Humble Leadership. Yes, those two words belong together.

This week on the podcast, Ed and Peter Schein join me to discuss their book Humble Leadership. We talk about leadership as a verb, the relationships behind the Singapore economic miracle, innovation through psychological safety, script-based modes of adult relating, the costs of maintaining professional distance, giving up the absurd obsession with eye contact, antibodies that protect the core business, and how Ed’s curiosity landed his first big contract with Digital Equipment Corporation.

Ed Schein is Emeritus Professor at MIT where he taught in the School of Management for fifty years. Peter Schein has had a 30 year career in Silicon Valley in corporate development and business development. They are a father-son team with a powerful message for you and me.

Please share with others.

Highlights

* 4:30 It’s about the quality of the team, not you

* 17:00 Getting curious about the person behind the role

* 27:00 Opening the door to more than transactional relationships

* 36:00 Using check-ins and check-outs to improve group meetings

* 50:00 Bringing the water cooler conversation into the meeting itself

* 57:00 When relationships are asymmetrical

* 1:03:00 When company executives get threatened by genuine relating

Listen to the Podcast

Explore Additional Resources

* Organizational Culture And Leadership Institute

* Humble Leadership by Ed Schein and Peter Schein

 

Humble Leadership. Yes, those two words belong together.

This week on the podcast, Ed and Peter Schein join me to discuss their book Humble Leadership. We talk about leadership as a verb, the relationships behind the Singapore economic miracle, innovation through psychological safety, script-based modes of adult relating, the costs of maintaining professional distance, giving up the absurd obsession with eye contact, antibodies that protect the core business, and how Ed’s curiosity landed his first big contract with Digital Equipment Corporation.

Ed Schein is Emeritus Professor at MIT where he taught in the School of Management for fifty years. Peter Schein has had a 30 year career in Silicon Valley in corporate development and business development. They are a father-son team with a powerful message for you and me.

Please share with others.

Highlights

* 4:30 It’s about the quality of the team, not you

* 17:00 Getting curious about the person behind the role

* 27:00 Opening the door to more than transactional relationships

* 36:00 Using check-ins and check-outs to improve group meetings

* 50:00 Bringing the water cooler conversation into the meeting itself

* 57:00 When relationships are asymmetrical

* 1:03:00 When company executives get threatened by genuine relating

Listen to the Podcast

Explore Additional Resources

* Organizational Culture And Leadership Institute

* Humble Leadership by Ed Schein and Peter Schein

 

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. Understanding trauma and how it functions is scientifically sound, empirically useful, and one of the most effective ways to develop to your full potential.

The great challenge of adulthood is embracing complexity. We do this by taking on multiple perspectives in our minds and building this capacity into our hearts and bodies.

Nowhere is this challenge more evident to me in the United States than in the area of cultural and racial conflict. Even those of us who are doing our best to create a better future have a lot of growing up to do.

You know what’s great about growing up? When we do it, the benefits accrue in all areas of life.

That’s why I think that reframing how we approach race and culture isn’t only about black and white. It also yields benefits in whatever context we choose to lead.

Sure, you could use what you learn about leadership from organizational life to make a contribution to our societal struggle with race, but this also works in reverse. The cauldron of racial relations can foster skills and qualities you need to show up at your best in organizations—and in your family and community.

I’ve had several guides in this journey. One is leadership coach and retired executive, Diane Woods. Last year, we discussed why it’s important to talk about racist ideas rather than racist people and how combatting racism is in whites’ self-interest. My mind is still stretching from that conversation.

This week, Diane asks us all to try on a very different, albeit compatible, lens for understanding our experiences in this area. Drawing upon Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands:Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Diane invites us to place the body—its trauma and its resilience—at the center of this story.

What if we set aside the patterned roles of victim, persecutor and rescuer in favor of a more complex body-centered understanding? What if, instead of either rationalizing racist behavior or demonizing each other, we did the following:

* Set clear boundaries around racist words and behaviors

* Understood racism as multigenerational trauma—black body trauma, white body trauma, and police officer body trauma?

As she did before, Diane speaks from her own experience, informed by her extensive reading, and in a way that invites us all to take a second look at our own lives and family’s experiences.

