Polishing gifts (complete)

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Polishing Gifts

from Leadership Jazz by Max De Pree. If this is helpful, you should buy his book. This is not strategically critical to society, economy, or polity, but he helps us focus on areas that may improve the quality of our lives.

Opportunities for developing one's leadership and managerial abilities abound. Most concern one's career and focus on corporate or institutional needs. Since the corporation or the institution is paying the bill, this probably make sense. It may not be enough, however, for you as an individual.

The organization assumes that you'll be sticking to a career track for life. Maybe that's true, but maybe it isn't. The organization seldom asks what your spouse thinks, or what your life plan might be, or whether the organization's direction really aligns with what you consider to be your gifts.

We and our families need to think seriously about long-term potential and opportunity.
We need to take into account not only the needs of our careers, but the "careers" of every member of our families.
We need to focus on those areas of extracurricular service that provide us health.
We need to be aware that many organizations too easily dispense with persons.
We need to be aware that the United States is a nation of volunteers; city councils and hospital boards and school boards need leaders just as badly as institutions.

Leaders polish all their facets equally.

Developing one's career alone won't be enough for leaders. Communities and organizations need different things from leaders, qualities that must be nurtured and grown simultaneously. Leaders think about polishing their personal gifts. And it has always seemed to me that crystals with many facets shine brightest.

Polishing gifts differs from career development. Though many people will be ready to help you reach your potential, you must act first.

Leaders see a twofold opportunity--to build a life and to build a career. And the fact is that people become leaders only by building both.

Polishing gifts is a family affair, not an individual event. You might even think of it as an amateur event . I hope that it will come naturally to you to see polishing gifts in the light of your contribution to the common good as opposed to accumulating for yourself experiences and goods. Leaders deal in substance and the quality of life, deaf to the calls to pursue quantity and appearances.

Leadership is a job, not a position. The people who work with you are not your people; you are theirs. Leadership is good work because leaders feel a strong need to express their potential and because they wish to serve the needs of others. This is the essence of becoming a "servant leader."

Good leaders know that moving up in the hierarchy does not magically confer upon them competence. They know that being elected president, for instance, gives them the opportunity to become president. Leaders also know that their real security lies in their personal capabilities, not in their power or position.

A leader's capabilities begin to be tested shortly after she arrives on the job. Spontaneity and reflection begin to fade away amid the din of schedules leaders don't make and commitments they don't seek out. Required reading begins to edge out elective reading. More and more energy goes into resisting pressure to move in undesired directions. Truly, serving as a leader is a trying vocation.

Polishing gifts begins by reflecting on how to design the ways in which you as a leader or future leader will work intelligently toward your potential. In talking about polishing gifts, I'm not talking about putting one's faith in self-improvement. Nor am I suggesting that on a higher level we can become whatever we choose to be. That would run counter to the convictions of my Christian faith. I do believe leaders can share some guidelines, can direct their thinking, and can heed some notes of caution in considering their roles as leaders of families, institutions, and communities. Still, with all the guidelines in the world, polishing gifts can be risky:

You may change.

Some years ago, my wife and three of our children and I were fortunate to spend a week's vacation in Morocco. One day we decided to do some shopping in the souk in Marrakech. Shopping in a north African souk is a lot like becoming a CEO -- you can't know ahead of time exactly what you're getting into.

As we approached the entrance, a young man with an official guide badge offered his services. A relatively seasoned traveler, I thanked him and said we really wanted to be on our own. After about an hour, we began to realize that we were seeing some areas for a second and third time. Nevertheless, when the young man approached us again, I gave him the same answer, and he slipped back into the crowd. After another hour or so, we were absolutely and hopelessly lost. This time the young man had a big smile on his face and said, "You need me, no?" We welcomed him with open arms.

Polishing gifts is much like shopping in the souk -- it's very difficult to do without help.

In thinking about polishing gifts, we probably need the most help at the starting point.

How do we understand our own gifts and limitations?
How can we identify and measure and evaluate them?

Followers adamantly demand that a leader possess a high degree of integrity when it comes to self-perception. A combination of self-confidence and humility seems to me to be crucial, for this oxymoronic quality makes it possible for the group to be decisive. Organizations have a right to expect decisiveness from leaders. Being decisive in an area of one's strengths is not too difficult. As important as an awareness of one's limitations is, it can never scotch one's willingness to act. Acting in the face of one's weakness requires courage and risk -- symbiotic abstractions brought to reality with the assistance of self-confidence and, of course, with the assistance of those with whom we work.

