What’s the solution for solving the health care mess? Global warming? The economy? OK, these are bad examples, obviously if we knew, and if it were that easy, they’d be solved. But the question I want to ask is, why do we wait to tackle our problems until they are so complicated, so messy, so escalated that they require Herculean efforts? (more…)

Just finished a weekend training seminar on bullying in Auckland, New Zealand. It was terrific to have so many participants there involved in workplace bullying and harassment work. What’s increasingly evident as I tackle this topic around the globe is the role of cultural attitudes. To adequately fight bullying, we have to reduce our cultural tolerance for abusive interaction. Many cultures deride sensitivity and praise people’s ability to “suck it up,” to be tough and strong, and not be “so sensitive.” The tough guy is a cultural icon, the action figure we admire and emulate. But to get underneath the problem of bullying, we need to value sensitivity and respect as much as toughness.

Randy Cohen, the New York Times’ ethicist, recently opined on the court ruling that ordered Google to release the name of the anonymous blogger whose site Skanks in NYC was devoted to slandering a fashion model:

Has anonymous posting, though generally protected by law, become so toxic that it should be discouraged?

This issue has gotten my attention as I’m preparing a workshop on Bullying in the Public Sphere. I often find myself drawn to read comments on news sites, drawn no doubt by the same impulse that makes me crane my neck as I drive by an accident. Unmoderated comment sections provide an un-chaperoned space for every adolescent impulse we’ve ever repressed. The comments rapidly devolve into nasty, name-calling, deliberately inflammatory and hateful. It’s this impulse (what possible evolutionary purpose might it serve?) that the mainstream media depend on for their fortunes, and is no doubt why there continues to be unmoderated comments sections after every article. (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…)

My blog stats tell me that my most viewed post, by an extraordinary amount, is Power = force + distance/time. Don’t remember it? I barely do either. It’s a little “back soon” post I wrote during a busy period, feeling guilty for not having written much.

It’s ironic (and humbling) that the most read post isn’t anything related to my ideas. It’s popularity is due to the key words – power, force, distance – which comprise the physics formula for power and also the key to elite fitness, according to Crossfit, a strength and conditioning program whose popularity is exploding.

But it tempts me to try again and this time, make it meaningful to the topic of leadership and power. Jude Morton, a regular commenter here voiced what I too have been thinking since that post:

Outside of physics, all of these formulas seem applicable to psychological processes.

So let’s consider that. In physics, work is the transfer of energy to an object, and power is the rate at which work is done, so the faster you can transfer energy to an object, the more power you have. In sociology, there is no one formula for power or work, but a classic definition might be: the ability to influence your environment and get things done, often through others. (more…)

Remember this Nike ad of Charles Barkley?

Barkley went on:

I don’t believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models…. It’s not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn’t like it, they said, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.” Parents have to take better control.

This past winter, Portland’s honeymoon phase with its first openly gay mayor came to a trainwreck of an ending when the news broke (on Inauguration Day) that Adams lied about his sexual relationship with an 18 year old legislative intern.

Today it’s Edwards and his affairs. it seems each month, even week, there is another fallen angel, a politician, athlete, actor, celebrity, CEO, or person in a leadership position tumbling from a great height.

And usually at some point in the endless discussion, someone raises the point that he or she was a role model, and has greatly disappointed people.

I don’buy into this role model business. Whether or not you’re a role model is in the eye of the beholder. In which case, anyone can be a role model and not know it. if someone looks up to you, whether you are aware of it or not, you’re a role model for someone. Does that then stand to reason that you have a responsibility to uphold that person’s s image of you? Definitely not.

Maybe it’s my background in psychology but I don’t see it as the role model’s responsibility for not disappointing the one who looks up to him or her. Maturity, in my mind, requires the ability to be able to love or admire someone in their humanness, not in their super-humanness. We will inevitably be disappointed by our parents, our loved ones, a mentor. Are they at fault for not being perfect, or is it our responsibility to grapple with the fact of human complexity?

I started a Kids City Club for a group of fourth graders, as part of my work with the I Have a Dream Foundation in Oregon. Seven kids were chosen to participate in a series of activities to help them learn about government and how the city works. In one activity, we met with a city planner to learn about the redevelopment proposal for their local neighborhood, an economically disadvantaged slice of Northeast Portland with unpaved roads, no sewers or public parks, and numerous other problems.

They even made a presentation to the Portland city council on their ideas for improving their neighborhood. The kids did a great job, and the city council – the Mayor and City Commissioners (yes, Portland still has a commissioner style of city government) – was terrific. Council members really made an effort to make the kids feel at home. They asked lots of questions, gave them an extended photo op and a tour of the Mayor’s offices. (You can watch the presentation online thanks to Portland cable access). (more…)

I just saw Frost/Nixon. It’s a brilliant, chilling insight into power and ambition. What struck me was the degree of self-awareness Nixon had. Albeit, this is a fictionalized account; who knows exactly what went on in Nixon’s mind? But in the film, he’s portrayed as a worthy opponent, a crafty guy who is keenly aware of his own ambition and thirst for power and knows what he needs to do to win. And yet he’s trumped by Frost, an unlikely winner, a breezy, somewhat superficial talk show host. But what Frost has going for him is his likeability. He’s affable, charming, and easy going. At first, it appears he’s easy prey for the cunning Nixon, but in the end, we have the ultimate story of a nice guy finishing first.

Likeability in my view is underestimated as a form of power, and yet, I think the ability to get along with people trumps just about every form of power. Friends, connections and being able to get along well with others is the ultimate affirmative action. In a Harvard Business Review article, (June 2005) called Competent Jerks, Loveable Fools and the Formation of Social Networks, a study found that likeability is so key, that people are more likely to ask for help from someone who may not know the answer but is likeable, than from someone who is more likely to know the answer but isn’t likeable. In Frost/Nixon the power of likeability is maginified by its contrast to the opposite: Nixon’s tragic flaw of not being able to manage social interaction, of creating conflict rather than smoothing ruffled feathers, as Frost did so brilliantly.

Last month, I spoke about the problem of transfer and ‘expert syndrome’ -over extending one’s sense of expertise to the point of enacting the expert role in fields in which one is not qualified. The deeper problem is one of self-reflection, really seeing who you are: on one hand, not confusing yourself with your role of expert, and on the other hand, understanding that you are, at the end of the day, just a role.

Barack Obama, for whatever reason, has got a grasp of this person-and-role truth. In a Newsweek interview with Daren Briscoe, Obama says:

I had become a symbol for the next thing. So some of it was undeserved, but what it told me was that people really were looking for something different. I joked with my team, and it wasn’t entirely a joke, it’s something I still think about – that the country was looking for a Barack Obama. Now, I’m not sure that I am Barack Obama, right? But they were looking for an idea like that.

Today both the idea and the man took office amid great pomp, circumstance and celebration. I’m curious, as I’m sure many of us are, how Obama will handle the role of POTUS, and the office, with its tendency to isolate, inflate and distort. Hanging onto his Blackberry is one problem; hanging onto this sense that he is, after all a role, and not just a person, is another. I look forward to the next four years and watching this unfold.