Mourning in America, September 2011

In vast stretches

of the nation's heart
               --desert--
    no poetry
                metaphor
                                song
                           or
                                     sacrament.
Water, sky, earth and wind
are commodities now.
Bottle, sell, buy, cut, exploit.

For all the houses of worship,

                holiness goes homeless.
Who rises to face the dawn?
Who pulls off the freeway to
                bid the sun adieu?
Who daily dips hands in water...
                weeps
                      at wonders?

Children

                are weaned quickly
from the language of the leaves,
their eyes turned to tiny screens
              of screaming electrons.
      The true songs
                swirling so near
are lost to their hearing.

 The loudest preachers

                leech
blood and money
                from the frightened.
God and our ancestors are
the ultimate commodities,
used when
                advantageous,
invoked
but not summoned
                for fear of
what their eyes will speak.

In truth,

God has left us to our own devices,
knowing
devices
bring no virtue...
                only  widen the divides               
even as they offer the illusion
of communion.

The industrial dragon's hunger

                can never be satisfied.
It eats its way
                toward famine
and then,
      only then,
                perhaps...

My silver husky, Sofie, knows the songs.

She heard them in her mother's womb,
          handed down by the old dog spirits
                who learned them
                                from wolves, fires,
                                       tall trees,
                thawing meadows
                         and men still as ice.                              
She sings, rumbles, warbles, wails and whispers
                the shamans' secret tongue.

I will rise with her to face the dawn
                and take my mantra from the morning wind.
I will lay with her under the jacaranda
                and howl
                     at the setting sun,
hoping
    that when the new moon rises
                                Americans
                                                will also
                                     rise anew.

 C2011 Bob Kamm

The Three Trusts of Leadership

            In an economic, political and social climate as challenging as the current one, it’s hard to keep our bearings as leaders and all too easy to succumb to a string of “ideas of the month” put forth by well-meaning but short-term thinking colleagues.  Notwithstanding that some of these might be excellent and worth doing, how do we avoid being trapped in such tactics and stay true to our values, keep good people and continue to achieve optimal results?  By remembering one guiding principle that has been in play in the dynamics of great leadership from the beginning of human life on this planet.  What is this principle?  Trust.  Our workforce, from the person with the least responsibility to the one with the most, must trust us.
            There are three essential aspects of trust we must embody in our daily actions.
            First, the commitment and talent of our people will flower for someone whose basic decency they trust, someone who believes in being fair, open, honest, caring of the individual and the greater good of the group.  Let’s call this Trust of Heart. 
            Second, our folks will give their all to someone whose sense of vision of the organization they truly believe in.  By vision, we mean not only specific achievable (not pie-in-the-sky) targets profits, volume, return on investment, market share, productivity, growth and customer loyalty.  On a broader scale, Vision asks, “Who do we want to become as a workplace community?  What kind of people are we?  What should our relationship be to our customers, community and county?”  This particular trust embraces a clear sense of the kind of personalities and talents we’re looking for in every position, from department heads on down, because those personalities will be the raw materials from which we form who we are to each other and the outside world.  Let’s call this Trust of Vision.
            Third, and lastly, diverse talents and personalities need to have faith in their leader’s real-world competency to turn his heart and vision into congruent and timely action.  It isn’t enough to be a wonderful, caring person who has a beautiful vision of how to create a high-performance community that fully honors the humanity of the individuals that comprise it.  Leadership is not a noun; it's an action verb.  It must deliver and do so consistently with steady, balanced hands that fashion short-term solutions serving long-term goals and timeless values.  Let’s call this Trust of Stewardship.
            It’s also not enough to just be a person of action.  Actions must embody the kind of heart and vision that make people eager to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for us.  In other words, each of these three is necessary but not sufficient unto itself.  The three are joined at the center and unfold with equal vigor in great leadership.
            Now, if you spend some time thinking about these Three Trusts of Leadership, you’ll begin to realize that whatever previous model you’ve looked at—whether from Tom Peters, W. Edwards Deming, Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Warren Bennis, John Kotter, Robert Greenleaf, James O’Toole, Daniel Goleman, Robert Quinn, Michael Hammer, John Maxewell, Jack Welch, Andrew Grove or any number of other business thinkers—they all fit here. 
            Each of the Three Trusts has its own field of competencies, some of them overlapping, to be sure.  Let’s get right to the essence. 
            For people to trust your Heart, your gifts and skills must be strong in what is now called Emotional Intelligence.

