God's Work of Art

We are God's work of art... Ephesians 2:10

A second fruit of the night of spirit is freedom from the domination of any emotion...This takes place not by repressing or unduly suppressing unwanted emotions by sheer willpower, but by accepting and integrating them into the rational and intuitive parts of our nature. The emotions will then serve and support the decisions of reason and will, which is their natural purpose. The integration of our emotional life with reason and faith and the subjection of our whole being to God constitute Saint Thomas Aquinas's definition of human happiness.

In his view, human beings were meant to act in harmony with their nature and to enjoy doing so. This harmonious state is substantially restored in the night of spirit by extinguishing the last traces of our subjection to the emotional programs for happiness in the spiritual part of our nature. As for the emotional and sense levels, they were laid to rest in the night of sense.

Ephesians 2:10

We are God's work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life.

What is Art?

However poetical, realistic, effectful, or interesting a work may be, it is not a work of art if it does not evoke the feeling (quite distinct from all other feelings) of joy and of spiritual union with another (the author) and with others (those who are also infected by it)...

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling--this is the activity of art.

Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.

Leo Tolstoy, What is Art.

ACTION POINT: Look for the art that is all around you.

What Should I Contribute II

What results have to be achieved to make a difference?  

What should my contribution be?  To answer it, they must address three distinct elements: What does the situation require?  Given my strengths, my way of performing, and my values, how can I make the greatest contribution to what needs to be done?  And finally, What results have to be achieved to make a difference?  

Consider the experience of a newly appointed hospital administrator.  The hospital was big and prestigious, but it had been coasting on its reputation for 30 years.  The new administrator decided that his contribution should be to establish a standard of excellence in one important area within two years.  He chose to focus on the emergency room, which was big, visible, and sloppy.  He decided that every patient who came into the ER had to be seen by a qualified nurse within 60 seconds.  Within 12 months, the hospital's emergency room had become a model for all hospitals in the United States, and within another two years, the whole hospital had been transformed.

As this example suggests, it is rarely possible--or even particularly fruitful--to look too far ahead.  A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific.  So the question in most cases should be, Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?  The answer must balance several things. First the results should be hard to achieve--they should require "stretching," to use the current buzzword.  But also, they should be within reach. To aim at results that cannot be achieved--or that can be only under the most unlikely circumstance--is not being ambitious;  it is being foolish.  Second, the results should be meaningful.  They should make a difference.  Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable.  From this will come a course of action:  what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set.

ACTION POINT:  Ask where and how can you achieve results that will make a difference in the next year and a half.

 

What Should I Contribute

Knowledge workers in particular have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before.

Throughout history, the great majority of people never had to ask the question, What should I contribute?  They were told what to contribute, and their tasks were dictated either by the work itself--as it was for the peasant or artisan--or by a master or mistress--as it was for domestic servants.  And until very recently, it was taken for granted that most people were subordinates who did as they were told.  Even in the 1950s and 1960s, the new knowledge workers (the so called organization men) looked to their company's personnel department to plan their careers.

Then in the late 1960s, no one wanted to be told what to do any longer.  Young men and women began to ask, What do I want to do?  And what they heard was that the way to contribute was to "do your own thing."  But this solution was as wrong as the organization men's had been. Very few of the people who believed that doing one's own thing would lead to contribution, self-fulfillment, and success achieved any of the three.

But still, there is not return to the old answer of doing what you are told or assigned to do. Knowledge workers in particular have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before.  What should my contribution be?

ACTION POINT:   Consider the question of contribution.  Encourage your team to ask that question of themselves.

Where Do I Belong?

...most people, especially highly gifted people, do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid-twenties.

A small number of people know very early where they belong.  Mathematicians, musicians, and cooks, for instance, are usually mathematicians, musicians, and cooks by the time they are four or five years old.  Physicians usually decide on their careers in their teens, if not earlier.  But most people, especially highly gifted people, do not really know where they belong until they are well past their mid-twenties.  By that time, however, they should know the answers to the three questions: What are my strengths?  How do I perform? and, What are my values?  And then they can and should decide where they belong.

