Using Poetry to Expand Perspective | Start Close In

by LeeAnn Mallory | Awareness, Engagement, Leadership, RiseRadio

Using Poetry to Expand Perspective | Start Close In

Poetry can be a powerful developmental tool to help high-achieving personalities transcend the linear and analytical world of business in order to integrate a world of beauty and whole-system thinking. Rick Voirin has incorporated poetry in his coaching and leadership for years and has seen firsthand the profound impact that it can have in professional growth and self-development. In this special episode, LeeAnn and Rick discuss the work of author and poet David Whyte, and how the poem “Start Close In” directs us to take the first step that leads to change.

Episode 18 | September 1, 2020

Links

Rick Voirin

A Guide for Reading Poetry

David Whyte

David Whyte reading Start Close In

Show Notes

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, engineering, business, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.

But poetry, beauty, romance, love,

this is what we stay alive for.

John Keating

Dead Poets Society

Leadership Beyond ‘Just the Facts’

Good literature has the power to help us better understand the human condition. Poetry and other creative writing evokes something deep in us; it widens our perspective and helps us connect with parts of ourselves (and others) that otherwise we wouldn’t have easy access to.

Poetry can also be a powerful developmental tool to help leaders and ‘Type A’ personalities transcend the linear and analytical world of business. In this special episode, LeeAnn and Rick discuss the work of author and poet David Whyte, and how the poem “Start Close In” directs us to take the first step that leads to change.

Start Close In

2020 has been a year of big, complex challenges. Racial tensions have been high and organizational leaders are expected to meaningfully respond. This pressure, and the fear of ‘cancel culture’ has caused many to pause; to defer doing anything until they have it all figured out. David Whyte’s poem, Start Close In admonishes us to, “… don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take.“

Links to the poem, A Guide for Reading Poetry and additional resources can be found at the end of these notes.

24:53 – “If we really engage something, whether it’s a poem or a piece of art or a piece of literature or something that’s happening on a screen In front of us in a movie, the first approximation is just the way that the information lands in our senses. And then what starts to show up as we relate with that, that happens, like in a back and forth conversation.”

27:25 – “Poetry or good literature is an invitation into a deeper relationship with life, a deeper reflection on the meaning of one’s life. And what one is caring about (…) and what one might intend to do with one’s wild and precious life.”

29:24 – “When I try to start big, it’s probably because I’m seeking an excuse to get out of doing anything. The big stuff is beyond my reach, at least at the moment. But if I start close in, I’ll find things I can do right now.”

Resources Mentioned on this Podcast:

A Guide for Reading Poetry

The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, by David Whyte
https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Aroused-Preservation-Corporate-America/dp/0385484186

Interview with Bonnie Pittman:
https://rise-leaders.com/awe_art_observation_bonnie_pitman/

Connect to Rick Voirin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-voirin-a43413/

David Whyte’s work:
https://www.davidwhyte.com/

David Whyte reading Start Close In:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=030YqrN4SFc

How to Talk about Race at work:
https://rise-leaders.com/how-to-talk-about-race-at-work

Start Close In – The On Being Project
https://onbeing.org/blog/start-close-in/

Dead Poet’s Society – John Keating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS1esgRV4Rc

Autobiography in 5 Chapters

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive. Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

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Building Trust at Work: The Trust Equation

by LeeAnn Mallory | Culture, Engagement, Leadership, RiseRadio, Servant Leadership

Building Trust at Work| The Trust Equation

High Trust environments invite people to focus their precious energy and passion on creating and delivering value rather than on managing politics, their reputation and their image. In this episode, I walk through The Trust Equation, a model that illustrates distinct, yet nuanced elements of trustworthiness.

Links

LeeAnn Mallory

Trust Equation Guide

The Trusted Advisor

Trusted Advisor Associates

Show Notes

If you want a high-trust workplace, be trustworthy!

The Value of a High Trust Workplace

High Trust environments invite people to focus their precious energy and passion on creating and delivering value rather than on managing politics, their reputation and their image.

The ability to show up authentically and to openly collaborate creates a path of least resistance. The lack of friction produces freedom and flow. In high-trust organizations, people show up as their authentic selves, maximizing teamwork and solid relationships.

So how do you go about creating a high-trust environment? A quick search on Amazon for books on Trust reveals over 80,000 titles; narrowing the search to building trust gives us over 10,000 results. There is no shortage for approaches and models for Trust.

In this episode, we delve into Charles Green’s Trust Equation, a model that illustrates distinct, yet nuanced elements of trustworthiness. You’ll have the opportunity to explore the level of trustworthiness in one of your relationships from three different perspectives by using the Trust Equation.

Credibility, Reliability, Intimacy and Self-Orientation

05:06 – “(…) think of all models as a trellis. They give us something to hold on to – a structure for growth and reaching out. And not to get too deep with the metaphor, but we also need to remember to clear out the dead stuff that no longer serves the living organism.”

06:50 – “Both Credibility and Reliability can be observed, or measured, and take less emotional energy than Intimacy.

