I've spent my past two days in continuous discussion -- literally. From the minute I got to the office on Thursday until about 15 minutes ago when I decided to check in on the IEL blog before leaving for the weekend, I have been either in meetings or, in between them, in conversations with colleagues about the subject matter of the meetings. And conversations about other ongoing and immediate issues which are not being addressed in meetings, important issues which too often never receive the attention they deserve. Why is this?

As often as I ponder this question, I always tend to arrive at the same answer. It always boils down to humans. Ever-intriguing, perfectly-flawed and multiply-foibled humans.

In between the professional dialogues, I go home. I lament that it's almost dark now by seven p.m. I sometimes feel guilty that my son and I rarely have dinner before nine p.m. I joke that I hope our neighbors in the quiet little bedroom community that is Tallmadge, Ohio, are at least amused by the regular sight of us grilling something for dinner in the dark out on the deck. We are like displaced Europeans, living in our own slice of GMT. At home, my dialogues are with my son. He's a talker, much more than I am. My son needs to get his thoughts out verbally, needs I think for the sound of the words to bounce around, off walls, off people and back at him. It's how he arrives at clarity.

Lately the talk has been about the Tallmadge school levy. This week, it's been about a meeting at which my son planned to give an informal presentation to a group of students who had chosen to meet to discuss what they might do to help the local school levy pass. My son really cares about this issue, because even though he has not had the greatest HS experience, he has friends who have, and he worries that future students won't be able to have as good an experience if the levy fails, causing "non-essential" classes and activities to be cut. A friend of his asked hime if he'd like to address the group, in part because last year he more or less single-handedly revived the school's Young Democrats club. So, he'd been thinking about what he planned to say, and felt that he had it together. Then he had a brief meeting with his principal on Wednesday morning, and received the clear impression that she wanted him to focus on a few specific points, which she then planned to reinforce. He found himself right in the middle of one of those situations where you are given the reigns to make decisions -- to lead -- and you do, and then you find out that what's really wanted of you is to follow.

When you feel that you are leading -- when your mind and spirit are in leader mode -- you tend to think big. So, when you're then asked to adapt what you were told was your plan to some new set of rules, they generally are way too narrow. Rules, by definition, are restrictions. Leaders don't believe in restriction. As Capt. James T. Kirk once said, "I don't believe in the no-win scenario."

So, he was wrestling with what to do. Give the comments he'd been thinking about, or not. Change the comments. Bail. He talked. I listened. He talked. I let his thoughts bounce off me, responding with first impressions, responding with my own speculations. Inside, I was mostly annoyed -- not with him, but with a school environment that, once again, seemed dead-set on taking a great opportunity to teach students something real about leadership and, instead, turn it into some boring task. Once again, thinking that, if I were ever a school administrator, the one question I would ask every teacher and principal I supervised would be: "If you were a student, would you be passionately interested in your class?"

In the end, my son gave the speech that he originally planned to give. He put himself out there -- he told the group that even though his HS experience wasn't great, he still feels that it's important that future students had the opportunity to have a great experience. He encouraged the students to check out some websites that provided information on both sides of the issue. He told them that it was important for them to be aware of not only why passing the levy was important, but why some people might have real reasons not to vote for it. He managed to maintain his composure as he talked, noticing his principal rolling her eyes at that suggestion.

I asked him how it went over. He said he was a little disappointed that only about 35 students showed up, but he felt that he connected with them. I asked him if they clapped. He said they did. And he said there was a long pause before the principal got up to give her presentation. Which made me smile. I'm always pleased when those who wish to suck the life out of an issue are blindsided by sincerity and honest passion.

One of my staff members falls back on a concept that her mother has nurtured in her since she was a child. The gist of it is that, regardless of the situation you're in, and the personalities of the people around you, "just let your light shine." Not all that different from the quote that Flo shared:

"And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Amen, I thought when I read that. Shortly afterward, I read Don's comment about reading chapter 4 (Fire in the Voice) of David Whyte's book, about how he liked the idea that leaders need to speak the truth, even when it's not what people want to hear, as I interpreted it. A phrase that Don used -- "we must wrestle with our internal integrity" -- immediately made me think of the book, Women Who Run With the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, 1992). I read it when it came out, and to this day keep a copy of it close at hand. Wolves is a wonderful, remarkable book that uses fairy tales to illustrate Jungian archetypes and their roles in the individuation process. From a chapter on creativity:

"Creativity is a shapechanger. One minute it takes this form, the next that. It is like a dazzling spirit who appears to us all, yet it is hard to describe for no one agrees on what they saw in that brilliant flash. Are the wielding of pigments and canvas, or paint chips and wallpaper, evidence of its existence? How about pen and paper, flower borders on the garden path, building a university? Yes, yes. Ironing a collar well, cooking up a revolution? Yes. Touching with love the leaves of a plant, pulling down "the big deal," tying off the loom, finding one's voice, loving someone well. Yes. Catching the hot body of the newborn, raising a child to adulthood, helping raise a nation from its knees? Yes. Tending to a marriage like the orchard it is, digging for psychic gold, finding the shapely word, sewing a blue curtain?...

"Some say the creative life is in ideas, some say it is in doing....It is the love of something, having so much love for something -- whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity -- that all that can be done with the overflow is to create."

I dig it. What do you think?

Amy's bullets provided me with one more "amen" moment:

• You need to know who you are - for real.
• You need to know what you stand for and what's important to you as a leader.
• You need to have courage to make change, to try something that is out of your comfort zone. It may be delivering a difficult message, it may be making mid-course adjustments in ways that might be painful.
• You're not going to get it perfectly right, but if you do nothing you're definitely doing it wrong.

In particular, the last one just resonates with me. How many times do we see new ideas, out of the corner of our eye, just enough to know they really look like opportunities, and instead of focusing on them, investigating their potential, we allow ourselves/staff/unit/organization to be distracted by the process of trying to decide whether or not to explore them? While all along nothing is happening; while the opportunities come and go, we aren't doing anything to address the very issues that we're devoting all of our time to figuring out how to address? How often does the approach to the work actually prevent the work from being done? Those are periods when our jobs get in the way of us doing our jobs. When change is needed, doing something -- sometimes anything -- can't be worse than doing nothing. If what you decide to do turns out to be the wrong thing, you can simply stop doing it -- and try something else. But how often do we take no action out of a fear of taking the wrong action?

The thing is, getting there takes time -- gathering information takes time, talking takes time, thinking takes time. Leaders need to accept this, and need to make the time to pursue new ways of doing things. They don't come to life on their own. In my career, I've rarely seen a brilliant concept introduced during a staff meeting. Why is this? Staff meetings are the times when teams are brought together, when the collective energies and minds of the team members are joined -- why do we seem to use these gatherings almost exclusively for updates? Does anyone regularly schedule meetings for the sole purpose of brainstorming?

...why not?...

So, it's Friday. It's dark again. Some questions have been asked, some have been answered and some will have to wait. My son gave his speech, putting a moment of personal truth behind him. And, at least for this week, the meetings are over.

ADM