Transcendence – Integrity part 8

I’m up to the final chapter of the book Integrity which looks at character traits that are the key to success in relationships, business and life in general. 

Around 5 years ago I went on a week’s field trip with a group of Grade 5 students.  While there, a group of administrators from another local school came to visit the centre to see if it would be a possible venue for their own school trips.  One of these administrators asked me the question, “What’s it like working for a megalomaniac?”  The question took me back a bit as it was so direct and also very difficult to answer.  This question is also addressed by Dr. Cloud in his chapter on transcendence.

Cloud writes that some people live as if they are the centre of the universe and put a lot of effort into building their own little kingdom.  This called to mind an interview question I was asked once.  The question was “Where will you be in 5 years time?” and my response back to the Director of the school was “Where will you be?”  His answer was interesting:  he told me that he had just taken over the school and that in 5 years he would still be there.  The words he used were something like, “I’m not going to spend my time building a good school and then hand it over to someone else.”  In retrospect this should have rung some warning bells, but unfortunately it didn’t.

Cloud writes quite extensively in his book Integrity about this trait of narcissism.  It is displayed in grandiosity, omnipotence, extreme selfishness, exploitiveness, overestimation of one’s talents or importance, feelings of entitlement and egocentricity.  It is based on arrogance, selfishness and pride, where we are the kingpin in a little world of our own making.  The results are likely to be shallow, toxic and destructive.

Successful people are the opposite of narcisstic – they are what Cloud refers to as transcendent as they realize there are things bigger than them and that their life is about finding their role in the big picture.  The people we love being around are those who throw themselves into the mission of greater good.   Cloud writes, “It is the big things, not ourselves, that make us big.  As we join them, we become larger.  The paradox is that to join things bigger than us, we have to humble ourselves and become “smaller”.  When we realize we exist for them and not them for us, we grow into greatness.  The greatest people are the ones who have not sought greatness, but served greatly the causes, values and missions that were much bigger than them.”

Bigger things that transcend us are our values – the things that guide our behavior.  In my role in technology one of the values I have is respect for other people’s creations.  This means using only legally purchased software, for example.  The day I was told to use illegal software in a previous job, was the day I was determined to leave.  Living in a beautiful country and earning lots of money could no way compensate for going against my core values.

Cloud writes about the importance of awareness:  people who live for bigger things know that bigger exists, and this awareness leads to action.  He tells us “values without visible expression of those are not worth much”.

Conclusion

I have been reading Dr Henry Cloud’s book Integrity as part of ASB’s summer read.  The book has taken me on a journey that has made me reflect on my own values relative to past experiences.  Reflection is always good if it leads to new learning and insights.  Some of the things I have faced while reading this book have not been pleasant, however I would recommend it and am looking forward to our discussions once I’m back at school.   Here are some of the most important paragraphs that I have found in the book.

Practice Without Catastrophic Results

“If you have not had a safe place to develop different aspects of who you are, and to practice in ways that your career or life is not at risk, you have probably not developed certain character traits.  In some ways you have been in survival mode, and that is not the mode in which we usually develop new aspects of character, other than perseverance.  New skills require openness, but survival requires protecting oneself.  That is why in fear-based corporate cultures, people often do not grow in new ways.  They are too busy guarding themselves and watching their back.”

Proper Structured Feedback

“The “boss” relationship should be just this way:  observe, give feedback, coach, mentor and grow.  Instead too often it falls into the “ignore and zap” mentality.  Bosses ignore people’s patterns until the problem is too much, then they come down hard or fire them.  Firing should never, ever be a surprise.  It should be the end of a process that has attempted to give lots of corrective feed back.  When this process goes right, firing does not happen, but growth does.  Character thrives on feedback that is focused and used well.”

