All posts by Dorothy Nesbit

Are you loving your work? An invitation to heed your life’s calling

Developing as a leader, ,
Don’t ask what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive then go and do it,
because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Howard Thurman

Last week I wrote a posting For Love AND Money in response to conversations I have had recently with people who feel torn between doing what they really love and doing what they think will pay the bills.  I wrote it because I recognise that this dilemma is experienced by many people.

More recently, I came across the quote above by Howard Thurman and I thought, this is too good to miss.  I thought I’d share it with you today along with just a few reading recommendations for anyone who wants to explore what it might be like to do the work you love and to get paid – handsomely, even – to do it.

And before I share these books I want to say a few words to those people I mainly coach:   leaders in organisations.  You can spend all your life as a leader doing work you’re good at and which you enjoy – sort of.  You’ll be adding value and you’ll be paying the bills.  Equally, you can seek out the opportunity to lead in an area about which you feel passionate.  You’ll still be adding value and you’ll still be paying the bills.  At the same time, the ease and joy with which you lead will be far greater and the positive impact you’ll have on those you lead long after you have ceased to lead them will make the hours you work worthwhile.  You get to choose.

Here are just a few recommendations from my own bookshelf:

Richard N. Bolles:  What Color Is your Parachute?  A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers.  Bolles’ book, which he has updated and maintained over many years, is probably the book for anyone who wants to return to the question of calling and seek out the work they are yearning to do.

Gay Hendricks:  The Big Leap.  I’ve mentioned this book on my blog before.  It’s worth reading just to understand the difference between working in your zone of excellence and working in your zone of genius.

Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro:  Whistle While You Work:  Heeding Your Life’s Calling.  What do I want to be when I grow up?  What was I born to do?  These are the questions the authors set out to help you answer in this slim volume. 

M. Scott Peck:  The Road Less Travelled:  A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth.  I include this book in recognition that the journey towards finding the work we love to do is essentially a journey inwards – a journey of the spirit.

David Whyte:  The Heart Aroused:  Poetry and The Preservation of the Soul.  It may be hard to find a new copy of this book, which offers a poet’s view of what it means to work in the corporate world.  If you feel you need to reconnect with yourself or yearn to maintain connection whilst working in the corporate world this book is for you.

Nick Williams:  The Work We Were Born To Do:  Find the Work You Love, Love the Work You Do.  Williams’ book sets out to help people discover purpose, meaning and passion in their work whilst still paying the bills.  Williams offers twelve principles of the work we were born to do as well as exercises to support you in your explorations.  You can also hear Williams speak by signing up at Alternatives where you’ll be able to access recordings of past speakers.

Is this list exhaustive?  By no means.  It does, though, provide a starting point.  I wonder what this posting evokes in you:  what thoughts and feelings come up when you think of doing the work that you were born to do? 

Picture this: on the way to a career that thrills

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Hurrah!  Finally, I have got around to having professional photos done for all the places my image appears nowadays – my website, blog, LinkedIn, Twitter – the list seems endless!  I shall be taking time to change my photos in the days and weeks to come, beginning right here on my blog.

I was fascinated by the story Tim Spiers told me about his career history.  Tim was my photographer, thanks to a tip from my friend and colleague in the profession, Anne Smith, who recommended him and with whom I shared a day at Tim’s studio in North London.  From a very young age – just 9 or 10 years old – Tim started cutting people’s hair.  This was something he put aside when he embarked on a course at Eastbourne College of Art and Design in Visual Communications, including photography, where his aim was to prepare himself for a life of doing fashion shoots.

Not everyone supported Tim’s aspirations – as is often the way – so, influenced by the doubts of others, he left his course early.  His father arranged an interview for him, telling him about a guy called Vidal Sassoon.  Tim quickly came to London to work with San Rizz, where he learnt to do people’s hair for photo shoots and also pop videos.  Later he moved into salon management.

Along the way, Tim was also interested in the work of make-up artists so, when he was invited to do a modelling project as part of his studies in NLP, he decided to find out how his colleagues did make up – spending time with the make-up artists he had worked with on modelling shoots and his colleagues in the salons he worked for and studying their approach.  At the same time, his NLP studies helped Tim to clarify his values and revisit some old beliefs, leading to a major shift in his sense of his own capability.  This was, essentially, an experience that empowered him.

