Forward
I originally wrote the following post after six weeks of reflection after attending the European Launch of the Jensen Seminar for Transformational Leadership, presented by the near legendary Finance academician Michael Jensen, The founder of EST and developer of concepts behind Landmark Education Werner Erhard, and an impression Air Force Academy graduate and Iraqi War veteran, Capt. Kari Granger. My initial assessment of the seminar was by and large positive, and I wrote here, before I left The Netherlands to make the journey home.
That was particularly difficult summer for me. While on the outside there was not a lot of notable turmoil, my inner dialogue had a little more sturm und drang. My two fabulous years teaching confirmed my desire to make a career of it, a path that requires as its first small step the giant leap of entering a doctoral program. Yet exploring a few PhD options led me to realize that would not be a simple task, that my perhaps unique perspective on combining creativity research and a business academic degree would be a tougher sell than I first thought. In addition, as much as I enjoyed the business school environment, I was not entirely comfortable with the lack of music work in my career, it would seem, if "not entirely comfortable" is read to mean "completely miserable." There were also non-career concerns around health and personal relationships.
In hindsight, I can see that the transition from the hyper-supportive environment of the seminar back to my regular life Stateside was not a smooth one. The purpose of revisiting my initial unrestrained optimism was meant as an example of rigorous personal analysis of the notion of transformational leadership in light of the world view and perspective of an individual with much to gain from transformational leadership. That such a transformational would come at a problematic or difficult time for an individual should only be part and parcel of the experience. After all, those without problems or questions would not see the need for transformation.
Well. It came to my attention early in 2010 that a principle involved with the Erasmus event had become concerned with my comments. It was not my intention to judge harshly, nor to make undue criticisms. I thought my comments might create a conversation about contingencies that may arise as the tenets of this brand of transformational leadership are applied. After all, it was a stated goal during the conference that these concepts should be introduced throughout higher education, and with the number of professors in attendance, they would surely come under analysis. If the concepts are solid, then they will stand up to scrutiny.
So as you read through the following entry, if my tone comes across at times as judgmental or critical, please please keep in mind that my intention was not to create a rift between the seminar leadership team and the participants, and I did not intend to tear down or minimize the value of what's taught there. I did have some concerns that the seminar format may not be the most effective delivery system. Beyond that, you will probably find a lot of critical analysis of my own thoughts and emotions. I try to put things in the context of my own life experiences.
All comments, ideas, and suggestions are welcome. It is, in my view, an ongoing conversation. I'll find it very useful as I progress with my creativity research and the Synthesis Leadership workshops that is in development.
- Eddie
# # #
Revisiting The Jensen Seminar
The Jensen Transformational Leadership Seminar is now over a month in the rearview mirror, and this has given me time to think, ponder, and analyze. With a little 20/20 hindsight, I wanted to revisit both the content and experience. After all, an experience that promises to be transformational deserves a certain amount of thoughtful analysis. I am very fortunate in that I have been able to return home to my wonderfully wise wife and family, and good friends and colleagues who have helped me put in perspective my experiences throughout my travels in general, but at the seminar in particular. Sharing the experiences I had there with others here has allowed me to add context to it, which in turn helps me express what I believe is immediately useful and what could stand a little criticism for the purpose of improving the practice and pedagogy of teaching leadership.
I continue to maintain that there is some great material there, real techniques and methods that deserve sincere consideration and real testing through sound research. But – and unfortunately this is a big “BUT” – I have some reservations about how this content is delivered in the seminar format. I hope that the following comments will explain and add clarity to the observations and circumstances behind those areas that have caused me concern.
Past Controversies
The Jensen Seminar derives a great deal of its content and structure from the workshops offered commercially by a group called Landmark Education, which in turn traces its roots to the 1970s movement known as Est, and Est’s founder, Werner Erhard. Erhard participated as an instructor in Rotterdam.
Landmark, some may know, has been a controversial organization in some quarters and has garnered a certain amount of criticism over the years (including in The Netherlands, I learned later). A cursory search of these criticisms will uncover a range of issues, some dating back to Est’s almost boot camp style self-discovery sessions headed by Erhard in the 1970s. More recent complaints touch on predatory marketing practices and “addictions” to the various flavors of Landmark Education products that keep attendees returning, even at great sacrifice to themselves and their resources.
It is not my purpose to address these past criticisms. I would not be able to do any justice to the issues raised at different points in the history of Werner Erhard’s work and influence. Those on both sides of the various arguments who would concern themselves with revisiting old controversies could spend – and probably have already spent – years teasing good and bad from this long history.
Rather, I would like to concentrate on my personal observations of the Jensen Seminar as presented at Erasmus University this summer. Surely, those who wish to will be able to find support for or opposition to their own views in my contemplations. But I would also like to invite those who were there to add their own observations to mine, as this will best lead to the kind of shared knowledge that produces the best kind of leadership to teach, and the best way to teach it.
