Saturday’s Wall Street Journal article, Sweet Talking Your Computer, was sensational, hilarious, and just a bit scary.

When BMW introduced one of the most sophisticated navigation systems and telematics systems into its 5 Series car in Germany, BMW was forced to recall this pinnacle of German engineering?  Why?  Not because of anything technical.  The system had a female voice.  Agitated German men couldn’t trust a woman (um, that would be a computer voice) to give them directions.

People respond to computers the same way that they respond to people.

If you were asked how much you liked your dinner, odds have it that you would respond to your buddy, differently than if the chef came out and asked for your opinion.

Don’t believe it?

The author of this article ran a survey where he tutored his students through a computer.  Half of the students were asked by the same computer how they thought the computer’s performance was.  The other half of the students were asked by another computer across the room.  Who had the better scores?  Yes, you guessed it.  When the computer across the room asked them, the students gave lower scores.  They couldn’t even be honest with a computer.

So, do we have a chip in our brain that causes us to avoid difficult conversations?  Do we shun honesty in order to not hurt people’s feelings?  Well, if we can’t even be honest with a laptop, who can you trust anymore?

The key to writing better code is to look at the code you have, see the problems for what they are, admit that these problems are unworkable, and then change the code.

The foundation to a great and extraordinary company is to have a group of people so dedicated to the results of the company that they replace their “nice” 1.0 chip and replace them with the 2.0 chip called “living according to their commitments.”

It might be difficult to “reboot” people, but with the establishment of integrity, commitment, and the skill set of speaking through declarations, it is certainly far from impossible.

What is commitment?

W.H. Murray explains it this way:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”

I say that commitment is a surrender.  A commitment is something where you make a choice that forever more you will do whatever it takes to achieve that which you have determined you will achieve.  Commitment is a point in time where you never look back, you only look forward.  Hesitancy, disbelief, fear, and doubt are NOT permitted.  Murray points out that once you commit, Providence kicks in.

Providence, an energy, moves through you and through the rest of the world.  Providence detects that everything within yourself has now SHIFTED towards a new way of thinking, a new way of being, and a new way of doing.

The reason most people will not commit is that they fear what might or might not happen.  They fear a loss, or they fear what they might become.  I would say that people don’t commit because they believe, selfishly, or not, that their ability to fail is stronger than Providence itself.

One of the keys to permitting Providence to work in your life is to understand that any thoughts or assumptions that you hold as to why you might fail are purely hallucinations.  They are purely thoughts.  These thoughts basically say that there is something so “special” about you that Providence doesn’t work in your world.  Providence affects everyone else, but YOU!?! 

To those people I would say, yes, you are right. When you play the game to forever stay uncommitted, then you are “right” about Providence not working for you.  You attract things, people and feelings that are in integrity with who you have been.  When you deny Providence you cling to the old and do not permit the new.

You can make commitment complicated.  But that is your own making. 

I say, instead, accept that the laws of commitment and Providence run through you as they run through all those bold enough to play.

If you want something, surrender to it.  Surrender to the fact that it will come.  Surrender to the fact that if you do everything in your power to get it, Providence will kick in, and it will arrive.

Make commitment your friend.  Use it as your most powerful tool.  Commit to the extraordinary.  Watch as “all sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.” 

It is 2010, a new decade, take responsibility for making a life that is extraordinary.  Dive in.  Don’t look back.  Watch Providence work through you, through others, and through the world and know with confidence that the power of commitment, the power of surrendering, is perhaps the greatest power that you may ever have.

When we talk about creating value in business, we talk about having crucial conversations, authentic conversations, fierce conversations, and difficult conversations.  We buy the books, we go to the workshops, we practice saying things that don’t seem right coming out of our mouth.  We attempt, we fumble, we attempt again.  We say something that sounds brilliant.  We think we have mastered it.  We say we are done.

But are we?

Mastering what comes out of our mouth is worthless, if we don’t master the art of listening.

Again, we jump in and say…been there and done that too.  We say we are terrific listeners.   We might say to another, “I heard you say that I hurt you, I see that you are upset, you want me to do better in the future.”  We then say, “see, we are masters of listening.”

