I’ve become increasingly convinced that a leader’s voice is one of the most crucial characteristics to leverage when building an organization.  Leaders build organizations in many ways and in many circumstances.  However, regardless of whether a leader is building a new organization within a company, taking the reigns of an existing organization, or growing an organization that they’ve been leading for years, the shape that things take depends mostly on the leader’s voice. 

Few things are more important to the workforce than hearing the leader’s voice.  We use the term “organizational culture” to describe the set of beliefs and rules, both written and unwritten, that determine the way in which employees interact with one another and carry out the business of the organization.  Culture, though, is created primarily by the constituency, the individuals who make up the whole.  Culture is a collective construct, and the collective organically guide the evolution of the culture.  Leader’s play a role in that evolution, but the collective can and will correct for aberrant, dysfunctional behavior.  History is filled with examples of leaders who took the proverbial left turn and watched as the collective corrected the course.  Some corrections take generations and some take weeks.  The thing to remember is that leader’s are left to decay while culture marches on.

In contrast, an organization’s culture is heavily dependent on the leader.  From a corporate perspective, the leader shapes the organizational set of beliefs, and the collective follows.  The collective can influence, for sure, but the leader can perpetuate behaviors and situations that are aberrant and dysfunctional.  The collective follows, regardless.  There are, of course, examples of corporate rebellions and revolutions, but history is filled with examples of leaders who took the proverbial left turn and drove their organization into the ground.  On the flip side, history is also filled with organizations that have collapsed once the charismatic, visionary leader has left the picture.  The thing to remember is that leader’s in most organizations can move on, leaving the organization to decay in their wake.

Human cultures exist over time, evolving and transforming, merging and diverging, separating from and subliming into other cultures.  Organizational cultures are tightly tied to their leaders.  This is why the constituency must hear the voice of the leader.  A leader influences through action and inaction.  As Lao Tzu taught, inaction is, itself, action.  A leader’s sphere of influence spreads in one of two ways: through direct interaction between the leader and those they lead or through myth and legend passed on from the eyewitness to the audience once and twice removed.  In the absence of voice, the leader puts the perception of their intent into the realm of myths and legends.  They put their story into the hands of others.  Only through exercising their voice, by ensuring that they are heard as much as they can be, does a leader pull perception of their intent out of that nebulous realm of hearsay and into the brilliant light of truth.

What if you just need a nudge, a little encouragement, to get you moving in the right direction?

Surely, your career is worth more than meaningless obedience and mindless compliance?

Perhaps a nudge is all any of us need to begin the process of redefining who we are and what we bring to the work we do.

No guarantees, of course, but maybe all it takes is a nudge.

If you’ve got a nasty viral infection clogging up the plumbing in your head, making you cough, and leading to a sore throat, chances are you’ll head to the doctor if it doesn’t let up after a few days.  When you see the doctor, chances are she’ll prescribe a decongestant, an anti-histamine, and an antibiotic.  That last one is to make everyone feel like the big guns are being pulled out, but that’s beside the point.  Actually, it’s not, because what the doctor is doing is prescribing stuff to help alleviate the symptoms of the viral infection, not the infection itself.  We all know that viruses need to run their course and there’s really not much to be done for them.  It’s all about the symptoms.  The cause of your malaise will go untreated.  Nature has to take it’s course.

 

The same applies to this idea that we have to focus our time more on that fourth Covey quadrant (exercise, vocation, planning, etc.) with the more strategic, forward-facing stuff in our lives.  Don’t get me wrong.  We have to be aware of the problem and of the possible solutions.  We have to bring presence to our daily working lives if we want to have a hope of unleashing our full potential here at work.  What’s often missing in our thought process, though, is that extra step to treat the illness and not just the symptom.  Lots of meetings (bad meetings at that), lots of e-mail, and lots of busy work are all symptoms of something else.  They are simply behaviors.  Behind the symptoms there are illnesses, just as behind the behaviors there are beliefs. 

 

The cause of every behavior is a belief or series of beliefs that life circumstances have positively reinforced over and over again.  Everything we do is a direct result of past experience.  Dr. Phil used to say that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.  I know that it sounds pessimistic, but he always gets to the next step.  The next step is to address the root of the behavior and not the behavior itself.  It’s like the Resolutionaries who invade the gym at the beginning of each new year.  Armed with New Year’s Resolutions and the best of intentions, the Resolutionaries flock to their local gyms and take over.  Gym regulars impatiently wait in lines that didn’t exist a week earlier.  They put up with longer lines, shorter workouts, and crowded locker rooms.  Some of the regulars take a vacation for the month of January.  They know that by February, most of the Resolutionaries will have lost their resolve and will be back into the rut of old behaviors.  It’s somewhat comical, but it is also a great example of the process at work: a New Year’s Resolution often targets behaviors and not the beliefs driving the behaviors.  In the end, that’s why they are doomed.

