Held by compassion and understanding, this dialogue becomes the mechanism used to unearth sacred ground.

The content of the dialogue mirrors the essential dynamics operational in the client’s business, the performer’s dance, the professional’s production.

 The changes that evolve out of this third place occur through awareness, insight, understanding, and the transformation of thought patterns which generalize directly into the client’s world.

 If we transform it here in the shared phenomenal world, this third place, there evolves a multiplication factor that influences transformation in the client’s world, organization or business.

If we change it here, it changes there.

As the ocean “waves” the universe “peoples.”

Watts, A. The Book, p. 9.

We are defined by our relationships and co-exist in this interdependent union. We are not separate and disconnected. The experience of being separate is an illusion. We are connected, each to the other; we have always been and will always be.

Our personal and professional relationships may be the most productive context to glean a true sense of this oneness and to begin to appreciate and tangibly receive the benefits. That is to say, we can profit from the realization and appreciation of our deep and undeniable connections. To reach the outcomes we are after, to perform at the level we know we are capable of, and to achieve our dreams, we do so through our connections with other people and the support that they offer. And if, in fact, we already live in connection with one another, we do not have to create the bond that brings about the realization of our goals, we just have to be willing to remove the distortions that inhibit their manifestation.

We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

From this perspective they are not alone in their pursuits; they have a felt sense that they are on a mission and that they will find a way through the obstacles that have the potential to block their success. These leaders are not religious or “spiritual” in their beliefs, necessarily. However, life has presented each of them some sort of opportunity to wake up to a new level of understanding of their purpose.

I am thinking of a brilliant entrepreneurial marketing guy with a high school education who had recently lost his business partner due to an unforeseen accident. He had always imagined that he and his partner would grow their business together; his keen sense of people, relationships, and the markets combined with her financial and managerial talents.

Unexpectedly, all of this changed. Suddenly he was left alone to pursue their dreams.

After an initial setback he began to make the necessary adjustments to reinvent himself. His particular gift was his understanding of his own shortcomings. There were certain things he knew he did not do well. He learned to ask for help and to seek guidance in these areas. He also never lost sight of the dreams he and his partner shared.

However, he had another quality of trust and insight. He would often tell me, “I know that I will achieve what we have set out to do if only I can listen.” The future, he realized, was always just outside of this moment pressing itself into existence. How he listened to and received this “future” was a conscious act. The norm, for a leader, is an attitude of “trying to make it happen.” In our work he began to orient his actions around a process of “listening to what is trying to happen.

Something in the story below reminds us of the need for leaders to listen, even to the smallest of impulses, and of what happens when they don’t:

“Over the years, a practical and materialistic society can usurp the original mystery of childhood. We are sent to school early to “grow up,” to “be serious,” and if we don’t let go of our childhood innocence, all too often the world tries to knock it out of us. A hundred years ago the American painter James McNeill Whistler encountered this attitude in his engineering class at West Point Military Academy. The students were instructed to draw a careful study of a bridge, and Whistler submitted a beautifully detailed picturesque stone arch with children fishing from its top. The lieutenant in charge ordered, “This is a military exercise. Get those children off the bridge.” Whistler resubmitted the drawing with the two children now fishing from the side of the river. “I said get those children completely out of the picture,” said the angry lieutenant. So Whistler’s last version had the river, the bridge, and two small tombstones along its bank.”

Kornfield, J.  (2000).  After the ecstasy, the laundry:  How the heart grows wise on the spiritual path.  New York:  Bantam, p. 9. 10

Clarity of Purpose can be thought of as prudence, as defined by David Brooks in his article questioning the leadership capacity of Sarah Palin: “It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events – the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight. How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.”

Clarity of Purpose, from this perspective, is not simply based on your personal intention. It emerges from a dynamic involvement with your years of experience and the reciprocal understanding that evolves from the experience of the people you trust and work with.

“I remember the time, as a boy, when I had this bicycle with a wobbly wheel. Everywhere I went my journey was difficult. The front wheel of my bicycle rotated seemingly with a will of its own. First to the right and then to the left I would careen down the road.

When I finally earned enough money to take care of the problem, twenty-five cents as I recall, I zigged and zagged across the boulevard to the garage of old Mr. Oberwagner. As I approached his driveway, there he sat smoking his cigar; open from 2 to 5pm each day in time to catch the after school traffic of kids just like me, in need of an adjustment, a repair, a replacement or an over-hall.

I remember this as though it were happening today. After surveying the problem he grunts and says “there is a solution!” To my amazement and surprise, he states that a simple adjustment is all that is required to address this seemingly incomprehensible problem.

He walks over to his bright red tool box. He lifts the lid and takes in hand the tiniest of tools. His “spoke adjuster,” as he calls it. With two, three, perhaps four simple turns of the spokes, right at the hub of the wheel, the outer rim groans into alignment. Then one more tap, a little bit of oil, and he sends me on my way.

The wheel now turns true. And I am heading home.”

©Timothy Dukes January 2005

  Above Image: www.hopscotchtechnology.com/…/boy_on_bike.jpg

However, the future is unfolding before us at an extraordinary and mind-numbing rate. So much of what we thought we could trust, the “gold standard” - our ability to make sense of our customer needs, our industry and the world at large - seems to be changing.

It is time for us to recognize that change is an invitation to recognize that each moment contains within it a hint of the future that is emerging. Age is about letting go and receiving the future as much as it is about learning from the past.

“With the downturn in the economy comes an increased interest in starting a business.

