Wisdom from a good friend

The Wealth of the Poor

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Failure as necessity

2013 Community Prayer Breakfast

Twitter wisdom from Mayor Cory Booker

Newark, NJ mayor, Cory Booker will headline CitySquare's annual community breakfast on Thursday, April 18, 2013.  More details will follow. 

For now, consider the string of wisdom that the good mayor posted to Twitter recently.  Each entry reveals something grand about the heart of this special leader:

When they heap scorn upon you, love them for helping you discover your resiliency.

When they doubt you, love them for giving your dreams greater courage.

When they point out your faults, love them for their accuracy.

When they wound you, love them for showing you your capacity to forgive.

When they try to stop you, love them for making your resolve even stronger.

When they cast you into darkness, love them for helping you discover your inextinguishable light.

And when your love has conquered the impossible challenge, invite them to stand with you so they too can see love’s power and possibility.

Resolutions or Outcomes?

So, what do you do with "resolutions" this time of the year? 

Last year, I went to "a list of personal objectives" for what I hoped to accomplish at work.  I won't trouble you with the list, but I can report that I made great progress or completed 6 of my 8 goals, and the remaining two or three will be wrapped up during 2013. 

I really like the idea of tossing "resolutions" in favor of concrete goals/objectives that 12 months from now can be objectively assessed as to success, failure or something in between. 

Here's a partial listing of my 2013 objectives conceived in an outcomes format that I can evaluate as to success or failure this time next year:

1)  Open our new Opportunity Center at Malcolm X and I-30.

2)  Complete a successful capital campaign for the center, including at least one anchor or "naming" gift of between $3 and $5 million.

3)  Fund and construct the Cottages at Hickory Crossing project just across the street from the new Opportunity Center to provide permanent, highly supportive housing for 50 of the most expensive, hardest to house homeless neighbors in Dallas County. 

4)  Organize a new effort to see 2,000 homeless persons secure permanent supportive housing as a result of new public/private partnerships and a more focused effort to get people housed first. 

5)  Become more involved in CitySquare's public policy efforts under the guidance of Rev. Gerald Britt.

6)  Aggressively support and assist in the development and funding of more robust employment training and placement opportunities for neighbors seeking living wage jobs.

7)  Communicate more clearly and completely my vision for 2013 to my Board of Directors and to the CitySquare team. 

I have a couple of other goals, but I'll keep them "close to the vest" for now. 

My objectives list for 2013 will be posted by my computer in my office so that I will focus on it daily. 

And, as I say, they are designed to render a verdict on my work 12 months from now.  The outcomes will be measurable. 

I'll be able to give myself a grade!

Courage

To Live Courageously

Courage is exhibited when someone strikes out into unfamiliar territory where few if any have yet gone, and helps pioneer a new way of working and serving. [They] blaze new trails despite what everyone else around them is doing, and whether or not others join, they do what they see is right, at whatever sacrifice. When someone lives originally and courageously, it inspires others to examine their own lives and actions and find within themselves the courage to follow their own original paths.

Dave Smith

To Be of Use

The power of action and nerve. . .

Often, simply seeing, noticing and then organizing for action changes the world, or at least your own part of it!

Colin Powell on Leadership

Leadership Lesson #17

"Have fun in your command.  Don't always run at a breakneck pace.  Take leave when you've earned it:  Spend time with your families.  Corollary: surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard."

Herb Kelleher of Southwest Air and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop would agree:  seek people who have some balance in their lives, who are fun to hang out with, who like to laugh (at themselves, too) and who have some non-job priorities which they approach with the same passion that they do their work.  Spare me the grim workaholic or the pompous pretentious "professional;" Ill them find jobs with my competitor. 

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #16  The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

Too often, the reverse defines corporate culture.  This is one of the main reasons why leaders like Ken Iverson of Nucor Steel, Percy Barnevik of Asea Brown Boveri, and Richard Branson of Virgin have kept their corporate staffs to a bare-bones minimum-how about fewer than 100 central corporate staffers for global $30 billion-plus ABB? Or around 25 and 3 for multi-billion Nucor and Virgin, respectively?  Shift the power and the financial accountability to the folks who are bringing in the beans, not the ones who are counting or analyzing them.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson # 15:  Part I:  Use the P=40 to 70 in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired.    Part II:  Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.