 

Likewise, if we say that we have to make time on our calendars to focus more on that fourth quadrant, then we’re ultimately doomed to fail.  We have to take a look at the activities that consume our time today and ask ourselves the all-important “why” question.  Why do we spend our time on time-wasting activities?  Why is our attention drawn to other quadrants?  Why so many organization, so many systems of positive reinforcement and punishment, encourage us to engage in activities we would otherwise deem as not worthy of time and attention?  The answer to those “why” questions will point us in the direction of beliefs both organizational and personal.  Seeking to change the behaviors will get us only so far.  Seeking to influence beliefs will help get us started down the path we want to take.

 

Who has your back?

The answer: nobody.

Nobody has your back. Need examples? I’ve got some scenarios. How about broken promises from managers who ran out the door so fast chasing their own agenda that they couldn’t even apologize to you to your face for failing to come through for you? How about your contributions for the better part of the year going unrecognized because of a 3rd-Quarter change in assignment? How about the guy in HR who chooses to ignore your attempts at communicating with him for months, only to weigh in at the 11th hour to let you know that he doesn’t really support what you’re doing?

Do you need more hypothetical examples? Probably not, huh? You’re already making your own list…

Here’s the thing: nobody should have to cover your back. I can think of few professions and few situations where you actually need someone to have your back. Even then, whatever threatens you in the situation is probably threatening the other person, too. Like in the military, for example. The RPG can take you all out. Law enforcement? A well-placed bullet can take your backup out. Firefighting? It’s fire, for Pete’s sake! That stuff burns without prejudice. No, you cannot and should not ever rely on someone else to have your back.

See, that’s what makes having someone else’s back such a gift. It's a gift you give others because you know it's the right thing to do. Some times you sacrifice...big...to be there for another person. You do it without expecting anything in return. You do it because you care. It is that simple.

It is that simple for others, too. People will undoubtedly, inevitably come to your defense, to your rescue. Your world is filled with reliable friends, trustworthy colleagues, and compassionate bosses. It is just easy to overlook them and focus on the recent, intense negative feelings. It’s hard to hunker down and let the wave of misfortune wash over you. If you just have patience and keep your eyes and ears attuned, when the wave retreats, you’ll find yourself in a position to appreciate and give thanks for all the people who are covering your back in the ways that matter.

Need examples? How about the friends who give without expecting anything in return? Or the family that supports you every step of the way? Or the colleague who takes walks with you and lets you vent? Or the confidant who lets you spill your guts without showing any sign of judgment?

Do you need more hypothetical examples? Probably not, huh? I hope you’re already making your own list…

If you aren't going to be the hero in the epic tale of your life, then who will it be? Your neighbor? The guy down the street? After all, isn't a hero someone who does something spectacular and outrageous? Isn't a hero who does something to change the world, to save a life, to alter the course of history forever? A hero is someone much more important that the meek, ordinary people like you and me. Right?

 

And what's an epic, anyway? An epic is something majestic, impressively great, or unusually great in size, extent, or scope. It's certainly not our mundane, simple lives! An epic is a far off adventure. It's a journey of such immeasurable scope we cannot even...measure it! It is an undertaking of such depth and breadth that it lasts for years and includes an incredible cast of characters! An epic is The Iliad or The Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, or even the life stories of Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama. Those are epics. Our lives are just footnotes in the Grand Scheme of Things.

 

Perhaps. Or, maybe, our lives are epics, too. Maybe our life journeys span space and time and are filled with an incredible cast of characters? Maybe an epic isn't dependent on buried treasures or fearsome monsters or enlightenment at the pinnacle of spiritual understanding! Maybe it's driving to Dunkin Donuts every morning, working a full day at the office, and watching “How I Met Your Mother” in your jammies!

 

A hero embarks on the epic journey, and they continue down the path until the challenge is met, until that which must be done is done. A hero engages the path, overcomes obstacles, and does things he or she would have otherwise thought impossible. After all, that's what makes the epic tale so mesmerizing. That's why we bother to tune into it at all.  

 

 

What about us?  The common folk?  Do we not meet the challenges?  Do we not slay dragons?Do we not run a troll or two out of town?  We do.  We do almost every day of our lives.  Sometimes, just rolling out of bed counts enough to be considered a Herculean task. What matters most is that we engage the path and meet the challenges, overcome the obstacles, and we do it decisively.  In the end, the thing that matters is that we act like the heroes in our own epic tale.

 

Life is an epic tale, and you are the hero.

 

 

The idea that someone would pay another person to file hardened dead skin off their feet, paint their toe nails, and clip the little vestigial claw-thing off their pinky toe is ridiculous.  Actually, the ridiculous isn't that somebody would fork over the money for another person to do stuff to their feet that they themselves could do; the ridiculous part is that someone actually does such things for money.  That's a career?  It's just weird.  And it's stupid.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Seriously.  Pedicures are stupid.

Of course, you could say the same about so many things.  I mean, who would pay a grown man tens of thousands of dollars to essentially babysit other grown people all day, checking up after them just to make sure that they are actually doing their job?  Would you pay that much if the people being babysat were experienced at their jobs?  Masters of their trade?  Fast approaching the 10,000-hour mark?  People at that level require less supervision, right?  Less constant meddling?