You may be interested because you lost your job, or because you have a great idea, or because you cannot find a job you are interested in.

Regardless of the reason, however, you will find there is more information available concerning starting a business than the average human being can consume in a lifetime.

Standard advice includes: prepare a solid business plan, have cash for at least six months, work with a good accountant and attorney; understand your market, understand your competition and have a marketable product or service.

This is good advice indeed. But in our experience, business success or failure involves more than adhering to these maxims. You can have an excellent business plan, good financing, a good product or service and good advisers, yet you may inadvertently sabotage your business and fail. Here are the things you need to pay attention to in order to avoid sabotaging your business success.

• Don’t let fear immobilize you. We believe the No. 1 issue adversely affecting success in a new business is fear: fear of failure, fear of success, fear of criticism, fear of feeling unappreciated, fear of thinking no one will like your product or service or you. Understand that fear can immobilize you and learn to recognize it and deal with it.

• Develop real relationships. Another key reason people starting new businesses fail is because they don’t take the time to establish real relationships. Nothing happens until a relationship is formed: no meeting, no sales opportunity, no business. Take the time to build a relationship, and then you are ready to sell.

• Respond quickly. The quicker you respond, the more responsive you appear. E-mails not returned in days, voice messages ignored, proposals or sales agreements delayed – none of these show that you care about the business. Forget the absurd advice that a quick response makes you look eager or desperate for the business. It makes you look – responsive.

• Don’t be a pusher. Nobody likes a pusher. So when your buyer says “yes” – stop selling. And don’t up-sell, which is getting the buyer to buy more than they need. It’s great for short-term profits; terrible for a long-term relationship.

• Don’t quit at no. Nobody likes rejection, but sometimes we see it when it’s not there. No is often an initial response to someone the buyer doesn’t know, not a conclusion. Or it can come from a gatekeeper whose job it is to say no. Sure, sometimes a no is a no, but many times it’s an initial reaction – almost a “knee jerk” reaction.

• Don’t get stuck in perfection. There is no such thing as the perfect proposal, the perfect letter, the perfect response. Good is often good enough unless you are dealing with life and death situations, which most of us are not. The extra 20 percent you put into your product, service, response is neither recognized nor appreciated by the recipient. But the fact that it took you too long to respond is recognized and not in a good way.

• Don’t wear your personal beliefs on your sleeve. No one cares – really – about your opinions when you are in a sales situation. Your political, social, sports beliefs should stay with you. If you are asked to share your thoughts on any of these issues, your thoughts should stay with you.

• Focus management. We call this “the lights are on but nobody’s home.” Lack of focus in people and in organizations leads to ineffective performance. In people, it looks like you are not interested or are overwhelmed; in organizations, it looks like a version of the fad of the month which quickly blows morale as staff struggle to juggle changing priorities and new initiatives.

• Executive presence. Executive presence is not about just looking the part – that’s defined as the “empty suite.” Executive presence is about being the part. It’s about managing your image thoughtfully and not artificially. Like it or not, tired, overweight, out of shape and sloppy people who aren’t aware of current events and haven’t read a book since high school or college present a very different image than people who take care of themselves and are intellectually curious.

These are very difficult economic times. Starting a new business can be exhilarating and very rewarding – personally and professionally. Yes you need a solid business plan, financing and a marketable product or service with a strong and compelling value proposition. But you need more.

You need to stack the deck in your favor. The more difficult the economic environment, the more important it is to differentiate yourself. And it starts with eliminating sabotaging behaviors. The good news is that it’s your lowest cost, most effective strategy. And that’s a new affordable, competitive advantage.”

Guest Column: Want success? Don’t sabotage your business
http://www.pbn.com/detail/42466.html, Anthony J. Kubica and Sara M. LaForest

Tony Kubica (tony@growthwithoutsabotage.com) and Sara LaForest (sara@growthwithoutsabotage.com) are co-founders of Kubica & LaForest Consulting and the Growth without Sabotage model for performance and organizational improvement.

“And who are we to display the organic movement as the solution and the food industry as the evil “other”, when it is all about engagement and integration and changing things by becoming a part of it, because, truly, we are already a part of it?”

We have all heard that “we need to become the change we are trying to envision.”  Yet, how do we do this unless we develop the internal capacity to embrace difference; the “good” and the “bad,” the “ugly” and “the pretty,” or “what we hope for” and “what we fear?”

Settling our thinking, our behaviors and decisions simply by addressing one side of the equation, as Helge reminds us, perpetuates the struggle of “my way” is better than “your way,” or simply “self vs. other.” With training and practice we can develop a capacity for difference. This capacity allows for ambivalence and moves the struggle as perceived externally into a more global and holistic perspective, when managed internally. We can actually develop an “evolutionary capacity” that holds and facilitates authentic change. One side of the equation does not have to defeat the other side. In fact it is an equation that informs us of all the variables that are necessary to be whole.

Holding an Evolutionary Capacity is one of the true expressions of leadership. How do we lead, ourselves and those who depend on us, into the complexity and the contradictory nature of life? How do we greet a life that is so full of challenge? And how do we do this with a heart that both envisions possibility and love of life while at other times shrinks from the suffering we experience and the fear of what is to come?

If we recognize that what we are trying to change is already a part of us and not something separate, would it make a difference in the decisions we make and how we make them? Please take a look at Helge Hellberg’s blog and the community that seems to be working diligently to develop this Evolutionary Capacity. For more, please contact me at: tim@drtimothydukes.com.