To Love Another Person is to See the Face of God

"To love another person is to see the face of God." - Jean Valjean, Act II, Les Miserables

Hi my friend,

Remember back in high school, when secret admirers would leave little notes, shoved into your locker?

This note is kinda like that. Except, I don’t want to invite you to the homecoming dance.

I just want to say how much you — your sharing and putting it out there — have already changed my life.

You've shown me that it’s totally possible to connect and share ideas, thoughts, insights, and personal experiences, even when it seems like no one would care or be interested.

And you've inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and put thoughts and experiences out there. I honestly don’t think I would've done it, if I hadn't discovered you first.

Imagine that on this Valentines Day I have left you something special on your virtual doorstep, or in your virtual locker — there would be chocolates, roses and champagne, waiting for you.

Even though I can only leave virtual tokens of my appreciation and caring for you, I can offer a very real and heartfelt thought -  let me simply say:

Thank you.

The Ludicrousness of Low Hanging Fruit

There is a mantra in a lot of businesses that focuses on, "tackling the low hanging fruit".  In the company conversations I have been privy to, the catch phrases that proliferate are ones like, "quick wins", "move the dial", "raise the bar" - you've heard it too if you've been there.  So here's the problem, there are some deep lying flaws to this approach that cause companies and good people who truly want to move the organization in good directions to endlessly chase their tails.

The first and most debilitating flaw to this way of thinking is that most if not all of the low hanging fruit does not address the root of the problem.  Low hanging fruit, or symptomatic problems, arise from much deeper issues.  So the challenge for organizations is to not get caught up in the busy work of low hanging fruit and to step back and truly think deeply and communicate effectively to uncover the true challenges that lie at the root of these symptomatic issues.

The second, and most personally debilitating flaw, for individuals involved in chasing low hanging fruit, is that these individuals get a false sense of success and accomplishments that feeds a career path based on wrong thinking.  Companies that have leadership teams who think that low hanging fruit is the be all and end all, become companies who continually feel the need to tighten their control over their people because they have failed to let go of their limited thinking and to look for the root causes of their challenges.  Fault finding and blaming is the child of flawed thinking.

Collective Knowledge is Powerful - So What's the Collective?

I recently read a great quote from Seth Godin, "For me doing is the core of it.  If you've done something with what you've learned, then maybe you know it."

When do you ever actually know it all about anything?  Really?  There is a fine line between having extensive knowledge about something, and being a "know it all".  Sadly, our models of leadership and management push good people to go to bad places because they feel that their job description dictates that they "know it all".

Knowing it all is a BAD place.  People who know it all take a defensive stand of their knowledge and expertise, and their capacity to learn takes a back seat to their capacity to WIN.  A defensive posture is counterproductive to being open to new ideas, ways of doing things, ways of thinking, or even revolutionary breakthroughs.

We each have belief and knowledge systems that we navigate life with.  These differ from one person to the next.  The problem comes when we start to believe that unless what we're considering falls in the acceptable range of our life's navigation system it is wrong, bad, negative, harmful, destructive...  Being open minded requires us to regularly stretch our horizons of understanding and knowledge and to test the waters of the new, different, innovative, and sometimes counterculture.  Outliers are NOT our enemies but windows into different ways of thinking.

Here is a great Ted video featuring Shawn Achor that speaks to the effects of not being more open to the outliers:  http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html