One of the themes of our work is the simplification of complex ideas, distilling them into easy to understand and apply processes. We have found that nothing gets done if people can’t understand how to do it - no matter how brilliant the suggested solution might be

I recently came across a noble idea - a gathering of management thinkers and leadership gurus who pooled their brilliance to grapple with the knotty problem of “reinventing management for the 21st century”. Out of this came a report listing 25 “stretch goals“, all noble and valuable. But sometimes we have a tendency to unnecessarily complicate problems by turning the proposed solution into a pseudo-intellectual and academic puzzle. This has the effect of making the solution’s designers look very brainy, but also reducing the likelihood of meaningful action to zero.

Yes, there is a problem with the way we manage today, because we are using an antiquated model designed for the Industrial Age over 100 years ago, and which is inappropriate for today’s environment, people, values and our quest for meaning and fulfillment.

But do we need a list of 25 “to dos” or do we simply need to love each other, honor the sacredness of everything and tell the truth?

How would you propose that we re-write the agenda for “How to Manage Effectively in the 21st Century?” I will send an Inspire Change to the each of the 10 best ideas posted on our blog.

You have probably seen this video (but if not, I recommend that you indulge your heart by doing so). This cover of Stand by Me, originally penned by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller was recorded by Mark Johnson with unknown artists using a laptop computer and microphones to form a traveling studio. Starting in Santa Monica, California with street musician Roger Ridley, Mark Johnson laid down the base track, guitar and vocals. Then he travelled to New Orleans where Grandpa Elliott, a blind street musician from the French Quarter, added his unique blend of vocals and harmonica, while listening to the basetrack on headphones. Next Mark Johnson added New Orleans musician Wahsboard Chaz’s percussion and the experiment in oneness escalated as the producers took the basetrack to Europe, Africa and South America, adding multiple instrumental and vocal tracks.

The message: separateness thinking is unproductive, dishonoring and defies reality. An appreciation of oneness and its power to heal and inspire is they key to high performance and harmony. Mark Johnson believes that music can help us to see this. Humanity’s Team is collecting 50,000 names to petition the United nations to create a “ONEness Day“. Starbucks invited the Playing for Change musicians to the Starbucks Leadership Conference, and you can now buy the “Playing for Change” CD at Starbucks and Amazon.com

In a time of global stress we are being called on to use our imagination and creativity in seeking solutions that honor the sacredness of others - in the office, at home or in international politics - oneness. Bono, one of the founders of the ONE Campaign, adds his gravitas to one of the latest “Playing for Change” movies - Enjoy!

I find two things (among many) very inspiring: active sports in nature and smart, enthusiastic people. I mountain bike 100 days each summer, ski 100 days each winter, and spend the remaining 150 days each year on the road with very smart, enthusiastic people.

I would like to bring 6-8 of those smart, interesting people together to share ideas about leadership that works and is inspiring, while taking some time out to ride mountain bikes at my rural home located in one of the most beautiful places imaginable in the Niagara Escarpment.

I invite you to spend a weekend with me and a small group of creative, successful, world-class leaders, like yourself, who are passionate about the same thing–creating inspiring workplaces, changing the game we call leadership, making the world a better place and living a life that inspires. There will be no agenda, no particular expected outcomes–just the opportunity to grow as leaders and as mountain bikers, and, in this intellectually rigorous, stimulating and expansive environment, the chance to let our distractions evaporate so that we leave with clarity about the future, greater personal awareness, and happy memories of good company, great food and awesome scenery.

If you would like to join us, please contact Tricia Field at tfield@secretan.com to learn more about registering.

In my most recent book, ONE: The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership, I wrote about how South Korean activist lawyer and presidential candidate Roh Moo Hyun leveraged technology to become elected - he showed us how technology helps to make us one. This week we received the sad news that Roh had committed suicide.

In his bid to become President of South Korea Roh leveraged the power of the Internet even before Barak Obama. Self-educated, Roh came from a poor family and in earlier years had been jailed for helping dissidents fight the military regimes of the past. In 1981, Roh defended a student who was arrested on trumped-up charges of anti-state activities, and much of his subsequent work had been as a human rights lawyer defending pro-democracy and labor-rights activists. This endeared him to students and young voters. Admiring his courage, integrity, and reputation as an independent outsider, they formed an Internet fan club to promote his future. In time, this band of supporters grew to 70,000 members and helped launch what has been called the Roh typhoon. The Internet enabled Roh to liberate himself from “black money” - corporate donations that are South Korea’s traditional form of campaign financing. Largely through Internet-based campaign groups, Roh raised the equivalent of about $1 billion from more than 180,000 individual donors in his 2003 presidential bid.

