Leading by stepping back (drawing by Sydney Smith)

“The bad leader is hated and feared.
The good leader is loved and praised.
The great leader, when their work is done,
The people say, “We did this ourselves.”“
(Lao Tzu)

I too aspire to be the leader that Lao Tzu describes, to make my leadership not about me. But generous leadership, selfless leadership, is hard to give. I crave love and praise as much as the next guy. And I often find that in the pressure of the moment, in the rush to get things done or under the weight of my responsibility, I fall back into the small, fearful, controlling view of making it all about me. But when I succeed in leading generously, the results always exceed my expectations.

On one 10-day voyage with the Nova Scotia Sea School, a young woman was my assistant instructor, and there were also two senior crew, veterans of previous voyages, who were sailing as Leading Crew, instructors-in-training. After a few days I turned command of the boat over to the three of them for the day. I went and lay down in the middle of the boat along one of the midship thwarts, the rowing benches that run across the boat, and rested my head on the gunwale. After a while I folded my hands on my stomach and pulled my broad-brimmed straw hat down over my face.

I didn’t really sleep. We had a long, vigorous beat to windward, the kind of sailing that calls for careful attention from the crew steering at the helm. I could tell by the motion of the boat and the sound of the wind in the sails whether we were badly off course or sailing poorly. For a while I made a comment or two from under my hat when the crew steering at the helm veered too far from the wind, but then I stopped. The assistant and the Leading Crew kept the steering focused, or they got distracted themselves by the thrill of the ride, then focused again, and we made good progress.

I lay there under my hat for a couple of hours, keeping still even through the periodic commotion of tacking the boat, listening and feeling everything, enjoying the conversations and excitement of the crew. I dozed occasionally, waking up whenever the motion of the boat changed. But the crew did well, and I just lay there.

At the end of the trip the assistant and the two Leading Crew told me that they had been so pleased to see me sleeping while they took command of the boat. It made them feel their responsibility was real. They felt trustworthy and competent, eager to rise to the task. At the same time they knew I hadn’t abandoned them. One of the Leading Crew told me that having me sleeping there through the maneuvers made him feel safe. So I got my love and praise in the end anyway.

When the people say, “We did this ourselves,” it’s not that they have become leaderless. It’s that the work has become about them, not about the leader.

What do your people know that you don’t? Have you made an effort to find out? Have you created a culture in which people expect to learn from each other up and across the organizational chart as well as down?

It may feel a bit unsettling to encourage people under you to show that they know more than you do, but people are always going to know things you don’t know. None of us are omniscient. An excellent way to engage people is to ask them to teach something, and then make the effort to actually learn it and make use of it.

Curiosity practice – If you are not naturally inclined to seek out what you can learn from your team members, you can start with safe territory. For instance, if your child is doing a history project, ask people when they’re settling down to a meeting whether anyone knows about that historical period. Ask them a question your child is addressing, and let everyone hear the answer. Share the answer with your child, and report back what they say. Or if you’ve heard that one of your team members speaks another language, ask them to teach you some phrases. Actually learn the phrases, accept coaching on pronunciation, and greet that person with those phrases when you see them. The possibilities for learning are many. You can be as creative as you like.

The point is not to make conversation or single out people with little “relationship” tricks. The point is to train yourself in the habit of learning from your team. It helps to ask about things you have some genuine interest in, but you can also find ways of being genuinely interested in what each person can offer. You might be surprised at what you can learn, and from whom. Everyone has something to teach, though it may be submerged. You can create conditions for them to discover it and offer it. That’s what makes this a practice of generosity.

Putting-to-use practice – The more immediately practical kind of learning is the kind that directly benefits the team’s efforts. Do you have lunch and learn sessions where people can present or report to their colleagues on relevant topics in which they have particular expertise? If you do, set the example of asking questions, being careful not to sound as if you’re testing them. Is there something in the tactical plan you’re not clear on? Who can explain it? Let them explain it to you when others can hear too. In any situation, try to notice opportunities for people to show what they know in a useful way, and then help their teaching to emerge.

When someone is being a showoff or undermining the contribution of their colleagues, you can speak to them more directly about the culture of teaching and learning that you want to create. Or you might be able to find a way to involve others, by looking for things the showoff really needs to learn and for ways their colleagues can teach them, publicly, without humiliation. Ideally this would be about something truly useful to the person in question, that they can feel the immediate benefit of.

When some people are hesitant to offer what they know, you may need to more actively create opportunities for them and provide some protection for their first steps.