·        Know yourself, be yourself, allow yourself to be known broadly.  People
           will give you more if feel they know you.

·        Speak your truth and speak it consistently.

·        Connect deeply with others. 

·        Let the truth of your point of view do most of your persuading.

            ·        Err on the side of over-communicating. 

·        Listen to your people, see them, inspire, grow and guide them with
           unfailing empathy.

·        Be humble and give away credit for accomplishment.

·        Be willing to openly and sincerely apologize as soon as you realize you’ve
           erred.

·        Be willing to ask for help, recognizing you can’t do it all yourself.

            For people to trust your Vision, your talents and competencies must be strong in…

·        The spirit of inquiry…conducting yourself as an eternal student.

·        Big picture thinking.

·        Synthesizing the best ideas in the air at any given moment without
           concern over getting the credit.

·        Strategy development.

·        Entrepreneurial imagination.

·        Listening and connecting empathetically.

·        Consistently inviting participation and co-authorship.

·        Consistently comunicating with clarity.

 It’s worth saying a bit more about the necessary communication skills to win trust in your vision. You must be confident enough to allow people to see in detail how your mind works, where your ideas come from, how you developed as a human being and how that development serves you in formulating a view of the future and how to get there. 

            For people to trust your Stewardship, you must…

·        Consistently go the final yard to the goal line and get the job done, often
           right at the sides of your front line.

·        Possess a strong intuitive capacity for making tough decisions with
           appropriate input in a timely manner. 

·        Focus your passion for living your Heart and Vision. 

·        Have an advanced talent for hiring great people, coaching them and
           delegating responsibilities equal to their maturity and skills. 

·        Be firm in your insistence on excellence but never mean-spirited.

            ·        Have conviction but at the same time be capable of flexibility and   

           adaptation.

·        Stay the course in the face of temporary set-backs…not lurch from pillar to post based on short-term developments.

            Stewardship skills comprise what Dr. W. Edwards Deming called “constancy of purpose”.  I think this is one of the most beautiful phrases in our language.  It can be applied to every realm of life, personal and professional.  Put simply, great leaders know what they are about and keep at it.  They have a passion for culture, process and results.  They hire people who share that passion and create an environment in which collaboration is as ever-present as oxygen.
           Congruency is a key factor in all of this.  If you say you really care about people but are mean-spirited and down-putting, you will sacrifice all Three Trusts.  If you say you want your people to have rich personal and family lives but establish or tolerate eighty hour work weeks, you will sacrifice all Three Trusts.  Through direct experience, people will come to see you as a hypocrite.  The same would be true if you espouse openness and participation but dominate meetings with your own ideas…or if you talk up innovation but lack the courage to take a chance on a bold new idea…or if you espouse commitment to a comprehensive strategy but then lurch reactively away from it every time things don’t turn out as you hoped.  For our politicians I will add that when you use lofty language about "what the American people want" and yet consistently act as if you're largely interested only in what a few of the American people want (the one's with the campaign contributions), people will see you for the hypocrite you are.
          The Three Trusts challenge you to keep asking these fundamental questions that will ultimately determine your degree of success as a leader.

·        What inspires trust in my Heart?

·        What inspires trust in my Vision?

·        What inspires trust in my Stewardship?

