Rascals

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Rascals
• Another Plug

Rascals

The best leaders are neither stewards, nor CWOs (Chief Whatever Officers,) nor podium punctuators.  The best leaders have mischief in them.  They are rascals.

In order to be a meaningful rascal leader you need first to be a rascal to yourself.

I call it self rascalization.

Second, you need to be a rascal to your organization.

Organizational rascalization.

Here are some notable rascals.

Michelangelo was a rascal.  He tells us:  "The greatest failure is not that we aimed too high and fell short but that we aimed too low and achieved it."  The man knew how to mix it up!

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)

Georgia O'Keeffe, the great American artist, said:  "I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life--and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do."  O'Keeffe mixed up more than her palette.

Georgia O'Keeffe (1897-1986)

Steve Jobs was a rascal.  He said:  "Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me.... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful--that's what matters to me."  He also said:  "Stay hungry, stay foolish."  And:  "I want to put a ding in the universe."  Now that's galactic mischief!

Steve Jobs (1955-1911)

Rembrandt was a rascal.  He said:  "The smell of paint would annoy you."  He meant if you aren't willing to get messy you can't be a creator.  Messy is rascal.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)

 Thomas Edison was a rascal.  He said:  "Hell, there are no rules here--we're trying to accomplish something." Rascal is stepping into it.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

Rascals cause mischief.  They stir things up.

Here are three ways to rascalize yourself and your organization:

Self Rascalization:

• Wake up in the morning and ask yourself where can I aim high today.
• Wake up in the morning and ask yourself what can't I do. Then do it.
• Wake up in the morning and ask yourself how can I do something wonderful today.

Organizational Rascalization

• Wake up in the morning and ask yourself where are rules (my own and my organization's) getting in the way and then work to change them.
• Wake up in the morning and learn something new from a field  that is entirely different from yours and ask yourself how can I bring it into my work.
• Wake up in the morning and ask yourself "What if...?" and then do it--really do it.  That also makes a ding.

We all have rascal in us. Check it out, bring it out.  Our little rascal is what makes us special.

Another Plug
Live Smart After 50!  The Experts' Guide to Life Planning for Uncertain Times

This is a very smart, concise, practical resource for those who are beginning to think about the next chapter in their lives.  Live Smart After 50! makes a great gift and a great read.

To learn more and/or order click here.

Leaders Are Like...

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Leaders Are Like...Still Lifes;  No Two Are Alike
• The Tailor's Daughter
• Live Smart After 50! The Experts' Guide to Life Planning for Uncertain Times
• Welcome into the World:  Hannah Rose 

Leaders Are Like...Still Lifes; No Two Are Alike

There's a lot of research and training out there that goes under the label of leadership development.  These include graduate schools, consultancies and business academies.  Most of these efforts focus on common systems, processes and techniques.  For instance, systems thinking, situational leadership, communication techniques, as examples.  These are interesting and often useful offerings.  But they miss the heart of leadership development.

Then, of course, there are best practices training.  Yet best practices are seductive mirages because leaders don't really need best practice which, by their nature, are embedded in the process of solving yesterday's problems.  Leaders need emerging practices, next practices, to deal with current and future challenges.

So there seems to be an underlying flaw in the assumption that all these program represent leadership development.

One way of getting at this is to revisit The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.  They surveyed workers in organizations and asked what attributes they admired most in their leaders.  They came up with 20 in the following rank order.

• Honest
• Forward looking
• Inspiring
• Competent
• Fair minded
• Supportive
• Broad minded
• Intelligent
• Straightforward
• Dependable
• Courageous
• Cooperative
• Imaginative
• Caring
• Determined
• Mature
• Ambitious
• Loyal
• Self controlled
• Independent

Only ONE of these attributes is related to competence.  All the others with perhaps the exception of intelligence are related to character.  And those are the very attributes that elude all of the previously referenced training/leadership development programs.  Can you really train someone to be honest, forward looking and inspiring?  How about fair minded, supportive, broad minded, courageous, caring?

That's the funny little secret.  There's a mismatch between current development offerings and the actual qualities most admired in leaders.  The truth is that leaders are developed through experience, reflection, dialogue, mentoring, coaching.  They are developed primarily through the evolution and deepening of character, not the focus on competence or technique.  Leaders are ultimately developed not simply through what is common but through what is distinctive.  And by amplifying their unique voices.

So if you really want to learn about leadership development it might be worth observing, listening to and reflecting on Eduoard Manet and Georges Braque, two great French painters.  After all, their competence to wield a brush and mix paints is secondary to what really distinguished them.

So here's the interesting thing.