Then, when challenges arise and you’re not sure of the best course of action, you will have trained your people, and yourself, to engage the full spectrum of your abilities, together.

Mary Jane at work

I owe my sailing career to Mary Jane. My first job on a sailing ship was as Chief Mate, second in command. First job? And I was Mate? What sense does that make? I think I managed to get hired as Chief Mate because they were short for crew that year and I already had a captain’s license. Never mind that it was the lowest grade motorboat license you could get, limited to lakes and harbours, or that I had not yet used it professionally, or even set foot on a large sailing ship before. I had a license, so I was Chief Mate.

But my ignorance was mortifying, and the captain was appalled that I had been hired. The rest of the crew consisted of two college kids who didn’t know up, an amateur naval historian who thought he knew everything, a revolving lineup of cooks aspiring to be sailors, none of whom lasted very long, and Mary Jane, age 54, who had retired early from her job to fulfill her dream of going to sea.

Thank goodness for Mary Jane. She had already been crewing on schooners for about three years. She was endlessly patient and generous in training the rest of the crew, including me, who was supposed to be her boss.

I’d sailed all my life, and had been working for a few years teaching sailing and coastal cruising and running charter boats in San Francisco.  But this ship was 130 feet long, carrying 5,000 square feet of sail. I was out of my league. I literally did not know the first thing about sailing a large traditional ship.

Mary Jane taught me everything, including not to call the captain “Skipper,” a term that identified me as a landlubber who watched Gilligan’s Island. In the myriad tasks and skills and protocols that a sailing ship demands, Mary Jane showed me how things should be done. The captain told me what to do too, but at the start at least I resisted learning from him. I was intimidated by his disapproval, and painfully aware that he didn’t respect or trust me. This might have spurred me on to do my best, to show that I could meet his expectations, but instead it had the effect of spurring me to avoid contact with him as much as possible, especially if it might lead to any correction of my performance by him. Our relationship devolved into two intractable roles: the demanding, irascible Captain and the resentful, slacker Mate. You might not think that my role of resentful slacker provided me much protection, since it endlessly attracted the captain’s anger. But it also allowed me to deflect that anger by saying to myself, “I’m not giving this guy the satisfaction of meeting his demands. He can’t make me hop.” I had made the situation about me in the worst way.

I don’t defend my behaviour. I was not doing my job of setting a good example for the crew. I had a lot to learn at that point about hard work, and in the end I learned a lot about it from the captain. But it was Mary Jane who taught me not only the skills of the schoonerman, but the delight of the job.

She too might have been expected to assume some kind of role to protect her rather vulnerable position of old lady trying to be an old salt in a crew of people nearly half her age. But she didn’t seem to be burdened with that kind of baggage. She loved being a sailor on a traditional ship, and she was happy to share that love with the rest of us.

Engagement is a state of mind. One of the fruits of good leadership is an engaged and effective state of mind, a big view, in the people we lead.  Mary Jane inspired something of this bigger state of mind in me, because she possessed it herself. She could teach me the hard skills of course, but the captain could too. It wasn’t Mary Jane’s seamanship that allowed her to engage me more effectively than the captain. It was her generous willingness to share her own joy in the work, and invite me in with her. She led me to relax about myself, loosen my grip on my struggle, and step out of my limiting self-protection into the big, glorious world of a ship at sea.

For a few years now Michael has been pushing the chairs back against the boardroom table whenever he sees that they’re out of place. He makes sure the chairs are evenly spaced and neat. He’ll do this at the end of any meeting he’s in, after people have left or as he’s talking to someone who stayed behind. If he walks by the open door to the room and sees another group has left the chairs in disarray, he’ll go in and arrange them, and whoever might be walking with him has to follow him in.

His employees began by thinking this was odd, not something worthy of the CEO’s attention, or anyone’s attention. Everyone’s busy, why fuss with the chairs, what difference does it make? When asked why he does it, Michael says only, “I like it. It makes me feel better.” He doesn’t try to strategize it.

The chairs became a point of creative friction, rubbing against people’s casualness, speed and preoccupation. Slowly the practice caught on. Now most meetings end with everyone pushing in their chairs as they leave.

Michael explains that the fact the orderly chairs make him feel better is not trivial. If he feels better when he enters the room, he feels better about the prospects for the meeting. He notices how the chairs affect his state of mind. The role of the chairs in helping to cut through casualness, speed and preoccupation has a subtly beneficial influence on the people who sit in them.

The point is not that orderliness is the best practice. Google thrives on unbridled creativity. If people start lining up the loungers and beanbag chairs in neat lines at Google that might be an indication that something is wrong.