Roh was an underdog, and thus the news of his impending electoral defeat on election day, quickly circulated among young voters via Internet bulletin boards and cell phones powered by digitally savvy student supporters. One Internet site recorded three million hits from around 11:30 p.m. to about 3 a.m. on Election Day - some five to six times the average. Hundreds of thousands of Roh’s young supporters made millions of cell phone calls, and 800,000 text messages flashed to the cell phones of their friends, urging them to go to the polls and vote for Roh.

By 2 p.m., another exit poll showed that Roh was leading his opponent by 2 to 3 percent, and shortly after the polls closed, Roh was declared the winner.

Roh had recently been caught up in a corruption scandal - he admitted that his wife had received $1m from a wealthy businessman, but never admitted any guilt. He said it was a payment to help her settle a debt, and not a bribe. He also said he was aware that the businessman had given another $5m to a relative, but that he thought it was an investment. After Mr Roh’s death was announced, Justice Minister Kim Kyung-han said the corruption case against him would be formally closed.

Roh was a passionate and innovative leader - and he was human. Too often we rush to judgment of leaders, and sometimes our criticism can be so painful and harsh, that it can destabilize a threatened person - and even, as in Roh’s case, drive them to suicide. We hope for a great deal from our leaders, and usually it is given, but too often we forget that they have frailties and self-doubt - just like all of us.

What leaders need from us is support, not judgment and criticism. When things are tough, they need our help to encourage the best that is in them, to restore their self-esteem and belief in themselves, enabling them to be more effective decision-makers and therefore strengthening their capacity to inspire others again.

If you are questioning or undermining your leader ask yourself three questions:

1. Is my attitude helping my leader become more effective?
2. Am I helping my leader to grow?
3. Am I inspiring my leader so much that he or she becomes inspired to inspire me?

The paradox, you see, is that the brilliance of the leader, and their capacity to inspire us, may be reflected in our own brilliance - it is often in our hands just as much as theirs.

From time to time, readers of this blog offer gems that deserve a broad circulation (and I invite you to submit your gems too). David Long is a Texas-based consultant who has used a grant we arranged for him through the First Command Educational Foundation to create a hugely successful Leadership Curriculum for high school students enabling them to acquire a letter in leadership. Here is his inspiring story………..

Lance: It is my personal observation that good leaders make good gardeners. Leaders, like gardeners, plant a great many seeds with the intent of feeding and nurturing those seeds first into seedlings, then into early growth, and finally into full fledged contributions to the flowering garden.

A recent “gardening” experience was available to our team at the annual conference of the Texas Association of Student Councils, an umbrella organization in the state of Texas for high school student leadership teams. Our organization, which seeks to bring the CASTLE principles to young student leaders, was sponsoring a booth at the convention to spread the word about our online leadership community.

Convention booths can be notoriously slow, with unpredictable traffic and so we decided to create a way of inviting the attention of the attending students─we designed a set of silicon bracelets with the CASTLE principles etched into the front face and our website address etched into the back.

Our plan: To entice a few students into the booth with the bracelets, by giving them our 3 minute infomercial regarding our online leadership community, describing the CASTLE principles that are foundational to our teaching, and then uncover some information about their own programs. If they would listen for just a few minutes, we would recognize their attention by giving them one of the bracelets─they could pick Courage or Service or any other of the six uniquely solid colored bracelets.

And…by the way….we also have this swirling rainbow colored bracelet with “CASTLE” etched into it. If the students wished to earn that one….they first had to earn the complete set of six individual bracelets.

And to earn the bracelets we asked them to go back out onto the convention floor, find another student from a different school than their own, who was not yet wearing one of our bracelets…..introduce themselves…learn something about them…tell them what you are doing and why…and then bring them back to our booth so we could describe the philosophy of the CASTLE principles to them. We explained that each time they brought back a new person, they would earn another bracelet in the set.

We opened the booth at 2pm. After we sent out that first group of “scouts” we spoke to students without stop for almost three hours, sometimes in groups of 8 or 10 or 12 at a time. At one point I looked up and my partner, Aleesha, was speaking to a dozen, I had another group of 10, and at least a dozen more were waiting to be introduced to us. Some of the “scouts” took it upon themselves to begin the “infomercial” by talking to their new friends about the program, the CASTLE principles…and of course the bracelet “contest” going on that day.

It became a frenzy. One student went to get water bottles for a parched Aleesha and I. The Texas Association of Student Councils convention sponsors came over to see what in the world was going on at our booth. The poor business next to us had to step to the side so that we could get more students into our own booth.
We gave away every bracelet we had at the convention.

And that evening, in Arlington, Texas, at the Texas Association of Student Councils convention….. 850 students were wearing CASTLE principle bracelets and talking about Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love, and Effectiveness.

I just love planting seeds in the garden! Pardon me now - I must go water and feed them!

Namaste!