Hubris, it appears, has one severe disadvantage: it makes you blind.

The word hubris  was first used, we think, by Aristotle who talked of it as being the abuse of power over others: where one who has been favoured by fortune then proceeds to abuse the less favoured. It went on to be seen as testing oneself against the gods – which they, in their jealousy, then stamped on very promptly indeed.

But what’s wrong with continuously testing the limits? We do it all the time. We’re just about to discover the ‘God particle’; the first trace of matter (first, that is, until we predict another elementary particle) and we now can capture images with shutter speeds equal to that of light. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. Nothing at all. Long may we continue to learn and re-discover our universe.

The danger comes when we think that we can do it all ourselves; that our achievements are solely our own; that nothing can stop us now. Because that’s when we stop looking around us. That’s when we’re blinded – by our own light.

Everything we do, everything we know, started before us and will continue after we have gone. The knowledge that Stephen Hawking,  Albert Einstein, Francis Crick and Plato had was built on the shoulders of those who came before them and served as the base for the knowledge that came afterwards. Yes, Archimedes put together all his learning and skill to come up with the measurement of mass – but he was helped by where he was: by the fact that he was getting into the bath. There’s nothing mystical or magical about it: he was getting into a bath, saw how his body displaced its equivalent in water, put two and two together and came up with 64,000. And what did he say? “Eureka”! Not “I found it”, as we tend to translate it nowadays but “I am in a state of having found it”.

So what produced the discovery? His being in a state to discover; his alertness to discovery. Yes, his unique skill played a great role but only in combination with the learning that had disciplined and enriched him; the experience that had shaped and given him confidence; and the context and circumstances within which he was now acting. An absence of any one of those factors (and a few hundred more) could have stopped him from jumping up stark naked and yelling his discovery to his neighbours.

Great ‘innovators’ all seem to have one thing in common: they all acknowledge their debt to those who came before them and their links with the world around them. Those who claim they are uniquely responsible for a discovery or even success are at best deceiving themselves and at worst lying.

Either way, they have made themselves blind and risk burning off their wings.

I used to think that the antidote to the hubris virus was balance: not too much joy at success; not too much misery at failure.  What my teachers would have called “good taste”. And then I noticed that I could still be  very smug  indeed while acting with extraordinary decorum.If hubris is a state of unsustainable triumphalism, then how do I keep myself open to the possibility of sustainable discovery and achievement?  I suspect, it does entail a sort of balance but it has less to do with control and more with awareness: awareness of the balance of all the contributors to ‘my’ success.

It is a balance between being totally aware of where I am and what I want to change. It is being in a state of awareness and discovery.

If Icarus had been in that state of awareness and discovery, he would have been able to find the ideal temperature  and altitude for the easiest, safest flight.

How does this apply to leadership?  Some years ago I started advocating a principle called “Leadership from the Centre”: the idea that leaders  are most effective when they are at the centre of a network  from which they are able to have clear access to a wide range of  stakeholders. Equally, they are accessible and visible to the challenges of  those stakeholders. It is, in essence a model for trying to maintain this balance of awareness and discovery. This is not a leader on a white charger who makes all the decisions himself or even with a small cabal of advisors. With this leadership model, decisions are made through intense awareness of the context: through scenario planning, testing or just listening. Each movement  is felt throughout the network as is each success or failure.

I first thought about it when  many of my clients fretted that they were missing some pretty important, if not vital, things going on in their organisations. These were mostly thought of as “strong” individuals who were seen to be leading from the front; a characteristic much treasured by television programmes and some corporations. My question was: if you are leading from the front, pulling the organisation along, how do you know what’s going on behind you?  Or  -as I said earlier in this reflection – you may be putting yourself in a state of discovery (of the future) but what about your state of awareness ( of the present)? How do you know- for example – whether your followers agree with what you’re doing – and that they are not sabotaging you? How do you know that what you’re doing for the organisation actually is good for it?  Are you flying too close to the sun because you’re dazzled by your own light?