Either way, what happens if we start paying attention to the chairs?  We can probably notice how the way we relate to the chairs is influenced by our state of mind in that moment. Can we also notice how it works the other way too, that how we relate to the chairs  has an influence on our state of mind?

This kind of question is important because when we talk about engagement we’re really talking about a state of mind. The way we engage with the details of our life is a reflection of the way we engage with our work and our colleagues. Can we use the chairs as a way to help us shift our state of mind, on the spot, in a useful, engaging way?

Do you ever feel psyched out, stuck in worried preoccupation, or just completely disengaged and wanting to be somewhere else? What do you do when you’re caught up in an unproductive state of mind and you’re having trouble getting out of it? Do you have practices that help you ground yourself again, so you can proceed at your best?

Here’s a technique that works for me when I need to re-engage myself; when I need to change my mind, in the moment, on the spot. I feel these kinds of things are good to remind myself of at the start of a new year.

These techniques have to be simple and readily available. This one’s called Doorknob Practice.

A doorknob has a shape, a texture, a temperature, a quality of movement, a sound as it operates. It has a feel in your hand. It has a feel in your mind.

When you handle a doorknob, you can use that moment as a small but complete self-engagement practice for yourself. First, let the doorknob hold your attention. Let it hold the participation of all your senses for the moment you touch it. Then allow the various sensations you experience to cut through whatever preoccupation you may be stuck in. Let your attention shift to your sensations, away from your thoughts. Finally, let this shift help you turn your attention from the knob to the whole room and everything in it is as you enter. Let this expanding shift in your attention help you rediscover a more expansive state of mind as you turn the knob and enter the room. The whole process happens in a moment, on the spot.

These days doorknobs are not as plentiful as they used to be. If it’s a crash bar or a metal push plate, the same approach can still work. Stop for a moment and connect with the physical sensations of opening the door and entering. Every time you do this, it can help you enter with a more panoramic state of mind.

It’s not just doorknobs you can do this with. Any physical sensation will do. In the middle of a meeting, lay your hand flat on a table. Feel the table and feel the muscles extending your fingers. If the air conditioning comes on, listen to the noise it makes for a moment. Really listen to it. You won’t lose track of the conversation. You will make more room in your mind for listening.

In training yourself to shift your attitude on the spot, physical sensations are a powerful ally. What other ways can you do this?

Pride of Baltimore II

Captain Jan Miles has been captain of the PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II for over 25 years, and I sailed with him on PRIDE as one of the Mates on a nine-month voyage from Baltimore up the Atlantic coast into the Great Lakes and back. The PRIDE is a Tall Ship, a 157’ square-topsail schooner carrying over 9,000 square feet of sail, and she sails all over the world as goodwill ambassador for Baltimore and the State of Maryland.

On our way back from Chicago we were approaching Mackinac Island at the northern tip of Michigan. It was late evening, getting dark, with a moderate breeze from the northwest. Mackinac harbour is formed by rock breakwaters, and the widest part inside where PRIDE could anchor is only about eight times the length of the ship. Cruising boats at anchor are scattered throughout, and a lane has to be left open for the ferry. For a ship the size of PRIDE, it’s a crowded spot.

As we approached, Captain Jan had us get the anchor ready, but he said nothing about taking down sails and starting the engine. We didn’t know how full of other boats the anchorage would be or how much room we’d have to maneuver, and we were entering under full sail in the dark. But as we approached the breakwaters Jan said nothing.

Realizing what was about to happen, all of us in the crew went forward to stand by for sail handling. As PRIDE passed the end of the breakwater and entered the harbour Jan called out to “drop the headsails”, the three sails at the front of the ship. We were ready, and all three sails came running down together into a pile on the bowsprit. No time to gather them in, we let them hang there. A moment later Jan called out to “brail up the foresail”, the big sail in the middle of the ship that could be pulled up and bunched against the mast with a series of ropes called brails. We were ready, and the foresail disappeared. Then Jan turned PRIDE straight into the northwest wind, heading for a spot we could make out in the dark among the anchored yachts. There was room for us, but we were still moving, and Jan called out to “square the topsail”. PRIDE carries a rectangular sail that spreads out across the ship high up on the foremast, and unlike the other sails, this topsail can be held out against the wind to push the ship backwards, acting like a brake. We were ready, and we turned the topsail against the wind to stop the ship. Jan called out to “let go the anchor”. We were ready. The anchor chain rattled out and with the wind pushing against the topsail, we sailed the ship backward into our spot among the yachts until the anchor chain came up taut, and we were there.

