Category: Reflection (Page 5 of 5)

TEDxHouston – Brené Brown

Dr. Brené Brown is a researcher professor at the University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work, where she has spent the past ten years studying a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness, posing the questions: How do we engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to embrace our imperfections and to recognize that we are enough — that we are worthy of love, belonging and joy? Brené is the author of I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power (2007) and the forthcoming books, The Gifts of Imperfection (2010) and Wholehearted: Spiritual Adventures in Falling Apart, Growing Up, and Finding Joy ( 2011).

This spoke to me

Long live the king. The king is dead. This week in Australian politics – the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd was politically assassinated. In the space of 24 hours the incumbent party’s power brokers stirred the cauldron and the caucus came together to nominate the first ever female as leader of the country.

Was ever a man so powerful made so weak? Barely containing the emotion of defeat, the man, once king, flanked by his immediate family stood at the dais, giving his departure speech as he listed his achievements to the press and the people. Many they were, including the now famous apology to the indigenous people of Australia, in addition to education, tax and health reform.
Here was a man who had commanded the highest popularity of any Prime Minister in history, sent to the backbenches like a whimpering schoolboy. This was no way to treat a king, cried the leader of the opposition. The irony not lost on the public that the loudest voice of outrage came from the opposing side.
So what happened? Perception is what happened. And relationships are what didn’t.
Kevin Rudd created the perception that he was a ‘can do’ guy who worked hard and got the job done. He had passion, fervour, toughness and diligence for the policies and programs the country had ‘given him a mandate’ to implement. After all this was the man who single handedly (working with a small team) fought of the GFC in Australia with the stimulus package.
But the cry went out after he (and his small team) returned from the Summit on Global Warming with no Emissions Trading Scheme in place. “Who is this man who says he will then doesn’t?” Questions began to grow – “What does this man stand for?” The tide of perception began to turn as the king’s political opponents capitalised on every slip up, every policy failure, every opportunity that presented itself.
Scrutiny on the king then turned to his relationships. He had the highest turnover rate of staff of any political leader. He was known to be ruthless: a hard man to work for; asking his staff to work 20 hours a day, weeks on end. It was nothing to receive a call at 4.00 in the morning to have a report ready by 6.00am, or so the stories went.
Yet on the day of his political death, the man at the microphone spoke of what he’d done, as he listed his achievements. And of these none could be questioned.
But this, once great man, was not aware that it was ‘How’ he had gone about his work that had created his reversal of fortune. He had long used his social credits at the expense of – ‘doing good things for the country’. He had prioritised task and outcome over process and people. Irony evident again in the sum of his pursuits: of, for and by the people.
And so once again in history, the humble spectator is reminded that as the mighty rise so can they fall: opinion, perception and the invisible threads of ‘feelings’ taking subjective precedence over the pragmatic and practical evidence of achievement.
And so goes the tale of the Tragedy of King Kevin: the man who focused on the ‘what’ at the expense of the ‘how’.

I am enamoured by the power of the question. More than that: I am enamoured by the power of the powerful question. A powerful question has the potential to invite consideration, incite imagination and open the mind to possibility.

A powerful question has ingredients. It takes time to form. In a paraphrased quotation, Albert Einstein said:

“If I had a problem to solve, and only had an hour to solve the problem and my life depended on solving the problem, I would spend the first fifty-five minutes determining the proper question to ask; because once I had the proper question I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

The ‘proper question’ for me is a powerful question. Whether I am working in the field of personal transformation, cultural change or organisational reform I know that my ability to be effective depends on my ability to form powerful questions.

Recently I attended an Art of Hosting seminar in the Dandenong Ranges two hours outside of Melbourne. One of the sessions explored the qualities of a powerful question. The group conducted a World Café through a series of conversations.

Some of the qualities that were harvested from the conversations determined that a powerful question:

· Is simple, fearless and genuine

· Asks without disempowering

· Forces reflection and forges action

· Links to purpose

· Challenges assumptions

· Makes the invisible visible

· Evinces deeper questions that lead to enquiry and learning

Albert Einstein also said “the important thing is not to stop questioning”. If I consider a world without questions I see a world of no learning, a world with no design, art, creativity or transformation. I see a world that slowly and surely atrophies with mechanistic certainty into a state of oblivion. I see a world that accepts status quo and the power of ‘the other’, be it institution, government or autocrat to determine future and impose structure. I see a world of no answers: a world full of unsolved problems.

This is why I am enamoured by the power of the question. Without a powerful question I cease to grow and I cease to learn. The powerful question I have been asking myself of late is: “Who am I when I am in my greatest power?”

What’s your powerful question?