Grow and lead for all of us

Adult development

Episode 28: Sarita Chawla On The Near Death Experience Of The Ego [The Amiel Show]

Episode 28: Sarita Chawla On The Near Death Experience Of The Ego [The Amiel Show]

by ·

Sarita Chawla is a wise woman. Wise enough to realize that when it comes to developing people, deeper isn’t always better.

It’s important to meet people where they are.

In this episode, we discuss vertical development–how it differs from most approaches to leadership development and why it matters for mastery. Sarita walks us through two stages of development where most people experience challenges. New Ventures West calls them Immediate Concerns and Balance. One describes an inner life of constant firefighting with little capacity for self-reflection. The other deals with life as a proud juggler of “necessary” responsibilities.

Think these sound like you? Think they don’t? Either way, Sarita has a message worth hearing.

sarita-chawla

Highlights

  • 3:00 What is vertical development?
  • 14:30 The challenge of letting go
  • 16:00 A near death experience of the ego
  • 22:00 After the “aha” moment is…disorientation
  • 30:00 Immediate Concerns–a life of constant firefighting–and beyond
  • 37:30 Balance–a self-important juggler of many things–and beyond
  • 40:00 Reinterpreting the networking lunch
  • 48:30 What Sarita is personally practicing in her life

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

[Read more…] about Episode 28: Sarita Chawla On The Near Death Experience Of The Ego [The Amiel Show]

Episode 23: David Rome On The Wisdom Of A Leader’s Body [The Amiel Show]

Episode 23: David Rome On The Wisdom Of A Leader’s Body [The Amiel Show]

by ·

In the past decade, an increasing number of leaders have had an astonishing insight: they have bodies.

This sounds silly to point out. Of course we all have bodies. We are human beings. Why is this a big deal?

Here is why: For decades, we’ve left the body out of the equation. Look at any book on leadership or management published between 1950 and 2005. You’ll be hard pressed to find anything about leaders’ bodies. Consider my own experience. When I started developing leaders in the mid 1990s, we talked about leadership competencies, how people change, and a dozen models of excellence. Cool stuff, but it was purely cognitive. One hundred percent was about how to shift minds. The body was nowhere to be found.

Fortunately, this has begun to shift.

David-Rome

Neuroscience teaches us that changing ourselves involves rewiring the brain’s neural pathways. The study of emotional intelligence suggests that reading our emotions and others’ is a distinctly physical act. And studies of high performance reveal that sleep, nutrition, regular breaks, and sustained periods of “flow” are must-haves for leadership excellence.

The secret is out: The body isn’t a peripheral concern. It is central to leadership.

So if you’re facing a big decision, navigating an interpersonal conflict, or building a team, keep this in mind: your body knows the answer.

Your Body Knows The Answer. That’s not just a clever phrase. It’s also the title of a new book by David Rome. David is a mindfulness teacher and seasoned executive. He began practicing Buddhism in 1971 and served for many years as the private secretary to the great Tibetan Buddhist master, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

This week on the podcast, David and I talk about how to use mindful focusing and the body’s “felt sense” to rise to many challenges of leadership.

Highlights

  • 9:00 What are “felt senses” and why do they rarely break into your consciousness?
  • 16:00 Negotiating a complex deal between two organizations–and how the felt sense saved the day
  • 24:30 How the felt sense can help you in a crisis
  • 31:00 Using mindful focusing when you have to fire someone or make another tough decision
  • 40:00 A simple focusing practice you can do right now
  • 51:00 When and how to practice mindful focusing
  • 53:00 What it was like being private secretary to the great Tibetan Buddhist master, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
  • 57:00 What David is deliberately practicing to grow as a person

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

[Read more…] about Episode 23: David Rome On The Wisdom Of A Leader’s Body [The Amiel Show]

Episode 17: Teri Woodland on China, leadership, and cross-cultural complexity [The Amiel Show]

Episode 17: Teri Woodland on China, leadership, and cross-cultural complexity [The Amiel Show]

by ·

A fascinating interview with Teri Woodland about developing leaders in China over the past three decades. Teri helped build McKinsey’s China practice, led the first ever business climate survey in China, served on the Board of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, and sees the complexity there as an incredible opportunity for leadership growth.

I learned so much from my hour with Teri and know that you will, too.

Teri-Woodland

 

Episode Highlights

8:15  “The State Department thinks you should come home” (after Tiananmen Square)
11:45  McKinsey’s China practice—the early years
18:00 The challenge of recruiting Chinese nationals from U.S. back to China
21:15 Doing the first business climate survey in China
30:15 A place where Chinese leaders could speak up
36:45 A time Teri missed cultural signals
42:15 How a complex environment helps people develop
50:15 “Moving jobs to China”
53:15 Women in leadership in China

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

[Read more…] about Episode 17: Teri Woodland on China, leadership, and cross-cultural complexity [The Amiel Show]

Episode 14: Jennifer Garvey-Berger on Simple Habits for Complex Times [The Amiel Show]

Episode 14: Jennifer Garvey-Berger on Simple Habits for Complex Times [The Amiel Show]

by ·

What do you get when one of the world’s experts in adult development, an aspiring novelist, writes a practical guide for organizations on leading through complexity?