The truth is that chances are good that there is someone willing to pay good money for the thing that you are willing and able to do.  If you add passion and a healthy dose of dedication, chances are someone is willing to pay even more than that first group of people.  Given the opportunity, most of us elect to pay a premium for the pleasure of receiving the goods and services of a true artisan.  Given the opportunity, most of us can be that artisan...and there's probably someone willing to pay a premium for us.

For the record, I clip my own vestigial claw-thing, but that's just because a pedicure is not something for which I choose to pay a premium.  My Wusthof kitchen knives, on the other hand, are a totally different story...

Ever notice how many defunct websites exist on the internet?  Ever stumble across deserted blogs?  I do.  Often.

 

Our culture of consumption and waste is out of control.  We burn through virtual resources even faster and more prolifically than we do physical resources.  One of the great illusions of the internet and technology in general is that the ether is a place of limitless resources.  That’s simply not true.  Every action we take through technology in the universe of the ether results in a reaction in the “real world.”  All the copper and aluminum and silicon and graphite and plastic and rubber and glass that goes into the gizmos that drive our techno lives come from the Earth herself.  Natural resources are consumed at an astonishing rate to put that little smartphone in your hands or that tablet on your lap.  Forget the packaging and the fuel required to move all the parts from the mining operation to your local Big Box store; the gizmo itself is composed of resources mined, extracted, drilled, and collected from all corners of the globe.  And it’s assembled in a third-world sweatshop at a human cost.

 

That’s the waste of our physical world.  Is the iPhone 4S better than my iPhone 4?  Sure it is.  Somehow.  But, in the grand scheme of Life, the iPhone I carry with me works just fine.  It does more than I could have ever dreamed a computing device could do when I started programming on my Apple IIc.  I took more photos with that phone this year than I had in the previous…uh…30-something…years of my life.  There are over 2000 photos on my phone.  TWO THOUSAND.  And I’ve deleted quite a few. 

 

Every “click” of that camera consumes energy.  It drains the battery.  I recharge that battery every night by plugging it into a wall outlet.  It drains electricity from the grid.  Miniscule amounts, right?  Like any tiny, delicate snowflake, put enough phones on the grid, and you have an avalanche of electricity that comes from…where?  Coal.  Atoms.  Water.  Wind.  The infrastructure that generates the electricity has to come from somewhere, too.  More metal.  More plastic.  More rubber.  More, more, more. 

 

The space we waste in the ether, in the vast new network of electrons and photons and the manufactured hardware that runs it, translates directly to waste in the real world.  Don’t think that just because your disorganized, cluttered e-hoarders paradise is out of sight and mind…well, it behooves us to remain conscious of the human, ecological, and economic costs of every byte of data we consume.  We’ve simply managed to find an innovative, 21^st Century method to perpetuating our culture of waste.

The definition of insanity I favor: continuing to do the same thing, over and over, and expecting a different result. That's the one I like best. It's also the on I live most.

Why do we do that? Why do we continue to expect a new and different result from the same actions and the same set of circumstances?

My theory is simple: we do it because doing anything different takes too much work. Changing the circumstances takes work. Changing the behaviors takes work. Changing our expectations takes work. Change takes work, and work requires energy, and energy sounds tiring so let's go take a nap and what were we talking about anyway? Wait, I have something to do in the same way I have always done it but...boy, I hope it turns out different this time because I'd really like for things to go more smoothly for me.

I think that pretty much sums it up.

I heard voices the other day. They were voices I'd never heard before, and I liked it. It was refreshing. It was exhilarating. It felt...right.

No worries; these weren't whispering voices in my head. These were the voices of people I'd never met before. They were strangers, but they had something to talk about. Mostly, I listened. When I couldn't hold it in anymore, I jumped in and became a part of the conversation. I went from observer to participant, and that changed everything.

I recognized: this is where I want to be; this is where I can make a difference.

As it turns out, when you're in a room filled with strangers, and you choose to use your voice, you're in a room filled with strangers who are listening to and hearing your voice. They listened because I had something to offer. They listened because I was talking about things they wanted to learn. They listened because I had the courage to speak up and offer a unique perspective. They listened because we were all engaged in a conversation that we wanted to have. Some spoke up more than others, but everyone...and I mean everyone...was present. They listened, they considered, they discussed. Over the course of a brief two hours, we all listened to each other, and, as a result, we all grew together.

I heard a new voice the other day, and the voice was mine. I liked how it sounded. I want more of that.

Give me more cowbell.

There is, of course, such a thing as being too proud. You know you have crossed the line when the feeling of pride is itself the source of pride. Pride is excessive when it serves to bring harm to another.

Otherwise, don't feel bad about feeling food about who you are. Don't feel bad about doing a job well. Don't get embarrassed when you triumph and someone recognizes it. There are many reasons to allow the positive emotions of a moment wash over you.

Just remember who you are, where you came from, and how many times you have been knocked down. Be proud, be humble, and strike a balance between the two.