leadership personified

I have just returned from four days of Chamber conference. As well as large quantities of amazing locally produced food (and erm...wine...and erm...craft beer), a couple of side trips to McCashins Brewery (did I mention beer?), and the World of Wearable Arts Museum, I was also privileged to hear a number of world class speakers as part of our conference learning and line up.

These included along with other great NZ business people and politicians, Dame Suzie Moncrieff (founder of WoW), John Palmer (former Chair of Air NZ), Campbell Mitchell (Marketing director for Fairfax media), Tom Sturgess (Chair NZ King Salmon and former director of Sachs Goldman), and Craig Donaldson (Global CEO of KEA network) and NZCCI Chair John Lindsay .  I was also lucky enough to talk with some of these people on a more informal basis over the aforementioned Nelson showcase of food and wine.  

Normally during key note addresses I would be busily taking notes, trying to remember ''gems'' to bring back and share with colleagues (or on here...)   As I jotted down my thoughts at the end of each day, I considered the commonalities of each of the speakers..and by day four the list looked like this:

Common Values:                                      Common attributes

Integrity                                                     Intelligence

Authenticity                                               Strategic thinkers

Commitment to collaboration                   Confidence
Humility                                                    Drive and determination

Without exception these people had me glued to them, taking in every word.  and on the above lists there weren't really many surprises - they were gifted story tellers, clearly successful and clever people who have all really made their mark on NZ - and the world.  But the one thing that struck me above all else, was the shared quality of humility.  In fact it was the last thing I had expected from such successful and well connected luminaries.

HUMILITY?!? 

How could people who have had to work SO hard, to get so far...to be so well connected, so ambitious, so driven, so thick skinned at times...how could they be humble and still be so successful? But they were!  Not a single one referred to any of those things above - no one talked about themselves at all really, unless it was in the context of their team, or their family, or the company they worked for.  They saw themselves as cogs in a bigger wheel, each acknowledged the part their spouses (always heartfelt), and the mentors and employees had played in their 'success' (and in fact few called it success, preferring to talk about the successes of their organisations and the people within them.

No, not a single person alluded to their own intelligence, integrity or skill as being key, even though it was patently obvious to all of us that it was this list of things that has got them to where they are today.

Now of course one could argue that it's easy to be humble when you're that successful. Easy to ''brush off'' the trappings of success for the purpose of engaging an audience.  And had just one or two of the presenters done that I might have been as sceptical.  but it was without exception. And each one that I spoke to afterwards was genuinely warm, encouraging and interested in what I had to say.

It was inspiring. It was a good reminder of what leadership really is. It's about people. It's about the doing not the saying. and it's about always acknowledging those who go before you, beside you and after you.   It was ...humbling...

the season of contentment

A recent study done by a friend undertaking demographic research for her Masters degree, uncovered that the unhappiest group of people by far are those in my own age group.  How can this be? We are the smart, supposedly emotionally aware group who are homeowners, parents, partners, socially successful - all the good things right?  

Well it would seem that we're almost the most unhappy because of this huge pressure  on us to live in the moment these days (carpe diem!) and yet to also be constantly looking for improvement. We live in a culture that demands us to be driven, ambitious and constantly looking for the next big thing, the next big adventure or the next step on our career ladder/home ownership plan/social scale.  We want more stuff, more experiences, more fulfilling careers and personal relationships, more success. More. More. More. 

I'm all for ambition and I'm also all for seeking, and keeping,  that elusive happiness that we as humans crave.  There's a theory around at the moment that gets people thinking about whether they are past, present or future thinkers.  The idea is actually applied to corporate/business thinking, but my reflections are really about how it can be applied to every day life.  

So does the problem really lie in our need to be always bettering ourselves, whether that be a job, a hobby, or maybe even a relationship?  A generation ago I am sure people were more 'satisfied with their lot', or at least they were able to dream dreams, have plans, but not feel the overwhelming desire to MAKE IT HAPPEN even minute of the day.  So maybe the different between them and us - or more accurately, the difference between people who never seem to be ''settled'' and those that are, is not an ability to forgo, or  let go of, plans and dreams, and nor is it a dubious ability to settle/compromise/appease their current state of being, but simply the ability to be content. 