Or rather, they should be able to decide where they do not belong.  The person who has learned that he or she does not perform well in a big organization should have learned to say to to a position in one.  The person who has learned that he or she is not a decision maker should have learned to say no to a decision making assignment.

Equally important, knowing the answer to these questions enables a person to say to an opportunity, an offer, or an assignment, "Yes, I will do that.  But this is the way I should be doing it.  This is the way it should be structured.  This is the way the relationships should be.  These are the kind of results you should expect from me and in this time frame, because this is who I am."

Successful careers are not planned.  They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values.  Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person--hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre--into an outstanding performer.

ACTION POINT:  Understand your strengths, how you perform and your values to know where you belong.

Values and Strengths

What one does well--even very well and successfully--may not fit with one's value system.

A person's strengths and the way that person performs rarely conflict; the two are complementary.  But there is sometimes a conflict between a person's values and his or her strengths.  What one does well--even very well and successfully--may not fit with one's value system.  In that case, the work may not appear to be worth devoting one's life to (or even a substantial portion thereof).

If I may, allow me to interject a personal note.  Many years ago, I too had to decide between my values and what I was doing successfully.  I was doing very well as a young investment banker in London in the mid 1930s, and the work clearly fit my strengths.  Yet I did not see myself making a contribution as an asset manager. People, I realized, were what I valued, and I saw not point in being the richest man in the cemetery.  I had not money an no other job prospects.  Despite the continuing Depression, I quit--and it was the right thing to do.  

ACTION POINT: Values, in other words, are and should be the ultimate test.

Memorial Day

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur's speech delivered at his acceptance of the Thayer Award. 

...the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.

"General Westmoreland, General Groves, distinguished guests, and gentlemen of the Corps:

  As I was leaving the hotel this morning, a doorman asked me, "Where are you bound for, General?'  and when I replied "West Point," he remarked, "Beautiful place, have you ever been there before?'

  No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this (Thayer Award).  Coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well, it fills me with an emotion I cannot express.   But this award is not intended primarily to honor a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code--a code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent.  For all hours and all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier.  That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride, and yet of humility, which will be with me always.

  Duty, Honor, Country.  those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.  They are your rallying points, to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.

  The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase.  Every pendent, ever demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to down-grade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule, but these are some of the things they do.  They build your basic character, they mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense  They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. 

  They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fail; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future, yet never neglect the past; to be serious, yet never to take yourself to seriously; to be models so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.  

  They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease.

  

  They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life.  They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman. 

And what sort of soldiers are those you are to lead?  Are they reliable? Are they brave? Are they capable of victory?  their story is known to all of you; it is the story of the American man-at-arms.  My estimate of him was formed on the battlefield many, many years ago, and has never changed.  I regarded him then, as I regard him now, as one of the world's noblest figures, not only as one of the finest military characters, but also as one of the most stainless.  His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen.  In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give.  he needs no eulogy from me, or from any other man.  He has written his own history and written in red on his enemy's breast.

  But when I think of his patience in adversity, of his courage under fire and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words.  He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. 

  He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom.  he belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements.

  In the 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self abnegation, and that invincible determination which has carved his statue in the hearts of his people.  From one end of the world to the other, he has drained deep the chalice of courage.

  As I listened to those songs (of the glee club), in memory's eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs on many a weary march, from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle deep through the mire of shell-shocked roads; to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgement set of God.  I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death.  They died, unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory.

  Always for them:  Duty,  Honor,  Country.  Always their  blood, and sweat, and tears, as we sought the way and the light and the truth.  And 20 years later on the other side of the globe, again the filthy of murky foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts, those boiling suns of relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms; the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails, the bitterness of long separation from those they loved and cherished, the deadly pestilence of tropical disease, the horror of stricken areas of war.  Their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory--always victory, always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghostly men reverently following your password of Duty, Honor, Country.

  The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral law and will stand the test of any ethics of philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind.  Its requirements

are for the things that are right and its restraints are from the things that are wrong.   The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training--sacrifice.  In battle, and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in His own image.  No physical courage and no greater strength can sustain him.  However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.

