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Sustainable Business Goes Mainstream With Kevin Wilhelm (Episode 104)

by amiel · May 6, 2019

This week I launch a new series about climate change, sustainable business, and clean technology. My goal is to explore these big, complex topics from multiple perspectives, with an open heart, and for the purpose of generating positive action. Multiple perspective-taking matters because each way we frame these topics is both useful and limiting—in the terminology of integral thinking, both “true” and “partial.” An open heart matters because what’s at stake is momentous, and without it, all that’s left is a big mushy bowl of anxiety. And positive action—well, heck, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

To launch this series (my interview with Ron Pernick of Clean Edge about clean tech was a prequel), I reached out to Kevin Wilhelm. Kevin is the founding leader of Sustainable Business Consulting, author of several books including Return on Sustainability, and a convincing thought leader.

In this conversation, we discuss how Kevin cut his teeth in a field that didn’t yet exist, the people who told him “that won’t happen,” how his company’s work boosts client employee engagement, his role as organizational translator, the forefathers and foremothers of the field, and how he makes sense of recent alarming reports about climate change.

One more thing. In the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to partner with more organizations in clean tech, energy efficiency and climate change than in the previous decade before that. Growing leaders and teams in these organizations is a total joy. As I tell Kevin, if I spent 98% of my time doing this, that wouldn’t be too much. People like Kevin give me inspiration to continue reaching out and making new offers.

If you like this conversation, please share with friends.

Highlights

7:00 Creating a new market niche
20:00 From “do the right thing” to “investors are demanding this”
25:00 Translating and meeting people where they are at
29:00 Sustainability increases employee engagement, attraction, and retention
33:00 Stock analysts have finally caught on
41:00 What’s missing in the public conversation about climate change
45:00 Amiel’s riff on time horizons, climate change, and adult development
49:00 Why spend $300K watering a lawn in a forest fire region?

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Sustainable Business Consulting

No More Feedback With Carol Sanford (Episode 103)

by amiel · Apr 22, 2019

This week, contrarian business thought leader Carol Sanford joins me to discuss her new book, No More Feedback.

If the title strikes you as both surprising and unnerving, welcome to the club. Within organizations giving and receiving feedback are widely considered noble acts. Although we may not be competent at feedback, we know it’s a good thing—key to personal growth and leadership development.

Carol says, “no, not really.”

In her view, any effort to ask another person where I am strong or how I could improve is intrinsically harmful, even toxic. For this reason she offers a harsh critique of annual performance reviews, competency models, and 360 degree interviews. The damage they cause is so profound (e.g. rewarding conformity, shifting attention from big promises, encouraging confirmation bias, and reducing self-reflection) and the foundation upon which they are based is so flawed that it’s foolish to tweak them.

Instead, Carol argues, get rid of feedback entirely.

Three things I learned in talking with Carol:

I share her assessment of most of the activities that she calls “feedback.”
When I use the term “feedback”—for example, as one of four steps in the on-the-job-practice cycle—I’m talking about something that Carol does not consider feedback because the person requesting it is authoring their own learning.
I can stay grounded while listening to someone critique a practice near and dear to my heart, as Carol does with the Enneagram. In fact, it’s kind of fun.

Have a listen, and tell me what you think.

Highlights

10:00 Humans as machines, the first seedbed of feedback
17:00 Three foundational capacities of people to cultivate
24:30 Jerry, a contrarian at Weyerhaeuser pushed out for not conforming
32:00 Feedback raises anxiety
41:00 Opportunities to self-reflect can break attachment to 360 feedback
49:00 Why modifying feedback systems doesn’t work: the premise is flawed
54:00 Carol only has people assess themselves in relation to a big promise they are making in the world
1:02:00 Carol’s work with Seventh Generation when it was in the red
1:12:00 Perils of low fat diet, benefits of intermittent fasting

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Carol’s web site

Episode 102: Two Feet, Five Breaths (3-Minute Thursday)

by amiel · Apr 17, 2019

Welcome to 3-minute Thursday. This week I introduce a way to bring more ease into your day.

The practice is called Two Feet, Five Breaths. It takes one minute and requires no equipment. All you need is a place to sit and some form of breathing apparatus. (I recommend the lungs.)

The other great thing about this practice? You prove once and for all that what happens in Vagus does not stay in Vagus.

That’s Vagus, the nerve, which is the best instrument for shifting your body from “fight, flight or freeze” mode to “rest and digest.”

So you can find the ease and inner calm that brings you into the current moment.

All in 3-minutes. So you can stop listening—and start practicing.

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Learning While Sprinting With Teresa Woodland (Episode 101)

by amiel · Apr 10, 2019

Teresa Woodland spent three decades working and living in China during its extraordinary economic and cultural transformation.

Now back in the United States, she joins me to discuss what the West can learn from China. We discuss the Chinese ability to learn while sprinting, the virtues of systems thinking and embrace of paradox, how to have a light touch with “back-of-mind” stakeholders, conversations for exploring disappointments, why it’s unwise to “wait until things so down”, and how she wins the right to be on a journey with companies.