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
― Socrates

“[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there's nothing else. It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.”
― Charles H. Spurgeon

My favourite of the above quotes is the middle one.  I have been guilty so often of thinking ''when x happens my life will really start'', or ''things would be absolutely perfect if only x changed''.  Worse, I have probably spent far too many hours of my life looking wistfully at the lives of others, and wanting what they have, and not enough hours looking back into my own and being glad for what I have myself. Many is the day I have been completely sorry for myself - not enough money, geographically isolated from ''where the action is'', tied to the house by small kids, unsatisfying (or non existent) job... whatever the problem of the day was...and have not taken time to be content with what I have.   From the outside looking in my life probably looks pretty sweet...so why don't I appreciate it more!

When I asked my long time married friends what the secret to staying married is, they looked almost blankly at me to begin with, but concluded, after much discussion, that they key was simply to being able to appreciate the moments of each day for what they were.  Everyone I asked conceded that they had had plenty of ''i wish this were different'' moments.  Occasional temptations (human or otherwise). Hard times.  Moments of dislike and disappointment in their spouse.  But that, on the balance, by exercising some rational thought, plenty of deep breaths, and a healthy dose of  self control, they could find happiness..even joy...in being content with life.  It didn't mean stopping dreaming, or giving up on the future with resignation, but it did mean making a deliberate and conscious effort to be thankful for where they were in the present, without having to fill that present with excitement or thrill - just to be ''content'' with their life.  

There is no doubt that the people I know who are the unhappiest are also the least content.  And the ''happiest'' hold a mindset of contentment (and again I reiterate that doesn't mean that they are goal less, direction less or indulging in unimaginative uneventful lives - just that they appreciate fully the place they are in right now, resulting in a peaceful attitude to life  that I both admire and desire)

I guess it's partly what my Nana used to call counting blessings. It's partly about knowing that some dreams will only ever be dreams and that's OK.  It's partly about remembering that the human condition is to always want more and possibly never been satisfied.  (the Augustine concept of the God shaped vacuum).  

Wikipedia says (so it must be true right...) that contentment is an attitude not an attainment. 

So though it might be an oxymoron, I strive to be content.  

middle class poverty

There's been quite a bit in the media recently about the ''working poor''.  How we have a growing underclass of people in New Zealand who will never be home owners, who live barely about the breadline, drowning in short term debt and heavily reliant on government support or charity to get through the week.  The claim that most people are only 4 weeks away from bankruptcy. The growing numbers of under educated, poorly fed families who are a burden on our tax system.

All of which is probably true - but that's not what this post is about.  The group that has come to my attention lately is not the truly poor, or even the working poor (as they are now known - those who work hard but still have nothing) , but the growing numbers in the middle class who are also barely making ends meet.

Before I got any further, let me say that these observations are in no way meant to ask for pity.  Nor is my intention to induce a flurry of unsympathetic, albeit well meaning , notes of advice.  I'm fully aware that most of the things listed below are ''choices''.  And that the reasons for being middle class and broke are wide and varied -  but seem to me to be largely rooted in ambition.

The middle classes aspire.  They want to give their children the things they never had, or, more often, that they did have - music lessons, Saturday sports, new clothes, experiences.  They want to own decent (read: reliable) vehicles.(which usually then have to be financed, but suggest better value than an old dinger that breaks down constantly).  They generally are homeowners (ergo they have mortgages. And insurance. And rates.)  They are educated (and are still paying off a student loan.  They like the idea of a parent being available to care for children after school, and on sick days, and having someone 'at home'' running a household.  They tend to have 1 1/2 incomes in their house rather than two full time.  They do this because when you run the numbers, it's around the same as working full time and paying for care (and the subsequent headaches that go with school trips, sick days, and so on).  As a result they end up, often, in the Working for Families merry go round - accepting tax relief because in no small part it actually works out more financially beneficial than the second income - and allows the flexibility already mentioned.