When photography went digital, Tim did a photo shoot himself and had one of those “aha!” moments:  “what if I put all these skills together to offer hair, make-up and photography as a service?”  He set up his own business which has been growing at a significant rate.  If you take a look at Tim’s website you’ll see how he caters for a wide variety of clients.  If you’re looking for a good photographer, I can recommend Tim.  It wasn’t just the hair and make-up:  my sense of ease grew over the course of our time together and I was thrilled to come away with a number of options for my signature photo.

I tell Tim’s story (with his permission) for another reason:  it says so much about the journey towards a career that is fulfilling.  The seeds of such a career lie in the things we most love to do – acorns are at their best when they become oaks.  Along the way, we take steps away from as well as towards our most natural career path – often because we are influenced by fear and the doubts of others.  With hindsight, the path looks so clear and obvious and yet, along the way, it can be so messy.  Both the highs and the lows contribute to our ultimate success.  Moving towards our ultimate career takes courage and a willingness to take risks.

That’s enough for now.  As I sign off I leave you with just two photos from my day with Tim.  Please tell me what you think.

When the “guilt trip” strikes

Emotional Intelligence,

I missed the opportunity recently to respond in a timely way to an invitation from a friend and colleague.  She mentioned over lunch one day that she was going to hear Marianne Williamson speak and asked if I would like to join her.  By the time I checked my diary it was too late.  I found it hard not to put myself in the wrong.  Perhaps I was pre-empting the possibility that, by not meeting the needs of my friend (for consideration, perhaps, or clarity) my friend, too, would put me in the wrong.  Sheepishly I dropped her a line and said:


The time has flown since we met and I realise I didn’t get back to you to say I wouldn’t be joining you to hear Marianne Williamson.  I am trying not to give myself a guilt trip – and not quite succeeding!  I do regret that I didn’t let you know sooner – I’d like to have met my needs to show respect and consideration.


She responded promptly and told me:


Absolutely no need for a guilt trip – and I’m now doing giraffe* in to make sure it doesn’t come to me!  The truth is I had forgotten that part of our conversation – sorry – so it didn’t really have an impact at all.


She also took time to share what she did remember – and appreciate – from our conversation.


In our culture, the idea that, at any moment in time, we are “in the right” or “in the wrong” is endemic.  Tucked away beneath it are some positive intentions – though they are not easy to connect with.  (Kelly Bryson, in his book Don’t Be Nice, Be Real:  Balancing Passion for Self with Compassion for Others highlights Piaget’s writing in this area.  Piaget suggests that when we teach children to do things from a sense of duty and obligation, we impede their development, so that it becomes less likely that they will do things because they want to and know they have free choice).  Believing that something is right or wrong can keep us from connecting with our own truth or the truth of others.  So, sharing my feelings of guilt with my friend and hearing her honest response helped me to recalibrate – to recognise that whilst some people would judge me for my action (in this case, for my inaction) to do so is just a choice.


As I write I am reflecting on my own choice to judge myself.  I am getting better over time at letting go of this habit – even whilst having a little way to go.


*In nonviolent communication (or NVC) the giraffe is a metaphor for connecting with needs – our own and others’.  Hearing another’s feelings of guilt, the giraffe seeks to understand what needs are being expressed. 




An evening of Terrible singing

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Reading the programme notes in Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible I get lost in questions of this and other composers’ relationship with the regimes of which their music speaks and of just how many versions exist of this piece, which  is fashioned from Prokofiev’s music for the film of the same name.  I think I’ll leave such thoughts with David Gutman, author of the programme notes.

As a member of the choir, I have been grappling in a far more intimate way with the challenges of learning the piece, along with my fellow singers.  I think of the well-trodden phrase “a bad workman always blames his tools” even as I think of the score we worked from, with words and music which were, at best, hard on the eye – and that’s before we even attempted the Russian.  We have been “note bashing” and – come to that – “word bashing”, with the help of Natalie as our chorus master, Alex (“Sacha”), our language coach and Roger on the piano.  We have been through our usual phases along the way, wondering if we’ll ever get there – even as our first tutti rehearsal approached, we were still learning corners of the work and coming to grips with the words.

