From One Degree to Another

Phil Auxier's Blog

Connect

Leadership Email: Hold The Rope

by

Here’s the email I wrote to leaders in Reno County Monday, December 17:

Happy Holidays Everyone.  This will be my last post of the year in light of the next couple of weeks (plus, my wife is due to deliver our 4th child Dec 31).  I hope you’ll indulge me a story from the church world that may very well relate to our lives as leaders.  One of the earliest missionaries to leave England in what we know as the modern missionary movement went to, at that time, the unknown world of India.  And, when he was leaving, he told his supporters: “Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope.”  He understood the importance of uniting people around purpose.  I don’t know of a better way to end this year and begin looking to another one than to urge you to consider how you will hold the rope.  How will you hold to purpose more effectively in the coming year? 
Recently, I received a card from the Kansas Leadership Center on Holding to Purpose.  This resource was designed to help us engage in civic leadership more effectively.  It’s based on experiences shared by KLC Alumni in a Nov. 15, 2012 On the Balcony conference call, hosted by Ed O’Malley.  Here’s some bits and pieces from it:
“Holding to purpose is about maintaining focus on what you value and want to accomplish.  Staying grounded in an individual or collective group purpose is critical for progress.  The more provocative your vision, the more difficult the journey.”
What does hold to purpose mean?
·         Remembering to step back and evaluate whether the work you’re doing contributes to your purpose
·         Staying focused on the big picture beyond the small details
·         Remaining open to the possibility that your purpose might evolve as you engage people whose values and priorities are different from your own.
How do you help a group hold to purpose?
·         Challenge the assumption that there isn’t time to develop a shared purpose
·         Spend time diagnosing: listen and ask questions, specifically, “Why?”
·         Remind people there’s a difference between purpose and strategy
·         Repeatedly state the purpose.  Keep in top of mind at all times. 
How can you find and hold to your personal purpose?
·         Identify your passions and what you value to help you determine purpose
·         Engage others in your purpose, so you remain energized in the work
·         Pursue activities that relate to your purpose
·         Find someone who will hold you accountable and steady in your purpose
Principles and competencies related to holding to purpose:
·         Distinguish technical vs. adaptive work – adaptive work is rooted in values which will help you hold to purpose
·         Choose among competing values – to hold to purpose, you might have to sacrifice other things you care about
·         Take care of yourself – you stand a better chance of holding to purpose when you’re at your best
·         Give the work back – it’s easy to lose sight of your purpose if you don’t focus on your priorities
So, have a very purposeful and fruitful end of the year/start to next year and see if this doesn’t result in our making progress in those issues we deeply care about.  

Leadership Email — Coming Up for Air and One Thing

by

Here my leadership email to leaders in Reno County this week:

For the past few weeks, I’ve really been hammering on our need to diagnose the situation.  And, I want to diagnose our situation of diagnosing the situation by coming up for air today.  So, let’s take a deep breath.  Seriously.  It’s Monday.  Breath.  And, as we jump in, a quick review:  We started highlighting the importance of diagnosing and followed that up with a couple of reasons why we misdiagnose: we rush into solutions or we try to find pain-free fixes to problems.  Then, we emphasized the importance of determining whether our problem is adaptive or technical.  So, coming up for air today, let me try and “Give The Work Back” by asking you to define this difficult challenge of diagnosing.  Why do you and I tend to misdiagnose or rush right past this important piece?  What might be some potential solutions to your lack of practice in diagnosing the situation? 
I know these are hard questions for a Monday, but your consideration of them is an act of leadership and leadership is a difficult, risky work.  I think we all wish that leadership was easy and the world would just cater to our best laid plans, but the reality is that leadership is an opportunity for us to propel our purposes in the world.  We can make a difference.  Today, what’s one thing that you could practice in this whole diagnosis piece that might further your leadership?  That’s what I’m hoping all these weeks of engaging in this subject might provoke.  My hope is that we would make progress on the issues we care about.  So, will you join me today by stepping back from the minutiae for a second and asking diagnostic questions?  It just might help us make that progress we long to see take place.  