  You now face a new world, a world of change.  The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres, and missiles marks a beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind--the chapter of the space age.  In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a greater, a more abrupt or staggering evolution.  We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe.  We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier.  We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard of synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; to purify sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundred of years; of controlling the weather more for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space-ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of the enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.

  And  through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable.  It is to win our wars.  Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication.  All other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment, but you are the ones who are trained to fight.

  Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.

  Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds.  But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle.  For a century and a half defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.

  Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government: whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by Federal paternalism gown to mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be.

   These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution.  Your guide post stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.

  You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense.  From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.

  The long gray line has never failed us.  Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from the white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.

  This does not mean that you are war mongers.  On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.  But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, The wisest of all philosophers:  "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

  The shadows are lengthening for me.  The twilight is here.  My days of old have vanished tone and tint.   They have gone glimmering though the dreams of things that were.  Their memory is one of the wondrous beauty watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday.  I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.  In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange mournful mutter of the battlefield.

  But in the evening of my memory always I come back to West Point.  Always there echos and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.

  Today marks my final roll call with you.  But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the corps, and the corps, and the corps.  

  I bid you farewell."

--12 May 1926

West Point, NY

   

Contemplative Service

Love turns work into rest. - Saint Teresa of Avila

Every time there is significant growth in our spiritual development all our relationships change -- to God, to ourselves, to other people, and to all creation.  We become a new person, as did Mary of Bethany at the feet of Jesus.  From this arises a new kind of activity which might be called "contemplative service."  Contemplative service is service that comes from the experience of the divine indwelling -- from the Spirit living and at work within us.  It is God in us serving God in others.

Ephesians 6:7

Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord...

Lyrics that Light

The best lyrics stir our hearts and spin our heads.

I think all of us have had a song stuck in our head, or remember a moment where “time stands still” (Mindy Smith - Edge of Love).  Hearing a lyric we have heard a thousand times before rise in a new way from a song’s melody will often freeze and sometimes free us in the moment.  Songs and the words in them can make us smile, causes us to cry or sometimes simply just to sit and ponder all that may be behind them.  Everyone has their favorites. 

“I see a bad moon a rising” (John Fogerty - Bad Moon Rising) transports you back to the late 60’s and AM radio. “You know my name, look up the number” (Lennon/McCartney- You know my name) evokes a grin if you  think of the possibilities of who may actually utter that lyric.  

The best lyrics stir our hearts and spin our heads. “The broken mirror of innocence” (Bob Dylan - Every Grain of Sand) reminds you of the time yours was lost.  “Through the night, you and I drove, Have you ever seen lighting and snow?” (Kathleen Edwards - Buffalo) carries you down a wintry road in upstate New York. 

 “A Steamin’ greasy plate of enchiladas” (Lyle Lovett - This Old Porch) makes your stomach growl.  “I’m the pines behind the grave yard and the cool beneath their shade, where the boys have left their beer cans, I am weeds between the graves” (Mary Chapin Carpenter - I am a town) connects you to the secret hiding places of your youth.

Great songs and especially great lyrics shine a light on our moments and our memories.    

ACTION POINT:  Break out the CD’s, Ipod or old LP’s, switch on the stereo and in the words of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Turn it UP! (Sweet Home Alabama)

What Are My Values III

Organizations, like people, have values.

Whether a business should be run for short-term results or with a focus on the long term is likewise a question of values.  Financial analysts believe that businesses can be run for both simultaneously.   Successful businesspeople know better.  To be sure, every company has to produce short-term results.  But in any conflict between short-term results and long-term growth, each company will determine its own priority.  

This is not primarily a disagreement about economics.  it is fundamentally a value conflict regarding the function of a business and the responsibility of management.

Value conflicts are not limited to business organizations.  One of the fastest-growing pastoral churches in the United States measures success by the number of new parishioners.  Its leadership believes that what matters is now many newcomers join the congregation.  The Good Lord will then minister to their spiritual needs or at least to the needs of a sufficient percentage.  Another pastoral, evangelical church believes that what matters is people's spiritual growth.  The church eases out newcomers who join but do not enter into its spiritual life.