Polishing gifts requires us to think broadly and deeply and to develop our voice, to understand what we believe.

Until we examine our perceptions of ourselves, we can't really know who we are and what our gifts really are.

What and how do we see?
Do we have a philosophy -- or even a theology -- of life?
Do matters of culture mean something to us?
Are we willing to develop an interest in literature and architecture and the arts?
Are we comfortable with thinking about relationships parochially, or have we begun to think cross-culturally? Do we signal to others that it's okay to offer suggestions?

I remember so clearly the time I spent in basic training at Camp Grant, Illinois, during World War II. In the course of training, I did something that caught the attention of the battalion commander and was ordered to appear in his office the next morning at eight o'clock.

The evening before, the second lieutenant, whom I knew only casually, called me out of the barracks. "They won't tell you this at headquarters," he said, "but I want you to know that in the morning they're going to offer you the opportunity to go to officer candidate school." He went on to tell me that I wouldn't have to explain if I declined, but if I did decline, they would call me back after a week and offer to send me to college. "I just think you should know ahead of time what the choices are," he said.

This was for me a life-changing event. I chose to go to college. The army responded by sending me to several, including the Sorbonne. I've always hoped that the lieutenant realized how important his intervention was in my life.

Polishing gifts requires from us, and teaches us, that we need to learn to think in terms of discovery. Polishing gifts often removes years of routine and the accumulated layers of habit. Who knows what we will find underneath! Once a discovery is made, it's up to us to make the connections, to give the discovery a relevance to our present situations. In thinking about polishing gifts, we need to be directed both internally and externally. Let me give you a few questions I ask myself.

How do I learn best? By reading or listening or through conversation? What is it that triggers me?
What settings or groups lead to my most productive times? For most people, I think, the best way to learn is to become actually involved in risky work. We need to be given serious work to do, to carry full responsibility and accountability for failure and success. (This, I believe, is one reason delegation is such an important part of a leader's job. She must train successors in actual combat. (See "Delegate! ")
How do I feel about working with a mentor? A mentoring relationship is one of the best ways to discover one's gifts and weaknesses. Remember that a learning leader must seek out her mentors and maintain the relationship. Mature mentors understand that advice should be given only when it has been requested.
Am I willing to reserve time on my calendar for reflection?
Have I thought about writing down the things in my own life and that of my family that I want to measure?
In learning to listen, have I thought about improving my ability to practice the art of silence? It is an art widely underrated and too little understood. Do I listen with an intent to learn, to feel, to understand, to see?
What do my family and I need to cultivate to reach our potential?

Some years ago, I arranged a series of seminars for senior managers at Herman Miller.

We studied government for two days with Senator Mark Hatfield.
We gained a perspective on the world social order from E. F. Schumacher, author of Small Is Beautiful.
We learned about leadership development from Robert Greenleaf.
We studied world economics under Irving Kristol.
We studied leadership and corporate growth with Peter Drucker, and, of course, with Peter we also learned about Japanese art, music, economics, and history.

The purpose of these sessions was not to teach us business management but to offer us an opportunity to broaden and deepen ourselves and, through us, our families.

Good leadership includes teaching and learning, building relationships and influencing people, as opposed to exercising one's power.

How am I going to nourish the spiritual, the visionary, the musical, the childlike side of my nature? How am I going to minimize the stale, mechanical, quantifiable side of my life?
Where will I find the discipline to visit museums, to read good literature, to learn about music, to understand architecture, to go on a picnic?
A great way to begin to think cross-culturally is to visit the Girard Wing of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. By studying folk art, one sees the essential patterns of life across many cultures. Folk art celebrates the passages of life from birth through death. It celebrates faith and worship, the lessons of community and of the gathered good. Folk art expresses the transfer of power and responsibility; it testifies to the role of beliefs and values over the generations. In short, the hundreds of years of folk art surely have much to teach us about what's important to modern institutions and to the work of leaders.
Am I prepared to think about polishing gifts as a way of dealing with time and leaving a legacy? As the years slip by, am I learning to see through the lens of mortality? How does this improve me today as a leader?
How am I going to learn to deal with the difference between speed and time? It seems to me that speed constantly threatens the legacy of leaders, forcing them to leave in their wake merely the debris of spoiled hopes, defeat, and meaningless acquisition. Somehow quality and substance, like truth, arise from an awareness of time. Leaders replace speed with time, by sitting by the fire, watching the embers, acquiring a rhythm and poise that last a lifetime. Georgia O'Keeffe once said that seeing flowers, like friendship, takes time. So, too, with polishing gifts.
What will give me joy at seventy or eighty? At the end of life, what will I face? Or, more important, whom?
Where will I find the resources for stroking the arm of a dying loved one? Or for finding love for an elderly parent who has turned into a person I have never known? Or for discovering how much a place has changed since someone is no longer there?
These kinds of questions face every person; leaders are certainly not exempt from them.