I have said before that the greatest pleasure that I derived from the event came from the assembled group of attendees: educated, cordial, prepared, and pleasant. They were ready, willing, and able to go deeply into personal sharing. Truth be told, however, that was the first surprise: I was not expecting the depth that that sharing would take. We turned from analysis of data to deep forays into the internal search, the deeply personal search, and the dredging up of personal emotions. And inasmuch as this, more than anything else, ran counter to my expectations, this is a good starting place. So let me begin there: with the people.
“True Believers”
I’ve expressed before how impressed I was by the collection of bright people so willing to share. Not knowing much beforehand about who or how many people were coming, I made some assumptions based on this being the European launch and being held at one of Europe’s prestigious universities. Because of that, I imagined there would be a lot of CEO types and some high academics in attendance. You know the type: very buttoned down, a European sensibility toward rank and status, business casual clothes that are not all that casual, some posturing, etc.
I was wrong.
Instead, I found good-hearted, open, eager people, sharing and kind, lovers and huggers, eager to look inward, eager for self-discovery. We were a wonderfully diverse group with all manner of cultural, educational, and professional experience. Participants came from as for off as Sri Lanka and Los Angeles. But instead of people from my B-school world, I found people more like those from my music world: my theatre pals and artsy folks, the granola girls and the jazz philosophers (I love this set of friends, by the way, so no disrespect is meant to any of them).
As I look back now: this might have been a “what’s wrong with this picture” moment. Should not a leadership seminar headlined by a world-renown finance academic and including among its instructors an Air Force officer lend itself more to the aforementioned crowd of movers and shakers of industry rather than the deep thinkers? Shouldn’t there be extra curricular conversations set around the state of the financial markets, exchange rates, global politics, fiscal policy? Rather, there was an almost laser-like focus on internal topics. I remember being surprised when I stood to comment that one of my barriers to leadership was my inability to keep personally organized. This comment was met by an audible murmur of empathy in the assembly hall, an “aaah,” as if I had made some profoundly insightful statement, like, “The answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42.”
Now, being a composer ensconced in a B-school, I am used to being the one who sounds slightly out of the box, and I tend to find myself being a little more self-divulging than those immediately around me. I also enjoy playing the outsider, trying to approach on the sublime through expounding on the trivial. But here, The Box was about to be reassembled slightly to the left. I was about to be centered.
Sometime during the second day, there seemed to emerge a core of “true believers” here, a group ready and predisposed to make the voyage inward. There was certainly exposure to other personal development theories, ranging from Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits” to Ekhard Tolle’s “A New Earth.” Even the venerable L. Ron Hubbard got a nod. But far beyond a cursory knowledge of such Barnes & Noble Management Section titles, there was assuredly a group of participants that had been previously exposed to the seminar’s methods.
These turned out to be those who had participated in or developed an appreciation for the forums conducted by Landmark Education or Est. Whether this makes them better or worse participants is difficult to measure. For the purposes of the presenters, it probably helps, as there would be less of a need “climatize” the event if most people already have a feel for the flow of it. However, a colleague did point out the potential presence of “survivorship bias.” When those who consider attending opt out for whatever reason, the presence of these True Believers assures a disproportionate amount of participants who are already predisposed to agree with the methods or message.
Analyzing The Seminar Experience: Content And Delivery
To make sense of the experience, I have identified two components of the seminar that I have split into two halves, one of Academic Content and Pedagogy, and another of Seminar Methodology and the Emotional Experience. In general, they are as follows:
Academic Content and Pedagogy | Seminar Methods and The Emotional Experience |
· Conceptualizing certain obstacles to the understanding and execution of leadership actions, make interrelations within an organization more efficient, enhance ability to implement principles to understand one another. · Creating a language with which to talk about the ontological and experiential perspective, to get them onto the table, and create some common understanding around them.
| · Emotional Reinforcement: exposing deep-seeded emotions and tying those momentary emotions in order to sear in the principle taught with the emotional experience. · This follows Warren Bennis’ theory of the Crucible Moment. · Survivorship Bias: there were early opportunities to opt out if a would-be participant did not foresee a positive participatory bias. |
Regarding Academic Content and Pedagogy
I commented in my previous post touching on the Jensen Seminar that there was information of great value to be learned here, and I continue to consider that to be true. There was little at first glance to make me uncomfortable with the topics addressed. The seminar presented in-depth content, presented useful information, and helpful models and techniques that can be proven or disproved through the scientific method.
Much of the information of the seminar – the content, topics, subject matter, call it what you like - was transmitted through the traditional pedagogical methods that we’re all familiar with: reading material, lectures, and slides. In fact, some importance was placed on the reading of the slides while hearing them read aloud, with evidence presented that the combination of reading and listening leads to better comprehension.
There were also “homework” assignments that were done individually and in teams of five. These were mostly completed during a morning and afternoon break, during lunch, or in small group sessions held in the early evening. The subject matter of the assignments was then addressed in a subsequent plenary session.
