thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
When you lead people, you inevitably work from many assumptions and beliefs about people. Some of these assumptions serves you well, some do not. Some will undermine and sabotage your leadership. After all, when you lead, you are leading people and that entails your ideas about what people are like, what they want, their nature, what you can expect of them, why they are following you, and so on.This means that when you lead, your leadership is not neutral and cannot be neutral. Your leading is full of assumptions about human nature, human drives and needs, human hopes and dreams, and human communications and relationships. It is also full of unspoken premises in the back of your mind about human psychology. This is why the first task of leadership is to get your psychology right.Two Psychological TheoriesIf you are an old time, old-fashion, command-and-control leader, then your assumptions are what we call Theory X premises. You assume people need you, need direction, need to be told, want to be ordered, fear individual and independent thought, fear and hate responsibility, and are basically lazy, irresponsible, and irrational. And, if you believe any of that, then youll feel justified to lead by commanding, ordering people around, giving lots of advice, and bossing them. And youll like doing that! Whether they like you wont be as important as if they fear you, respect you, salute you, and comply with your demands.If you are more modern in your thinking, more humanistic, then you will be more of a visionary leader, a facilitative leader, and a participative leader. And by definition, you have a much deeper belief in democracy and equality. You will believe in people and you will basically like people. And you will want the best for them for them to be thinking, caring, involved, taking responsibility, asking questions, contributing their ideas, and offering insightful creative suggestions. You lead people because you have a vision of the future about their highest and best. And you dont want to rule over them; you will be the kind of person who wants to rule with them. You want to work with them and through them so that together, you can do and be so much more together than apart. These are the premises of Theory Y.Both of these kinds of leadership operate from certain principles or premises. Each has its own psychology and each has its own particular structure and form. And when a nation or group is in crisis, when the world is falling down around you, the Command-and-Control leader who can take control in the crisis, who can rally people around a single response that kind of leader can offer an important value in that context. Yet when things are more normal, when business goes on as usual, when theres no invading army or external threat, we need leaders who help all of us grow, learn, think, and become more of what we can become. We need democratic leaders who facilitate the synergy that arises from the combined synergy of many, many diversities. We need
self-actualizing leaders.Self-Actualizing LeadersApart from times of crisis events, what we mostly need are self-actualizing leaders. We need leaders who do not have all the answers, but who are able to call forth the answering process from all of us. In the first case when theres a crisis, theres no time for dialogue, no time for learning, no time for a study group. Theres an immediate threat that demands immediate response and a strong man (or strong woman) leader. In the second case, which mostly occurs, we need a leader who believes in us and who has the skills to bring out the best in us. The democratic leader, unlike the dictator or general, doesnt know how to best arrive at the desired outcome, but does have a vision of that desired outcome and can inspire us, awaken us, and enable us to invent it as we go. This is the slow development of democracy. It is messy, it is chaotic, it is time-consuming, and it is the way that a whole group of people grow and move up to a whole new level.Self-actualizing leaders know that leadership is not about them. Leadership is about the people, the vision, and the future. So they hold a two-fold focus. First, they focus on the required performances (skills, competencies) that are absolutely necessary to achieve the vision. They focus on resultson implementation, on execution, on people being able to do and contribute. Unlike bureaucrats, its not about passing time, crossing every t or dotting every i. It is about creating and innovating effective results. Second, they focus on the meaningfulness of those performances. The results and skills must be significant, inspirational, meaningful.These two things in Neuro-Semantics, meaning and performance, are the two axes that make up or form the model that we call the Self-Actualization Quadrants.3 Things low in meaning and performance are boring, irrelevant, and insignificant. No one will engage in such non-motivating things (Quadrant I). Things that involve top competencies but which are low in meaning will endure for awhile and then people will run out of steam, go Whats the point? lose motivation, and give up (II). Things high in inspiration and meaning will get people worked up and passionate, but then after year after year of it coming to nothing, they will become dis-spirited, de-motivated, and give up (III).That leaves the final quadrant high in meaning and high in performance where we are able to actualize our highest and best (IV). This is where we experience flow and step into the place where we are in the zone. Here everything comes together into a wonderful synergy so that what we do is optimally significant and effective. And this is the place that effective leaders lead. They go there themselves and they envision it as the future of the group.Jim Collins discovered that great companies that last have high quality leaders (level 5 leaders) who have the will (determination, commitment) and humility (a vision beyond their ego, its not about them) to facilitate a group of people to become the best in