Again, this is not a matter of numbers.  At first glance, it appears that the second church grows more slowly.  But it retains a far larger proportion of newcomers than the first one does.  Its growth, in other words, is more solid.  This is also not a theological problem, or only secondarily so.  It is a problem about values.  In a public debate, one pastor argued, "Unless you first come to church, you will never find the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven."

"No," answered the other.  "Until you first look for the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven, you don't belong in church."

Organizations, like people, have values.  To be effective in an organization, a person's values must be compatible with the organization's values.  They do not need to be the same, but they must be close enough to coexist.  Otherwise, the person will not only be frustrated but also will not produce results.

ACTION POINT: Ensure your values are compatible with your organizations values.

What Are My Values II

To work in an organization whose value system is unacceptable or incompatible with one's own condemns a person both to frustration and to nonperformance.





What is ethical behavior in one kind of organization or situation is ethical behavior in another. But ethics is only part of a value system--especially an organization's value system. To work in an organization whose value system is unacceptable or incompatible with one's own condemns a person both to frustration and to nonperformance.


Consider the experience of a highly successful human resources executive whose company was acquired by a bigger organization. After the acquisition, she was promoted to do the kind of work she did best, which included selecting people for important positions. The executive deeply believed that a company should hire people for such positions form the outside only after exhausting all the inside possibilities. But her new company believed in first looking outside "to bring in fresh blood." There is something to be said for both approaches--in my experience, the proper one is to do some of both. They are, however, fundamentally incompatible--not as policies but as values. They bespeak different views of the relationship between organizations and people; different views of the responsibility of an organization to its people and their development; and different views of a person's most important contribution to an enterprise. After several years of frustration, the executive quit--at considerable financial loss. Her values and the values and the values of the organization simply were not compatible.


Similarly, whether a pharmaceutical company tries to obtain results by asking constant, small improvements or by achieving occasional, highly expensive, and risky "breakthroughs" is not primarily an economic question. The results of either strategy may be pretty much the same. At bottom, there is conflict between a value system that sees the company's contribution in terms of helping physicians do better what they already do and a value system that is oriented toward making scientific discoveries.


ACTION POINT: Understand your organizations values to ensure compatibility with your own.

What Are My Values

I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning when I shave.

To be able to manage yourself, you finally have to ask, What are my values?  This is not a question of ethics.  With respect to ethics, the rules are the same for everybody, and the test is a simple one.  I call it the "mirror test."  

In the early years of this century, the most highly respected diplomat of all the great powers was the German ambassador in London.  He was clearly destined for great things--to become his country's foreign minster, at lest, if not its federal chancellor.  Yet in 1906 he abruptly resigned rather than preside over a dinner given by the diplomatic corps for Edward VII.  The king was a notorious womanizer and made it clear what kind of dinner he wanted.  The ambassador is reported to have said, "I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning when I shave."

That is the mirror test. 

ACTION POINT:  Ethics requires that you ask yourself, What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?  

How do I Learn III

Do not try to change yourself--you are unlikely to succeed. 

Other important questions to ask include, Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment?  Do I work best in a big organization or a small one?  Few people work well in all kinds of environments.  Again and again, I have seen people who were very successful in large organizations flounder miserably when they moved into smaller ones.  And the reverse is equally true.

The conclusion bears repeating:  Do not try to change yourself--you are unlikely to succeed.  But work hard to improve the way you perform.  And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.

ACTION POINT: Work hard to improve the way you perform and don't take on work you cannot perform.

How Do I Perform

Do I produce results as a decision maker or as an adviser?

Another crucial question is, Do I produce results as a decision maker or as an adviser?  A great many people perform best as advisers but cannon take the burden and pressure of making the decision.   A good many other people, by contrast, need an adviser to force themselves to think; then they can make decisions and act on them with speed, self-confidence, and courage.

