Actually it cracks me up– this willingness of mine to endure the agony of the ads for a crack at the miracle these athletes present every time they’re up to skate, ski, curl, luge and bobsled.  I am besotted.

It is just so incredibly rare to see the result of obsessive commitment– to see the possibilities held within the human body and spirit.  I hold my breath each time one of the athletes is ‘up.’  I imagine the years and dollars spent on rinks or slopes or gyms.  The endless hours their moms and dads woke at 4am to cart them to available rinks, the weekends where the family packed up the van and drove to the nearest slope so little Johnny or Lindsey could race with the team.  The absolute commitment these young athletes made to themselves to push to their own limits and see how far they could go.

Most of us throw ourselves into tasks with intensity and a desire to do excellent work.  We try to consistently bring our best selves to work and to use our talents to solve problems and grow our companies.  But I also think there are very few of us who approach our jobs with Olympian intensity.  I wonder what we might create if we could push into the unknown with confidence, hope and a dream the way these Olympic athletes do every single day.

Few of us are world class at anything– that’s partly why watching the Olympics is so captivating.  We are witnessing the fruit of the labors of the best of the best.  Maybe our very best won’t get us a medal or an endorsement, or global adulation– but if we are really pushing out the edges of our gifts, we will feel our own particular and very satisfying rush of adrenaline, we will be contributing  at our very best and if you hum the national anthem under your breath–  well who’s to say you’re not on your own version of  the podium ready to receive flowers and gold.

The puppets are big– between 3 – 4 feet tall and each is moved by a team of three puppeteers dressed entirely in black who move invisibly about the stage bringing the puppet to life.   One puppeteer controls the head and torso, one the arms, and the third the legs.   When all three puppets are on stage at the same time there are 9 humans racing silently and invisibly, coordinating extraordinary movements– lunges, pirouettes, clown antics.   The puppets dance, race, pout, kiss, fight and in this story, even kill.

The teamwork of each triad is  seamless.  In fact, during the entire show I kept trying to figure out how they managed what they were doing.  It never occurred to me that there were three people working each doll and that they were racing up and down scaffolding as the puppets jumped, pranced and flew around the stage.  If you’re curious to get a sense of what I’m talking about, this clip of Basil Twist and the troupe shows how the puppetry is performed and will give you a sense of the artistry involved.   http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=627832077355

I work with lots of teams– high performing teams and ones that want to be.  And the challenge for these work teams is to find a way to create the same kind of synchrony and commitment that the puppeteers have-  ballerina legs that are in a glorious arabesque but arms that flail goofily is a failed puppet act and the audience knows it in a flash.  In the same way, a team with a lagging or uninvolved member or with sub-rosa competing agendas severely impairs the final product.

In a funny way, the puppeteers have the advantage of absolute interdependency.  There is no magic unless all three are in constant and unified communication.

I think I’ll start team workshops with a clip of these puppeteers in the zone of performing as one.  Might be a great launch pad into a rich discussion about what it really means to be a team.

Cheers,

Dina

On our good days and on our lousy days, our traveling companion is the face looking back at us in the mirror.  And each and every single one of us is a unique assortment of stardust and memory and genetic code and life experience.  We are the outcome of some that is known and much that we can never understand.  We are our past and our present and our future.  We are one of a kind organisms capable of love and hate, of joy and sadness, of nuance and brash gesture.  We are also capable of changing our world on a daily basis simply by showing up as us!

This is not a ridiculous claim!  Think of the people you know who enjoy who they really are– whether they are shy or bold, educated or self taught,  pretty or plain.  There is nothing so captivating as the energy and spirit of a person who has found their voice.

I met a woman like this a couple of days ago.  I was away for the weekend in a desert community called 29 Palms and Pat was the biologist/naturalist who showed up to teach us about the desert landscape we were inhabiting.  Pat is about 65- sparkling blue eyes,  she writes curricula for teachers who bring their classes into the desert to learn about their world.  She knows a lot and wasn’t shy to share the depth of her learning or her passion.  Her delight in sharing her world with us was infectious– so infectious in fact, that 7 of us followed her around all day on her chosen exploration of a portion of Joshua Tree National Park that she had never seen.

OK.  So she had impact and charisma, knowledge and a lovely energy.  Here’s where she moved the dial for me.  At the end of the day with her we all reached to our wallets to compensate her for her time and knowledge and generosity.  She wouldn’t take a dime but she made a powerful ask:  Would we each please make a contribution to the Mohave Desert Land Trust which is working to save the desert an acre at a time.

Needless to say– every one of us reached for a brochure and the chance to assist this wonderful woman in a small way.

In the very best way, Pat loved who she was, and it was infectious.  I’ve got my eyes and ears out for Pats all the time– for the people who have found their voice, their style, their passion and their particular way to share it.

The farm was the family’s livelihood and cows and the proceeds from milk and selling calves was the primary  source of income.

The parents, intent on creating strong, self-reliant and capable kids came up with the following innovative method to teach their kids about money.  When each child was eight years old s/he was given a cow to own and take care of.  If managed well, this cow could supply the child with spending money all the way through high school.  Cows could be bred and calves sold, cows could be milked and milk sold, cream could be made into butter or cheese.  And the kids had full control over how they wanted to manage this resource and they would have full control of how to spend the money they received from their efforts.

Now this seemed to me like a pretty amazing challenge. If anyone reading this has raised kids, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Expecting an eight year old to have any capacity to W A I T  shows a very optimistic nature indeed!  Most young kids just can’t delay gratification but if they can, they payoff is enormous. Research points to a compelling correlation between a young child’s ability to defer enjoyment and his or her success in later life.  If you want to know more about this study read Jonah Lehrer’s great piece in the New Yorker called Don’t: The secret of self-control. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer.