09:25 – “Self-orientation – Take a moment to reflect on the term, self-orientation. What do you think of when you think of someone who is self-oriented?”

14:26 – “Use the equation as a journaling tool, using the initial ratings as a starting point and going deeper from there. (…) Focus on yourself and raising your own rating. You can even ask someone whom YOU trust to share their ratings of you.”

How did you do? What were the most surprising results?

For more resources highlighted in this episode please visit the links below:

A Guide to the Trust Equation:

https://rise-leaders.com/trust-equation-guide-2/

Episode 15: How to Talk About Race at Work
https://rise-leaders.com/how-to-talk-about-race-at-work/
Charles Green: The Trusted Advisor on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Trusted-Advisor-David-H-Maister/dp/0743212347/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Charles+Green%27s+The+Trusted+Advisor&qid=1597958450&sr=8-2

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive. Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

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High Fidelity Conversations: Nine Elements for Launching Culture Change

by LeeAnn Mallory | Change, Culture, Engagement, Leadership, RiseRadio, Servant Leadership

High Fidelity Conversations: Nine Elements for Launching Culture Change

These types of conversations are High Fidelity because they provide strength and resonance for the people who engage in them. They’re designed to support the Core Ideology of the organization and especially support the people experiencing the change. LeeAnn describes nine elements important for launching these conversations.

Links

LeeAnn Mallory

A Guide to High Fidelity Conversations

Episode 15: How to Talk About Race at Work

Show Notes

“Waiting until you have created the perfect, most elegant solution keeps you out of today’s game. Launch it!”

High Fidelity Conversations Support Culture Change

Organizations are constantly changing and responding to both external and internal events.

Mergers and acquisitions, disruptive technology, and various economic pressures, like those brought on by the Covid pandemic are prime examples. This year, in addition to facing a pandemic, the US had to deal with hard truths on racial injustice, and the need to address the topic in the workplace was no longer avoidable.

On a previous Podcast episode, How to Talk About Race at Work, Drew Clancy and Lori Bishop shared how they tackled the topic head-on at PCI. They explained why they didn’t wait for the perfect long-term solution to address concerns about race and how they tied the conversations to their values and focus on increasing trust throughout the organization.

Whether your goal is to step fully into conversations about race, or to committing to the successful adaptation of a critical change to your culture, it’s important to provide strength, alignment, and resonance, – or fidelity – for the people who engage in them.

Do you know how to provide the proper framework for these delicate conversations?

This entire episode has been created to guide leaders on how to begin culture change in their organization by following these nine actionable concepts for designing high fidelity conversations.

A Few Elements from the Guide Described in the Episode

05:52 – “Create a vision that everyone can see themselves in. And what that means is, create a compelling future that matters for people. People need to see how the change is going to benefit them and the organization long term.”

07:26 – “And with conversations, that means listening and learning and being open to other points of view.”

10:36 – “Waiting will keep you out of the game today. And you want to balance this immediate action with the longer-term creation of policies and structures that provide resistance-free solutions.”

11:43 – “Naming the effort gives people language for how to refer to the change”.

For more resources highlighted in this audio episode please follow the links below:

Episode 15: How to Talk About Race at Work

A Guide to High Fidelity Conversations

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive. Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

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How to Talk About Race at Work

by LeeAnn Mallory | Change, Conscious Capitalism, Culture, Engagement, RiseRadio, Servant Leadership

How to Talk About Race at Work

Publishing Concepts (PCI) didn’t wait for the perfect long-term solution to address concerns about race. Drew Clancy, President, and Lori Bishop, CPO, saw people hurting and they responded. They thoughtfully organized Meaningful Conversations as a way to talk about race. This is their first step for improving long term trust and for healing throughout the entire workplace.

Episode 15 | August 11, 2020

Links

Show Notes

“What we’re creating here is, first and foremost, just living our values. Just being who we say we are and digging deeper as it relates to the structural racism that we have all been forced to live in here in the United States...”

Lori Bishop, CPO, Publishing Concepts – PCI

“I think this calls for leadership and leaning into it… I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to ultimately strengthen the culture of the organization and have better conversations, better relationships, a stronger organization. ”

Drew Clancy, President, Publishing Concepts – PCI

Are You Having Meaningful Conversations About Race?

Organizations are all over the map in terms of how they’re addressing the issue of racial and social justice within their own companies. I can empathize with the feelings of uncertainty and fear of doing or saying the wrong thing.

Where do you even start?

Conversations in this domain can be delicate and deserve to be handled with care. It takes courage, commitment, and humility to open oneself to hear the experiences of those who have been marginalized. It can be uncomfortable.

It can also be transformational – on all levels.

Following are a few quotes and several links. I will be following up with more podcasts and tools to help you along your journey. Stay tuned.