Support That Does Not Enable

“In character growth the road is sometimes rocky.  We have to swallow our pride, our egos, our resistance, and sometimes just bite the bullet and hear things we don’t want to hear  …  Sometimes it can be so tough that you either want to quit or think that you can never master what you are being told to do.  So at those times we also need the arm around our shoulder.  We need support and encouragement to do the hard thing.  We need the push to keep going.  To know that a leader or someone cares about us can help us to do the hard next step.  If we know we have someone on our team it changes everything.  But this support has to be of a certain nature.  It has to side not only with us as people, but also with our need to grow.  The best support people …. do not enable us to remain the same by rescuing us … they caringly walk alongside us, but hold us to the path at the same time.”

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Growth and risk taking –v- the status quo - Integrity part 7

In Mumbai close to where I live there is a statue called “A child gives birth to a mother”.  At first I thought this was an odd way of putting it, but the more I think about it, the more true it seems.  I was certainly not ready to become a parent, but 25 years ago, when my son was born, I became one.  This post is about growth.  It’s one of the 6 qualities of character identified by Dr. Henry Cloud that make up integrity.

Some people embody a desire to grow – they want to be more than they currently are and to make things bigger and better over time.  This characteristic is different from the last one I wrote about, the ability to solve problems, because that is simply improving what already exists.  Dr. Cloud defines these people as maintainers, rather than growers.  He writes that it is a personal choice to invest in oneself and to grow, it is something that people need to engage in willingly.  Growers have a different sort of drive than maintainers who continue the way they are day after day doing what is required of them.  Growth involves taking risks.

Risk-taking is probably the most controversial of the IB Learner Profiles.  It is defined in the following way:

They approach unfamiliar situations and uncertainty with courage and forethought, and have the independence of spirit to explore new roles, ideas and strategies. They are brave and articulate in defending their beliefs.

Risk-taking is controversial because not all cultures see this as positive – and because of that IB schools have the option to replace the word with courageous.  However risk-taking, getting out of your comfort zone, can be very positive.  Dr. Cloud writes, “risk means that you do something that has the possibility of a bad outcome, and that you embrace that possibility and are OK with it.”  However this is not just a wild gamble – usually the risk is very calculated and is taken when a successful person gets to the point where what s/he is doing no longer fits with what s/he has become.  At this point stepping away from the status quo is not really a risk but instead is “an expression of who someone has become, even if he or she is not sure of the outcome”. 

Reading through this chapter in the book Integrity reminds me very much of what we do at ASB in our R&D department.  I’m continually feeling myself blessed to work in a school that has the foresight to invest in the future and that wants to become “more” than it currently is.  Our R&D department looks several years into the future at the trends that will impact education, and then prototypes to get the school ready for them.  Examples of this have been the BYOD and mobile devices prototypes, multi-age classrooms, internships and a revised school calendar.  Our investment in these initiatives have meant that we have a completely different school from those schools who continue to do “business as usual”.  In a nutshell, we are going out to the future before it comes to us.

I’ve written before about how much I have grown and developed in the past 4 years as an educator as a result of being at ASB.  I have continually been given opportunities to develop myself and hone my leadership skills.  I have been encouraged to grow.

Dr. Cloud writes about people who want growth seeking out mentors who are further down the road.  This characteristic is markedly different from people who think they know it all and who do not ask for help.  People with a growth mindset value the experience of others.  To be mentored means that we are comfortable with becoming vulnerable, as we allow someone else to look at what we are doing.  We are not narcissistic and don’t feel the need to “look good” – we need to be honest in order to grow.

Value the present but don’t stay there

Cloud writes:

The mature character loves today.  She loves what today has accomplished.  Her soul is satisfied when she looks at the result.  She is grateful for the accomplishment, proud of it , and grateful to all of those who helped bring it about.  She thanks them, rewards them, and celebrates with them.  The process is as important as the goal.  Then tomorrow she will strive for more.

Attempt things you are unable to do

Cloud also writes:

People who grow jump in over their head.  They try things that they cannot do, then stretch to become able to do what they are attempting.  They take on challenges that ask them to become more than they have been or done before.

