Learn the difference between a successful life and a meaningful life.

Success means to:

• Define your own success on your terms, not what others tell you it should be;
• Dream big;
• Remember that the purpose of a dream is not to achieve it; the purpose of a dream is to inspire you to become the person it will take to achieve it.
• Learn to handle money: spend less than you make; invest before you spend; start saving now; buy less than you can afford.
• Remember the five laws of success: 1) Show up on time; 2) Keep your promises; 3) See all blame as a waste of time; 4) Be polite; 5) Give more than you get paid for.

Meaning means to:

• Know what you value, and don’t lose your values on the path to success.
• Not miss out on the experience of living while you are making a living.
• Follow your heart, that part of you that lies beneath your impulses and need for approval, that won’t settle for less than you can become, that knows you are meant to be extraordinary and contribute to the world’s evolution.
• Learn the true meaning of love and service to others – the true source of happiness.
• Remember that all joy ultimately comes to you in the present moment; you’ll never find joy in the past or the future.
• Keep alive the spirit of your youth: your sense of wonder, adventure, and love of life. Maintaining your youth as you grow into the wisdom of your age, is a work of art worth going for.

Hayley was a fan of Jack Layton. I think it’s appropriate to leave you with Jack’s final message to Canada before his death this week. Whether or not you agreed with his political policies, you simply couldn’t argue with his passion, his vision, and his love – for the citizens of this country and those who spend a lifetime serving. A great leader, he always made time for people.

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

Following are seven conditions for success management. The goal is to turn these conditions into instinctive behaviors in your culture. But until they become established habits, written agreements can be helpful to ensure clarity, focus, and energy.

1. Connection. I learned years ago, in my first career as a family therapist, that the secret to parenting is not what a parent does but rather who the parent is to a child. Great leaders and teachers understand that when others are drawn to seek contact with you as a trusted advisor rather than simply as “boss,” you have earned the credibility to influence – with or without a title. All the leadership skills in the world will never compensate for a lack of connection.

2. Self-Assessment. Before attempting to “evaluate” others and their performance, it is important to ask people to assess themselves. “How do you feel about the results you are achieving?” “What do you need to do raise the bar for yourself?” These are questions about working with people, rather than over people. You will only want to “evaluate” others and their performance as a last resort.

3. Authentic Expression. What engages people is a connection to their passion, purpose, and values: authentic expression. When you are given the chance to express your unique talents in the service of others, you lose track of time and create abundance in your life and the lives of others. If work doesn’t provide both personal and financial growth, you’re wasting far too much of your life on it.

4. Accountabilities. Results are the name of the game, both in organizations and in life. Mutually negotiated accountabilities are a statement of quantifiable promises to the people who depend on you and the fulfillment of those promises. Accountabilities create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished and what will be accomplished: from activities to results.

5. Support Requirements. Support requirements are the accountabilities you require from others to ensure that you can fulfill your promises. These include the human, financial, technical, or organizational resources one can negotiate for and draw upon to deliver the expected results. Support requirements lock people into an accountable relationship.

6. Consequences. Consequences specify what will happen – both positive and negative – when you fulfill your promises. This could include financial or psychological rewards, different job assignments, and natural consequences tied into the overall mission of an organization. Consequences are a statement of what is important to you, considering what is reasonable and respectable in your current environment.

7. Follow-Up. How will your agreements to each other be maintained as significant, relevant, flexible, meaningful, and engaging over time? How will you hold yourself and others accountable? How often will you review it, and with whom? Far too many performance review programs are make-work projects that become “shelf-development” instead of self-development.” Take a brief inventory of where you stand on these conditions for success management. They can be applied to a business partner, direct reports, colleagues, clients or customers, or even yourself.

I’d love to hear about your conditions for success in building a more engaged and focused success management system or how you have used these conditions in an authentic and powerful way.

David Irvine, Speaker and Author

Values:

Years of consulting with organizations have taught me that clarity of values is the force that determines an individual’s commitment to an organization. Personal values matter most. To inspire people, you have to get to their core values. Living according to other people’s conditions virtually guarantees that we will not be giving our all.

How many executives go on a retreat, create a corporate values statement, print it on posters, publish it in the annual report, hold training classes to orient people to it, post it beautifully in the headquarters’ lobby, and then wonder why commitment isn’t skyrocketing?