Highlights

* 7:50 We’re in love with our minds & stop at the chin or neck

* 15:00 Black and white bodies carry unresolved trauma between generations

*

22:00 When people we love tell their stories, our anxiety and pain has meaning

*

25:30 Dirty pain versus clean pain

*

30:00 Indigestion leads to self-soothing—healthy or harmful

*

32:20 “When the ouch in my body stayed three months”

*

34:00 When I know my value, my capacity to bounce back is deeper

*

39:30 We don’t have to condone racist behaviors to have a compassionate stance

Listen to the Podcast

Explore Additional Resources

* My Grandmother’s Hands:Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

* Diane Woods’s web site

 

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. Understanding trauma and how it functions is scientifically sound, empirically useful,

The first time Roxanne Howe-Murphy and I planned to discuss the Enneagram, we were interrupted by an election. So we explored how to heal from Trump Shock (for those needing such healing).

Life gives second chances.

This week Roxanne and I took one such opportunity and ran with it.

The Enneagram is a system for personal and professional development I’ve been using for twenty years. It informs my coaching and, increasingly, my work with leadership teams.

There are nine Enneagram styles or types. Each provides a different answer to the question: What makes me tick?

Walking through all nine types is a big task. Roxanne and I chose instead to explore what is both the most practical and existential question about the Enneagram: why does it matter? What difference does it make when growing yourself to understand your Enneagram type? What difference does it make when coaching or managing someone else to understand theirs? And for those involved in parenting or mentoring kids, how can you shoot yourself in the foot by treating all kids the same, rather than personalizing to what makes each child tick?

Roxanne is a wise and warm presence. I invite you to grab a cup of tea and listen in.

Highlights

* 4:30 That time Roxanne mis-typed herself

* 14:00 Enneagram versus Myers-Briggs

* 22:00 Learning your type makes your goals more true for you

* 28:00 You share this way of being with 800 million other people

* 33:00 A leader who didn’t trust herself

* 44:00 What if you coached a Type Six as if they were you, a Type Nine?

* 49:30 “I don’t recognize this child. He is so unlike me!”

* 1:02:00 Our degree of presence matters

Listen to the Podcast

Explore Additional Resources

* Roxanne Howe-Murphy and the Deep Living Institute

* Deep Coaching Institute, an Enneagram coaching school

* Deep Living: Transforming Your Relationship To Everything That Matters Through The Enneagram by Roxanne Howe-Murphy

* Deep Coaching: Using The Enneagram As A Catalyst For Profound Change by Roxanne Howe-Murphy

* My interviews with Susanne Cook-Greuter and Jennifer Garvey-Berger on stages of adult development and their relevance to leadership

The first time Roxanne Howe-Murphy and I planned to discuss the Enneagram, we were interrupted by an election. So we explored how to heal from Trump Shock (for those needing such healing).

Life gives second chances.

This week Roxanne and I took one such opportunity and ran with it.

The Enneagram is a system for personal and professional development I’ve been using for twenty years. It informs my coaching and, increasingly, my work with leadership teams.

There are nine Enneagram styles or types. Each provides a different answer to the question: What makes me tick?

Walking through all nine types is a big task. Roxanne and I chose instead to explore what is both the most practical and existential question about the Enneagram: why does it matter?

Waiting four years to discuss Spiral Dynamics on my podcast is like waiting that long on a show about desserts before bringing up chocolate.

Yes, Cindy Wigglesworth used Spiral Dynamics to help us make sense of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, but this week is our first in-depth exploration.

And I’m excited to share it.

Spiral Dynamics is my go-to framework for understanding politics, global events, cultural evolution, and the many big challenges we face as a people and planet. It also explains what happens inside of large organizations, a place where I do most of my coaching and consulting. Whether the topic is global climate change, right wing nationalism, competing economic theories, or race and culture, Spiral Dynamics gives me a way to understand the core worldviews that animate everyday conversations.

That’s why Spiral Dynamics is called the “master code” or code of all codes.

To illuminate this framework, I spoke with Jon Freeman, who, after a long business career, discovered Spiral Dynamics and became one of its leading teachers.

