Whether or not there is a gene for worrying -- or indeed a gene for being a geneticist -- a psychoanalytic story about worrying would try to persuade people to see that by worrying they are doing a number of interesting things, many of which may not have even occurred to them.
First, worry is an ironic form of hope. It is a way of looking forward to something -- even if it's something awful -- and that implies a belief in the future. So worrying is a version of desiring; when we worry, we anticipate.
Second, each person has a very specific history of worrying that evolves over time. Each of us chooses certain things to worry about and chooses whom, if anybody, we will tell.
And the way our worries were received when we were children -- whether our parents seemed horrified or indifferent or only too keen to hear about them -- will leave us with a mostly unconscious set of expectations about what we can say and to whom. Worries, like secrets, are part of the essential currency of intimacy.
Last, but not least, worrying is a form of thinking. At one end of some imaginary spectrum, there is something akin to creative rumination. At the other end, there is the stalled thought of obsession. If worrying can persecute us, it can also work for us, as self-preparation. No stage fright, no performance.
In other words, if we can lop off the worry gene, what else might go with it? People without worries are people without self-doubt. And we know what people are capable of in states of ultimate conviction.
The BBC are asking you to share your experience of costliest mistakes. Like Johnnie I was interested in the range and depth of emotion on display. I was also fascinated that although the example given by the BBC concerned an object and its monetary value many of the examples given by members of the public are about personal and relationship issues that sometimes cost in financial terms but not always. The primary cost was emotional.
Useful learning here about working with the emotional impact of 'mistakes' in organisations. We spend time learning how not to make the same mistakes again but it's doubtful if we spend enough time learning about the range of feeling and emotion evoked when we don't 'get it right'.
As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure.
This thought resonated very strongly with me this week as I sat on an interview panel for the appointment of a senior arts manager position here in Ireland. Many people told us how important the arts were and how better off we would all be with increased access and better funding. I don't play golf. But I have heard seasoned golfers talk about the impact golf has on their lives. I don't like it when I'm told (albeit in a roundabout way) that my life is somewhat deficient because I don't own a set of clubs. It seems to me that many of us who work in and around the arts make the same claims - our lives are touched because we have seen the light. I don't think so. Access isn't about the arts - it's about the choice to participate - or not - if people so desire. In the meantime I exercise my choice to refrain from the seduction of the golf course and hope that I can make meaning elsewhere. Golf isn't special - neither is art.
I really enjoyed this from Johnnie (including the pic).
It's funny how we instantly think of meetings as boring and pointless. I recently asked a group to do a round of introductions by recounting the best and worst meetings they'd been to. The consensus seemed to be that the more formal the meeting the more likely it was to enter the worst camp.
My favourite answer for best meeting was the guy who said "meeting my girlfriend". That disrupted the usual trance in which we evaluate meetings as if they are only the boring things we do at work
I'm in a down town, crowded trendy bar a couple of nights ago and I find myself talking with a charming New Yorker who, on discovering my surname, asks if it hails from a small town in the north west of Ireland (it does). And on proffering his own in return (which is also from the same part of Ireland as mine) he reveals that he spent his summer holidays in the same small townland as I did. We probably bumped into each other in the empty streets of the local village.
In a networked and wired world it's easy to see how we're all just 6 degrees from somebody else. But it's also nice to know that the old fashioned face to face communication with strangers can sometimes yield the most surprising synchronicities and in this case it's not 6 degrees but perhaps closer to 2.
I've written about conductor, teacher, speaker and writer (The Art of Possibility) Benjamin Zanderherebefore - and in this superb TED talk Zander outlines his philosophy of possibility in a passionate and witty presentation that had me smiling all the way through. Using a Chopin prelude (the one with a B and 4 sads...) he takes the audience through an engaging and emotional journey about leadership.
Here's what I took from his presentation
Real leaders have no doubt about the capacity of people to realise their vision - the passion and conviction with which that vision is communicated is key
It matters what we say - will what we utter stand the test of time if it's our last utterance - can what we say be a possibility we live in to?
Not knowing is a place of possibility, not a punative place of doubt - creating a context in which we can articulate our not knowing is the place from which real creativity springs.
Spend 18 minutes with Zander in this TED talk and see for yourself
Oh I love this - go on, indulge yourself for 4 minutes, just because it's Tuesday...makes me want to pack my bags and get on a plane..this is truly gorgeous.
