Recently, I was listening to a reporter talk about the European financial crisis.  She said, “The problem is, the Europeans have borrowed too much.”  For some reason, this statement just struck me as wrong.  It wasn’t that it was untrue.  It just missed the point.  The problem isn’t the borrowing per se.  The problem is the underlying reason governments borrow so much – the spending.  This may seem like an insignificant or meaningless distinction.  Spending, borrowing, it’s all connected.  The issue here is accountability, and that is what makes the two different.  It’s easy to blame nameless, faceless politicians in Washington or the capitals of Europe for the debt crises.  They irresponsibly kept raising the debt limits, which got them into this mess.  They’ve borrowed so much money that the prospect of paying it back seems impossible.

When we recognize that it is the spending that lies at the heart of our problem, the accountability becomes more personal.  We, as individual citizens, own this problem, because we are the ones who have become so wedded to government programs that we feel entitled to them.  We also own our current political situation.  According to a February 8, 2012 Gallup Poll, the approval rating for Congress was at an appallingly low 10%, compared to the normally anemic average of 34%.  Yet, despite this fact, we continue to re-elect our Representative and Senators more than 90% of the time.  It’s as if we say, “Sure Congress stinks, but my Congressman is O.K.”  This is our problem, and until we take ownership, it isn’t going to get fixed.  We, the average citizens, have to change.  We must demand that Congress act decisively, and we must be willing to sacrifice and stop defending our little piece of the pie.

Once we face the reality that our actions and expectations are driving these crises, we can force government to act differently.  We can start demanding that our governments make the difficult choices and hard cuts.  The operative words here are “difficult” and “hard.”  The decisions will be unpopular and painful.  The process will be hard and it will take us years, if not decades, to correct.  Remember, it took us decades to get to this place. 

It is time for leadership!  It is time for every one of us to take a stand for change.  Leadership is about choosing to act and encouraging others to act with us.  Regardless of one’s attitude about the Tea Party or the Occupy movements, they represent the type of personal accountability we need.  Sure, it’s easy to mock both groups for naiveté or for oversimplifying the problems, but the truth is that they have chosen to act.  They have chosen to lead.  Until the rest of us do the same, we will remain the problem.  What will it take for you to choose to lead?

I used to complain a lot about Facebook.  I thought it was occasionally interesting, but mostly it was just annoying. I rarely cared what people had for breakfast, and I never understood the appeal of games like Farmville.  I believed that Facebook was making people lazy about building and maintaining relationships.  I had a fairly selfish attitude about the whole thing.  I used it to see what had happened to some old friends and to help promote my business and my book.

In the last few years, I have gained a real appreciation for Facebook, specifically, and social media tools in general.  I have become a true believer.  I believe Facebook has virtues, and I believe it can help us build stronger, more meaningful relationships in all areas of our lives. 

Yesterday was my birthday, and I was reminded of my new attitude about Facebook.  I woke up to breakfast in bed, prepared and delivered by my children.  After spending some quality time with my family, I got to work.  I was going through emails, and I started noticing all of the friends on Facebook who had left me birthday wishes.  Their simple messages reminded me of fond memories from high school, college, my career, and life in general.  I laughed at myself for sharing my breakfast details,  but as I read comments, I realized it wasn’t annoying or mundane.  It was an opportunity to celebrate a simple joy of parenthood and an invitation for friends to share their own.

That’s the beauty of social media; it makes staying in touch or reconnecting easy.  More than that, it provides triggers about what is happening in peoples’ lives.  Some may call that lazy; I call it convenient.  Facebook reminds us to let people know we are thinking about them.  So many people touch our lives.  Sometimes we develop deep and enduring relationships, and other times the relationships can be fleeting.  Regardless, every person we meet makes an impression and influences who we are.  As I read the birthday greetings yesterday, each one reminded me of the blessing of friendship and the 47 years of experiences that formed the man I am.

If Facebook and other social media tools do nothing else, they remind us of the network of people who make up our lives, and they remind us to stay connected.  If the connections are limited to an occasional birthday wish or acknowledgement of the events in our lives, we are still better for having made them.  If they raise our awareness, that’s good.  We form habits by repeatedly doing the same thing.  Perhaps Facebook can create a societal habit of staying connected.  Perhaps it already has.  I am a better man because of the relationships in my life, and the birthday wishes yesterday reminded me to be thankful and to stay in touch.