Triumphantly, we set to stowing the sails for the night. This was the kind of maneuver that Captain Jan was known for, and we saw ourselves as the crew who could pull it off. Evidently he did too.

Engagement is a state of mind. One of the fruits of good leadership is an engaged and effective state of mind  in the people we lead.

The rest of the crew and I  responded to a real-life situation that demanded we be ready and do our best, and Captain Jan didn’t need to do anything more to engage us than put us in that situation. When we as leaders create potent situations that invite deep engagement, we can let those situations do the work of engagement for us. A potent situation can do the work of engaging people more effectively than any exhortation, charisma, personal brilliance or other “leadership” we can offer. A sailing ship at sea demands engagement, regardless of who is captain, but a good captain knows how not to diminish the ship’s power with their “leadership.”

The CORWITH CRAMER

I once sailed with a young woman named Stephanie on the brigantine CORWITH CRAMER. We sailed from Key West on a two-month voyage to the Dominican Republic, the Cayman Islands and back to Key West, taking a somewhat circuitous route to collect scientific marine samples.

The CRAMER is a modern steel sailing research vessel that takes students to sea for semesters of oceanographic science and seamanship training. We were looking for the extent and condition of Sargasso seaweed (the Sargasso Sea is vanishing), the distribution of plastic debris and so on. We anchored on Silver Bank, seventy miles off the north coast of the Dominican Republic but only sixty feet deep. It’s where the humpback whales come to breed. We lowered a hydrophone over the side with a speaker on deck and listened to the songs of the whales all night. In the morning one of the whales followed close behind the ship for several miles as we sailed away.

There were about 18 student crew on the ship, divided into 3 watches. At sea the watches rotated being on duty for four hours at a time, around the clock. Half of each watch was on duty in the lab with one of the scientists, the other half, 3 students, was on duty on deck, sailing and navigating the ship with the officer of the watch. If we needed more hands to change sails, tack the ship or for some other manoeuver we could call out the crew in the lab for a little while, but this 134’, 280-ton ship was operated most of the time by one professional and three students. People had to be pretty engaged.

As the weeks progressed the student crew became more and more proficient as sailors, and in the last weeks they started taking turns being officer-of-the-watch-in-training themselves.

Late in the voyage we were off Miami before heading south to Key West. Near a city as big as Miami we expected to find increased concentrations of discarded plastic in the water column so we were taking some time to collect samples. Stephanie was the student officer of the watch, under my supervision. It was night and Captain Deborah Hayes had drawn a square on the chart, told Stephanie to keep the ship within that square, and gone to bed. To stay within the square, we had to do a good deal of manoeuvring, handling the huge sails with just the right timing.

One might have expected Stephanie, relishing her new competence and trying hard to fill the role of ship’s officer, to have been keeping close track and control over every action of her small crew, carefully directing us to be sure everything went perfectly. This was after all a test of her “leadership.” But when it came time to tack the ship, she called the other crew out of the lab, gathered us all together and said simply, with an excited smile, “Places, everyone.”

The delight of the other student crew was palpable. Everyone suddenly realized that they, a handful of university science students, knew exactly what to do to manoeuvre this massive ship and could be trusted completely to do it. Everyone headed off to the sails with Stephanie’s excited smile shinning on their faces too.

Stephanie didn’t make the tack about her. She made it about the crew. She was obviously excited about being able to trust them, which of course made them want to be trustworthy. We manoeuvered beautifully and tirelessly inside our box through the night.

As Lao Tzu said over 2,000 years ago:

The bad leader is hated and feared,
The good leader is loved and praised,
The great leader, when their work is done,
The people say, “We did this ourselves.”

A Simple Invitation

I think this story speaks for itself. With thanks to Timothy Bednarz.

Charles Schwab was a labourer at Carnegie Steel who rose to be supervisor of  all of the plant supervisors for Andrew Carnegie. Apparently he had an uncanny talent for engaging his people. Schwab often recalled a story, which demonstrates this talent.

“I had a mill manager”, he recounted, “who was finely educated, thoroughly capable and master of every detail of the business. But he seemed unable to inspire his men to do their best.

‘How is it that a man as able as you,’ I asked him one day, ‘cannot make this mill turn out what it should?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I have coaxed the men; I have pushed them, I have sworn at them. I have done everything in my power. Yet they will not produce.’

It was near the end of the day; in a few minutes the night force would come on duty. I turned to a workman who was standing beside one of the red-mouthed furnaces and asked him for a piece of chalk.