It all boils down to one core question: “How, as a leader, do I make sure that I am continuously reminded to be in a state of awareness and discovery? What structures and processes do I need to set up? What relationships do I need to develop? What behaviour do I need to display so that my stakeholders  can not only  challenge me but see it as their duty to do so? And how do I make sure that I  and the organisation keep learning?  Finally, to return to the ancient Greeks, how do I, like the craftiest of all leaders Odysseus, make sure that when the sirens of hubris start singing their irresistible song, I am stopped from following them onto the rocks?

I’ve used that story in my coaching for over a decade – ending it with either of these two questions:

” What is it about your behaviour that allows your people to behave in this way?”

or

“What is it about your organization that gives permission to behave  in this way”?

My experience over the years is that creating space for certain kinds of behaviour can  quickly pervade entire institutions. It  may well be started, tolerated or even ignored by the leadership. More  interestingly, it may be the unforeseen result of a particular focus of business. Focus – human or institutional -  affects the way we see the world which, of course, affects the way we behave in the world.

As leaders, it’s important to reflect not just on how our organizations perform but on how they behave. Not just because  of the ethical contradictions but because neglecting to do so may threaten the entire business or service. How an institution behaves with all its stakeholders is a strong indicator of its state of health.  It is our responsibility to check those symptoms, regularly and honestly, ensuring we always widen our circles of enquiry; what a friend of mine recently called ‘increasing the circles of discomfort’. Don’t mistake the behaviour check as something ‘soft’ or driven by political correctness. The behaviour your colleagues display, both the consistencies and inconsistencies, will have a direct impact on your  purpose and business.

What I focus on, in the world impacts how I see the world; impacts how I deal with the world; impacts how the world sees me; impacts how the world deals with me.

An  institution’s strategic focus dictates what it views as important and what as not . This tends to create behaviour which favours the important as against the unimportant. If my strategic focus is  that my prices must be the lowest in the market, then I will favour those who help me achieve that focus: internal cost cutters,  tough bargaining, internal, buyers and (only) those suppliers who can deliver at the prices I require.  The ones I will not favour are my suppliers’ suppliers; my own staff development and welfare; in fact, anything that may affect my margins.

Now, that’s fine as long as I am aware of  the impact of that cycle of  strategic focus  and behaviour. If the institutional focus is on delivering lowest prices to its customers then that means, in  its behaviour, it may not focus on quality or even reliability of delivery. It will certainly mean it will not focus on the quality of life and welfare of its suppliers’ sub contractors. It may even try and minimise the costs of its waste disposal and environmental provision. And, if price is king, then customer service – which may be directly related to (costly) staff training and (costly) staff welfare – will be pauper. 

“Listen, you’re getting it cheap. What do you want? A smile or a damn bargain? Take your pick”.

Result?  You become linked with sweat shop labour; you get attacked for polluting the local environment (where  your customers live); your staff get grumpy and leave – or, worse still – get very grumpy and stay. Your customers dislike coming into your outlets and decide “You know what? I know the store down the road is 10c more expensive but at least it’s clean and I get treated like a human being”.

You may well end with no customers to offer your lowest prices to – or at least not in the volumes where they are viable.

How your company behaves to any one section of its stakeholders offers the world a window into its soul: its values, priorities, limitations, aspirations and ability to reach its outcomes.

As CEO of a technology company I once visited a media corporation to discuss a potential supply contract. I had a genuine interest in securing a contract but I also knew that our group wanted to buy it. So I was very interested to see what their behaviours could tell me. They kept me waiting for over an hour, they didn’t bother to even address my two associates  (clearly considering  them way too beneath them) and they  told me that they would only consider our technology if we agreed to an unsustainable price and terms. They did not – they declared – like my company or the group we belonged to but they would work with us at the ‘right price’.

We were a supplier of key technology that we would be obliged to  maintain to very precise standards  to ensure minimal disruption over at least five years. That required satisfactory terms and a trusting relationship. And yet they treated us as if we were a one off. Either they didn’t understand their own business or the business itself was less important than an exit from it. If exit was their target then my suspicion was that their customer offering would be just enough to get them by. After I left the building I found out that both content and customer service were  spartan. Churn  (customers leaving the service) was worryingly high. Because the focus was on exit,  I guessed attention to staff relationships, let alone staff development and quality of life, would be scant. Hence, their rudeness to my associates. All was confirmed later:   staff  skills, morale and loyalty were abysmal as were organisational and structural development. This was a company that existed for no other reason than to enrich a small group of people through its sale. It was hollow inside. Without doing anything more than observing behaviour in a meeting and making a few discreet enquiries later on, I discovered that this company a) was not worth very much as a going concern and b)  could not afford to hold out ‘for the right price’ for  long before  its losses and hollowness became very public.

