There’s been an explosion of reality TV contests –  the Next Big Whatever Star. While the chance to become a celebrity lures contestants, I think it’s the grueling rite of passage that lures viewers. Last month we had exams at the Process Work Institute, which were fairly intense 3 day affairs, with 5 different exams per student. It’s interesting that in the adult education field that I’m in, exams are controversial and their value suspect. And yet, there’s this fascination in watching these demanding and punishing contests.

Over the 20+ years we have been training people in Process-oriented psychology and group facilitation, we have gone back and forth between pass/fail exams in some form and a non-pass/fail system of using gates or benchmarks to pass through one phase to another. It seems every couple of years or so, we debate getting rid of exams. They’re an arcane gate-keeping system that does little to foster or measure real growth in knowledge, skills and ability. And yet we come back to them in some form or other. I think, beyond the test of skills and abilities, they offer an opportunity par excellence to stretch beyond oneself, and for that reason, they are hard to abolish. (more…)

A friend posted this great video clip of Viktor Frankl on Facebook. What an extraordinary man he was, and what a treat to see him in action.

Frankl’s analogy of learning to fly and how he learned to aim ‘north’ to arrive at his destination, reminded me of my high school yearbook quote. In the 70s, it was fashionable to put a quote underneath your photo. Most classmates had rock lyrics, like, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” but I was captivated by a line from a Robert Browning poem, “Ah, but a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” (more…)

Last week news broke that 15 year-old Phoebe Prince killed herself after months of harassment and bullying by her classmates at a South Hadley, MA high school. School administrators initially denied knowing anything about it, even though Prince’s mother had complained to school officials, and a renowned bullying expert had been called in to consult on the problem (Coloroso reported that the school had not fully implemented her recommendations: http://thecrimereport.org/2010/04/02/ma-school-where-student-died-hadnt-carried-out-anti-bullying-plan/).

And over the Easter weekend, while many senior Catholics across Europe apologized in their Easter addresses for the ongoing sexual abuse of children by clergy, a senior cardinal defended Pope Benedict XVI from what he called petty gossip and a vile smear operation by the anti-Vatican media. On Good Friday the Pope’s personal preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, compared the criticism of the Catholic Church over child abuse to the collective violence suffered by the Jews. (more…)

I asked my trainer and owner of Recreate Fitness, Nathan, if he would coach a “cross-fit club” with my 5^th grade boys from the I Have a Dream foundation. It’s one of my kids and leadership clubs I’ve been doing. It’s definitely been fun, but also challenging. Some of the games and activities require technique, balance, or strength. And even the most athletic kids, the ones used to winning the races and being chosen first, suddenly find themselves in the unusual position of struggling. They realize it’s hard, and not something they can just do. For kids who aren’t confident or kids who have been taught to expect praise for whatever they attempt, their first response is to get impatient and frustrated. This is a critical moment in our emotional development which has profound lingering effects. When progress isn’t immediate, when gratification or success is deferred, the difference in how we manage that moment is critical to our success in life. The well known marshmallow test shows how kids deal with delayed gratification.

So how are my boys managing this? Well, a few of them get serious and focused. A couple of them just give up after one or two attempts, and wander onto something else. Some internalize their frustration, and get upset with themselves. And others externalize their frustration. They get angry at the activity itself, me, Nathan, or whatever they deem is in their way of success. One of them, Adbul, has really gotten my attention. (more…)

I spent the first week of January in Victoria, B.C., at a conference that brought together leaders from two very different sectors: social change agents and leaders in the personal development field. Our goal was to develop a framework for a personal development program to support social change agents and activists in their work. On that first evening there was a lot of goodwill, but just as much skepticism. I had my doubts that the personal development facilitators who represented very diverse models, could develop a common framework. Likewise, the social change agents had different social agendas and diverse political analyses. And between the two approaches to change, the personal and the political, was a lengthy, thorny relationship and strikingly different perspectives and worldviews.

And yet, in spite of these gaps in frameworks, language, and perspective, the conference was a great success. There was an astounding capacity to listen, learn, share ideas, and grapple with and find meaning in the differences that arose. Over the course of the four days, an appreciation of each othersâ?? knowledge and experience began to grow, and a sense of trust and teamwork organically emerged.