You can train lots of people on the exact same technical skills and get entirely different results.  Because you cannot wring out the uniqueness in folks.  No matter how much you try to train them on common practices they also give voice to what is distinctive.  It is the uniqueness that imprints texture and richness on a thing.  This is true of business and it is true in painting.  It is true of aspiring leaders and still lifes.

Look at these two still lifes.  Two artists, equally competent technically, but creating very different paintings.

Manet, Still Life, Lilacs and Roses

Braque, Still Life with Jugs and Pipe

Georges Braque claimed that you can explain everything about painting except the part that really matters.  It is in the moments of truth when a deeper knowing emerges from the sometimes fiery combination of experience, reflection and learning that great leaders and great artists emerge.

Or as Manet put it:  "Paint the truth; let them talk."

And so with leadership.

The tailor's daughter
Check out this new poetry blog.  Really good stuff! CLICK HERE.

Live Smart After 50!  The Experts' Guide to Life Planning for Uncertain Times

Jane Pauley, Emmy award winning journalist and TV host says "Who do you want to become now and how will you make it happen?  Read Live Smart After 50!  You may discover your answers."

This is a terrific book filled with practical and wise advice and insights.

To learn more or order a copy, click here.

Welcome Granddaughter Hannah Rose
January 7, 2013.  6 pounds, 6 ounces.  Very delicious!
Congrats to daughter Becky and son-in-law Doug! 

  

Quick

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Quick
• Lookit!

Quick

Think of a word, phrase or title of a song that you want to characterize 2013 for you.
Now write it down and place it where you can see it every day.

More on this in a future bloutcher.

Lookit!

Thank you to new friend Steve Kloyda for introducing me to the ProCreate art app for the iPad.  I've just begun to play with it per above image.  Caught my wife Karen reading the newspaper in a quick sketch. 

Eavesdropping

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Eavesdropping at MOMA
• Inspiration or Motivation
• Change

Eavesdropping at MOMA
"I don't get it."
"I can do THAT!"
"How did he DO that?"
"THAT'S art?"
"It reminds me of...garbled."
Henry James was once asked how can you judge a work of art to be successful.
He said there are three criteria:

• What was the artist's aim?
• Did he meet his aim?
• Was it worth the effort? 

Even the great artists had their doubts.
Paul Cezanne lamented he had spent 40 years at his craft before realizing that painting was not sculpture.  This water color was painted in 1906 the year he died.

Henri Matisse bemoaned that he could not paint like others.

Wilhem de Kooning complained, "I work out of doubt."

How often do we focus on what we think we do not do well rather than on cultivating our own voice?

Inspiration or Motivation
Inspiration is the pull, the dream shaper, the imagined, the great recruiter, the internal sustainer.
Motivation is the push, the rah rah orator, the carrot vendor, the warrior, the heavy lifter.
Leaders inspire.

Change
The Arab Spring roils
Mother Nature frets
20 children rip a hole in the universe
The mirror reveals

An Interesting E-Mail

In this Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• An Interesting E-Mail
• An Act of Unabashed Family Promotion

An Interesting E-Mail

I want to share a fascinating e-mail I received this week from a client.  I asked the client permission to share his email and he happily agreed.

Some background:  The client is the head of a successful wealth management firm.  I have worked with him and his team in the areas of strategic planning and leadership development over a number of years.  He has been a willing guinea pig for the tools, concepts and techniques which are at the heart of a program I call The Leaders Studio.  This has led, on numerous occasions, to several remarkable and rewarding breakthroughs for him and his business.  However, this last email takes our work to an entirely different level.  The idea he comes up with at the end of the email is entirely his idea.

So here's his E-Mail:

Fred,

Thanks again for your timely Bloutcher.  I just got back from NYC and had the opportunity and pleasure to make it to the Guggenheim for an exhibition of Picasso in Black and White.  It was an incredible experience.  And the museum's space is such a unique way to view a collection.

I was moved and recharged by his work.  The range of what he painted from just a few lines of black on white paper to intricate abstracts to classical portraits which looked like ancient Greek sculptures...and so much more.  I found myself so open to possibilities and seeing things in the art that I was not sure I would have seen before.

So I made a decision.  I have a day blocked off in my calendar for business planning in a couple of weeks and I am going to do it at the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts.)  I think a fresh and inspiring environment will help me see things in new and bigger ways.

Thanks for helping me see more.  Hope all is well.

From a creativity point of view, this email is interesting for several reason:

• The client sees a parallel between being open to new possibilities in art and new possibilities in business planning
• This insight did not come at work.  It came from doing something entirely different from work, but the insight provides direct benefit to his work.
• The client recognizes that being in an environment that at first seems entirely distracting actually stimulates creative insights that support work.