A Topic of Discomfort
Though I will discuss it more later, I will mention quickly that there was one particular topic that was generally uncomfortable for most attendees. One of our early tasks had us listing what we considered essential traits of leadership, and conversely, what traits must absolutely be excluded from leadership. The ensuing discussion was of particular note because many seemed to struggle with consideration of a wide-open “Realm of Opportunity” with regards to leadership behaviors. That is to say, if we wished to truly address leadership, we must abandon the idea that we can include or exclude leadership traits, whether or not we have a bias for or against them. Rather, we must maintain the view that a leader should avail himself (or herself, of course) of all manner of potential ways of acting.
This, in my thinking, required at least the consideration that long-held notions of right and wrong, moral or immoral, acceptable and unacceptable, or wanted or unwanted needed to be set aside. This was not easy for most. Perhaps if done in concept, say, as part of a philosophy class discussion. Perhaps. But in a discussion that was meant to lead to real life leadership experiences, this was a somewhat uncomfortable suggestion.
I did not consider it too controversial a concept, but later, thinking through the potential ramifications when the freedom to be any way becomes the freedom to act in any way, the practical application of the open realm of opportunity came to concern me.
As I said, more on this in a moment.
The Seminar Methods: Deep Introspection and Emotional Reinforcement
The Jensen Seminar begins with a powerful promise, that it will be a transformational experience. Well-worn systems of conveying information would not stand up to the challenge of such a promise, would it? Indeed, it seemed to me that what differentiated the Jensen Seminar from other leadership “classes” was this embrace of the emotional experience, and its usefulness as a way of confirming or reinforcing the lessons of the seminar.
For those taking a purely analytical bent toward the whole thing, this was less challenging to one’s personal frame of reference (a seminar term of art!); analysis implies an arms-length attitude. I certainly began with that attitude. Yet, as more and more of our time was spent in deep self-analysis (so welcomed by that group of True Believers), I must confess that this actually became enjoyable. Perhaps it was because it circumvented my expectations of a staid, corporate event, perhaps because learning personal details about my peers was simply entertaining. The instructors fielded our questions and comments and sought to guide us toward insights that would be touching and profound. Much of the sharing was deeply personal and intimate. We were asked to consider childhood experiences, earliest recollections. We touched on shortcomings and occasions when we acted without integrity, or had behaved “inauthentically.” Naturally, such observations are going to be revelatory, painful, and powerfully effective as reinforcement of the content of the seminar (particularly when an individual commits to make these revelations in front of a large group of peers, I might add).
The inclusion of such emotional touch points is certainly no accident. For instance, some of the homework assignments included reaching out to people with whom we had acted without integrity, confessing it, and committing to some sort of reparation with them. We listened as trembling voices spoke of the hurt of childhood traumas, or the guilt of recent betrayals committed by or to the participant. Throughout, we treated each other outwardly with empathy and respect, taking our cue from the instructors, who were downright encouraging of this intimate sharing.
While all four instructors participated in the presentation of different topics, Werner Erhard would play the major role in facilitating the analysis of these shared moments of emotion. At times, he would challenge any attempt to cover up, excuse, or otherwise obfuscate inconsistent behavior revealed by a participant. This was especially apparent if there was any resistance to a point of doctrine. His manner of showing “tough love” made me uncomfortable at first, thinking it might offend the stereotyped sensibilities of Europeans accustomed to resisting most things American. It seemed, though, that most folks seemed to go with it, or at least did not show their discomfort openly. I would imagine that the group of True Believers welcomed this. Indeed, they probably attended with the hopes of having this kind of experience.
But herein lies the danger. Or perhaps I should say potential danger, to be fair. The combination of a group of participants primed to share intimate details of their own shortcomings and emotional touch points, and instructors intentionally leading them to that place, could potentially be viewed as a welcoming environment for emotional manipulation.
Granted, learning in connection with a demonstration of emotion is all well and good when it happens organically. It is a “life lesson,” or, in the terms of one of the pre-seminar readings, a “crucible moment,” the types of intense emotional experience that typically accompany life-altering events such as the death of a loved one, a life-threatening situation, career interruption, or the like. Nonetheless, as used in the seminar, was this practice of seeking to extract emotion from the participants an artificial construct meant only to reinforce a learned point? That is to say, were poignant emotional moments being induced so as to “sear in” the seminar content?
If so, it would look like this: a key learning topic is presented as part of the seminar. Certain deeply personal revelations are brought to the conversation as part of the self-analysis that convinces the participant that he or she has acted without integrity in the past, thus leaving the participant feeling inadequate and culpable. The participant is then shown a clear path to redemption if – and usually only if – he or she follows the principles taught in the seminar. By taking that first difficult step during the seminar and in the presence of a large, intimate, and supportive group of peers, the participant experiences a peak emotional moment, or a number of peak emotional moments. These peak emotional moments then pass themselves off as crucible moments. And the intensity of these crucible moments reinforces the lessons learned – again, a “searing in” of the concepts - in the short amount of time available during a multi-day seminar.
It could be thought, then, that in order to fulfill the promise of the seminar, a crucible moment needed to be manufactured in a very brief time frame. There were only five days available to fulfill the promise of transformation. Most transformational periods – real crucible moments – may begin in a single moment (such as the moment one hears that a loved one has died), but usually last much longer. Marines are in boot camp for months. My church mission lasted a year and a half. These experiences stand a much greater chance of providing real insight that will stand the test of time.