Recharging the batteries

Cloud also includes a section in this chapter about rest.  He writes about a period of time each week, month or year when you are not producing anything.  This is a time of regeneration or as he puts it:  “fields need to be fallow to restore fertility for future harvests”.  This requires a character that is capable of rest rather than one on perpetual output.  If nothing is coming in or regenerating to make the future better then the future will simply be more of the same – in such a situation growth cannot occur.

What is also important, according to Cloud, is to invest in the growth of others.  He writes that successful people “not only subject themselves to mentors and people further down the road than they are, but they are also the ones further down the road for someone else.  They give away what they possess and invest in others becoming more".  The secret of success is simple:  invest in becoming more than you are, and then pass it on.

Photo of the statue A child gives birth to a mother (Vithal Venkatesh Kamat)

Embracing the negative –v- preserving the “good self” – Integrity part 6

About a year ago, while at the ISTE Conference, I broke a crown on one of my back teeth.  As I was in the USA, I knew it would be expensive to visit a dentist, so I opted to wait a few days until flying to Italy.  The tooth was jagged and rubbed against the inside of my mouth and my tongue.  I stuck blobs of chewing gum over the rough bits to tide me over.  In Italy I went to a hospital, where the dentist told me that as well as a broken tooth, I had an abscess forming under the tooth.  He asked me if I wanted him to pull the tooth out.   This did not seem to be a good idea at the time – so I told him to simply do a temporary filling and that I would take antibiotics and painkillers until I got back home to India.  Once in India I went to another dentist who said I probably needed a root canal – but since I wasn’t in pain by then I opted instead to simply have the crown fixed up.  Several months passed.  The a week before I was due to fly to South Africa for a conference I was hit by terrible toothache – a pain like nothing I’d ever had before.  I couldn’t sleep, it even hurt to lie down.  The dentist didn’t say “I told you so”, but I had to have the root canal anyway and it was probably much more painful than if I’d had the original problem dealt with 5 months previously.  I tell this story because it shows something about my character – that in terms of integrity one very weak spot I have is embracing the negative.   I didn’t want to deal with the pain, so I simply avoided getting the treatment I needed.  What I should have realised is that the pain of the root canal would have been the price I needed to pay to avoid 5 months of problems.  I chose the easy option – which led to it being hard in the long run, whereas I should have chosen the hard option which would have ultimately led to an easier long-term experience.

At the end of my last blog post I wrote about needing to shed an old skin to make way for a new one.  This is something that personally I find very hard.  Successful people, however, have a different mindset:  that facing a problem, embracing the negative, will be a good thing in the end, as it is an opportunity to make things better.  Like many people, I enjoy living in the “comfort zone”, and I don’t enjoy facing negatives.    This character flaw has previously led me to stay longer than I should in a job that was wrong, simply because I enjoyed living in the country.   Reflecting on this now, I realize that there were many other colleagues who made a similar choice.  We used to call one of the employees there “Mr Nasty” but we didn’t ever choose to deal in a productive way with this person who was obviously hurting many of us.  Just like putting off having something done to my tooth, I put up with working in an unproductive situation.  Over time I lost optimism, motivation, hope, drive and many other things that I’d always assumed were part of my character, leading to a situation where it was hard for me to move forward after this bad experience.   I’d fallen into a situation where I was making excuses and blaming external factors for what I was feeling inside.

Blame it on the rain

In Cognitive Coaching we work with the 5 states of mind – one of which is efficacy.  Coaching enables us to become more efficacious and to know that we have choices and also the capacity to make choices, be a problem solver and take action.  During these years I definitely lacked efficacy and wasted a lot of energy blaming something outside of myself for what was happening.