Highlights

* 9:30 Small bands roaming the savannah to warlord gangs to rule-bound towns—and beyond

* 14:30 The worldviews dominant within big companies and organizations

* 25:30 Why you want all worldviews present in organizations

* 31:00 Reinterpreting the 2008 financial crisis through the Spiral

* 39:00 The dangers of ignoring the virtues of Blue rules

* 50:00 Why the U.S. underestimated China

* 56:30 Humanity prepares for a momentous leap—the shift to second tier

* 1:03:00 Reinventing Blue order in big corporations

* 1:08:00 The rise of mafia enterprises and right wing nationalism

* 1:15:00 Brexit, immigration, and complexity

* 1:19:00 Climate change, clean tech, and Spiral Wizards in a time of catastrophe

Listen to the Podcast

Overview of Spiral Dynamics

Explore Additional Resources

* Jon Freeman’s web site, Spiral Futures

* Jon’s upcoming workshop in London

* Free webinars introducing Spiral Dynamics

* Future Considerations, a consultancy through which Jon does consulting

* My podcast interview with Teresa Woodland about China, leadership, and cross-cultural complexity

 

Waiting four years to discuss Spiral Dynamics on my podcast is like waiting that long on a show about desserts before bringing up chocolate.

Yes, Cindy Wigglesworth used Spiral Dynamics to help us make sense of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, but this week is our first in-depth exploration.

And I’m excited to share it.

Spiral Dynamics is my go-to framework for understanding politics, global events, cultural evolution, and the many big challenges we face as a people and planet. It also explains what happens inside of large organizations, a place where I do most of my coaching and consulting. Whether the topic is global climate change, right wing nationalism, competing economic theories, or race and culture, Spiral Dynamics gives me a way to understand the core worldviews that animate everyday conversations.

That’s why Spiral Dynamics is called the “master code” or code of all codes.

To illuminate this framework, I spoke with Jon Freeman, who,

Three ways to be happy is the topic of today’s 3-minute Thursday.

My inspiration is Martin Seligman’s classic book, Authentic Happiness, which helped me cope through hard times and find joy and freedom in good times.

Seligman describes the pleasure life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life. What are these and why do they matter?

Listen in as I walk you through these three forms of happiness with examples from my own experience.

All in 3-minutes. So you can stop listening—and start practicing.

Listen to the Podcast

 

Three ways to be happy is the topic of today’s 3-minute Thursday.

My inspiration is Martin Seligman’s classic book, Authentic Happiness, which helped me cope through hard times and find joy and freedom in good times.

Seligman describes the pleasure life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life. What are these and why do they matter?

Listen in as I walk you through these three forms of happiness with examples from my own experience.

All in 3-minutes. So you can stop listening—and start practicing.

Listen to the Podcast

 

The story of clean technology is invigorating. The story of global climate change is sobering. What quality of mind and what forms of deliberate practice are needed to hold both stories in place simultaneously—and remain mostly sane?

I think about this question when I read about extreme temperatures, massive flooding, and drought…and then get in my all electric Nissan Leaf that is powered by PV solar panels on the roof of our home and drive by one of Portland’s many LEED Platinum green buildings.

It is exciting to witness the signs of technological progress yet frightening to experience the early days of what could be climate catastrophe.

Things are getting better and things are getting worse.

To make sense of this paradox, I’ve scheduled a series of interviews with thought leaders in sustainable enterprise, global climate change, and clean technology.

To launch the series, I speak this week with the person arguably most responsible for defining the contours of the clean technology economy, Ron Pernick, cofounder of Clean Edge and coauthor of Clean Tech Revolution and Clean Tech Nation.

Intrigued?

Join us for this conversation, and let me know what you think.

Highlights

* 8:30 Diplomats discard the term “clean tech,” and Ron picks it up

* 13:00 Ron creates the first clean tech stock index, and Nasdaq wants in

* 26:00 Why Portland ranked high on the metro index of clean tech

* 31:00 All electric SUVs are coming soon, and why it’s taken a while

* 37:00 Clean tech needs to be better than what it is displacing

* 48:00 The political landscape around clean tech

* 1:00:00 Making sense of the 2018 IPCC report on climate change

Listen to the Podcast

Explore Additional Resources

* Clean Edge

* Ron’s books, The Clean Tech Revolution and Clean Tech Nation

* The Nasdaq Clean Energy Green Energy Index (CELS)

* “Global Warming of 1.5 degrees C,” the October 2018 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

 

The story of clean technology is invigorating. The story of global climate change is sobering. What quality of mind and what forms of deliberate practice are needed to hold both stories in place simultaneously—and remain mostly sane?