And so these families work hard.  They really do.  They pay their taxes, because its fiscally responsible. they pay all their school fees, full Doctors fees, house and vehicle insurance.  They try and keep the car as modern as possible, not because it's a dream car, but because it works out cheaper in the long run.  They buy as good quality food as they can - because they understand about nutrition and so on - but as a result probably spend more than most.  They use people like naturopaths because it seems like the responsible thing to do (but end up spending a heck of a lot more staying well than the person who is broke, gets sick and turns up at A&E every couple of months).  When their kid fails at school they pay for extra tutoring, which isn't covered by school fees because they've chosen to live in a ''good area'' and Decile 9 schools don't include that kind of extra support.  Similarly, they support every kid that comes to the door with a fund raising book.  Every community raffle.  They do the odd charity donation because you never know when you might need that particular cause. They belong to St Johns Ambulance.

And so it goes on.  These are good people. Smart, ambitious, focused, often environmentally aware and socially responsible.  And they are going backwards.

 

the public face - part 2

In my last blog I talked about the ease with which we can create a public persona - essentially hiding the real us from the world, either purposefully or inadvertently.

Today on Facebook (my favourite place to guess which face my ''friends'' are showing to the world...), I have been part of a thread which asks What are the three most important things you want to accomplish in the next 5 years?

There have been lots of interesting responses - some pipe dreams, some big hairy audacious goals, and some fairly general, pedestrian kind of plans. My response was this: 

The three I might consider important enough to share with 2933 strangers is not necessarily the three most important that are in my journal (or on my blog;)) 

Because this is a page that several thousand people could potentially contribute to, I am on one level less than enthusiastic about sharing my life dreams. On the other hand, i wonder, would putting them out there for such a large audience make me feel more accountable?

I have decided it would not. The dreams, the PLANS that I have for myself - and in particular those I which to achieve in the short term (5 years or less) are not really for public consumption. Sure there are some that I will need plenty of support for, and to that end I may well need to share them with a wider audience. But the others - they're the the ones that are most important to me are also most likely the ones most difficult to achieve - and so I think I prefer to keep those to myself.

The funny thing about a blog is that it feels like relative anonymity - writing for myself, posting it to a world of strangers, and possibly a few people I know. In fact to share a dream here feels way less scary than sharing it on Facebook where someone I know would surely read it. At the beginning of each year I make myself a ''to-do'' list...all kinds of things from small to audacious, but hopefully achievable, and this year I shared it with my real life friends, as well as on here. But they were pretty general things, nothing too personal, and certainly nothing I would be ashamed to not actually get ticked off this list. 

For all that though, I do like to think I am the same person inside and out, public and private - even if some things are better not shared or broadcasted, and so for my own amusement (and possibly yours...) here's a list of 16 things I'd like to achieve in the next five years - some sooner, some later - and some that are about to get their first public outing

- fall in love (with someone who falls in love back)

- have a regular column in a magazine, or syndicated in a newspaper (maybe grow my blog to something real)

- finally get on with some (real) tertiary study (might need a scholarship too...)

- become a Director of a Board of a large NFP or private sector organisation (in a paid capacity)

- successfully negotiate my daughter to teenage-hood (help welcome)

- have (at least) a weekend in a completely luxurious, outrageously expensive hotel or lodge (like the ones in Conde'Nast)

- be part of a flash mob (dancing)

- eat at the three ''must go to'' restaurants on my wish list: Chim Choo Ree, Huhu, The French Cafe (because I can)

- make a dent in my mortgage (even 10% would be good)

- own a car less than 10 years old (An Alfa Romeo please)

- learn to play golf (simply because I've never even tried it)

- go back to Japan (before I completely forget the language)

- to do a silent retreat/meditation thing (even just half a day)

- learn to make cheese

- be part of a pub quiz team

- get a full nights sleep (even one would be nice....)

What are your goals for the next 5 years? Are you brave enough to share them with the world?