This is a reason, by the way, that the number two person in an organization often fails when promoted to the number one position.  The top spot requires a decision maker.  Strong decision makers often put somebody they trust into the number two spot as their adviser--and thin that position the person is outstanding.  But in the number one spot, the same person fails.  He or she knows what the decision should be but cannot accept the responsibility of actually making it.

ACTION POINT:  Determine if you are a decision maker or an adviser.

Abundant Life Is Divine Union

[Jesus gives]...life in all its fullness.

John 10:10

God often invites us to rethink the judgments we made in childhood and adolescence, or in the early years of our conversion, that amounted to a rejection of the goodness of his gifts.  He invites us to take another look at our hesitations and to realize that our rigid attitudes were based on our inability to handle events and relationships that were emotionally traumatic.  Now he asks us to accept the legitimate pleasures of life, the value of friendship, the exercise of our talents, the loveliness of nature, the beauty of art, the enjoyment of both activity and rest.  God is a tremendous supporter of creation, especially of all living beings.  Jesus emphasized this when he said, "I came that they might have life and have it to the full" (John 10:10).  The abundant life is divine union, which includes the capacity to use all things as stepping stones to God rather than as ends in themselves.

John 10:10

My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.

Friendship and Laughter

The miracle of friendship can be spoken without words... hearing unspoken needs, recognizing secret dreams, understanding the silent things that only true friends know.

Friend is a strong word. Often overused, often overstated. I remember hearing a preacher proclaim that over the course of your lifetime you will have numerous acquaintances but few friends. Acquaintance's can occupy years or moments. Folks we relate too over the years or quick encounters over a meal or visit, or shared experience all fill the acquaintance bucket of our lives.

Friends on the other had are those folks that know what makes us tick, see us with our guard dropped and share our laughter. They encourage our dreams and accept our shortcomings. I heard a lyric from a U2 song today that said "laughter is eternity". Friends are those folks we will look up in eternity.

So on the subject of laughter I thought today's post would plug an author that has made me literally laugh out loud on airplanes, while waiting for appointments and in the quiet of my room. Christopher Buckley was recommended to me about 8 years ago from a friend. My first Buckley book was "God is my Broker." It's a hilarious tale of a monastery in financial trouble. God and wine come together to save the monastery in a real laugh out loud adventure.

Buckley is the son of noted conservative icon William F. Buckley and has 12 other books that will have you holding your stomach as you read them. "Boomsday", "Thank you for Not Smoking" and "Little Green Men" are all side splitting page turners that will not disappoint.

So back to friendship. True friends fill us with laughter. They laugh at us and with us. And in that laughter we experience the miracle of friendship.

ACTION POINT: Pick up a book by Christopher Buckley and share a laugh with a friend.

How do I Learn II

...not acting on this knowledge condemns one to nonperformance.

Of all the important pieces of self-knowledge, understanding how you learn is the easiest to acquire.  When I ask people, "How do you learn?" most of them know the answer,  But when I ask, "Do you act on this knowledge?" few answer yes.  And yet, acting on this knowledge is the key to performance; or rather, not acting on this knowledge condemns one to nonperformance.

Am I a reader or a listener? and How do I learn? are the first questions to ask.  But they are by no means the only ones.  To manage yourself effectively, you also have to ask, Do I work well with people, or am I a loner?  And if you do work well with people, you then must ask, In what relationship?

Some people work best as subordinates.  General George Patton, the great American military hero of World War II, is a prime example.  Patton was America's top troop commander.  yet when he was proposed for an independent command, General George Marshall, the U.S. chief of staff--and probably the most successful picker of men in U.S. history--said, "Patton is the best subordinate the American army has ever produced, but he would be the worst commander." 

Some people work best as team members.  Others work best alone.  Some are exceptionally talented as coaches and mentors; others are simply incompetent as mentors.

ACTION POINT:  Act on your knowledge of how you learn. 

How do I Learn

...there are probably half a dozen different ways to learn.

