The Art of Demotivation

Many of you are probably familiar with a company called Successories. They provide inspirational quotes on awards, calendars, and basically anything else you can think of.

There is another company out there who has branched off from this idea....sort of. It is called Despair, Inc. They provide the same sort of materials, with a twist. They provide tools for unleashing your inner potential......"the potential of dreamers, within whom lives a potentially disillusioned grouse, simply waiting to take flight on the wings of bitterness."

A bit strange? Indeed! Take a look at these products: Motivation, Underachievement, and Dare to Slack. If you haven't seen their site before, or even if you have and are in need of a good laugh, take the time to browse through their collection of products. And yes, they are a real company selling real products!

I have several of their posters that I use when teaching servant-leadership. Why? Because sometimes we can get so caught up in trying to lead and motivate that we can become a bit too serious. Despair, Inc. is a good reminder to take the time to laugh at ourselves and even poke some good-natured fun at the world of motivation.

Links for Tuesday, Nov. 29th

Here are some articles that I found of interest that I wanted to share:

• John Stanko has two great book reviews that are worth the time to read. The first is a review of Greenleaf's The Power of Servant-Leadership. The second is a review of Parker Palmer's A Hidden Wholeness. Both are wonderful reviews; and if either of these books are not on your shelf, please put them near the top of your Christmas wish-list!
• A nice article in The Birmingham News about the expectation voters have that the city's elected officials be servant-leaders.
• A pastor writes about his disillusionment with church leaders, particularily those who you find on television. He includes a great story of meeting a Bishop from Kenya who carried his bags when he arrived in Nairobi and compares his actions with those of some mega-church pastors.
• Last, Edwin Robinson was recently inaugurated as MidAmerican Nazarene University's fourth president. His inagural address was titled: "The President as Servant-Leader." You can find both the article and the full text of his speech here.
  

Big News here at Viterbo

I've been a bit slow to start out the week posting. It was a busy, and very exciting, day on Monday as we welcomed our new president, Dr. Richard Artman, to campus. He comes from Siena Heights University in Adrian, MI where he served 11 years as president. He will begin his duties as president of Viterbo on July 1, 2006.

Every member of our department, along with most everyone else I spoke with, was thoroughly impressed with Dr. Artman during his campus visit. In fact, our Board of Directors was so impressed during the search process that he was the only candidate they brought in!

You can find more information, including photos of today's announcement, here. Congratulations to Dr. Artman and his wife Joan; WELCOME to the Viterbo community!

Greenleaf's Holidays

Robert Greenleaf's daughter told me that her father missed out on the joy of holiday celebrations when he was a child. No lavish Christmases, no Valentine's Day cards. Even though Bob's father George was a remarkable and admirable man, his mother Burchie was an emotionally unstable alcoholic. That fact, combined with the lack of celebrations, must have made holiday periods bittersweet.

Instead of dwelling on all he had missed growing up, the adult Robert Greenleaf went all-out to celebrate the holidays. He spent weeks in his basement workshop fashioning gifts of jewelry for his wife and daughters and putting together gadgets for his son. The Greenleaf Christmas tree was decorated in splendid and outrageous fashion, planted in an ocean of bought and homemade gifts. On Valentine's Day, Bob festooned the house with crepe paper, cooked breakfast for "my women" and passed out presents.

In doing all these things Bob not only showed love for his family but also served them—and himself—by creating new and more positive holiday associations instead of brooding on or reproducing the past. This celebratory side of Greenleaf is little-known but for me it holds lessons as powerful as his writings: just as I must choose to lead, I must also choose to create and accept joy that is deeper than surface happiness; I cannot change the past but I can change my responses to it and create a rich present; serving oneself as well as others is psychologically smart.

It's something to think about this Christmas.

Don Frick

A Time for Reflection

One of the often overlooked parts of servant-leadership is the importance of reflection and stillness. It is not all about 'doing'; it is also about using quiet time to evaluate, plan and also re-energize.

Greenleaf was well aware of the power of this. I must admit that it is a weakness in my own life - I would often rather be doing. I think that sometimes the blog postings demonstrate this quite well; I sometimes don't give ideas time to come to me; rather, I push myself to post and in doing so do not fully capture the essence of the concepts presented.