These efforts are a huge waste of time unless there is an equally concerted endeavor to help individuals understand, through dialogue and discovery, their own values and examine the fit between their values and the organizations’. I’m not saying that organizational values are not important, but they are only one side of the commitment equation. Commitment is a matter of fit between the personal and the organizational values.

Personal Vision:

The vision of reaching the top of the mountain gives energy to the climber and makes the experience of climbing worthwhile. With no summit in mind, we are aimlessly wandering through rocks and trees, irritable and discontented. Vision keeps us on track. It helps us prioritize the demands, clarifies what we need to say “no” to, and gives us purposeful action. Vision gives us focus, energy, perspective, power, and significance, especially during moments of discouragement.

Alignment:

Human beings simply don’t put their hearts into something they don’t believe in. Energy, passion, commitment comes when there’s a fit, when there’s alignment between personal and organizational values. Employees are much more likely to be engaged when they know their positional leaders are committed to them. Loyalty begets loyalty. This can only be accomplished with careful and meaningful dialogue. Here are three useful questions to ask employees to help move you toward alignment:

1. What matters most to you? Where does work fit into the broader context of your life?
2. How does this organization ensure that you bring your values to work?
3. What do you need from me as a leader to ensure that there is alignment between your values and ours?

Mr. Williams told the Today Show that drivers in Columbus would drive by just to hear his golden voice and upbeat greeting while advertising his “God-given gift of voice” when panhandling. He hopes to become a radio program director and support his children. His response to how we should treat the homeless was, “Don’t judge a book by its cover. Everybody has their own little story.” A good lesson, not just pertaining to the homeless, but for all of us who are preparing for our talents to shine more brightly in the world.

Since reading this amazing story, I have been reflecting on the gifts that everyone of us have. Are we creating workplaces that awaken the unique abilities of people? Are we getting our talents “off the streets” and into the hearts of the community? Are we shining a light on people’s capabilities? This is what a great culture is: it’s a place where employees at every level have a chance to be their best, realize their potential, and be recognized for their contribution – in the service of others. We need to strive for more than “satisfied” employees; we need to cultivate loyal employees. Investing the time and energy to foster this kind of environment is what it takes.

My daughter’s best friend, an amazing, authentic young woman, was valedictorian at her high school graduation this week. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from her speech:

“I think that sometimes people are too terrified of failure, and they let it stop them,” Janelle told her graduating class. “You are never a loser for trying. Never. To be honest, one of my favourite quotes comes from Little Miss Sunshine, of all places. When the grandpa is questioned on what a loser means, he says, ‘a real loser is someone who’s so afraid of not winning, they don’t even try.’”

“There’s a preconceived notion surrounding us,” Janelle continued, “that condemns one to be a loser simply for not being the best, or being imperfect. Please, never, ever let yourselves be degraded into believing this. I implore you all to have faith in  yourselves; have faith in your dreams; Our goals are unique and deserve respect; we shouldn’t let anyone make  us inferior for holding on to them. Success doesn’t lie in brilliance or being consistently perfect in all your endeavors. You’d never learn anything that way. Success is discovering, growing, breaking, fixing, and all things to do with uncertainty. Success holds holds a different definition for each person, and no definition is inferior to another. There are so many ways to be successful, and it’s something that each one of us is going to discover for ourselves…”

Thank you, Janelle, for the inspiration of your authentic presence, not just in this speech, but in the influence you have had in my life since you first connected  with our family fourteen years ago. I’m a better person for knowing you. May we all be a little more attuned to the wisdom of our amazing youth, that have so much to teach us about living authentically.

You don’t have to go to Africa to be of service. There are plenty of opportunities to practice giving right in our own communities. Here are three ways:

1. Wherever you go, bring a gift. The gift may be a compliment, a smile, a word of encouragement, appreciation, caring, kindness, gratitude, a generous spirit, or even some patience and grace. As you circulate what you have been given, you keep the energy of your culture alive, because cultural energy is simply universal energy.

2. Practice receiving all the gifts that life has to offer. Recognize, and look for all the ways that people you work and live with are conspiring to help you. Take time to experience the beauty of a sunset, a spring flower, the sound of birds singing, a child in love with life, the wisdom of an elder, or the attempt of a colleague to bring excellence to a project. There are gifts all around us every day, if we just s-l-o-w d-o-w-n long enough to notice. And what you notice, you focus on, and what you focus on grows. Try it.

