The story reaches its climax when a little boy yells out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”

The Emperor’s New Clothes was first published in 1837. More than 165 years later, it’s message still informs our lives.

Who are you in the story?

Are you the emperor asking for any news that validates your self belief?

Are you the tailor selling lies to those eager to believe their own delusions?

Are you the courtier desperate to belong and willing to go along to get along?

Are you the child pointing at the truth?

Perhaps you are the child’s mother who shushes him and thus kills the truth (while calling it an act of love)?

You know who you are.

The next question is: Who do you want to be?

Choose well.

photo credit: AvidlyAbide via Compfight

                          

The other night I heard time stomping across the world…For once, I had a sense of movement as if time were really passing before me. This night the future came to me without any desire on my part…When certain things happen that we think ourselves powerless to resist, we sometimes jump in and help them along, just to be on the winning side.  But I was lying in bed, having no particular wish to compromise on the matter, and sensing that what was happening was the future coming to me without any seeking on my part.

How often is it like that! The future coming without desire.  We look at it blinded or dismayed. “That’s not our future,” we say to ourselves. “We didn’t order it.  It must be someone else’s delivered to us by mistake.” We’d like to call up Destiny, Incorporated, and say: “Take it back, please.”

The future is made up of events, things that someone creates and puts into our existence.  But whenever something is created, be it even a simple invention, the results radiate outward indefinitely…” Robert P. Crawford, The Techniques of Creative Thinking (1954)

This post continues the theme from the last: Someone (maybe you!) builds the future.

Though clock time will continue to pass, there is no requirement that its passing leaves us better for it. We can put ourselves in league with the future or we can resist it.  Each choice is ours and ours alone.  Others will try to compel our bodies to accept a future we don’t desire, but they can never compel our minds.

As the week dawns and the future bears down upon us, once again I ask you, “What choice will you make?”

photo credit: Luz Adriana Villa via Compfight

                          

Kevin Dooley via Compfight

It seems many people have an overwhelming misconception that the future–their future–is an ordered thing that they chug their way into like an engine loaded with cars down a study railroad track.  Can you see the flaw in that way of thinking?

Before you can steam down the track someone had to be there before you to survey the ground, select the grade and route, prep the land, acquire the materials and build the track.

In many organizations today, people are not at the end of a future well planned for by others.

They–we–are at the end of the line.  No one has gone any farther than us.  Now what do we do?

Do we stop and wait for the smart men that know about surveying, grading, prepping, acquiring, and building to save us?  Do those men even exist anymore? (Who is John Galt?)

Or, do we get down from the engine, look about, leverage what known knowledge we can (a task easier than ever before in human history…internet anyone?), and start building our way into our future?

This our time to decide.  We can wait for help that may never come, or we can make the future–our future–as we like it.

Each of us must make the choice: sit and wait or think and act.

What choice will you make? Or have you made your choice already?

There is much to be done.  Much to be done.

Why not try?

                          

If it is the first time you’re doing something in your organization, there won’t be a neat little plan for how to do it.

You’ll actually have to think your own way through it while the leaders think their way through too.

Just because they don’t have everything all figured out doesn’t mean they are bad leaders; it means they are human.

Engage your brain. Use your time to craft your plan (and act on it). Don’t waste your time micromanaging their plan from the sidelines.

Help achieve the objective in the best way you know how (oh, and prepare for changes of course along the way–that’s just the way it is.)

I’m going to get on with making a big change.  Feel free to join me.

Or, don’t.  It’s still your choice.  Make it.

Let’s get on with it already.

photo credit: vgm8383 via Compfight

                          

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.” – Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Last Friday, I shared this quote with the Guiding Coalition in hopes of encouraging them to continue to own their lives, vice waiting for orders from others.  As the world jumps from crisis to crisis and as we are encouraged to both fear our leaders and follow them, the solution to gaining and sustaining our own happiness lies in taking charge of our lives.