Neither the behaviours of the media executives and the grumpy store cashiers, nor the impact they provoked were intentional – or even understood – by the company. But they were a logical (arguably, an inevitable) consequence of  the strategic focus: the organization’s view of the world.

All organizations betray their true focus by their behaviours.

The problem is compounded by the fact  is that these behaviours normally happen over a period of time within a very specific environment: a perfect setting for the boiling frog syndrome. The water is heated up  so gradually and gently that the frog fails to realise he is boiling.

Some institutions do try and check for the problem obliquely; most often by a ‘values’ exercise. A set of corporate values and standards of behaviour are identified or retrieved and staff are reminded (in workshops, pamphlets, posters and so on) of  the aspirations, priorities and acceptable behaviours. They are usually fruitless because the behaviour and values to support the institutional strategy are not those the company espouses.

If the investment bank’s values  speak of behaving with respect and integrity towards each and every client but its strategy focuses on maximising short term return from those clients, then ‘respect’ and ‘integrity’ will make a swift exit.

In legal terms, a corporation is a persona; it behaves, has authority and takes responsibility much like an individual. If  an individual’s behaviour contradicts his espoused values, profession, role or even image, we  may consider that person to be untrustworthy or even ill.

So it is with organizations.

Institutions – in my view – need to embark regularly on a  process that reviews the alignment of their strategic focus with their behaviours.

The TOTAL STRATEGY: the starting point is to develop, understand and clearly model the  strategy in very pragmatic terms; not just financially but the Total Strategy,  in terms of their organisation,offering, resources and stakeholders (what are we offering, with what, to and with whom, to what end?).

MODEL THE IMPACT:  develop and model a range of scenarios of  the possible impact of the Total Strategy on all internal and external stakeholders. ( If my strategic focus is to offer cheapest airfares on the market, what impact could that have on my staff training and therefore my quality of service?)

STRATEGY BALANCE:  Review what is a ‘must have’ in addition to your original strategic focus: I want to be the lowest cost provider with excellent customer service and reliable suppliers. So how ‘low cost’ am I prepared to be?

BENCHMARK AND MANAGE:  the competences,  skills, behaviours, values, structures, processes,  resources and risks that align with that balanced strategy.

CHECK THE SYMPTOMS: check your organizational behaviours regularly with your stakeholders; risking more and more discomfort as you go along. If  you don’t risk discomfort, the chances are you’re playing  it safe with your questions and your target group -and you then risk being very miserable indeed when you start boiling.

If you would like some help in identifying whether your organization’s behaviours threaten your strategy – or if you’d like to discuss the Total Strategy Programme, please contact me at stephen@stephenbarden.org

Coaching may be require us to deal with the flux of change but woe betide us if we ever mistake that fluidity for laxness or sloppy thinking. Every time I have been tempted to think that I ‘don’t have to be entirely transparent on this occasion’ or  if I give myself the credit for a client’s success (even privately) Mistress Coaching delivers a smart kick in the teeth. So in the interests of minimising my dentist’s bills, I’m learning to listen out for  the warning signals.

There is only one reason we coach -and that is for the learning of the client.But “being there entirely for the development of the client” can so easily elide into thinking that we are there entirely to protect our  client.  And that’s where the collusion starts. If you client has agreed to take a particular action as part of her coaching objective – and she persists in not doing it, what do you do? At first, you may use that to examine what may be the underlying causes; the blockages and fears. When her inaction persists you then have a choice: you may tell her you can’t do any more and withdraw or you may tell him that this is a significant block that needs to be cleared before he can take another step towards his outcomes. Either way, he needs to make a decision: either he will commmit himself to working with you to take the next step or he won’t.

But do you report the matter to his sponsor? After all, if you don’t, you are signally failing to deliver on your contract: to enable the client to reach her outcomes. Or is your instinct not to say anything because you know that your client may well be viewed not too favourably by his employers? If you say something, you may be breaching confidence. If you say nothing you may be colluding; colluding with your client towards his not learning.