Thanksgiving is an occasion to not only spend quality time with family and friends being thankful for all the gifts we have been given, it is also a time to reflect on our journeys: past, present and future. I hope you have the opportunity to take some time these next few days to be both thankful and reflective, using this time to help center youselves as you live out servant-leadership.

Enjoy the holiday and I will "see you" on Monday!

Servant-Followers

On Friday I blogged about leaders who come into organizations from different fields. While I think someone can be an effective servant-leader in this situation, I noted that the acceptance from members of the organization may prove to be difficult.

Let's assume that a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company is hired to lead your organization. This person says they want to be a servant-leader. They want to be a primus inter pares, a first among equals.

What types of things should/must this person do and say to gain the trust of all the employees of the organization? How long before people begin to truly trust this new servant-leader? Is it different for middle managers as compared to hourly employees? And finally, do you think the trust would be built quicker if the person came from the same field rather than from outside of it?

Links for Tuesday, Nov. 22

Here are a few links you may find of interest:

Articles

• From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, someone wants to run for county commissioner and is running on the campaign of bringing servant-leadership to county government;
• In the El Dorado Times a former Mayor speaks to graduates about servant-leadership and being an effective leader;
• A Kansas City Star article interviews a retiring Community Foundation leader who speaks of the servant-leadership model for leading the foundation; and
• A great article in the Beacon News about servant-leadership as a new approach to leading. A must read!
  

Blogs

• A bishop in the Episcopal church speaks at the diocesan convention and talks about paying attention to the servant-leadership model as a way of performing ministry;
• A recent blog post where someone notes that there is a difference between a leader who serves and a servant who leads.

I have also noticed that the number of web pages found each day talking about servant-leadership continues to grow! Great news!

How to interpret Primus Inter Pares.

Last month I spent some time talking about the Greenleaf's notion of primus inter pares, 'first among equals.' Check out here for one of my posts, and here for Don Frick's post.

Today I read this article on the Chronicle of Higher Education site. (No subscription required) A vice-president of an executive search firm speaks of what is required of today's univeristy presidents. He claims that there once was a time when presidents and provosts were considered to be primus inter pares among the faculty. However, that is no longer the case.

It is unreasonable, he explains, to expect today's university presidents to be a recognized leader in teaching and/or research. He believes that effective presidents look less like the faculty than in years past. Clearly the author of the article uses the term primus inter pares (and nowhere does he mention Greenleaf or servant-leadership) to mean that the leader comes from a similar background as those he or she leads.

I'm not sure that Greenleaf would have such a strict interpretation of the term. Greenleaf, I believe, uses the term to explain how an effective servant-leader relates to those with whom he or she works.

The questions here is this: Can someone be viewed as an effective primus inter pares (as opposed to a 'chief') if they do not come from the same field and experiences as those they are leading? For example, can someone who has spent their life working in politics be an effective servant-leader in the business world?

I believe, and I think Greenleaf would agree, that the answer to both of these questions is 'yes.' Of course, the other side of all of this involves the servant-followers. I believe that many struggle with this, and I'll come back to this with more on Monday.

I think the author needs to look at expanding his view of what primus inter pares can truly look like. On the other hand, the author may be right on this account: Those in academia need to accept that today's university leaders may not have the same experiences that they do teaching and/or conducting research. But even so, that does not mean they cannot be effective servant-leaders, resist the traditional top-down organizational structure, and come to be accepted by faculty as a primus inter pares, a first among equals.

The greatest servant-leader of the past 1,000 years?

I recently ran across this post from the BBC, who did an online poll asking who was considered the 'greatest man' of the past 1,000 years. Here are the results:

1. Mahatma Gandhi
2. Leonardo da Vinci
3. Jesus Christ
4. Nelson Mandela
   
5. Sir Isaac Newton
6. Albert Einstein
7. Martin Luther King
8. Sir Winston Churchill
9. Charles Darwin
10. Karl Marx

Ok, this is quite the list! Considering the diversity, I would love to have seen the question so as to have a better idea of what exactly they were looking for. Since there are several servant-leaders on the list, let me ask:

Who is the greatest servant-leader of the past 1,000 years? For the sake of discussion, let's leave Jesus off the list for now. What names come to mind? Remember to think globally. If enough people leave comments or send me an e-mail, I'll post the results early next week.

