Skills versus Jobs

There is a good article in today's Globe and Mail by the president and CEO of Royal Bank of Canada on a topic that is good reading for any parent - and a worthwile reflection for any of us who have to deal with both skills and jobs.

When I was finishing university, and trying to choose whether to continue with graduate work in English language and literature or become a secondary school teacher, my father's advice was "Be a teacher.  You'll never make much money but you'll always have a job".  As it turned out he was wrong on both counts.

My father was someone worth listening to in terms of his own career.  His own father died in 1916 when he was only 16 and the last child of a large family.  He went to work in the munitions plant in the nearly town of Nobel and dreamed of becoming a chemist like his brother-in-law, but also felt responsible for helping his mother financially.  Good at math, he became the town clerk of Parry Sound in his 20's and later the City Treasurer in Kitchener, then a mid sized industrial city.  With its twin city, Waterloo, the pair were home to several Canadian insurance companies and he was recruited to join one of them as assistant general manager as its 13th employee.  From there he went on to become general manager,  president and CEO and ultimately chairman of the board. 

I did become a secondary school teacher and married soon after., abandoning the dream of going to Yale. Over the next 20 years, we had four children and I also had several teaching jobs - and of course became redundant when the high school student population evaporated, because I had not stayed with the same school board but had moved and taught in several communities. 

Like many of my contemporary out-of-work teachers, I became an arts administrator in an era when there was no professional accreditation for such a job.  "We used to ask our colleages, "So what did you used to teach?"  All we knew was how to organize and be ready for whatever happened tomorrow.  We were mentored by colleagues who had done it longer and over the next decade universities woke up and created MBAs in Arts Management.  I was soon redundant again but not unhappy about it -  this time I took some additional skills along learned on the job - writing, editing, fundraising, conference planning, touring, concert production - all learned in depth over eight years.

They were useful in the next "job" which was actually a series of consulting projects involving creation of new arts facilities - finding the financial resources to make them happen, building the governance and operating structures, marketing - and assessing feasibility and operating plans.  But since these were not "jobs" but contracts, I also became a software vendor of a tool that mapped and organized ideas and plans.  This made me work more in the digital as well as the real world and I still feel quite bi-cultural - even though the new digital wolrd is both exciting and daunting.

AI and the Internet of Things have been around for a while and if Globe readers are just waking up to them, they are in trouble.  Like me, two of my working sons have had several disruptive careers rather than jobs -  another still continues to teach at a university, though not in the field he pursued at a graduate level.   There will be lots of work going forward - but not the secure job that leads to be chairman of the board. 

The Globe's writer cites a collection of "C" words - critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, core skills, competency - as the skills for today and tomorrow in the changing landscape.  Acquiring these starts long before people enter the workplace.   I'm glad that RBC is starting :Future Launch" that omits the resume and will actually pay interns.  But creating work in future generations starts with how we embody attitudes toward about whatever our age and stage. The kids will be all right if they have good mentors.

Models we like

All of us have been exposed to models as a way to summarize ideas and we like to examine and use them to spark new models and ideas.  This one, showing preferred thinking styles, was developed by Ned Herrmann while he was manager of Management of Education at General Electric. It is one of our essentials.

As you can see, the model has four quadrants showing thinking style preferences. We all use some of these in situations that require them – no one scores zero on any of them –  all of us use all of the styles – but influenced by both nature and nurture, most of us develop preferences for some quadrants more than others and use them to a greater degree, while ignoring or downplaying the others.  Under pressure, preferred styles often become even more dominant.

What we too often ascribe to personality differences in the workplace relates instead to difference in thinking preferences. Understanding the characteristics – as well as developing respect for the values that each quadrant contributes –  allows people to work together more creatively and produce better results through increased understanding of how all people think – not just ourselves.

As an assessment tool the HBDI(R)  measures the preferences of each style quantitatively by creating a kite shape on top of the model.  It’s a versatile model in that it can be used for both individual and group assessment.  As a certified practitioner, I have used the device with hundreds of clients and in retirement remain an evangelist. My respect for it is based on countless validation studies as well as the positive feedback from those whom I have assessed.  Hundreds of the largest corporations use the assessment, and individuals can too by contacting Herrmann Solutions.  You will hear more about the HBDI here from time to time.

Lessons

II have recently restarted piano lessons - after an interval since the last one of about 66 years.

It's not that I can't play already.  I do regularly - even in public but what I am doing mainly is playing by ear.  I wanted to be able to read music notation better as well as receiving some direction.  Lessons and practising have changed.

Since I live in an apartment, I practise on an electronic Roland instrument using headphones.  It does have the required 88 keys and fewer bells and whistles than many electronic keyboards but its grand piano sound and action is quite presentable. Lessons follow the same format in the group.  We play along with the teacher who said "I learned never to ask anyone to play live because when I do they just quit." My fellow students have been with her for five or six years as beginners and they are now in the Royal Conservatory's Grade Five to Seven range.  In the class the speed they prefer is much slower than mine, but as I play along I can check the accuracy and other stylistic issues.