Now, the argument could be made that emotional reinforcement of learning is okay, permitted, encouraged, even. In the language of the seminar, it should not be excluded from the “Realm of Possibilities” as a leadership tool (or learning) tool). It is part of any complete “opportunity set.” Indeed, as I coached drum& bugle corps, marching bands and music educators, I found great value in challenging student leaders and professional educators alike to openly address their emotional motivations for participating in music.
Emotion-Based Decision-Making
Beware decision-making based on your emotions of the moment. Making big decisions or committing to significant transformation based on emotion, or during times of emotional flux, creates the potential for disorienting vulnerability: after learning liberating methods of thinking, one reaches a peak emotional state quickly, and then attempts meaningful decision-making based more on the emotion than the analysis. It’s probably obvious to most, but for some people – or perhaps for everyone at some time or another, depending on their ever-changing circumstances – too much introspection leaves one feeling obligated to have some sort of breakthrough, a sort of mandatory “A-ha moment.” And if it is to qualify as truly transformational, it must rock your world, and must do so during the compressed timeframe in which you are feeling thusly motivated. Say, during the few days of a seminar or conference. If not, you didn’t “get it,” or you “wasted your time,” and nobody wants to admit to that.
A brilliantly clear example of successful non-emotional decision-making occurred earlier this year when U.S Airways Captain “Sully” Sullenberger and his co-pilot decided to land their powerless Airbus airliner in New York’s Hudson River. Even when pressed by wide-eyed journalists, Captain Sullenberger was able to describe in cold detail the raw, hard data available to them and the logical basis for making a difficult decision that ultimately saved 155 lives. What to do when the power goes off is something pilots prepare for long before taking to the air for the day. It is something that they train for specifically. On that January day, Capt. Sullenberger was able to tune out emotions, and allowed himself to combine specific emergency training, piloting skills gained from years of experience, and the options offered him by the immediate circumstance – altitude, speed, location, distance from alternate runways, etc. – into a decision that led to the action he ultimately took.
Revisiting “Tears of Passion”
In retrospect, I’ve come to revise my position on a particular moment of the seminar that, in the moment, I considered an especially personally illuminating experience. We all struggled with a certain proposed precept (that no behavior should be excluded as an optional method of exercising leadership. For example, while most people stated initially that cruelty, bullying, or aggression should be excluded from the proper exercise of leadership, there may be situations when those characteristics might be of the utmost necessity, such as during war, when aggression might be the perfectly proper lever to pull on the battlefield). Emotions were elevated, because most of us were being asked to consider ideas that we have always considered anathema to good leadership, or to reject ideas we had always held to be staples of good leadership. Now, in a logical sense, there was no reason to take too much issue with the ideas presented. They were, after all, hypothetical, broad, and – at least as part of an open discussion – harmlessly mostly in their consideration.
But as we all struggled to liberate ourselves from such preconceived notions, one of my seminar peers stood up and asked for clarification. This colleague was faced by the more outspoken of the instructors who challenged somewhat aggressively, really, the idea that a certain qualities were absolutely necessary for leadership. Quickly the moment became charged with emotion.
As the instructor challenged my colleague to look within, to analyze more deeply on the spot, this young person struggled some with the ideas being put forth. There were long pauses, and more than a few stammered, “I don’t knows.” At the end, there were moist eyes and soft tears. An A-ha moment in miniature, surely. The now suddenly kind, empathetic instructor reigned himself in and receded with satisfaction, my colleague sat down. Obviously moved, the group felt this shared emotion: we have faced a difficult point “together” and disabused ourselves of a self-erected barrier to understanding.
But I’m not so sure now.
I, too, was very moved by my colleague’s show of emotion, and later expressed in private my admiration of the courage that was shown, although I also shared my personal agreement on the point of resistance that the instructor sought so diligently to dislodge. But as I look back, it seems to me that the actual point was dealt with for the most part by the time my colleague stood up, and could have been handled with a simple reiteration of the key learning topic still at hand. Instead, what I think I saw was a moment that became artificially charged with emotion. Whether it was the intent of the instructor to gin up an emotion reaction I cannot say, but I think the end result might have been, not an emotional expression of self-realization or discovery, but one of frustration. There was simply no “there” there in the instructor’s point. The emotion, then, was simply the product of being put on the spot and asked to push back against an ephemeral argument. Nothing more.
And therein lies a real problem when anyone is asked to discard their bedrock principles, even in theory: you can’t create values out of a vacuum. Newtonian physics states that for every action there must be an equal and positive reaction. One of the great tenants of my religion states, “there needs be opposition in all things.” To leave your entire values set in a “judgment free” zone is a little like trying to propel oneself forward in zero gravity without anything to push off of.