In a similar story to the one above, English Head teachers would rather be like Gandhi than Churchill. Any surprise there?

Off the path......

In a totally unrelated topic:

Tuesday the new Bruce Springsteen 30th Anniversary 3-Disc Born to Run set was released. Despite wincing a bit at Springsteen's political involvement in '04, I've always enjoyed his music & lyrics. And while I've never danced with a student to the song, Born to Run definitely ranks right up there as a classic Rock 'n Roll tune in my mind.

If you like Springsteen, you probably already own most of the music included in the set. However, what makes this worthwhile is a concert DVD of Bruce and the band at Hammersmith Odeon in London back in 1975. It is worth purchasing just for that alone.

And if that still isn't enough Springsteen for you, here is an interview he did this week on NPR.

Greenleaf and Drucker

Yesterday I blogged about the passing of Peter Drucker. Don Frick, who wrote the biography of Greenleaf's life and is our resident Greenleaf expert, provided these comments:

Bob Greenleaf lived near Peter Drucker and befriended him soon after Drucker immigrated. Bob & Esther entertained the Druckers frequently and Esther delighted in challenging Peter on all kinds of issues.

Later, Greenleaf invited Drucker to lecture at many AT&T seminars, and Drucker invited Bob to speak for the AMA.

In the Introduction to the book "On Becoming a Servant Leader," Drucker reflects on their long relationship.

Thanks Don! Embarrassingly enough, I had forgotten about Drucker's foreword in On Becoming a Servant-Leader, which Don edited with Larry Spears. Although the entire foreword is worth reading, here is a short excerpt:

Bob Greenleaf and I knew that we shared the same beliefs and values, but our relations were always professional, rather than personal or social. We also went about our work very differently. In fact, our aims were quite different. When I worked iwth him, Bob was always out to change the individual, to make him or her into a different person. I was interested in making people do the right things, in their actions and behavior. Bob was interested in motives; I was interested in consequences. This became very clear to both of us in the first session of the Asbury Park school (AT&T Advanced Management School) when one of the senior participants asked, "What do I do?" and Bob said, "That comes laer. First, what do you want to be?" The man then turned to me, and I said, "What do you think will work?" All three of us burst out laughing.

Links for Tuesday, Nov. 15th

Here are a couple of links I recently came across:

• John Stanko has this post about Luke 22 and servant-leadership. This is one of many examples of Jesus' teachings about being a servant. Luke 22.26 says: ...the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves." Take the time to read John's post as he does a great job expanding on the text.
• Chris Meirose wrote this post introducing his readers to Robert Greenleaf and the Greenleaf Institute. Great job Chris!
  

Peter Drucker, RIP

Word came on Friday that management writer and guru Peter Drucker died at age 95. I'm not sure of Dr. Drucker's relationship, if any, with Robert Greenleaf. However, I imagine they would have met on several occasions.

Greenleaf and Drucker, while writing on similar themes, had very different approaches and styles - Greenleaf was much more philosophical, Drucker was more of a strategist. Although an obvious oversimplification, for sake of brevity we'll leave comparisons there for now.

I think what appealed to me most about Dr. Drucker was that he spent a lifetime as an educator, and yet was also concerned about how ideas become reality. I've met far too many professors who only concern themselves with theory, never concerning themselves with the connection with everyday practice. Drucker took both very seriously.

Claremont, where Dr. Drucker taught, has a biography, bibliography, and a must-read timeline available. A couple of former Claremont students have comments here and here. You can google numerous other articles, but here is both an article and an obituary from FT.com.

The web, it is a changin'

I recently came across a web-based service called Pandora. You simply enter a song or artist that you enjoy and it creates a station and plays music similar to that artist....for free! You can tell it which songs you like and which ones you don't and it will customize and play songs with a similar style. You can set up numerous stations. For example, I have a 'Martina McBride' station, an 'Alison Krauss' station, and for when I'm feeling a little wild a 'Paul Butterfield Blues Band' station. :-)

Just another great development on the web....

