A Day for Quotes

While many of our entries introduce resources and concepts for your consideration, sometimes we would like to just share some ideas that centered us.

Today, I offer three quotes that centered and inspired me and I hope do the same for you:

Beauty surrounds us but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it. Rumi

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace. Buddha

It's not the form, it's the quality of your presence. Thomas Crum

Enjoy your day!

Passion and Compassion in Leadership

In researching material for this blog, I discovered a blog through the Harvard Business School called Conversation Starters. I was attracted to a post by John Baldoni, a leadership consultant, executive coach, and author. In a selection entitled You Need Both Passion and Compassion to Lead, Mr. Baldoni offers these suggestions on how to support a team in developing both passion and compassion.

To stoke passion:

• Set high goals. People who love what they do love to push to see how high and how well they can fly. By setting stretch objectives, you push motivated people to do their best. The pursuit dovetails with their passion.
• Stoke the fires. Give frequent feedback so people know where they stand. When folks get off track, show them the way back so they can apply their passion toward meeting the needs of the team.
• Measure results. Passionate people love to know how they are doing and what it means. Show how what they do matters in terms of gains against goals. And whatever the measurement, broadcast it.

To nurture compassion:

• Coach frequently. Management is a process of enabling others to succeed, specifically putting them into positions where they can succeed. Provide them with guidance. This is the compassion equivalent of "stoke the fires."
• Put people first. Look for ways to put this concept into action. Insist on people-friendly HR policies related to sick leave and child and elder care. Consider flexible schedules. Look for ways to accommodate those who want to work part-time, such as parents with young children.
• Support volunteerism. Make it known that your organization will donate time and effort to community service efforts. Perhaps it is a local school or maybe a family shelter or a multiplicity of assistance efforts. Some organizations provide paid leave for people engaged in community volunteer efforts. That is wonderful but not always possible. What is possible for most however is simple recognition of community need and a commitment to serve it.

All good thoughts to start the week!

Have you read?

The Heart Speaks by Mimi Guarneri, MD is one of those books that I just don’t want to part with. Through all of my aikido/conflict resolution training, I have been taught never to lose sight of the bigger picture. In aikido, a person grabs your wrist and if you focus on that grab, you can get punched in the face. You made the error of focusing on the issue, rather than paying attention to the whole person. When we take aikido ‘off the mat’ into conflict resolution, the wrist grab represents the conflict or stressor. Progress in resolving a conflict only happens when you stop, take a deep breath, and look beyond the conflict into understanding the full experience of the person grabbing your wrist.

The Heart Speaks is a wonderful illustration of this concept of seeing the greater whole. Dr. Guarneri writes about her practice as a cardiologist and the lessons she has learned about healing. Through stories of her patients, she shares her lesson that to heal the entire person she had to shift from focusing simply on fixing the physical heart. When she broadened her gaze beyond the physical, she found cues to heal the full person. Only by knowing the whole heart – ‘the mental heart, affected by hostility, stress, and depression; the emotional heart, able to be crushed by loss; the intelligent heart, with a nervous system all its own; the spiritual heart, which years for a higher purpose, and the universal heart, which communicates with others’ was she able to support her patients in true healing.

I heartily recommend spending a few hours with this book. It will inspire and energize and send you away remembering to always pause and take in the bigger picture.

The Willingness to Wait

A willingness to wait often makes the difference in the art of aikido. A person rushes at you with an attack. For the ensuing throw to be successful, you must respond in a way so the attacker becomes receptive to your energy and you can take the lead in deescalating the attack. This requires synchronicity. If you act too soon, the attacker resists and attempts to regain control of the situation and escalate the confrontation.

The art of centering helps you wait. This integrated mind/body state increases calmness and awareness. It allows you to feel your partner’s energy and time your response for maximum effectiveness.

On the mat in aikido, the result of centering and waiting is a well-executed throw. In daily life, centering helps with waiting too – so you sense when in dialog to pause and listen. And, when you do speak, to do so with compassion and wording that encourages the other person to follow your lead so you can both, together, resolve your dispute.

Take a step today to become more centered in your life. How? Many books have been written on that and we will share those with you over time. For now, take a deep breath and slowly exhale. Do that a few times during your day and the rest will follow.

Leadership Made Simple

Leadership Made Simple is a handy book by Ed Oakley and Doug Krug that presents a five-step framework for moving an organization forward in times of stress and conflict. In the words of the authors, the framework is simple, not simplistic. It provides a step-by-step process to move from a problem to solutions and their implementation.

I love that the first step is to ‘focus forward’ – to not dwell on the problem and all that has not worked but on what has worked. This shift in orientation changes the group energy and inspires creativity as people begin to consider, ‘what else could we be doing?’. The role of the leader is to get people into this mindset.

And, how does a leader accomplish this ‘forward focus’ step? It is through asking effective questions. I’ve already mentioned in an earlier post that I love good questions. I’m in good company, I guess, as Oakley and Krug attribute the following quote to Albert Einstein:

All of life’s answers are available, if we just knew what questions to ask.

As Ed and Doug present their framework for leadership, they are constantly discussing what makes for an effective question and giving examples of questions to use within their framework, depending upon the application (i.e. solving a conflict, evaluating projects, initiating a project or facilitating teamwork). I deeply appreciate books that offer multiple concrete examples of an idea that is being suggested.

