Most people are familiar with the Golden Rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you—but there should be a corollary—do unto to yourself as you do unto others.

It’s called self-compassion, as opposed to self-indulgent.

People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures… People who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety, and tend to be happier and more optimistic.

Compassion: a feeling of deep sympathy

Indulgent: benignly lenient or permissive

It seems that some people don’t apply compassion to themselves in fear of it morphing into indulgence.

Does this describe you or someone you know?

If yes, what can you do?

My own observations tell me that self-indulgent people rarely show compassion, so the fear doesn’t make much sense.

I found the article especially interesting, because I’m often guilty of beating myself up and I could use more self-compassion. I do fine on the big things, but the small stuff not so much.

I believe that self-compassion is part of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), so what I needed to do was change mine and being me I wanted a simple and as easy as possible way to do it—and I think found it.

How? By thinking of myself in third person—not ‘me’, but ‘she’.

I had a great chance to try the approach out yesterday.

I was moving something, knocked over a favorite plant and more than half broke off.

My immediate reaction was to tear into myself, but I stopped and instead thought what I would say to a guest who did the same thing—which would have been along the lines of “not a big deal; don’t worry about it; it will grow back.”

So that is what I said to me.

And you know what?

It worked.

Now I just need to do it every time and make it a habit.

Why not give it a try? You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetonveg/5179031393/

An article Monday asked, “Are we raising a generation of nincompoops?“

(Scary reading for managers for years to come if the parental attitudes that produced the examples continue.)

It was a comment at the end by Mark Bauerlein, author of the best-selling book The Dumbest Generation and a professor at Emory University, that prompted this post.

“A healthy society is healthy only if it has some degree of tension between older and younger generations. It’s up to us old folks to remind teenagers: ‘The world didn’t begin on your 13th birthday!’ And it’s good for kids to resent that and to argue back. We want to criticize and provoke them. It’s not healthy for the older generation to say, ‘Kids are kids, they’ll grow up.’

“They won’t grow up unless you do your job by knocking down their hubris.”

‘Hubris’ is defined as “excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.”

Reading the article made me think about the level of hubris in today’s world, which seems far more widespread than at other times in history—from the financial executives who toppled the global economy to workers who insist on doing it their way to all those who believe ‘my way or the highway’ is a good life/world-view.

What is missing are the healthy counter voices that knock down the hubris.

That knock down isn’t accomplished through

• rhetoric;
• replacing one version of hubris with another;
• agreeing because it’s less effort or to avoid making waves; or
• turning a blind eye when the pig says, “All animals are created equal only some are more equal than others.”

Hubris is knocked down with active voices, common sense and personal consequences for violating an ideology-free common good.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/relevanceinadnauseum/4385225951/

I received the following email yesterday (edited for length and anonymity).

Miki,

With 20+ years of experience managing I thought I had seen it all, but I have a situation that I am at a loss on how to handle.

Short version, 6 months ago I hired an entry level engineer, with just a year of experience, but lots of potential I thought. Potential he is not living up to. I do not see the energy, initiative and go-get-’em attitude he projected in the interview. His peers complain that he is not pulling his weight and he acts as if showing up and performing at minimal level is enough. He has received positive input when he does something well, but I have been candid regarding the problems, offered suggestions for improving, etc., and blunt talk that if both his work and his attitude didn’t change he couldn’t stay.

So when all this came up again in his 6 month review I was taken aback when he acted like it was the first time he had heard any of this. OK, I’ve run into denial before, nothing new there.

But what totally floored me and the main reason for writing is that the day after his review I received a phone call from his parents (they were both on the line) demanding to know who the hell I thought I was not to give their son a 6 month promotion.

I said I was in a meeting and would get back to them; any suggestions besides the obvious none of your damn business.

I called him and after a bit more discussion he agreed that it would be best to turn this mess over to the company HR department. Fortunately, they were already aware of the problem and he had plenty of documentation to back up both the performance problems and the ongoing conversations about them.

The parental call was the final nail and the young man will be terminated for cause.

We all read articles about helicopter parents, in fact, I just read one on how great a problem hovering is for colleges.

Some undergraduate officials see in parents’ separation anxieties evidence of the excesses of modern child-rearing. “A good deal of it has to do with the evolution of overinvolvement in our students’ lives,” said Mr. Dougharty of Grinnell. “These are the baby-on-board parents, highly invested in their students’ success. They do a lot of living vicariously, and this is one manifestation of that.”

What really angered me was the way the episode affected the manager. He found himself questioning his own skills, as if he could have done anything that would offset 23 years (and counting) of parental protection.

What chance do any of these coddled kids have at maturing into leaders, not only positional ones, but de facto leaders? Will their parents help articulate a vision and then chastise those who don’t follow?