When selecting a new leader......

We are in the process here at Viterbo of searching for a new president. Our current president is retiring and will be moving into the newly created role of chancellor. Yesterday we brought in our one finalist, a president of 10+ years at a similar sized university, who shall remain nameless to protect him and his current university. The reviews around campus were very favorable. In fact, when asked about his leadership qualities he named many of the principles of servant-leadership!

Our current president is very well respected, both in the community and here on campus. Everyone recognizes him as a great servant-leader, a visionary, and someone who always has the best interests of the university at heart. We have grown our enrollment, endowment, and physical plant (buildings) under his leadership. And so as we have been moving towards hiring a new president, it got me thinking and reflecting......

Let's assume for the sake of these questions that an organization has a strong servant-leader and is replacing him/her with another strong servant-leader.........

How do organizations effectively replace servant-leaders? When trust exists in an organization's leadership, what are some specific things the new leadership can do to maintain and even grow that trust? How much time should a new leader be given to "grow" into the position? How many changes, and what type, can/should a new leader make within the organization before people begin to question their leadership? In what ways should we expect a new leader to place their own "mark" on the organization? In what ways should we expect a new leader to "leave things alone"?

What are your thoughts when reflecting on these questions? What other concerns/questions can you think of?

A Call for Papers

I thought I would bring this to your attention......Next October at the Angelicum in Rome there will be an International Conference on Catholic Social Thought and Corporate Social Responsibility in Dialogue. Anyone interested in presenting should take a look here. The deadline for proposals is January 31st. I'm writing something for the conference and I'll share it with you as it develops further.

Links for Today, Nov. 09

My RSS feed and inbox have been getting inundated lately with some interesting articles talking about servant-leadership. Here are just a few:

• An article from the Baptist Standard about leadership examples in scripture and the servant-leader example provided by Jesus;
• Sharon Stoll of the Center for Ethical Theory and Honor in Competition and Sport at the University of Idaho has been designing ethics programs for sports teams. The most important lesson she wants them to walk away with? Be a servant-leader in action, word, and deed;
• Here is an interesting one: The Agile Blog, a corporate blog from the folks at Agile Software, recently blogged about a podcast of an interview with Spike Lee, the filmmaker. Agile Software, a firm believer in Servant-Leadership, believes these principles are everywhere in the character of Spike Lee and the way he makes movies. (Sorry, I can't find this podcast interview anywhere). Movie directors as servant-leaders.....never thought about it before, but deserving of some more discussion down the road;
• This is an interesting one.....It is a commentary by some students who recently attended the innauguration events for the new president at Drury University. It seems the university had a leadership forum where they discussed servant-leadership, then led a discussion that did not allow for open questions and participation by the students. Talking the talk, but not walking the walk is quite common when it comes to servant-leadership. It appears this may be the case at Drury as well.
  
• The University of Missouri-St. Louis has an Emerging Leaders program that focuses on Servant-Leadership. This article talks about the program and how it is implemented on campus. It looks like a great program that I am excited to learn more about. Any university looking to develop a leadership program would do well to contact them!
• Last, here is an interesting job opening for an Operations Engineering Manager. One of the first things they are looking for? Someone who is passionate about developing people and a firm believer in servant-leadership.
  

A new blog dedicated to Servant-Leadership

I recently ran across this blog on Servant-Leadership. It gets me excited to know there are others about there willing to blog about it!

Now, you may notice something unique when you read this blog: The blog is in Dutch! Imke, the author, is a student (I believe) at the University of Amsterdam. I say it this way because I only recently (a couple of months ago) picked up a book on the Dutch language and am just now trying to read some Dutch. I actually got interested in the language from running across Hans' blog, which has frequent posts on servant-leadership as well. So while I am working on trying to improve my reading of the Dutch language, I am struggling through the posts. If any of you know any Dutch you will notice that Imke seems to know Greenleaf's work and the role of servant-leadership in the world quite well.

Best of luck Imke with your blog....I'll be following along (as best as I'm able) with great interest!

