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On Israel and the war, I am four Jews

On Israel and the war, I am four Jews

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This is my best current take. Help me make it better by suggesting perspectives I’ve missed or points you would emphasize differently. 

There are no bumper stickers on my Nissan Leaf, but if the car had one for the war in Israel and Gaza, it would read something like this:

“Honk if you support the war and have a better strategy for fighting it.”

Or perhaps:

“If you’re not wrestling with the complexity, you’re not paying attention.”

I made the case for the first bumper sticker in a recent piece called How to Best Restore Israel’s Security and Save Innocent Lives. 

It’s now time to explain the second sticker. The message applies to everyone, but it is particularly directed at American Jews like me. Many of us are deeply torn about the war. This includes people whose message is “I stand with Israel” and, in contrast, those primarly pained by Israel’s actions.

What’s behind this inner tearing? Many factors. One that gets less attention than it deserves is the mismatch between the war’s complexity and our minds’ capacity to handle this complexity, especially when we’re flooded with difficult emotions. The situation demands an ability to hold many perspectives at once, but our minds under stress frequently grasp onto the one that seems safest and/or least likely to cost us relationships. The catch is that this perspective varies based on who we spend time with and which people we feel loyal to at any given moment. We don’t have the capacity to hold all of this at once.

The result is that we feel inner tearing. It hurts. It’s confusing. And it is poorly represented in the polarized public debate. Thus, in addition to being tangled up, we feel alone.

For American Jews, there is not one stance toward the conflict, but four. I count myself in this, so here’s how I’d frame the situation:

On Israel and the war, I have not one perspective, but four. And although I’d like to think that I hold these perspectives, just as often I am held by them. Instead of me owning them, they own me. In this sense, I am not one Jew, but four Jews, each renting varying proportions of my awareness at different moments.

Here are descriptions of the four Jews. All of these find ample representation in the American Jewish population. Although some details apply more to me personally than do others, there is a version of each Jew within me.

Script-Flipping Jew

Summary: I grew up hearing a fairy tale about Israel. Now I see the light.

Story: The Jewish community in which I was raised painted Israel as a heroic underdog of history. It was David battling Goliath, a courageous liberal democratic country in a land of despots. With ingenuity, it transformed an arid landscape into lush cropland. With courage, it battled large invading Arab armies and, against all odds, won. This is what my family and community taught me. This is what I believed in my bones. And it was all a lie…or at least incomplete and misleading. I now see Israel’s sins and flaws, and I don’t like them. And I’m embarrassed that I once innocently believed in its pure virtuosity.

Often heard saying or at least thinking

  • “Israel does not speak for me.”
  • “I stand with the Palestinians. I stand for justice.” 
  • “The mainstream Jewish community is oppressive. Nobody wants to listen to me.”
  • “Before Israel was created, many Jews were anti-Zionist.”
  • “There is a long tradition of Jews taking moral stands critical of the Jewish community. I stand in this tradition.”
  • “I will not remain quiet amidst this ethnic cleansing and genocide.”

Common moods

Note: I define a mood as a persistent emotional state coupled with an assessment of the future. This combination creates a particular predisposition for action. Moods are to emotions as climate is to weather. They stick around. So it’s worth paying attention to them.

  • Resentment toward Israel, the Jewish community, and my childhood community
  • Guilt about being Jewish in a world where Israel wields power
  • Resolve to differentiate myself from Israel’s unsavory actions

I grow by realizing that

  • I regularly ignore or filter out facts and perspectives that counter my current story about Israel and the Palestinians. I refer to these facts and perspectives as lies and propaganda. That’s how I justify them. But could my mind be caught in cognitive bias?
  • My heart is closed to the suffering of Israelis, especially Israeli Jews. Such closeheartedness is so unlike me as it contradicts my universal compassion. What could be going on?
  • My argument with Israel is a displaced version of the argument I long to have with my community of origin. 
  • My frustration with Israel is not a self-authoring act. I’m simply flipping the script on my socialized mind. Before, I swallowed whole the tale of Israel as David. I automatically and reflexively internalized this perspective from the childhood community around me. That’s the socialized mind described by Harvard’s Robert Kegan. Now, I am swallowing whole the tale of Israel as devil incarnate or at least deeply flawed. I automatically and reflexively internalize this perspective from the progressive community around me. This is the same socialized mind, but with an inverted script.