What do you think?

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wilsonb/2897692632/

Several years ago I read an article discussing what Gen Y wanted in their workplace. I found it somewhat amusing since the “unique” traits they wanted from work and management weren’t very original; I found the same thing earlier this year and they are the same traits I’ve heard from candidates for better than 30 years—long before Gen Y was thought of, let alone born.

But when I read a Talentbrew post about Gen Y’s attitude towards the recession I was floored—for at least 3 minutes.

While the capable of us have taken on the roles of Gen Xers and Boomers, we’ve likely done it without a raise, or at best, a minimal one.  Put simply, this infuriates us.  Gen Y was given constant positive reinforcement. We had piggy banks full of allowance earned just for making our bed or cleaning our own room.  The worst player on the team was awarded a “Most Improved” trophy.  When the economy changes for the better, we expect to be compensated, handsomely, for our efforts. Or we’ll leave.

How’s that for a sense of entitlement?

I know comments such as this are like waving a red flag in front of a bull, so I sent the link to Jim Gordon.

Jim graduated last June and is in his first job; he draws the Sunday comic mY generation and I often bounce stuff off him to be sure I’m not wildly out in left field.

After thinking it over for a few days, here is Jim’s response.

Alright, after picking through that article, I find it easy to sympathize with the author.

It’s very difficult for me to have any semblance of trust in my employer when I, and everyone around me, is being contracted.

It’s not that turnover is high either, but instead I have this air of uncertainty every day when I walk into work – will today be my last?  Every month or two, I have a new neighbor, though my position has a bit more staying power.

I find it very hard to say I “deserve” something, though.

I feel the author of the article insinuates that he/she deserves much better.  While I agree that often the scale from which our pay is currently derived is, well, off to say the least, I don’t think somehow the definition of “fair play” reflects the same way on society today.

I don’t mean to sound like an underachiever, but really the way one views the economic crisis depends upon how that person was raised.

I don’t agonize over short-term losses (4-5 years), but instead plan for the long-term (10-15).  Build thick skin, know what it’s like to lose, accept denial, appreciate acceptance, and move on in a self-centered direction.
Vanity is one attribute I will defend, which is seen as a flaw of Gen Y.  Assuming we learn from our mistakes, we know what it is like for a market to polarize.  Why?  That’s ALL some of us know.

We were living the life in the 1990’s, but “not much compares to a recession like this.”  That last bit was quoted from, well, everyone.  People who have experienced deep recessions say this, people who haven’t—everyone goes back to the point that this is really one of the worst recessions on record.

You know what, though?  I’m going to survive it and use it as a tool to build a road to where I want to be.  I’m not going to expect 5-star treatment afterward.

I may find another job, but that’s because, like many who have done so before, I want to find something that adds more value to me and my life.

That means I wasn’t taught that the world is an oyster—I was taught that life is tough, and (to quote The Rolling Stones) you can’t always get what you want…

Read the final paragraph in the Talentbrew post to learn what it will take to hire Gen Y in the future.

The only cosmic justice I see here comes from knowing that it is Gen Y’s parents who will be hiring and managing the attitude they raised.

Image credit: KM Photography.. on flickr

Last week I wrote that it seemed that change was in the wind for education and parental attitudes that have produced millions of poorly educated and entitled young people.

But it looks as if parents are still in the forefront of teaching their kids that there is no accountability and no consequences for actions such as cheating.

At Ohio’s Centerburg High, in the heartland of our country where, we are constantly told, ethics are at their highest, “so many of the senior class either cheated on final exams or knew about the cheating but failed to report it that district officials cancelled graduation.”

“Centerburg High, with about 400 students, is one of the state’s top schools, with an “excellent” academic rating last year, according to the state Department of Education. “Last year, the school had a 99% graduation rate, compared to a statewide rate of 87%.”

The cheating was the result of a senior hacking into a teacher’s computer, stealing the tests and distributing them to the entire class.

“Superintendent Dorothy Holden said the district had to take a stand and let students know that cheating can’t be tolerated… “We’re not going to put that type of honor out there knowing that many of you are walking through there and you cheated, you lied, you denied.”

According to Holden, “Some students admit they cheated; others said they knew of the cheating but didn’t participate; and others said they had the tests but didn’t use them. One student who used the test still failed.”

Three cheers for Dorothy Holden.

Of course, things didn’t end there.

“Some parents angry about the cancellation are organizing an unofficial graduation ceremony.”

Three thousand boos for those parents whose time would be better spent teaching their little darlings that lying and cheating aren’t nice.

Politicians and the media are rabid about the problems with school administrators and teachers and the public wrings its collective hands at the dismal state of US education.

But rarely do I read stories condemning the actions of parents for their active role in producing kids who can’t spell accountability and see nothing wrong with lying and cheating.