Please forgive me a music analogy. In jazz improvisation, there is a thing called “playing outside.” This is when a soloist begins using chords and scales that are technically outside of the basic tonality, or “key,” of a given piece. When done skillfully, it can have a great effect, like an adventurous journey off the beaten path that ends joyfully when the improviser brings you safely back to the path in the end. But playing outside successfully requires a solid knowledge of what inside is, a true bearing on where the journey begins. Without that, it just sounds like you’re wandering, like you’re oblivious to what’s going on around you in the song. Or worse, that you don’t care what’s going on, what key you’re in, what your bandmates might be doing, or even what it might sound like to the audience.
The Almost Always Fatal Flaw In Deep Introspection
Herein lies the almost always fatal flaw in these deep internal probes for meaning. You demonstrate your obliviousness to the world around you. You disconnect from the world around you. You may even demonstrate a cruel regard for the world and the people in it with you.
Eventually, you will find your newfound enlightened state failing you when you return to stand under the bright glare of the reality you so hoped to change in the first place. This only leads to even deeper frustration and disappointment.
But worse: in the interim, somewhere between the lofty heights reached during your initial personal exhilaration and the crashing back down to earth that inevitably follows, you may find yourself engaging in some seriously flawed decision-making. You may hurt other people. You might burn a bridge or two. You might build a bridge or two that you shouldn’t. You might disconnect from support systems you previously relied on, never realizing how vital they were to your being able to function until they are gone and you are left to somehow tether yourself without them.
So why does this happen? How? Well, in the simplest of terms, it starts when you make decisions at the height of an emotional peak. I am reminded of a scene in the film (and stage play before that) “A Few Good Men,” in which a young military lawyer (played by Tom Cruise in the movie) is able to goad a belligerent and proud superior officer (Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup) into an emotion-filled outburst that included a courtroom confession to a serious breech of justice, consequences be damned. Likewise, we may find ourselves letting our own emotions talk us into a self-expression that we would otherwise control, take a breath, and reexamine with more calm.
My Issue With Emotional Decision-Making
So why am I suddenly so aware of the role of emotion in decision-making? Why so much attention to the matter in this instance?
Because I wonder if I might have fallen prey to this recently.
No, that is not the right way to put it.
A colleague asked me when I returned whether I found the experience useful, transformational, up to my expectations. I paused, then answered cheekily, “The question is whether I plan now to use my new superpowers for good or evil.” It truly was liberating to be able to think outside my own box, to include in my Realm of Possibilities eye-opening options that I had never really allowed my self to take seriously before. The problem is, I wonder if I didn’t open the barn door too wide. So it’s not a matter of becoming the victim of some nefarious influence, it’s more along the lines of having gone out of bounds, voluntarily suspending the use of my own guiding principles.
Granted, I had front-loaded this trip to Holland with emotional opportunities: a seminar in transformation, a journey in the footsteps of my grandfather, even the week spent on the beaches of my old mission country (for which I still hold immense affection) with my family immediately prior to heading for Europe helped soften me up.
On top of this, the last year or two have not been the easiest for me and mine as I’ve pondered new and exciting career opportunities while at the same time dispatched old or dying ones. I had already determined this summer would be one of renewal, of rethinking certain professional and research goals, yet without a complete idea of what that might mean for the future. In short, I arrived in Rotterdam with every door and window wide open to the winds of change.
The result was experiencing of a little bit of this artificial emotional euphoria that I’ve discussed. Perhaps I should have noticed this, that I found too much charm in an industrial city like Rotterdam, that I was too enamoured of the people I had just met, that my comparisons of the emotional expressions during the seminar sessions to my mission and other experiences with my religious beliefs always left the seminar session lacking, yet I allowed for that lack of meaning without alarm. Yet, with my emotional guard down, I may have mistaken this temporary euphoria as some sort of epiphany, and I found myself ready to embrace some radical change. I was ready to take “responsibility” for the consequences simply because they were of my own creation. The end result was, my being open to certain life options I had never considered seriously before because they simply did not fit into my values system.
What decisions I made or tried to make while in this state is, frankly, beside the point. But the reaction from those people around me is relevant. The True Believers’ sincere reaction was celebratory: “Good for you! You have achieved the breakthrough. You are now free to act however you please!”
The reaction from those people closest to me was much different. It seems that, to a person, each one with whom I shared my new ideas quickly pointed out flaws in my thinking that would have lead to personal and perhaps professional catastrophe. It would have meant almost immediately pain for those around me while leaving myself vulnerable to great potential pain in the future. I was about to create some life-altering consequences that would take me away from what I’ve always held to be the foundation of my decision-making, the foundation of my values, the foundation of my happiness. And I was considering these options not only possible, but logical, permissible, and exciting. Something truly to be hoped for.
Now, have I crashed and burned in the last six weeks? No, not totally, but only because I have that cadre of close intimates who showed me the right mixture of understanding and incredulity, patience and intolerance. I was very fortunate to come home to good people: my beautiful, exceptional, and wise wife; my Dad; my best friend in St. Louis, Mike; my best friend anywhere, Darin; colleagues like Todd, Tom, and Brian; students like Kaitlin and Jimmy.