There is no better example of leadership embodying the Three Trusts in American political life over the last sixty  years than when President John F. Kennedy publicly took full responsibility for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.  Kennedy learned his lessons well, a fact that was lost on the Russian premier, Khrushchev.  Not long afterwards, when the Russians were caught trying to secretly set up missile bases in Cuba, they encountered a JFK who was much sharper and clearer, mobilized all the brilliant people at his disposal and brilliantly threaded the needle of excruciatingly difficult  decision.  The Russians backed down and a potential nuclear war was averted.

            Trust-centered Leadership applies to any setting and any endeavor, from how you lead your family to how nations are led.  It reminds us that we must constantly work to be worthy of our followers, for without them, we are alone with our dreams.
            Great leadership is a complex and continuous dance.  But these Three Trusts can serve as the basic steps on which elegant moves can be based to create beauty in the face of dissonant times. 

C 2011 Bob Kamm

The Leader as Healer

                                         “Whatever house I enter, I shall come to heal.” 

                                                               --Hippocrates

             A great leader is many things—a strategist, visionary and builder, a teacher, preacher and coach, a nurturer, communicator, comic and storyteller.  Not least among his/her many talents, but often least attended, is that of healer. 

            The healer’s gifts are critical to building any organization for the simple reason that each of us is wounded in some way…and we bring that woundedness with us wherever we go.  That includes our workplace.  These dynamics show up in the politics of ego, turf battles, favoritism, abuse (subtle and not so), under-developed talents and the withholding of truths that could lift the organization to a higher level of performance.
            So how does the leader heal?  In the most basic sense, by adopting Hippocrates’ mantra quoted above.  He or she conceives of each individual and situation as a house to enter, a house where some healing is necessary and possible.  The first action of the healer is to bring his/her heart and mind fully to bear…in other words, he/she pays complete attention to those before him or her in a spirit of inquiry that asks quite consciously…

§  Who is this person at her core? 

§  What is she here to do in this life?

§  How is he doing, right now, this moment in time? 

§  What does his body language say to me? 

§  What does his voice communicate that the words are not expressing? 

§  What conditions make it more likely she’ll do her best work, day after day?

§  What needs and dreams can I help him with?

§  What can I share of myself that will encourage and illuminate his path?

§  What is beyond my responsibility and control?

             By showing up as a student in the classroom of each individual, we naturally show up as a healer in his/her house... because to heal, first, is to know the current condition and then to apply the kind of balm that will contribute to the knitting of the wound.  What balm? 

§  The balm of listening and really hearing.

§  The balm of caring.

§  The balm of appreciation.

§  The balm of light-hearted humor.

§  The balm of storytelling.

§  The balm of compassionate truth-giving.

§  The balm of welcoming the person into your own world.

§  The balm of patience and benefit-of-the-doubt.

§  The balm of reciprocal trust, which requires prudent risk-taking.

§  The balm of appropriate boundaries…knowing when to step forward, when to step back, when to stand still.

             I am constantly asked, “How can I motivate my people better?”  My first response is a question: “How well do you really know them?”  Most of the time, frankly, the answer is, “Not all that well.”  Some of my clients call me “the lunch king” because I’m always suggesting the leader take people to lunch and have a free-flowing chat that puts them at ease so they are more likely to reveal their true selves.  Important insights and ideas have emerged from such lunches, and deeper bonds that facilitate the flow of work.  Trust is the ultimate lubricant of a healthy workplace…and trust is built on knowing others at depth and allowing them to know us at depth. 

