The view in my backyard this morning.

The word is that many of you are snowed in this morning.  Even here in Phoenix there are news stories about remembering to wearing a jacket.  Things are rough.

I was recently in Minneapolis teaching Ownership Spirit to MMIC Group and while I was there I had a chance to visit my son and his family where we braved the weekend in the snow and the cold.  I arrived home to find the oranges on my trees ripe and ready for eating.  It occurred to me how very different our view of February is.  In my part of the world, this is the glorious season we live for — lovely, sunny days of bike riding and picnics — while my son is just hoping that “the sun will come out tomorrow.”  When either I or my son hear the word “winter” we each have very different feelings and impressions.  Our “presets” are different.

At work, one area in which our presets can hinder our performance, efficiency, and team-building, is generationally.  Every organization is made up of people from different generations — Millennials (18-30), Gen Xers (31-45), Baby Boomers (46-65), and Traditionalists (66+) — and these differences have the potential to create roadblocks in communication, in trust, and in productivity.

Each generation has specific and critical contributions to make in an organization.  Millennials excel at flexibility, technology, creativity and collaboration.  Generation Xers are innovative, independent, results-oriented, balanced and energetic.  Baby boomers are focused on sustained growth and expansion.  They are optimistic, seasoned, savvy, and stable.  Traditionalists are consistent, loyal, and have invaluable perspective and experience.

Clearly, each generation has strengths and skills that are unique and beneficial.  The problem comes when, as George Orwell said, “Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”

It is easy to make assumptions about our coworkers because of their age.  These assumptions lead to beliefs which change our behavior – making us less likely to collaborate, share, delegate, ask for help, seek advice or assistance — and this change in our behavior results directly in less powerful outcomes, less innovation, more working in silos, and making more avoidable mistakes.

My son-in-law couldn’t wait to turn thirty.  I teased him about getting so old, but he said he was relieved to finally be there.  He said that now people might take him seriously, because now when they asked he could say he was in his “thirties.”  He felt like his skills and talent were less important than his age, and that he was always having to “prove himself” over and over again.  On the other hand, there are entire courses dedicated to teaching baby boomers and traditionalists how to appear younger and “hip”-er in this job market.  When they write their resumes they’re instructed not to list the actual dates of their education or employment (the dead giveaway), to only list the last ten years of their experience (since when did too much experience become a bad thing?), “act energetic,” and to set up social networking sites so that they look tech-savvy.

The biggest problem with all of this, of course, is that by black-balling any one particular generation, we miss out on cohesive insights, synergistic breakthroughs, and multi-pronged approaches to solving problems.  We end up with defensive, disengaged, unproductive teams.  All of us can benefit from examining and taking ownership of our own presets and biases about age.

Challenging your own presets takes humility and Ownership.  Be honest with yourself about how your assumptions and stereotypes have influenced your beliefs and behaviors.  Does the word “millennial” create as much dread in you as the word “winter” does for my son?  Is there another way to see it?  Does having a few traditionalists on your team inspire you with confidence and appreciation for their knowledge and experience, or give you nightmares of old-school, antiquated ideas that have been rehashed a thousand times.  Could it be that your own perspective is the element that makes the difference?  By questioning and examining our presets, we are more likely to find the benefits to having and using all the generational resources on our teams to their very best advantage.

I am interested in your thoughts.

Last week I travelled to lovely Savannah, Georgia where I taught an Ownership Spirit seminar to the leaders of Anthem Education Group.  It was a pleasure to be there in the heart of the south (truth be told, I would have gone for the southern accents alone).  Meeting and working with the talented, dedicated educators and business leaders of Anthem Education made the training memorable and fulfilling.  I had the privilege of speaking to Anthem’s Circle of Excellence, which was made up of  leaders throughout the organization, who had excelled in their roles and were being honored for their contributions.

Anthem Education provides post-secondary education and job training and offers associate, bachelor, and master’s degrees.  Recently, along with other companies in their industry, Anthem has been under increasing pressures from economic and legislative forces resulting in new challenges to their goals and vision.  I spoke to these leaders about the critical role their own thoughts played in this process, and the vital importance of thinking and acting as an Owner when circumstances are especially challenging.

After the seminar I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with Dr. Paul Bao, Vice President and Anthem’s Chief Academic Officer.  He was enthusiastic about the principles I shared during the seminar.  In speaking about some of  their current challenges, Dr. Bao mentioned that the Chinese word for “crisis” was made up of two characters, the first which means “danger” and the second which means “opportunity.”