Leadership Email – It’s A Sucker, Stupid.

by

Here’s the email I sent to leaders in Reno County on 12/3/12:

Funny story from a couple of old codgers here at the church: they were sitting in Daylight Donuts for a morning coffee and in walked a family with a little girl, who had a sucker in her mouth.  One of these guys said to her, “Are you enjoying that lollipop, sweetie?”  And she said without batting an eye, “It’s a sucker, stupid.”  I’ve laughed about this story time and again, but all too often this is how our civil discourse is about issues we care about, isn’t it?  We sincerely want to make a difference or make progress, only to be stopped in our tracks by the “It’s a sucker, stupid” people.
I, for one, have been helped by the competencies at this point.  You see, what is exposed in my bristling at this statement is my lack of diagnosing the situation.  I’ve begun to treat a problem as a technical one when it’s an adaptive one.  Here’s another quote from Ed O’Malley in The Competencies For Civic Leadership, p.3: “Technical problems live in people’s heads and logic systems.  They are susceptible to facts and authoritative expertise.  Adaptive challenges live in people’s hearts and stomachs.  They are about values, loyalties and beliefs.  Progress on them requires the people with the problem to do the work, and the work involves refashioning those deeply held beliefs.”  To relate it back to our situation, it’s the belief that a sucker isn’t a lollipop that caused the girl to rebuff those codgers.  Might some of the resistance we face be due to the fact that we’re treating adaptive problems with technical solutions?    We’re engaging brains and not hearts.  So, get back to purpose.  Dive deeper to find that common ground.  And, see if this doesn’t help us make progress as a community. 

Leadership Email – Torching Glaciers

by

Here’s the email I wrote this week to leaders in Reno County…

I once heard a speaker use an amazingly graphic image about “torching glaciers.”  I guess this cemented in my mind because it’s such an interesting image.  Think of a glacier, with its slow moving, voluminous mass.  And, picture someone beneath that glacier with a blowtorch, with water dripping little by little.  For many of us, our work seems like torching glaciers.  We know that there are huge, adaptive, wide needs that exist.  I think of non-profit work that I’m involved in and how there will always be another child or family that needs mentoring or strengthening.  I know many of you are on the ground floor, “torching glaciers.”  It’s difficult work at times, but little by little, just like the drops of water from the torching of the glacier, we see successes.  And, even if you’re not in non-profit work, progress may come in big chunks at time (like, undoubtedly, when you are torching a glacier) but by and large, progress seems slow or even nearly stagnant at other times.
For this reason, all of us involved in leadership roles in Reno County should be encouraged about the happenings in Hutchinson this week.  The Hutchinson Community Foundation is sponsoring Match Day.  I view Match Day as a torching of a glacier.  In a sense, we’re empowering the 26 different non-profitswith resources.  We’re widening the scope of the blowtorch so that the HCF’s vision of “a one-time opportunity to dig deeper, to grow each endowment exponentially, so that our nonprofit partners can enrich people and programs for even greater impact” is reached.  Match Day isn’t the final solution to the problems we face.  But, it is certainly a means to be mobilized to make some progress.
Let me personally invite you to consider (if you haven’t been asked already) what you might give on Wednesday, November 28th at Eagle Media (here’s some more details).  We are all, I believe, united around the goal of making progress on the deepest needs facing our community.  Maybe this Wednesday could be a way you can torch a glacier and help make some progress in areas you care about deeply.  

