Defining and Living Our Priorities

Most people (including me most of the time) tend to think that defining your priorities means sitting down seriously with pen and paper (or perhaps a notebook computer) and outlining your life's priorities.   That is a good exercise and useful to do from time to time.  I recommend it in some of my leadership classes and workshops.  It can be good to do a "time out" to define and re-define one's life priorities.

But our priorities in reality are manifested in what we do on a daily basis.   Just a few examples.  If we choose to linger over the newspaper and coffee in the morning before work instead of going ahead with our chores, that demonstrates a priority.   If we choose to go to the gym or grocery shopping on Sunday morning instead of church that too demonstrates our priorities.

If a man chooses to go out with the guys instead of playing with his children, he is revealing his priorities.  If  a woman prefers "girls' night out" to playing with her children, she too is revealing our priorities.

Instead of sitting down and thoughtfully planning the "ideal" life priorities, it is a better, more realistic exercise to sit down and record how we actually live our days.   Then we can look it over and ask:  what can I change?  What can I eliminate?   What are my priorities?    There are some givens:  work, sleep, etc.   Look at  your life.   Don't eliminate the basics but think about the other things in your life.  What is essential? What is dispensable?

A key is simplifying our life.  It can be done.  Not overnight, but a little at a time, perhaps over years.

We can start now by examining our lives and then asking:  what does my life say about me?  What are my priorities?   This is what I have chosen.   Is this what I want?     It is up to all of us to define our priorities by living them.

Why Do Little Things Bother Us?

I have spent years getting myself to be calm in most situations, and most of the time I succeed.  However, not always.   Sylvia Boorstein, the noted author and consultant, who combines Buddhism and Judaism, once said she is two words away from losing her equanimity.   She has spent years cultivated calmness and inner peace, as I have I.
In Sylvia's case, the two words are : "Hello, Ma," at the other end of the telephone!

Yesterday, I lost my calmness as well, when a charity to which I regularly donate wrote a letter telling me I was behind in my long-term pledge.   The fact is that I paid off my pledge early, and that apparently has caused havoc with their bookkeeping. 

For the next couple of hours, off and on,  as my tension rose, I checked three years of files on my current computer, and then went to my back-up hard drive to find older records.  By 11 last night I had reconstructed the whole pattern of giving, but had also given myself a good tension headache and a tenseness throughout my whole body.

Why?   Why do we let this happen?   I have no easy answers.  I think it is a dilemma that everyone faces.    So, we keep trying not to sweat the small things, but in the meantime, what do I do about this tension headache? 

Have we lost our moral compass?

Of late, I have been pondering what many have pondered before.  Have we as a nation lost our moral compass?
It seems as if  in our search for acceptance, freedom and inclusion, anything goes.   We not only have left our sense of judgment, we seem not to know what to judge.

We see more and more examples of erratic and bizarre behavior.   Sandy Hook, the kidnappings in Cleveland, the bombings in Boston, and countless other events have come to our attention.   Plus all of the business malpractices of the past decade, which may not have directly killed people, but indirectly shortened their lives through stress, loss of life savings, etc.

Where is the indignation? Have we become desensitized so that nothing bothers us?

There is a tendency to protect the rights of the individual to the extreme.   In defense of freedom we are perhaps becoming one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
It is time to wake up and ask ourselves.  What do we believe?  Whom do want to protect?  What do we want to protect?  Where are we going as a nation?

Reflection and Leadership

It does not matter which leadership "advice" book you read.  Everyone mentions the role of reflection.  Invariably as I teach my graduate students who are working professionals, I find that most balk at the suggestion of finding time for reflection in their daily schedule.

All of us are busy.  We all understand that.   Over the years, I have had students mention every conceivable reason why they have little or no time for reflection.   I look deeply into my own life and find the same thing.  There were months and years in which I had little time for reflection.  When I would eventually find time to reflect, I found that it did make a difference.

Now that I have been teaching about leadership for numerous years, I am more aware (of course) of the importance of reflection and make time for it.

I don't do daily reflection, but I try to make reflection a part of my life.   Finding even 10-15 minutes alone (even 5) during the day can help.   At work, sometimes close the door (or if there is no door), take a walk during lunch and sit on a park bench or walk along.

Drop the iPhone or Android phone for a few minutes.   There are few people more devoted to e-mail than I, but I avoid taking out my iPad, Blackberry or other tools in social settings.    I don't text.  I send e-mails instead.  It achieves the same thing but does not signal the person and does not require a separate word structure.     Instead of looking at your mobile device during breaks, close your eyes and reflect.  Reflect on your life, your goals, your progress.  Good luck.