Senator Olympia Snowe. . .You may love her; you may hate her.  And sometimes you may feel both.  No matter what emotions she elicits, Senator Snowe has become the latest politician to announce her retirement because of the polarizing nature of the national political arena.  After 17 years in the United States Senate, and nearly 40 years of political service to the people of Maine, Senator Snowe announced on February 28 that she would not seek reelection this year.  In her announcement, she stressed her continued sense of responsibility and motivation to serve, but she said, “I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.”  This announcement reminds us that leadership is exhausting, and one of the most important leadership attributes is stamina.

Whether we are leading a small team or serving as a United States Senator, leadership can wear us down.  This is especially true when we feel we are constantly fighting the same battles over and over again.  Senator Snowe earned a reputation as a “moderate” in the Senate.  This label has made her a key player in some of the hardest fought political battles.  She and other moderates often play the role of bridge-builders between the competing camps.  This position also makes her a target of attack from all sides. 

Regardless of one’s political views, it is important to acknowledge the leadership role played by people like Senator Snowe. They work tirelessly to identify shared aims and to build consensus around contentious issues.  This function isn’t unique to politics, and neither is its exhausting nature.  Every organization needs bridge-builders to identify common ground and enable lasting change, and this requires extraordinary levels of energy and stamina.

How do we maintain our stamina in these types of situations?  How do we help others recognize when they are at risk of exhaustion?  What can we do to build stamina in ourselves and those we lead?  The first thing is to commit ourselves fully to the task we face.  This means knowing how our work serves our values and beliefs.  I am often amazed at how invigorated I feel after a long day of doing something important – as opposed to doing just a few hours of busy work.  I doubt Senator Snowe would have lasted so long in politics if she wasn’t absolutely committed.

Next, it is critical that we keep things in context.  It is much easier to deal with frustrations and setbacks when we remained focused on our long-term goals.  Setbacks become less exhausting when we recognize how they fit in the bigger picture.  Our long-term perspective also helps us recognize that some setbacks are recurring because we have only dealt with the symptoms, not the underlying issue.  Maintaining perspective also helps us pick our battles.  Leadership sometimes means walking away from a fight.

Stamina is far more than maintaining the physical energy to endure when things get tough.  It also involves the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual energy that keeps us going.  Leaders recognize that without energy, they are useless to those they wish to lead.  Recharging our batteries and encouraging others to do the same is critical to long-term success and fulfillment.  Sometimes this means stepping down as leader. Senator Snowe’s stamina enabled her to endure for 17 years in the United States Senate, and she has earned her respite from this exhausting environment.

General Eisenhower Before D-Day

True leaders do not wait to be “tapped.”  They see leadership opportunities, and they seize them.  President Eisenhower’s career is full of examples of his choices to embrace the leadership challenges before him.  Certainly, there were times when others “tapped” him to lead, but more often he placed himself in situations where his talents would be recognized and used.  Throughout his career, Eisenhower prepared himself for bigger and more difficult leadership challenges.  He rose from Lt. Colonel in 1936 to General of the Army in 1945.  He received six promotions in nine years.  These opportunities were not simply given to Eisenhower.  Before anyone “tapped” him, he had demonstrated his readiness to lead.  His string of successes and his response to failures proved his worthiness.

As Supreme Allied Commander, Eisenhower faced a variety of challenges for which he was uniquely qualified.  He had to contend with strong politicians like Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle.  He had to deal with strong-willed and often defiant subordinates.  He had to manage the egos of several of these subordinates who, at time, out-ranked him.  Kennicott seems to believe that any of the other leaders waiting in the wings would have handled these situations with the effectiveness Eisenhower showed.  I think that is absurd. 

These situations reveal the second concept worth exploring. Our shared limitless potential does not mean we have equal competence.  Eisenhower brought a combination of skills and abilities to bear that enabled him to lead through a variety of difficult situations.  We all have a distinct set of gifts and talents.  How we use them often determines our success.  To say, “there were other men who could have done what he did,” denies the fundamental truth that we are all unique.  All of the others waiting in the wings would have dealt with the leadership challenges differently.  It is impossible to know what the outcomes would have been.