3. Be a giver, not a taker. There appears to be two kinds of people in the world: those who help, and those who hinder; those who give and those who take; those who lift, and those who lean; those who contribute, and those who consume. Which kind of person will you decide to be? Make a commitment to look, each day, for opportunities to support others, to contribute in some way to making the world around you a better place by your presence, to choose service over self-interest.

This is a time you have to be conscious of and commit to re-earning trust. Even your engaged workers are aware of opportunities elsewhere, and your best employees are mobile. People are always attracted by career development opportunities, attaining work/life balance, or working for a creative culture. If leadership doesn’t provide these things, then workers will seek them elsewhere. Although there is a sense of entitlement with these demands, the good news is that this pressure can push our organizations to be better places to work.

How are smart employers going to inspire workers to stay and be engaged?

By being in touch with employees. Here are a few ways to establish and rebuild trust.

1.       Pay attention to your top performers – those that you want to keep – and don’t take them for granted:

• Provide meaningful work. Restate the organization’s vision and how the contribution of these leaders – regardless of their position – is connected to the overall organizational goals.
• Seek their input on how they feel about their job, management, and the organization itself.
• Find out what they need to move from being worried to being completely engaged. Listen carefully to their ideas for making this a better place.
• Support them to determine their future goals and highest aspirations, what matters most to them, and provide action plans to help them reach those goals.
• Help them take on responsibilities that are aligned with their talents and passion.
• Recognize your key people. Make it a point to let them know how much they are valued and how much value they bring.

2.     Be transparent:

• Share corporate and financial information at monthly meetings.
• Have “up close and personal” sessions, giving staff company news and updates, and allow time to field questions on any topic, from the organization’s growth to their vacation plans.
• Let people know where you stand and why decisions are being made and enlist their input.
• Get your key employees involved in critical decisions and discussions wherever possible. Help them feel they are a part of something and are needed to succeed.

3.     Ramp up your commitment to mentoring, and ensure that people are getting the support they need to succeed, grow, and develop pride.

• Expose your best employees to senior leadership through opportunities for mentoring.
• Consider job rotations to give employees experience in other areas.
• Allow high-potential workers to handle special projects or work on high-potential accounts. Support your best people to take risks.

4.     Reconsider rewards. If your company was forced to implement pay cuts or a wage freeze that you can’t afford to reinstate, find other ways to compensate staff: days off, flexible working hours, or even product discounts. Get to know what motivates individuals, and do what you can to show your commitment to them.

Remember that your best people are the ones that can always get a job anywhere, but if they trust you to have their best interests at heart, they will be committed to the organization. More than anything, people want to belong and contribute to something that is lasting. The payoff is that as you see signs of life in the economy, you will see signs of life in your employees. It is inspiring to have people wanting to step up rather than step out.

Here are some lessons from this high school musical theatre production that I believe can be applied to any organization.

1. Leadership with a vision. Merilie Stonewall, the artistic director at Hayley’s high school, had a vision to  produce this musical years ago when she first saw Les Misérables and was spell bound. Then she waited nine years after the rights became available for the special talent needed to cross the band room threshold. Everyone – from the actors to the crew and set designers to the tech staff, had a vision of the end result.

2. Leadership inspired by love. Merrilie has invested years of her life into her students at Cochrane High School. She cares deeply for her work and her students. She has never, in all her years of teaching, ever fallen out of love with her work or her students. It is inspiring simply to be around her. Merrilie’s credibility was earned long before the first audition. It’s built on her love and commitment to youth and to music. And everyone knows it.

3. Everyone’s talent was needed. Everyone in the production – from grade nine to grade twelve – contributed. Everyone made a difference. And everyone knew their important piece they played in the puzzle. When talent gets aligned with the vision, loyalty, passion, and energy is the result.

4. High standards of performance were set and expected. No one ever takes pride in doing something easy. Every person on this musical team was stretched and pushed beyond their comfort zone. Football players were inspired to sing in lead roles, work on technical support or paint sets.  Shy kids were coached out of the woodwork to bring their unique talents forward. High standards were set and reached.

5. Open communication. Conversations were going on continuously. Everyone seemed to be talking to everyone. Roles were clear and openness abounded.