I had heard this somewhere before, and was impressed with the insight it brought.  I also told him that I had come across something on the Internet that had debunked the idea.

He replied, “I am Chinese.  I was born in China and have taught there on the university level.  I am bilingual, fluent in both Chinese and English.  Those are the characters for ‘crisis.’”  I later received this email from him:

Dear Dr. Deaton,

It was a great pleasure meeting you today, and I enjoyed your seminar immensely and learned a lot. The dichotomy of Owner and Victim is an interesting approach and serves really well as a vehicle to convey your wonderful message. I have been trying to own my own thoughts and actions ever since I read Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits  and will try even harder after attending your seminar.

As promised,  here are the two Chinese characters for the word crisis:

The first character means danger and the second character means opportunity. It reflects some primitive dialecticism found in ancient Chinese culture, I suppose.

Sincerely,

Paul

Since then, I have reflected on the juxtaposition of these two ideas.  Danger and Opportunity.  They seem to be at odds with each other, a dichotomy as Dr. Bao says, and, at first, almost irreconcilable ideas within the same word.  And yet, in a concise and powerful way this character embodies the Owner/Victim choice perfectly.  In every “crisis” there are two ways of seeing ourselves:  1)  In danger — of failure, of embarrassment, of rejection, of falling flat, of losing everything or 2)  With opportunity — for success, for growth, for new ideas, for innovation, for stretching, for reaching previously unimagined destinations.

This is the very choice we face each and every day.  When we choose Victim-thinking, we see: Danger!  Fear!  Insurmountable Odds!  Failure as the Only Option!  In contrast, when we make the choice of Ownership, we see:  Opportunity!  Possibility!  A Previously Hidden Solution!  A Way to Make it Happen Anyway!  And just like in the Chinese character, these two ideas are both found in every choice we make.  They exist simultaneously in every new choice.  The determining factor then, is us.  When we see Opportunity rather than Danger, the circumstance (or crisis, if you will) hasn’t changed at all–the only thing that has changed is our perspective, Owner or Victim.

No matter what industry we work in, we all face challenges.  You, like me, probably can’t get through a day without hearing about the current economic crisis and how many ways it is hurting your organization.  (Danger!  Danger!!)  What Dr. Bao reinforced for me, once again, is that real power, real breakthroughs, real progress, all come when we remember that there simultaneously exists another choice (Opportunity!  Opportunity!!) if we will but look at our particular challenge in a different way.

I’m interested in your thoughts.

Last week I went to St. George, Utah to teach a seminar sponsored by Dixie Applied Technical College.  I traveled with my wife, Susan, to the beautiful red rock country of southern Utah and had a marvelous time teaching and learning from the leaders of this small but dogged technical college.

The morning session was sponsored by Dixie ATC and they opened it to other community and business leaders in the area.  We had a nice-sized group, with good chemistry and energy.  In the afternoon, I met with twenty-one of Dixie ATC’s top leaders, mostly department and curriculum heads, and we did a session that was a combination of Ownership Spirit and Destination Thinking for Leaders, to set the foundation for their next destination.  I have rarely met with a more prepared group.  There was great feedback and discussion from the audience, who had all read the Ownership Spirit book.  We had a focused, pertinent discussion, with a group that has clearly made significant progress in changing their negative, unproductive thought patterns and these leaders had some great breakthroughs.

Dixie ATC’s current campus is spread across town in various leased buildings.  As we collaborated on creating a “new destination” for Dixie ATC, these leaders started to envision one vibrant campus with multiple, state-of-the-art buildings, a new student center, parking lots, and administrative offices.  The excitement for their future began to build.

Traditionally, the college has depended upon the state legislature to fund their programs and facilities.  About halfway through our session, one of the leaders shared the newly announced capital funding priority list by the Utah legislature.  There was good news and bad.  Dixie ATC was prioritized 9th on the funding list.  (The good news was that they were 9th, which stands a fairly good chance of being funded.  The bad news was that they were 9th, which also stands a reasonable possibility of not being funded.)

The remarkable thing was that as the excitement and energy for the new destination grew, these leaders started thinking like Owners.  They began to see many more steps they could take, beyond waiting for state funding, to make their vision come to fruition.  They generated plans about fundraising and donors, about setting up trusts and scholarships and grants by partnering with philanthropists in the community, and how they could improve the quality of their curriculum and student services whether they had new buildings or not.  They could see that there was a lot they could do, almost immediately, to stride forward to the realization of their vision.  Ultimately, their biggest breakthrough was the realization that by uniting their hearts, minds, and talents, they could reach their goals without excuses — that regardless of the economy, the state budget, the legislature’s priorities, the price of land, or anything else, Dixie ATC had someplace great to be.