Eisenhower’s willingness to choose to lead combined with the skills and abilities that defined him as a leader continued to serve him throughout his Presidency.  From desegregation and the construction of the Interstate Highway System to the Korean War, Eisenhower led with determination and strength.  Certainly, we can look back and second-guess some of his decisions, but we enjoy the clarity amd full knowledge of hindsight.  In the moment, Eisenhower led based on the information he possessed, and he led well.  When we presume that any of the other would-be leaders could have done as well, we deny the unique gifts and qualities and the personal commitment that make us who we are.  For the rare few, this means greatness, and we must celebrate and honor that greatness.

Why do icons and symbols so often outlast our memories of leaders who created them?  This question was nagging at me for several days last week after I heard an interview with Sharon La Cruise, whose film, Daisy Bates: The First Lady of Little Rock, premiered on PBS on February 1^st.  Ms. La Cruise’s film tells the story of a forgotten hero of the Civil Rights Movement.  The film explores the life of Daisy Bates, who helped the Little Rock Nine become the first African-American students to cross the racial divide to attend Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

The Little Rock Nine became, and remain, icons of the Civil Rights Movement.  These nine courageous students helped Americans put a face on the issues and challenges of integration.  They survived the taunts, bigotry, threats, and dangers, and they paved a path for the full integration of schools across the United States.  They helped make the issue real to people not directly affected by it.

Behind the Little Rock Nine was Daisy Bates.  She was the unifying force for nine individuals who helped form them into a stronger more resilient whole.  She helped them remain both a group and individuals.  Without Ms. Bates to buttress them, some or all of the nine might have given up.  Without her strong support, any one of them could have responded to the threats and attacks in a way that could have derailed the integration efforts.  Daisy Bates’ leadership made sure that nothing interfered with the integration of Little Rock’s public school.  Her contribution was recognized in 1963 when she spoke alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.  While Dr. King and his “I Have a Dream” speech have become permanent fixtures in American history, Ms. Bates has been almost forgotten.

Daisy Bates may be forgotten, but the change she created lasts.

So I ask again, why do icons and symbols so often outlast our memories of the leaders who created them?  I believe the answer lies in one of my favorite leadership quotes.  Lao Tzu wrote, “When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’”  When we do it ourselves, it is easy to ignore the leaders who make things possible.  That is what seems to have happened with Daisy Bates.  The exceptions seem to be when the leader is killed or suffers for the achievement.  In those cases, the line between leader and symbol blurs.

The prospect of being forgotten can be disheartening to a leader.  It can create resentment, because the leader’s efforts can feel diminished or even ignored.  However, great leaders are great because they lead not for glory or personal legacy.  Rather, they lead to achieve something bigger than themselves.  That is why others choose to follow them, and it is why they stay with them even when things become difficult.  Daisy Bates may be forgotten by most, but her legacy is the change she created for countless students.  What will your legacy be?  What change will you create that will last long after you are forgetten.

On Saturday, July 24th, 2010 the town of Prescott Valley, AZ, hosted a Freedom Rally. Quang Nguyen was asked to speak on his experience of coming to America and what it means.  He spoke the following in dedication to all Vietnam Veterans:

“35 years ago, if you were to tell me that I am going to stand up here speaking to a couple thousand patriots, in English, I’d laugh at you. Man, every morning I wake up thanking God for putting me and my family in the greatest country on earth.

I just want you all to know that the American dream does exist and I am living the American dream. I was asked to speak to you about my experience as a first generation Vietnamese- American, but I’d rather speak to you as an American.

If you hadn’t noticed, I am not white and I feel pretty comfortable with my people.

I am a proud US Citizen and here is my proof. It took me 8 years to get it,
waiting in endless lines, but I got it, and I am very proud of it.

I still remember the images of the Tet offensive in 1968, I was six years old. Now you might want to question how a 6-year-old boy could remember anything. Trust me, those images can never be erased. I can’t even imagine what it was like for young American soldiers, 10,000 miles away from home, fighting on my behalf.

35 years ago, I left South Vietnam for political asylum. The war had ended. A t the age of 13, I left with the understanding that I may or may not ever get to see my siblings or parents again. I was one of the first lucky 100,000 Vietnamese allowed to come to the US. Somehow, my family and I were reunited 5 months later, amazingly, in California. It was a miracle from God.

If you haven’t heard lately that this is the greatest country on earth, I am telling you that right now. It was the freedom and the opportunities presented to me that put me here with all of you tonight. I also remember the barriers that I had to overcome every step of the way. My high school counselor told me that I cannot make it to college due to my poor
communication skills. I proved him wrong. I finished college. You see, all you have to do is to give this little boy an opportunity and encourage him to take and run with it. Well, I took the opportunity and here I am.