I say, in 2010, we must stretch higher. 

When I say “listening,” I am talking about how you listen to another person, to his thoughts, his beliefs, and his desires.  Listening is about looking inward as to how you judge another person when you are either in conversation with them, or hear them when they are speaking to others. 

In a recent workshop, one of the participants, Maggie, was extremely upset with a co-worker.  Maggie’s directness in expressing her anger had many of the participants jump to the conclusion that Maggie was obstinate and difficult.  It was very easy for the observers to characterize Maggie as hard to work with, someone not to be crossed, someone who was only concerned with her needs.  None of this was close to the truth!

Through greater listening, through giving up what we held to be true about Maggie, the source of Maggie’s upsetness became clear.  Maggie was 100% committed to the success, pride, and happiness of her team.  Maggie verbally shared the true compassion and commitment she had for her team members.  Maggie passionately expressed her desire to make things better.

It was at that moment that you could see that everyone in the room began to listen to their own listening.  It was at that moment that many of the participants realized that the way they were listening to Maggie, the listening of obstinate and difficult, was inauthentic.  Yes, their listening to Maggie through making harsh judgments, coming to negatives conclusions, was an inauthentic way to listen to another human being. 

I call it inauthentic, because it was about quickly writing someone off, making a quick conclusion about another person, and forever sealing the verdict about who and what that person is all about.  Only after prying into her upsetness, were the participants able to see that the way they characterized her, the way they listened to her had no integrity.  Without asking questions, without being curious, without stopping to check out their own appraisal of the speaker, they were jumping to conclusions about another person.  They were inauthentic in their listening.

I believe that it is a crime to conclude who other people are before we make a full investigation.  I believe that without listening authentically, we create assessments about others that keep us disconnected, and that allow us to speak inauthentically with others. 

I believe that the biggest crime in listening inauthentically, is that we take no responsibility in finding out who people are truly and where they stand. We never investigate.  And, through inauthentic listening, we never provoke others to be better.

By unconsciously insisting that we know who others are, we never cause them to change, to transform, to be strive higher.

In 2010, you have the choice.  You can listen to others as if you know who they are.  You can listen to yourself as if you know who you are.  You can surround yourself with people who are neither invested in listening to you, nor listening to themselves in a manner that might transform the both of you.  In 2010 you can choose demand that everyone stay right where they are, forever and always.

Choice #2 is to realize that in this new decade, who others were, won’t work in the new decade.  Who we were in 2009 won’t work either.   We need to listen to others as individuals determined to do better.  We need to listen to ourselves as determined to support others in doing whatever it takes to make it in the new decade. 

It is time to really listen to what is possible for you and your colleagues in this new decade.  It might be even more important that the words that come out of your mouth.

 

 

Happy New Year:

The Language of Commitment vs. The Language of Complaint

To speak the language of complaint is ordinary. 

“I don’t like him.”  “I don’t like this situation.”  “I don’t like when she does that.”  “This was not fair.” “He never makes time for me.”

To speak in the language of commitment is rare. 

“I will make the conditions of my job better.”  “I will fix the current situation.”  “She will never do this to me again.”  “I will make this fair.”  “I will have him meet with me twice per quarter.”

It is easy to speak about what we don’t like, what frustrates us, what makes us unhappy.  To complain is to be the victim.  To complain is to say the world is thrust upon me and I don’t have the capacity, the will, the desire, and the conviction to do anything about it.  To complain is to be lazy.  Unfortunately, those who speak the language of complaint are many and are easy to find.

To speak the language of commitment is to speak the language of leadership.  To speak in commitments requires that we take the time to formulate what it is we are committed to.  To live as a commitment requires that we go beneath the surface to discover what we do that prevents us from living our commitment.  It also requires that we discover what commitment we are currently “honoring” that prevents us from our stated intentions.

Most of the time, we live according to a hidden assumption that keeps us locked into living less than what we are capable of.  It is a lock that remains hidden, and remains powerful, unless it is discovered.