It is here, in my experience, that those dentist’s bills are in grave danger of rocketing unless I recognise exactly how rigorous coaching is in its transparent and ethical  pursuit of the learning of the client. If you were put that rigour inthe form of a dialogue, this is what it would sound like:

“What am I here for?”

“For the learning of my client”

“In what context?”

“Learning to achieve the outcomes he and his employer have agreed”

” Do you believe you can help him past his current block [in the time frame]?”

Either:

“Yes” (in which case he’s still learning, so back to the coaching)

Or

“No”

(in which case…)

“Have you rigorously examined whether this block is the ideal opportunity to enable him to learn something far more profound (and important to him) about himself?”

“No” (so back to the coaching)

or

“Yes” (in which case….)

“What are your choices?”

“Tell him I can do no more -and withdraw”.

“What happens if you just keep going? After all you may enable his learning in other areas…”

“If I keep going, I am consciously not working towards his agreed outcomes and I am in fact breaching both my psychological and actual contract with both client and sponsor”.

“Unless?”

“Unless I renegotiate the terms with both client and sponsor”.

“How would you do that?”

“By being transparent with both parties”.

“But how would you do that without breaking confidentiality?”

“By  either getting my client’s permssion or, even better, making sure that I have clearly prepared for this eventuality ( and it will come) in my initial contracting”.

“But you could be damaging your client’s career! If his employer discovers that he is not able/prepared to work towards his original outcomes then  he might fire him!”

“And I could be damaging my client’s career and certainly his learning if I insulated  him from the consequences of his actions or inactions. After all, what am I here for?”

“For the learning of your client.”

It’s been 9 years since I exchanged being a corporate leader for mentoring and coaching leaders. In that time I have been blessed with an extraordinary range of clients in North America, mainland Europe, Britain and Africa, from whom I have learned – and continue to learn – much.

My new website has been designed to reflect what has – probably inevitably – become the focus of my work: current and future top leaders.

My passion is to build a strong body of knowledge to enable us to understand the experience of leaders’ learning. Not what we think leaders ought to be learning – but how they actually do. And this is also the theme of my current doctoral research programme.

Don’t we know enough about leaders’ learning through the hundreds of thousands of political, business and other autobiographies?  Well they might give us a clue – but are these books an investigation into the authors’ learning experiences or are they a review of their successes and, hopefully, failures? Those are two very different views.

We also have hundreds of books telling us how leaders ought to learn or what makes a good leader; but these are rarely if ever based on the first hand experience of what leaders are going through now. Before you tell me what a good leader is, it might be wise to listen closely to what leaders are actually experiencing in the field.

Both my practice and my research programme have been designed to:

• understand the first hand experiences of top leaders –and their successors; both through my own practice and through the group of top leaders working with me in my research
• ensure that we build up a solid body of validated and scientifically documented evidence of these experiences
• apply this knowledge for the benefit of leaders and their constituencies, be those constituencies organizations, institutions or countries.

The Vulnerability of Leaders

What have I learned about leadership in my 40 years in corporate life – as producer, then leader and now as mentor and coach?

That leaders and leadership are immensely vulnerable. Vulnerable to the pressures and delusions that both they and we impose on them:

• to thinking that they are responsible for everything
• to thinking that they have authority for everything
• to being over protected and cut off
• to being over criticized and isolated
• to believing they should have all the answers
• to believing they do have all the answers
• to feeling they have no space to learn
• to feeling they have no need to learn
• to seeing themselves as invulnerable and all powerful
• to being seen as invulnerable and therefore ‘fair game’.

Each one of these paradigms can help turn an open democratic University President into a besieged, defensive, secretive tyrant. Or a rational, confident CEO into an indecisive ditherer.

The LeaderNet

Leadership is not a person or even a small vanguard; it is a network of relationships that is constantly in play within and around an institution or environment. Without a product, market, work force, suppliers or structure there is no organization. And without an organization there is no leader. That leader is – and must be – in constant relationship with the network that links him to his stakeholders.

And that’s – essentially- what I do: I work with top leaders and their successors to make sure that they build, balance and sustain that network – their LeaderNet: to keep them and their organizations, strong, open and successful.