6. Work was fun. Even in the midst of high expectations, everyone somehow knew that the goal of all this was to be in the moment of creative human expression. If we aren’t truly enjoying ourselves, what’s it all for anyway? Ms. Stonewall, like all great leaders, understands that the work is merely a means to a much higher end: the building of stronger, more confident youth. She, like all who watched this production unfold in the past months, knew that the experience and memory of being on this team will stay with these kids the rest of their lives.

7. Results. Results are essential as they are the ultimate measure of success. Hundreds of people in our community attending a sellout performance for five straight nights. Five straight standing ovations. It was as good of a product as you will see anywhere from an amateur theatre group. When a team produces these kind of results everyone wins, and everyone on the team knows they made a difference in making that happen.

What a vision to aspire to as we bring our passion and unique gifts to our work.

To witness the success that Olympic athletes exhibit after focusing and dedicating years of their lives to a sport is nothing short of inspiring. Discipline of the mind and body, accompanied by the pursuit of excellence in the face of insurmountable odds awakens in each of us our own hidden potential. No athlete goes to the Olympic games unwilling to give their all in the pursuit of the expression of their passion. What makes the games so exciting is that with so many variables at play, there is no guaranteed success. Years of training can be obliterated in a split second.

But Olympic athletes do more than inspire us. They teach, if we will be open to learn. The obvious lesson is that any one can become world class in whatever you do by putting in the disciplined effort to excel at your chosen trade, craft, or profession. You can eventually win at whatever game you choose to play, if you’re willing to pay the price.

Olympic athletes inspire and teach us by the way they think. They respond to the world differently than the rest of us. The best athletes are able to ride the waves of distractions, nervous energy, adversity, and emotions in a way that helps them focus. Nowhere, in the two weeks of the Olympics, was this more evident than in the brilliant and courageous performance of Joannie Rochette, the bronze medal Canadian figure skater. Just days after her mother’s sudden death, Joannie carried her world of pain to the podium. In seven minutes, fifty seconds she somehow connected to every person watching her, like her story had become a part of each of our lives. This was more than an athletic event. It was a transformative experience of focus and courage, long before the judges added up the scores.

A year ago, if you’d asked Joannie if she could have gone on to compete just days after the death of her mother, she would have answered with a resounding “no.” As it happens, Ms. Rochette asked herself that very question. Just before the world championships last year, she went to an athletes’ seminar in Montreal. Diver Alexandre Despatie was the scheduled speaker, and she thought she might learn something, even be inspired. As it turns out, Mr. Despatie had to cancel, and in his stead was synchronized swimmer Sylvie Fréchette, who talked about how she managed to fly to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics just days after her fiancé committed suicide in their apartment, went on to compete and even win a gold medal.

Ms. Fréchette brought Ms. Rochette to tears with her speech, but, she said, “I told myself at that time, I could never do it, if that happened to me. I could never do it. There’s no way.” And yet here she is, the first Canadian female figure skater to win a medal in twenty-two years. Joannie embodies the five tenets on which the Canadian team of 206 athletes was built: passion, resiliency, unity, confidence and readiness.

Alex Bilodeau, the twenty-two-year-old moguls skier from Quebec, who will go down in history as Canada’s first gold medal winner on Canadian soil, showed us that the Olympics are more than success on a ski hill. Behind these amazing athletes are coaches, family members, friends, and community who have selflessly given years of their lives to support the athletes and loved ones.

Alex’s acknowledgement of the inspiration of his older brother, Frédéric, reminded us that the true meaning of both sport and life comes from our achievements as well as our connections to those who matter most in our life. Frédéric Bilodeau, who has cerebral palsy, was told that he would never walk beyond the age of ten. He is now twenty-eight and he stood on his own power at the finish line and pumped a red mitten skywards in celebration of Alex.

“My brother is my inspiration,” Alex Bilodeau said, wiping tears from his eyes. “He taught me so many things in my life……I have great friends in the stands waiting for me. I’ve got everything on my side.”

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir danced off with an historic gold medal, becoming not only the first Canadians, but the first North American couple to take this title since Ice Dance was included into the Olympic Winter Games in 1976. Even more inspiring than this accomplishment, however, was the scene from the Ilderton, Ontario community centre where hundreds of people who helped raised this pair gathered to celebrate their achievement on the night of the their performance. This young couple understood the real meaning of community. No medal is ever achieved alone.

When Clara Hughes, the great Canadian speed skater, capped off her Olympic career on the Richmond speed skating oval with her sixth medal, she donated her $10,000 medal bonus to an East Vancouver outdoor program for at-risk youth. With equal generosity, she credited Canadian fans for lifting her across the finish line. “They gave me wings,” she said. Clara, let me tell you, the feeling is mutual.