The second thing to know about how one performs is to know how one learns. Many first-class writers--Winston Churchill is but one example--do poorly in school. They tend to remember their schooling as pure torture. Yet few of their classmates remember it the same way. They may not have enjoyed the school very much, but the worst they suffered was boredom. The explanation is that writers do not, as a rule, learn by listening and reading. They learn by writing. Because schools do not allow them to learn this way, they get poor grades.

Schools everywhere are organized on the assumption that there is only one right way to learn and that it is the same way for everybody. But to be forced to learn the way a school teaches is sheer hell for students who learn differently. Indeed, there are probably half a dozen different ways to learn.


There are people, like Churchill, who learn by writing. Some people learn by taking copious notes. Beethoven, for example, left behind an enormous number of sketchbooks, yet he said he never actually looked at them when he composed. Asked why he kept them, he is reported to have replied, "If I don't write it down immediately, I forget it right away. If I put it into a sketchbook, I never forget it and I never have to look it up again." Some people learn by doing. Others learn by hearing themselves talk.


A chief executive I know who converted a small and mediocre family business into the leading company in its industry was one of those people who learn by talking. He was in the habit of calling his entire senior staff into his office once a week and then talking at them for two or three hours. He would raise policy issues and argue three different positions on each one. He rarely asked his associates for comments or questions; he simply needed an audience to hear himself talk. That's how he learned. And although he is a fairly extreme case, learning through talking is by no means an unusual method. Successful trial lawyers learn the same way, as do many medical diagnosticians.


ACTION POINT: Discover and develop your learning style.

Am I Reader or a Listener?

Far too few people even know that there are readers and listeners and that people are rarely both.

The first thing to know is whether you are a reader or a listener.  Far too few people even know that there are readers and listeners and that people are rarely both.  Even fewer know which of the two they themselves are.  But some examples will show how damaging such ignorance can be.

When Dwight Eisenhower was Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, he was the darling of the press.  His press conferences were famous for their style--General Eisenhower showed total command of whatever question he was asked, and he was able to describe a situation and explain a policy in two or three beautifully polished and elegant sentences.  Ten years later, the same journalists who had been his admirers held President 

Eisenhower in open contempt.  He never addressed the questions they complained, but rambled on endlessly about something else.  And they constantly ridiculed him for butchering the King's English in incoherent and ungrammatical answers.

Eisenhower apparently did not know that he was a reader, not a listener.  When he was Supreme Commander in Europe, his aides made sure that every question form the press was presented in writing at least half an hour before a conference was to begin.  And then Eisenhower was in total command.  When he became president, he succeeded two listeners, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry Truman.  Both men knew themselves to be listeners and both enjoyed free-for-all press conferences.  Eisenhower may have felt that he had to do what his two predecessors had done.  As a result, he never even heard the questions journalists asked. And Eisenhower is not even an extreme case of a non listener. 

A few years later, Lyndon Johnson destroyed his presidency, in large measure, by knot knowing that he was a listener.  His predecessor, John Kennedy, was a reader who had assembled a brilliant group of writers as his assistants, making sure that they wrote to him before discussing their memos in person.  Johnson kept these people on his staff--and they kept on writing.  He never, apparently, understood one word of what they wrote.  yet as a senator, Johnson had been superb; for parliamentarians have to be, above all, listeners.

Few listeners can be made, or can make themselves, into competent readers--and vice versa.  The listener who tries to be a reader will, therefore, suffer the fate of Lyndon Johnson, whereas the reader who tries to be a listener will suffer the fate of Dwight Eisenhower.  They will not perform or achieve.

ACTION POINT:  Understand if you are a listener or a reader.

How Do I Perform

It is a matter of personality.



Amazingly few people know how they get things done. Indeed, most of us do not even know that different people work and perform differently. Too many people work in ways that are not their ways, and that almost guarantees nonperformance. For knowledge workers, How do I perform? may be an even more important question than What are my strengths?

Like one's strengths, how one performs is unique. It is a matter of personality. Whether personality be a matter of nature or nurture, it surely is formed long before a person goes to work. And how a person performs is a given, just as what a person is good at or not good at is a given. A person's way of performing can be slightly modified, but it is unlikely to be completely changed--and certainly not easily. Just as people achieve results by doing what they are good at, they also achieve results by working in ways that they best perform. A few common personality traits usually determine how a person performs.


