Leadership Challenge

Validation

My good friend, and Master Leadership Challenge Facilitator, Steve Coats of International Leadership Associates alerted me to a wonderful video on YouTube, and I just couldn't resist sharing it with everyone. It's entitled "Validation," and the clever double entendre in the title is meant to refer both to the parking variety and the kind when we demonstrate that we truly value others. It's a wonderfully uplifting little show that's made over a million people smile. It also reminds us that we all can have a positive, and a negative impact, on the attitudes and behaviors of others just from very small gestures. 

During these really tough economic times, it's vitally important to remember how essential it is to tell others how valuable they are to the success of our efforts. The research makes it very clear that when people feel valued in their work they are more engaged and more committed. And, as an added bonus, we get to feel good about ourselves as well.  Take 16 minutes and lighten up your day.  And forward this on to others so they can smile, too.  Even more importantly, remember that in every interaction with others you have an opportunity to, as Phil Turner once remarked to us in an interview, "uplift other people's spirits." Go ahead, make their day!

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Gratitude Is the Best Reward

About once a week I am blessed to receive an email from a reader who passes along an uplifting story about a leader who exemplifies one of The Five Practices. Two weeks ago it was a note about coach Noel Klippenstein at Marshall High School in Falls Church, Virginia that prompted me to write about youth leadership. This week it's a story passed along by Beth Anderson, Diaconal Minister at Concordia College in Moorehad, Minnesota. Beth told us about a bank in Fargo, North Dakota, the State Bank and Trust, that "thoroughly illustrates the points you are making about Encouraging the Heart…" They've been featured on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and Beth pointed us to the video link about the "Generous Bank Pays It Forward." Click on the link and take a look and listen for yourself.

When asked what they don't like about the bank, State Bank and Trust employees say things like "I haven't found anything yet," "I have to go home," and, with tongue in cheek, management "smiles too much." It's not surprising to learn that this feeling of love for the company is a result of a very conscious strategy. The mission of State Bank and Trust, says Michael Solberg, Chief Operating Officer, is "happy employees, happy customers."

Last year the bank did something quite unusual. In addition to the more traditional year-end bonus and contribution to employees' 401K plan, State Bank and Trust granted an extra $1,000 bonus with one important condition. The money could not be given to an employee, nor could it be given to a family member. It had to be paid forward to a person in need in the community, and the good deed had to be documented for everyone to see.

One woman paid for an abandoned kitten to get life-saving surgery. Another gave it to a young, struggling new widow, and another bought DVDs and DVD players for the local cancer ward. The faces on the employees, as they passed along the money to those in need, communicated the central message. Giving to others brought great joy and happiness to those who gave. As correspondent Steve Hartman reports, "this gift of giving is truly the best bonus they have ever gotten."

A feeling of gratitude is, in fact, one of the secrets to happiness. In her book The How of Happiness, Sonia Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, writes "The expression of gratitude is a kind of metastrategy for achieving happiness. Gratitude is many things to many people. It is wonder; it is appreciation; it is looking at the bright side of a setback; it is fathoming abundance; it is thanking someone in your life; it is thanking God; it is 'counting blessings.'" She then goes on to cite research that demonstrates that "People who are consistently grateful have been found to be relatively happier, more energetic, and more hopeful and to report more experiencing more positive emotions." Grateful individuals are also more helpful and more forgiving than those who are less disposed to gratefulness. Is it any coincidence, then, that the folks at State Bank and Trust are so happy?

Gratitude, according to Lyubomirsky, boosts happiness it eight ways. First, it promotes savoring positive life experiences. Second, expressing gratitude increases a sense of self-worth. Third, it helps you cope with stress. Fourth, it encourages moral behavior. Fifth, gratitude helps build social bonds. Sixth, it inhibits envy. Seventh, because gratitude is incompatible with negative emotions it can diminish anger and bitterness. And lastly, it keeps us from taking the good things for granted.

The next time you want to uplift your own spirits, make a gratitude list. Reflect on and make a list of three to five things for which you are grateful at that moment. (Lyubomirsky recommends that we do this daily.) And encourage your constituents to do the same. Maybe you could even start your next team meeting by having everyone go around the room and complete the sentence, "today I am grateful for….." It may not be a conventional business meeting opener, but think about how happy everyone will be when they hear all that positive stuff.

And let me reveal a personal secret. Every morning when I wake up I look at my wife and I tell her, "I am the luckiest man in the world." That's how I feel, and it sure does help us both to start the day on a positive note.

Thank you for reading this blog. I am truly grateful for your interest.

Posted by
Jim Kouzes

Happiness Is Out There

A couple Saturday's ago, while running the usual weekend errands, I was tuned to my local public radio station, KQED-FM, listening to NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. My mood perked up immediately when I heard one of my favorite interviewers, Scott Simon, announce that next up on his show would be Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. For the next eight minutes I listened to the delightful grump entertain with stories about fascinating people and places and the lessons he learned and epiphanies he had while traveling the globe from Iceland to Thailand in his hunt for happiness. Do yourself a favor and listen to the entire eight minutes online on NPR. Then read the book.