On the plane ride home, exhausted by happy, I began to wonder why it came together so well. And it dawned on me that this was not the first interdisciplinary and cross-modality project I’ve consulted on. In fact, the last four major projects I’ve worked on all involved extensive, interdisciplinary engagement. Was that a coincidence, I wondered, or is there something about interdisciplinary teamwork that appeals to me? This got me thinking more about interdisciplinary teamwork, and working with stakeholders across disciplines and industries. What kind of teamwork is needed? Is a different kind of teamwork required? What are the particular challenges and unique approaches needed to make interdisciplinary teamwork successful? (more…)

The last decade is a strong contender for the title “the decade of dubious leadership.” From the handling of Katrina to the collapse of the banking system, it was a disastrous decade for leadership. Ironically, it was also a decade during which more was written on leadership than ever before. I’m hoping for a better decade of leadership, and here are my top five leadership trends I’d like to see take off in the coming years. (more…)

In Brisbane this week and I just finished teaching a seminar on the Unfinished Work of Ancestors, exploring how our relative ease and/or discomfort in the world is influenced by generational issues and attitudes, known and unknown, seen and unseen. The wars, famines, forced migrations, poverty, and challenges of our ancestors still reverberate through us today, and influence how we live with others, deal with such issues as money, relationship, work, authority.

Is it really possible to change our patterns of behavior that have been laid down for generations? How long does it take to start a new pattern when there are powerful generational forces influencing us?

It requires far more than a change of circumstance or fortune to change behaviors. It requires a new attitude, new worldviews and these are difficult to establish. research into changing generational patterns concerning poverty and education show that, among others, the follow two factors are crucial in helping change behavior:

• mentoring and relationship, someone who not only advises or supports the change, but who models the new behavior, giving us picture of a new possibility.
• high expectations, a parent, teacher, mentor or family friend who expects us to succeed.

In short, a different worldview about ourselves and about what’s possible.

I’m getting clearer on what this blog is about. I have started to call it, to myself at least, Learning and Leading. While leadership and power is a main focus, looking over the posts, I see that a great deal of what I write about involves the problems of learning to lead. And that reminds me of Jerry Maguire.

I love the movie Jerry Maguire, (yes, the one with the memorable one-liners like “show me the money,” or “you had me at hello”) because Jerry Maguire captures so perfectly the jet lag between knowing something and living it. One of the greatest and most frustrating psychological puzzles has to do with the difference between our espoused beliefs and our actual behavior. I’m not just talking about hypocrisy but about knowing. Just because we can think something, or even deeply believe something, doesn’t mean we know what it means as a way of being, as a day-to-day behavior. We have to learn by living it. (more…)

The Process Work Institute is about to begin the process of applying for regional accreditation. My job is to help spearhead this process, and one of the tasks is to create assessments of the programs, of student progress, of individual courses, and of faculty. I’ve been up to my elbows this summer studying the literature on program and faculty assessments, and I have to confess, there’s something about the logic in it all that’s appealing. Even though I’m a progressive education fan from way back (Antioch College ’81) the literature on aligning goals and outcomes and performance is refreshing. It’s something of a relief coming away from philosophies, ideologies and concepts of human development to the practicality of metrics and asking (and then defining!) does it work? [I also read Paul Tough's book, Whatever it Takes, about Geoffrey Canada's Harlem charter school as well as other books on recent charter schools' successes in closing the achievement gap, and have newfound respect for the question, does it work?] (more…)

There’s a lot of interesting research out there on excellence and superior performance. What accounts for superior performance? Why are some people superstars at what they do, and others just average? The question is pretty interesting, not only for what it says about excellence, but more generally, what it says about learning and development. Gladwell’s book, Outliers, is only one of several books looking at this phenomenon. The authors behind The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Psychotherapy, Hubble, Duncan and Miller have also been looking at superior performance in psychotherapy in their article, Supershrinks: What is the secret of their success?

As these authors and others point out, trying to account for superior performance by looking at innate talent, genius, high IQ hasn’t yielded many results. The fact is, superior performance is, in the words of Thomas Edison, one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. Now thatâ??s either inspiring or depressing for us average folks. Inspiring because it means excellence is available to all those willing to put in the work. And depressing because, well, hard work. Gladwell puts a figure to that hard work: 10,000 hours. It’s at 10,000 hours that people achieve true mastery. Bill Gates had 10,000 hours on a computer before starting his software business with Paul Allen. Michael Jordan spent thousands of hours in the gym, improving his performance, after he was cut from his high school basketball team. 10,000 hours of practice in one activity accounts for a virtuosity that we see as natural born talent. Or is it? (more…)