I had a problem with my phone today.

It seems to me that many people I know who use Verizon have problems with their phones. That might be my bias, because every time I have had a problem with Verizon it has been painful trying to resolve it, so I don’t like them as a company.

Their loss – I have other choices, which I have now decided to exercise. I have cancelled my account, but the forwarding message was not working properly.
So I called the company and told them I had a problem with my phone. The response – from not one, but two of the front-line people with whom I spoke – was that there was no problem. Interesting response.

So I kept going, talking to first one department, then another, until we finally decided that perhaps it is something in the mass of technology on my end that could be causing the problem.

Now, maybe their forwarding message technology is so simple that they could categorically know that there was no problem on their end, and they felt there was nothing they could or wanted to do to help me with the problem on my end, including diagnosing it and helping me understand why there could be no problem on their end.

However, one thing I have learned from many years of working in the IT industry is just how deeply buried and illusive some technical problems can be, and how hard it can be to find the solutions alone, particularly to problems with complex technology. (come to think of it, human beings are quite similar in that regard. But that’s another story…).

And, all I knew when I started was that my phone, which is provided by Verizon, had a problem. As their customer, I wanted help figuring out what that problem was. I’m a former customer because getting such help has proved so irritating repeatedly.

All this led me to contemplate how much persistence it can take to solve complex problems.

It also occurred to me to think about how hard it can be to find people willing and able to stay with a problem long enough to resolve it.

So I’m curious. In your business and with your customers, how often do you walk away from complex problems that aren’t resolved, or expect clients or staff to find solutions on their own? Do you let others tell you your problems do not exist, despite clear indications that in fact they do?

And how’s this working for you?

The other day when I sat in one of my meetings, I heard the person next to me speaking about hope. Thinking about it as I write, it was like I was sitting so close to the idea of hope that I could practically touch it. I can still feel the impact of those words on me, tho I didn’t think much about it at the time.

This person’s words touched me in a place I hadn’t realized, just as some of words Barack Obama’s touched me last week, just as Nelson Mandela’s or Martin Luther King’s or Maya Angelou’s words have touched me at different times in the past. These words have stayed with me and resonated in me and worked in me when I wasn’t even aware of it.

They have lifted my spirits, and some days that is no small feat.

Then the other morning I heard that a characteristic of this Confluence Age that we are in is that everything is becoming new. That brought me a sense of hope and lightness, a hope and lightness that I also experienced when reading, of all things, Fast Company magazine. Because in Fast Company I read about some of the many bright, creative people out there who care about our planet and the people on it. These people are using their skills and talents to solve problems and bring us new capabilities that make life better, more sane.

These are not perfect people. Not one of them. Neither are the people I sit in meetings with. Neither are any of us on the planet. Some say that’s what it is to be human – to be perfectly imperfect.

And we are all part of the change, or can be if we want to be.

I mention this because I know I went through a time when I was angry at and avoided other people because it seemed that their imperfections had wounded me, and continued to do so. Maybe you’ve been tempted to do this? Get fed up with other people, withdraw and say, in essence, “screw you”?
I know I got awfully lonely, and couldn’t find anything worth filling my life with to replace the people I was avoiding, and believe me I looked – all over the world I looked. I kept finding I needed people. And I was feeling more and more hopeless.

Then I started looking at my own imperfections, with compassion. Not easy to do, and it took some time. But that allowed me to have the courage to stop hiding and let people see who I am really, because I didn’t have to be perfect any more.

Then I started to go back into my meetings and my communities with a change in me, with a belief that there is something greater than me, greater than the individuals and personalities around me. And with a belief that none of us has to be perfect, we just have to bring our uniqueness along with us, compassionately, to contribute to that greater whole.

That way, I don’t have to be anxious about other strong personalities or what other people think or what’s going to happen. All I have to do is be me, and bring what I have experienced, what I see and feel to the meeting or to my community.

And this, too, brings me hope. Because that’s all any of us has to do – in fact, all any of us can do. And wonderful things, like those things in Fast Company, can come out of it.

Pretty cool, huh?!

Most business people don’t like meetings.

I participate regularly in a very different kind of meeting, and it occurs to me that incorporating some of the characteristics of my kind of meetings into business meetings could be good for all concerned. I sit in my meetings on a regular basis, usually weekly. I choose to attend them. I learn a lot from them and they help me do my work better.

They are a place where I come together with others who are focused on working towards a common goal, where we share honestly with each other what’s been working and what hasn’t been working as we’ve each been doing our work. We can get feedback from each other if we ask for it, and we learn about our own work from hearing other’s stories about theirs.

Different people lead the meetings each week, so no one person dominates. We have an agreed-upon structure, and we meet monthly to discuss that structure, to see if it’s working for us. We tweak and adapt it as necessary to make the group work, and sometimes one or another of us has to give up something we feel strongly about for the good of the group.

Some days some of us are strong, and bring good information into our meetings from which others benefit. Other days it is the “weakest” among us who, in talking about what’s going on with them, bring us all an unexpected piece of learning.

The level of honesty in these meetings continually impresses me – honesty that is there because we have agreed ahead of time that we will focus on our common goal and not be distracted from that. We have agreed not to gossip about or criticize each other, and it is up to each of us to speak when we choose to. We treat each other with courtesy and respect, even when we have something difficult to say to each other.

We have agreed to be governed by principles that, for instance, help us raise the level of the conversation above the personalities in the room at any given time – and believe me, sometimes there are some pretty strong personalities in the room.

There is a spiritual basis for these meetings, but it is up to each of us to define what that spiritual basis looks like for ourselves. We believe that it is that spiritual connection (that we are each free to participate in or not, as we see fit) that helps us be successful.