Authentic Conversations

To have an authentic conversation requires that we live as a commitment to living in integrity.  Authentic Conversations, like the language of commitment, requires that we share with our listener, what is the commitment and context of our conversation.  Authentic Conversations are entered into for the purpose of more than just “fixing something.  Authentic Conversations are entered into to build relationship and trust. 

To build relationship and trust, the desire for building relationship and trust, must be spoken.  “I want to build a greater relationship with you.  I want to trust you more.  For this reason, I want us to work together in how we coordinate action, such that we can be the best department in the industry.”  This is an example of how to set up the context of an authentic conversation.

Authentic Conversations are conversations of integrity.  By integrity we mean sharing everything that is pertinent to the conversation.  In an authentic conversation we share our fears, our assumptions, and our thoughts.  We share our feelings, our wants.  And if the conversation is a conversation to create something better in the future, we share our possibilities.  Not my possibilities, not your possibilities, but our possibilities and what we might bring to the team, the organization, and to the world. 

Finally, an Authentic Conversation must end in a request, a promise, or an offer.  For without an action to bring something better about, the conversation itself has no integrity.

Authentic Conversations are not ordinary.  Like conversations for commitment they are rare.  It is rare for people to demand simultaneously excellence in themselves and in their teammates.  It is extraordinary for a teammate to commit to excellence for him or herself, and simultaneously demand that the people that they work with become excellent.  It is rare in a relationship, and it is rare in the world.

Authentic Conversations are not for everyone, they are only for those brave few whose commitment for relationship, for vulnerability, and for the truth, outweigh their hidden commitments to be right.  Yet, authentic conversations are beautiful.  They demonstrate two or more people courageously engaged in going deeper, in learning about themselves, in learning about the other, and in learning about a future together that has a unique and bold flavor.  It demonstrates vulnerability and authenticity that is required to move from good to great, from ordinary to extraordinary, and from the separateness that kills teams to the intimacy that can have them endure for a lifetime.

The difference between those who want something different and those who say they do, but don’t really is…Commitment.

By commitment, we mean a complete surrender.  Surrender means that there are no options open.  In living according to our commitment, we don’t look back.  We don’t look sideways.  We only look forward. 

When circumstances and conditions arise that say that what we are committing to is difficult, or impossible, we don’t listen.  Why?  Because we have surrendered everything to this new state, this new result, this new way of being.   We have given up our “old-selves” to a new understanding of who we are and what we are going to do.

When the Spaniards came to conquer parts of Latin America, they burned the boats.  Now that was surrender!

Another way to say it is that a person who is committed, is someone who is “committed to his commitments.”  A commitment is not a guarantee; however, a person who has committed will do whatever it is that is possible to keep his or her commitment.

The beauty of being committed is that you truly test what your values are.  Not what you say your values are, but exactly what the values are that you live by.  A commitment to losing 10 pounds is a great way to see if you are committed to losing weight or you are committed to a nice idea.

The challenge with stating a commitment is that there are oftentimes unspoken commitments that get in the way.  These unspoken commitments we usually call “monsters.”  These “monsters” lie deep within us and are thoroughly committed to non-change.  The monsters are created through a deep set of assumptions about the world that are many times not true.  The monster doesn’t care about the validity of the assumption, he just cares about making sure that the assumption is NEVER confronted.

The monster will resist at all costs to prevent you from uncovering or changing your primary assumption.  Assumptions such as “I must do it myself,” or “life is supposed to be hard,” or “people won’t listen to me,” or “I need to prove something in order to be worthy” prevent us from new commitments.  They are our dirty little secrets that when they are not surfaced will hold us back from ever living inside of new commitments.

So what is a monster to do?

UNCOVER THE UNDERLYING COMMITMENT!

To do this you must:

(1)  Get clear on what is important to you.

(2)  Find out what you are doing that is in opposition to what you say is important to you.

(3)  Determine what you are REALLY committed to, such that you are taking actions in opposition to what is important to you.

(4)  Determine what the BIG assumption is that supports the competing commitment

For Example, let’s take Jim:

(1)  Jim wanted to get promoted.

(2)  Jim never listened to people on his team.