And the Survey Says........

Recently the U.S. News & World Report, along with the Center for Public Leadership, conducted a survey of American's confidence in leaders from 11 different sectors. It is an absolutely fascinating read. I don't think that there is anything in the report that you will find shocking, but it does provide some great confirmation of the lack of trust in today's leadership. Here are some highlights:

• 73% believe that today's leaders are out of touch with the average person;
• 58% believe that leaders cannot be trusted;
• Honesty and Integrity are rated substantially higher than having the Knowledge and Skills to be a leader;
  
• 82% believe that Americans not keeping up on important issues are part of the leadership problem.

I think that there are sections of the survey that need to be read with a grain of salt. For example, one of the questions had to do with America's Emergency Response; the question was asked only 2 weeks after Katrina devastated Nola. And considering President Bush's job approval rating right now, I wonder what a similar survey would have found immediately following 9/11.

That said, it is well worth a look. Make sure you take a look at page 9 of the report, which looks at the respondents' ratings of leaders across various sectors.

Heading out of town

Not that you have a ton of interest in what I'm doing, but there will not be any posts from me again until Monday. I'm off to meet with some folks about my doctoral work, which yes, will include a great deal of work on servant-leadership. Have a wonderful, safe weekend!

Some links of interest

Servant-Leadership articles have been showing up everywhere as of late, so I thought I would share a few for you to check out as you get a chance:

Business-oriented links
--The Manila Times has a good article by Ben Teehankee about becoming a better leader through the use of Servant-Leadership.

--Anthony at BizzBangBuzz discusses TD Industries and their use of servant-leadership.

Religious-oriented links
--John at Jesus the Radical Pastor blogs about how Jesus calls us to be servant-leaders.

--An article in the Winston-Salem Journal explains how the concept of servant-leadership is becoming more a part of the business world, but with a Christian orientation.

--If you come from a Catholic background, you will have noticed this past Sunday that the gospel reading came from Matthew 23.1-12. Mt. 23.11 says "The greatest among you must be your servant." This is just one of many places where Jesus uses the language of being a servant in the gospels. Dennis blogs every Sunday about that week's gospel reading and has a great reflection on Jesus as a leader.

--Last, here is a post on Mirror of Justice. While it is not focused specifically on servant-leadership, I included it for several reasons: 1) The blog is run by the University of St. Thomas Law School professors (I did my undergrad at St. Thomas); and 2) It is a great post (a reprint of an NCR article) about the Catholic identity of Law Schools. What does it have to do with servant-leadership? Towards the end the dean of the St. Thomas law school mentions the dedication of the St. Thomas law school to the mission of servant-leadership.

Every single one of these articles and posts are fantastic reads. I hope you get as much out of them as I did.

Putting a price on Servant-Leadership

Seth Godin blogged today about the monetizing of blogs. It seems there has been an interesting little web program going around that allows one to see the "value" of their blog. He, I believe rightly so, criticizes the idea of putting a value on your blog. He makes the point that people should be blogging and putting out a good product for its own end, not as a means to make money.

The last line of his post really hit home with me: "maybe you will, one day, figure out how to achieve the much-heralded monetization. But if that is your primary goal, the compromises you make along the way will likely cause your efforts to backfire."

The same thing can be said about servant-leadership! If your organization adopts servant-leadership because you think it will make you more profitable, there is trouble ahead. The reasons for wanting to be part of an organization that embraces servant-leadership are numerous. But for those of you who have been part of these organizations, you know that it is not anywhere near being a 'quick fix'. It takes years, not weeks, for an S-L culture to develop. Servant-Leadership should be embraced because it is the right thing to do. Can, and will, it make an organizational more profitable down the road? Yes. But profits shouldn't show up on a 'top ten' list of reasons to embrace it.

Practicing Servant-Leadership on campus

The Chronicle's Wired Campus Blog posted this article about a new program at UNC-Chapel Hill. The university has started providing laptops, free of charge, to its employees to use at home for a period of six months. As I read more about it here some very interesting points came to light: The laptops are available to any staff member with a salary of less than $35,000/year who are enrolled in some sort of coursework; furthermore, the program started with 10 computers, but has since grown to 30 with wireless capabilities, and another 15 without; and they are all frequently checked out.