In his book Integrity, Dr. Henry Cloud writes “blame is the parking brake for improvement”.  He tells us that successful people don’t worry about who or what is at fault, but instead embrace the fact that they need to do something differently – this knowledge in fact is what gives them control.  However many people don’t want to change:  they are “performance crippled” as they want to preserve “the good self”.  It’s this wish to see themselves as good, flawless or perfect that he refers to as “one of the sickest traits that we can have”.  These people cover up their feelings by trying to perform well and be seen as awesome and wonderful – the praise they get helps them to feel good.  However Cloud warns us, “there are just not enough trophies to cure narcissism.  The cure is always to find acceptance and love in one’s weakness and failure.”  His advice is to give up being perfect, to go through the pain to improve, and enjoy the benefits.  He writes, “The good self is not worth hanging on to because it won’t produce real results.  Let it die and an competent self emerge.”

You get what you tolerate

Last year, during our PYP Exhibition, students worked in groups.  We taught the students about the process that teams go through to become productive (forming – storming – norming – performing).  What Cloud writes about confrontation definitely fits into the storming.  He writes “you get what you tolerate”:  if you don’t confront problems but instead tolerate them, then problems are what you will have.  On the other hand, “confrontation adds structures to teams and projects, structure adds security and in security people thrive”.

Go hard on the issue and soft on the person

Now this was quite a hard read for me.   I know I’m not good at confrontation, and I’ve been in situations where people have confronted me in very negative ways that have been designed to cause fear, not to resolve a problem.  Cloud writes, “If you fail to confront, you will lose.  But if you confront poorly, you will also lose.”  Looking back at times of negative confrontation, it’s clear now that the person who confronted me was doing it out of anger or possibly even revenge, and doing it to make me feel bad and to make himself feel better.  This person clearly did not have any of the first 4 characteristics of integrity (care/connection, truth, getting results and embracing/resolving negatives).  The situation had deteriorated into one of me –v- you, and not you and I –v- the problem.  The real outcome of confrontation should be facing a problem and finding a solution together.

Letting things go

At the same time that I was dealing with my own problems,  a colleague was dealing with something different in that a family member of hers was being treated extremely unfairly.  She was definitely a bigger person than me because she was able to confront the bully directly and tell her that she forgave her.  At the time I was in complete awe of this, but looking back her actions made perfect sense.  Once you have solved a problem you have to let it go, otherwise you are simply carrying it forward.  It took me a lot longer than my friend to be able to forgive, but it was necessary:  had I taken all the negativity into my new job, then I would not have been able to move forward, which leads me onto my next post: the 5^th important characteristic of integrity is an orientation towards growth.

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Getting results and learning from failures – Integrity part 5

This is another post in my series based on our summer read Integrity by Dr. Henry Cloud. In this book Cloud explores the 6 qualities of character that define people with integrity. Previous posts have considered trust and truth and this post will look at results.

Dr. Cloud writes that a lot of people know the “what” of their work but even so do not manage to produce impressive results. Often they find this hard to take, because they work hard, and yet others always seem to do better. He asks what is the missing ingredient? And concludes that there are patterns to the way high producers operate – they work in different ways from those who just work hard. His conclusion is that “all things being equal, character wins”.

According to Dr. Cloud, the big difference is one of identity. He writes that people who do well in life know their boundaries, what they like and don’t like, and what they believe in and value. Part of their identity is knowing what they are good at and what they are not. Because they know this, they don’t just work hard, but they only work at things that have a chance of succeeding. These people are not ruled by others’ expectations but have found out who they really are through experimentation and risk taking. If people are afraid of failure they stay within their comfort zone and don’t try anything new.

Cloud also writes about knowing your limitations and not trying to be seen as more than you actually are. It’s all to do with being humble enough to admit what you are not good at, and so not trying to work in those areas – because of this these people perform poorly less often: they stick to what they are competent at and surround themselves with people who are good in the areas where they are weak.

Cloud’s mantra for success is Ready, Aim, Fire. Being ready means being prepared and able, and also not jumping into opportunities before you are ready. He writes that “when you look at truly successful people over the long term, they do not make impulsive, rash decisions.” The example that comes to mind on this is the much written about Stanford University marshmallow experiment conducted on 4 year olds about the ability to delay gratification, which turned out to be a better predictor of achievements than IQ. Getting ready is also what Jim Collins refers to as “sharpening the saw”.

