Background: Jim Gordon, who writes BossHatch, is a twenty-something who actually enjoys talking on the phone (I love talking on the phone:) and I really enjoy our conversations. I also love Jim since he recently took pity on me and kindly designed a new logo for Leadership Turn (launching soon—I hope).

Jim and I were having one of our ‘call me about X’ conversations that end up covering at least a dozen other topics. (Hey, we’re both interesting people.) In passing Jim said that he procrastinated and I said that in comparison to me he was a rank amateur.

We argued it a bit and I said I was going to write it about it, yet with no deadline I thought I’d do it next week. But Mr. Non-procrastinator did his today, so here I am doing mine for tomorrow, so we can link and do good things for our traffic.

First, I agree with Jim about the difference between procrastination and irresponsibility—my solution is to avoid as many commitments and deadlines as possible—a talent I’ve honed for years and at which I’m very good.

The most hilarious part of Jim’s post was when he said, “When talking to Miki, she mentioned her technique of writing everything a day (or even a week) in advance. As incredibly organized and efficient that method seems – writing articles at the last second just seems like the right thing to do – it feels natural.”

It was so funny I sent it to my sister and got back a note that said, “Miki and organized is an oxymoron.” (My big sister is the organized one.)

It was a misunderstanding. It’s Kelly and Bob who’ve been talking about how doing extra posts ahead makes it easier to meet b5’s contractual requirements their when they get busy. I’ve never been organized enough to write that far ahead.

I only recently managed to start writing tomorrow’s post today—mainly because I found that having it go live at 6 AM EST instead of 3 PM (I’m on the west coast) increased my paycheck, which motivates me.

I lived for 23 years in San Francisco, then three in San Mateo and I’ve been here nearly four years and still have some stuff that that’s never been unpacked or used. I like it too much to get rid of it and one of these days…

So, who wins the procrastination crown, Jim or I?

Your comments—priceless

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I was fooling around with Google last night, reading about equine-guided leadership (leadership a la the Horse Whisperer) and plugged in “different kinds of leadership training” to see what would turn up. That search term yielded 5,600,000 results, whereas “how to write a resume” yielded only 1,200,000. Somehow, I expected the opposite results.

With so many flavors of leadership training and so many delivery methods you would think that our corporations, country and world would be awash in leaders.

Nope. One needs only to look around to see that’s an erroneous assumption.

I see many ‘leaders in the instance’ among ordinary people, but it seems as if there are fewer and fewer as the scope enlarges and the need becomes more urgent.

To paraphrase an old song, Where have all the leaders gone, long time passing…?

Your comments—priceless

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I’ve always believed that boxes get a bad rap and that understanding them is the key to enhancing your creativity.During a conversation on changing the culture in his company, a CEO said, “It’s hard to think about getting outside of the box, because sometimes I forget the box is there.” Don’t we all.

But that’s OK. Actually, I think we all have a box. The creativity difference is in the size of our box. Steve Jobs’ and Steven Spielberg’s boxes are immense, far larger than most, yet they both continue to enlarge them.

And therein lies one of the secrets of a creative organization.

It’s not just encouraging your people to “think outside the box,” it’s helping them understand their box and how to enlarge it.

That’s how it works. As soon as you get outside your own box, a new one forms. Once you totally use up its content and find its sides you go outside that box, a new one forms and the process begins again.

If you work at it, this process continues throughout your life—although some never start it and some get comfortable in a certain box and retain it.

It’s a matter of choice, your choice, within your control to make it happen.

There will always be a box, but with effort you can enlarge it enough to encompass galaxies—and even entire universes.

It’s all yours for the choosing.

What have you done to enlarge your box?

Your comments—priceless

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After I wrote my post yesterday I got to thinking that there’s a major disconnect going on. Here’s why:

• As mentioned yesterday, the 2007 National Business Ethics Survey® found that “Over the past year, more than half (56 percent) of employees surveyed had personally observed violations of company ethics standards, policy, or the law. Many saw multiple violations. More than two of five employees (42 percent) who witnessed misconduct did not report it through any company channels…;”
• An ABC poll in July of this year found that “Eighty-three percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Most of the rest, 13 percent, have no religion. That leaves just 4 percent as adherents of all non-Christian religions combined Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and a smattering of individual mentions.” and
• A trio of Gallup surveys shows that “more than three-quarters of Americans believe the Bible is literally the word of God or inspired by the word of God.” (Note: I’m not happy about the source on this one.)