(3)  Jim was committed to always being right and to always having the kudos go to him.

(4)  Jim assumed that unless he actually did the work, there was no inherent value in the results.  Jim assumed that he (a former running back) needed to always carry the ball.

As you can see, without Jim uncovering an underlying assumption about what must be done to get results and to be valued, he would never be able to move towards a new commitment such as getting promoted.  Although he said he had surrendered to the new commitment, there would always be internal consequences that would prevent him from moving forward.

Commitment isn’t for everyone.  Commitment is for leaders.  Commitment is for those who are brave.  If you don’t expect to confront your values and who you are when you make bold commitments, don’t commit.  No one says you have to.  However, if you choose to live a life where people know you to be a fearless, committed man or woman of integrity, then commit, surrender, and don’t look back.

I spent half the day with a team who had the courage to contemplate the
meaning of this quote as it applies not only to each individual
personally, but more importantly how they related to the quote as a team.

If a team is a circle that knows no circumference, then what makes up the
circumference and how does one break through it? The circumference is
made up of "automatic thinking." The circumference is made up of
"knowing" who we are, and who we will always be." The
circumference is being committed to good enough, and not the
uncomfortability of challenging everything we know about ourselves to
break free from mediocrity.

In today's competitive landscape, having a circumference is corporate
suicide. In this week's Business Week, Michael Dell confirms that his
success relies on his leaving the office daily, and coming back into the
office pretending he has never been there before.

Today's competitive success relies on knowing with certainty that who we
were yesterday will certainly kill our company. Today's leaders must be
committed to a bigger game, knowing that if their team is not committed to
the competency of being comfortable with the uncomfortable, they will not
make it to tomorrow.

A company committed to a bigger game must have as its players those
individuals who are personally committed to change. The only way you know
that individuals are committed to change is when they are taking on
actions they didn't believe that they could before.

My experience in working with leading companies is that the leaders have
the courage to continuously challenge their employees to reinvent
themselves. These leaders understand that today's greatest competency is
to move beyond the circumference of comfortability and knowing, to
uncomfortability and not knowing.

Today's leaders must be students of unknowing their circumference. Today's leaders must challenge yesterday's thinking. Today's leaders must
investigate their habits. Today's leaders must develop the courage to
look at many of the actions that have taken to create their success, and
be willing to throw much of it away.

The greatest skill I see in being an exceptional human or being a high
performance team is to have the competency to judge one's actions and
one's thinking not in the light of good or bad, but instead in the light
of will it work today and tomorrow. We must then have the courage to
intricately design new goals and objectives, not based on what we know,
but based on what others are calling on us to become as leaders and as
state-of-the-art companies.

To answer that call is to have no circumference. To celebrate what worked
yesterday is to be exceptionally less than human.

I am at the Global Institute for Leadership Development (GILD)  in San Diego.  I have the privilege of coaching 10 executives from around the globe.  I am inspired by their courage and the difference they are committed to make at their companies and in the world.

In life, very rarely do people set out goals that seem impossible to
complete. "Start a company." "Lose 50 pounds." "Start working out
every day." "Become the leader that they have never been before."

Most people rarely set out extraordinary goals because they are in
agreement that the extraordinary is impossible due to barriers,
challenges, and obstacles.

What most people don't realize is that the barriers, challenges, and
obstacles are not barriers, challenges and obstacles. They are what they
think are barriers, challenges, and obstacles.
What they do not consider is whether the barriers to their goals are
simply a figment of their imagination.

This past week I walked down a path of hot burning coals. Most of my
friends said that walking on coals, without burning your feet, is
impossible. I can tell you that for the last three months, not only did I
think it was impossible, it scared the living ---- out of me that I would
even consider doing it.

We were taken through an exercise to understand how to walk on hot burning
coals.

(1) Get clear on your goal.
(2) Get clear on your fear, emotions, anxiety and doubt about reaching the
goal.
(3) Move.

(1) Goal

Most of us lack a clear definition of their goal. Let me tell you, when
you are looking down a path of hot burning coals, the goal becomes very
clear. GET TO THE OTHER SIDE.