Leadership Email – More on Misdiagnosis

by

Here’s the email I sent out to leaders in Reno County this week:

Having seen the importance of diagnosing the situation and looking at one reason we misdiagnose, today, we think about another reason we misdiagnose:
“Find a Pain-Free Fix, Please.  Second, the actions that are preferred by the community are ones that address the manifestations of the crisis with as little cost or pain as possible.  The hurry-up legislation enacted to deal with the economic crisis was designed to stem the hemorrhaging rather than address the underlying causes.
“That approach to the economic crisis illustrates the single biggest diagnostic error people make in framing civic issues: treating adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems (The Competencies For Civic Leadership, p.3). 
Little cost, no pain, get me a solution now.  These things can contribute to our misdiagnosing an issue.  We must dig a little deeper into these adaptive challenges (more on that next time).  But, today, my purpose is simply to place in you a desire for more.  Don’t misdiagnose by settling for quick, pain-free fixes.  They may alleviate short term voices, but will exacerbate long term issues.  Diagnose the situation and see if we don’t make more substantial progress on those issues you care about so deeply.

Leadership Email – Why We Misdiagnose, Part 1

by

My email to leaders in Reno County from Monday, 11/12/12:

Continuing a series we began a couple of weeks ago on diagnosing the situation, remember last time we thought about the importance of diagnosing.  Today?  “Why do people misdiagnose the situation?  Two reasons stand out:

“Don’t Just Stand There, Do Something.  When a community or organization is facing a difficult issue, there is almost always tremendous pressure, especially on those in authority, to act, to do something, making it difficult to spend the time necessary to do a deep diagnosis.  In the complex economic meltdown in the fall of 2008, President George W. Bush and the Congress took unprecedented steps in a matter of days.  Inaction would not have been easily tolerated by the public.”  (Taken from The Competencies For Civic Leadership, pp.2-3)

While most of us are go-getters and recognize the need for action, we can easily rush into action plans at the neglect of diagnosis.  This may later reveal that actually we did misdiagnose the situation.  So, today, realize that part of your action in solving a problem may very well be hitting the pause button on that action plan and seeking some diagnosis so that wise(r) plans are made.

We’ll look at another way we tend to misdiagnose next week.  Thanks for taking time to consider this important step today.  Take time to diagnose and see if it doesn’t help us make progress on the issues we care about deeply.

Leadership Email: Diagnosis Is Needed

by

Here’s my leadership email to Reno County Leaders on Monday, October 29:

I had a child wake up croupy this morning.  You know what that means, since I’m not an M.D….a trip to the doctor.  Diagnosis is needed.  For the next few weeks, we are going to explore diagnosing the situation again.  It’s a key part of the KLC Competencies.  I’m lifting some of this content from a document that’s available online: The Competencies For Civic Leadership. 
Under DIAGNOSE SITUATION, we read:
“What does it mean to diagnose situations for the purpose of exercising effective leadership on difficult civic challenges?  And why is it the first of the KLC Competencies?”
“If you are trying to intervene to make progress on a tough issue, it is critical you understand what you are intervening into.  And our experience and observation is that the biggest single mistake people make in trying to exercise leadership on civic challenges is in misdiagnosing the situation.  Chuck Krider, a longtime godfather of Kansas economic policy, put it this way: ‘Problem identification is key.  If you don’t identify the right problems, then you are working on the wrong thing!  What are you going to work on?  What are you going to do?  To set good objectives and goals, you have to understand the problem.’”
We’ll stop there for today.  Hopefully you feel the importance of this.  Maybe begin our journey in reacquainting yourself with diagnosing the situation by thinking of a difficult challenge you’re facing.  Like a diamond with multi-faceted beauty, your challenge probably has multi-faceted problems and solutions.  Think of how you typically have responded.  What other things might you need to consider.  This is how we begin to diagnose.  We recognize a problem and notice the gap between where it leaves us and where we’d like to be. But, more on that next time…
I hope you’re encouraged in the difficult and needed work you are giving to our community.  With you in the trenches of leadership…

Leadership Email: Suspect #1

by

Here’s the email I wrote to leaders in Reno County on Monday, 10/22/12:

I love Sherlock Holmes stuff.  Everything from the old BBC series starring Jeremy Brett to the new BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatchto even the new CBS series Elementary starring Lucy Liu draw my attention in quickly.  One particular episode stuck out to me (it’s called the Naval Treaty).  Holmes believes to have solved it, but when questioned about whom he suspects, he pauses and says, “I suspect myself, for coming to conclusions too rapidly.”  In recent weeks in leadership emails, we’ve discussed taking care of ourselves and, most recently, identifying triggers.  I find that one consistent problem in my leadership is actually me.  The leadership principles of the KLC say that Leadership starts with you and must engage others.  My weaknesses and rushing to conclusions too easily stand in the way of my most productive acts of leadership.  I’m guessing that may be the case for some of you.  So, my simple request today is to manage self and realize that as you do, you’re positioning yourself to be the most effective leader you can be.  That’s where we all want to be.  Today, then, examine yourself.  And, after making the necessary corrections, step out to engage others and see if we don’t make a difference in those issues we care about so deeply.
With you in this adventure…

Leadership Email – Trigger

by

Here’s the email I sent to leaders in our community this past Monday:

Last week, we thought about football, acts of leadership and managing self.  This week, I want to think about managing self by “knowing your strengths, vulnerabilities and triggers.”  What led me to think about this was a meeting I was in organizing a board meeting in our community and something was said that “triggered” a response from an individual.  I didn’t think anything of it, but this person came to me later apologizing for how their reaction had affected the meeting.  I reassured them that I didn’t think it was an issue, but it did get me thinking about leadership and responses in our community.
I wonder how many acts of leadership are hijacked in our community because we don’t know our triggers and manage ourselves.  Again, an illustration from my life was how a major trigger for me was when we would seem to be making progress on an issue and one person would say, “Let me play the devil’s advocate.”  I would get very irritated at this and sometimes even quip back, “Remember whose team you’re on when you advocate something the devil would like us to think about.”  I thought this was clever and especially loaded to get my way in the church context I work in.  The only problem was it didn’t help our leadership team make progress on the issues we care about.  My inability to manage myself and deal with my trigger(s) was hindering my leadership capabilities.  Thankfully, I’ve been able to make some progress on this issue by admitting it’s a trigger to those I serve with and, having reassurance that we are united on purpose, have been able to see the benefit of “having the other side of an issue presented.” 
So, what is that trigger for you?  Name it.  Admit it to those you serve with.  And, begin to manage yourself by realizing that you are a most effective leader when your triggers are acknowledged.  Hoping that you see much benefit in this approach this week…

Leadership Email: RGIII, Managing Self and the Leader

by

Here’s my email to leaders in Reno County from Monday, 10/8/12:

I was searching for some inspiration this morning on how to best encourage all the fabulous leaders in Reno County and was mindlessly hearing SportsCenter recap the NFL happenings (specifically the Washington Redskins game), when I heard it: “For RGIII to be the leader he needs to be on the field, he’s going to have to learn to manage himself better.”  Oddly familiar isn’t it?  There are many things that are consistently on our minds as leaders.  One of the core leadership principles is that “It starts with you and must engage others.”  Further, in the leadership competencies we have this idea of managing self.  Now, sure, we would expect that a highly touted quarterback making millions would need to manage himself to best serve the organization.  For him, this means knowing when to put down his head and plow into a cornerback or when to hand the ball off or throw it away.  But, our leadership opportunities are just as serious and vital to our progress in this community.

If we really believe that leadership is an activity in which it starts with us and must engage others, then being aware of ourselves, managing ourselves, will indeed have ramifications in our leadership in this community.  Let me remind you of some of the aspects of managing self:

  • Know your strengths, vulnerabilities and triggers
  • Know the story others tell about you
  • Choose among competing values
  • Get used to uncertainty and conflict
  • Experiment beyond your comfort zone
  • Take care of yourself

Managing self is important to our acts of leadership.  Today, then, just like an NFL quarterback, learn to manage yourself and see if we don’t make progress on this issues we care about so deeply.