‘How many heats has your shift made today?’ I queried.

‘Six,’ he replied.

I chalked a big ‘6’ on the floor, and then passed along without another word. When the night shift came in they saw the ‘6’ and asked about it.

‘The big boss was in here today,’ said the day men. ‘He asked us how many heats we had made, and we told him six. He chalked it down.’

The next morning I passed through the same mill. I saw that the ‘6’ had been rubbed out and a big ‘7’ written instead. The night shift had announced itself. That night I went back. The ‘7’ had been erased, and a ‘10’ swaggered in its place. The day force recognized no superiors. Thus a fine competition was started, and it went on until this mill, formerly the poorest producer, was turning out more than any other mill in the plant.”

The Gift of Closeness

On a clear, windy day in the protected waters of Mahone Bay, the Sea School’s boat, ELIZABETH HALL, sails dancingly through the waves, her side only a few inches above the water. I lean down on the edge, my elbow splashed now and then, watching the elegant curve of her planks arcing steadily through the lapping and gurgling of the waves. I am as close to the water and to the graceful strength of the boat as I can be, and the intimate vividness of it makes me laugh with delight.

This is my favourite memory of leading a 7-day coastal voyage recently with a crew of twelve in this 30′ open boat. On the voyage, the thirteen of us are also as close to each other as we can be. There’s barely room for us all to stretch out on the oars at night and sleep. This is claustrophobic and frustrating, but like the closeness of the water, it’s very real.

On a sailing craft we are close to what matters; the real world. Water and waves, wind and weather, sky and stars, all the details and demands of the boat itself and all the personalities and hopes and fears of our shipmates. It is a deeply engaged existence, and we have to be willing to engage it all, including each other, all the time, or we get the boat and each other in deep trouble.

Back ashore after this week afloat, hurricane Irene approaches Halifax. I have spent the afternoon securing my own boat against the storm, taking off sails, checking the mooring line. A hurricane is not something I want to be particularly close to, but preparing for the worst helps me connect with the storm as a real thing, not a TV episode.

This is one of the great gifts of boats. They offer, and demand, a closeness to the world that is not otherwise part of our everyday experience. And the gift of learning to be part of a ship’s crew is the willingness to seek closeness, to engage with things as they actually are. With the voyage still fresh in my mind, that closeness follows me ashore and everything is more vivid, more real, more engaging. I’d like to be at sea more than I am these days, but without the luxury of that constant reminder the task for me now is to still seek the closeness of what’s real in the places and the people I meet. When I am willing to be close to my experience, I find fair winds and good sailing. When I hide, I run aground.

If you aspire to a more engaged workplace, and would like some support making that aspiration a reality, please contact me or visit my speaking page.

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The Stillness of the Heron

I’ve just returned from sailing the South Shore of Nova Scotia for ten days. Of all the teachers that live along the coast, the most profound for me may be the Great Blue Heron. The Heron understands the interplay of stillness and action, and I learn a little more about that every time I see one.

As Alan Watts wrote, “A heron stands stock-still at the edge of a pool, gazing into the water. It does not seem to be looking for fish, and yet the moment a fish moves it dives. [The way to see nature] is simply to observe silently, openly, and without seeking any particular result.”

It’s usually my habit to bring activity and intention with me wherever I go. Even when I’ve anchored for the night in a quiet cove and the stillness of the evening gathers around me, I’m likely to jump down into the cabin to fix this or that, or at least sit planning how I’ll fix those things or make some other improvement on the boat. It takes some discipline to experience the stillness all around, and actually see what’s there. When I manage to do this, I see all kinds of things I was missing, out in the world, and inside my head.

Much of my work is training of various kinds, and whenever possible I make use of boats, the water, and the natural world, which are the most powerful teachers I know. But I have to remember to give those things space to teach.

Kelly Cain has said, “Experiential education takes [our] preoccupation with everyday problems to such an extreme that it intentionally brings [our] mental baggage along, using natural areas not as a place to experience nature, but as a unique setting from which to work on self-esteem, team-building, even corporate profitability. The paradox is that we might learn more about ourselves by truly experiencing nature than by simply using nature as a backdrop for our therapeutic or corporate programming.”

The Heron starts from stillness, undistracted by action, so that he sees what action to take. When I am still, in the midst of the big world, I understand things better, and I see what to do. The Heron is my role model.

Alan Watts,  Nature, Man and Woman, 1959

Kelly Cain, “The Burden and Privilege of Educating for Environmental Awareness”, Journal of Experiential Education, December 1999

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