(2) Fear

Most of us, when faced with fear, anxiety, or other "negative" emotions
tend to negate, deny, or delay the emotion. Frankly, most of us are so
"negative" about our "negative" emotions that we make believe that they do
not exist.

By denying our emotions, we create obstacles. By denying our fear, we
create barriers. By avoiding the doubt that we have to accomplish the
un-accomplishable (a new word?), we make up fiction, we tell stories to
ourselves, and we live in a fake reality.

So what is the fake reality? The fake reality is made up of the barriers
we "make up." The truth is we spend a lot of energy creating barriers that
in fact don't exist.

(3) Move.

Without barriers, we move. We move towards our goals. Our goals become
effortless. Without anything in the way, walking towards our goals, even
walking on hot coals, becomes effortless and painless.

Walking on fire is easy, when you realize that fire does not hurt you. Your thought is that the fire is a barrier. Your thought is that fire is
"impossible" to walk on. Your thought is that you will get hurt.

It is hard to get hurt when the impending danger does not really exist. I
made it up. I played games with myself for three weeks prior to the
firewalk, that it was impossible to walk without getting burned.

Now that I understand that I created in my mind that fire on my feet will
burn me, when in fact it does not, did not and will not, I now see how
"creative" my mind can be in holding me back from creating goals, and
holding me back from completing my goals.

I urge you to walk on fire. I urge you to get to a place where nothing is
impossible. I urge you to see how much you are capable of, once you
honor, cherish, and accept your obstacles as nothing more than a figment
of your imagination.

Stop. Think, why do you do what you do? What did you answer? If it
"ain't" service to others, you are fighting an uphill battle.

Why do I say that? Because if everyone in your competitor's company's
answer to "why do you do what you do?" is service, they will dance circles
around you.

When your focus of all your actions is service, i.e. service to your
clients, service to your staff, service to your community, service to your
family, service to improving your ability to give better service, your
focus will be stronger, you will think better, and your actions will be in
alignment with what creates better value to your customer.

I am spending a week in Clearlake Oaks, California with a group of 650
people who have all committed to learning how to give greater service to
others. We are learning the secrets to creating more success for
ourselves, our businesses, and our communities.

On Wednesday night, all 650 of us loaded into buses, and traveled to the
local elementary school. The reason why Clearlake Oaks, California is NOT
a city you have heard of, is that this is a city that time forgot.

Mostly, this is a city that the state has forgotten about. There are not
many extracurricular activities in the local elementary school. In fact,
up until Wednesday night, there was not even ONE field of grass for the
kids to play on.

Before we boarded the buses, we were told that we were going to lay sod
down on a dirt field that hadn't seen grass for over a decade. Our job
was to give back, to serve the kids, to make the community a better place.
The expectation was that the prepareation for the field and the laying of
sod would take four hours.

It was amazing that in the spirit of giving back, the 650 of us laid sod
for a field, the size of a major league football stadium, in just over 2
1/2 hours! In the spirit of giving back, 650 people, doctors, lawyers,
secretaries, hair stylists, got together and worked as a MACHINE in laying
sod down. Communication was flawless. Teamwork was remarkable. Everyone
was a leader and a follower.

The next morning the kids were welcomed to school to see their field of
dreams. The look on their faces was mesmerizing.

Many of you are planning your goals for 2010. I urge you to consider, who
are your customers? What do they want from YOU? What might you deliver
if your focus was on your customers, instead of focusing on your bonus,
your raise, or getting the corner office? What might you be capable of if
your only desire was to find the greatest ways to serve the spoken and
unspoken desires of your customer?

Would your customers demand that you work together as the greatest team
possible? Would your customers demand that you be more creative than you
have ever been before? Would your customers demand that you commit to the
unreasonable, such that you can serve them better in these economic times?

It's all about service. It's all about YOUR service. Who do you need to
be in 2010, such that you work as a MACHINE, individually and as a team,
in delighting your customers? When the focus on is what the world is
asking you to do, you will create unreasonable goals that will drive you
to find unthinkable solutions that will cause you to take actions that you
never thought possible.