Playwright Tom Stoppard gave a public interview at this year's Dublin Writers' Festival in which he waxed lyrical about the tyranny of Beckett's stage directions - referring at one point to them as 'control freakery'. The witty and erudite writer described Beckett's fastidious stage directions as an attempt to control a future event that has yet to happen.
And of course he is right. But it's not just Beckett. All of us who work in and with organisations (and particularly those of us involved in strategic planning processes) are up to our own Beckettian activities. All plans are about trying to control a future event that has yet to happen or at least to create some context in which the future will be manageable and controllable. It's doubtful as to whether we can succeed in that endeavour or not and many a planning process is really about creating a context in the present to imagine and re-imagine the future in a safe way.
Stoppard went on to talk about wanting to be present for first productions of his new work but after that he sends it out into the world for directors to do as they wish. So of course he's really talking about succession and our willingness to pass on the torch for reinvention by a new generation as distinct from passing on an artefact that needs to be taken into custodial care. It got me thinking - I wonder what Beckett would have been like as CEO of an organisation; what kind of management style would he have had? and I wonder if Stoppard will go on the management lecturing route any of these days to pass on his wisdom in that context?
I have been having far too much fun with this new application which turns text into a word cloud. Just for laughs I inputted a 15,000 word document I wrote on my research topic of disappointment and Wordle created this lovely image - it's totally addictive - you can change colours, shapes, sizes...go on over there and try it..
I'll be appearing on the Ryan Tubridy show on RTE Radio 1 next Monday morning talking to Ryan about relationships at work - personal and social ones; how we manage them and don't; the 'rules' and boundaries etc. I'll post some of my thoughts here and a link to the podcast next week. In the meantime if anyone has any comments or thoughts on the subject I'd be delighted to hear from you.
Update: The podcast is here (date 16th June) and I appear at around 44 mins in (you'll need Real Player to listen). Ryan and I talked about negotiating boundaries (formally and informally) and the importance of establishing how much information we're willing to reveal about ourselves and more importantly (some times) how much we're willing to hear. I told a story about one work situation where I was unwittingly involved in a boss's affair by having to tell his wife when she called that he was 'at lunch' - very often it's this type of situation that contributes to difficult personal relationships at work.
We also talked about the importance of personal relationships particularly when work is stressful or dangerous and as a way of decompressing from work place anxiety. If my life is in your hands the chances are we are going to be very close and intimate at work. The reality is though that many of those kinds of intense relationships don't transition long term. But work relationships are about work most of the time and the work context will take precedence over personal - chances are if we're friends we may be competing for the same job one of these days and our friendship may take a battering if we're both after the same position.
Work is a social situation and it wouldn't work without personal relationships but I'm becoming increasingly interested in the splitting that goes on where we have highly formalised 'rules' for good behaviour in the work place contrasted with an 'anything goes' attitude outside of work particularly on social networking sites - as though it's possible to keep both separate. Ultimately I wouldn't want to do anything on Facebook that I wouldn't be comfortable doing in front of friends and family. But it's interesting to me that we can even imagine that we can be 'all good' or 'all bad' and separate and contained in those ways.
We just touched on these and other issues - it would be great to continue that conversation in some way - the feedback and emails I've received since the show have been fascinating .. it seems to be an issue many are interested in.
I'm pleased to see that my colleague Mike Jolkovski is back blogging again (about time Mike - where have you been?). Mike is a psychoanalyst who specialises in working with musicians and music groups. He has a great post here about How to work with a Prima Donna in which he describes said creature as
A classic Prima Donna is arrogant, vain, high-maintenance, demanding, petulant, and entitled. The entitlement can help them rationalize exploiting and manipulating others. This is especially destructive in bands. A prima donna is by definition not a team player, and will often unrealistically expect to live a lifestyle that hasn’t yet been earned. Alcohol and drugs tend to make all of this this much worse.
He then goes on to outline some strategies for working with Prima Donnas and on the off chance that any are actually reading his post he says
It’s a fantastic relief to be able to let go of that superior business — the world is a lot less lonely that way. Some perspective can help, as can a sense of humor about yourself. Maturity is not a bad thing. A competent psychoanalyst can help. I’m just saying.