Pope Francis as Servant Leader

We all read a great deal about servant leadership as part of our work on servant leadership.  But, it is rare to observe it.
In the life of Padre Bergoglio, now Pope Francis,  servant leadership comes alive.  I recently read one of the new biographies (the one by Andrea Tornielli, an Italian journalist).
In his life, there are so many examples of servant leadership:  his simplicity, his personal outreach to many, and his refusal to compromise his beliefs and principles.   A man of great integrity and knowledge, Padre Jorge has lived  fully a life as a follower of Jesus.  Bergoglio's life in Argentina was never easy, but it claimed his full dedication to the work of the Lord.

Attempts to demean his work in Argentina were politically inspired, since prominent political leaders did not appreciate his opposition to their policies and acts of suppression.

As apparent from his homilies since becoming Pope, he is a man of relatively few words.  I appreciate his pithy homilies which are more memorable than a lengthy exegesis might be.  A scholar and author, he appreciates the value of words, but uses them sparingly, even quoting St. Francis about preaching the Gospel and when necessary, using words.   Padre Bergoglio has preached by action and example, as well as words.  Recognition of his direct approach to the Gospel is the reason that he has evoked quiet enthusiasm among Christian observers, both Catholic and those from other denominations.  

The "cost" of commuting

In the present era many of us work at remote sites from from the workplace, but are connected by computer, e-mail, phone, fax, skype, and so on.
More and more people now work at home or at locations far from the work site.    There is a temptation of course, many say, to "goof off" more than in the structured workplace or to wear pajamas all day, but in the long run, perhaps one gets more done.  It may depend on the discipline of the individual.

For me, there is no danger of lounging in pjs all day.  I have always been a person who gets dressed immediately in the am.   I don't even go to breakfast in a robe except for a rare occasion when I have a dress-up event early in the day and want to avoid soiling a fancy outfit.   And yes, I do some tasks during the day like laundry but these normally take less time than a coffee break.  

On the other hand, now that I am semi-retired, I rarely go to the office except for class or special meetings.   The other day I had to go to the office to observe a class.   On the whole it took 3.5 hours.   I left at 9:30, the latest one can leave and hope to get a parking space.   I had some time in the office, and reviewed the class, then picked up my coat and supplies and drove home.  Lapsed time was 3.5 hours.  An entire morning         plus most of the noon hour taken up to observe a one hour class.  

A lot of time on the road -- About 1 hour roundtrip in the non-rush hour.  Plus the physical toll that a long drive in traffic takes cannot be understated.

I am becoming an enthusiast of working at a distance when possible.  I hold numerous conferences with colleagues and students from a distance and found them useful and productive.  Since my graduate students are working adults, most of our consultations occur while they are at their workplace and I am working at home.  It is efficient for them and for me.  If they have to come to meet me in the office, most of them also have an hour roundtrip commute and lose an hour out of their workdays.  
It is a win-win situation for us both to consult at a distance.

Efficient and less costly in terms of time and effort.

The Death of A Great Leader

As someone who studies leadership, I use the term great leader sparingly.   There are a lot of wannabe great leaders, but few truly great leaders.   Margaret Thatcher was a great leader.  Her death today brings to the end the life of the first female prime minister of a major western country.   I did not always agree with either her policies or her leadership style.  But, she was determined and uncompromising.   She was often called "the iron lady," which was both a tribute to her determination and a slur against women leaders.   Men are rarely if ever called "an iron leader."   Stalin cultivated the notion of being the man of steel, but few male leaders are compared to metal.  
At the present time, Angela Merkel is sometimes called "the iron frau."   When a woman leader is determined, she is likely to be labeled in some way that can have a double meaning.  

If Hillary Clinton ever becomes president, I suspect she too will be labeled with some variant of "the iron lady."

Margaret was  a path breaker.  The Iron Lady, the film about her life that came out in the last couple of years did little to tell the story of the real Margaret Thatcher.    It had selected flashbacks from a frail elderly lady who appeared to suffer from dementia.  Some events were highlighted but the film, despite Meryl's fabulous acting, gave us a distorted view of  Margaret Thatcher in power.   It was a powerful film on dementia, but not a true political  statement of her contributions.

Farewell, Margaret, and rest in peace.