Highlights

8:30 Why the Chinese chew on western models of adult development, but don’t swallow them whole
18:00 The talent story in China beneath the economic and policy headlines
26:00 Western action learning works—but is there an even more pragmatic way to learn?
31:00 Lessons from adopting a child and working with an orphanage
37:00 Creating light touches sooner with “back-of-mind” stakeholders
46:00 A Chinese company that looks ahead even while it’s sprinting
52:00 Teresa always starts with the business issues and intersperses the learning in between
57:00 Getting grounded by cuddling with your kids

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You can download a complete, word-for-word transcript of this episode here.

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Teresa Woodland’s company, WuDeLan Partners

Humble Leadership With Ed Schein & Peter Schein (Episode 100)

by amiel · Mar 25, 2019

Humble Leadership. Yes, those two words belong together.

This week on the podcast, Ed and Peter Schein join me to discuss their book Humble Leadership. We talk about leadership as a verb, the relationships behind the Singapore economic miracle, innovation through psychological safety, script-based modes of adult relating, the costs of maintaining professional distance, giving up the absurd obsession with eye contact, antibodies that protect the core business, and how Ed’s curiosity landed his first big contract with Digital Equipment Corporation.

Ed Schein is Emeritus Professor at MIT where he taught in the School of Management for fifty years. Peter Schein has had a 30 year career in Silicon Valley in corporate development and business development. They are a father-son team with a powerful message for you and me.

Please share with others.

Highlights

4:30 It’s about the quality of the team, not you
17:00 Getting curious about the person behind the role
27:00 Opening the door to more than transactional relationships
36:00 Using check-ins and check-outs to improve group meetings
50:00 Bringing the water cooler conversation into the meeting itself
57:00 When relationships are asymmetrical
1:03:00 When company executives get threatened by genuine relating

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Episode 99: Resilience And Racialized Body Trauma With Diane Woods

by amiel · Mar 11, 2019

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. Understanding trauma and how it functions is scientifically sound, empirically useful, and one of the most effective ways to develop to your full potential.

The great challenge of adulthood is embracing complexity. We do this by taking on multiple perspectives in our minds and building this capacity into our hearts and bodies.

Nowhere is this challenge more evident to me in the United States than in the area of cultural and racial conflict. Even those of us who are doing our best to create a better future have a lot of growing up to do.

You know what’s great about growing up? When we do it, the benefits accrue in all areas of life.

That’s why I think that reframing how we approach race and culture isn’t only about black and white. It also yields benefits in whatever context we choose to lead.

Sure, you could use what you learn about leadership from organizational life to make a contribution to our societal struggle with race, but this also works in reverse. The cauldron of racial relations can foster skills and qualities you need to show up at your best in organizations—and in your family and community.

I’ve had several guides in this journey. One is leadership coach and retired executive, Diane Woods. Last year, we discussed why it’s important to talk about racist ideas rather than racist people and how combatting racism is in whites’ self-interest. My mind is still stretching from that conversation.

This week, Diane asks us all to try on a very different, albeit compatible, lens for understanding our experiences in this area. Drawing upon Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands:Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Diane invites us to place the body—its trauma and its resilience—at the center of this story.

What if we set aside the patterned roles of victim, persecutor and rescuer in favor of a more complex body-centered understanding? What if, instead of either rationalizing racist behavior or demonizing each other, we did the following:

Set clear boundaries around racist words and behaviors
Understood racism as multigenerational trauma—black body trauma, white body trauma, and police officer body trauma?

As she did before, Diane speaks from her own experience, informed by her extensive reading, and in a way that invites us all to take a second look at our own lives and family’s experiences.

Highlights

7:50 We’re in love with our minds & stop at the chin or neck
15:00 Black and white bodies carry unresolved trauma between generations
22:00 When people we love tell their stories, our anxiety and pain has meaning
25:30 Dirty pain versus clean pain
30:00 Indigestion leads to self-soothing—healthy or harmful
32:20 “When the ouch in my body stayed three months”
34:00 When I know my value, my capacity to bounce back is deeper
39:30 We don’t have to condone racist behaviors to have a compassionate stance

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Episode 98: Why Enneagram Types Matter With Roxanne Howe-Murphy

by amiel · Mar 5, 2019

The first time Roxanne Howe-Murphy and I planned to discuss the Enneagram, we were interrupted by an election. So we explored how to heal from Trump Shock (for those needing such healing).

Life gives second chances.

This week Roxanne and I took one such opportunity and ran with it.

The Enneagram is a system for personal and professional development I’ve been using for twenty years. It informs my coaching and, increasingly, my work with leadership teams.

There are nine Enneagram styles or types. Each provides a different answer to the question: What makes me tick?

Walking through all nine types is a big task. Roxanne and I chose instead to explore what is both the most practical and existential question about the Enneagram: why does it matter? What difference does it make when growing yourself to understand your Enneagram type? What difference does it make when coaching or managing someone else to understand theirs? And for those involved in parenting or mentoring kids, how can you shoot yourself in the foot by treating all kids the same, rather than personalizing to what makes each child tick?

Roxanne is a wise and warm presence. I invite you to grab a cup of tea and listen in.