If these thoughts resonate a little with you, please get in touch.  Whether you think we can work together or you simply want to discuss or challenge what I say, please contact me at stephen@stephenbarden.org.

Why do we treat this credit crunch as a disaster? Disaster? More like a massacre. A bloodbath with no survivors.

And anyone who even mentions a green shoot is taken away and summarily shot.

The trouble is that disasters are a threat to life. And we’re programmed to react to life threats  with fear: fight, flight or freeze. No thought, of course- because the neo-cortex is too slow to beat a rampaging dinosaur or tsunami.

Is that what we need to get through this Crisis?  A good dose of fear? Mind you, we’ve tried that already haven’t we? The banks and governments first fought off any criticism of those very clever CDO’s. Then, when that didn’t work, they grabbed their money -and refused to do business with anyone. That’s the ticket; that’ll keep our money safe – don’t lend it out at all. And finally, in sheer abject terror, we’ve come up with the brilliant idea of…. running away: cutting  people,jobs and the business: do nothing new.

What’s actually happened here? Why are we in this state? Because things (tools, processes, strategies) that did work, no longer do so.

What do we need to do to get out of this state? Find strategies and tools that do work.

What skill do we need to start looking for those strategies? Thought. Reasonable, innovative, strategic thought.

And what’s the greatest enemy of thought? Fear.

So, we are pumping ourselves full of the one thing that stops us from getting through this crisis.

If this is sounding too simplistic; if you feel that human emotion can not possibly be helping to strangle the world economy, let’s take a look at a few examples:

• why are the banks not lending any money to businesses that need it?
• why are the banks not looking at new ways to do business?
• how many businesses that you know are exploring new products or services?

In fact, who’s being the most innovative in seeking solutions?  Government or the private sector? Now, there’s a really frightening thought.

Human emotion got us into this; human emotion will have to get us out. If wishful thinking – in the form of greed – got us into taking excessive risk, then realistic, clear , values based thinking will be needed to get us out. So the best thing that we can all do is start to understand what is our optimum personal environment  where we can each produce that kind of thinking.

How do you do that? In my experience there are 5 pillars you need to build:

• Understand and manage what is important in your life: Your Values
  • if you don’t know what’s important in your life, no wonder greed -that great ally of purposelessness – will fill the vacuum
• Understand and manage what Fear does to you.
  • what fear you manufacture; what stories you tell yourself; how to quieten the brain
• Understand the strength and resilience that has kept you going so far -and can push you further, if you let it.
  • you’ve persevered under pressure before. How did you do it? How can you do it on a much larger scale?
    
• Work with allies: colleagues, friends, family, mentors and guides.
  • share, help, understand, be understood. It ‘s how you grow
• Do.
  • try it out; experiment; make mistakes; learn; move on
    

did not fall

to Earth,

but

flew?

—–

What if She

did not fall

damaged

and caterwauling

but landed

in perfection?

—–

What if Man

is

Angel

of such courage

and power

that it is one

of

a treasured few

that can leave

the shelter of heaven?

—–

An angel

with

the strength,

the purity

and the

unspeakable

courage

to live;

to experience

the nature of

One.

—–

To be One;

and so

to feel,

and cause,

the pain

of

Not

Being

One.

—–

What if Man

does not fall

miserably

but flies,

to retrieve for

The Beloved Oneness,

the Holy Grail:

a thimble full,

of being

Oneness?

—–

If

we knew

we had taken on

this agony

with such magnificence

would we cease

the whimpering

of

original sinners

flawed in every

thought:

flawed before thought?

—–

Would we stand

and

say

"We are here for one reason only:

to live Oneness.

And we do it

with power

and courage

and love".

—–

How could we possibly enfold

the dragon

if we were flawed?

—–

How how could we begin

to experience

Oneness

if our very nature

was "less than";

"excluded from";

sinners in the original?

——–

And if we are

less than

who is lesser than less?

Who is the greater sinner?

How many degrees of exclusion

can we create to insulate ourselves?

—–

If we arrive believing

we are excluded

then we will exclude.

—–

We can only

experience the

Oneness

if we are it

in the first place

—–

And when we return,

we take with us

in triumph

only that:

The experience of

Oneness.