Those closest to me saw something amiss. And this while I perceived myself as feeling high on myself, enjoying clarity of thought, better health, energy and drive. I say I am fortunate to have come back to them because as I shared with them these new feelings, they, each in their own way, brought observations of this difference in me to my attention. I pushed back on them, played devil’s advocate, tried to make sure theirs were not knee-jerk reactions to an invigorated and empowered me. They weren’t. None of them had any stake in “blowing sunshine up my rear,” as my buddy Darin so poetically put it.
I shudder to think what I would be doing right now had I had the “courage” to turn some of those thoughts into action.
As The Talking Heads Sang, “This Is Not My Beautiful House, This Is Not My Beautiful Wife: How Did I Get Here?”
So how did I get to that point? How did I walk so far out on a limb without noticing the leaves getting thin around me? Where did I go wrong? Well, I’m certainly not laying all this at the feet of the Jensen Seminar on Transformational Leadership; and it’s beyond the scope of this writing to provide empirical evidence that directly ties the concerns that I raise to the observations I’ve made regarding the seminar teaching techniques used here or elsewhere.
But I can point to a number of things that, if I had my druthers, would have gone differently.
Firstly, I’ve already mentioned that I came with a certain amount of emotional baggage I was ready to toss out the door, and that I had preloaded this trip to be personally significant to me. Thus, I started wide-open emotionally, and brought all that emotion into an intensively self-analytical environment that encouraged peak emotions. Pleasantly surprised by the intimacy of the assembled participants and their similarity to my music buddies, I did not maintain sufficient reservations about the deep introspection that seemed incongruent with the idea of a methodic analysis of leadership of a formal organization.
Secondly, I was, indeed, turning life into a song, and contemplating some important decision-making based only on temporary emotional highs.
And thirdly, I thought only of myself. I was looking so deeply inside that I forgot that, perhaps like the analogy of an iceberg being mostly below water, most of our lives are lived outside of ourselves. Truth of the matter is, I had given myself over to some self-centered and ultimately risky thinking. This was selfishness in the highest order. This was blindness to the roles and needs of those around me. This was the ultimate in being “out of integrity.”
Taking Into Account My Own Worldview And Frames Of Reference
As I revisit these points, I cannot deny that my worldview is influenced by two highly significant frames of reference to which I subscribe, and which have become relevant to the situation. They are, as a composer and songwriter, and as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The Songwriter/Composer Framework As Related To Emotional Decision-Making
Simple as this may sound, there are great lessons to be learned from songwriting about emotions and decision-making. Every song is written with emotion at the center of it. Songs delve into the lowest of lows, or the highest of highs, great pain or great exhilaration. Even the old jazz standards and their “June, Swoon, Moon, Croon” lyrics were all about love at first sight, visions of polka dots and moonbeams, or perfect, endless evenings in Berkeley Square and the like.
But here’s the deal, folks: songs are NOT representative of reality. Would you like to live a life based on – or trapped in – a song?
Consider Berlioz’s opium-fueled nightmare, “Simfonie Fantastique.” Complete with hallucinatory visions of a disappearing and reappearing lust interest at a dance, witches cauldrons, and hell itself. Not to mention a tale of tossing blame for one’s overwrought passions onto another, and fantasies of seeing that other brought low in punishment for one’s own mischief. That’s not fair to the other, or to one’s self. In the language of the Jensen Seminar, it’s not authentic at all.
Or ponder for a moment Sting’s “Every Breath You Take.” A song of undying devotion, or a stalker’s anthem?
If you are adamant about building a future on a song’s gossamer foundation, chances are you’re going to find that life does not fall neatly into place like so many stanzas of lyrics. Emotion-fueled decisions usually fall back down to earth after the particular emotion that breathed life into them fades.
The LDS Framework As Related To Searching Oneself
I do recognize that some of my new European friends might take me to task for my devotion to something so antiquated and unenlightened as “religious dogma” in the first place, or for defending the statutes of organized religion when it has been one of the great closers of minds in all history. Well, you’re right, mankind’s flawed application of eternal principles and godly values as inviolate absolutes – and thus putting us imperfect beings into place as arbitrators of right and wrong – has caused nearly unlimited pain and anguish over the centuries, and has done more than any other force in this world to actually turn people away from the discovery and appreciation of plain and precious truths.
But one of God’s greatest gifts - perhaps, indeed, the greatest gift – is what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints refers to as free agency: the ability and right to choose and act for ourselves. In point of fact, the LDS church encourages its members to study, ponder, and ask for further enlightenment so as to come to one’s own personal decisions, even on spiritual matters.
For those not familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, other than www.lds.org or www.mormon.org, there are few reliable online resources that will give you an honest representation of what the church is about. That is to say, I would caution you that a Google search will raise more illegitimate questions than all the legitimate answers could possibly contest. But I can assuage the majority of the most common misconceptions by saying just this: if you’ve ever assumed or been told that the Mormon church is like any other particular denomination, that’s not correct. The LDS church is a restoration of organized religion that is at once the most ancient and most modern of belief systems. While we believe that God is the same God of miracles of both the Old and New Testaments, the distinctly “latter day” aspects of the our beliefs include that communication between heaven and earth continues, and that we now have access to everything we need to understand the meaning and purpose of our existence, live it to the fullest, and be a people of humble spirit and great joy. LDS people tend to be practical, modern, and contemporary. It is true that we don’t drink alcohol, and we don’t smoke. But we do dance and we do date. LDS women do not wear prairie dresses, and the men do not look like 19th century farmers. We ride in cars, fly in airplanes, and take all sorts of medicine. There is no handling of snakes in our meetings, and the “gift of tongues” is typically interpreted as a young missionary being able to learn a difficult foreign language, say, Dutch, in a short enough time to be an effective missionary for two short years.