The book is a deceptively quick read. Applying all that it undoubtedly entails skill and practice – as is true with any new idea that one wishes to integrate into their lives. What is great about this book is that it inspires you to try its method right away.

Centered Listening

Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking.
Bernard M Baruch, American economist & advisor to Presidents

This quote came through my email box this morning and caught my eye. Actually it caused me to heave a big sigh of relief. As an introvert, I am always happy for a justification not to talk.

I have a feeling that Mr. Baruch is referring to what I have come to know as Centered Listening. This is quite different from nodding one’s head as another speaks while either busily ticking off in your mind all the things that you need to do later, or mentally rehearsing the point you want to make in the conversation.

Centered listening means giving your full, undivided attention to the person speaking, treating the person as the most treasured person in your world for that moment. With centered listening, you take in not just the words that they are speaking, but the essence of their message, what it conveys about their feelings and state of mind.

The best way to do this is, of course, to center yourself before the conversation starts. Take a minute to take some deep breaths to calm your mind, relax your body and focus on what you value in your relationship with this person. (Tom Crum’s Three Deep Breaths work great for this – more on that in another post, I promise.) Hint: If you don’t have time to truly listen to the person just then, ask them if you could get together with them later.

Hope that you have the time to enjoy your day today.

Why Journey to Center?

The phrase Journey to Center best captures the purpose behind this blog – to share thoughts, stories, and information that can help you on your journey to center. It is a phrase that Ellen, Judy R. and I know well. We have all worked for Tom Crum in various capacities over the years. Journey to Center is the title of Tom’s second book. If you haven’t read it yet, you are missing out on some of the most fascinating, true stories of Tom’s adventures on his own journey to center. It is also the name for Tom’s annual fall program in the Rocky Mountains – where Ellen, Judy and I serve as part of Tom’s team of trainers.
Here is one of my favorites quotes from the book, Journey to Center. It is good advice that never fails me.

The path through the wilderness begins
with the breath – deep and full.
Inhale calmness, exhale awareness.

Changing Your Point of View

In aikido, my Sensei stresses the importance of positive mind. In my qi gong studies, I have learned many breathing exercises for replacing negative emotions with positive emotions. There is a strong emphasis in the work of Tom Crum upon positive energy and power. So, I was delighted when someone recently shared an article from October’s Harvard Business Review that related to this theme. The article by Schwartz and McCarthy is entitled, Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time. (reprints)
What caught my eye was a series of questions designed to cultivate the positive in a conflict situation. Schwartz and McCarthy use a metaphor of changing a ‘lens’ to view the situation. Here are the three lenses that they suggest trying when you are in a difficult situation with someone.

1. Reverse lens: “What would the other person in this conflict say, and how might he be right?”
2. Long lens: “How will I likely view this situation in six months?”
3. Wide lens: “How can I grow and learn from this situation?”

Opportunity Knocks

In November I broke a finger during an aikido demonstration. My hand was put in a cast that extended above my wrist and restricted my movement. I was instructed to refrain from aikido and running – two of my favorite centering/stress release activities. Much of my work took twice as long as previously as I picked gingerly at computer keyboards. I quickly realized that I had the makings of a great ‘story’ and a choice - play victim to my injury or find a ‘sword’ to cut through my story and stay on purpose.

It just so happens I had the perfect sword. For more than a year, I have followed the blog/podcast of Leroy Sievers, a journalist diagnosed with multiple cancers. About the time I broke my little finger, Leroy was recovering from complications of back surgery. Barely able to walk, he had an antibiotic pump in a hand and drains in his back. Sort of puts a broken finger in perspective, wouldn’t you say?

Any time my finger hurt or I grew frustrated with my restrictions, I thought of Leroy and used Tom’s Three Deep Breaths. No surprise, I began to transcend my situation and see opportunity in my injury. Instead of running, I began walking and found myself in awe with the beauty of our woods in winter. Stepping back from my aikido teaching, I had time for some dojo administrative projects. Intellectually I always knew that my injury was nothing compared to the injuries flashing across my TV screen from the Middle East and elsewhere. But, moving from intellectualizing to actually living a practice is a big step. My ‘swords’ of Leroy’s image and Tom’s Three Deep Breaths helped me cut through my ‘story’ and even enjoy my challenge.

As 2008 begins, I hope you find swords for your own stories so this year is both powerful and positive for you.

This story appeared in this month's Centering Hints, published by Aiki Works. If you would like to receive these hints every month, please click here.

Cooking Up Our Environment

Don't the three of us look happy? Well, we are! I'm so looking forward to sharing this blog with two of my Aiki sisters, Ellen and Judy. We all anticipate sharing ideas about centering, aikido, and living more purposeful and powerful lives – and hearing ideas, too. For my part, I love to talk about conflict, communication, and intention.

As a beginning, there's a quotation from A Simpler Way, by Margaret J. Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers that goes, "The environment is invented by our presence in it." This simple phrase helps me reflect and take more intentional action in general, and especially when I feel challenged or pressured.

In difficult moments, I often feel acted upon. It's important, I think, to remember that I'm also an actor. When I speak, I am doing more than communicating information. I'm helping to create meaning in the environment and in the relationship. When I hold back, I'm in fact saying something, too. When any of us simply walk into a space, the space is changed.

So how will I create my life today? Will I influence my environments intentionally or reactively? Blogging is new to me, and "environment" in the e-world seems a whole new ball game. How will we cook up our environment together?

Let us hear from you!

Judy Ringer