Here is a great example of a university asking the right kinds of questions: What would help encourage our staff to continue their education?; What can we do to help further that education?; and How do we help those who are most in need financially? From the university's viewpoint this is a great way to go about it without having a large impact on the university budget, which is obviously a concern on many college campuses if you read yesterday's post.

Oh, and the best part of this story? The part that drives home how much this all rings true with servant-leadership? The first ten were purchased by the University Chancellor himself, with bonus money he had earned as part of his job. (OK, I have an issue with paying the university administration bonuses, but won't let that get in the way here of an absolutely great story). Being true to the mission of the university....it doesn't get much better than this.

Great Introduction to Servant-Leadership

Workshops and courses, conferences and programs about servant-leadership are popping up all over. For those in the upper-midwest, the Exceptional Leadership Program offered by the Franciscan Spirituality Center in La Crosse, WI is worth considering.

Exceptional Leadership is a four session program which builds on the principles of servant leadership. It is not a quick fix, rather, a long-term approach to becoming a servant-leader who listens well, builds community, stewards organizational resources and has a vision of the common good.

Reasons to attend:
Gain a greater understanding of leadership styles
Discover new inner resources to better serve customers and employees
Learn reflection techniques which provide space for innovative
solutions
Discover how to convert insights into concrete action
Determine the scope of personal leadership needed for organizational change

Who will benefit most:
Professionals who are responsible for fostering institutional growth
Leaders who wish to foster individual and organizational learning while improving productivity
Individuals who wish to help employees become stewards of the
company or organization
Leaders who wish to rekindle their spirit and enthusiasm for work
Leaders in education who love learning and the teaching life
Those interested in connecting their leadership role with the human being they are

The four weekends are:

Basics of Servant Leadership
November 4 & 5 2005

The Reflective Life of a Leader
January 20 & 21, 2006

Discovering your Leadership Style
March 3& 4, 2006

Acting for the Common Good
April 28 & 29, 2006

Application/Registration Information
If you are interested in the Exceptional Leadership Weekends or on-site programming you may contact Rosalie Hooper Thomas at her direct line (608) 791-5268 or email her at rthomas@fspa.org.

http://www.franciscanspiritualitycenter.org/Servant/servant.htm

What is the Job of a University President?

In a recent survey (registration required) of university presidents across the country, the biggest issues facing them are: financial. It appears that many of our university presidents are feeling as if they are being judged on whether or not they have a balanced budge, not if they are offering quality educational programs. Here are some of the interesting results:

53% said they spend part of every day on fund-raising;
44% said part of every day was spent on budgets and finance;
41% said they spend part of their day on educational leadership; and only
28% said they spend part of every day on student life matters.

I doubt many would argue with me that something here seems entirely off-center. While I will concede that universities are being held much more accountable these days (rightfully so) for their spending habits, it seems that the mission of the average american university is being lost in all of this. Universities exist to prepare, train, and serve students. The opposite is not true: students are not there to make sure the budget is balanced!

So what is the role of the university president? What can, and should, these men and women do differently? And how can servant-leadership play a part in it all?

Rethinking the Mission of Health Care

Yesterday this post showed up on Tom Peters' blog. Memorial Health has opened a small walk-in clinic in a Wal-Mart in South Bend, IN. We are all familiar with the numerous issues in obtaining affordable health care in the U.S. It is just this sort of outside-the-box thinking about the way we provide health care service that is needed in this country.

If we look at the mission of the health care system, it does not take too much matter in the noggin to figure out that those without much of a voice in this country (minorities, the poor, the oppressed, etc.) are not being taken care of properly. The principles of servant-leadership call us to look for new answers; looks like Memorial Health may have found some. It may not be the panacea needed, but it is a start.

You can read more about their new program here. A menu of the services they offer can be found here.

Busy week

As most of you know, I try and post a couple of times each day during the week. (Weekends are family time, as I promised my wife when I started blogging). This is just a hectic week for me, and I apologize for there not being any posts yesterday.....The end of the week will be light as well due to travel...more on that later.