Aim is to do with focus on purposeful, goal-orientated action. Again the focus is to do with knowing your own limits. Many people are good starters, but then become distracted and the quality of their work and achievements suffers. Cloud writes, “a focused dropping of continuous water can drill a hole in a rock, but much more water in a scattered shower will do nothing.”

Fire means taking the risk and making the move. If the first 2 steps are in place, Cloud writes this is the difference between an investment and a gamble. What often gets in the way of making a move is also a character issue: fear of failure, rejection, disapproval, anxiety about unknown outcomes, loss of security and so on. It takes a strong mindset to see problems as issues to be solved, so that people can meet the challenges that occur.

It’s also good to know when enough is enough, and to let go of something that is not working. If something cannot be fixed, it is time to let it go and put it into the past – but also important to look back and learn from it so that mistakes are not repeated. In Cognitive Coaching, when we have a reflecting conversation, a lot of the time is spent exploring and analyzing causal factors so that we can construct new learning. It’s important to face failure and ask what kind of personal growth is needed so that this doesn’t happen again. Cloud writes, “Taking in the good parts of a losing experience means that we learn what we can from the experience and take that forward … through persevering and continuing to go forward we develop strength, patience, hope, optimism and other important character traits that we will need to make things succeed.”

Facing failure, however, isn’t enough. High performing people are also able to let go of things that ARE working, if they are not the best things. They let go of things that take up time, energy and resources that may be good, but that are keeping them from the best things. Or as Jim Collins would say, “good is the enemy of great”. You have to shed your old skin to make room for the new one.

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Being in touch with reality: truth - Integrity part 4

This series of blog posts continues my reflections on our summer reading book Integrity by Dr Henry Cloud. Cloud identifies the 6 character traits that define integrity.  The first one, the ability to connect with others and build trust, was the subject of my last post.  For this post I'm focusing on the character trait of truth.

It's impossible to consider integrity without also considering truth and ethics, as in our dealings with others we value honesty.  However as Cloud points out, the reality is that some good people will tell lies when it helps them, or in other cases may simply just skirt around the truth by leaving out things that are really important for people to know.  Let me give you an example of this.  Several years ago when I was applying for a job, one of my criteria was that my new school would offer all 3 IB programmes.  I was eventually employed by a school that did appear to do all - however what I discovered when I arrived was that the IB DP was only just starting - it was in its first year when we arrived - and that the school did not externally moderate the MYP.  The result of this was that our daughter was unable to be awarded an MYP certificate, despite the fact that she had completed 4 of the 5 years of the programme at her previous school.  Was I lied to?  Not directly.  Were we told less than the truth?  Definitely.  Did this impact her?  Likely - as when completing her university applications she had no qualifications to add onto the application form, therefore was given higher offers by her universities, which ultimately meant that she did not go to her first choice of university.  Had we known the full reality of the situation upfront, I would certainly have accepted one of the other jobs on offer.

Integrity means telling the truth no matter what the cost.  In fact, being truthful is more important if we tell the truth even when it hurts us.  Ultimately hiding the truth because of a fear of negative impacts usually leads to even more negative consequences than if we had simply told the truth.  Cloud writes, "the consequences of deceit are usually greater than the ones of the truth."

However, just like being nice is not enough, telling the truth is also not enough.  What is needed is to go beyond this and to face reality - to actively seek out and be in touch with what is true, not simply what we wish things could be or think they should be.  As Jim Collins writes in this book Good to Great, "you absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts."  And this means seeking out the truth, which is hard because, as the saying goes, you don't know what you don't know.  There are some honest people who simply don't take active steps to find out more about what reality is.  Those who seek the truth do so by considering the both the external world, and soliciting feedback about their strengths and weaknesses that will help them to grow through building on their strengths and managing their weaknesses.