And before you say I’m being too hard on them remember that the parents are your colleagues and these are the kids you’ll be hiring—your workers, doctors, lawyers—and who, eventually, will lead our country, industry and social organizations.

Do you really think they’ll do things differently then?

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I’ve written a lot about the problems and difficulties with Gen Y, but I want to make something clear.

Gen Y didn’t raise themselves to feel entitled, require constant praise or expect success for trying their hardest.

Jan left a comment a few weeks ago and I think she speaks for a large number of her generation, “There is a great amount of pressure to earn good grades and gain a GREAT career, as if somehow that is the only way to gain success in our lives. … The present often does not matter, including learning the subject. Students live under this constant pressure to make good grades, with that fear of failure programmed into the back of our minds.” (Please take a moment to read her entire comment.)

Decades ago after my sister had her first child she said, “I know that I’ll do things that mess up my kids, but they damn well won’t be the same things that messed us up,” and they weren’t.

This is normal life, with the previous generation screwing up their kids in some way and the kids eventually sorting it out—or not—and then moving on to the next generation, but it’s changed now.

Greg Jayne is the Sports Editor for my local paper and he summed it up nicely in a column about the people’s attitude towards performance enhancing drugs.

“Last year, Major League Baseball drew 78.6 million spectators to the ballpark… The sport generated about $6 billion in revenue, nearly twice what it generated in 2000 and roughly $20 for every man, woman and child in the United States. … The baseball-watching public simply doesn’t care that much about players who cheat the game. … We live in an era in which style trumps substance, and the superficial is held in such high regard that we all are diminished. Is there any reason to think that baseball should be different? Is there any reason to express moral outrage when somebody is trying to improve his performance and help his team win? That is, after all, the ethos of the time.”

Yet there are still supposed to be areas that are sacrosanct, people we assume will work for the good of our kids; people to whom we don’t give a second thought—until their actions blow up in our faces.

Priests/ministers/rabbis. Teachers. Family. Judges.

It’s terrible when people are driven by their own inner demons, but somehow it’s even worse when they ruin kids’ lives out of plain old fashioned greed.

“…two judges pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks. … Virtually all former colleagues and courthouse workers would not allow themselves to be identified because the federal investigation into the kickback scheme was continuing and they feared for their jobs if they alienated former allies of the judges.”

Obviously, it’s not just individuals, but the laissez faire attitude prevalent in a large percentage of all generations that’s driving the problems to levels not seen previously.

Enough is enough. We need change—but where to start?

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Image credit: drinksmachine on flickr

A few of weeks ago I wrote about how kids believe they are entitled to good grades for trying as opposed to achieving.

That post was sparked by Andrew’s comment and he also sent me an article about grade inflation in colleges showing that the trend is progressing unabated.

An article today in the NYTimes describes a new approach to grades,

“In Pelham, the second-grade report card includes 39 separate skill scores — 10 each in math and language arts, 2 each in science and social studies, and a total of 15 in art, music, physical education, technology and “learning behaviors” — engagement, respect, responsibility, organization…standards-based report cards helped students chart their own courses for improvement; as part of the process, they each develop individual goals, which are discussed with teachers and parents, and assemble portfolios of work.”

“I was never the A student, and it would constantly frustrate me,” Dr. Dennis Lauro, Pelham’s superintendent said. “Nobody ever bothered to tell me how to get that A, to get to that next level.”

I think that the approach is good since it focuses back on learning and not just on testing and it’s being adopted in various districts across the country.

The down side is that most districts don’t have the money or parental ability, not just involvement, of an upscale Westchester, NY suburb.

Currently grading in most schools, K-12 through college, is on a curve where the best gets an A. But as Dr. Thomas R. Guskey, a professor at Georgetown College in Kentucky, says “The dilemma with that system is you really don’t know whether anybody has learned anything. They could all have done miserably, just some less miserably than others.”

I agree. When people do average work they shouldn’t get an A because everyone else is below average or flunked.

If it can be made to work I think the idea of the kids working with parents and teachers to set goals to work towards and the sense of accomplishment that comes from achieving them is excellent; it’s motivating and prepares them for the real world of performance reviews—at least when they’re done correctly.

This could be a step forward, but it involves change.

“The executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, Gerald Tirozzi — who supports standards-based report cards — said that many educators and parents were far from ready to scrap letter grades, especially for older students, in part because they worry about the ripple effects on things like the honor roll and class rank.”

“I think the present grading system — A, B, C, D, F — is ingrained in us,” Mr. Tirozzi said. “It’s the language which college admissions officers understand; it’s the language which parents understand.”

And we certainly can’t expect adults to change or learn anything new just to improve kids’ education—can we?