Home Team Jew

Summary: I stand fully with Israel even though I see its flaws, especially when it is under attack. 

Story: Of course, I see Israel’s country’s faults and sins, but they are no greater than that of any other country. The UN, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch all single out Israel by holding it to higher standards than everyone else. Ditto for far-left activists in universities and major cities. Whether this behavior is due to antisemitism or ignorant stupidity and bias, one thing is clear: the world won’t give Israel a fair shake. So in the public sphere, I will not feed ammunition to Israel’s enemies by criticizing it. 

Often heard saying or at least thinking

  • “I stand with Israel.”
  • “The world singles Israel out for criticism.”
  • “Israel may look strong compared with Palestinians, but it is surrounded by enemies determined to destroy it.”
  • “Why does the media uncritically accept everything Hamas says even though it’s a death cult built around murder and lies?”
  • “Even global women’s organizations won’t condemn Hamas’s rapes.”
  • “The Palestinian and Arab countries have rejected every peace offer and every proposal for a two-state solution.”

Common moods

  • Resolve in supporting Israel in a world that too often leaves it standing alone
  • Anger about the unfair criticism Israel receives
  • Fear of rising anti-semitism
  • Anxiety about own ability to keep the criticism private

I grow by realizing that

  • I can firmly support Israel’s right to exist and duty to defend itself while expressing discomfort with certain actions it takes. Israelis themselves do this every day, don’t they?
  • Israel’s ability to survive and thrive depends on its moral standing in the world. When I ask Israel to be at its best (however imperfect this may be), I’m taking a stronger stand for Israel’s longevity than when I brush its misdeeds under the carpet.
  • Israel’s enemies and polemical critics take extreme positions that don’t represent my thinking. I can express concern with Israel’s actions while clearly differentiating myself from such positions. 
  • The people of Israel are not well represented by its current extreme far-right leadership. Why should I defend this leadership any more than I would defend my own country’s President when he or she acts in ways I don’t support?

All-in Jew

Summary: I stand fully behind Israel because it has a right and duty to defend itself against enemies devoted to destroying it. Period.

Story: Israel is surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction. It is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is the one place in the world where Jews do not have to fear the government or broader public turning against them. Israel’s critics do not understand what the country is about and hold Israel to a higher standard than any other country. When you’re fighting an enemy that has massacred your people, the war is just. When that enemy uses its civilians as human shields to win the world’s sympathy, it, not Israel, is committing war crimes and does not deserve a pass. If your family and community had been massacred and raped, you would look at this exactly the same way.

Often heard saying or at least thinking: similar to Home Team Jew but with more conviction and very little doubt or self-censoring

Common moods: similar to Home Team Jew but without the anxiety

I grow by realizing that

  • The suffering of Palestinians isn’t only a fact visible to my mind but also something I can feel with my heart
  • Maybe, in some ways and at certain times, Israel crosses the line. Maybe I cannot justify everything it does. Maybe it’s OK to acknowledge this to myself.
  • These tiny voices of doubt are not indications of disloyalty but instead signs that my heart is opening. Acknowledging them may feel like a death to be avoided but is actually a sign of a new self gradually being born.

Split-in-Two Jew

This may seem like simply a combination of the first three Jews, but it has characteristics that are worth describing separately. This is technically a split-in-three Jew.

Summary: I am deeply torn about what Israel is doing and what I should say about it. 

