A message to Garcia

I was reminded of this short story recently when I saw a few folks on Twitter and the Web highlight the birthday of Elbert Hubbard.  I first read this story when I read through Stephen R. Covey's The 8th Habit.  That was several years ago so I decided to have another read through the short story yesterday.  I was amazed that despite the advancement in technology and society, so much has stayed the same since Hubbard wrote this short story in 1899.  We're still looking for people who will take the initiative.  Who will do the right things without being told.  They're out there, but you have to look hard for them.  

I shared this short story with my Leadership class today, and encouraged them to become people who were known for taking iniative.  Hubbard identifies four key things that we should do:

1. Be loyal to a trust
2. Act promptly
3. Concentrate energies
4. Do the thing

The May 2011 Harvard Business Review focused on getting more things done.  Many of the articles say the same thing: Do something!  Don't just talk about the problem, fix it.  Don't blame someone else for things when they go wrong - figure out how to correct them yourself.  But in a world where we change our mind in the blink of an eye and where procrastination is fostered through technological distractions, we've lost the ability to concentrate on tasks for any length of time which keeps us from doing the thing that we're paid to do.   

In the end, more than a 112 years later, the person who does the right thing without being told is still a rare thing, and probably worth their weight in gold.  

Can we be better?

Just a few hours ago I heard about the death of Osama bin Laden.  For over a decade this man has been the face of terror.  One friend on Facebook commented that a "shadow just lifted."  Another posted a statement rejoicing in his death.  The news carried images of young Americans cheering and chanting in front of the White House.  The images (minus the burning US flag) were not unlike those we've seen in the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan when American soldiers are killed.  

This got me thinking about where we go from here.  With all the differences between countries and cultures we have so much in common.  At our worst we celebrate death and destruction.  At our best we rejoice in ideas and achievement.  It feels as if we've celebrated death and destruction over the last decade in our pursuit of justice.  What ideas and achievements will be pursued now that this shadow has lifted?

Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them."  Proverbs 24:17-18 NIV      

We know this isn't really the end of terror.  But it can be the beginning of a new chapter in World history.  Let's spend the next decade re-building the bridges we've burned.  Let's spend the next trillion dollars of Defence spending to reconstruct the lives and places that were destroyed in our pursuit of justice.  Let's continue our pursuit of justice, but with wisdom and humility, otherwise are we any better than our enemy?  Let's strive, not to be better than others, but to be better than ourselves.  

I understand why there's dancing in the street.  But it just doesn't feel right.  We can be better. We need to be better.

Culture Cake

I recently introduced my leadership class to Tom Rath’s Strengths Finder 2.0 (2007). We were talking about their various strengths and how we need to work together with the other people’s strengths in order to make up for our shortcomings. This discussion led into one about culture and how it would be great if we were able to work more closely together. We live in Auckland, which is a very diverse city. The majority of my students come from India and they have been adjusting to the Kiwi culture and learning more about it through the classroom and through their work experiences. My students lamented that there wasn’t more opportunity to ‘mix’ with those from other cultures. One of the barriers they saw was the fact that many cultural groups just stick to themselves. They acknowledged that this wasn’t always the case, but it was common enough for the class to as a whole to nod their heads in agreement regarding their similar experiences in this matter.

Thinking that this would be a good teachable moment, I shared with the class one of my strengths – connectedness. According to Strengths Finder 2.0, those with the connectedness strength are “certain of the unity of humankind” and act as a “bridge builder for people of different cultures” (Rath, 2007, p. 73). In our classroom discussions, we’ve covered how culture is learned through our upbringings and experiences. These experiences make us unique. But at the heart of it all we are all human beings. We all need air, water, food, security, and connection among other things in life. Our cultures and traditions are layered on top of these things and often become the values by which we are identified. So we get lost and consumed by our cultural identity and the ‘rightness’ of the culture to which we belong. In the process, we lose sight of the fact that we are first and foremost human beings.

We must value life at the most basic level. In the process, we must learn to deal with our disagreements regarding the ‘learned’ values of life. If this is our starting point we can, as civilized beings, discuss the things that we are most passionate about without giving way to hatred for the human being behind the passion. Sadly this isn’t usually the case.

So what do we do with this conflict between culture and humanity? I suggested that the students think about a chocolate cake (the flavor of the cake doesn’t matter, it could be vanilla, butterscotch, banana, or whatever suits your fancy). In order to make a cake you need sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, vanilla, milk and cocoa. There may be some variation to this recipe. Any cake includes various individual ingredients, each with their own properties and characteristics. They all play a part in what will eventually become the final tasty treat. Once we mix all the ingredients in the bowl, the individual ingredients take on a different property. Together they create something that is far better than any one of the ingredients on their own. For me, working with people from diverse backgrounds is like the chocolate cake. If I’m willing to mix and integrate with people who are different than I am, then I’m a lot more likely to be part of creating something much bigger and better than myself. It doesn’t mean that I have to sacrifice my culture any more than sugar has to sacrifice its sweetness as part of the cake recipe. 

Being part of a globalized world means that the diversity in our workplaces and communities will continue to increase. How I as an individual view these other ‘ingredients’ is really up to me. Will I throw part of myself in the bowl with those that are different than I am so that we can create a better world for our children and grandchildren? Or will I keep to myself and those like me? The choice is mine.

Works Cited

Rath, T. (2007). Strengths Finder 2.0. New York, NY, USA: Gallup.