The rest,

The Separation.

does not exist.

My first reaction was that she was wrong; it was too pessimistic a view of the world. After all my own experience had been that when I had ‘got on and did the best with what I had’ and didn’t pursue my own creativity it drifted further and further away from me.

Then it struck me that, in the past, I hadn’t done ‘the best I could with what I had’. Because if I had, as a creative person, I would have continued to seek my creativity in whatever job/life/marriage I had. And, as someone seeking after meaning- I would have continued to do so, wherever I was.

What had I done instead? I’d told myself that

"This job is not creative; is not meaningful – is not me. I’ll take what it can give me: an opportunity for my management skills; for making good money; for turning around companies. It’s a job for my skills – not my commitment.

You could summarise it in one sentence "This job is not me"

It’s part of a conversation I’ve been having all my life; first with myself, my parents and partners. And more recently listening to my clients – and my children. It starts off with the question "What do I want to be when I grow up?; moves on to "This is my ideal job/ love/ life…" and then inevitably to "There’s something missing. There’s no joy, creativity, love in it" And finally to: This job, this relationship, this life…is not me"

And what does that mean when we say that about ourselves? That we’re holding ourselves outside our own life.

If we say ‘this is not me’, what we’re doing is refusing to commit ourselves to the present. We’ve always got one foot outside the door. And the problem with standing on the threshold is that you never fully experience (or even know) what goes on in the room; you’re forever an observer.

And creativity, joy and love are participation sports. As is fulfilment

Joy is an experience; an emotion that results not just from doing but from participating. Fully -with both feet well past the threshold. With the door shut. And a commitment that you’ll give it the best you have.

That you’ll give it all you have.

And you can’t create something by just looking at it. You’re going to have to get your hands dirty.

And love? How can you find love when you’re forever hovering?

Commitment doesn’t imprison you. It doesn’t mean you can’t walk out the door if you want to go further. It simply means that while you’re in the room you’ll give all you have. And by committing yourself, you maximise your experience (your wisdom of skills, emotions, thoughts) that equips you to make the best of the future – in the same or in other rooms.

So next time you find your job is not ‘giving’ you enough authority/ creativity/ joy/ scope to use your real skills (and whatever else you feel is missing) ask yourself how much of those aspects of yourself are you giving it? And what would happen if, as Gemma said, you gave it the best of you?

or reject,

is not the all powerful

who turns from love

to vengeance,

but is the most delicate

gossamer?

-

What if God is the

the lightest butterfly?

Not the weight of the universe

but the wisp

that’s needed

to balance the universe

on the breath of her wings?

-

What if God depends on us

to preserve the space

for that breath?

To protect her

from the turbulence of our

wheeler-dealing prayers?

-

What if the gossamer

is worn ever finer,

the wisp ever lighter,

when we call upon her

to slaughter our enemies?

-

What if the power of God

holds

when we are still

and listening

and alert?

So that, in that watchful

stillness,

the world can

come to rest.

-

What if our sacred duty is

to be God’s haven?

-

Would we still

drill the hearts

of our enemies,

bomb the cities

of the unbelievers

or clamour to be the chosen?

-

Or would we stop:

in case the din

toppled the beloved?

How do we lose that which we hold most dear in ourselves – by which we identify ourselves?

Recently I was introduced to an intriguing coaching tool in which you’re asked to identify your ‘core quality’; that attribute by which you most closely identify yourself. I said ‘Integrity’ was mine. While it was true it was also a cop out because if I didn’t have integrity as a coach I may as well pack up and go home. As I started using the tool with colleagues and clients, I noticed how many said exactly the same thing: ‘Integrity’. And without any passion. Or, at least, with the same lack of passion that I had felt.

And then I thought: “When did I last feel really passionately about an attribute of mine”?

And I remembered: when I felt so passionately that I would sacrifice anything for it without a thought. When I couldn’t wait to wake up. And sleep was such a waste of time.

And the object of my passion? Making things. Creativity.In the theatre, in radio, television and film. I acted, directed, wrote, adapted, broadcast, presented, made programmes on poetry, noise, tea, music and anything else I could think of. Incessently. And without a single care about whether I was being judged successful or otherwise. Everything I did felt perfect for me. And that was enough.

And then I abandoned it.