Story: Israel has a right and duty to defend itself, yet I feel uncomfortable with the approach it is taking. The slaughter of Jews on October 7 was horrible. I have friends who were murdered and others who were kidnapped. The experience was horrific. Then Israel started bombing Gaza. For the first few days, the world community came out in support of Israel, but quickly that turned. As the images of destroyed buildings filled the screen and as the Palestinian death count increased, I started feeling sick in my stomach. I had barely started to grieve the loss before my mind was overwhelmed with worry about Israel’s actions. Yet even then, the experience of wrestling with Israel’s choices was confused by the vitriolic anger directed against Israel in large street protests and in social media posts. I feel sick about the massacre, disturbed by Israel’s bombings, and fearful about rising anti-semitism. It’s all one big tangled emotional mess.

Often heard saying or at least thinking

  • “The whole thing is so disturbing and confusing.”
  • “I’m tied up in knots around this.”
  • “It’s hard to know where to stand.”
  • “I don’t know what to say.”

Common moods

  • Confusion about what’s happening out there and the conflicts happening within me
  • Frustration by how hard it is to see things clearly
  • Disappointment that things are turning out like this

I grow by realizing that

  • The inner tearing is absolutely normal and understandable. The fact that I experience so many different angles and emotions isn’t a sign of incompetence. On the contrary, it suggests that this conflict is pushing me toward my growth edge.
  • It’s OK and even healthy to make space in my awareness for everything I am experiencing. 
  • I cannot do this alone. It’s useful to be in conversation with others who are similarly conflicted and someone who can hold the space for us. 

The opportunity to grow

You’ve probably heard the saying “Grow or die.” I don’t think that’s the actual choice we face. It’s possible to live decades without growing and expanding ourselves. This is how things go down for far too many of us. It describes substantial periods in my own life. And the path of growth in adulthood is itself a winding road with twists and turns, frequently fallbacks and unexpected steps forward. That’s how evolution rolls. 

Yet whether the wicked ugly mess is the war in Israel and Gaza, climate change, AI, political polarization, rising illiberalism, or the culture wars, the situation offers us an opportunity. We can speak and listen not as the person we were yesterday, but as the person we aspire to be tomorrow and on behalf of the world we are dedicated to fostering.

Weary of the pointless prickly polarization? Ready for more fiercely nuanced stands? I can help. 

Receive my free bimonthly updates straight to your inbox. There’s no need to choose between hope and despair. You can be cheerfully real.

Brains in transition, my work with teams, and racial axioms

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Hi Friends,

Isn’t today the day you hit Reply and let me know what you think?

I get interviewed about conversation micro-habits for leading people through organizational transitions

How can small shifts in our conversations bring big outcomes? Tarun Stevenson and I had fun exploring this. We talked about conversation micro-habits leaders can use to calm people’s nervous systems, meet their social needs (think David Rock’s SCARF model), guide them through transitions, and tell All of Us stories in which everyone is a protagonist. Listen to the podcast or watch on YouTube. 

I work with teams, but not like the old days

“I didn’t realize you worked with teams,” an old friend and colleague said to me a few weeks ago. “I thought you just did one-on-one coaching.”

It’s true. After cutting my teeth facilitating groups in the late 1990s and early 2000s (e.g. strategic planning for the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco), for the next decade I did almost exclusively one-on-one coaching. This changed a half dozen years ago when I began to wonder, “What would it be like to do this with entire teams?” Recent clients include the senior team in a growing B Corporation committed to sustainability, a college executive team focused on engaging and retaining managers to improve student outcomes, and the senior team in a growing division within a Fortune 100 company.  

What’s different now compared to the “old days?” I don’t accept requests for pure facilitation. Every engagement needs to support people’s growth. Why? One, because it works better. Two, because not doing so is painful. The key is to learn while doing, to grow while engaged in actual work. My colleague Jeannie Coyle calls this “tucking development into performance.” 

Twice as good

Black American physicians

A recent Linked In thread highlighted Black American doctors and nurses. One person commented on the excellent care she had received from a team that was entirely Black American. Another questioned the premise: why should culture or ethnicity matter?