Mike has another post called Who owns the band - all useful information for those of us who work with artists. Mike is currently doing research on conflict, power & ego in bands for an upcoming book and is interested in hearing your stories - you can email him yours at this address mj [at] workingthroughmusic [dot] com.
Elsewhere a new friend Bettina is writing about the relationship between religion, spirituality and work. She's even coined a new phrase and goes on to apply it to fearless leadership
My current winning combination seems to be Quantum/Tolle/Chopra/Secret (which really is all one thing, isn't it?! Let me call it Quan-To-Cho-Se for now and tell you about how some of the concepts and techniques really seem to work in challenging management and leadership situation
It's great to see Omani back in the blogging saddle as well and I'm sad to see that Shane Hegarty at the Irish Times is hanging up his blogging boots for a while. Shane's blog was consistently great reading and I'm sorry to see him go. But if there's a day job and a book in the offing I guess something has to give?
University College Dublin's School of Art History and Cultural Policy is holding a conference on Ireland’s arts and cultural management sector which will take place on UCD’s campus on 11-12 July 2008 (Friday & Saturday). The conference is entitled 'How are we doing? Managing culture and the arts in Ireland'.
How Are We Doing? Managing Culture and the Arts in Ireland, 2008 is a practitioner-focused forum aimed at giving cultural sector managers, collectively and personally, an opportunity to take stock of their work in the wider context of policy and practice. The conference will enable practitioners to reflect on their management environment, as well as the skills, training and lifestyle issues that affect arts and cultural managers in contemporary Ireland. Sessions include presentations and keynote addresses by internationally renowned scholars and arts managers, and opportunities to meet and network with colleagues in the field.
There is a conference blog here in which you can have your say about the current issues affecting the arts in Ireland and the organisers plan to disseminate the content an follow up via the blog after the proceedings.
Business managers, whether they know it or not, commit themselves to a career in which they have to work on themselves as a condition for effectively working on and with other people. This fact of the business career is so often neglected that we would do well to reexamine the implications of the need to work on oneself as a condition for the exercise of power
Management of Disappointment
Abraham Zaleznik
Harvard Business Review, 1967
In 40 years as a highly regarded cancer surgeon, Dr. Tapas K. Das Gupta had never made a mistake like this. When an electrode was left inside Maria Del Rosario Valdez after her son was delivered by Caesarean section, she was gratified that the hospital quickly acknowledged its mistake and corrected it without charge. As with any doctor, there had been occasional errors in diagnosis or judgment. But never, he said, had he opened up a patient and removed the wrong sliver of tissue, in this case a segment of the eighth rib instead of the ninth.
Instead of hiring a lawyer, the doctor in question did something unimaginable.
He apologised
After all these years, I cannot give you any excuse whatsoever,” Dr. Das Gupta, now 76, said he told the woman and her husband. “It is just one of those things that occurred. I have to some extent harmed you.
Sunday's New York Times carries the story of what's happening in some US hospitals when doctors admit to being human, to making mistakes and what happens when those mistakes are followed up with an apology.
In Dr. Das Gupta’s case in 2006, the patient retained a lawyer but decided not to sue, and, after a brief negotiation, accepted $74,000 from the hospital, said her lawyer, David J. Pritchard.
and from the hospital's perspective
“Improving patient safety and patient communication is more likely to cure the malpractice crisis than defensiveness and denial,” Mr. Boothman said.
Mr. Boothman emphasized that he could not know whether the decline was due to disclosure or safer medicine, or both. But the hospital’s legal defense costs and the money it must set aside to pay claims have each been cut by two-thirds, he said. The time taken to dispose of cases has been halved.
The number of malpractice filings against the University of Illinois has dropped by half since it started its program just over two years ago, said Dr. Timothy B. McDonald, the hospital’s chief safety and risk officer. In the 37 cases where the hospital acknowledged a preventable error and apologized, only one patient has filed suit. Only six settlements have exceeded the hospital’s medical and related expenses.
Can you imagine? The professions admitting to their humanity? to being imperfect and infallible? It seems like such a long way from where we are in this country where at the first sign of imperfection we call the spin doctors, legal profession and attempt to maintain the facade of the idealised system that can in no way let us down. I'd prefer the disappointment - or in other words, the reality rather than the fantasy. But I wonder how comfortable any of us are admitting to not having answers? to making mistakes and to managing the anxiety of wondering if our clients could accept us if we presented as our imperfect selves?