I was living in South Africa at the time- Apartheid South Africa. And I began to suspect that my own creativity wasn’t ‘doing enough to change things’. Writing and directing plays and making programmes may offer relief – or even show people how things could be – but it wasn’t going to feed people or stop them from being imprisoned and killed. So, quite swiftly, I abandoned what I had done best and started reporting for foreign networks -as well as working with the then nascent black trade unions. Good, solid, serious work. Where I felt creativity had no place. Where, ironically, although we were working for ‘what could be’, I felt that only tackling the grinding reality – of what was in front of our noses – had any place at all.

Thoroughness was the byword. Do things carefully. Start at the beginning and get to the end.

And that pattern continued when I arrived in Britain. Yes, I went back to radio and television (not the theatre) but not as a programme maker or writer. As a manager. And, eventually as a turnaround specialist: diagnose, change, move on.

That lasted until, many years later, I decided that wasn’t good enough either . And I went back to school to learn about coaching. Because I was beginning to understand the lesson of joy. Or, rather, the lack of it.

Intutition, creativity and the cross hairs of intelligence

When I was being ‘creative’ I was literally firing on all cylinders. In order to direct a play, I needed to use my intuition to grasp the essence (or perhaps ‘my’ essense) of the story. I also needed to have a view of the overall production as well as to focus on an incredible amount of detail to ensure that those two hours (on stage or on air) ‘fitted together’. I had to make sure I could manage a complex project against tight and very precise deadlines. And I needed to make sure that all involved (cast, crew and management) were kept motivated, sharp and passionate for the performance or recording. (Because even if you’re playing Lazarus before the miracle you still need to do it with conviction, wouldn’t you say?)

So, in order to be creative, I needed to use all my multiple intelligences: mental, physiological, emotional and spiritual/intuitive.

And what do I mean by creativity? In my experience it’s very close to intuition. Intuition comes from the Latin ‘intueor’, meaning to contemplate, to look into. And, the OED tells us intuition is “the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning”. Does that mean it’s guesssing? No, it’s the drawing together of all your intelligences in one sudden insight.It’s the apex of those multiple intelligences – mental, physical and emotional as, literally, an ‘insight’. It’s not a leap into the void but a flight within.

And creativity is a milli-step beyond intuition: it’s that which moves the insight into growth, into a way forward, into something new. Intuition grasps how things are; creativity grasps how they could be; creation makes them real.

Your intuition grasps that this search engine does amazing things; your creativity shows you how you can turn it into a huge business; your creation actually shapes that business.

And where do both intuition and creativity spark? In the cross hairs of your intelligences. And without exercising all those intelligences in a balanced way it’s going to very difficult for that convergence to happen. If your mental (logical) ‘intelligence’ is over ‘flexed’ and your physical (feelings) is neglected, your insight may end up being nothing more than a linear, academic idea with little or no joy or passion to drive you into doing something about it – and staying with it.

If I overuse one of my intelligences (be it emotional, intellectual or physical) I will see the world only in a particular way: as logical detail, as chaos, as pain or as ‘big picture’. And the world is all of those things -at different times. So, we need to remember to look at it in different ways, using our different intelligences.We need to, sometimes, start at the end before we find a beginning. We need sometimes to fly above before crawling into its microscopic detail. Each view gives us a different insight. And in each view we’re exercising a different intelligence.

Insight, Outsight and Passion killers

I abandoned creativity because I confused it with the’arts’. I thought: the theatre = arts = creativity =soft emotions = no place in ‘real life’. Now, there are a lot of flaws in that entire logic but the most important one for this discussion is the last one: that creativity is all messy and soft and “has no place in ‘real life’”.

The result of that was that, instead of bringing with me the balance that had made me successfu, strong and happy before (being detailed one moment, big picture, pragmatic, intuitive or visionary in others, as I had as a director and writer) I focused almost entirely on my mental intelligence: that faculty that sees the world in a linear, logical and – allegedly – objective fashion.

The trouble with walking along the ground in a “linear and logical” way is that your view of the world -and therefore your ideas for the world – stay at ground level as well. And, of course, equally, being up in the air all the time, with a big picture view, tends to make your ideas ‘up in the air’ as well.