It was an exhilarating privilege to witness the creation of a new creation and the increased power it brought to a team of leaders!

A few days later, I received an email from my college-age son.  He has recently set some high goals for himself and had a similar epiphany about getting to his own destination.  He wrote:

My attitude was such that I thought, “I’ll do my best to accomplish that goal, but [I have] no real intent of reaching the goal.”   The equivalent of saying I will go and do it…but I don’t really expect it to [happen].  I expect to die trying or come back home saying I did my best, but not actually accomplish it.  Long story short…I am now giving all [my] effort to achieve the goals as well as all [my] heart, which I’ve discovered is a little painful.  It’s easy to give all might, mind and strength but I’ve found it hard to give my heart.  Because if you give your heart, it hurts.

My son is right.  To really believe you can accomplish your lofty goals takes your whole heart, your whole commitment.  No excuses.

Whenever we create a new destination for ourselves or our organizations, it’s a little scary.  You’re suddenly working without a net.  And there can be a tendency to hold a piece back–a piece that says “I knew that couldn’t really happen,” a piece that prevents us from putting our full weight on the rope, as it were.  The trouble is, it’s that tiny, unbelieving piece that is keeping us from where we are and our “new destination.”  Thomas Hood said, “Half of the failures in life come from pulling one’s horse when he is leaping.”  To really get where we want to be, we have to go at our goal without excuses, with not only all of our talent and work ethic and skill, but also, with all of our hearts.

I’m interested in your thoughts.

At the end of last week I had the supreme pleasure of conducting an Ownership Spirit seminar with 400 new employees of a brand new hospital here in the Phoenix valley, Banner Ironwood.  Banner Ironwood is opening its doors in just a few days and has the enviable and unique opportunity to create a healing, nurturing, Ownership culture right from day one.   In any business, you can get a strong, powerful climate by default or by design, and the leadership team at Banner Ironwood is passionate about choosing that culture by design.  Two of Banner’s chief points of focus are on excellent patient care and employee engagement and retention.  These are both achieved when each employee, each leader, each caregiver, and each volunteer thinks like an Owner.  The leaders and staff at Banner Ironwood are choosing Ownership on purpose.

This choice was part of Banner Ironwood’s vision and mission from the ground up.  Planted around the hospital are ironwood trees, the “nurse plant” of the Sonoran desert.  They stand as living reminders of the hospital’s mission and values.  Additionally, the ironwood blossoms are prominently featured in the artwork around the building.  I was impressed with their hospital promise, part of which reads:

We stand with strength, compassion and knowledge, welcoming all who seek healing beneath our branches.

We are each but a single leaf on the tree, yet by joining together we provide a safe, healing canopy for our patients, their families, and each other.

We are each part of the shelter, the refuge, the nurturing, the strength, and the integrity that symbolizes Banner Ironwood Medical Center.

I spoke to this large gathering of employees and volunteers about the opportunity they have to create a culture of healing through their very thought processes.  Even as only one leaf on the Banner Ironwood “tree,” they each have a very real and substantive opportunity to nurture or poison, to help or to harm, to bless or to blight, simply by choosing Owner or Victim every time they walk through the hospital doors.

There is more than one way to contaminate a hospital.  As real as the transfer of germs can be without proper protocols in place, the transfer of emotions can be just as harmful.  As important as handwashing, state-of-the-art equipment,  best-practice initiatives, and excellent patient care are, service, compassion, love and listening can have just as powerful effects on the healing process.  True caring by these 400 individuals will be just as critical to patients as they marshal the disease-fighting elements of their bodies, as the treatment regimes and medicines the caregivers will administer.  In other words, the HOW is just as important as the WHAT.

I offer two examples of the irreplaceable role of a genuine caregiver:

LaTrice Haney is an oncology nurse who understands the real power of caregiving.  She was Lance Armstrong’s nurse and Armstrong called her “an angel” in his book, It’s Not About the Bike.  He said that her answers to his questions were always calm and succinct.  She never sugar-coated his illness or the battles he was up against.  But she always talked positively about the doctors, the staff, the treatment protocols, and the possible outcomes.  LaTrice Haney was only one person in the team of people helping Armstrong fight his battle against testicular cancer, and yet she made the biggest difference because of HOW she cared.  She helped Lance fight his disease with knowledge and courage because she thought and talked and acted like an owner.

