Empathetic Leadership

Empathetic Leadership

Yesterday one of the most noteworthy leaders of our time died. After speaking to a friend who had known Secretary Powell, I grabbed his 1996 autobiography, My American Journey, and started re-reading sections.

I had first read it when it came out. Like many Americans, I was curious to understand what experiences had formed this man that most of us knew from the TV briefings he gave as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he communicated with ease and subtle authority.

Twenty-five years ago, all of us were lacking the vocabulary that we have today regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, let alone the insights.  At best, organizations thought it was a good thing, and something that they “should” do.  But overall, I think there was a sense that it would cost extra, and where was the ROI?

What struck me about Powell’s autobiography then, and again last night, was that he benefitted from a unique upbringing that alone prepared him for his future.  Very few of his generation (or today’s) were exposed to such a diverse neighborhood, let alone born into it.  He was a child of immigrants, which immediately gives most people a comfort in two cultures, if not two languages.  His parents ended up backing two different political parties, which makes you grow up listening to different points of view. Many know the story of how Colin Powell picked up Yiddish working for a Jewish family.  But this young man who was raised a very High Church Episcopalian, and served as an acolyte, was also comfortable in a synagogue, earning pocket money by turning off the lights when services were over on Friday night.

I have been asked when I first felt a sense of racial identity, when I first understood that I belonged to a minority. In those early years, I had no such sense, because on Banana Kelly there was no majority.  Everybody was either a Jew, an Italian, a Pole, a Greek, a Puerto Rican, or as we said in those days, a Negro.

Several years ago, I heard a CEO discussing the importance of diversity on college campuses.  He wasn’t making the pitch for the good of the potential scholarship students who might come from more diverse backgrounds, he was making the business case for the more affluent students who had not been exposed to much, if any, diversity growing up.  He asked the room how these students were going to compete in Corporate America if they didn’t know people different from themselves? If they couldn’t relate and communicate with people who had different life experiences?

Especially today, as the working world is struggling to return to some sense of normalcy, the key leadership quality is empathy.  Empathy can only come when you have shared someone’s experiences.  The more experiences you have with those different from yourself, the more likely it is that you can empathize with a greater number of people, and thereby lead a greater number of people.

 

If you heard what we heard …

If you heard what we heard …

It happened again the other day.

What I heard would surprise no one in HR.

Someone knew I did something in HR and needed to unburden.

The person, who approached as though THEY were the sinner, wanted some clarity, some understanding, some reassurance.

Meanwhile the transgressors never seem to seek counsel. 

The mindset of many employees was summed up recently:

“They’re actually questioning the whole meaning of the daily grind. Why do we put so much of ourselves into our careers? And are we getting a fair deal from our employers in return for all of this stress and heartache?”  Read More Here

When they vote with their feet, their answer is: NO – we aren’t getting a fair deal. Often it is not about the money, it is about the recognition of the sacrifices or tradeoffs that they’ve been making: maybe for 18 months, perhaps for a decade … or two.

It is one thing to joke that HR folks are like priests in a confessional – we’ve heard and seen it ALL BEFORE … and we will carry some secrets to our graves to protect those that have confided in us. 

It is another when too many in leadership positions fail to have faith in what HR experts try to impart, for decades.

The non-sinner has moved on, with a clear conscience, now free from a non-enlightened employer. 

Leadership’s penance?  Trying to fill roles left vacant by once loyal employees.

Are you late to the game?

Are you late to the game?

We were pretty late to the game. 

A sports-mad 21-year-old kept recommending this show about soccer … so you’re a bit skeptical.

But once the friend that actually went to a Premier League match with you decades ago, tells you that you MUST watch it, you actually do.

Luckily we binged shortly before the Emmy’s so were all caught up and understood why Ted Lasso deserved all the raves. 

You can experience this series on so many levels.  If you like football, or programs about sports and coaching, it is great entertainment.  It also proves that once again, sports remain a wonderful arena for Management 101. If you’ve lived or traveled overseas and tried to adapt to a different culture, there are some overt and some subtle chuckles. Given the international nature of the sport, the team that Ted takes on is a perfect example of how complex global organizations are: not only are there personalities to manage, but personalities layered with national … proclivities. 

