and discipline to act until what you have chosen becomes a regular part of your life and/or thinking.

You have been there before.  Remember those meetings when the team had ‘clarity’ on a direction?  Everyone left the meeting inspired & hopeful.  But there was no commitment to regular and sustained action.  The ‘clarity’ you thought you had died because of lack of expression beyond the words.

It’s simple, but curiously get’s missed too often:   

MAKE A PLAN + EXECUTE A PLAN = ACCOMPLISH REAL CHANGE.

In summary:

...Let the questions come & sit with them for a while.

...When face to face with yourself, be honest about what you are and what you aspire to yet become.

...As hard as it may be, own who you are, and the changes you need to make.

...Express your aspirations by making a plan and executing it.

There is a greater metric than the economic or social ‘bottom-line’.  You run your business or non-profit by it’s’ bottom line, but don’t run your life that way.

Your life will be judged.  What will it say to the world?

Harv Matchullis

harvey@visiontracks.ca

www.visiontracks.ca 

If you or your team desire support to turn your aspirations into action, contact me for an initial discussion and sample session on how coaching can ensure you enact the change you know you need

When Leaders Are Lost

LOST - there's never really a 'final season'.

I recently lost my way.

Feeling confident of my direction, I left a great non-profit role to start a business.  Things started well, but who knew the economic fall of 2008 was just around the corner?  However another opportunity emerged that seemed perfect to bridge the financial gap and simultaneously launch the business further towards my long term goals.  But another redirection happened and there I was – not even back full circle to where I started, but further behind.  It was a loss.  I felt lost.  Defeat and failure (real & perceived), enshrouded my psyche & soul.

While this is a common experience to entrepreneurs, it’s also common among most leaders.  The truth is that as we navigate our way through the leadership journey, some roads don’t work out.  What then?

In the story of an ancient Biblical character named Job, at one point he complains to God:  

“You have unstrung my bow”

That’s a captivating description.  It’s one thing not to have any arrows to shoot.  But it’s completely another issue when there is no string on the bow.  Without the string, there is nothing to propel the arrows of your dreams, skills, talents or resources forward.  What I had experienced was not a loss of my skills, but the string: my dreams, confidence and character.  Loss, whether real or perceived, ‘unstrings our bow’.  When the source of power to launch your arrows has been dealt a blow, you had better pay attention.  No increase in your arrow count will enable you to lead unless you deal with getting that string back on the bow.

FOUR FACTORS THAT CAN GET US ‘UNSTRUNG’

(Of course there’s more...you fill in yours)

1.       Unexpected circumstances.  Let’s face it, all the strategic foresight, scenario and contingency planning in the world cannot predict everything that may come down the pike.  The future is not determined by the past, nor are the ends fully determined by the means. Unpredictability is predictable.  Yet when it comes it is often still a shock to our system.  And, if you have bet the farm on a particular result, the string on the bow of your leadership get’s especially slack.  Not only does it shake your confidence and your future-modelling scenarios, the “I have never been here before” sensation is an unpleasant reminder that you are still imperfect!

2.       Uncooperative people.  Leaders are nothing without people, and if those people refuse to be led, it’s a tragedy.  You have a quiver full of arrows but no ability to use them.  Sometimes the solution may be to fire them, but more often than not this is also an issue of a leader who has lost his/her ability to motivate and propel people into service.  The bow has been unstrung.  

3.       Hubris.  From the fable of Humpty Dumpty to the Bibles’ “pride goes before a fall” declaration, when leadership overconfidence & pride run up against the walls of reality, they crash.  It’s not pretty.  Think the Costa Concordia’s captain, or Enron, or other leaders’ names you can pluck from the news.  The great tragedy here is that it not only reveals a leader’s immaturity to themselves, but to the rest of the watching world.  The captain of the Costa Concordia still has his mariner’s skills.  The arrows are still in the quiver.  What he doesn’t have is the confidence of the world (or Carnival Cruise Lines) to likely ever use them again. His bowstring holds no power today.

4.       Inattention to the personal side of leadership.  Defining leadership only by the set of skills required is a devastating deception. Thankfully leadership development authors & programs lately are putting a greater emphasis on value formation and the inner life.    A leader is a package of both personal and professional components.  When a leader experiences losing their way (and all leaders will at various points in the journey), their core self is revealed.  Crisis does not so much MAKE character as much as it REVEALS what is already there.  Before the crisis hits, every leader should ask themselves:  “What will keep the bowstring tight enough so I can continue to utilize the arrows at my disposal”? 