One of the insights that Weiner had, and one that is well worth all of us pondering, is that "Happiness is not inside of us but out there. Or, to be more precise, the line between out there and in here is not as sharply defined as we think." And then he goes on to quote the philosopher Alan Watts who observed, "…you cannot have what is 'in here' unless you have what is 'out there.'" In other words, place matters.

I hope I am not spoiling the book for you in sharing one story. (Actually, I really can't spoil the book, because Weiner is a wonderful storyteller, and you'll want to read all of what he's written.) I think one vignette captures his main point. "Of all the places I visited, of all the people I met, one keeps coming back to me again and again: Karma Ura, the Bhutanese scholar and cancer survivor. 'There is no such thing as personal happiness,' he told me. 'Happiness is one hundred percent relational.' At the time, I didn't take him literally. I thought he was exaggerating to make his point: that our relationships with other people are more important than we think….But now I realize Karma meant exactly what he said. Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people…."

This point was driven home to me this past weekend when I was with an annual gathering of some very close friends and colleagues. We've been meeting ritualistically the second week of January for the last ten years. One of the activities we did with author John Izzo, based on his new book, The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die, was to first think about all the things we wanted to do or accomplish between now and the time we die. Next John asked us to now imagine we were given the news that we had only six months to live. What would that list of things to do or accomplish look like?

There was a marked difference in the two lists. The long-term future was more about lofty goals and meaningful contributions. The second six-month list was all about relationships. It was all about spending time with family and friends, visiting people I hadn't seen in a long time, enjoying the little pleasures of being with people. This was true for the majority of my other colleagues as well. Perhaps what we want most is to take with us on our next hunt for happiness is the very thing that brings us happiness in this life—the people we love, the relationships we have.

What has all this got to do with leadership? It struck me that Barry Posner and I have written for years about how leadership is a relationship—a relationship between those who choose to follow and those who aspire to lead. It's the quality of this relationship that determines how effective leaders are. After having listened to Eric Weiner and looked at my own life, it also strikes me that exemplary leaders play a role in how happy we all are. Not just satisfied, but happy. Is there a correlation between our happiness and our performance? I don't know that we know, but maybe it doesn't really matter. When our final days arrive my sense is we'll be thinking less about what we accomplished and more about the joy we brought to the lives of others. What do you think?

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Charles Dickens’ Leadership Lesson

Three days before Christmas my wife, son, and I drove over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco to see the American Conservatory Theater’s production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We’d seen the play many times before, but were anxious to join all the other revelers in the spirit of the season. It was an exuberant production, and we immediately got caught up in the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemption from humbugging miser to generous benefactor.

There is one scene from the performance that has stuck in my mind ever since that night. It’s the episode where the first of three Spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, visits Scrooge and takes him back to, among other places, the warehouse of Old Fezziwig where Scrooge had once been an apprentice. The jovial Old Fezziwig closes the warehouse for a Christmas party, and everyone, including the young Ebenezer and his first love, Belle, dance and laugh and sing, experiencing all the joys of the season.

As Scrooge observes all this merriment, he is visibly transformed. Both saddened by his own current state and overjoyed to be young again, he joins in the fun. At one point there is this interaction between the Ghost of Christmas Past and Scrooge:

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,

"Why! Is it not! He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

Go back. Reread the last paragraph again…..

Old Fezziwig’s power was “in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant,” and yet these were the very things that made service light and pleasurable and employee’s happy. Don’t we all possess this kind of power? Don’t we all have the capacity to make someone else’s day light, pleasurable and happy by word or a look?

In 1843 Charles Dickens didn’t have a clue about the global economy or the wireless Web or social networking. But he sure knew what uplifted people’s spirits. It wasn’t anything more sophisticated than a laugh, a kind word, a caring gesture, and a joyful heart.

As we ring in this New Year, let’s all resolve to employ the power of Old Fezziwig, the power that lies in each of us to make others’ lives significant and fulfilling.

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Keeping Hope Alive

I was watching Oprah yesterday....yes, I admit it… while on the treadmill, and I caught the last fifteen minutes of her show with Randy Pausch, professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. What’s a popular computer science professor doing on Oprah? He was there because he’s dying. Randy is suffering from pancreatic cancer, and he’s passionate about sharing his experiences with others in hopes that the lessons of dying can help others improve the quality of living.

I was first introduced to Randy on September 20, 2007 through an article by Jeff Zaslow in the Wall Street Journal. Zaslow wrote about Randy’s “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon and called it a “a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.” I was so struck by the piece that I took the hour to listen and watch Randy. I am not alone. About a million others have also viewed Randy's lecture. The response was so powerful that Jeff Zaslow wrote a followup piece the next week. Randy then appeared on Good Morning America and ABC World News. If you have not yet watched Randy’s speech, I strongly urge you to. You will be moved to tears by the humanity of this man. And you’ll learn lessons that apply to leadership and every aspect of your life. For instance: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things.” I’m going to put that on a slide and use it in my speeches!

Randy is a role model for leaders. He demonstrates the power of being positive and resilient when faced with the worst of all outcomes. The response to his openness and genuineness clearly illustrates the kind of leader we desparately need in a crisis – someone who does not deny the diagnosis but defies the verdict. John McDonnell once said that “Adversity introduces you to yourself,” and Randy Pausch reveals a person who keeps hope alive. Thanks, Randy.

Posted by Jim Kouzes