I think about this question when I read about extreme temperatures, massive flooding, and drought…and then get in my all electric Nissan Leaf that is powered by PV solar panels on the roof of our home and drive by one of Portland’s many LEED Platinum green buildings.

It is exciting to witness the signs of technological progress yet frightening to experience the early days of what could be climate catastrophe.

Things are getting better and things are getting worse.

To make sense of this paradox, I’ve scheduled a series of interviews with thought leaders in sustainable enterprise, global climate change, and clean technology.

To launch the series, I speak this week with the person arguably most responsible for defining the contours of the clean technology economy, Ron Pernick, cofounder of Clean Edge and coauthor of Clean Tech Revolution and Clean Tech Nation.

Intrigued?

Join us for this conversation,

 

You can practice better than that.

Seriously.

It’s time to raise the bar in organizations around how we practice leadership.

That’s why we’ve looked at how to practice leadership directly and on-the-job.

But what, you might wonder, are these an alternative to? What are the most common current methods for improving as leaders?

Listen in as I walk you through three of these, why they fall short, and how what I’m proposing can replace or supplement them.

All in 3-minutes.

So you can stop listening—and start practicing.

Listen to the Podcast

 

You can practice better than that.

Seriously.

It’s time to raise the bar in organizations around how we practice leadership.

That’s why we’ve looked at how to practice leadership directly and on-the-job.

But what, you might wonder, are these an alternative to? What are the most common current methods for improving as leaders?

Listen in as I walk you through three of these, why they fall short, and how what I’m proposing can replace or supplement them.

All in 3-minutes.

So you can stop listening—and start practicing.

Listen to the Podcast

Unlocking leadership mindtraps. Up for it?

I am.

This week I’m excited to share another mind-stretching conversation with adult development expert Jennifer Garvey Berger.

We discuss her new, shorter, faster, and easier book Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How To Thrive In Complexity. Once again, Jennifer helps me unpack, unlock and uncover some of the biggest questions in the field of leadership development. Our intent, as always, is to find simplicity on the other side of complexity, a.k.a. grow a little bit today so we can grow even a little bit more tomorrow.

My favorite part is our discussion of what Jennifer calls “simple stories,” something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, particularly in the context of global climate change. (No, snow and cold temperatures don’t mean the overall temperature of the planet isn’t increasing. Yes, it makes a devilishly simple story. No, people who swear by this story are not bad people. Yes, you can learn to see them as heroes in their own story. No, your doing this won’t magically reduce carbon emissions. Yes, it’s still a healthy act for you and the rest of us. But I digress…)

Join me for this invigorating conversation.

Highlights

* 8:00 Jennifer gets asked, “How can I do this faster?”

* 12:00 The five most dangerous and most escapable mindtraps

* 17:00 “This is who I am. Don’t mess with me.”

* 20:30 A simple story about Brexit involving bananas

* 29:00 We soothe ourselves by knowing the odds

* 34:00 Ask “How is this person [I’m aggravated by] a hero?”

* 41:30 Jennifer plays a game with clients: let’s create three simple stories

* 52:30 Simple stories Jennifer has told herself about her experiences with her kids

* 1:02:00 Mindtraps in the transition from socialized mind to self-authored mind

* 1:08:00 Simple stories about the amazing leader who must have been born that way

Listen to the Podcast

Download l Listen in new window

Explore Additional Resources

* Jennifer Garvey Berger and Cultivating Leadership

* Jennifer’s new book, Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How To Thrive In Complexity

* My previous interviews with Jennifer about her books Changing On The Job and Simple Habits for Complex Times

 

Unlocking leadership mindtraps. Up for it?

I am.

This week I’m excited to share another mind-stretching conversation with adult development expert Jennifer Garvey Berger.

