"You could make this place beautiful." ~ Maggie Smith
Source: Image created using Google Gemini, a Generative (Gen) AI tool. Google is now offering this free basic course if you'd like to learn about it.
Greetings -
I hope you, your families and friends are well and enjoying the late spring / early summer days. For those traveling during the upcoming holiday weekend, I wish you safe and joy-filled journeys!
Writing this in my hometown of Portland, OR (just shy of turning 39 yet again), I am reminded of the magical time that is spring in the Pacific Northwest. The lovely, sunny and (relatively) warm days are a balm and the extended daylight hours and beautiful sunsets offer a gentle bookend to the days.
With the seasonal change imminent (summer is pretty amazing here, and of course, in northern CA), I find myself reflecting on the possibilities and uncertainties that await on the next series of professional and personal paths. The largely fun and winding adventure continues to intrigue and turn in both the most expected and unexpected ways. Navigating new dimensions and establishing varied relationships offers a source of renewal and hope, in a world largely in need of both.
And so this edition looks at what it means to embrace the small and large moments, navigate change, seek the signal in the clamor of ambiguity and find meaning in the emotional mosaic that so many of us wrestle with daily at home in our work lives. There are a host of perspectives and I hope that you find platinum in the varied insights and commentaries.
As always, happy reading and listening!
Be well, take good care of your families and community.
-kj
PS - (Missed a newsletter? Past editions can be found here: https://www.kevinjordan.coach/blog. And if you hit paywall on an article(s), feel free to send me a note and let me know what you need. I have subscriptions to many of the sources that I cite.)
Featured: Locating Yourself - A Key to Conscious Leadership
Location, location, location. Where are you? (I promise I did not switch to a career in real estate. :))
This simple, yet thought-provoking question is one that all leaders (and all people frankly) constantly need to ask themselves. In our day-to-day interactions, are we 'above the line,' i.e. operating in a space of abundance, openness, curiosity, and committed to learning? Or are we 'below the line,' i.e. operating in a space of scarcity, closed, defensive and committed to being right? In essence, are we thriving or surviving?
While a below the line mentality served us well evolutionarily (e.g. fight, flight or freeze), it is of limited use in our current world of work. An inability to innovate, create and relate undermines our opportunity and obligation to cultivate the very best in ourselves, each other and the organizations we aspire to serve.
"Telling ourselves and others the truth about our current location begins the great conversation."
For more on conscious leadership, you can check out the great, informative book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success as well as the work of The Conscious Leadership Group.
Articles
Psychology Today: How to Make Peace With the Past. "There are many temptations to organize our life around the experience of earlier trauma. But that may shortchange the future—which starts by our envisioning something better."
Harvard Business Review: Leaders Must React. "To be successful, CEOs must articulate a compelling vision, align people around it, and motivate them to execute it. But there’s one thing that can make or break them: how they respond in real time to unforeseen events. On average, addressing unexpected issues—which range from fluctuations in stock price, to just-discovered product flaws, to major accidents and crises—consumes 36% of a CEO’s time. That’s a big proportion, and not all those problems merit a leader’s attention. To help CEOs understand which ones they truly need to focus on, [Nitin] Nohria...has created a framework that sorts events into four categories—normal noise, clarion calls, whisper warnings, and siren songs—and offers guidance on how leaders should handle each type."
Harvard Business Review: The Emotional Labor of Being a Leader. "Leaders are expected to attend to employees’ mental and physical health and burnout (while also addressing their own), demonstrate bottomless sensitivity and compassion, and provide opportunities for flexibility and remote work — all while managing the bottom line, doing more with less, and overcoming challenges with hiring and retaining talent. They should appear authentic, but if they get too honest about their distress, others may lose confidence in their leadership, known as the 'authenticity paradox.'"
Harvard Business Review: 5 Harmful Ways Women Feel They Must Adapt in Corporate America. "For women, it’s time we evolve beyond these maladaptations and (re)claim our agency. Rather than maintain the status quo, company leaders need to collectively change their acceptance and tolerance of maladaptations and reject the binary of “leaning in” or “leaning out” as the makers or breakers of success. Instead, they need to recognize that women need to lean within and listen to their own wisdom about what it means to be healthy, whole, and successful. Women can’t just stop these maladaptations and survive on their current tracks; companies need to evolve, too."