An additional thought:  research shows that if you want to come up with your best, most creative thinking you should not engage in such thinking at your primary work place.  Why is this?  Because work places have the following characteristics:

• They implicitly and explicitly reward analytical, judgmental thinking
• They reinforce the idea that you must "get it right."
• They are filled with routine and repetition
• They do not allow the time and space for deep reflection and thinking
• And many more

I've held workshops with senior leaders in museums and I can tell you unequivocally that the quality of conversation and the kinds of insights that bubble to the surface in such environments demonstrates the power of environment.

An Act of Unabashed Family Promotion

I'd like to introduce you to a project by one of my daughters and her husband.  They are producing a documentary film that traces the journey of a copy of Mein Kampf from the battle fields of Germany to Brooklyn, New York and Boston, Massachusetts and back to its origins in Lubeck, Germany and the children of its original owner.  It's a journey filled with surprises and the unsuspecting and sometimes disturbing lessons of history that remain with us today.  They plan to enter the film in film festivals in the United States and Europe this summer.

Take a look at the trailer ( 2 and 1/2 minutes) and if you think it is a worthy project, consider sponsoring it.  Click here to link to the trailer and to their Kickstarter.com project.   

Yellow Crayon & Q-Tips

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

• Yellow Crayon & Q-Tips
• Live Smart After 50!

Yellow Crayon & Q-Tips

I had the sheet of drawing paper laid out on the table.  My two year old grandson Baylor stood in front of the table as I suggested we do some drawing.  I lifted a yellow crayon from the box and handed it to Baylor, greatly anticipating the kind of markings he would make on the paper.  Circles? Squiggles? Zigzags?

That's when Baylor taught me something about leadership.  He grabbed the yellow crayon and, hopping from the table, he began swirling it in his ear.  Squeals of delight filled the air.  He thought that yellow crayon was the coolest q-tip the world had never imagined!

Assumptions!

I had assumptions.  Drawing paper, yellow crayon, circles, squiggles or zigzags!

How about none of the above.  Baylor's uncorrupted and unbiased mind carried no such assumptions.  For him, it was yellow crayon, anything is possible--and it has to bring delight!

Assumptions are often necessary.  They represent a short hand that does not require we explain everything from the beginning over and over again.  Assumptions can also throw a cold press over our adult minds.  They often freeze us out of seeing new and more intriguing possibilities.

Henri Matisse tells us the true creator "has to look at life as he did when he was a child and if he loses that faculty, he cannot express himself in an original ...way."

And so with leadership.  How many times have you heard:

Mary Cassatt Children Playing on the Beach

That won't work around here.
That's not been our experience.
You need more resources to pull that off.
That's just not the way people work.
We've tried that before and it didn't work.
It'll take too long.
Etc.
All are assumptions.  All are wet rags.

Instead, think:  
Yellow crayons make great q-tips.

And bring a child's mind to your organization's creative dilemma.  Try to consider what would bring delight and don't fear looking foolish!


LIVE SMART AFTER 50!  The Experts' Guide to Life Planning for Uncertain Times
 


I am excited to announce the publication of LIVE SMART AFTER 50!  It is a wonderful collaboration of experts across the country and across vital areas of interest and concern for those in the second half of live.  It is a rich, informative, and inspiring read and it makes a fabulous gift this time of year.  Here's a blurb:

LIVE SMART AFTER 50! offers friendly, focused, forward thinking and action oriented help to the challenges of aging in the 21st century.  Rich in practical experience and wisdom, self exploration exercises, and diverse resources, it's a companionable guide for planning and preparing for the second half of life.

In a unique collaboration, thirty-three of the nation's experts in life planning and positive aging distill the most critical issues.  From finding work, community, creativity, purpose and legacy to financing your dreams, making sure your voice is heard, anticipating challenges of aging, and living with purpose and vitality, LIVE SMART AFTER 50! will help you get the big picture, identify and reduce risks, expand choices, and prepare to take advantage of--rather than fear--the future.

To order either a paperback or e-book version go to this link:  http://www.livesmartafter50.com/

From My Sketchbook

In This Bloutcher
Where Art, Life and Leadership Collide

From My Sketchbook
I take my sketchbook wherever I go.  I sketch and jot notes.  Here are few random pages from my sketchbook.

Lost

Wondering

Huh?

Wilhem de Kooning, the great Abstract Expressionist painter, claimed:" I was never interested in how to make a good painting--but to see how far one could go."

A while back I interviewed the CEO of a Fortune 100 company in preparation for a talk on leadership.  He attributed his success to "always pushing the envelope."

Isn't this what de Kooning is also talking about?

In his famous Harvard Business Review article several years ago Abraham Zaleznik claimed leaders are more like artist than they are like managers.  Leaders and artists must step into the unknown.  They must be comfortable with and embrace uncertainty.  This is where the difference is made.  Great Art, Great Leadership.