John Birks Gillespie

"You only have so many notes and what makes a style is how you get from one to another."

Diz

What If The Beatles Were The Only Band?

We (I) forget that the world is so large that there is more than enough room for us all and all our ideas. We can get caught up in the game of comparing. I compare myself to you and determine you are better, brighter, stronger or better looking. So I don't move. I freeze. No action taken.

Imagine all those bands that came along after the Beatles broke through the Rock-n-Roll door. Imagine if they thought: "Well, they are the best, all the room on the stage has been taken. There is no room for us."

If that had happened we have no Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beach Boys, Elton John, and my favorite, Jethro Tull. But that didn't happen.

It didn't happen because in every case, those other bands said something like: "The Beatles got through the door. It can be done. Let's go." And go they all did.

They also got on stage because there are no limits to the number of stages we can play on and more importantly there are no limits on stage building.

Well there are two limits:

1) Choosing to forget that one person can change the world.
2) Choosing to lack faith in myself.

Yep. Those two will do it. Those two will kill anything. Those two will snuff out all stage building and all the music.

The Beatles are not the only band because all those other bands were committed to changing the world with their music and they believed.

Have a little faith

We Are All In This Together

The health care debate in the United States is a debate of excess. The excess is the money spent on health care vs. the outcome. We are grossly out of shape in our country. We are too fat. Nearly one-third of Americans are clinically obese.

We are arguing about the wrong issue. We need to be debating health and fitness. Stop by your local school one day. It doesn't matter which school; any school between elementry and high school will do. Look at the students. Count how many of them are "over weight." Do you own data collection. How many over weights do you get for each 100 students.

Now check it out at your work. Do the same count. Now just stand on a street corner and do the same research. We are too fat.

Now find where fitness is located in the health care debate. Look hard. You will have to look hard to find any consistent fitness recommendations. What there is to this aspect of the debate comes and goes. That's because this "logical" element of health care lacks organized advocacy.

On the health care side we have insurance companies, doctors, health care providers and the ever present lawyers. They all have more at stake in keeping the system working the same and that does not include fitness.

But why should health fitness be a legislated policy? Being fit and healthy is a personal choice. The truth is we are an over-weight society because we have chosen to be fat. And the culture supports fat over fitness. Just watch the TV advertisements.

I read a comment the other day that went like this: Buy a computer game called "Go Outside and Play." Great advice kids. Take us parents with you.

Ted Kennedy as Role Model

I admit it: I have little regard for elected officials. So much time and energy is wasted by these people as they underachieve in pursuit of pleasing their local constituents and work to be re-elected. Or so it seems to me. So many wicked problems need tending: health care, 20,000 people dying each day in developing countries, wars, near wars and here at home, a lamentable education system. Where are these people when we need them?

I come by this viewpoint because I'm really lame at politics. Admitting I'm lame means I can either get better at it or dismiss it and those who practice it. Most of the time I chose the latter and proclaim that I'm taking the high road of noble work vs. the dirty work of politicking.

I have not had a client in the last 10 years that has not struggled with the office or organizational politics that is part of the currency of getting work done. Most of us are not very good at politics. This incompetence is different than those who are good at getting what they want at the expense of others. This is often called politics but it is not even close. This is self-serving narcissism and eventually it will get one professional killed.

The politics that I need to be better at and the politics that my clients need to be better at is now being reviewed in just about every devotion to Ted Kennedy and his accomplishments as a Senator after his passing this week. In today's New York Times, Adam Clymer lays it bare for all to see. As does David Brooks and Gail Collins in yesterday's NYT. Both pieces tell of a man who understood from his earliest days that the way to get work done, to make progress on difficult issues and to achieve effective legislation required a sense of the politics of those involved and the importance of building relationships that sustained under pressure. The kind of pressure that always comes up when different agendas need to find common ground.

It is beautiful to read of this man's ability to build close relationships with Republican Senators like Orin Hatch and even former President George Bush. We have been living through a time of such division in our political system and that division has worked its way down to our local communities. While all this was going on, back in Washington DC there was Ted Kennedy, working every day and some nights to find common ground among diverse opinions for the sake of crafting legislation that worked for the majority.

That work was not glamorous. It required studying the issues in great detail, being informed, listening to opposing views and working both sides of the Senate until something good happened while (and this is important) never being concerned if he would be given credit for the outcome.

Ted Kennedy's lasting legacy will be that he legislated better then any Senator of his time. If we want to be more competent at the politics of work and of life, Ted Kennedy is about as fine a role model as we could find.

Thanks Senator Kennedy.

A Slice of Life

I have played golf regularly for 45 years. And I have regularly produced the same results for 45 years. Last week after another mediocre two rounds of golf, I actually gave some thought to this endless plateau of mediocrity. I was surprised by two insights:

The first was that I never thought about how long I’ve been accepting this poor performance. The second insight was how comfortable I was with playing golf (an activity I love) so poorly.