My take: 

  1. I’m equally pleased by good care no matter who provides it.
  2. However, our brains have cognitive biases that interfere with our ability to make grounded assessments of others. This happens not because we’re racist (though we may have racist ideas floating through our minds and lodged into our bodies), but because we’re human.
  3. Cognitive bias can reduce the benefits I receive from care if the provider is Black American and I’m not. Here’s the irony: this can happen in spite of that person’s competence. First, I may avoid an otherwise competent physician and potentially end up in the hands of someone less capable. Second, let’s say I don’t avoid them. My cognitive bias may cause me to distrust the physician’s competence even while receiving great care from her.  Due to the mind’s role in health, this can have a “nocebo” or reverse-placebo effect. Either way, I lose. 
  4. Here’s the irony. By the time a Black American physician is at my bedside, that person likely has had to be twice as good as everyone else. (And, yes, incompetent physicians come from every culture and every skin hue).
  5. So, if I had half a brain (or half as much cognitive bias), I’d trust a Black American physician’s competence more, not less.

Five axioms about our racial reckoning

  • The actions required to defeat racism are more complex than those proposed by the anti-racism crowd
  • The good white person ID card may look like a passport but it’s actually a ticket to hell
  • Self flagellation is not an effective way to cultivate virtue
  • What if all of us combating racism spent half as much time undermining its fallacious premises as we did fessing up that it exists within us?
  • Arguing that there has been little racial progress may feel like standing nobly in the truth of our present predicament. What it actually does is say to generations of Black Americans who have led that progress against great obstacles: I don’t see you. I don’t see what you’ve done. You are invisible to me.

Lessons from my jury duty and “get thee to self-authory”

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I hope you enjoy this week’s actionable insights. Hit Reply and let me know what you think.

Lessons from jury duty
The Chauvin verdict 

After lunch, I heard that the jury had reached a verdict. “Must be guilty,” I thought. “There’s no way every juror would so quickly agree to not guilty.”

And so it was. 

A measure of accountability in a system in dire need of reform. 

Everyone’s talking about what the verdict means, so let’s discuss something different: what was behind this hunch of mine. It derived not from the facts in the case or a faith in redemption but instead my own experience as a juror 18 years ago. That criminal trial, which took place in San Francisco, involved four weeks of testimony followed by two weeks of jury deliberations. The experience taught me two lessons about juries:

1. It’s easy for jurors to follow their emotions and cognitive biases and ignore the facts. In our case, eleven people (most in their 20s and 30s and all but one of them identified as white) were prepared with minimal deliberation to find the defendants (all Latino) guilty on all 41 counts. Even though it seemed likely one defendant wasn’t even at the scene of the crime.

2. It’s possible, albeit more socially taxing, for a minority of jurors to delay things by digging in their heels and refusing to comply. Yours truly, guided in equal parts by clarity and stubbornness, did this for two days. The result: half of the group was persuaded to change their minds on a couple dozen counts. And the other half? They gave me cold stares every step of the way and wouldn’t come near me at lunch. 

So, when I heard the jury in the Chauvin trial had made a decision in two days, one thing was clear: if a single person could stymie things for two days in a case nobody was following, there was no way every juror in this big case would buckle under and agree so quickly to let Chauvin off the hook.

What I’m learning
Trust the senses

Twenty years ago, a coach encouraged me to trust myself. It was an odd insight. You mean I don’t already trust myself?“Correct,” she said. “Your doubting mind gets in the way.” This led me on a journey of discovery. The self-questioning, I found, was fierce and continuous, and finding ways to work with it brought me into presence. The lesson took a while to sink in, but eventually it did. 

Recently, I learned that, to paraphrase Yoda’s words to Luke, “incomplete was your training!” 

Here’s what new: trusting myself means trusting my five senses. Sight, sound, scent—the whole package. This, in turn, requires feeling my five senses, which calls for twice as much breath and half as much clenching. 

The upshot: when my nervous system gets activated, I have a choice

1. Interpret it as a sign that something’s wrong and tighten up. Gotta be alert, can’t relax.

2. Interpret it as an opportunity to trust my senses. The senses are intelligent and will show the way.

Historically, it’s been 95% door number one and 5% door number two. Things are shifting, but it’s still a work in progress.