This reminds me of something that happened decades ago. Women would taste baby food and if it didn’t taste good to them they wouldn’t buy it, so Gerber added salt in order to appeal to the adults. When the public finally woke up and screamed Gerber quickly changed the formulas.

Right now the public is whining, any suggestions on how to get them screaming?

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Are you as disgusted as I am? There is no shame and it’s unlikely to change.

If you can grab it do so and screw everyone else, they don’t matter. Only you matter.

AIG received 170 billion in taxpayer money and they plan to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday.

According to Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman, “We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury.”

The bonuses go to the “leaders” in the financial products division which is the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

AIG says that the bonuses are contractual.

In the brave new world of the Twenty-first Century ethics are defined by law and morality is old fashioned unless it’s about someone else.

As a wise man once said, “An ethical man knows he shouldn’t cheat on his wife. A moral man wouldn’t.”

If these executives are the “best and brightest” we’re in bigger trouble than I thought.

The contract doesn’t mean squat anyway since the recipients could turn the bonuses down just as a number of CEOs have recently.

Just think, if they did perhaps some of their colleagues wouldn’t be laid off.

And if you think this is an isolated incident of the “Thain mindset” take a look at the ad that Visa is running once again. I saw it once in Business Week last year and found it in terrible taste, but then it disappeared.

I thought the company had realized that their timing for a new status card was atrocious, but I guess I was wrong. This full-page ad appeared in the March 16, 2009 issue.

Perhaps the card is targeted at the recipients of that $165 million.

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Image credit: Visa

John Thain was lauded as a brilliant leader for years. but he fascinates me as an example of the MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that is so ingrained and prevalent in a large portion of executives, especially in the financial sector.

Thain became Merrill Lynch’s CEO December 1, 2007. One of his first acts in 2008 was to renovate his office to the tune of $1.2 million. The redecoration included “$87,000 for area rugs, $35,115 for a commode on legs, $25,000 for a pedestal table and $68,000 for a 19th-Century credenza.”

Fired one year later Thain said, “They were a mistake in the light of the world we live in today,” Thain said in a memo to top executives dated yesterday. “I will therefore reimburse the company for all of the costs incurred.”

Search as I might I can’t think of any past world or circumstances that would make those purchases using corporate money acceptable. Ignored, but not acceptable.

Another example of Wall Street MAP comes from the wife of a securities executive who explained how an after dinner game called “credit card lottery” worked, “Each man would take a credit card out of his wallet and toss it onto the table. Then someone — usually their server — would be asked to pick a card and bellow the owner’s name so everyone in the restaurant could hear. The “winner” would pay the bill, which often tallied $1,000 or more.”

There are many more examples, but can’t you hear the echoes from the playground of “My dad can whoop your dad” and as they got older the locker room “Mine’s bigger than yours.”

The problem is they never stopped.

Lay and Skilling; Bernard Ebbers; Dennis Kowalski; Richard Fuld; Bernard Maydoff; to name only a few.

One or two could be put down to insecurity, but this is more like an epidemic of arrested development.

But it’s Thain’s words “in the light of the world we live in today” that are truly appalling.

They seem to mean that nothing has changed. The excess was OK before the meltdown and will be OK again when the economy is back on its feet.

This is just a minor setback—we are still entitled.

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I really dislike words that have no definition other than a different form of themselves.

Leader – a person or thing that leads.

Leadership – the position or function of a leader

Talk about something with no real meaning—except when looking at the man-hours spent teaching and writing about it or the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on acquiring it.

And I find the practice of identifying ‘leaders’ early in their careers particularly repugnant for two reasons.

1. The idea that you can identify future ‘leaders’ from their actions on the playground or in high school or during their initial working years is inaccurate at best and stupid at worst.

Those identified as kids are the ones who excel at getting noticed, love the spotlight, have a good story to tell and are typically attractive and mainstream. The nerds and misfits are rarely noticed as future ‘leaders’—think Steve Jobs.

Picking them out for special training during their first five years of work eliminates all those who work for bad bosses or for companies where entry level hires are grunts with no real responsibility.

Choosing them because they have an MBA is really ridiculous—all the degree proves is that they could afford grad school (either had the money or went into debt) and that they made it through. That’s it.

Further, the ‘early leader’ approach eliminates all those late bloomers giving them far less opportunities to excel.

The second reason is much worse.

2.Those ‘chosen’ start getting extra attention and mentoring from day one of being identified, so the traits that got them noticed get stronger. Stronger isn’t always better.

They are anointed, singled out for greatness, they are special.

Being special sets you apart; suddenly you’re better than the others and that means that there must be different rules for you because you’re special, better—and entitled. An attitude best summed up by Richard Nixon when he said, “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

And that sense of being anointed a ‘leader’ is partly responsible for the current debacle.

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