I also like the comments that an instructor can make to adults with wider life experience and understanding. Maybe similar instruction was given to me as a child but it didn't sink in.  

I like the fact that I am playing on  digital piano - while above me is written notation from the page of a very old psalter or two.  It unites the two musical worlds. There is no audience other than my own.  It's not so much the proficiency of the playing.  It's hearing what the composer intended and reaching even a tiny element of the beauty of that.

Leadership

Some months ago I attended a meeting relating to the roll out of a strategic plan. The agenda was  to review the requirements for leadership and leadership training.  The context was for a mainline church denomination but some of the discussion could apply more broadly.

Several participants had been asked to research and bring  leadership concepts and common key words emerged for leadership roles.  Words like “mediating”, “perfecting”,  offering” and “blessing” appeared in one report.  In another the author had been fond of the letter “C” – and used nouns like “character”, “calling”, “competence” and “community”.  “Servant” leadership was also on the table.   My key words echoed some of the others – “disicipline”, “humility” and  “learner”.  I was also strong on “collaboration” rather than “hierarchy” even though we are still working within a hierarchical structure. But leader still assumes followers and someone has to take the first step.

The most interesting submission was a summary of a work by Ed Friedman entitled A Failure of Nerve. The writer of the summary had limited himself to 500 words and boiled down the role of the leader to a non-anxious presence.  We spent little time on Friedman’s idea in the meeting, but I had read his book some years before and its mention whetted my appetite to return to it.

Failure of Nerve  was compiled after Firedman’s death in 1996 by his daughter and students and has been recently reissued.  It is timely. Friedman was a rabbi and psychotherapist by training and as well as founding a successful congregation he served as advisor to six US presidents as well as to many senior church leaders and individual clients. Even before his death he saw that America in the nineties had become a frightened society, fearing change and seeking safety as opposed to the spirit of adventure of its early explorers and founders.  He’s strongly critical of this stance and challenges us to change our mental models.

Friedman is often caustic and witty – and several readers have collected maxims that represent the substance of his thinking.  Here are some that apply to leadership:

• Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future.

• ‘no good deed goes unpunished; chronic criticism is, if anything, often a sign that the leader is functioning better! Vision is not enough.

• Leaders need “… to focus first on their own integrity and on the nature of their own presence rather than through techniques for manipulating or motivating others.”

• Leadership through self-differentiation is not easy; learning techniques and imbibing data are far easier. Nor is striving or achieving success as a leader without pain: there is the pain of isolation, the pain of loneliness, the pain of personal attacks, the pain of losing friends. That’s what leadership is all about.here

Much of where Friedman is coming from is defining church congregations and enterprise units as  family systems, a concept developed fully by therapist Murray Bowen. It posits that we call rational  in congregations and enterprises is always framed by the emotional responses learned in our personal birth and extended families.  Those families and tribes, like all systems, seek equilibrium.  When things get tense, it’s likely that learned behavior in earlier systems are in play.  When things are going well, Friedman says, expect sabotage.

The remedy is for the leader to develop self-differentiation rather than to try to persuade or motivate others to change.If a non-anxious presence is required it assumes there is already anxiety and conflict in the room.  But it is working on one’s own development that allows others to learn by example – and take responsibility for their own development.

Here's a brilliant brief video of Friedman's work:

Gaining perspective

I wrote this five months ago - and it seem both dated and even more relevant . . . .

Have a look at the images above. Now look again and see if you can see them from a different perspective.  Most people can – but not see both views at the same time.  It’s lucky we can still see more than one perspective because as political animals Americans seem to have lost it.

It gets worse.  Presidents and newscast hosts get involved in slanging matches and start competing for the “Bully of the Year” award.  People become very self-righteous for different reasons and with different reactions.  Some of us have high expectations of appropriateness and when we don’t see it, we become outraged.  Others follow the Twitterverse for its entertainment value.  Values are clearly in play.  Some feel discouraged, others feel helpless.  It’s one thing to deal with a surly adolescent or screaming child at home.  It’s another when you’re dealing with a leader of the free world.

As Tom Friedman observed recently in a New York Times article, “I fear we’re seeing the end of ‘truth’ — that we simply can’t agree any more on basic facts. And I fear that we’re becoming Sunnis and Shiites — we call them ‘Democrats’ and ‘Republicans,’ but the sectarianism that has destroyed nation-states in the Middle East is now infecting us.”

It's more than disagreeing on facts. We seem to have graduated to disagreeing on values. How can people who have so much common history seem to be living on different planets?  The clue may lie in how we determine values as much as we do facts.  While even expertise is distrusted these days, a bit of expertise might now come in handy.  I turn to Jonathan Haidt and his book, The Righteous Mind.