Are there any seasoned Skype users out there who can help me with a question? I've purchased a Skypein number which I am trying to forward to a landline. My Skype credit is down by 12 cent (that's European cent) as soon as the call is forwarded and before the call is answered...there's no reference to this cost on the Skype site that I can see and it seems ridiculously pricy to be charged this amount just for the call forwarding on top of whatever it costs to make the call (I was seduced by the promise that it would be charged at local rates)...on top of that I understand you can redeem a 'voucher' for a voicemail account but you have to mail Skype for this and they don't appear to want to answer my requests for help so perhaps a citizen Skyper can help me out on this one? I'm a fan of Skype to Skype calls but am so far unimpressed by both the customer service and the charges ... anyone any wiser than me?
How to remain visible in the face of death? Bringing Nuala O’Faolain on her final wish to see Berlin before she died was a sad and memorable journey, but also one of fun and optimism. For the writer whose memoir in German translation was entitled Just don’t become invisible, this was a remarkable way of staying alive
Today’s newspapers in Ireland are infused with images and memories of Nuala O’Faolain. Her radio interview a month ago with Marian Finnucane brought me to tears. Her death, while I was in New York last week, reduced me to silence. The New York Times ran an obituary and an opinion piece in which she was described as ‘fearless even when she insisted she wasn’t’. Fintan O’Toole, in today’s Irish Times, appreciates her understanding of the personal as political and indeed the reverse..
She solved one of the most difficult problems a writer can face – the use of the word “I”. In journalism it can be used to create a comic, self-depcrecating persona, or to bear raw witness to an exraordinary event. …Only very rarely can it be used with sincereity and integrity on the one hand and a cool objectivity on the other.
‘..coming to terms with her life experience was turned into something more vociferous. She felt the need to change things, to fight not only for herself but for everyone else, to expose the damage done by society’
It’s always personal. Even when it’s business, even when it’s framed as something else – it’s always personal. And that’s why I loved her writing because she connected with the humanity of every topic, person and issue she talked about. You were never in doubt as to where her interests and loyalties lay. And perhaps that’s the invitation – each and every time – to see the humanity and the person behind the problem, the issue and the solution. Because if we don’t then we’re missing the point that to be in any kind of relationship means relating on a human level - and that requires feeling and emotion and allowing ourselves to be impacted instead of defending ourselves against the intimacy. There has to be room for love – where ever we are and what ever our task.
Each time I come to NYC I'm taken aback by the generosity of complete strangers. New York is a city that's dedicated to capitalism and the contemporary but it's also a city with a huge heart that remembers its friends. This time out I met up with some familiar faces - like Terry Semon at the American Management Association whose blog Here we are now what? I've been reading for some time. He, in turn introduced me to his colleague Bettina Neidhardt who has started a blog called Fearless Leadership. Both of these practitioners are at the coal face of integrating theory and practice and making it work outside the theoretical confines of academia. And then I caught up with Dr Jay Parkinson and his colleague Sean Khozin both of whom are going to turn the way health care is delivered in this country on its head by simply challenging the taken for granted 'rules' about the way things should be done. Then there's Mark Hollander, whom I met a few years ago through blogging, who coaches creative thinkers, accommodates complete strangers, and is the best lunch partner a traveller could ask for in this town. These and many others (most of whom should be blogging because of the wonderful insights and stories they carry around about the work) gave very generously of their time and expertise to me on this trip. I'm grateful to them all (you know who you are :).
The final day of any trip is always a transitional one for me - reflecting, remembering and re-entering. Right now I'm reflecting on the depth of emotion I have felt on this trip. I'm familiar with this city, I know it well. I have developed relationships here - but this time out I have felt those relationships growing deeper - I can say with hand on heart that I have very good friends here, some old and some very new - I have found like minded colleagues here and the New York in my mind is both a construct and a reality at the same time. My parting thoughts are about the sense of privilege I feel to have found a place and people with whom I feel so at home, which makes going home a bitter sweet experience.