People who have little self-awareness are often dysfunctional.  Sometimes people don't want to "look inside" because they fear what they might see, or because they have a fixed view of themselves.  Sometimes they might fear that they lack the skills to deal with what they might find, or they might discover that they need to make fundamental changes in their life.  However as Cloud writes, "the character who seeks reality about himself or herself has the courage to embrace whatever reality he finds."

Finally people who seek the truth, also seek it about other people.  They are cautious in their friendships and business dealings and first seek to know a person clearly so that they don't overestimate or underestimate him or her.  

An interesting concept that Cloud writes about is the way we need feedback not just from others, but from ourselves - in this way we can observe and monitor our behaviour as it is happening, and that allows us to do something about it so that we can stay on track.

During Day 4 of our Cognitive Coaching course, we looked at data - being the 3rd party in any discussion.  Data is neutral and exists separately from emotions.  Truthful people also have the ability to look at the facts separately from the emotions or from the personal opinions of themselves and others.

Reflecting on past dealings with competent people, but those who did not connect with reality, reminds me of someone I worked with in a previous school who was looking at technology in the present only.  While I was wanting to use more Web 2.0 tools, he was telling everyone that cloud computing was going to fail.  He was not informed about the trends that were taking place in the world and the new information I was sharing was a challenge to his rigid view of the world. Anything I shared was pushed back or ignored.  He could not and did not want to see new ways of doing things. Cloud writes that there are many reasons why people ward off new information - sometimes it is arrogance, sometimes it is pride, sometimes it is anxiety and fear of adapting to new realities.  And the consequences of this were huge:  many great people found they could not work with this individual and left.  

This brings us onto the next character dimension - getting results.  In my case I moved to a school that is forward thinking and known as an educational leader in technology and research and development.  People come to us to see what we do, we present at conferences, host conferences, write blogs, publish books.  We are moving forward.  We are getting results.  More about this in my next post.

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Hearing someone's heart: trust - Integrity part 3

This series of blog posts is about our summer reading book Integrity by Dr Henry Cloud.  Cloud identifies the 6 character traits that define integrity, the first of which is the ability to connect with others and build trust.  Trust was also something that we discussed in depth during my recent PD in Genoa, where I am training to be a Cognitive Coach trainer.

When I first started on the coaching journey 2 years ago, I read studies by Megan Tschannen-Moran about the 5 facets of trust that are important to teachers. In order of importance these are:

• Benevolence: caring, goodwill, positive interactions, supporting teachers, expressing appreciation for effort, being fair and guarding confidential information
• Honesty: integrity, telling the truth, keeping promises, honoring agreements, being authentic, accepting responsibility, avoiding manipulation, being real
• Openness: communicating openly, sharing information, delegating, shared decision making, sharing power
• Reliability: consistency, being dependable, showing commitment, being dedicated and diligent
• Competence: setting an example, problem solving, conflict resolution, working hard, setting standards, being flexible, handling difficult situations

During our 4 day training we were asked to think about someone where we feel challenged when thinking about building trust.  We could all identify people who we would regard as caring, yet we felt they were unable to connect in a personal way with what we are thinking, feeling and experiencing.  In the same way, I could identify school leaders that I've worked with previously who got my attention (and compliance), but never got my heart.  In my last school, one of these administrators told me she wanted to me take on additional responsibility and that she would mentor me for leadership skills. Yet in all our subsequent conversations I never really trusted her, because I never felt that she connected with or empathised with the reality that I was experiencing there.

Being nice is not enough!

Cloud tells us that "trust is about the heart, and someone making an investment in you from his or her heart.  And if you gain people's trust, their heart, then you also have their desire and passion." Enough said - I did not feel passion for the job I took on, and now I'm in a different place.  During the time I was there I did a good job, was mostly compliant, but could have given better efforts if I'd been able to bring more passion to the role.   Now, thinking about that situation, there were other people there who did make a huge difference - indirectly - with my growth as a leader - even though it wasn't part of what they were actively trying to do.  And even though there was nothing that they could actually do to improve the situation for me, it was still amazing to feel that they connected with and understood what I was going through.  These people were not remote and detached, instead I felt they had a genuine interest in knowing me, knowing about me, and valuing who I was and what I did.

