#Day7: Lifelong Learning

We recently received an email from a 2010 LeaderShape Institute graduate. She was reaching out because she hadn’t written a thank you letter to a donor who helped provide a discount for her fee to attend the program and wondered if she could still send it along.

We don’t often get emails like this so it was a bit of a surprise. We either get the thank you letter shortly after the Institute or we don’t get it at all. This letter was going to be different and we were all curious and eager to read what it would say.

The opening line of the letter reads, “It has been about four years since I attended The LeaderShape Institute back in August of 2010. Although this letter is very long overdue, I feel that now, years later, I can truly express how this program benefited me.”

These words are a terrific demonstration of how the processes of learning, meaning-making, and sharing can continue beyond an actual experience. LeaderShape talks a lot about the importance of being a life-long learner. Often times this sentiment is talked about in the spirit of current, active learning.

Perhaps the concept of being a life-long learner can also represent being open to learning from past experiences as well.

Our perspectives change (and maybe even evolve or expand) as we are exposed to new people, ideas, and circumstances. As we move further away from an experience, our take on it may change as well. This shift can open up new or deeper lessons. It can expand how we view what we thought, how we behaved, and what we learned last week, last month, or, in this instance, years ago. We can continue to learn from something, even years later.

When we think about #Day7 - about staying in action even after the Institute has ended - a part of it is about this commitment to lifelong learning. 

Lifelong learning - from the past and in the present. We are onboard with this.

How are continuing to learn from experiences you’ve had in the past? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Numbers

Numbers, numbers, numbers. 

We live in a world where we want to quantify everything.  How many friends I have on Facebook.  How many steps I walked on the pedometer.  How many calories in that double cheeseburger (do I really want to know?).  We are bombarded with numbers and statistics to the point that we truly can become immune to their impact. 

However, numbers can help tell a story so let me share some with you.  Please really get what these numbers represent and don’t take them lightly.  It would be a mistake to do so.

80.  In 2012, for the first time in LeaderShape’s history, eighty sessions of The LeaderShape Institute were held from Doha, Qatar to Toronto, Canada to Boston, Massachusetts, to Eugene, Oregon and dozens of locations in between.  Eighty afternoons of reading Tomorrow’s Headlines, eighty opportunities to learn a different perspective, eighty more moments to realize you still can make a difference in a very complex world.  Perhaps most importantly, we now have eighty other communities who actually felt what a just, caring, thriving world feels like even if only for six days.

4,068.  So eighty sessions is the big story, but there are 4,068 other stories that are more important.  Over four thousand stories that were heard, told, added to, and shared in a way that they perhaps were never done so before.  That number represents the total number of participants who have attended The LeaderShape Institute so far in 2012 and we still have two more sessions this month.  Each one of those participants came to their session whether it be a national session or hosted by another organization with an idea about leadership, many of them thinking that they have learned what it means to lead prior to LeaderShape.  We believe that they all are better equipped to lead with integrity, adopt a healthy disregard for the impossible, and create the kind of world we all want to live in after leaving on Day Six.  Those stories are all different and yet all the same.  Stories of struggle, joy, confusion, and opportunity.  We all look forward to hearing those stories for years to come.

46,246.  All of those stories are now blended with graduates from years past to create the LeaderShape story.  What a story that is.  Those of you who have read Malcolm Gladwell are familiar with the concept of the “tipping point.”  The game I play from time to time is what number of LeaderShape graduates will be the tipping point for achieving our mission.  Is it 46,247?  Is it 50,000 which we will hit in 2013.  Is it 100,000?  When will we have reached the number that leading with integrity is now the norm?  I like playing this game because it gets more exciting every year.  I may not now when it is going to happen, but I know for sure that every year we are getting closer.  Not a bad game to play…do you agree?

1. Finally, the most important number has to be one.  Bet you saw that coming if you were paying attention.  With all of these wonderful numbers this year, they don’t mean anything if LeaderShape ever loses track of “the power of one.”  Each new participant, each new staff member, each facilitator, each food service worker who serves us at a session, each person that decides not to go to LeaderShape because they have “more important things to do.”  It is all about the one.  One conversation that changes a mind.  One idea that comes during a long walk with your family cluster.  One day when you decide to raise your game.  One moment that defines a life.