Get thee to self-authory
Spotting mental demands in expert advice 

Cal Newport recommends time blocking. Don’t start your day by checking email and responding to requests. Instead, plan every minute of your day and be sure to include time for uninterrupted creative “deep work.” This useful practice creates what Bob Kegan calls a mental demand. It requires a capacity for self-authorship that not everyone has developed. This doesn’t mean the practice is bad. But it is harder for some than others. It’s something we grow into.

Americans at our best
19th and early 20th century Black American feminists

“Black women emerged from brutal encounters with enslavement, sexual violence, economic exploitation, and cultural denigration as visionaries prepared to remedy their own circumstances and, by doing so, cure the world.”—Martha S. Jones from Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

Reader comments
About “When collaboration fails, use other forms of power”

“I really liked this. Very common and difficult situations. It’s not always clear that there are other choices of how to handle things. And when we DO bring in other power, how to do that in a way that is balanced and fair – AKA with out an overlay of revenge or hatred. That’s where the real growth can be in these situations, at least in my experience.”—Michael Dolan, Truly Productive Leadership

When collaboration fails, use other forms of power

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Hi Friends,

I hope you enjoy this week’s actionable insights. Hit Reply and let me know what you think.

When collaboration fails, use other forms of power

Collaboration is important, but what if you are interacting with someone who abuses power—not just once but over and over? Is this the time to employ (and practice) your skills in difficult conversation? It could be, but only once and mainly to ground your assessment about their abuse. After someone proves they don’t play fair even when you bring your best, it’s time to employ other forms of power. 

This can be as simple as bringing into the room another person, often a senior leader with authority and resources you don’t possess. Recently, a client of mine (a senior leader in her own right) did this. Suddenly, the person giving her trouble started cooperating. It felt miraculous. And stuck.

Another approach is to use institutional rules. “Reporting” someone may feel awkward or even childish to you, but this is why rules exist, and sometimes it’s your best move. Years ago, a client of mine had a boss who criticized him harshly in public. One day, my client wondered aloud in front of the boss whether it was time to bring in HR. The boss not only cleaned up his act but entrusted my client with more autonomy over a customer engagement worth tens of millions of dollars. 

These approaches don’t always work. All over there are people acting like assholes without repercussions. But, seriously, can you name anything in life that always works? Our goal here isn’t to guarantee a better outcome, but to improve the odds in getting one. As Greg Thomas explained to me, sure, life is a low down dirty shame—now, what are you going to do about it? 

Here’s the lesson: assume the best in others until they give you consistence evidence otherwise. Then reach into your bag for other forms of power—and use them. You’ll get more traction, and the other person might just be nudged into better behavior that serves their long term self-interest.

What other forms of power have you used? Stories welcome.

“Is that paint or blood?” and other clarifying questions

Recently after repainting our red porch, I visited a nearby Mediterranean food cart for a late dinner. As I was preparing to pay, the owner pointed at me and asked, “Is that red paint or blood?” “Great question,” I replied. “It’s nighttime, and nobody’s around. You want to know who you’re dealing with. Makes total sense. And it’s paint.” “No,” he said. “It’s not that. I don’t care what you did before you got here. If it’s blood, I’ll need to wash my hands.”

Morals of the story?

1. When others ask clarifying questions, it’s not always obvious why.

2. When you ask a clarifying question, it can be useful to frame it with a few words explaining why you are asking.

What I’m reading

Healing Collective Trauma by Thomas Hubl. Some of us are learning to heal our own intergenerational trauma. For a good illustration, listen to my interview with Diane Woods about racialized body trauma and the work of Resmaa Menakem. Some are learning to empathize with others’ trauma. Consider the wakeup call many Americans received after George Floyd’s death and again now with the trial. Hubl’s book shows us how to bring light to the darkness, not by bypassing trauma but exploring it together with skilled and grounded guides. 

One of the best lessons from this book: Own your part of trauma. Don’t own it all. And even with your own part, you don’t need to carry it alone. 

From the Vault: “ASAP is a Four-Letter Word.”