Another example happened just a few miles from me, at another of Banner’s hospitals here in the valley, where there is another Owner-Healer by the name of Dr. Edward Perlstein.  One of his patients, James Lee, was a gifted sculptor.  James suffered a stroke that caused significant damage to the right side of his body, causing James to despair that he could no longer use his art or practice his love of sculpting.  In the weeks following his stroke, he languished.  Dr. Perlstein could see that James was not making any serious progress toward healing.  He had lost his will to live.  One day Dr. Perlstein asked James when he was going to sculpt again.  For a moment James thought the doctor was mocking him.  James shrugged him off.  In recounting the moment later, Dr. Perlstein said, “I told him his art was in his mind and not in his right hand.”

This was the turning point for James and made all the difference in his healing.  He began to think differently and he began to try his art again, left-handed.  A few years later James was commissioned to create a sculpture for the Banner Heart Hospital campus.  It stands today as a tribute to him, to Dr. Perlstein, and to the power of true healers everywhere.

In every business, in every human endeavor, taking a stand against victim-thinking has a miraculous effect on outcomes.  As we each take full responsibility for our corporate cultures by taking full responsibility for our own thoughts, we make a difference in the quality of those outcomes–for ourselves, for our businesses, for those we serve.  As we leave negative thought patterns behind, contamination is reduced or eliminated and infectious doubt, fear and criticism are curtailed.  And as we focus on the difference we can make by truly connecting with and caring about other people–the HOW and not just the WHAT–amazing things can happen.

I’m interested in your thoughts.

Later this month, I will be teaching the Ownership Spirit seminar at Dixie Applied Technical College in St. George, Utah.  When I saw this upcoming speaking engagement on my calendar, it reminded me of a letter I recently received from a leader there.  I found it humorous and profound, and hope that it will help you navigate your own teams through your own “deep waters.”

The email came from Kelle Stephens, Vice President of Instruction.  She writes:

Yesterday we had faculty “bookclub.”  We reviewed the first section of Ownership Spirit.  One of the faculty, Dave Seely, told a great story.  He remembers being a kid and watching Titanic with his parents….not the Celine Dion music extravaganza one…the old black and white.  His mom had been a choir director his entire life…so when the part came on where the ship was sinking and the choir director assembled the sorry victims and led them in hymns, he remembered her dabbing her eyes and remarking about how perfect it was….to go down singing the hymns.  Then he recalled his father saying: “Bullshit!  They oughta be finding something to float on!”  Perfect illustration of the difference between Victims and Owners! 

My staff is loving the book.  They are pulling spouses, adult kids, and friends into the reading.  I think it is going to make a long term difference in my ability to move this group forward. 

It has been a long time since I have seen the 1953 version of this movie.  But, I found a copy of those final, ending scenes that Dave Seely referenced and rewatched it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMx-cA96ZVI

As I did so, I was struck by a few thoughts.  First, that we can find great examples of Owner and Victim thinking all around us.  This is the difference that defines the human experience.  The story of Owner vs. Victim is, in fact, the context from which all other stories are told.  It is universal.  And even in circumstances that seem bleak and unalterable, we still have the power of that most fundamental choice, even if it is only in attitude.

Second, like Dave’s mom, I’ll have to admit I was quite touched by the doomed, singing passengers.  There is something quite appealing about their martyrdom, and they clearly get our sympathy--the stoic captain, the “brave” father, the sober boy.  I was tempted to see them as admirable, facing their imminent doom with such stiff upper lips.  This should be a red flag to each of us.  Do we engage in Victim thinking, just so that we can get the sympathies and concerns of others?  Rather than looking for solutions, do we simply resign ourselves to our “inevitable” fate?  Would we rather be pitied than be found working to solve the problem?  Are we just “making the best of a bad situation” or are we actually making a bad situation better?

The final thing which struck me about Dave’s comment was the phrase, “he remembers being a kid.”  This experience in Dave’s living room happened a long time ago, decades even.  And yet, it was such a powerful, pivotal moment, that he remembers it to this day.  The teaching moment that his father created has stayed and impacted Dave for years.  It was a good reminder to me again, of how powerful our words are to those around us.  When we are in a position of leadership, we better be thinking like an Owner because those who are following us, working with us, learning from us, and being raised by us, really are watching and listening.  

I’m interested in your thoughts.

By the way, the upcoming seminar at DXATC on Wednesday, October 27th is open to the public.  Please call 800-622-6463 or email us here if you are interested in attending.