Don't take action if you have only enough information to give you less than a 40 percent chance of being right, but don't wait until you have enough facts to be 100 percent sure, because by then it is almost always too late.  Today, excessive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds "analysis paralysis."  Procrastination in the name of reducing risk actually increases risk.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #14:  Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Effective leaders understand the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid. They articulate vivid, over-arching goals and values, which they use to drive daily behaviors and choices among competing alternatives.  Their visions and priorities are lean and compelling, not cluttered and buzzword-laden.  Their decisions are crisp and clear, not tentative and ambiguous. They convey an unwavering firmness and consistency in their actions, aligned with the picture of the future they paint.  The result:  clarity of purpose, credibility of leadership and integrity in organization.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #13 "Powell's Rules for Picking People":  Look for intelligence and judgment, and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners.  Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego, and the drive to get things done.

How often do our recruitment and hiring processes tap into these attributes?  More often than not, we ignore them in favor of length of resume, degrees and prior titles.  A string of job descriptions a recruit held yesterday seem to be more important than who one is today, what they can contribute tomorrow, or how well their values mesh with those of the organization.  You can train a bright, willing novice in the fundamentals of your business fairly readily, but it's a lot harder to train someone to have integrity, judgment, energy, balance, and the drive to get things done.  Good leaders stack the deck in their favor right in the recruitment phase. 

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #12  Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

The ripple effect of a leader's enthusiasm and optimism is awesome.  So is the impact of cynicism and pessimism.  Leaders who whine and blame engender those same behaviors among their colleagues.  I am not talking about stoically accepting organizational stupidity and performance incompetence with a "what, me worry?" smile.  I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says "we can change things here, we can achieve awesome goals, we can be the best."  Spare me the grim litany of "realist," give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day. 

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #11 Fit no stereotypes.  Don't chase the latest management fads.  The situation dictates which approach best accomplishes the team's mission.

Flitting from fad to fad creates team confusion, reduces the leader's credibility, and drains organizational coffers.  Blindly following a particular fad generates rigidity in thought and action.  Sometimes speed to market is more important than total quality.  Sometimes an unapologetic directive is more appropriate than participatory discussion.  Some situations require the leader to hover closely; others require long, loose leashes.  Leaders honor their core values, but they are flexible in how they execute them.  They understand that management techniques are not magic mantras but simply tools to be reached for at the right times.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #10  Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing.

Organization charts are frozen, anachronistic photos in a work place that ought to be as dynamic as the external environment around you.  If people really followed organization charts, companies would collapse.  In well-run organizations, titles are also pretty meaningless.  At best, they advertise some authority, an official status conferring the ability to give orders and induce obedience.  But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the capacity to influence and inspire.  Have you ever noticed that people will personally commit to certain individuals who on paper (or on the organization chart) possess little authority, but instead possess pizazz, drive, expertise, and genuine caring for teammates and products?  On the flip side, non-leaders in management may be formally anointed with all the perks and frills associated with high positions, but they have little influence on others, apart from their ability to extract minimal compliance to minimal standards.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #9  Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

Too often, change is stifled by people who cling to familiar turfs and job descriptions.  One reason that even large organizations wither is that managers won't challenge old, comfortable ways of doing things.  But real leaders understand that, nowadays, every one of our jobs is becoming obsolete. The proper response is to obsolete our activities before someone else does.  Effective leaders create a climate where people's worth is determined by their willingness to learn new skills and grab new responsibilities, thus perpetually reinventing their jobs.  The most important question in performance evaluation becomes not, "How well did you perform you job since the last time we met?" but, "How much did you change it?"

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #8  Organization doesn't really accomplish anything.  Plans don't accomplish anything, either.  Theories of management don't much matter.  Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved.  Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds.

In a brain-based economy, your best assets are people.  We've heard this expression so often that it's become trite.  But how many leaders really "walk the talk" with this stuff?  Too often, people are assumed to be empty chess pieces to be moved round by grand viziers, which may explain why so many top managers immerse their calendar time in deal making, restructuring and the latest management fad.  How many immerse themselves in the goal of creating an environment where the best, the brightest, the most creative are attracted, retained and, most importantly, unleashed?

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #7:  Keep looking below surface appearances.  Don't shrink from doing so (just) because you might not like what you find.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared.  It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms.  It's a mind-set that assumes (or hopes) that today's realities will continue tomorrow in a tidy, linear and predictable fashion.  Pure fantasy.  In this sort of culture, you won't find people who pro-actively take steps to solve problems as they emerge.  Here's a little tip:  don't invest in these companies.

Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #6:  "You don't know what you can get away with until you try."

You know the expression, "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission."  Well, it's true.  Good leaders don't wait for official blessing to try things out.  They're prudent, not reckless.  But they also realize a fact of life in most organizations:  if you ask enough people for permission, you'll inevitably come up against someone who believes his job is to say "no."  So the moral is, don't ask.  Less effective middle managers endorsed the sentiment, "If I haven't explicitly been told 'yes,' I can't do it," whereas the good ones believed, "If I haven't explicitly been told 'no,' I can."  There's a world of difference between these two points of view.