Anyway, back to my masseuse and her sibling and their cows.  The older sister got her cow and, completely uninterested in growing a small business at eight,  sold the animal the same year.  She pocketed a wad of cash which was gone within the year.  And that was it for her for allowance. Forever.

Next in line was my masseuse, and she totally got the concept.  She loved her cow, had it bred with a bull on the farm and the next year had a baby calf.  She fed and cared for the baby and sold it the next year to a local farmer.  Meanwhile, she bred her original cow again.  You get the picture.  A young entrepreneur at work, intelligently managing resources, pouring time, energy and money back into the business and creating an income stream that took her all the way to college.

Her brother fell somewhere between the two  in terms of success.  He followed his sister’s lead the first year but lost interest by year two– so he was pretty much in the same boat financially as the eldest girl.

While my masseuse was kneading her way through my tight shoulders I started to think about all of my clients who have constrained resources to carry out their goals (that would be all of them!) and why some of them thrive and some stumble. I think the distinguishing trait is that the ones who keep managing to create success  keep their eye on the mid and long-term plan.  They do not take near terms wins that may sabotage them down the line.  And so though their progress can be quite slow at times, it is inexorable.  And they’re the ones who like my masseuse, end up taking money to the bank.

The name of this exquisite piece of nature where you can drink clear water directly from the running stream is Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center – www.opalcreek.org — and the story of how Tom found his way to stewardship of this pristine piece of America is a good one.

In the 1850s gold was discovered on the land but it wasn’t until the 1930s that the Atiyeh family made its first appearance with ‘Grandpa’ James Hewitt, a distant relative.   He mined  zinc, lead, copper and silver. In 1992 mining finally stopped altogether.

Tom grew up playing  hide and seek among the ancient trees and skipping stones in the 100s of streams that ripple through the forest.  Over the years the Forest Service pressed continually to log these ancient trees and Tom’s family– which strategically owned the land at both ends of the Creek — successfully resisted.  Note to self:  location, location, location.

Finally in 1989, an agreement was reached with the Forest Service to deed the land in exchange for its permanent protection as wilderness.  Friends Of Opal Creek was established to protect of the Opal Creek ecosystem by increasing public understanding of the natural and cultural resources, scenic beauty, plant and animal diversity and ecological complexity of this extraordinary area.

Each year Opal creek welcomes  45,000 day visitors and 2500 Oregon school children enjoy multi-day field trips to learn about this ancient forest and the ecosystem it supports.  Imagine the permanent impact on an urban kid who spends three full days of learning and living on land as it was one thousand years ago.

Tom’s passion for the land he stewards is palpable.  He leads from his heart and the rest of us benefit.

Kimberly is our fifteen year old cat.  Also black as midnight, huge green eyes, definitely not a small and petite thing and definitely not an independent kind of gal.  Kimberly  happily spends the entire day sleeping on any available surface, including my lap.   She definitely never got the memo reminding her that any self respecting feline is aloof, solitary and finicky.

During her visit we kept Luna outside with access to a detached room for fear the cats would combust on contact.   The mother in me worried about this little cat– would she be cold, would she be lonely?  My daughter looked me in the eye and said “Mom, they’re not the same cat.”

Kimberly’s behavior changed overnight.  She spent the entire five days of Luna’s visit alert, patrolling her territory and guarding our home.  Instead of sleeping 18 hours a day,  she sacked out for a mere twelve.   She was more active and more energized.  For a few heavenly days there was no large cat attempting to sit on my hands while I type.  One element in her life had changed and Kimberly had tapped into part of her nature that had lain dormant for many years.

I was reminded of a couple of key pieces of managerial wisdom that I have learned watching  effective leaders:

1.No two employees are the same and they need to be managed with a smart focus on what makes them tick individually.  Take the time to understand what motivates and animates each person you are working with. Play to their strengths.  To the degree possible, design each individual’s role to leverage what energizes him or her.  Luna would be a deeply unhappy cat hanging out in my office all day.  Kimberly will never be a night prowler.

2. Shake it up from time to time.  It’s not the worst thing to create some disruption at work.   Toss unexpected challenges and learning opportunities into the mix.  Regularly find ways to take people out of their comfort zones because that’s always where the learning occurs.

So I launched in with our daughter’s bathroom which called out most loudly for attention.  New tile, new fixtures… sounded simple enough and not even that expensive.  But nothing is as it seems in home repair, and just yesterday I learned that the two by fours in the wall are so badly damaged by water and that we need to rip open the bathroom walls and start from the inside out.  So much for the easy fix.  We’ll get to my pretty tiles and fixtures– but not yet.

The work I do with clients  sometimes follows a similar trajectory.  Lately I’ve been coaching a senior leader at a big, public company and we are ripping open the bathroom walls there as well.  The initial challenge was to assist her in managing a very rancorous and challenging relationship with a direct report who was poisoning the well and who was ultimately fired.  To my client’s surprise and disappointment, the departmental resentment and bitterness remained even after the individual was no longer there. There was no easy fix, and there is a lot of work to do to rebuild the trust that had been eroded over the years by one individual who’s legacy was a team culture of finger pointing, disregard for accountability and division.

Superficial fixes can never mask a mess that lies below the radar.  But sometimes they lead us to the real problem.

If you’ve got a remodel horror story to share– or a work situation where getting to the crux of the problem was complicated or unexpected,  I’d love to hear it!

Cheers, Dina