ACTION POINT: Consider personality when examining performance.

What Are My Strengths

One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence.

Comparing your expectations with your results also indicates what not to do.  We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas a person--and especially a knowledge worker--should not take on work, jobs, and assignments.

One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence.  It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.  And yet most people--especially teachers and most organizations--concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones.  Energy, resources, and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer.

ACTION POINT: Recognize and avoid your areas of low competence.

Contemplative Prayer

The Lord let his face shine upon you...

Numbers 6:25 

Contemplative prayer is a process of interior transformation, a conversation initiated by God and leading if we consent,  to divine union.  One's way of seeing reality changes in this process.  A restructuring of consciousness takes place which empowers one to perceive, relate and respond with increasing sensitivity to the divine presence in, through, and beyond everything that exists.

Numbers 6:24-26

The Lord bless you and keep you!

The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!

The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!

Play

the single most significant factor in determining our success and happiness.

This is the inaugural weekend edition of the Daily Drucker blog.  DD has been historically silent on the weekends.   During a recent bike thought moment it occurred to me that Peter would have had something to say about the two days that break up our work week.   Inspired by the ride and with a nudge from the ghost of Peter the weekend edition was born.  

The weekend format may or may not follow that of the daily posts.  Content will be wide open. Books, hobbies, sports, movies, music or any subject likely to bring a smile to your heart will be featured on the Saturday post.  Sunday posts will honor the spirit of reverence, rest and reflection. 

So welcome to the first post of the weekend edition and to get things started lets talk about play.  Dog's understand play.  Our dog Lucy loves to chase the tennis ball across the yard.  She struts when she brings it back and has to make two passes by me before she drops it just to show me that she has it under control.  A few good fetches are followed by a dip in the pool to cool down and then a brisk "shake the water off" as close as she can to me.  I'm pretty sure she is grinning from ear to ear with each splash that comes my way.  Lucy plays the fetch, swim and splash game for nothing other than the pure joy of it.

Kids understand play.  In fact they view it as their job.  Last week my two year old grandson, donned his arm band floaties  at a friends pool and paddled his way off the shallow island to the other side.  You could see the joy bubbling up from his toes when he stood on the other side to listen to our applause.  This was followed by the immediate, "Again". 

 

We should never let go of our sense of play.  We are built for play and are built through play. Play has been said to be the single most significant factor in determining our success and happiness.  We lose ourselves in play and in that blissful abandon we are both consumed and restored.  Play engages us in risk, discovery, pleasure, learning, overcoming challenges and brings a sense of balance to our lives.  Anyone can play.  Play is voluntary.  Play is fun and leaves us wanting more.  It shapes our brain, opens our imagination and ultimately invigorates our soul.

Play provides intense pleasure, renews our optimism and opens us up to new worlds.    It sparks our thinking and fires our creativity.  We feel most alive when we play and some have said it is the truest expression of our individuality and the purest expression of our humanity.     

ACTION POINT:  Go forth and play! 

Manners

Manners...enable two people to work together whether they like each other or not.

Feedback will also reveal when the problem is a lack of manners. Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects. Manners--simple things like saying "please" and "thank you" and knowing a person's name or asking after her family--enable two people to work together whether they like each other or not.

Bright people, especially bright young people, often do not understand this. If analysis shows that someones brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from other is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy--that is, a lack of manners.

ACTION POINT: Use the words "please" and "thank you" often.

Remedy Bad Habits

Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains.

It is equally essential to remedy your bad habits--the things you do or fail to do that inhibit your effectiveness and performance.  Such habits will quickly show up in the feedback.  For example, a planner may find that his beautiful plans fail because he does not follow through on them. 

Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains.  But bulldozers move mountains;  ideas show where the bulldozers should to work.  This planner will have to learn that the work does not stop when the plan is completed.  He must find people to carry out the and explain it to them.  He must adapt and change it as he puts it into action.  And finally, he must decide when to stop pushing the plan.