We discuss her new, shorter, faster, and easier book Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How To Thrive In Complexity. Once again, Jennifer helps me unpack, unlock and uncover some of the biggest questions in the field of leadership development. Our intent, as always, is to find simplicity on the other side of complexity, a.k.a. grow a little bit today so we can grow even a little bit more tomorrow.

My favorite part is our discussion of what Jennifer calls “simple stories,” something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, particularly in the context of global climate change. (No,

(Delayed due to technical glitch. The gorilla sat on my media server. I swear.)

Practicing leadership on the job.

It’s the single best way to improve what you do and who you are becoming as a leader.

Practicing leadership on the job involves learning while you work.

This is different from practicing leadership directly, the subject of episode 90. Instead of stepping outside the flow of work to focus 100% on improvement, practicing leadership on the job means you develop and work at the same time.

I call this the On-The-Job-Practice Cycle. It involves four steps:

* Prepare

* Act

* Reflect

* Get Feedback

Listen in as I walk you through these four steps.

All in 3-minutes.

So you can stop listening—and start practicing.

Listen to the Podcast

 

(Delayed due to technical glitch. The gorilla sat on my media server. I swear.)

Practicing leadership on the job.

It’s the single best way to improve what you do and who you are becoming as a leader.

Practicing leadership on the job involves learning while you work.

This is different from practicing leadership directly, the subject of episode 90. Instead of stepping outside the flow of work to focus 100% on improvement, practicing leadership on the job means you develop and work at the same time.

I call this the On-The-Job-Practice Cycle. It involves four steps:

* Prepare

* Act

* Reflect

* Get Feedback

Listen in as I walk you through these four steps.

All in 3-minutes.

So you can stop listening—and start practicing.

Listen to the Podcast

 

Agile Leadership.

The word “agility” has many meanings. As kids, we prided ourselves on being physically agile at sports–or disappointed by our lack of agility. In software, agile is a methodology and set of principles for producing products and engaging teams. What about in leadership?

This week’s guest, Jonathan Reams, joins me to explore agile leadership.

Over 15 years ago, Jonathan and I met when matched together to organize “integral gatherings” in San Francisco involving several hundred people. He soon moved east to Norway, and I moved north to Portland. His move was much farther!

Jonathan once drove a dump truck. Now he teaches at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, edits the online journal, Integral Review (which I’ve read for years), and is co-founder of the European Center for Leadership Practice. I’m not sure whether his first career or his current one require more agility, but clearly the forms of agility are very different.

What is agile leadership? How can we use Ken Wilber’s four quadrants, developmental stages, and the Goldilocks Zone to understand it? How is elegantly simple different from simplistic? What happens when great cognitive agility causes harm?

Please share with friends and let me know what you think.

Highlights

As the saying goes, “this space intentionally left blank.”

This week. As an experiment.

Do you wish this included time-stamped topics? Then shoot me an email at [email protected] and tell me why. I love feedback!

Listen to the Podcast

Download l Listen in new window

Explore Additional Resources

* Jonathan’s online space–writings, videos, consulting, etc.

* Chris Argyris’s Ladder of Inference

* Arbinger Institute, publisher of Leadership and Self-Deception

 

Agile Leadership.

The word “agility” has many meanings. As kids, we prided ourselves on being physically agile at sports–or disappointed by our lack of agility. In software, agile is a methodology and set of principles for producing products and engaging teams. What about in leadership?

This week’s guest, Jonathan Reams, joins me to explore agile leadership.

Over 15 years ago, Jonathan and I met when matched together to organize “integral gatherings” in San Francisco involving several hundred people. He soon moved east to Norway, and I moved north to Portland. His move was much farther!

Jonathan once drove a dump truck. Now he teaches at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, edits the online journal, Integral Review (which I’ve read for years), and is co-founder of the European Center for Leadership Practice. I’m not sure whether his first career or his current one require more agility, but clearly the forms of agility are very different.

What is agile leadership? How can we use Ken Wilber’s four quadrants, developmental stages, and the Goldilocks Zone to understand it? How is elegantly simple different from simplistic? What happens when great cognitive agility causes harm?

Please share with friends and let me know what you think.

Highlights

As the saying goes, “this space intentionally left blank.”

This week. As an experiment.