I curse periodically with clients. It’s part habit, but mostly deliberate. People learn better when relaxed, and nothing relaxes the rational mind like a well-timed four-letter word. 

But there’s one four-letter word you’ll never hear me say: ASAP. 

In this short piece, I explain why.

Being half the asshole—and other conversation prep tips

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In my last email I proposed new language for talking about skin color. One reader writes:

“There’s a great scene in the movie “Shaft” in which one of Shaft’s cop colleagues holds a cup of coffee near Shaft and says something like, “See, Shaft, you’re not so black.” And then Shaft picks up a sheet of note paper and puts it next to the other guy’s skin and says, “And you’re not so white.” – J.W.

Freeing ourselves from racial essentialism by owning up to our humanity and nuance starts here.

Begin with the (conversational) end in mind

In Seven Habits, Covey says “begin with the end in mind.” You imagine you are at the end of life and describe what you’ve done and how you’ve lived. It’s a valuable practice. You can apply the same principle to the core act of leading (and being a human being): the conversation. Whether it’s a one-on-one with a direct report or a meeting with a team of internal customers, start by asking, “What results would I like from this conversation?” Results can include:

  • Exploring one pivotal question that hasn’t gotten enough air time
  • Creating a buzz in a group that has felt flat
  • A shift in assessments others make of you or your team
  • Reporting completion on a project
  • Renegotiating a specific commitment
  • Eliciting a reliable promise to a new project
  • Understanding how a specific decision has affected others
  • Practicing a quality (patience, courage, flexibility, etc) you are cultivating in yourself

Prepare how you will listen

Embarrassing fact: although I’m a pretty good listener much of the time, my mind still devotes inordinate time to preparing what I’m going to say next—including while others are speaking! At my best, I head this off at the pass by preparing in advance how I will listen. This practice can include:

  • Before a conversation identifying what anxious thoughts I’m having about it—then taking any number of actions (again, before the conversation) to reduce the ability of these thoughts to distract me. Examples: breathing deeply from the belly, recognizing those thoughts are ungrounded assessments (not the truth), and calling to mind the person I’ll be meeting with and feeling them in my chest.
  • During a conversation catching myself during a conversation preparing what I will say and shifting attention. This is both harder and easier than it sounds. The hard part for me is catching myself. The (relatively) easy part is then shifting my attention. Typically I employ a Jedi Leadership Trick called Sound Check. I focus intently on the outer part of my ears and the vibration of sounds. This helps me literally feel sound sensation, which interrupts my monkey mind and helps me tune into people’s words and feelings. This is a low-risk endeavor you can try at home!
  • After a conversation, taking a moment to reflect: when did I listen deeply? When did I get distracted? This helps me prepare for the next conversation that day or with that person.

Prepare what you will say

My clients often say this is the most valuable part of working with me.  Using their desired conversation results as the North Star, we sketch out a rough outline for the conversation. What type of conversation will this be: is it about sharing assessments and stories, exploring possibilities, or negotiating actions? What are the key threads of the conversation? For each thread, what do they want to say and ask? We pay attention to sequencing, the emotional charge of certain threads, and possible pitfalls.  The goal here isn’t to force a particular conversation but instead to get in touch with what matters most and how to express it skillfully. This often involves a stretch, which is precisely the point. Conversations—and preparing for them—help us grow and expand.

Being half the asshole I could’ve been

I can be a jerk like anyone else, and improvement can be incremental. During a recent conversation with someone I care about, these words came out of my mouth:

“I’m not shaming you. I’m only blaming you.”

Partial credit for restraint?

Reader responds to “What I’m thinking about skin color”

In my last email I proposed new language for talking about skin color. One reader writes:

“There’s a great scene in the movie “Shaft” in which one of Shaft’s cop colleagues holds a cup of coffee near Shaft and says something like, “See, Shaft, you’re not so black.” And then Shaft picks up a sheet of note paper and puts it next to the other guy’s skin and says, “And you’re not so white.” – J.W.