and other than, yourself. Thats what self-actualization means. It means living to make a difference, living to contribute, to give. Thats why self-actualization is not an end in itself.Myth #4: Self-Actualization Psychology is shallow and naive.With his focus on the bright side of human nature, some have charged that Maslow and self-actualization is naive about human nature. Of course, what this really means is that the person who makes that charge has never read what Maslow himself wrote. If there was anyone who wrote a lot about evil, and the dark side and how human nature can go wrong, it was Maslow! Further, it was Maslow himself who criticized Esalen and the first Human Potential Movement on this very thing they didnt take seriously that human nature can be just as creatively destructive as it can be creatively constructive.Myth #5: Self-Actualization leads to irresponsibility and blaming.I dont know where anyone would get this charge until they also are seduced by Myth #1. The truth is that self-actualizing people care about being responsible and they actually seek to be held accountable. They know their inner powers and do not discharge them through blaming. And if you read Maslow, Rogers, Rollo May, Fromm, Frankl, and other key leaders in the first movement, they strongly emphasized responsibility.Myth #6: Human potential is unlimited.This is a myth on the other side of things from those who see no limitations and no constraints. The danger on this side is turning human nature into infinite and god-like and therefore having no limits. Yet the truth is that there are limits to potentials and possibilities. Every power of a human being is fallible liable to error, and limited. Often when we speak about the unlimited potentials within human nature or a particular person, we are not speaking literally but speaking for the purpose of inspiration.Self-actualization is enabling people to become fully human. To awaken to the possibilities within each person and facilitating the unleashing process so that each becomes the best version of themselves. It is living meaningfully (your semantics) in your body (your neurology)! To your full development!Michael Hall
Working with Human Goodness4Margaret Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science, on self protection, good intentions, and what it means to greet one another as fully human. Christian LendiWe need to remember the fact of human goodness.Of course, human goodness seems like an outrageous fact, since every day we are confronted by evidence of the great harm we so easily do to one another. We are numbed by the genocide, ethnic hatred and individual violence committed daily. Of the 240 or so nations in the world, nearly a quarter are currently at war.In our daily life we encounter people who are angry and deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together, and many of us are more withdrawn and distrustful than ever. Yet this incessant display of what is worst in us makes it essential that we believe in human goodness. Without that belief, there really is no hope.There is nothing equal to human creativity, caring and will. We can be incredibly generous, imaginative and open-hearted. We can do the impossible, learn and change quickly, and extend instant compassion to those in distress. And these are not behaviors we keep hidden. We exhibit them daily.How often during a day do you figure out an answer to a problem, invent a slightly better way of doing something, or extend yourself to someone in need? Then look around at your colleagues and neighbors, and youll see others acting just like youpeople trying to make a contribution and help others.In these times of turmoil, we have forgotten who we can be and we have let our worst natures prevail. Some of these bad behaviors we create because we treat people in non-human ways. Weve organized work around destructive motivationsgreed, self-interest and competitionand taken the very things that make us humanour emotions, imagination and need for meaningand dismissed them as unimportant. Weve found it more convenient to treat humans as replaceable parts in the machinery of production.After years of being bossed around, of being told theyre inferior, of power plays that destroy lives, most people are cynical and focused only on self-protection. Who wouldnt be? This negativity and demoralization is created by the organizing and governance methods in use. People cannot be discounted or used only for someone elses benefit. If obedience and compliance are the primary values, these destroy creativity, commitment and generosity. Whole cultures and generations have been deadened by such coercion.But peoples reaction to coercion also tells us a great deal about the goodness of the human spirit. The horrors of the twentieth century show us the worst of human nature and the very best. How do you feel when you hear stories of those who wouldnt give in, who remained generous and offered compassion to others in the midst of personal horror? The human spirit is nearly impossible to extinguish. Few of us can listen to these stories and remain cynical. We are hungry for these talesthey remind us of what it
