Architect. Chef. Surgeon. Shoe Designer.

Those are big dreams for any kid. But especially for the “Dreamers,” the 60 or so eighth graders I’ve been working with in the I Have A Dream program.

You can’t be what you don’t see. If no one in your family ever went to college, or graduated high school, if you seldom or never see someone like you in a professional career or in a leadership position, then you can’t see yourself doing it either.

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I burst out laughing when I saw the answer Vanessa gave as her top career choice: “famous.”  My eighth grade “Dreamers” have been working on career club activities for the last couple of years, and this year, we’re going to pair them up, and allow them to shadow someone at their job.

I’m fortunate to live in a great community and have wonderful friends who have stepped forward and offered to be shadowed.

I was lucky to have had some great mentors and role models as a child. It’s what led me to want to do that for others. But I sometimes worry I’m not doing enough, or get overwhelmed thinking how much support these kids need to overcome the social barriers, challenges and obstacles life put in their way.

But thinking about my own life, I think it’s less a matter of how much a mentor does, and more a matter of exposure. Sometimes a mentor does nothing more than serve as a model for what is possible. Some mentors give advice and direction while others hope and encouragement by showing you what’s possible in life. (more…)

I’m preparing an upcoming training in Portland in June, focusing on performance and feedback. As many of my readers know, topics I’m keen on, especially when and how goals help, and when they hinder the learning process. I was looking through some material I had written for another article, and came across this story from my early days in Zurich, about learning and goals, and the challenge of grappling with seemingly incommensurate goals. (more…)

I watched the Oscars Sunday night, and couldn’t help but think, Detroit all over again. Like the auto industry who failed to respond to consumer demand and imports until it was too late, the film industry is struggling to respond to the changes in how people consume movies and entertainment. And yet, on Sunday night they rolled out a pageant straight out of the Bob Hope, er Borscht Belt era. It was painful to watch. Do they seriously hope this will capture the old Hollywood spirit? Why can’t they read the writing on the wall?

It’s particularly fitting, because today I wanted to write about feedback, in particular, systems of giving and receiving feedback. Much of the literature on the topic of performance management focuses on what performance metrics should be measured, how they should be measured, who should participate in it, and how it should be followed up.  There are thousands of methods and systems, and yet there is a growing consensus that the system is broken. Studies are inconclusive about its merits, whether it works, and even if it results in increased, or decreased performance. Not to mention the fact that people generally hate it. (more…)

A nice article on the power of small wins, more on habits. Thanks to Jude Morton for posting this on Facebook. This article shows how small “wins” or gains add up to powerful advantages. What it doesn’t say, is that the reverse is also true: small ‘losses,’ or bad choices have a tendency to snow ball too. The good news is in the word “small.” It doesn’t take much to get us going in either direction. Read the full article here.

How and when does power become abusive? I’ve explored this topic here frequently, and while I don’t think power is inherently abusive or corrupting, without education and training on how to use it, abuse of power does and will happen. Hence the title of this blog.

One thing often overlooked in leadership training (which I believe should focus more on power and how to use it well) is that we do not enter positions of power as blank slates, but come into positions of power with our personal story of power. We grew up in a context of power relations, and how we enact the role of the leader is influenced by a social identity forged in part by power relations. Preparing for a position of power should start with an inventory of what one has already experienced about power.

As a coach and trainer, one thing I constantly see is that we seldom outgrow the power identity we grew up with. Not only that, our earliest identity of power  asserts itself under threat or stress. Growing up smaller than the other kids, and being picked on in school, growing up poor or disadvantaged, following an older brother or sister who did better in school, or being the only Jew in the town, all of these experiences are like unresolved wounds or complexes that stay with us, and influence our self-esteem, relations with others, and more generally, how we perform in our roles. We lead with and from our wounds.

And wounding can come from both a deficit and an excess of power, and the complicated mix of both. There is no doubt, as research confirms, low status is wounding. Lack of access to resources, systemic oppression, low self-esteem, internalized lowered expectations and stereotyping influences health, opportunity, success, well-being, happiness, etc. But we are also wounded psychologically by exclusivity, unearned privilege, entitlement, and the “price of the ticket,” fitting into an elite club whose membership is the cost of our authenticity.

But our early experiences with power can also be affirming and enabling. We are empowered through the connection with our lineage, a knowledge of ancestors, connection with the community or with a spiritual belief. We can also transform our earliest suffering into self-esteem and empowerment by awareness of having endured or survived hardship.

Yet unless we develop awareness of these initial experiences, and our unresolved wounds, the temptation to use the power of the role to soothe our pain is too great. Like an addict using a substance to flee a miserable state of mind, power becomes an artificial boost, a ‘substance’ to soothe and alleviate an internal sense of low status. But this isn’t an immutable fate. It can be worked on with focus and self-awareness. I’m looking forward to exploring this and more on the intersection of the person and the role in the Leadership Lab in a couple of weeks.

I can’t say for sure, but I’ve either developed a competitive spirit as I have gotten older, or, I’ve just become less self-conscious about it. It’s become most evident when I cycle in large group events. While some riders have to tune out the others and focus on their own pedaling speed, I do the opposite. I quickly notice the more competitive riders and pace myself according to their speed.

In some areas, competitiveness is seen as a good thing. But where I come from – the peace and love era of the 70s, a progressive liberal college, the experiential psychotherapy culture – competition was a bit of a no-no. So noticing my burgeoning competitive spirit made me curious. What is it? What does it do for me? (more…)

I was browsing through some old movies the other day and came across Love Story. Remember Love Story, Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw? The line the movie made famous was Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry. I was a teenager when the movie came out, and I thought that sounded pretty cool. Looking back, I think it’s ridiculous. If anything, love means having to say you’re sorry… often. Or as John Lennon said, love means having to say you’re sorry every 15 minutes. (more…)

Recently my father sent me a package filled with letters, newspaper clippings and memorabilia about my aunt, Leila Diamond. Leila was a scientist, a cancer researcher, at a time when most cancer researchers were men. The few women scientists that were out there were supposed to do “gentle research,” as one of her colleagues said. Electron microscopy and tissue culture (neither of which sound to me, a non-scientist, very gentle) were some of the ‘acceptable’ research areas for women. Leila, in her quiet and dignified way, paved the way for women in science. She was a mentor to many young female scientists, and was a founder of WICR, Women in Cancer Research. Reading through the letters and emails that poured in following her death, I was greatly moved to hear how she inspired and supported younger colleagues.

This tribute from one of her colleagues stands out above the rest:

When I read the obituary from the Philadelphia newspaper, I was disturbed by the line that said: “there are no other immediate survivors.” On the contrary, there are hundreds, probably thousands, of her immediate survivors to be found among the many women scientists she inspired and mentored during her career. We are among her intellectual and professional family. Each of our future achievements will be a testament to her faith in us and her contribution to our scientific progress.

And by the way, January is National Mentoring Month. None of us got here without the help of someone else. We stand on the shoulders of others whether they mentored us directly, or spent their lives, as Leila did, paving the way for others. Time to say thank you.

Bob Sutton, in his blog post 12 Things Good Bosses Believe, emphasizes how the power of a role inevitably creates blind spots. Number 1 on his list:

I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it’s like to work for me

And he concludes with Number 12:

Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.

I like how he says it and shows it so bluntly: power corrupts.

But it is not the power of the role alone. It is the fit between the power of the person and the power of the role. Think of it like clothing. The role or position is a piece of clothing, but the body who wears it has a lot to do with how it fits, to stretch an analogy just a bit. (more…)