That means that the same people who identify themselves as Christians/religious and the ones who take the Bible literally are the same people who are either violating the ethical standards or not reporting the violators.

You can see my quandary, unless you believe, as I can’t, that all the shenanigans and lack of reporting are being done exclusively by the 13 percent who claim no religion.

Quandaries give me headaches, so all suggestions, ideas, comments, etc. will be greatly appreciated.

We choose whom to hire/follow/marry/date/befriend—or not.

Some of those choices work out and some don’t, but it’s when we choose someone who’s flawed, who just isn’t nice, that often bothers us the most. How could we have missed it—it always seems so obvious after the fact—and we end up wondering why our social judgment is so faulty.

It doesn’t help that new research is showing that you don’t need to be Santa to tell the difference between naughty and nice, even infants can spot it.

Babies as young as 6 to 10 months old showed crucial social judging skills before they could talk, according to a study by researchers at Yale University’s Infant Cognition Center published in Thursday’s journal Nature…the Yale team has other preliminary research that shows similar responses even in 3-month-olds.

Ouch.

So what happens between 6 months and the future? Why do we hire/follow/marry/date/befriend the oh-so-obviously wrong people? Why do we make so many poor choices?

What do you think?

In general, followers fall into two categories—thinking and unthinking.All of us have issue-specific litmus tests and look for a general comfort level with other followers.

Thinking followers usually have a broader definition of comfort, critically evaluate individual ideas and attitudes, as opposed to blind across-the-board acceptance, and are more willing to consider compromises. They often challenge their leader offering additional considerations, thoughts, suggestions, as well as open disagreement.

Unthinking followers are more emotional, rarely disagree or argue and may opt out of all thought and consideration following blindly and allowing the leader think for them. At their worst, unthinking followers are fodder for cults.

Most of us would classify ourselves as thinking followers, but are we? I know that politically I have one litmus test that is absolute and a couple of others that have high priority without being locked into specifics. Beyond that, I’ve always considered myself pretty open.

However, as extremists have polarized various issues I find myself becoming more adamant in my own feelings and less open to listening to those who believe that their views represent truth with a capital T—but I still want to live in a country where they have the right to say it.

A lot.

My focus isn’t meant to be just race or gender issues, but on the attitude that I’m/we’re-Right-so-you-should-do/think-our-way-or-else. It’s not the ‘we’re right/you’re wrong’ that bothers me, but the ‘do-it-our-way-or-else’ that shows the intolerance for what it really is.

During my adult life (I missed being a Boomer by a hair) I’ve watched as hate and intolerance spread across the country masked by religion, a façade of political correctness or a mea culpa that is supposed to make everything OK, but doesn’t.

Various business, political, religious and community leaders give passionate, fiery talks to their followers and then express surprise and dismay when some of those same followers steal trade secrets, plant bombs, and kill individuals—whose only error was following their own beliefs.

No longer are we all entitled to the pursuit of happiness if our happiness offends someone next door or living at the other end of the country.

I remember Ann Rand saying in an interview that she believed that she had the right to be totally selfish, where upon the interviewer said that would give her freedom to kill. Rand said absolutely not, in fact the reverse was true, since her selfishness couldn’t take away anyone else’s right to be selfish. That about sums up my attitude

I just wish there were fewer followers for all the Ellsworth Toohey types in today’s world.

What responsibility does leadership—business, political, religious, community—bear in fostering hate and intolerance?

I’ve asked and been asked this question many times in recent years, since intolerance seems to be on the upswing and thought I’d throw it open to a wider and more diverse audience then normally present.

In fairness to the conversation I’ll start by laying out some of my own MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™ since it will color what I say—it’s almost impossible to write totally objectively. My hope is that this will become a far ranging discussion.