On Friday, we had our first encounter with Xian Zhang, our conductor for the piece.  She is that rare creature, a female conductor, and, as such, the object of our curiosity.  I creep in late for the piano rehearsal and cannot see her from my place at the edge of our awkwardly shaped room.  Nor can I see just how diminutive she is in size.  At the same time, she is like a ball of energy – her presence is so much larger than her physical size.  Right from the beginning I find myself enjoying her approach.  Her energy and enthusiasm combine with clear instructions to the choir, orchestra and soloists.  Where some conductors would tread discreetly in their dealings with the soloists, she is open in giving her instructions so that I have a sense that we are all equals here.

As our first tutti unfolds so do the joys of the piece and of experiencing the work of my fellow performers.  Early on the men rehearse Feodor Basmanov’s Song with Russian bass Alexei Tanovitsky.  He turns to face the men so that they can hear each other, opening his arms wide.  His is not the energy of one who is trying hard to get things right.  Rather, his is the energy of one who sings and enjoys.  He does.  And so do we.  In the same movement Anthony Stutchbury, a member of our tenor section, is charged with providing a shrill whistle in several places and takes instruction from Xian Zhang.  David Jackson, a member of the percussion section of the London Symphony Orchestra is also charged with providing a shrill whistle in the next movement and I smile as he puts his fingers in his mouth in preparation, thinking of all those years of musical education.

Despite its themes, which include a good measure of violence as the men of the choir commit to a Russia forged on the bones of her enemies, the piece is above all – for me at least – tuneful.  One colleague hears echoes of Chopin and Rimsky Korsakov.  Another highlights a flavour of Orff’s Carmina Burana.  I confess that I finally work out that the rhythm which catches my attention early on is reminding me of the song Love and Marriage (go together like a horse and carriage…). And the broad sweep of the orchestra at the beginning of the Song about the Beaver reminds me of Nancy singing As Long as He Needs Me in the musical Oliver.  Somehow it doesn’t do to leave the concert singing Love and Marriage…

Sometimes, by the time the concert comes, my best moments have already come and gone.  This evening though, I relish every moment of this lively and spirited music.  I enjoy my own singing (including the occasional “extra” as I join the altos – why should they have all the best lines?).  I enjoy the orchestra.  I enjoy my fellow singers.  I enjoy the soloists.  And above all, I enjoy the conducting of Xian Zhang.

As I walk away on my way home I feel fulfilled, alive.  Who could ask for more?

For love AND money

Emotional Intelligence

Every now and then, I come across someone – a friend, client – who is grappling with one of life’s classic dilemmas:  how can I do what I love and meet my needs for security and safety?  I’ve had a little flurry of conversations this week in which some quite diverse people have raised this issue and decided to address this subject here today.

Let’s be clear, if you are nurturing this dilemma, you are far from alone.  As we embark on our careers at least some of us will make choices which favour earning a good living over having fun at work doing those things we most love.  Perhaps we have parents who have programmed us this way.  Perhaps we are already clear that we want to be in a position to marry and have children.  Perhaps, right now, we’re looking out of the window and recognising the economic climate that awaits us with all its challenges.  Later in life, when we have the spouse, the children and the mortgage and who knows what else we may find ourselves sitting in our offices looking out of the window thinking “if only…”, even whilst holding the conviction that we couldn’t possibly leave our well paid job to pursue our heart’s desires.

One of the challenges we face is that, as long as we hold the belief that the joy of work and financial rewards are mutually exclusive, we won’t begin to engage with the question I posed above:  how can I do what I love and meet my needs for security and safety?  Perhaps it will knock on our door every now and again only to be summarily dismissed.  The yearnings won’t go away (perhaps they’ll become louder over time or manifest as some lingering discontent or even as some physical unease) and at the same time, the voice we most sponsor within ourselves will be speaking to another agenda (think of the mortgage, think of your pension, think of your kids…).

There are paradoxes of course.  Richard Branson (as you know, I have recently been reading his autobiography, Losing My Virginity) did not set out to become rich, nor did he worry about his pension.  He set out to have fun and got rich in the process.  Stephen King (author of Carrie and many other best selling books) was not always wealthy.  He pursued a talent for and a love of writing, and he did it in his own way despite feedback from his teachers (in On Writing:  A Memoir of the Craft he describes how he sold a story he’d written to his fellow pupils at school and was summoned to the principal’s office, where he was told he couldn’t turn the school into a marketplace.  ‘What I don’t understand, Stevie’, his teacher said, ‘is why you’d write junk like this in the first place.  You’re talented. Why do you want to waste your abilities?’).  Along the paths to many extraordinary successes lie periods of poverty, feedback that discourages and the sheer surprise of doing something you love and finding, suddenly, you’ve become an ‘overnight’ success.