This person standing tonight in front of you could not exist under a socialist/communist environment By the way, if you think socialism is the way to go, I am sure many people here will chip in to get you a one-way ticket out of here. And if you didn’t know, the only difference between socialism and communism is an AK-47 aimed at your head. That was my
experience.

In 1982, I stood with a thousand new immigrants, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and listening to the National Anthem for the first time as an American. To this day, I can’t remember anything sweeter and more patriotic than that moment in my life.

Fast forwarding, somehow I finished high school, finished college, and like any other goofball 21 year old kid, I was having a great time with my life. I had a nice job and a nice apartment in Southern California. In some way and somehow, I had forgotten how I got here and why I was here.

One day I was at a gas station, I saw a veteran pumping gas on the other side of the island. I don’t know what made me do it, but I walked over and asked if he had served in Vietnam. He smiled and said yes. I shook and held his hand. The grown man began to well up. I walked away as fast as I could and at that very moment, I was emotionally rocked. This was a profound moment in my life. I knew something had to change in my life. It was time
for me to learn how to be a good citizen. It was time for me to give back.

You see, America is not just a place on the map, it isn’t just a physical location. It is an ideal, a concept. And if you are an American, you must understand the concept, you must accept this concept, and most importantly, you have to fight and defend this concept. This is about Freedom and not free stuff. And that is why I am standing up here.

Brothers and sisters, to be a real American, the very least you must do is to learn English and understand it well. In my humble opinion, you cannot be a faithful patriotic citizen if you can’t speak the language of the country you live in. Take this document of 46 pages, the last I looked on the Internet, there wasn’t a Vietnamese translation of the US Constitution. It took me a long time to get to the point of being able to converse and until this day, I still struggle to come up with the right words. It’s not easy, but if it’s too easy, it’s not worth doing.

Before I knew this 46-page document, I learned of the 500,000 Americans who fought for this little boy. I learned of the 58,000 names scribed on the black wall at the Vietnam Memorial. You are my heroes. You are my founders.

At this time, I would like to ask all the Vietnam veterans to please stand. I thank you for my life I thank you for your sacrifices, and I thank you for giving me the freedom and liberty I have today. I now ask all veterans, firefighters, and police officers, to please stand. On behalf of all first generation immigrants, I thank you for your services and may God bless you all.”

Quang Nguyen
Creative Director/Founder
Caddis Advertising, LLC

Father Renninger’s point hit close to home for me.  When I don’t know what I want, I often end up with things I don’t need and often don’t even want.  I’ve accumulated most of the clutter in my life wandering around trying to figure out what I want.   This clutter can be tangible, like all of the junk jammed in my attic, garage, etc.  It can be spiritual like all of the distractions that keep me from living my faith.  And it can be emotional or intellectual – all of those activities I get involved with simply because someone asked.  Sure, they may be worthwhile endeavors, but are they the best use of my most limited resource – my time?

As leaders, one of the best things we can do to assist those we lead is to help them de-clutter their lives.  There are several ways we can do this.  First is to lead by example.  We can inventory all of our activities and assess their value in relation to two simple questions:  “Who am I?” and “What do I want?”  I am often amazed at the number of things that consume my time that have nothing to do with who I am or what I want.  If an activity is out of alignment with our values and beliefs(that is, it is not helping achieve something that is important to us) we need to determine why we are doing it.  We may find that there is a very good reason for doing it.  Our involvement may matter to others who matter to us.  It may be important to our employer or a key client.  But when we can’t find a compelling reason for doing that activity, it probably means we should stop doing it.  Doing this in a public and explicit way will help others see that they can do the same.

Next, we can start asking the people we lead to look at how they are spending their time.  What are the top 3 to 5 activities that consume their work day?  Ask them to consider these questions for each of these projects, processes, or tasks:

• ·         How does this investment of time and energy serve our organization? 
• ·         How does their success in doing this contribute to the organization’s achievement of one or more of its goals or objectives? 
• ·         How are they growing personally or professionally by investing their time doing this? 
• ·         Does this activity reflect the organization’s core values?
• ·         Is it consistent with their personal values? 