means to be fully human. We always want to hear more.To examine our beliefs about human goodness is not merely a philosophical inquiry. These beliefs are critical to what we do in the world; they lead us either to action or retreat. Courageous acts arent done by people who believe in human badness. Why risk anything if we dont believe in each other? Why stand up for anyone if we dont believe theyre worth saving? Who you think I am will determine what you are willing to do on my behalf. You wont even notice me if you believe that I am less than you are.Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche taught about the relationship between our beliefs about each other and our willingness to act courageously. He defined our present historic time as a dark age, because we are poisoned by self-doubt and thus have become cowards. In his teachings and work, as Pema Chodron describes them, he aspired to bring about an era of courage in which people could experience their goodness and extend themselves to others.Oppression never occurs between equals. Tyranny always arises from the belief that some people are more human than others. There is no other way to justify inhumane treatment, except to assume that the pain experienced by the oppressed is not the same as ours.I saw this clearly in post-apartheid South Africa. At hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, white South Africans listened to black mothers grieving over the loss of their children to violence, to wives weeping for their tortured husbands, to black maids crying for the children they left behind when they went to work for white families. As the grief of these women and men became public, many white South Africans for the first time saw black South Africans as equally human. In the years of apartheid, they had justified their mistreatment of blacks by assuming that the suffering of blacks was not equal to theirs. They had assumed that blacks were not fully human.What becomes available to us when we greet one another as fully human? This is an important question as we struggle through this dark time.In my own organization, weve been experimenting with two values that keep us focused on what is best about us humans. The first value is, We rely on human goodness. In conversations, even with strangers, we assume that they want from their lives what we want from ours: a chance to help others, to learn, to be recognized, to find meaning. We have not been disappointed.Our second value is, We assume good intent. We try to stop from developing any storyline about anothers motivation. We assume there must be a good reason why they did something that may be hurtful or foolish. It takes mindfulness to stop the stream of judgments that pour from our lips, but when we can, we have been well rewarded. Peoples motives usually are good, even when they look hurtful or stupid. And if we pause long enough to ask them what they intended, there is another benefitwe develop a better
relationship with them. Working together becomes easier.I encourage you to try simple practices like these. For the dark times to end, we need to rely as never before on our fundamental and precious human goodness.
Hot-shot geeks at the worlds leading information company are taking a ground-breaking course called Search inside Yourself. As Barry Boycereports, its a new model for teaching mindfulness and emotional intelligence, and its creator is thinking big.Mark TuschmanFor as long as I can remember, I have had a desire to do something big and important for humanity, says Chade-Meng Tan. In 2004, the door of opportunity opened up for me. One August day that year, I suddenly had real money.That was the day Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two graduate students on leave from Stanford, took their little start-up public. Raising $1.7 billion in capital in one day, Google became the largest internet IPO (Initial Public Offering) ever. Googlethe noun, the verb, the company, the way of life they createdwas about to make its early employees, those whod taken stock options to compensate for the low pay and long hours, very rich.One of the people whose lives changed on IPO Day was employee #107, Chade-Meng Tan, who is now bringing mindfulness to Google through a program known as Search Inside Yourself (SIY). Googlersas employees there are knownoperate with a lot of autonomy and are urged to be free spirits. For example, Meng just up and decided to call himself Googles Jolly Good Fellow and had cards printed adding the phrase, which nobody can deny. As Googles Jolly Good Fellow, Meng has become Googles unofficial VIP greeter. Behind the reception desk in one of the main Google buildings is Mengs Wall, a gallery of snapshots of Meng standing next to luminaries like Bill Clinton, the Dalai Lama, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nancy Pelosi, Muhammad Ali, and more than one hundred and fifty othersand counting.Google employees like Meng spend one day in five working on whatever inspires them, regardless of profit potential. So he didnt need to get rich to start a meditation program at Google. But achieving financial freedom somehow enabled Meng to think big about what he could do for the worldsadly not always the first thought of those who strike it rich. For Meng and the many collaborators he has brought together, SIY is more than a corporate meditation program. Just as Googles founders saw their search engine as a way to influence how people work with information altogether, the SIY designers see it as a working model for how to bring mindfulness and peace to work, a place where people spend vast amounts of time. If they develop mindfulness there, it will spill over into the rest of their lives and influence all those around them.Many people at Google spend 20 percent of their time on their own endeavors for saving the world through technology, says Norman Fischer, founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation and one of the principal SIY teachers. In some sense, thats what Meng is doing. He wants to make the world a better place through the technology of meditation. Hes starting at home, within Google. And its working. For the people who take the course, it makes a difference in how they operate, how they communicate. They learn that