ACTION POINT: Identify and remedy your bad habits.

Implications of Feedback Analysis

Go to work on acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to fully realize your strengths.

Several implications for action follow from feedback analysis.  First and foremost, concentrate on your strengths.  Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.

Second, work on improving your strengths.  Analysis will rapidly show where you need to improve skills or acquire new ones.  It will also show the gaps in your knowledge--and those can usually be filled.  Mathematicians are born, but everyone can learn trigonometry.

Third, discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it.  Far too many people--especially people with great expertise in one area--are contemptuous of knowledge in other areas or believe that being bright is a substitute for knowledge.  First-rate engineers, for instance tend to take pride in not knowing anything about people. Human beings, they believe, are much to disorderly for the good engineering mind.  Human resources professionals, by contrast, often pride themselves on their ignorance of elementary accounting or of quantitative methods altogether.  But taking pride in such ignorance is self-defeating.  Go to work on acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to fully realize your strengths.

ACTION POINT: Concentrate on your strengths, improve your strengths and abandon intellectual arrogance.

What Are My Strengths

...a person can perform only from strength.

Most people think they know what they are good at.  They are usually wrong.  More often, people know what they are not good at--and even the then more people are wrong than right.  And yet, a person can perform only from strength.  One cannot build performance on weaknesses, let alone on something one cannot do at all. 

Throughout history, people had little need to know their strengths.  A person was born into a position and a line of work:  The peasant's son would also be a peasant; the artisan's daughter, an artisan's wife; and so on.  but now people have choices.  We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong.

The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis.  Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen.  Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations.  

Practiced consistently, this simple method will show you within a fairly short period of time, maybe two or three years, where your strengths lie--and this is the most important thing to know.  The method will show you what you are doing or failing to do that deprives your of the full benefits of your strengths.  it will show you where you are not particularly competent.  And finally, it will show you where you have not strengths and cannot perform.

ACTION POINT: Write down your expected outcomes of key decisions and compare them to the actual results nine or 12 months later.

Managing Oneself

...most of us will have to learn to manage ourselves.

History's great achievers--a Napoleon, a da Vinci, a Mozart--have always managed themselves. That, in large measure, is what makes them great achievers.  But they are rare exceptions, so unusual both in their talents and their accomplishments as to be considered outside the boundaries of ordinary human existence.  

Now, most of us, even those of us with modest endowments, will have to learn to manage ourselves.  We will have to learn to develop ourselves.  We will have to develop ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution. And we will have to stay mentally alert and engaged during a 50-year working life, which means knowing how and when to change the work we do.

ACTION POINT: Develop your self in the area where you can make the greatest contribution.

Listening Actively

Active listening means reflecting back and summarizing the content and emotions in your audience's responses to your questions.

As your listeners respond to your questions, you, in turn, must become an active listener to further strengthen your presentation.  Active listening means reflecting back and summarizing the content and emotions in your audience's responses to your questions.

By reflecting, you show that you've heard and understood the other person--a powerful step in any persuasive effort.  Consider these guidelines:

Reflect content.  Paraphrase the factual details you're hearing form your audience, using language such as "It sounds like..." "In other words..." "So you're saying..." and " It seems that..."

Reflect emotions.  Acknowledge your listener's feelings.  for instance, if an employee says, "I'm still doing the same old job.  I could do it in my sleep," respond with, "Seems like you're feeling bored and frustrated.  Is that it?

Summarize.  To redirect a conversation that has wandered off track, sum up what you've heard so far.  For example, "I'm concerned that we've gone off on a tangent.  let me see if I can touch on the main points we've covered."  You can summarize at any point in a persuasion situation.  But summarizing is particularly effective when emotion has begun clouding the issues or when you feel your views aren't being appreciated or understood.  Summarizing is also helpful when you believe it's time to conclude an argument or when you've reached an agreement and want to ensure that you and the other party share the same understanding about the deal.

ACTION POINT: By using the techniques of audience self-persuasion, you further enhance the likelihood of moving listeners to your side.