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive. Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

Start By Listening to Experiences

[06:28] Drew: …what I said to them that afternoon was, I’m really just here to listen and I’m interested in your perspective. Many of these guys, we’ve worked together for many years but we’d never had a conversation about race or these types of issues, and it was, I will say, for me, very eye-opening and just the level of frustration, the level of discouragement, the hopelessness in certain cases around what was going on.

Each of the men told some version of a story of growing up and a parent or maybe a grandparent saying, “When you leave this house, you need to be very careful what you say, how you act, especially around law enforcement.” After that conversation, it really struck me that the advice they were getting was you essentially have to be invisible. Again, good advice, but what a message to hear.

I’m just fed up, and we’ve reached a moment in time when action is required here. As businesses, as a for-profit business, perhaps businesses can be on the – We can be part of the solution.

Vulnerability + Courage

[10:21] Lori: I was afraid. I have learned that I’m going to have to take off some masks. …. There was a level of safety and caution that I wasn’t sure I can let go of and really embrace from a trust perspective. I had to tell myself, as a black person, all the things that I’ve heard from growing up and how my safety depended on me never trusting in white people. I had to admit that to myself before I could help Drew on this journey.

Structure Your Conversations About Race

[19:04] Lori: … the original conversations had breakout sessions … and people are very unvarnished and open … people are embracing it. They’re asking questions. They’re doing their homework. They’re sharing stories. They’re coming into levels of self-awareness that they never thought that they would have as people, and they’re doing it at work. To be able to experience this with people has been incredibly fulfilling.

… and people are answering with real-life experiences. We’ve made that a rule because we don’t want to start debating, as Drew says, politics and a bunch of whataboutisms and frankly just ways to stay stuck on either side of this issue. … We decided that trust was the only way to get there…

More Links from this Episode:

Additional Guides and Articles

Storycorps Guide to Talking About George Floyd’s Murder and Black Lives Matter Demonstrations

Forbes: Yes, You Must Talk About Race At Work

Wharton: How to Begin Talking About Race at Work

Wharton: Leading Diversity: Why Listening and Learning Come Before Strategy

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Regoal and Reframe for Reslience: Gloria Park, PhD

by LeeAnn Mallory | Awareness, Leadership, RiseRadio

Regoal + Reframe for Resilience: Gloria Park, PhD

As an applied positive psychology and sport and performance psychology practitioner, Gloria Park, PhD is uniquely qualified to speak about how we continue to learn, grow, evolve and even thrive in the face of challenge. And we are certainly being challenged in 2020! Gloria shares transformative skills and strategies during the interview.

Episode 14 | July 14, 2020

Links

Gloria Park, PhD

Perform Positive

Articles on Eudaimonic by Design

Choosing Optimism: The Art of the Reframe

Embodied Resilience

Hope in Uncertain Times

Episode Transcript

Download Episode

Show Notes

“I’m often navigating the tension between helping people do better at whatever craft they’ve chosen for themselves…and balancing that with how [they] do that AND maintain some degree of wellbeing. It’s my fervent belief that you can have both; that you can do well and be well.”

Gloria Park, PhD

Regoaling vs Reacting

It’s easy to get overwhelmed these days while we’re in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis and also trying to thoughtfully enter and positively impact the domain of racial injustice.

In April I attended a webinar co-lead by Gloria. It was very timely given the newness and shock concerning Covid-19. When I first heard the term, ‘re-goaling’, I thought, YES!, this is how I would describe the thoughtful and intentional shift I see some people making. It’s different from simply reacting. Re-goaling means that I consciously disengage from the old goal and thoughtfully create a new goal. It also means that I feel and acknowledge the continuum of emotions and engage in hope. In this interview we explore ways to our own resilience.

The quotes stood out for me:

Covid’s Impact on the Human Psyche

[11:31] …everyone is dealing with this very deep sense of grief about things that matter deeply to them and now look no longer like they used to…the second place where people are really struggling is the uncertainty.

The Important Role of Hope and Goals

[13:43] …what gives me hope is that people are finding things to be hopeful about despite all of the uncertainty and despite all of the grief…

[26:36] …But if you think about the average person and the goals we set for ourselves, we set those goals because they’re a reflection of things that are really valuable to us and they’re often tied, especially in the performance domain, deeply to our sense of self-worth and our identities, and you wouldn’t have set those goals if they didn’t mean a lot to you.

(C.R. Snyder’s Hope Theory): People feel hope whey they have three things: they have a goal that they’re focused on; they have beliefs that they have the capacity within them to strive towards that goal; and that there are avenues available for them to be able to pursue those goals.

[29:38 ] A lot of the foundation of resiliency training as well as a lot of the foundation for performance psychology is about understanding the connections between those three things: your thoughts, your emotions and your behaviors.

[43:51 ] But the accomplishments will always be there. The world will be there to await you to show up and be able to strive towards those things again. I think, right now, we really need to be paying attention to our wellbeing and figure out how we can support our families and support our employees in an organizational context to really help them navigate this crisis successfully.

SMART and DUMB

We’ve all heard of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-driven); Gloria is also an advocate for DUMB goals! (42:05)