they dont have to leave their emotions at the door when they come to work. Thats big. If Wall Street traders, for example, had had more emotional intelligence, they might have realized the crazy derivatives they created were wrong.According to Mirabai Bush, senior fellow at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, who helped design the program and has taught within it, Its great when contemplative practice comes to any workplace, but its particularly meaningful for Google, a fount of countless creative ideas. In many ways, Google is a model place to work; Fortune named it the best place to work in America two years in a row. And Google has had a big influence on all of our working lives. If it works at Google, other employers take notice.Lets get a smoothie before we talk, Meng says to me as we wait for one of the many meeting rooms in Building 43 to be vacated at our appointed time. Building 43 is where Google founders Brin and Page have their offices, including a rooftop workspace. Its in a cluster of four buildings (40-43) that surround a green space, like a quad on a college campus. They are part of the Googleplex, the large headquarters complex in Mountain View, California. Buildings 40-43 seem inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. Theres lots of glass and curves and odd angles, and when youre inside, you rarely feel disconnected from the outside. Building 43 contains a Mexican restaurant, a multiethnic cafeteria, a California nouvelle cafe (serving a delicate red snapper when I visited), and kitchenettes all around that fulfill the Google promise that you will never be more than one hundred feet from free food. Lest you gain weight, there are gyms, bikes to ride, volleyball courts, and lap pools in the open air.In the smoothie bar over in Building 40, there are some people who might almost pass for corporate, but one googler is sprawled across a couch with his feet over the back and his head on the floor, his laptop held in front of him, fingers dexterously flying over keys and mouse pad. Meng and I carry our smoothies back across the quad to Building 43 and, just in time for our meeting, the team using the room rises and exits gracefully. While Google is very free and loose, with foosball, pool tables, and sleep pods in open view, its also quite precise in many ways. Its an engineering company after all. And being respectful of others time and space is part of Googles Dont Be Evil philosophy. Employees are given every amenity to make work enjoyable, healthy, and creative, and when you get a feel for the atmosphere, a meditation program seems not radical, but sensible. It could only start, though, once someone figured out just what kind of meditation program would appeal to the average googler.When you first sit down with Meng, he likes to share life stories. How did you get to where you are today? What has motivated you? He begins with his own. Mengs life has taught him
that persistent intention will bring the dawn of the next big idea. His life had changed significantly several times before the turning point of IPO Day. A dozen years prior, at the age of twenty-one, in a time of fervent searching for relief from the pain of life, he encountered an American Buddhist nun, Sangye Khadro, in his native Singapore. When he asked her what Buddhism had to say about suffering, she told him that all of Buddhism is about suffering. It was like suddenly somebody opened the floodgates. I immediately understood, he writes on his blog. He committed himself to serious Buddhist practice.The next of his epiphanies, or eureka moments as Meng prefers to call them, came the year before the IPO, when he was strolling around the Google campus on a beautiful summers day and something strange happened. A strong aspiration to save the world suddenly solidified in me, for no good reason at all, he writes. I just stopped and made a solemn promise to myself that one day, if I achieve financial independence, I will dedicate my life to humanity. For as long as I can remember, Ive always had a desire to do something big and important for humanity. It was a thought that existed as a constant, faint background buzz in my mind. It just never really solidified until that lovely summer day.IPO Day was a day much like any other, Meng says. Apart from some high-fives and a few very embarrassing seconds of victory dances, little changed. Meng wrote code. The magnitude of the windfall didnt really sink in, and in any case, Meng felt that by the time he was permitted to sell his stock, six months hence, it might well be worthless. As time wore on, though, what Meng calls denial began to wear off and, he says, Sometime in early 2005 it hit me. I caught myself thinking, Omigod, I actually have real money! Meng has given some of that money away. He donated one million dollars to the Center for Compassion Research and Education at Stanford (which received seed money from the Dalai Lama), and he has started his own small foundation. But its clear that his deepest aspiration has been, in software engineering parlance, to make SIY open source. For that to happen, it had to succeed within Google.Mengs first foray into marrying meditation and Google was Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, but it didnt attract much attention. Stress reduction didnt really fly here, he told me. The hiring process at Google, Meng pointed out, is designed to draw out high achievers and idealists who have done something a little different, like hiking in Patagonia or going to war-tornareas to help children. For high achievers, stress can be a badge of honor, and not many people will sign on for stress reduction, particularly those who need it the most. So I needed to go beyond stress reduction. I wanted to help people find ways to align mindfulness practice with what they want to achieve in life, so they can create peace and