            A common objection is, “If I get too close to my people, I won’t be able to discipline them.”  I invite you to see this as limited thinking.  Gaze over its horizon.  We are less likely to have to discipline people when we really “get” them and they “get” us.  But when it is necessary, and is delivered with compassionate directness and clarity, it is more likely to be efficient and effective because of the deeper bond.  Those who fear being “too close” to their people are closing off the possibility of elevating to the highest plane of leadership.  Often, these folks need to do some preliminary inner work of their own on boundary setting.  Once they have developed sufficient clarity and assertiveness in this realm, appropriate intimacy in workplace relationships flourishes.
            Besides, the question, “How do I motivate my people?” is not the most useful way to look at a workplace community.  A better inquiry might be phrased, “How do I create the optimal conditions for people to do their best work day in and day out?”  The answer is right here in front of us—by getting close, by building authentic relationships with a deep sense of reverence for the magic and uniqueness of each individual, by helping them in their life journey towards wholeness, by being a student in her classroom…and a healer in his house.
            Now, there is one more thing that bears stating…which is that in order for us to effectively attend to others, we must first attend to ourselves.  For leaders, moment to moment consciousness of our own inner states and their history is not optional…it comes with the job.  We need to be able to get out of our own ways.  We need to know when an issue is largely our own personal dynamic, to be handled away from the workplace, and when it is truly a workplace issue.  We need clarity about our own gifts, wounds, drivers and limitations. The more attuned we are to ourselves, the more accurately we’ll be able to read and lead others.  The ultimate expression of such leadership is a web of collaborative workplace relationships that yield consistent high service to the greater good.  So, being on a developmental path and doing the inner work is a critical activity that distinguishes the many good leaders from the few who are great.  Hippocrates once again gave us appropriate guidance, when he said:  “…heal thyself.”
C 2011 Bob Kamm

No Justice Here

A  slug of metal

      blew open the skull

of Osama bin Laden

just above an eye

                                that

                 for all its lofty visions

and the height of the man

                could not see it coming.

His life ended too fast.

Justice has been served

                but Justice can’t be

                                done.

He knew no agony

                to approach

                    the suffering

of our brothers and sisters

                mothers and fathers

whose eyes did see an “it” coming

--a tower of glass,

a concrete pentagon

a grassy field

    where lovers might have walked;

and the “it” of all their relatives

                all their countrymen and women

who over and over

have imagined those last seconds of their lives,

                wept

                raged

                torn at the air

                punched at walls

and found themselves

                imprisoned by visions

    of melted metal,

blood-dyed dust,

                shards of talismans,

     spears of bone.

How can justice be done

for such a sundering of souls?

The blind lady has lost her scales

                and gone begging in the streets.

The gut yearns for

                what it cannot have.

No death could be sufficiently

                appalling

no solitary confinement

                even in the darkest dungeon sufficiently

                excruciating,

no revenge sweet enough

to wash out the bitter spit

                he left in our mouths.

So let’s not talk of justice done.

Let’s say simply,

“He’s dead…

one less psychopathic killer

                on an earth

that still has plenty left to

                lift the bloody mantle

                                as if it were a sacred shroud.

C 2011 Bob Kamm

Half-a-Mile From the Bridge

Half-a-Mile From the Bridge

By Bob Kamm

            This is the day

Jack Bacon

introduces his son, Jackie,

and me, the neighbor boy,

to the trinity

of rod, river and trout

…out of the driveway

in the dark

all three of us smelling

of dreams;

the trip to the Rahway River

a mere twenty-minutes

but in the moonless morning

far longer

--a voyage across the Milky Way

into the realm of Orion,

as I doze in the back seat

leaning against Jackie

            leaning against me.

A smear of light in the low Jersey sky

just above the tree tops

…we reach the bridge

over the Rahway,

            follow Jack

single file

down the slope

to the river’s edge

where tree-tall men in hats and jackets

stand side by side,

the water visible only

in glimpses

between

heavy-denimed trunks.

            Jack is our leader

and we are his boys.

He carries the gear.

We carry visions of arched rods

and water giving up its secrets,

visions that sustain us

walking by the

shoulder-to-shoulder giants

who cover every bump and dip of the bank

…Jack’s boys,

hungry to throw worms in water

to trick what he calls

“the wily trout”

…but he keeps walking

and we keep following

until the men thin out

            and then

there are no more

             between us and the river,

no human forms

or sounds at all,

only what Jack calls “true voices”

--water talking with rocks in its throat,

            and wind with branches

                        and the squirrel with his cheeks full, chittering.