FOUR SOLUTIONS WHEN THE BOW IS UNSTRUNG

1.       Power up and power through.  This is usually fueled by one of the factors that get us unstrung in the first place – pride/hubris.  On the surface it seems like a true leader’s reaction. Suck it up; pull it up; get things up and running; create a sense of ‘up’ for yourself and your followers.  When a leader encounters a stressful event, brain science teaches us that a cascade of neurotransmitters and hormones is released into his/her system resulting in a short-term increase in strength, concentration and reaction time. These changes may be helpful in the initial response to a stressful event, but if the stress remains high enough for a long enough period of time, disastrous effects will follow. Unfortunately this natural and ‘instinctive’ approach ignores the deficits currently existing within you.  You are already diminished and yet you are trying to expend greater energy.  How long will that last?  In the end you will be throwing arrows by hand.  Trying to do the right things but with no power behind them.

2.       Protectionism.  This is a common personal and even political reaction to becoming unstrung.  The US economy is a current example on the political front.  Their national economic foundations are unravelling, so they have put up barriers to keep things within national walls.  We also practice protectionism on a personal front by:

a. Deflecting criticism so as not to be seen as ‘wrong’.

b. Going ‘dark’: restricting or shutting off communication as a way of avoiding accountability.

c. Staying the course and dealing with the situation using status-quo thinking, tools and strategies.

What’s ironic is we build these walls with our arrows, using up our skills and energies to preserve what we have. It’s not even so much that our power (the string) to launch arrows is diminished. Our skills are being preoccupied to keep things ‘as is’.

3.       Complacency.  This is different than protectionism – at least protectionism is a strategy.  Complacency isn’t.  The only ‘solution’ complacency provides is to numb the pain.  It’s like taking drugs – a temporary relief from reality, but at some point reality will return, and it won’t be pretty.  The other challenge that the complacency-solution presents is its compounding deterioration of personal leadership identity.  Leaders are born and made for moving forward.  Complacency causes you to build a permanent structure around your circumstance.  Rather than being a nomadic explorer-leader by nature, you have settled into a lifestyle in conflict with your leadership character.  The bowstring goes slack.  

4.       Live IN it.  The only solution is to STOP and pay attention to the unstrung bow.  Dwell there for a while.  It seems counter-intuitive to not act, but in reality taking time for assessment and any necessary adjustments is a leadership action.  The downside of visionary leadership is we so easily get our sights set on something that is so far out in the future that we miss what’s going on in our life as it exists right now.  Character is diminished in a thousand small acts of negligence but is built by stopping long enough to pay attention to the burning issues in our lives.

WHAT CAN YOU PRACTICE TO KEEP THAT BOWSTRING TIGHT?

·         Build solitude and meditation into your life.  This is true for all leadership-types, but especially those who are naturally extroverted.  The shadow-side of extroversion is neglect of the inner life.  Begin and end your day with some moments to reflect on WHO you intend to be during that day and HOW you will demonstrate your intentions.  End the day with an assessment of your performance to your own intentions.

      Don't get out too fast!  Instinct drives us to get out of a crisis as soon as possible.  Resist that urge and choose to stay in the moment and the context long enough to truly discern the lessons for you and for your organization.  If you don't opt for learning, you are opting to repeat your errors.

·         Create and sustain a peer network.  It’s simply foolish to lead alone.  Yes, you may feel lonely at times but it’s not inevitable or part of the package that you be alone.  Proactively recruit 2-3 other people (they don’t need to be in your organization) who are peers in leadership.  Invite them to sit with you to talk and keep each other accountable to maintaining the values, character and personal strength needed to keep the bowstring tight.  Invite those people to these specific criteria.  You will be surprised at how many are longing for a group like you are proposing.

·         Give yourself away.  Where are you involved that demonstrates your life isn’t about YOU?  Leadership can too easily be about ego, compensation and other selfish ambitions.  Getting involved in a volunteer capacity with something/someone completely outside (and disassociated with) your work will enrich & expand your perspective on what true life entails.

·         Check-in with yourself once in a while.  This is a matter of intention.  When and how will you take inventory of your life?  If it’s true that the unexamined life is not worth living, what form will those examinations take?  Some ideas include:

o   Journaling

o   Personal retreats (guided or according to your own agenda)

o   Prayer & meditation

o   Counselling

o   Coaching*

o   Peer or friendship accountability

As for that Job character, he lived with the feeling of being ‘unstrung’ for a while longer until he gained some truly ‘divine perspective’ on his life.  As for me, it’s been the most challenging road ever, but I do know my character & perspectives have matured.  How far they have matured will be known the next time I'm on a road that isn't working out.

Harv Matchullis

* I work with motivated people and organizations to help them ‘check in’ and then lay the tracks to where they need to go next.  Contact me for a discussion about personal, leadership or team coaching.  info@visiontracks.ca  or www.visiontracks.ca