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Fear FactorI am putting aside my previously planned topic for this month’s “Strategy Matters” article to reflect, along with the rest of the country, on what
meaning there is to be found in the tragic loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew. Amidst all the news reports of flying foam insulation, shattered tiles, and damaged leading edges, we read sober analyses about risk assessment, risk management, the impossibility of zero tolerance of risk. Risk is something you can quantify, run the numbers on, do the engineering – even if the final decision on how much you personally can tolerate is ultimately subjective.
I was struck by the report early on that the astronauts still in orbit aboard the Space Station will be kept fully informed as the shuttle investigation proceeds. I wondered what it must be like for them, isolated from their families and colleagues while this horror unfolds. I wondered, too, what the Columbia astronauts knew, if anything, about the questions that were raised --- and dismissed -- during the mission as to the safety of their return.
Certainly, they always knew there were risks, and they accepted them. What if the determination had been different – what if they had known there was no hope of coming back alive? And how would I have felt in their place? "Courage,” wrote Mark Twain, “is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear." The seven Columbia astronauts were unquestionably men and women of courage, and as such they were well-acquainted with
fear. To be fearless – without fear – is to be foolhardy, or at the least, out of touch with your essential humanity. To be without fear is to risk it all, every time, without thought or conscious choice. When you’re in a leadership position, that’s recklessness. We all have fears, large and small, and our task in life is to make sure that our fears don’t have us. Pema Chodron, in her book The Places That Scare You, writes about the Buddhist belief that even in the darkest moments of fear and terror, it is also possible to experience profound connection with all other beings, in that moment, and to use that powerful understanding of connection to move beyond the fear. So many astronauts,
including those aboard Columbia, have spoken of the sense of connection with the whole planet they experience while in space. They speak in awe of the beauty and the wholeness of Earth as seen from space, and of a renewed belief in working together as human beings to solve our problems. Ambrose Redmoon (not his real name, but that’s a story for another time…) wrote that "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that
something else is more important than fear." That, it seems to me, is ultimately the meaning of the shuttle tragedy – that there is a shared purpose in life, embodied by those courageous space explorers, that surpasses the fears we all have and calls us to our own greatness. Great leaders know this, and they know that their real power lies in being able to evoke that sense of purpose in the people they lead. 
One in three wives now outearns her husband, up from one in five in 1980, according to a recent Business Weekarticle. Women with MBAs are doing even better: Nearly 60% have salaries bigger than their spouses'. According to a national survey by the University of Maryland, employees with Web access at both the office and at home spend an average of 3.7
hours per week engaged in personal online activities while on the job, but they spend more time - an average of 5.9 hours per week - using the Internet at home for work-related purposes. The U.S. National Council on Aging estimates that employees are missing 15 million days of work each year for elder-care issues. 
Liquid content
While content and its delivery medium are intrinsically linked (content needs a medium to be expressed), they are also separate. The liquidity of content is a measure of how easy it is to use it. The more liquid content is, the easier it is to reuse, access, edit and publish in multiple media. At the far extreme is a single piece of content that can be delivered to any user in any language on any device anytime, anywhere. 
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. What I like about it: The authors address the common gap between vision and results, and make a solid case for treating
execution as a leadership discipline and a critical piece of a company’s culture. I particularly like their characterization of candid dialogue as the “live ammo” of execution. Beth Bloomfield
Executive Coach, Strategy Consultant
Principal, Bloomfield Associates Authentic Happiness, by Martin Seligman. What I like about it: He does a
nice job of presenting a scientific basis for what happiness is. The writing is a blend of personal and professional with great examples and practical guidelines. This is the stuff that will give coaching a foundation of credibility. Michael H. Kahn, Ph.D.
Personal Coach & Psychologist
Synergy For Success -- Work & Personal Life
Share what you’re into — books, articles, movies, music, websites — with others on the list! Send us the title and author or other pertinent information, along with one sentence on what you like about it, and if we use it in A Different Optic we’ll not only quote you, we’ll provide a link to your website. 
"Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes."
— Eleanor Roosevelt |  |
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Beth Bloomfield has been awarded the prestigious designation of
“Professional Certified Coach” from the International Coach Federation. The ICF, founded in 1992, is a non-profit organization and the premier professional association of personal and business coaches, with over 5,500 members worldwide. The ICF seeks to build, support and preserve the integrity of the coaching profession. The PCC credential – the industry benchmark -- is awarded to professional coaches who validate that they meet or exceed professional quality standards set
by the ICF. | | |
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