Posts Tagged ‘honesty’

Whose mess is it anyway?

Monday, May 25th, 2009

The other day my sister was talking about an embarrassing situation.  This lead to a discussion about when you draw people’s attention to problems that you have found.  What do you do?  Tell them and get involved, or just hope that someone else deals with it?

At work one often comes across problems created by others; if you can’t simply fix them, are you supposed to draw attention to them or pretend you know nothing about them.  Every organisation has a cupboard full of problems that people know about and could be fixed if only they were drawn to the right person’s attention.  The thing that usually happens is that everyone can ignore these issues and hope that someone else deals with them, and your customers end up smelling something isn’t right!

How do you create a culture where mistakes and issues are aired and dealt without wasting time apportioning blame?

“There is luxury in self reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.”  Oscar Wilde

“You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.”   Henry David Thoreau

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“I got it wrong”

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

I was facilitating a meeting for one of the bigger London councils the other day and one of the expert speakers, an adviser to Downing Street, stood up publically and said “I got it wrong”.  Now we all know that everyone makes mistakes, but I can’t recall the last time I heard an expert admit to such human fallibility. 

The thing is that if we don’t feel that we can admit to getting things wrong, we are doomed to justify and defend our current position, even if it isn’t working for us!  Saying “I got it wrong” is very powerful, very liberating and very hard!

Perhaps today is a good day to practice this art, if only to ourselves….

“In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know, that’s a really good argument, my position is mistaken,” and then they actually change their minds, and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”  Carl Sagan

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I’m a Celebrity… you can see me!

Friday, November 21st, 2008

About this time of year I am afraid that Cooke Towers impressive media suite is taken over by gaffawing women who cackle with glee as minor ‘celebs’ are tortured for the nation’s entertainment with kangaroo testicles and critters that bite.  I can not pretend not to be rapidly drawn into these so called reality TV shows as I love watching people behave as they do.

The thing that seems so clear to me this year is that people are so very transparent and that the public respond better to those who they feel are being genuine, even if they are being genuinely stupid!  People who play games are judged and tortured for the viewers’ entertainment. 

I know that this is far removed from real life in so many ways but I think our desire to have people ‘be themselves’ is a very deep one, and so too is our ability to see through manoeuvrings.   The thing is, in the world of work, we often don’t get any real choice about who tells us to do what, but we do control how much of ourselves we give in response to them.  Real leaders don’t try to manoeuvre people, despite office politics.  They do what they believe to be right; they tell the truth as they see it and  say how they feel.  We may not like or even agree with these messages but we will be inclined to trust them. 

So rule number 1 of authentic leadership is “Don’t be clever, be true”

 

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”  Mark Twain

“Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.”  Mark Twain

“A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.”  William Blake

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Every A*sehole needs a but…

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

I wrote the other day about the use of the word “But” and its power to do harm.  The thing is, we seem to feel the need to vent, and that is a valid and natural consequence of letting things build up, rather than dealing with things as they arise.  Too often, rather than speaking up and saying what we feel, or asking for what we need, or speaking our truths we will either keep silent or toss off an “It doesn’t matter” and so the bitterness begins to build.

If we didn’t bottle, if we just spoke our truths at the time, before we began to feel resentful, then perhaps we would avoid dumping on others, which whilst it relieves the pressure, seldom is the best way to build relationships.  So today might be a good day for you to be a little braver about saying what you want / need / feel and seeing what magic might flow…

“The most effective way to achieve right relations with any living thing is to look for the best in it, and then help that best into the fullest expression.”

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