When is enough enough? San Francisco based Psychoanalyst Dr Owen Renik says
The profession is in a great decline, and I predict the decline will continue. The reason for it, and the reason a corrective is needed now, is that although psychoanalysis began in a spirit of open-ended inquiry, with an orientation above all to be helpful to the patient, it took on a self-perpetuating guild mentality that was its ruin. The possibility is still open to reverse the decline, but it will be necessary to escape the clutches of an establishment that, unhappily, has increasingly gotten away from the original scientific enterprise.
He goes on to say
There is a tendency among psychoanalysts to pursue self-awareness as a goal in itself, rather than a means to an end. Originally, the idea was that the self-understanding that arose as a result of psychoanalysis was unique and impressive and valid because it afforded relief from symptoms that were otherwise impossible to treat.
If you don’t require that self-awareness be validated by symptom relief, there are two destructive consequences. The first is scientific. You have no independent variable to track; you set up a circular situation in which it’s the analyst’s theory that determines what is found in analysis. Many critics of psychoanalysis have recognized this.
The points he raises are interesting in themselves, but they also relate to any kind of inter-personal and professional relationship – when is enough enough? And what kind of methodologies do you use to determine if you your intervention is (a) appropriate? (b) working? or (c) past its sell by date? There is always the temptation to keep clients wanting more. I don’t see coaching in particular as an endless process. There comes a time when you have to say goodbye – often times it’s the coach who has to determine that if a client appears to be too reliant on their coaching process and reluctant to move on and it's sometimes the case that a client is ready to move on long before a coach or consultant is willing to let go.
Renik goes on to say
You should have a criterion for judging whether the outcome is satisfactory, which leaves you free to judge by trial and error. If the treatment seems sufficient, you stop. You can always resume the therapy when and if there’s a need. What might also happen along the way, you might become aware of other things that then you define as symptoms, and you want to address those. Let’s say you have trouble dating, for example. We discover when we look into it that you have trouble asserting yourself, and that applies in a number of areas, including your work life. So we go on, until you are able to make progress there. If you’re not having symptom trouble after that, there’s no reason to keep analyzing stuff. That’s it. You’re done.
I think the same is true of any kind of coaching or consulting, particularly if it’s a one to one relationship and where the identity of the consultant gets tied up with the assignment. If the job is done, it’s done and it’s time to move on – dealing with the personal nature of ending and rejection is something that consultants need to integrate into their practice. I know when I was working as a therapist I had regular supervision where I addressed endings and beginnings on a regular basis. Now that I’m consulting I try to build in some kind of formal ending process with clients – be that a review or other – to mark the transition.
But as Renik says –
there’s no reason to keep analyzing stuff. That’s it. You’re done.
I'm a fan of social media and I have found blogging a great way of building my business and brand. Blogging has been a fantastic networking tool and a great way of translating that networking into real contact with real people. But there's also a dark side to social networking and Frank Marafiote picks up this issue in his post How Social Networking Can Kill a Business. In reputation based businesses bad word of mouth can have a devastating impact and social media is virtual word of mouth. Frank republishes a not too flattering review of a restaurant that appeared in an online forum (without naming the restaurant) and offers some suggestions for how such an incident might be managed for those of us in a similar situation.
First, we need to stay alert to what is being written about us. Just as you might check your credit report on a regular basis, you need to do a “reputation report” on your name and your business. You can purchase services that will monitor your business name and alert you whenever it is mentioned on the Web. You should also do your own frequent searches using the major search engines. By “frequent,” I mean at least twice a month.
Second, be proactive. That means staying in touch with your market and providing positive and helpful information via your blogs, press releases, Web forums, trade and business Web sites, etc. Stinging negative comments are less credible when they are read in the context of a positive news environment.
Third, react. In the case of this restaurant “review,” there’s a chance that by complaining to the webmaster the comment might be removed. If that is not possible, get third party endorsements — and your own — on the site as soon as possible. Don’t let the mud hang there on the wall with no counter-response. Otherwise, readers will assume it is true.
Social media is a conversation - isn't dialogue better than monologue? And what are our responsibilities in terms of managing those conversations? We can't control what people think and feel about us and social media makes it even more difficult to have a balanced conversation - too many blog posts are rants about what doesn't work - there aren't enough constructive inputs on what does. So part of the social networking process has to be casting a critical eye over who's saying what about whom - there are lots of free tools out there that can help. But perhaps the best way of managing reputation is to take charge of the message by writing and leading rather than commenting and defending.