Freeing ourselves from racial essentialism by owning up to our humanity and nuance starts here.

Begin with the (conversational) end in mind

In Seven Habits, Covey says “begin with the end in mind.” You imagine you are at the end of life and describe what you’ve done and how you’ve lived. It’s a valuable practice. You can apply the same principle to the core act of leading (and being a human being): the conversation. Whether it’s a one-on-one with a direct report or a meeting with a team of internal customers, start by asking, “What results would I like from this conversation?” Results can include:

  • Exploring one pivotal question that hasn’t gotten enough air time
  • Creating a buzz in a group that has felt flat
  • A shift in assessments others make of you or your team
  • Reporting completion on a project
  • Renegotiating a specific commitment
  • Eliciting a reliable promise to a new project
  • Understanding how a specific decision has affected others
  • Practicing a quality (patience, courage, flexibility, etc) you are cultivating in yourself

Prepare how you will listen

Embarrassing fact: although I’m a pretty good listener much of the time, my mind still devotes inordinate time to preparing what I’m going to say next—including while others are speaking! At my best, I head this off at the pass by preparing in advance how I will listen. This practice can include:

  • Before a conversation identifying what anxious thoughts I’m having about it—then taking any number of actions (again, before the conversation) to reduce the ability of these thoughts to distract me. Examples: breathing deeply from the belly, recognizing those thoughts are ungrounded assessments (not the truth), and calling to mind the person I’ll be meeting with and feeling them in my chest.
  • During a conversation catching myself during a conversation preparing what I will say and shifting attention. This is both harder and easier than it sounds. The hard part for me is catching myself. The (relatively) easy part is then shifting my attention. Typically I employ a Jedi Leadership Trick called Sound Check. I focus intently on the outer part of my ears and the vibration of sounds. This helps me literally feel sound sensation, which interrupts my monkey mind and helps me tune into people’s words and feelings. This is a low-risk endeavor you can try at home!
  • After a conversation, taking a moment to reflect: when did I listen deeply? When did I get distracted? This helps me prepare for the next conversation that day or with that person.

Prepare what you will say

My clients often say this is the most valuable part of working with me.  Using their desired conversation results as the North Star, we sketch out a rough outline for the conversation. What type of conversation will this be: is it about sharing assessments and stories, exploring possibilities, or negotiating actions? What are the key threads of the conversation? For each thread, what do they want to say and ask? We pay attention to sequencing, the emotional charge of certain threads, and possible pitfalls.  The goal here isn’t to force a particular conversation but instead to get in touch with what matters most and how to express it skillfully. This often involves a stretch, which is precisely the point. Conversations—and preparing for them—help us grow and expand.

Being half the asshole I could’ve been

I can be a jerk like anyone else, and improvement can be incremental. During a recent conversation with someone I care about, these words came out of my mouth:

“I’m not shaming you. I’m only blaming you.”

Partial credit for restraint?

Reclaiming anger, remembering culture is messy

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Hi Friends,

It’s too late in the year to start acting all shy. Hit Reply and let me know what you think.

What I’m reclaiming

Here’s a lesson I continue to learn: whereas pushing anger down makes you feel low (it literally depresses emotion), reclaiming anger boosts life force. Anger in the body is heat. If you don’t turn it against yourself or others, it can warm your heart and mobilize you to act. This starts with attention. Focus on the physical reality of anger. Not who you’re angry with or why but where anger has taken up residence in your body. Get to know this place. 

What I’m saying to amuse myself

Rent your new personal growth practice before you own it

Men don’t give their kids child care. They father

Yesterday’s unclear request is tomorrow’s clenched jaw

Want to avoid being an asshole? Know the exact actions that make you one 

What happens in (the) Vagus (nerve) never stays in Vagus

What I’m teaching our sons

On a rainy walk home from a brief outing, we discussed the difference between assertions and assessments. When you call your brother “short” or “stupid” (or “tall” or “smart”), I pointed out, that’s an assessment. You can’t prove it’s true, but you can ground it with evidence. An assessment with evidence is a grounded assessment. 