One of the things business people repeatedly bemoan is the fact that they have to sit in too many meetings, meetings that are painful and unproductive. If this is you, call me - I’d be happy to share more with you about having meetings like these that I’ve described.

Blog-wise, I’m taking this week off in honor of the 4th of July - Independence Day here in the US.

Some other opportunities have come up, and I can’t do everything I want to do.

Thinking about all the things on your plate one by one, how important is each? What can you allow to slip in order to take advantage of something that has shown up in your life that may not come again, at least not in quite the same way?

I hope you, too, will allow yourself a bit of independence from the tyranny of schedules and shoulds, and take advantage of an opportunity that presents itself unexpectedly. I bet you a firecracker you’ll be glad you did!

Catching up with a UK colleague/friend a couple of weeks ago, the conversation turned to the economy. My friend observed that new patterns of activity are coming into play globally, that there are changes due to e.g. the economy, global warming, and catastrophes like wars, tsunamis, and the earthquake in China. (BTW, many of the spiritual teachers I’ve spoken to say these changes are the indicators of the Ascension – or as others call it, Confluence – I mentioned in my previous post).

I asked her how she saw all these changes impacting her business.

The answer I suspect many of us are tempted to give involves hunkering down to try to weather the storm, trying to make the best of a bad or confusing time.

To me, there’s a very different approach we need to be considering. There is, as Lindsey observed, no one leader we can put our trust in to take us through what many feel are increasingly gloomy times. In my mind, that means we each have to step up and become leaders ourselves, in our own areas, wherever we are called to do so, in roles large or small. As many of you know, I’m a dancer as well as a businessperson. I’ve learned that to dance really well, you need both a strong leader AND a strong follower – many of you have heard me say this before. Sometimes the two partners switch roles. Sometimes both give themselves over to the leadership of the musicians creating the music to which they are moving, or to members of the audience who cheer or catch the dancer’s eye and spur them on to steps and movements they didn’t even know they knew. A truly impactful performance is a fluid thing created from multiple inputs and a sharing of the leadership role, even if one person starts out or continues as the overall leader.

This metaphor is relevant in a lot of areas of life, business included. I suggest that each of us has some piece of a leadership role in the world we now live in. When we look within to understand our particular strengths, talents, interests, and potential, then we can start contributing to the world around us from that place of authority and deep knowing that is the hallmark of a leader. A number of my clients have found the work of Marcus Buckingham around finding and working from your strengths very helpful for engaging in this exploration. What have you found?

On my drive from Tucson, Arizona to Montague, Massachusetts (about 3000 miles, give or take), I stopped in Austin to see an old friend from London. It was with great interest that I watched us engage in a conversation about changes happening in the world, and specifically about a growing awareness of the need for what we called spirituality in business.

When my dad was teaching me about the business world, he told me “never but never talk about politics or religion in the workplace”. And I know I certainly feel uncomfortable when someone with fire in their eyes and passion in their voice tells me of their conversion to one faith or another, whether or not they go on to ask me directly if I don’t want to be saved, too (the question is usually implied if not stated…). So I’ve tended to keep my thoughts on such matters pretty much to myself.

Then, when I was starting Dancing Star International, I called business schools all over the world asking about their level of interest in spirituality in business. Numerous times I heard back “oh, well, personally I’m interested in such things but you could NEVER talk about it publicly in the business world”. My friend in Austin commented that now all of those business schools are likely to have at least one course on the subject.

Seems times have changed!

I will say that I experience a strong distinction between religion and spirituality or spiritual teachings. I personally am much more comfortable with the latter. I have also been developing my own brand of spiritual understanding for many years now (don’t worry, I won’t try to convince you! To me, it’s a very personal thing). What I’ve discovered and use for myself has helped me immensely in times of great change and distress. For instance, after my mom’s death I borrowed from the Jewish traditions and sat Shiva for her for a week – to give myself the space to mourn without having to put on a brave face for the world.

So, one of the topics I’ll be writing more about in my posts is spiritual questions, in part because I’m curious how many others out there have been asking similar questions, and am interested to hear what others have found for answers.

For instance, did you know the planet has gone through an Ascension (in 2006), which us humans are in the process of going through, too? At least that’s what Jen Moffat of Akashic Transformations says. Since I’ve heard from a number of different sources that this process is happening or about to happen, and see the signs these traditions talk about all around me, I have increasingly come to at least entertain the idea. So I am interested when I hear people like my friend in Austin talking about related topics.

If this were true, the question we business people might then ask is, “if that’s so, what does that mean for us, and our businesses?” The short answer, in my mind, is “lots, all good”. The longer answer(s) I’ll be exploring in future posts.

I am beginning this blog at the culmination of a series of transitions, starting with a move across country to Tucson, AZ in October 2007, including the sudden death of my mother (in January 2008) after four years with Alzheimers, and, as I write, a drive back across country for the summer to tie up loose ends back in Massachusetts.

It also marks the start of other transitions, including an intended move back to the UK in the spring of 2009, and some new directions for my business.

Most of you have been reading my rather irregular newsletters. In recent months I’ve had a lot of thoughts I’ve wanted to share, lots of juicy ideas come up that do not warrant a full newsletter, or that I want to communicate more briefly, quickly, regularly. Hence, this blog. Let me know what you think! Questions, comments, additional information always welcome.

What I also appreciate about this medium is that you all can comment directly for all to see as well, creating a mini-on-line community. I’m excited about this new adventure – I hope to hear from you in this forum.

And BTW (”by the way”, in email-speak), don’t feel like you’ve missed something because you’ve received Post 2 or 3 instead of Post 1. When putting up a new blog, I’m told it’s a good idea to have three or more entries already up, so it doesn’t look so barren…