As for my intuition – the grasping of what is- was replaced by that killer of all passion: what should be. Understanding the reality of what is, comes from your own insight; from the converged experience of all your intelligences. Seeing reality as what should be is second guessing someone else’s reality: your outsight, if you like.

Check calls

If we accept that creativity is a ‘good thing’ and it’s best chance of emerging is from that coming together of our multiple intelligences, then we clearly need to make sure that we’re exercising those intelligences – and in a balanced way.

And something that may help is periodically making a few check calls into how we’re living your life – at work or at home.

Core quality check:
Which core attribute of yours do you hold most dear?
With which quality do you emotionally identify yourself?
How are you using that attribute to bring value – to renew – your work?
If you’re not, how can you do so? If you don’t want to, where can you do so?
If you’re changing jobs or career, are you taking with you that core quality and self identity which brought you most success and satisfaction?
If not,why not?

Oh – and one which is my personal favourite: what do you feel about your work first thing in the morning?

John Berger recently wrote a wonderful defence of the German Nobel Prize winning writer Gunter Grass (The Guardian: August 21,2006). Grass had been pilloried for not revealng that he had joined the Waffen SS at the age of 17. Berger’s response describes very closely what I believe to be the essence of ‘self value’.

"That he was naive when he was 17 means only that he was 17. Inside a story there are no mistakes, only the living through of mistakes. And he has lived through his, better than most of us would have done".

Grass, says Berger, ‘lived through his mistakes" by devoting himself "to grasping, narrating and explaining, with extensive fellow-feeling, the contradictions, cruelties, abysmal losses, wisdom, ignorance, cowardice and grace of people (person by person) under extreme historical stress. Very few other writers of our time have such a wide knowledge of articulate and inarticulate experience. Grass never shut his eyes. He became a writer of honour".

He lived though his mistake by ensuring that it became part of his life; by working with the grain to transform it into the pearl of his life’s work. He understood that the value of his life lay in living through his mistakes and successes – as experience – with his eyes open.

What would have happened if he had ‘confessed his sins’? Would his eyes have been opened wider? Would he have awakened himself more to the experience of his own life; to the value of his life? Or would he have been forced to devalue his life to the actions of the seventeen year old boy?

The word ‘redemption’ comes from the Latin verb ‘redemptio’. And one of the oldest meanings of ‘redemptio’ is to ‘to farm revenues’ – to cultivate one’s assets. And that is what I believe Self Value entails. The cultivating of the most precious asset we have: our Self.

Redemption does not start with the premise that we are a liability unless we do good; but that we can do good because we are an asset.

And how do we farm our revenues? How do we maximise our asset? How do we ‘make the most of our selves’?

By making ourselves as aware as we possibly can be of our selves: by probing how we think, feel, emote and behave in situations; by exploring the impact we have on our fellow beings and our world – and then reflecting on the chain of mutual reactions we create with one another. And by applying our selves in the world and the world in our selves.

By learning.

And how do we learn? By observng, enquiring, reflecting, feeling, applying and integrating.And observing again.

And, as you can see, we can not make the most of ourselves, or increase awareness of our selves, unless we recognise and value our fellow beings. If I think you have no value then we have no impact on one another. But I know that is not true: all beings and I do have some impact on one another. So, I must be closing down my own awareness in order to believe that you have no value.

By reducing my awareness of your value I reduce my awareness of mine.

That is why choice is such a precious gift. When we remove it from others, we remove it from ourselves. When we trespass against others we trespass against ourselves.

So, to summarise:

What is Self Value?

It is the recognition that the Self is the Asset; that it "can do good because it is an asset"; that the Self is the stone from which the scultpure is continuously shaped. Without the stone there is no sculpture.

How is Self Value maintained and maximised?

By taking responsibility for that Self and making ourselves as aware as possible of how we think, feel, emote and behave in our mutual relationship with the world.

How is Self Value diminished?

When we diminish the awareness of both our own selves and that of our fellow beings; when we impose and abuse; when we prevent ourselves or others from discovering our Self Value

So, can Self Value be developed?

Self Value is. We do thing of value because we ‘are value’. The asset is there, whatever we do. It’s our awareness and management of it that impacts our actions. The more aware we are of the asset, the better we are able to use it.