“What if I provide evidence he is stupid?” the older one asked. That, I replied, would be a grounded, but unkind, assessment. Why not simply say he hasn’t learned Calculus. That would be an assertion—in this case, a true one.

“What would it be,” he responded, “if I told you that I just said he was stupid.” Another true assertion, of course. 

At this point, I said that even I was confused. This, I couldn’t resist pointing out, is a declaration, a speech act that plays by yet another set of rules.

“Then I declare independence,” the younger son said. I reminded him that declarations gain power from the authority of the person making them. At age eight, he lacked the necessary authority. Although he didn’t like this, he accepted it. Then we walked up the stairs and out of the rain.

What I’m reading

Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary by Timothy Snyder. I’ve now read seven books by this Yale historian. Our Malady is the most personal. It is about how rage and empathy sustained him through a near fatal bout of sepsis almost exactly one year ago, how distracted and mistake-prone physicians are a feature, not bug, of the American healthcare system, how human freedom depends on a robust social safety net, and how the death of local reporting increased deaths from opioid and Covid. We are reminded that a “white” man’s life can literally hinge on whether strangers trust the competence and sincerity of an African American woman. Here, as in his other books, Snyder writes lucid prose and illuminates unseen connections. 

What I’m learning about “cultural appropriation” 

“We should resist using the term “cultural appropriation” as an indictment. All cultural practices and objects are mobile; they like to spread, and almost all are themselves creations of intermixture…whatever your origins…you [can] enter deeply into other forms of life, but you [have] to put in the work…This project can start with the recognition that culture is messy and muddled, not pristine and pure. That it has no essence is what makes us free.”

—Kwame Anthony Appiah, from The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity

The curse of never reporting completion (Dec 9, 2020 issue)

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Hi Friends,

I hope you enjoy this week’s actionable insights.

Which of these articles do you want to read?

“Navigating complexity starts with owning the morning”
“How to watch out for assholes without becoming one.”
“Seven ways to reduce conversational wear and tear”
“How to create an island of goodness.”
“The first conversation with your new boss.”
“The first conversation with a new member of you team.”
“Nine barriers to getting into flow— an Enneagram perspective.”
“Want to make powerful offers? Stop expecting people to read your mind.”

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Before you go!

The curse of never reporting completion

It’s no fun when someone breaks a promise to you by delivering late and/or not what you agreed. I’ve written about this before. But consider the opposite: the person does what they committed to but never tells you. Sound familiar? I call this failure to report completion. It happens all the time, wreaking havoc.

If you manage people, you owe it to yourself to ask them to report completion clearly and consistently. Now, I’m not arguing for another 175 emails a day. Find a method and timing that works for both of you. The good news is that this allows you to stop worrying or nagging and move things forward.

In case you missed these podcast interviews

Charlie Gilkey interviews me on Productive Flourishing about the three kinds of conversations, how to renegotiate commitments, and how the Enneagram helps navigate conversations here, and Wendy Bittner asks me how we simplify racial identity in America on Not Simple here. More new interviews coming soon!

What I’m reading

Mobilize! Dancing in the World by Chauncey Bell. The conversation micro-habits I design for leaders are super practical yet they stand on a solid foundation. This book illuminates that foundation through vivid stories from the author’s long career as a consultant provocateur. 

In Search of Our Roots by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. Nineteen Americans from Chris Rock to Oprah discover their roots through genealogy and DNA testing. Each story is unique, complex, and filled with drama and intrigue. If you’re ready to test drive life as an anti-race anti-racist, you’ll find support for both parts of that here.

Antidote to simplistic antiracist or racist interpretations of American history

“Normal, regular black people went about their business each and every day. They loved and hated, worshipped and sinned, worried and aspired. They were defeated in a shockingly depressing number of ways, yet they triumphed as individuals, as families, as a people. Together they created a culture, one of the world’s great cultures.”

—from In Search of Our Roots

Cheerfully real,
Amiel Handelsman

P.S. Did someone forward this issue to you? I’d love to have you join us by signing up here.