Please remember that this is my MAP I’m describing and not an effort to convince you of anything.

• I detest fanatics. They have a one-dimension view of the world and tend to think that any words or actions are acceptable because they are Right, with a capital R. Some are obvious terrorists—Al Queada, Army of God, Earth Liberation Front, Black Liberation Army—while others “merely” churn out, in often polished prose and from well respected platforms, their messages of hate and intolerance.
• I wholeheartedly support S.G. Tallentyre’s comment, “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I’ll fight to the death for your right to say it,” even when I’m violently opposed to the thoughts expressed.
• I do not support having those thoughts crammed down my throat or being forced to be like “them,” instead of like me.
• I doubt that my ideal is your ideal, so who chooses? What I consider close-minded or bigoted is very likely another person’s passionate belief—to me there is no “Right.”
• have enormous respect for faith, less for organized religion and none for rampant ideology.
• I believe that there is one race, human, on Earth that comes in many flavors. Preferring one flavor to another is fine, but trying to abolish any flavor is not.
• I think that ethics and morality are situational and subject to the interpretation of the historical time, society, and the various ideologies in ascendance.

If you have a response that you feel is too long for a comment please email it to me (miki@RampUpSolutions.com); I’m open to using it as a post just as I expect to draw post ideas from your comments. The only rule is that there are no personal attacks and the language stays fairly polite.

I’ll post some of my thoughts on the question tomorrow.

Yesterday I commented that politically correct (pc) seems be shorthand for hypocrisy. Three high profile pop culture stars recently provided examples by being undeniably incorrect—Mel Gibson’s tirade on Jews, which he claimed were “blurted out in a moment of insanity”, Isaiah Washington’s gay name calling for which he went into rehab (for homophobia?) in an effort to save his job (he didn’t) and Don Imus‘ comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team for which he apologized, calling it a stupid thing to say (he still got fired, but don’t feel too badly, he’s been hired again).

What if Gibson, Washington and Imus had stayed politically correct—mouths shut and attitudes private—would that have been better?

When people do give voice to stuff like this, usually when emotions are running high for one reason or another, is it just a “slip” as they claim, or more a case of what they truly think? Is our world a better place when people only think these things, but don’t say them out loud?

Do all the apologies, self-depreciating groveling on various talk shows and counseling really act as change agents for what someone thinks?

I passionately believe that people can change their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™, but I also believe that changing deep-seated attitudes, especially those stemming from prejudices and intolerance are not only the most difficult, but also less likely when the impetus for change is unplanned public exposure.

Today’s post kicks off a discussion about leadership, hate and the loss of tolerance.

A couple of months ago I wrote Are you an unconscious bigot? One of the comments pointed out that what’s funny from one person isn’t funny from another and that’s true, one should always consider the source of the comment before evaluating the comment itself.

However, The more jokes I see the more I wonder. Consider the following that was forwarded by a friend who is in no way a bigot (I’ve known him over 30 years).

Bubba went to a psychiatrist.
‘I’ve got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there’s somebody under it. I’m scared. I think I’m going crazy.’
‘Just put yourself in my hands for one year,’ said the shrink. ‘Come talk to me three times a week, and we should be able to get rid of those fears.’
‘How much do you charge?
‘Eighty dollars per visit, replied the doctor.’
‘I’ll sleep on it,’ said Bubba.
Six months later the doctor met Bubba on the street. ‘Why didn’t you ever come to see me about those fears you were having?’ asked the psychiatrist.
‘Well Eighty bucks a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot of money! A bartender cured me for $10. I was so happy to have saved all that money that I went and bought me a new pickup!’
‘Is that so! And how, may I ask, did a bartender cure you?’
‘He told me to cut the legs off the bed! – Ain’t nobody under there now !!!’

OK, it’s not a great joke, but it is a great example.

Please understand, I have no interest in being politically correct—pc seems to me to be shorthand for hypocrisy (more on that in the next post)—but you tell me, is the humor really enhanced because of the “dumb Southern redneck” reference and image?