As an LDS person, it is my belief that the real answers to what we are and what we’re capable of lies in understanding our eternal nature, and any searching of oneself is typically done in the context of the search for certain eternal truths (or, to quote Indiana Jones’ Last Crusade again, “the search for the divine in all of us.”)Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go next? Is there a plan? These are the questions that ultimately lead us to understand who we are, what we are, and why we are as individuals.
On The Value Of Looking Out, Not In
You’ll never find yourself by looking inward.
The deep, internal search for personal meaning is best executed by looking without. An individual may be profound and mysterious, mostly unlocked secrets. But in the end, an individual is also finite. At some point, you will recognize patterns, attitudes, and structures that are touched on over and again. Even given that we are constantly changing, constantly learning beings, there’s just so much you can learn about whatever state you are in at the very moment you are making your inspection. After that, the needle on the old-fashioned vinyl album rubs up against the label and simply clicks softly; there is no more no more sound to reproduce, no more data to read.
Lose yourself, and you will find yourself.
Christ said, “whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” The same idea is restated elsewhere thusly:
Let no man be afraid to lay down his life for my sake; for whoso layeth down his life for my sake shall find it again. This is not an oath of personal blind devotion to a mystical guru who walked the earth briefly two thousand years ago, but rather a hint that real understanding of self comes with an understanding of the “grand scheme of things,” the “big picture,” the “plan of salvation,” the great eternal round,” whatever you might want to call it, even “being at one with the universe.” It is by nature external to oneself, yet connective, and a synthesizing force as much as it could possibly be introspective. It’s about how we connect to one another, how we combine, how we’re related.
By being part of something else, you use yourself. To use a baseball analogy, nothing happens until someone swings the bat to put the ball in play. At that point, all sorts of things can happen. You need to put yourself in play. As you put yourself in play, you will discover things about yourself - your attitudes, your capabilities – that would otherwise be impossible to awaken without interaction with the world around you, especially without interactions with others.
Service to others is the highest level of interaction with the world around you.
It is productive and meaningful. It uplifts others, and like compound interest, it is a multiplying factor in terms of both your abilities and your usefulness to others. The more you do it, the more useful and capable you become.
This, now that I come to think about it again, is why I yearned to do music in the first regard. From as far back as I can remember seriously considering studies of music and a career in the arts, the root reason was because it would give people a chance to check their troubles at the door for a couple of hours, get lost in the music, and hopefully leave with a refreshed attitude towards whatever it was that was bothering them on the way in.
The joyful byproduct is that I derive immense satisfaction from creating music for others. If people enjoy whatever performance I’m involved in, I sleep very well that night, even if that means sleeping while crammed into a bus seat on another middle of the night crossing of the country (see www.dci.org to see how I spent my summers as a college student). Conversely, if it’s just another background music gig where no one cares what they’re listening to because they’ve come to a bar just to get drunk and hit on each other, then no matter how well I may play individually, I usually leave feeling empty.
On Recognizing Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, and Possessing a Moral Compass
Before leaving the framework of my religious beliefs, I think it is also valuable to point out that I, for a time, also forgot how to recognize what is truly good and useful in life. My religion has always provided me a sensible, calm way of assisting me in making decisions.
I am suddenly mindful of my Paul of Tarsus:
And my Joseph Smith as well:
“But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask … if it be right, and if it is right [The Lord] will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.”
We are provided ways to recognize right and wrong, good and bad, useful and not. Unfortunately, instead of applying that to what I was learning in Rotterdam, I chose to consider only what would make me feel good, and quickly.
Here is Joseph Smith, referring to Paul in one of my church’s Articles of Faith:
“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”
I saw and experienced so much that was of good report and praiseworthy in my two short weeks in The Netherlands, including at the Jensen Seminar. It is unfortunate that a few things got past the filter, but this was due to my own shortcomings, and not the fault of my religious beliefs or the Jensen Seminar in Transformational Leadership. Is not life a long probationary period during which we attempt to expand out knowledge, stretch our capabilities? “The journey is the thing,” said Homer, and aviation writer Richard Bach (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) reminded us that “nothing is by chance.” If so, then everything that happens to us gives us experience from which we learn. Some of that learning comes at a great cost, yet other lessons end in great joy.
But it cannot be ignored or glossed over that even the act of learning through our experiences imply that there is right and wrong, good and evil, proper and improper. A child burns his hand on the stove and learns something: it hurts, and damages your body. It’s “bad” to touch a hot stove. A teenage violinist practices long hours and is rewarded with a solo in a concert, after which a dozen friends tell her how much they enjoyed it. She learns that the “sacrificing” her time by practicing meant gaining the respect of her friends and peers. Practice and preparation are good. Getting burned pains us, garnering praise makes us feel good.