This process will help employees gain a new perspective on things.   By helping them see how well (or poorly) their work is serving their organization and/or their values, we can assist them in letting go of things that are unwanted or unneeded.  It can have the opposite effect as well.  Things that may have seemed unimportant or mundane can become critical, because we realize that they contribute something of great value.

Even with this increased perspective, sometimes we will need to convince people to change their behaviors.  It is difficult to overcome inertia, or they may worry about others judging them for failing to complete a task or abandoning an initiative.  As leaders, it’s our job to enable, or even force, the difficult decisions.  When we de-clutter the workloads of those we lead, we make room for work that is more valuable and with greater meaning. 

Last week, I had the honor to witness the latter.  Several years ago, my cousin, Denise Hay, was the victim of fraud.  Fortunately for her, she successfully resolved her civil complaint and recouped her loses.  However, she knew that the law had been broken, and the criminal needed to be stopped.  So she agreed to help the District Attorney by testifying in the criminal case.  Denise owns and operates two businesses.  She is committed to her family and community.  She doesn’t have a great deal of free time to spare.  It would have been easy for her to just let someone else take care of this problem.  Despite her schedule, she has worked closely with the police and district attorney’s office to build their case.

Just days before the trial was set to begin, the defense attorney tried to delay the trial.  He demanded verification that he had previously accepted as authentic.  Given the short notice, this seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle.  Denise knew that I had worked for the company whose documents need verification, so she asked if I could call my former employer for help.  I was pessimistic that we could find anyone so quickly.  By noon the day before the trial, it was clear that no one was available.  Denise and the DA were undaunted.  They asked me if I would testify to the document’s authenticity.  My first reaction was, “Are you kidding?  I am not qualified.” My next reaction was, “I don’t have time for this.”  I never said either out loud, because I wanted to help Denise.  But I had real misgivings about my ability to help.  They quickly overcame my concerns, so at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning, I was on a train heading north.

When we arrived at the courthouse on Tuesday, the DA informed us that the defendant had pleaded guilty.  The prosecutor had called the defense’s bluff.  The DA apologized for seeming to waste my time – and that of the other witnesses scheduled to testify.  He stated that he believed that it was our willingness to testify that compelled the defendant to plead guilty.

This criminal had broken the law and defrauded people of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  She was guilty of evil.  While she hadn’t robbed anyone at gunpoint or broken into their homes and stolen their property, her crimes had real victims.  But some of these victims decided to band together and stop her.  One of those good people, my cousin, enlisted others to help their cause.  She convinced me to help.  She got me to step up and join her fight.  That is what leaders do.  Doing the right thing is only the beginning for someone like Denise.  Her leadership drove me to act.

This weekend, I found reason to start believing again.  Science gave us an example of how it is different from other areas.  When CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) announced that they may have discovered a particle that moves faster than light, they did what many people would find unthinkable.  They publicly expressed doubts about the accuracy of their results.  The CERN physicists didn’t pound their chest and boast that they had discovered something that challenges Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.  They didn’t start a movement to have e=mc² stricken from textbooks around the world.  Rather, they encouraged others to shoot holes in their work.  They invited peers and competitors “to look at what they’ve done and really scrutinize it in great detail.”

The problem is that the truth can change as our perspective changes.  I’ll use a simple example to illustrate this point.  Sitting on my desk is a can of Coca-Cola Zero_TM.  At one angle, I can clearly read the words Coca-Cola Zero in the distinctive Coca-Cola font.  At another angle, it looks like a simple black can with nutritional data and a list of ingredients.  At a third, an image of a football is all that is visible to give me an indication of what is inside.  If three people saw this can, each from only one of these perspectives, they could draw different conclusions about what the can contained.  All three would be basing their “truth” about the contents on empirical evidence, and they could all be right or wrong. 

Science encourages the exchange of information which allows for the examination of something from multiple perspectives.  In science or at work, when we consider something from many points-of-view, the quality of our analysis and the likelihood of knowing the whole truth increases.  The scientific method encourages researchers to seek the whole truth.  So does great leadership.  Leaders allow for the possibility that no one person may know the whole truth.  They encourage parties to exchange information in a spirit of openness and thoughtful deliberation.  No, this doesn’t mean we spend hours sharing data to determine the contents of a can, but what about the challenges that truly matter?  Leaders understand the importance of reconciling the many perspectives on an issue to help find the  whole truth.