I could mention some of the resources available for people who are grappling with this dilemma.  Perhaps I will, though not today.  For now, it simply occurs to me to say that one of the reasons we experience it as a dilemma – as an either/or – is that, within ourselves, our yearning to do work we love and our longing for safety are sponsored by different parts of us so that we imagine that what we carry within ourselves is also true out in the world.

Check this out:  is it true for you?  Do you find that the part of you that yearns to get paid to do work you love is at odds with that part of you that is fearful and longs for security?  If it is, you might like to read a posting I wrote a while back, called welcoming your parts to the party.  This, in turn, will lead you to a couple more postings which touch on the subject of our inner dialogue and its effect on our lives.

PS  And to those of you with whom I had conversations this week on this subject:  I dedicate this posting to you.  You know who you are.

On the fear of being “found out” at work

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , ,

How many of us fear being “found out” in the workplace?  I am not thinking of our fear that any fraudulent activities might be uncovered.  No.  I’m referring to the fear that many of us have that we are not good enough to be doing the job we are doing.  I have heard some people call this the “imposter syndrome”.

If Dr Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull are right, it’s likely that the further we travel up the organisational hierarchy the more likely we are to be poorly equipped to do our jobs.  Peter and Hull are the authors of the book The Peter Principle.  Why Things Always Go Wrong.  Their hypothesis – that people rise to their level of incompetence in organisations – has passed into the vernacular and their book, first published more than thirty years ago, is still widely available.

With or without their hypothesis, the fear exists.  As long as we feel this fear it’s hard for us to be authentic in our dealings with others.  Our energies go into wearing a mask which protects us from being “found out”.  Paradoxically, the mask we wear to secure our personal sense of safety inspires fear in others.  The more senior we are, the more this fear spreads throughout the organisations we lead.

I am reminded of Carl Rogers, whose work has been so influential in the world of learning – especially in the field of therapy and coaching.  Perhaps this extract from an article by Rachel Naomi Remen gives insight into the alternatives available to us:

Years ago, I was invited to a seminar given by Carl Rogers.  I had never read his work, but I knew that the seminar, attended by a group of therapists, was about ‘unconditional positive regard’.  At the time I was highly sceptical about this idea, but I attended the seminar anyway.  I left it transformed.


Roger’s theories arose out of his practice, and his practice was intuitive and natural to him.  In the seminar, he tried to analyse what he was doing for us as he did it.  He wanted to give a demonstration of unconditional positive regard in a therapeutic session.  One of the therapists volunteered to serve as the subject.  As Rogers turned to the volunteer and was about to start the session, he suddenly pulled himself up, turned back to us, and said, ‘I realise there’s something I do before I start a session.  I let myself know that I am enough.  Not perfect.  Perfect wouldn’t be enough.  But I am human, and that is enough.  There is nothing this man can say or do that I can’t feel in myself.  I can be with him.  I am enough’.


I was stunned by this.  It felt as if some old wound in me, some fear of not being good enough, had come to an end.  I knew, inside myself, that what he had said was absolutely true:  I am not perfect, but I am enough.

Rachel Naomi Remen, The Search for Healing
in R. Carlson & B. Shield ed. (1989)
Healers on Healing, Los Angeles:  Tarcher, p. 93

I offer you this thought:  that whether you are a man or woman in therapy or CEO of some international corporation you are, like Rogers, human and enough.
I wonder, how does this thought land with you?
   

Losing My Virginity

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,
Throughout the entire dirty-tricks episode I had been accused of being ‘naive’:  naive to believe that British Airways could behave in such a manner, naive to think that British Airways would ever stop behaving in such a manner, naive to believe that I would ever be able to bring Bristish Airways to court, naive to think for a moment that I could win a court case.  The word ‘naive’ echoed round and round in my head and at some points had almost undermined my resolve to go on.  Sir Michael Angus told Sir Colin Southgate that I was naive to take on British Airways ‘as if it was a Boy’s Own story’;  Jeannie Davis told my parents that ‘Ricky should learn to take the rough with the smooth’;  and even people like Sir John Egan of BAA told me ‘not to shake the money tree’.  Perhaps I was naive in fighting for the justice I wanted;  or perhaps I was just plain stubborn.  But I knew that British Airways’ activities were unlawful and I wanted compensation.  I was determined to make all those people who had dismissed my stance as ‘naive’ eat their words.
Sir Richard Branson
Losing My Virginity 

Lest you’re reeling with horror at the propect of some intimate and personal revelations, let me tell you from the off that I have been reading Sir Richard Branson’s autobiography.  The revelations are his, rather than mine.