The Olympics remind us all that while there is no way to ensure that the result of our behavior is going to be a gold medal, there is a much more powerful guarantee as a result of the striving and sacrifice. That guarantee is success beyond success: the inner sense of joy, of happiness, of peace that comes from acting in full alignment of one’s values.  On the surface, it is far too easy to define success at the Olympics as in life, as standing on the podium or winning the prize.  But the deeper success is the success that moves us toward the inner peace that comes from integrity. For there is no success without peace of mind. While achieving goals is important, external success is not the only critical factor for living a life of fulfillment and meaning that comes from committing our lives to something beyond ourselves.

Years ago, when my father inspired me to train for the 1980 Olympics, he reminded me that the purpose of a dream is not necessarily to achieve your dream. The purpose of having a dream is to inspire you to become the kind of person it takes to achieve your dream. Few will ever stand on a podium and accept a medal for their success. But anyone can become the kind of person that it takes to get there. That is the purpose in the games and the role they play in the modern world as we sit and take part in the experience as a spectator: to remind us that the human stage of success in its myriad of forms, is a valuable legacy that inspires all of us to live a life that matters.

]]> http://davidirvine.com/blog/2010/02/the-olympics-and-success-beyond-success/feed/ 0 http://davidirvine.com/blog/2010/02/organizational-culture-and-the-shadow/ http://davidirvine.com/blog/2010/02/organizational-culture-and-the-shadow/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:43:03 +0000 David Irvine http://davidirvine.com/blog/?p=107 Not long ago I was hired by a church to help them with their culture. On the surface, the environment was lovely. People were very friendly and polite. Everyone talked about the sense of “family” that was highlighted on their value statements that hung in the sanctuary. Parishioners made a point, when I first met them, of talking to me about the strong “spirit” that they felt in the place.

But no one could put their finger on why attendance was dropping. As I hung around and started to really know people, a different conversation emerged. People started to open up about how the pastor was unapproachable, it was feeling like a hierarchy and losing it’s openness, the very reason most people originally came to this particular congregation. The toughest part was that there was no place to surface these concerns honestly because everyone felt that everyone else thought the culture was fine, which resulted in a fear of being honest. No one wanted to rock the boat. Genuineness was being replaced by politeness, and was turning into dishonesty, which was blocking the needed energy to sustain a great culture.

There are always at least two kinds of cultures existing in an organization: 1) the Visible Culture (e.g. the artifacts, espoused values, formal hierarchy, lines of authority) and 2) the Real Culture (e.g. the actual experience of working there, the stuff that goes on in the hallways and coffee conversations, the rumor mill, the informal procedures for getting things done).

Within the real culture lies the “shadow,” the hidden aspect where the culture’s creativity, wisdom, and interconnection are waiting to emerge. It is, after all, where a good deal of the real work — the work that means something — happens. While the visible culture is often focused on procedures, policies, job descriptions, and routines, the shadow system has few rules or constraints. Any good leader knows that to have lasting impact on the organization, you have to listen to the shadow. You have to make time to get down to the cafeteria or the places where people take their breaks and talk about what matters most. You have to listen to the hidden network. If you try to battle against the shadow by attempting to “overcome resistance” without respecting the shadow or pretending that it’s not there, it will eventually go underground and sabotage any opportunity for growth.

Wise and authentic leaders will not try to fight the shadow, but rather recognize it for what it is: a natural – and vital – part of the larger system. Leaders that have not faced their own shadow will avoid the darker side of their organization by hiding in their office, suppressing honesty, choosing polite affiliation over genuine alignment, or develop an over-dependence on surveys to assess the temperature of the culture.

But suppressing the shadow or pretending it’s not there is done at your own peril. The shadow will always come out. If it’s not allowed to surface directly, it will contaminate the system in the form of resistance, complaining, sabotaging new initiatives, exiting, disengagement, and apathy.

Alternatively, by acknowledging the shadow and allowing it to surface in open, respectful, responsible conversations, you can contain it without suppressing it and channel it into creative problem solving, genuine engagement, and renewed, focused commitment. The first step to healing is acknowledgement. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I’d love to hear about your experience with the shadow, and constructive ways you improved your workplace by facing the darker side of your organizational nature.