Simple Habits for Complex Times, the new book by Jennifer Garvey-Berger (co-authored with Keith Johnston). What I love about it: not only does it entice the reader to see organizational life through a powerful new lens, it’s a great read!

The book is built around two stories, both with leaders in over their heads in complexity yet willing to stretch their minds and habits to rise to the challenge.

After the great response (nearly 2,000 downloads) to my earlier interview with Jennifer, I just had to interview her about the new book. Fortunately, she was game.

Jennifer-Garvey-Berger

In Episode 14 of The Amiel Show, Jennifer and I discuss (times are approximate):
  • 5:00 How complex systems differ from simple and complicated systems
  • 10:00 Our hunger for cause-and-effect
  • 12:40 The “rich picture of now” brainstorm—and the importance of not being aspirational
  • 17:00 The purpose of safe-to-fail experiments
  • 23:00 Why pilot experiments piss people off
  • 27:30 How job surveys don’t just measure a system. They shape it
  • 33:00 How people create phantom rules that everybody hates
  • 38:00 How complexity principles work at every stage of adult development
  • 40:00 Looking for the attractors that contribute to compliance-based behaviors
  • 44:30 What we miss by assuming we are emotion-less Vulcans rather than human beings
  • 48:30 “We hire the smartest people” and other well-meaning habits that can block learning
  • 53:00 Creating more complex ways to think about performance at work

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

[Read more…] about Episode 14: Jennifer Garvey-Berger on Simple Habits for Complex Times [The Amiel Show]

Episode 6: James Flaherty on How People Change and Where Excellence Lives

Episode 6: James Flaherty on How People Change and Where Excellence Lives

by ·

James Flaherty taught me how to coach, created the organization where I met my wife, and challenged me to grow myself as a person.

That’s quite an influence for one person, don’t you think?

In Episode 6 of The Amiel Show, I had the privilege to talk with James about some big stuff I’ve learned from him. We discussed:

  • 3:00 So much of our experience is an interpretation versus a fact “out there”
  • 8:20 Why self-observation is as important as 360 feedback
  • 13:30 Truly changing involves our bodies, social worlds, and language
  • 24:00 Excellence is evoked in relationship rather than something we create alone
  • 30:30 Aristotle’s notion of excellence, including all parts of ourselves
  • 35:45 What’s up with emotions in our culture
  • 43:00 Executive presence happens in the body
  • 51:50 What James is deliberately practicing to develop himself

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

[Read more…] about Episode 6: James Flaherty on How People Change and Where Excellence Lives

Episode 4: Bill Torbert on power, framing, and action [The Amiel Show]

Episode 4: Bill Torbert on power, framing, and action [The Amiel Show]

by ·

If I were to create a Leadership Development Hall of Fame, Bill Torbert would be in it. It was therefore an honor to interview him about ideas that have influenced how I live, learn, and coach.

In Episode 4 of The Amiel Show, I speak with Bill Torbert, who for decades has been a pioneer in helping managers improve their results by practicing a powerful approach that he calls “action inquiry.” We discuss:

  • How to make the next meeting better than the previous one by paying attention to four “territories of experience”
  • What it’s important to start staff meetings by developing a shared frame of what’s at stake
  • How conversations can go astray because of “dueling advocacy” or “naked inquiry”
  • An unsuccessful attempt to trim my son’s fingernails
  • The different forms of power we gain access to as we develop as adults—and how each can be valuable yet limits us when used in every situation
  • Why some managers get threatened by their direct reports
  • What we can learn about “transforming power” from former Czech President, Vaclav Havel

BT-edited

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

[Read more…] about Episode 4: Bill Torbert on power, framing, and action [The Amiel Show]

Episode 3: Jennifer Garvey Berger on Leadership and Adult Development [The Amiel Show]

Episode 3: Jennifer Garvey Berger on Leadership and Adult Development [The Amiel Show]

by ·

In the 21 years since I started developing leaders, I’ve come across a handful of truly game-changing ideas. One of these is adult development. It’s the notion that after our bodies reach maturity, our minds can develop through multiple stages. Each stage gives us the capacity to handle greater complexity, yet also involves a loss of something we hold dear—namely, the way of seeing the world that up until now felt like “me.”

In Episode 3 of The Amiel Show, I speak with Jennifer Garvey Berger, one of the foremost educators about adult development in leadership and organizations. We discuss:

  • The many ways we expect leaders to be both superhuman and supremely human
  • How awesome it is to have new capacities to look forward to as we get older
  • How learning about adult development makes us more compassionate and less judgmental toward others
  • The massive achievement of the Socialized Mind, when you first move beyond vast loneliness and self-centeredness and feel connected to others
  • How the Socialized Mind leaves you unprepared for many leadership situations
  • How much of emotional intelligence requires the Self-Authored Mind
  • The Self-Authored Mind, when you develop the code of your own life and realize that, no, people don’t “piss you off,” because you make your own emotions
  • How it can take decades for people to develop the Self-Authored Mind
  • The value of having a companion to help you deal with development’s uncertain gains and painful losses
  • The Self-Transforming Mind, when complexity and ambiguity become our natural playgrounds

Jennifer-Edited

Listen to the Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

[Read more…] about Episode 3: Jennifer Garvey Berger on Leadership and Adult Development [The Amiel Show]