When others ask me how I feel about being a person of faith, what is it that makes me believe even when there are so many doubts and distractions in the world, I always break it down to one thing: when I’ve lived my life in harmony with what my belief system teaches me, I tend to feel good about myself and the world, even when the circumstances that surround me are not perfect. On the other hand, at those times in my life when I’ve lived outside of the norms to which I typically adhere, things tend not to go so well for me internally, no matter what amount of worldly good fortune I may experience. I feel doubtful, insecure, not right.
Conclusions And Recommendations
In a nutshell, here is what is good or even great about the Jensen Seminar.
The Seminar techniques and content, where they touch on leadership, consideration of others during leadership, and analysis of the experience of leadership, are great.
In another nutshell, here are my concerns with the seminar:
On Jettisoning The Moral Compass
I remain impressed by the content except for consideration of a wide-open Opportunity Set or Realm of Possibility without a caveat that supports the necessity of some sort of grounding.
After providing this wonderful toolkit for dealing with diverse leadership opportunities and the others in your organization, the seminar intimates that in order to use that toolkit one must throw away previous conceptions of right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad. This is encouraged by the position that holding onto such preconceptions means that one would opt to not include them into the possible options for one’s behavior as a leader. This then keeps in place barriers that prevent the natural expression of one’s true self, and hence, true leadership.
I also suspect there is a fundamental flaw in the following statute from the method:
“You can maintain your integrity even when you need to break your word as long as you say you’re going to break your word when you come to realize you are going to break your word.
What kind of integrity is that? Even if you accept that you will need to “deal with the consequences,” as the method requires, when you are free to choose your own moral boundaries, the possible ways of dealing with them range from personal paralysis to an unconcerned, “I did it. So What?”
Everyone getting to choose their own individual moral boundaries does not lead to cohesive social rules within a group.
I hope you’ll forgive another baseball analogy, but this notion of a boundary-free criteria set conjures up images of trying to play the game with all eighteen players using their own individual sets of rules. This would be a chaotic free for all, and I fear that the idea of open opportunity sets with no common fundamental guidelines for preserving your integrity would look the same in any organized activity.
The Artificiality of Induced Crucible Moments
The Seminar appears to attempt to induce artificial crucible moments by creating heightened emotional moments – peak emotional moments – meant to sear in the lessons of the seminar with affective reinforcement.
Some people will find this manipulative. Others, who perhaps lack the opportunity to express their sincere emotions through other outlets, may find this to be welcome, even pleasurable.
Decision-Making Based on Peak Emotional Moments
Seminar techniques include emotional reinforcement, and try to get you to feel an emotional peak moment in a compressed timeframe. I suspect such emotional button-pushing leads to the injection of emotion into decision-making. Coupled with of a wide-open Opportunity Set without a support structure that includes moral boundaries, this may lead to bad decision-making based on artificially-induced emotional highs.
There is real danger in attempting to make important and potentially life-changing decisions while still “under the influence” of these peak emotions, especially if the decision maker has bought into the idea of throwing off previously relied-on concepts of right and wrong. That combination can result in decisions both based on emotions, and made without guiding principles that the decision-maker might use as a “moral compass” to help determine whether this decision is a good one or not.
My Recommendations
Teach the Jensen Seminar content complete, but without the deep self-analysis, emotional reinforcement piece.
Continue to include the concept of a limitless opportunity set, but then teach the necessity of a “moral compass” of some sort. There are a number of options to choose from. In a Jesuit school such as Saint Louis University, religion-based moral compasses, such as a Christ-centered life, should be permissible. “For Others” is a moral compass included in the SLU Mission Statement. Even the Communist Manifesto’s “to each according to his needs, from each according to his means” is one, as is Mein Kampf. (Personally, I would have a tough time adhering to either, but they can be considered!) Duty-bound or patriotism – God, Family, Country – is one. Also, look at the integrity research done by academic institutions such as the University of Michigan’s Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) folks for support.
Remove the deep personal introspection from the teaching of content. Do this by not focusing on internal personal issues. No confessions, no analyzing your own intimate defects/out of authenticity issues. Keep self-inspection in the context of leadership situations. This is even more to the point of answering the question of what it is like to be a leader.
This helps eliminate the deep emotional element from the seminar. This helps eliminate decision-making at Peak Emotional moments.
My Recommendation For Individuals Considering Participation
Whether you go for leadership insights or for personal development, go into this already well grounded. In spite of the soul-searching being an attractive feature of these kinds of endeavors, if you are one of those feeling lost, disoriented, or not in possession of a firm moral compass, an event like this one might not be for you just now. Don’t look for morality, right or wrong, good or evil, or anything you might want to call “The Truth” in any seminar.
But do start on your own personal solid ground so that, once the seminar has disabused you of the notion that your old belief system can be counted on and has left you delirious and floating in an open sky of consequence-less choices, you’ll have somewhere solid to land.