Building empathy

A few summers ago, when I did the Design Thinking for Educators workshop at the Henry Ford Learning Institute in Detroit, I learned that the first stage of the design process is empathy. It's important to start with this because it allows you to put aside your own wants and needs that will bring you to what could be the ideal solution for you, but not necessarily for the wants and needs of another person.  Empathy forms part of both the IB Learner Profile and the PYP Attitudes. The attitude of empathy encourages students to "imagine themselves in another's situation in order to understand his or her reasoning and emotions, so as to be open-minded and reflective about the perspectives of others."

When I reflect on reasons why it is easy for me to connect with and trust some people and yet hard to do the same thing with others, it comes down to empathy:  if we don't feel that someone knows what it is like to be in our situation, then what they say has little credibility.  Cloud talks about the character components needed for empathy, one of which he refers to as "softhearted".  This means being in touch with your own real feelings, while a the same time realising that someone else's experience is theirs, not yours.  Last week, listening to one of the Cognitive Coaching participants talk about a teacher at her school, I realised that I was feeling emotional - that is not empathy and it's also not helpful - it's important to set and honour our own boundaries and not get lost in someone else's feelings.

Building empathy also involves communicating our listening to show our understanding.  This is one reason why in coaching the paraphrase is so important and why it's important to acknowledge what people are saying before asking questions that can mediate their thinking.  Cloud writes, "If we cannot communicate our listening in a way that lets the other person know we have truly understood, empathy has not occurred."

Trying to shake hands across the Grand Canyon

Cloud also considers the things that can break trust.  He starts by writing about invalidation - negating the other person's experience as if it is not real.  Again, thinking back to the person I found it really hard to trust in a professional sense, I realised that's exactly what she used to do.  Because I was constantly being told things like "you're just a glass half empty person" or "you don't really feel that way" when I raised real concerns, she immediately closed off her heart and mine.  This left me with two problems - the initial one and the new one that she did not understand.  I love the metaphor that Cloud uses to describe this situation.  It is so true:  people who try to help others by talking them out of what they feel, are simply no help at all.  It was no use to tell me that I should just get over it - all that did was discourage me and make me give up.  And this is the dangerous situation.  A person who is not being heard still has the problem and has not given up on being heard - they simply look for someone else to listen.  This what leads to toxic staff rooms and whispered conversations behind closed doors.  We need to address the fact that even if we do not think someone's discontent is valid, right or justified - it is what that person is feeling so it is true for him or her.

Being vulnerable

Trust allows people to be vulnerable with each other - to be open, creative, take risks, learn from each other and so on.  In this situation people can achieve more than if they are in "protected mode".  Cloud writes "to get to everything that can come from two people's hearts, minds and souls, you have to get to openness and vulnerability.  You have to have access.  And access is only given as trust increases."

For you to build trust with people you have to be vulnerable - to allow them to identify with you. And so while you have to possess strength, you also have to be imperfect.  It's a hard balance!  We don't like weak leaders as we feel they are incompetent and don't want to trust them with our lives or our future.  This is why a domineering person is not trusted as much as a competent one.  Cloud writes, "Being effective is experienced by others as strength."  At the same time we need to be imperfect and not always get things right - and we need to deal with these and overcome them.  People who don't want to be seen as making mistakes because they think this is a sign of weakness often appear to be narcissistic or fake.  We can't identify with perfect people.  Cloud writes:

We can only ultimately trust people who are being real with us.  But part of that is transparency not just about the facts, but about themselves as well.  We need to see their vulnerabilities, and know how they are feeling about things.   We also need to know about their failures and times when they haven't gotten it right.

In fact what we need to see is the truth.  And this is going to be the subject of my next blog post.

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