I’m not waiting for orders.  I’m off to create the life–and the world–I desire.

What will you do this week?

Photo credit: Zach Dischner via Compfight

                          

photo credit: twitpic of @FrankLangeFocus

Yesterday Steve Holt presented our topic at the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization (TOCICO) International conference in Baden, Germany.

Jack Vinson was gracious enough to write a post about what he learned.

The core message of “Fire the Consultants” wasn’t to actually to fire the consultants, but to stop what consultants are usually pushed to do, which is drive people to change.  The results they achieve, if they achieve any, gained by driving people to change then disappear as soon as the consultant does.

The alternative is for consultants (both external and internal) to drive change instead.  If they pursue the change and work to allow others to join the change (instead of being conscripted into its service), then the change will advance and sustain.

Yet, driving change is not enough.  Often change efforts require the conscious use of a policy buffer, a personal or group agreement to behave differently than the organizational norm and a willingness to act to sustain that different behavior against attacks.

Thanks go out across the seas to Steve Holt (@skholt) for carrying the thoughts spawned from a summer thinking day two years ago all the way to Germany to share with the fabulous people who attend TOCICO.  It is my hope that the concepts of driving change and policy buffers help them create the world they want by sustaining the changes they are making.

                          

He’s ready to smile, gather strength, and grow brave.

Are you?

Why not try?

                          

In 2004 I found and devoured Theodore Rockwell’s book, The Rickover Effect.  Published in the early 90s, the book tells stories from the launch of the NNPP and helped put into context all that I was being asked to do at work.

Last week I finally decided that I should email Mr. Rockwell and tell him how grateful I was (and am) for his book.  I drafted my short email and hit ‘send.’

All day I watched for a reply to come in.  Would he reply? What would he say?

Later that day I decided to do more internet searching to learn more about Mr. Rockwell.  It was then that I came across his April 25, 2013 obituary in the Washington Post.  Theodore Rockwell had passed away a month earlier on March 31, 2013.

I was too late.

I thought of the Martin Luther King, Jr. quote,

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, on this gloomy, late spring, Pacific Northwest morning, I rise before the dawn and type this reminder to you:

1. Honor those who’ve come before you in your organization, especially those who have changed you profoundly.

2. Don’t wait to say thank you, because some day it will be too late.

3.  Embrace the fierce urgency of now and act with all the boldness that you can muster.

“The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood–it ebbs…” and when it does, don’t be left with any regrets.

What change are you going to drive today?

Who are you going to thank today?

How are you going to confront the fierce urgency of now?

Why not try?

[p.s. Mr. Rockwell, who died at 90, was still working up until his death.   He had a website and his tagline said, "I'm an engineer and an author. I like to stir up spirited discussions on important issues. Socially, I like to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable."  When I'm surrounded by people biding their time until retirement, I think of men like Mr. Rockwell, who work up until their deaths at advanced ages not because they must, but because it is their calling and they love the work they do.  That is how I often feel about my work.  I may not be doing it for the same company or in the same way, but I will be doing this work until I leave the earth.  On that I have no doubt.  What joy there is in finding something you truly love and devoting your life to it!  Thank you Theodore Rockwell for being a great example of that joy for me, and for many others!]

                          

As I sat in the stands watching the boys play, I was struck with the thought of how silly we are to be stopped by our often petty little complaints about our lives.  We often use the petty complaints to convince ourselves we can’t accomplish the things we want, need, and desire.  We say, “The organization isn’t right,” or “The boss isn’t right,” or “The timing isn’t right.”  UGH! Enough.

I hope you can draw some inspiration for the smiles and joy captured in the photos above.  I hope you can use some of that inspiration to propel yourself forward toward–and over–whatever challenges in your life are holding you back.

Consider yourself an honorary Challenger today.  I’m sure the boys won’t mind.

Decide.  Act.  Then you can say, “Challenge met!”

Why not try?