Harvard Business Review: Operations in an Era of Radical Uncertainty. "As companies navigate our era of radical uncertainty, operations will remain crucial to competitive advantage, but in a new way – by creating strategic optionality, efficiently. This means moving from a model of thinking then doing to one of thinking while doing: Strategizing and operationalizing will become even more intertwined, with successful strategies being continuously tuned based on operational data and new operational capabilities emerging regularly to support the strategic intent."
Gallup: U.S. Engagement Hits 11-Year Low. "4.8 million fewer U.S. employees are engaged in early 2024."
The New York Times: What Researchers Discovered When They Sent 80,000 Fake Résumés to U.S. Jobs. "Some companies discriminated against Black applicants much more than others, and H.R. practices made a big difference."
Blog Posts & Opinions
Chicago Booth Review: In a Changing World, Embrace Ambiguity. "Companies are looking for executives who can navigate through uncertainty."
The Atlantic: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me 30 Years Ago. "Life is not measured by a moment. Focus on getting the big things right."
Farnam Street Blog: The Inner Scorecard: How Warren Buffett Mastered Life. "The optimal solution to being independent and upright while remaining a social animal is: to seek first your own self-respect and, secondarily and conditionally, that of others, provided your external image does not conflict with your own self-respect. Most people get it backwards and seek the admiration of the collective and something called “a good reputation” at the expense of self-worth for, alas, the two are in frequent conflict under modernity." [The quote is from Nassim Taleb.]
The Marginalian: The Middle Passage: A Jungian Field Guide to Finding Meaning and Transformation in Midlife. "Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and open ourselves to a greater wonder."
Podcasts
Re: Thinking with Adam Grant: Poet Maggie Smith on embracing ambiguity. "Poet and author Maggie Smith isn’t sure where she falls on the spectrum from optimism to pessimism. But her viral poem 'Good Bones' and her bestselling books have inspired countless readers with profound insights on the messiness of being human. In this episode, Maggie and Adam discuss strategies for handling complex emotions, sustaining hope while acknowledging reality, and accepting ambiguity in life and art. They explore the value of asking questions that may not have a satisfying answer — or any answer at all."
HBR IdeaCast: Sad, Mad, Anxious? How to Work Through Your 'Big Feelings.' "When things aren't going well -- in our own lives, our community, our country, or the world -- it's hard to be productive at work. Most of us also shy away from sharing what we're feeling with colleagues and bosses. But when strong emotions like anxiety, anger, and despair hit you -- due to problems at work or outside it -- it's important to recognize and thoughtfully address them."
Arts, Music, Culture & Humor Corner
The Atlantic: Lost Photographs of Black America. "A trove of images from the 1960s and ’70s, discovered in a Swedish bank vault, offers new perspectives on the past—and the present."
The New Yorker: Maggie Rogers’s Journey from Viral Fame to Religious Studies. "The singer-songwriter’s sudden celebrity made her a kind of minister without training. So she went and got some."
Texas Monthly: ‘Dazed and Confused’ at 30: Wooderson Gets Older, but His Philosophy Stays the Same Age. "Richard Linklater didn’t set out to make a Texas film, but Matthew McConaughey’s iconic character feels like somebody every Texan knows."
The New Yorker: Corporate Alternatives to the Compliment Sandwich. "A recent survey of our employees indicated that people are sick of the 'compliment sandwich'—negative feedback sandwiched between compliments. The executive team is pleased to offer some alternatives that we hope will be effective for managers serving up constructive criticism in the workplace."
Reflections
"I like to avoid dealing with people where I feel like I need a contract." ~ Shane Parrish
“What matters isn’t being applauded when you arrive—for that is common—but being missed when you leave.” ~ Baltasar Gracián
"Choose your journey, change your journey, own your journey, but above all else, enjoy your journey." ~ Susan Kilrain
The Grave-Digger
By Kahlil Gibran
Once, as I was burying one of my dead selves, the grave-digger came by and said to me, “Of all those who come here to bury, you alone I like.”
Said I, “You please me exceedingly, but why do you like me?”
“Because,” said he, “They come weeping and go weeping—you only come laughing and go laughing.”