Book of the Quarter

Normally we work hard to avoid the surrender of control. Instead, we strive to stay in our zone of comfort and control. Given the choice between deep change or slow death, we tend to choose slow death (Kindle Locations 160-161).

The management role tends to be a role of reactive problem solving, of preserving the hierarchical status quo and minimizing personal risk. Managers tend to avoid leading others into new, unexplored territory. To do so is to become come a leader (Kindle Locations 280-281).

Self-interested exchange and the lack of excellence are so common that we expect and accept them. We cannot see that everyone is colluding in avoiding the pursuit of excellence. In fact, we usually prefer not to see this fact because to do so would bring increased personal accountability (Kindle Locations 313-315).

As we begin to pursue purpose in the face of uncertainty, we gain hope and energy. As we move toward purpose, we experience meaning and become filled with more positive emotions. Yet becoming truly purpose-centered is an extraordinary thing to do (Kindle Locations 351-352).

Here is a surprising point: recognizing our hypocrisy is a source of power. When we become willing to monitor our hypocrisy, we discover cover that intense personal shame drives us to close our integrity gaps. Accepting the truth about our hypocrisy helps us to transform ourselves and others (Kindle Locations 378-379).

The exercise of telling honest stories about oneself with which I begin my course is based on a simple principle: that which you or I think is unique about ourselves we hide. In ordinary discourse, in the normal state, we share our common self, our superficial self.
Yet what is unique about us is what has the greatest potential for bonding us. When we share our uniqueness, we discover the commonality in greatness that defines everyone. That simple exercise usually transforms the participants and opens the way (Kindle Locations 508-511).

When we enter the fundamental mental state of leadership, we are operating at a peak level. We tend to get fatigued, and we often then return to the normal state. It is difficult to stay in the fundamental state of leadership. Yet being in this state can be quite renewing. In fact, it is staying in the normal state that leads to a loss of energy and ultimately to slow death. This is the paradox of the normal state: in clinging to comfort and safety, we lose precisely what we seek to preserve (Kindle Locations 564-567).

In the darkness of uncertainty, the key is to keep moving even though we do not know what to do (Kindle Locations 779-780).

When we enter the fundamental state of leadership, we may confront the boss in a more challenging way than we ever imagined, but it will be because we now care for the boss, the organization, and ourselves more than we could have ever imagined. We can let the boss have it because we are angry or because we love the boss. These are two different conditions that give rise to two very different outcomes (Kindle Locations 806-808).

It was Ralph Nader who once said, "I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." This is an important point for anyone who wants to effectively lead change (Kindle Locations 854-855).

"One person can move a system." By the same token, one contrary person at the top can have a devastating effect. Such people seldom speak up and express their opposition. Instead, they consciously or unconsciously sabotage the change process (Kindle Locations 914-916).

Here Kevin becomes crystal clear about what it really means to enter the fundamental state of leadership. It means being so focused on achieving the desired outcome that we are always willing to accept that it may be necessary for us to go in order for the outcome to emerge. This means we are truly focused on the collective good (Kindle Locations 1067-1069).

Failure is not an enemy but a teacher.
You must be committed to gathering disconfirming feedback.
Model the process of encouraging people to criticize what you are doing.
Listen carefully to the criticism, and draw out more than they want to say (Kindle Locations 1929-1931).

There are many such polarities in organizational life, such as the need to maintain stability and change, concern for people and for task, for internal cooperation and external competitiveness, for hierarchical control and for innovative flexibility. It is normal for the human mind to split off such polarities, to value only one end and negate the other (Kindle Locations 1943-1944).

In keeping with such notions, Koestenbaum shares a particularly provocative insight about what he calls the key polarity of leadership: "It's the existential paradox of holding yourself 100% responsible for the fate of your organization, on the one hand, and assuming absolutely no responsibility for the choices made by other people, on the other hand" (quoted in Labarre, 2000, p. 222). This is a very challenging notion. I call it detached interdependence (Kindle Locations 1965-1967).

Viktor Frankl gave much thought to the notions of responsibility and freedom. He was concerned that in our culture, freedom was in danger of degenerating into "mere arbitrariness." In fact, he suggested that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast of the United States should be balanced by a statue of responsibility on the West Coast (Kindle Locations 2091-2093).

Humans are inherently free and inherently responsible. They are free to choose, and they are responsible to "actualize the potential meaning" in their lives. Mental health is not a tensionless state of comfort but rather a state of tension in which the person is "struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task" (Kindle Locations 2105-2107).

Foolish freedom is the obsessive pursuit of independence. In trying ing to prevent or to flee a state of bondage, we often go too far and seek to avoid all structure and responsibility. We prize being "independent" at all costs. We think that freedom means "letting it all hang out," expressing ourselves without restraint. This is actually hubris, or vain pride. In such a state, our focus is entirely on ourselves; other people are mere obstacles to our "freedom." But instead of liberating and energizing us, foolish freedom tends to result in a depletion of energy and resources. It robs us of the sense of meaning we crave (Kindle Locations 2119-2122).

One of the highest forms of responsibility is the responsibility to be free. One of the highest forms of freedom is the freedom to be responsible (Kindle Locations 2182-2183).

We can’t unless we change…unless we experience profound change, transformational change…deep change. By any name, we need to care more about what is right, what is effective, what is moral, and what can’t be denied any longer than we do about our personal well-being. We need to step out of the transactional reality we seemed trapped in to find something worth “dying for”-and worth living for! (Kindle Locations 2658-2661).