Haidt’s premise - that we are intuitive first and rational second - has much in common with Nobel prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman’s in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow.  Haigt as a social psychologist framed this concept in an earlier book, The Happiness Hypothesis, using the analogy of the mind as a rider on an emotional and instinctive elephant.  He sees moral judgment based more on more on intuition than on conscious reasoning; it is automatic.  If we want to change other peoples’ minds, he says, we talk to their elephants.  It is through relationships with others not our arguments that different points of view have a chance of making an impact.  There is more than one way of looking at things and if you return to the original image and look at it long enough, you can see it in two different ways.

After in-depth  research on moral thinking, Haidt has identified these moral foundations arising out of different cultures and historical traditions but now almost universal in presence – if not in emphasis:

• Care: Ability to “feel the pain” of others, to show a nurturing kindness. The opposite is harm

• Fairness: it can be interpreted in more than one way- equal treatment for all or proportionality. The opposite is cheating.

• Loyalty: our ability to form groups and put the needs of the group first. The opposite is betrayal.

• Authority; respect for leadership and traditions. Its opposite is subversion.

• Sanctity; respect for the physical body and the need to keep it pure and clean. Its opposite is degradation.

• Liberty; individual freedom and hatred of bullying and domination Its opposite is oppression.

It gets interesting when you start to apply these foundations to politics. Haidt notes that Democrats and Libertarians are strong on the first two and Libertarians especially on the last one – while Republicans value all six – giving their politicians more road maps in how to appeal to voters. The “facts” may matter a good deal less to the elephant than the emotional response they arouse and we see lots of that going on right now.

I’ve also been reminded of another book whose title seems prescient – Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve, published after his death.  A rabbi and psychotherapist, Friedman served as an advisor to six US presidents and it would be interesting to think what he would have to say to the current one.  Long before the current turmoil, be saw America as overcome by anxiety.  Both presidents and parents need to understand different roles as leaders.  I have zero confidence that the current leader would take Friedmans’ advice, but it might have some usefulness for the rest of us.  There’s room for more than one leader among us.

The leader’s role, Friedman says, is to be a non-anxious presence – to maintain one’s own integrity when facing sabotage – which any rise to power will automatically bring.  The real job is to maintain a sense of self while at the same time remaining connected to the opposition.  The very time one is under attack is the time not to react by hitting back in the same way.

Any emotional relationship involves a triangle. It can be three people – any parent has seen how the game plays out among mom, dad and teenager – or any two people or groups with an issue in which they disagree.  In an earlier work, Generation to Generation, Friedman explores how earlier generations become part of our triangles even after their deaths. Friedman notes that we are all part of multiple triangles simultaneously involving our jobs, our parents, our significant others, our finances, our health – and even our vacation preferences.  Three levels of government present another set.

Any triangle is a recipe for high anxiety – so the ones we are dealing with right now a perfect storm. In human terms, trying to change the relationship of the other sides of the triangle hardly ever works.  All of us, I suspect are trying to be more responsible than the other players. That doesn’t bring a solution – what it does bring is stress.  Anxiety is contagious and we are in the midst of an anxiety epidemic.

What to do?  Friedman would say –

• Self-differentiate. The only person’s behaviour we can change is our own.

• Maintain a sense of humor and be playful. If this were a play or a novel, the modern scene would win prizes for farce of a very high order. The fact that it is happening isn’t so great – but life is long and things change.

• Focus on personal strengths and do what one can to enhance them. Let other people work on theirs.

• Stay in touch with what’s going on. There is a tendency to want to hide under a rock, but we can’t.

• Be honest. Speak your piece but don’t fall into reciprocal slurring.

• Question beliefs. Haidt notes that there is a difference between “What can I believe?” and “What must I believe?”

• Live in the real world – not just the digital one – liars and cheaters are easier to spot there.

I like a quote from a recent memoir Safe Passage, by Ida Cook.  She and her sister helped many Jewish families escape the ravages of the second world war before it started.  She notes that when the war began, her 70-year-old father told the family that he was going to enroll as a stretcher bearer.  His wife replied that he was more likely to be on it than carrying it.  One of the sisters was worried about her father’s silence and projected that his feelings were hurt.  She said, “We think it is fine for you to want to be a stretcher bearer, Dad, even if mother thinks it is impractical”.  His reply would have gladdened Ed Friedman’s heart. He said, “I don’t care in the least what any of you think so long as I do what I think is right”.

We can stop being outraged.  We can stop being entertained.  We can stop expecting others to change.  We can stop being tired of foolishness.  We can start working on our own integrity and acting on it. We can also recognize that there is more than one perspective on the right thing -  giving some the right to emphasize some more than others and follow our own.