Over the years, I have conducted many, many interviews of leaders at senior levels in organisations – for research purposes, to assess people for jobs – and reading Branson’s autobiography reminds me of these interviews.  Why?  Because it’s been my experience that when I interview (or read an interview by a colleague) with someone who is outstanding in what they do, my heart gladdens and some of the individual’s magic rubs off on me.  That’s what I experienced in reading Losing My Virginity.

Branson demonstrates many of the attributes – the competencies – of the successful entrepreneurial leader.  This should come as no surprise, for that’s just what he is.  One passage in the book stood out for me, in which Branson highlights the response of many people around him as he became aware that British Airways were undertaking a whole series of actions to undermine Virgin Airways and took action to bring this “dirty tricks campaign” to a halt.

With the benefit of hindsight and a legal victory in the bag, it’s easy to imagine that Branson’s decisions – the actions he took to invite BA to cease their campaign, his decision, David and Goliath style, to take them to court – were without risk.  Reading Losing My Virginity, however, it’s abundantly clear that this was not true.  Branson showed confidence and conviction in the face of higher and higher levels of risk to his business.  It is also interesting to note that he was driven not only by business imperatives but also by his strong values and on behalf of all the airlines who had also suffered at the hands of this particular Goliath and lost.  Along the way, Branson sought the counsel of some and received the unsolicited counsel of others but in the end, he knew he had to make the best decision he could and live with the consequences. 

The passage at the beginning of this posting captures this for me.  I wonder, what do you notice when you read it?  And when have you acted in line with your values, even when the risks were high?

Toothy wisdom

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When my mother was about 60 years old, her dentist advised her to stop cracking nuts open with her teeth.  She had not, until that time, had any fillings.

I was reminded of this this week when, in the midst of a week that was already far too busy, I fell victim to a dental emergency.  Was it the crunchy carrot stick?  I’m not sure, but in the midst of my lunch, something crunched and it wasn’t what was intended – a significant chunk of enamel fell away from the side of a very old filling.  Too much information, I know.

Have you ever noticed how, when something changes in your mouth – you chip a tooth or have a new filling – you have an urge to feel it with your tongue?  The cavity left by my lunchtime crunching felt like an enormous seaside cave to me.  It still does – I shall be hot footing it to the dentist this morning.

I find myself wondering:  what other changes in my life have seemed so huge at the time?  Changes that have gone on to become part of my life’s tapestry…  I think of some of the experiences that were so unwelcome at the time and seem so different now.  I think of the way those experience have shaped me and enriched my life.  And I feel grateful.

Right now, ahead of time, I’m feeling grateful for Dr. Lydia Pink at the Blackheath Village Dental Practice.

Are leadership qualities something you are born with? Or can they be learnt?

Developing as a leader

Discussion groups on LinkedIn are a rich resource and there are plenty of them available in the field of leadership – Harvard Business Review, Leadership Think Tank, Trends in Leadership and so on.  Three months ago, a woman called Roseline posted the question “Are leadership qualities something you are born with?  Or can they be learned?” on the Leadership Thank Tank and the discussion is still going strong.  I take a moment to offer the answer below – knowing that I may already have contributed – to this age old question:


Roseline, I wonder if the most significant issue is this: what is the impact of holding a belief either way?


If you believe that leadership qualities are innate, it seems to me that you are, on balance, less likely to invest in developing your own (or others’) leadership qualities. If you believe that leadership qualities can be developed, you are on balance more likely to seek to develop those qualities in yourself and in others who have aspirations to lead.


Personally, I see many examples of people who showed no leadership qualities and had no aspirations to lead until… For example, I see men and women who lose loved ones to a particular illness, or to crime (or… or… or…) who go on to show a certain type of leadership in raising the profile of a particular cause, raising money for research, setting up charities etc.


So I wonder, how would the world be different if we said to ourselves that we all have the capacity to lead (either because it’s innate or because it can be developed) and can call on this capacity when we want to?


And I wonder, what is your view on this age-old question?  I’d be delighted to see your comments in response to this posting.