Let me make a few specific suggestions for starting to answer these questions and polishing one's gifts.

Make a parallel track for responsible work in your life, something that complements your career but also serves others. I think this helps leaders reach their potential.

Practice leadership without power. Serving on a school board or coaching tee-ball or volunteering in a hospice is an effective way to polish gifts.

Working in eleemosynary service has broadened my understanding of what it means to make a commitment to the common good.

Learn your language and use it with respect. This seems to me to be a characteristic of the best leaders. Does an ignorance of one's language make a leader a poor one? Or does being a poor leader result in a lack of respect for speaking and writing well?

Learn to communicate in public.

Participate regularly in an intellectual pursuit. I read and discuss all kinds of books with a very special group of ten friends. Since I'm the only one without a Ph.D., I'm sometimes a little daunted, and talking about books with these people is risky for me. But friendship, stimulation, balance, and the intellectual vigor of our discus signs are certainly worth the risk.

Learn who and what gives you health.

Begin to ponder seriously ideas for a second-or third-career.

Ask yourself frequently, "What truly gives meaning to my life?" Are you happy with the answer?

In an effort to sum up this large topic of polishing gifts, one that I certainly haven't exhausted, let me briefly discuss a three-faceted problem that I think leaders especially face in polishing gifts.

A rising level of din threatens to drown out the voices urging us to do the good work of leadership, part of which is polishing gifts. This din takes the form of distractions, addictions, and institutional politics.

Complexity can become a distraction, though it is normal in organized life. By moving personally and organizationally toward restraint and simplicity, we give ourselves a chance. It really comes down to setting priorities, as banal as that phrase has become. It comes down to dealing with the substantive before the superficial, of dealing with the strategic before the stressful, of leaving a legacy instead of accumulated assets, of being able to find a balance in life that gives equal footing to family and service.

We must beware that wealth not supplant richness or faith, that administration not replace leadership, that presenters not take precedence over producers. We must be aware that poise is a fragile thing. I am amazed that faced with enormous problems of education, poverty, the economy, foreign trade, and world health, our government will, in a destructive collaboration with the media, grind to a halt for two or three weeks over the matter of a flag burning. This happens in corporations and colleges as well.

Addictions can be part of the cacophony. There are addictions to drugs and power, to alcohol and work. We can become addicted to television and materialism and pornography, to the egos and glitter of the sports-and-entertainment complex. Leaders know that some people become addicted to advocacy-no matter how good the cause. These addictions feed only the appetites, not the spirit. They are part of the din through which leaders must lead. Career development programs will not help you here.

Another part of the din drumming in the ears of leaders is the seemingly endless political maneuvering that inevitably takes up so much time and energy in organizations. Changing agreed-on priorities and directions, the negotiator's waltz, can be a deadly dance. Good leaders place agreements out in the fresh air, in the open, and thereby reduce both the urge and the appeal of constantly changing direction. It's essential that we give our witness in the presence of our peers. I am speaking about these problems in a musical metaphor partly because of a note I recently received from a friend. Let me quote from it.

Got your letter yesterday. Then Ernie Caviani tuned the piano last night. In both cases, it was like hearing the real music again. Playing a piano after it has been tuned is a wonderful experience. The music is so clear and pure, with none of the dissident overtones that have built up as the strings slowly and inevitably go out of tune. Not only is each note sweet and clean, but so are the chords. I hauled out the pieces I'm working on, and instead of wincing at the spots where the A-flat was driving me crazy, I relaxed as they sounded as Beethoven or Schubert had written them.

It seems to me that polishing gifts, such a crucial part of the work of a leader, could be called tuning oneself for life.

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