We all must never lose sight that numbers are made up of a bunch of “ones.”  Don’t care how much money you have; I care how you spend that one dollar.  Don’t care how many leadership positions you have held; I care about what you are doing in the one you hold now.  Don’t care how many participants have gone through your program; I care about whether one is different because of their experience. 

Measure that.

-Paul

Double Take: Personal Vision

Whatever our experience with the LeaderShape Institute was, we take away information which holds personal meaning for us.  It’s been eight years since I last facilitated a session but experiencing the power of creating and involving others in a personal vision still makes me as if I just left an Institute. 

When I was and undergraduate I took a class called “Great Speeches.”  We dissected words, discovered metaphors, and examined the powerful elements of various famous speeches.  I have to honestly say that as a sophomore, the King speech was “just an assignment.”  It was just another speech to examine over the course of a semester. 

Many, many years later in 1996 I co-led an Institute with Christopher Adkins-Lamb and I felt the power of that King speech for the first time.  Yep, in front of a roomful of collegiate participants I choked up and my voice became an unintelligible squeak.  Then I had to whisper to my partner that he had to step in and lead the discussion as I started an “ugly cry” in the Allerton foyer.  Not very professional… but that has stuck with me ever since. 

We can all empathize with the participants and facilitators who, after seeing that powerful videotape of King’s speech, are a bit overwhelmed.  It’s no wonder they have a difficult time developing their own vision statement or even closing their eyes and imagining something compelling enough for them to act on.  Some immediately come up with very short-sighted, organization specific, and yet very attainable visions.  They quickly create vision statements for their student organization and can picture a very different organization with a greater sense of purpose.  Others draft vision statements which are very compelling yet so unattainable (i.e. world peace) that it’s hard to coach them to develop tangible stretch goals. It’s like a roomful of Goldilocks searching for the “just right” vision.

The important take-away of this work is knowing that the process of vision development is what’s most important.  Less important is the product, the printed vision statement.

So, on to the double take.

We can use that same process for creating and/or recommitting to a personal vision as alumni of the LeaderShape experience.  In these summer months I’ve been surprised during dinner parties and casual get-togethers by conversations about the work my neighbors and friends doing.  Almost every single person I’ve talked with has their dream job in their heads.  However, no one has that dream job.  In fact, it’s sad how many people are completely unfulfilled in their current jobs.  It’s dramatic when they say, “If I could do anything I would _____________.”  They are transformed.  Their faces light up, they become much more animated, they smile broadly, and their descriptions of these dream jobs are so vivid, you can easily write their job description for them.

Because of those conversations I’ve become reacquainted with a favorite book, The Power of Purpose, by Richard J. Leider.  The author uses the analogy of a nautilus shell for one’s life.  Out of the shell’s basic center of orientation is a coherent pattern of growth.  As it keeps growing, the nautilus keeps adding new chambers throughout its life as it needs more space to grow.  The questions Leider provides gets us to think of our lives in stages.   He gets us to think about a central question as we move from the center (youngest part of the nautilus) to the outermost (oldest).  Here are his questions:

·       Childhood:  What do I want to be when I grow up?

·       Adolescence:  Where do I fit?

·       Young Adulthood:  What is my calling?

·       Middlessence:  Who have I become as a person?

·       Young Older Adulthood:  How do I measure my success as a person?

·       Elderhood:  What value-legacy have I added to people’s lives?

In the process of vision development we’re asked to think big.  To think of one’s impact on the world.  To consider one’s personal passion and signature strengths.   Here are some examples of friends thinking big:  An HR director discovers she is more passionate about rescue dogs than her current work.  A stay-at-home mom is devoted to her child, and deeply passionate about helping others work toward financial freedom and empowerment.  A software salesman would rather spend his time teaching youth good sportsmanship and officiating games so they can pay their way through college.

Leider asks us to have our mid-life “crisis” on purpose.  Be proactive and recreate yourself or your work so you can find deeper meaning and life satisfaction. 

As we say in LeaderShape speak, “Now go marinate on Leider’s questions and let us know your thoughts…”

Inspiration/Source:

Leider, R.J. (2010). The Power of Purpose: Find Meaning, Live Longer.  Berrett Koehler:  San Francisco, CA.

Thanks so much to Karyn Nishimura Sneath for this post and for these meaningful questions to consider. Karyn has been connected to LeaderShape since 1991 and currently serves as the CEO of NPOWER.