But something else showed up during my self-inflicted golf lobotomy: I was sick of it.

I decided that I either needed to change and get better or get out of the game. What I was specifically tired of doing was slicing my driver off the tee. Aside from all the problems it produces for scoring well, a slice is considered a weak golf shot. I’ve always viewed golf as both a game and a metaphor for my life and now I found myself looking at my game and my life through this “slice” framework and I did not like what I saw.

Something needed to change and so I set about to do just that. In one day I changed my grip, my stance, my ball position at address and my swing plane. Most golfers are both inflexible and superstitious about each of these elements of the golf shot and to change just one is often a trial of patience and discipline. My decision to change “everything” was a bit liberating and it also put me on tilt because I was having a difficult time remembering what I was doing; what was the priority and how to do it all?

There was also something else I experienced; being a beginner. I was almost back to square 1 and while it was hard (still is after playing my first round with all this new golf swing stuff) it was very refreshing and I felt light.

Most all my work with my clients is fundamentally about changing their “golf swing.” I realized that it has been some time since I had a major change project of my own on the line like my clients do. I do need to change my golf game and get better and all these changes to my swing are a challenge but it’s just golf and I’m still only destine to play with my chucklehead friends on the weekend. So the change edge here is both real and not significant to real impact.

What this golf lobotomy really highlighted was how I’ve settled in to my work and lost contact with the edge. I’ve been playing smaller then my aspirations. What I see is that my work needs the same overhaul as my golf swing. Otherwise I’ll continue to play weak and hit my shots due right into the rough. I’ll keep you posted.

Purpose is a Good Place to Start

Changing something by choice and design is different than change that is mandated by another. Organizations make decisions to change some aspect of structures, processes or systems all the time. Those changes are declared by a leader and the organization then sets about to implement the change. Most of these efforts fall short of the intended outcome but we can take that issue up later.

Personal choice to make a change is a powerful starting point for a person. But it is only the start. As mentioned yesterday, the challenge of change is that the rewards are in the future and the hard work is immediate. The gap between these two elements frame the challenge. Our ability to cross that gap defines and reflects much about who we are in the moment.

Purpose for change is a useful conversation to engage. As I write this entry, it is almost the middle of 2009 and in reviewing my goals for the year, I see that I'm hitting some and missing others. Mostly I feel like I am more in response to events than I am designing and producing outcomes. My tendency is to lose contact with the big picture when the events of today become turbulent. If the first part of 2009 has been anything; it is has been turbulent. In all of this chaos, I see that I've not so much lost my way as I have been exposed for not having a more clearly defined purpose. Without a clear purpose, I have been seduced by "other" events. Then boom, the time slips away and impact is lost.


I believe a focused purpose leads to big results. I realized a few weeks ago that I was attempting to do too much, be too much and sought too much. Too much of anything is a move away from focus. I think that the economic turbulence is a perfect opportunity for clarifying purpose. It is essential to determine what aspects of my life, how I spend my time and energy, needs to be eliminated now?


So in re-addressing my purpose, I have started to eliminate projects, type of work, and activities that do not support impact and distract me from my purpose. As a consultant to individuals and organizations, my usefulness is to reflect, integrate and facilitate the best change practices and processes for my clients that build their community. Relationships are central and everything else is derivative.

Before you get moving too far down your change path, get clear on your purpose. What is your purpose for being here? Who benefits from you being on purpose? What are the consequences to you and others when you lose your way? These are questions that need to be addressed and answered. Much has been written in the last year about how we have lost our way, that our priorities have been lost, our values mixed up. That could be so. Getting back on track starts with being clear about my purpose.

Why Changing is a Challenging

Changing anything is difficult for several reasons. A reason: the reward we seek is in the future, sometimes way out in the future and what we have to do and experience (discomfort, frustration, work and daily persistence) must start immediately. We are not a society of delayed gratification so for most of us, changing something about ourselves starts as a challenge within a challenge.

Another reason: We are giving up something we know well when we change. Generally we don't resist the change (it usually makes logical sense to us), we are resisting loss. The stepping from the known into the unknown.

Another reason: We have a pretty good idea that this step into the unknown must be permanent if we are to achieve the coveted change. Permanent; that is like forever, for all time. When we fully understand that time concept, it is not logical, it becomes emotional. Permanent loss is not something we think, it is something we feel. It can cause much resistance, denial, anger and pain.

Another reason: Getting across the "goal line" takes longer then most of us think. A common fail point of change is people's grossly underestimating the time and effort it will take to make the change. We stop too soon. Often we stop within sight of the goal.

So in the face of these reasons why change is challenging, how can we navigate the process? That is the next post.