What all the characters and story lines underscore is that there is no one perfect way to motivate everyone, and that the best coaches and managers take the time and the effort to understand how best to inspire the individuals on their team. With so many leadership lessons from Lasso, some beat me to it.  Late to the game, I tip my hats to them, and share their insights   Read more here and here.

The agility in Ted Lasso is not just on the pitch.  If you scan a few articles, you will discover that the lines between creators, writers, and producers blur.  Brett Goldstein, who received the Emmy for best supporting actor, began as writer and ended up auditioning for a role.  Not unlike the sport at its center, the show scores because the ensemble relies on assists.  When teammates are generous with each other, they are willing to make that extra pass, to get a better line, to set up for a surer goal, and a better ending. 

Go for Broke

Go for Broke

A recent piece in the Chicago Sun-Times featured Yosh Yamada, a long-time teacher and coach at Englewood High School read more here.  He was one of thousands of Japanese-Americans who ended up in Chicago because they were never given the opportunity to return to their homes after being sent to internment camps during WWII.  After release the article says, “He was drafted into the Army, where, he later wrote, ‘I served the very country that had imprisoned me.’ ”  Yosh went on to serve the students of Chicago for decades.

This coming weekend we celebrate Memorial Day. The day is intended to remember those who gave their lives while serving our country. 

The most decorated unit of its size and length was the 100th/442nd, the self-named “Go for Broke” comprised of the Nisei, or second generation Japanese Americans.  While their families were interned at home, they fought for liberty abroad.  They rescued Texas Rangers, fought at places whose names are infamous, like Anzio and Cassino, and some liberated a sub-camp of Dachau.

So this weekend, between all the fun, perhaps learn a bit about these amazing American heroes. Here are some potential sites.

https://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/index.php

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-american-100th-infantry-battalion

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Madness of March

The Madness of March

There is March Madness, and then there are some things to get mad about in March.  

Mad as in frustrated. 

Texas and Indiana are miles apart—as were the facilities (and the swag bags!) provided by the NCAA to those college athletes competing in their national basketball championship.

Title IX was enacted in 1972. It stated that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 

Seems a decent weight room is somehow exempt from the “benefits of” when referring to a women’s program. The NCAA was forced to apologize last Friday when Sedona Price of the University of Oregon Women’s Basketball team posted pictures of the simple dumbbell set representing ALL of the workout equipment afforded the women’s team at the NCAA Tournament, while the men’s teams had vast facilities, with a myriad of machines and weights. 

These benefits have certainly been denied the women of college sports. 

This Women’s History Month let’s not confuse the rules with the reality. Saying someone is equal does not make them so. Enacting a law stating discrimination is wrong, does not eliminate it. Let’s be more demanding, like Sedona Price, about real equality that lives up to the law’s intent. Sedona might wear a different uniform than the Suffragettes, but 100 years later, she used a different platform to make sure that the voices of female athletes were heard.

63

63

What do you think when you see this image?

Some may think this is a very overused image. 

Perhaps it’s a cliché.  It’s over-done.  It over-simplifies something that isn’t simple at all. 

But about two years ago, those of us in Chicago learned, or re-learned, how a group of young white men from Mississippi sent a decoy group to board a plane, then drove out of their way, across their state border, and came to the frigid north in March, just so they could play a ball game.  

And that meant a white player shaking hands with a Black player at center court. For the whole country to see.  Including the Governor of Mississippi who had forbid them to leave their state precisely because he didn’t want them to compete with Black athletes.

When Loyola beat Mississippi State, the Chicago school went on to win the NCAA championship;  so far, the only Chicago college to capture such an honor.  A stirring reminder of that achievement reverberates throughout Loyola’s Gentile Arena whenever the Ramblers reach 63 points: the student section chants “six – ty  three,  six – ty  three.”  

Many have argued how significant or insignificant that game was.  Against a backdrop of Civil Rights issues that were yet to be addressed, and the violence and economic hardship that continued, how much did that game change? 

But in 2011, when Jerry Harkness attended Joe Dan Gold’s funeral in Kentucky, there, next to the casket was a picture.  It was from 1963, of the two of them shaking hands at the beginning of the “Game of Change” – a game that the Governor had tried to stop by issuing an injunction, and that had been overridden by a handshake.