More Please! Weblog
More thoughts and experiences through Mai Vu’s eyesArchive for June, 2009
Is WORLD PEACE possible? I say NO!!
Last night I attended an event called Cities of Peace http://tinyurl.com/mupxmv in SF. Hosted by Summer of Peace http://tinyurl.com/m44fwl. Summer of Peace is an innovative initiative designed to accelerate the shift to a culture of peace through local collaborations, best practices, grassroots activity, and inspirational events, one city at a time starting with SF.
I wanted so much to be enrolled in the process. But the truth is at the end of the talk, Lawrence Ellis asked “How enrolled are you?” and my answer was “No, i am not enrolled”
How can I not be enrolled in the peace process? How can I be luke warm about it? waiting for “them” to enroll me? to entertain me so that I feel compelled inside? How can I think “all of this is nice, but I don’t get it, but I am too busy to get involved, time is tough I don’t have money to support them”?
So let it be known, the peace process is not possible because people like me are still saying “no, thank you I am too…. to be involved.”
Assumptions About People and Leadership
Found this cool website Leadershiptype.com Everything you want to read about leadership, in short poignant chunks.
For example, this article that I read “Assumptions about People and Leadership”
So simple…
(note: the words in ( ) are my words and interpretations. If you want the original article click here http://tinyurl.com/l2kmqn
1. People Want to Succeed (even your worst co-worker or employee, wants to succeed. Really! Find the thing that they want to succeed in, and motivate from there.)
2. People Want to Know How Their Doing: (We all want to know how we are doing. BUT we rather hear the GOOD stuff first, then lay in the bad stuff gently, clearly, firmly, and with love and commitment so that they can hear you)
3. A Leader’s Impact on Morale and Performance is Greater Than They Realize: (We impact the org. from our words, assumptions, secret thoughts, secret resentments & unhappiness, actions, EVeRYTHING!!! We are much more transparent than we know.)
4. The People Closest to the Action are Best Able to Identify Opportunities and Solutions (We know that!!! But for some reasons it still is a lot easier to make decisions behind closed doors, to assume that we know best, to save time by just rolling it down to them, to, to, to…..and then we shoot ourselves in the foot)
Again, so simple, yet so hard to do when the moment is charged, and everyone is stressed for time, pressure, and demands.
Do we really do anything purely for ourselves???
Been reading this AWESOME book called the Presence Process, by Michael Brown. At the moment I am reflecting on these paragraphs.
“As children, we entered the world of order, routine, and “appropriate” behavior through the guidance, encouragement, and insistence of our parents. We acted according to what we perceived as appropriate in the eyes of our mother and father. The consequence is that today, on an unconscious level, our motivation for the way we eat, dress, bathe, and behave is almost solely sourced from the reflected presence of others. We unconsciously use these “others” as ongoing reflections of our mother and father. We are still attempting to please and appease our mother and father in order that we may gain their approval and unconditional acceptance.
This initial motivation transformed and transferred into adulthood. By the time we entered our adult experience, this need for outer validation became cloaked as a desire to be responsible, or to “get ahead”. Therefore, let us call most of our behavior what it is: a desire to get a reaction, a drama staged for the purpose of gaining out attention. And for some of us this desire may have manifested as its polar opposite. In other words, we desired “NOT” to fit in or get ahead. This resistance is also a reaction and can be traced to our initial interactions with our parents (or their substitutes).
…The tragedy is that we can go through our whole life and never stop for a moment to accomplish anything “REAL” and therefore lasting for ourselves.”
I am particularly interested in this work because I recently got my 360 results back from my Leadership Circle survey. And to my complete surprise, my colleagues ranked me extremely high in the category of “pleasing others” while I scored myself really low. What a blind spot! How can this go by unnoticed by me? How has this need impacted my success and achievement ability? How else has this impacted me that I don’t know about? AND what is worst, WILL I EVER stop this madness? When will I feel safe enough to be as is????