And now,

beside a dark

                 broad

                            quiet

                                    pool

he places an upright finger before his lips

and motions with his hand for us to sit

and be still,

            sit and be very still,

just as he has taught us the day before  

            and the day before that,

                        every day for a week.

            Jack Bacon is our man

and we are his boys,

watching as if there’s nothing else on earth

but his thick fingers sifting through

the worm can

to lift out with index and thumb

a fat juicy night crawler that will,

he has assured us, dance on a hook

and curdle the brains of those fish

…thick fingers

the way we hope ours to be when

the distant voices of our own manhood

            chase the birds from our throats,

hope on that day we too can find

in one quick sift

the best worm in the can

and hook him three times

so the line of his loop will be too beautiful

for the toughest old trout to resist.

            Jack’s words are few and barely spoken

but the favorite is “beauty”

and at seven, I know how to spell

but every time Jack speaks that word

I see b-y-o-o-o-d-i-e in my head.

Three byooodies masterfully looped on hooks

            cast to the other side of the pool

                        gently drawn into the depths.

All we can hear above the sweep of water

is Jack’s breath moving in and out

as he keeps a finger on the line,

            studies it out there where it disappears

…we do the same,

             hoping to know as Jack does

what is water nibbling

            and what the mouth of a fish.

The silence is big

            but doesn’t last long

because those loopy night crawlers do their jobs.

The fish go right out of their minds

            and into our hands

dancing from dark water

            --brookies, browns and rainbows--

their brilliant little brains

            overcome.

Jack says, “Byooodie,”

            and Jackie says, “Byooodie,”

                                    and I say, “Byooodie”

            over and over again.

A single word never felt so good

shooting from the lip.

We get to do a lot of

byooodie-shooting

            this morning.

           

            Jack is our man.

We are his boys

as we learn

to not just toss the fish in our creels.

No, he tells us a real man doesn’t want animals to hurt

and shows us the two-fingered

            neck-snap

that takes them from misery and fear

            in only a second.

Jackie and I study their eyes and actually

see the life shiver and swim

            out of them

                        straight on up to the rivers of heaven.

Time

        has been snagged

                       somewhere on an old log

back upstream

near the tree-tall men

until Jack Bacon whispers, “We’ve got our limit.”

            Jackie and I are stunned

to be dropped so suddenly

            back into the ticking world.

In silence

            we tear open brown paper bags

and chomp down baloney

            and peanut butter and jelly,

wiping our mouths

with the backs of our hands like Jack.

We gaze at the river

where it disappears around a bend,

wondering what secrets hold their mouths shut

            down there

…yet, we stay silent

as Jack rises with his deep eyes on us

letting us know it’s time to go,

silent still

as we begin the journey           back up stream.

            Jack Bacon is our man

and we are his boys

--taller than when we got here

            what seems like a week ago now

before the secrets came out

            and the wisdom came in.

We pass the same few men,

then more and more,

hearing them curse the hatchery

for not putting enough fish in the river,

…still silent

            as we stride up the final slope to the car

and get in with our heavy creels.

Then and only then, Jack speaks.

            “You boys remember this.

Most of these fishermen are too damn lazy

to walk more than half-a-mile from the bridge.

It’s the same on every trout stream.

It’s the same in life.

So you remember. You remember to keep going

till they thin out and you find your own place.

That’s where the fish will be.

            That’s where there’s treasure.”

            This is the day Jack Bacon

is our priest

and Jackie and I his devoted,

leaning against each other

in the back seat

dreaming in the humming car

         dreaming of the humming stars

                      across the realm of Orion

                                    homeward…

                                        homeward…to manhood.   

C2007 Bob Kamm