While the process of “growing up” didn’t sit well with Block, it describes my internal state incredibly well.

I can feel the tension between complaining that positional leaders don’t see me on the one hand, and simply, freely, and boldly taking action on my values, convictions and ideas on the other.

I can also feel the personal grief and internal resistance to Block’s assertion that growing up involves accepting “that living out our values and also winning the approval of those who have power over us, is an unfulfillable longing.”

I don’t know where that “longing” comes from, but I can recognize it in myself.

This is what I love about reading together. I get the opportunity to recognize in the vocabulary, experiences, and frames of reference of others what I have up until now not been seeing in myself.

Block points to a different sort of maturity here. I would call is a form of poise. A centeredness. A peace about who I am and how different I am from most everyone around me.

The significance of this poise is that suffices for taking bold action regardless of the opinions of the dominant culture and leaders around me.

As attractive a vision of maturity and activism as I find this, I must admit to a lingering nervousness about the implications of embracing responsibility for my own contribution.

I think I’ve already had enough criticism, blank stares, and isolation to not be naive about the cost of continuing forward.

I feel challenged and encouraged nonetheless. Block has provided insightful vocabulary and frames of reference that resonates deeply, and give me a foundation from which to launch (yet again.)

Where is your “growing up” edge? Where do you catch yourself complaining instead of contributing?

What was you main take-away from this chapter?

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

We simply do not know how to reflect deeply about what is most important to us. In addition, we aren’t even sure that doing so would make any difference.

So Peter Block asserts, and I concur.

Instead of exploring the value of and means toward becoming people of depth, though, Block focuses on one of the enemies of depth… speed.

Maybe these chapter titles are throwing me off. The titles point to a positive attribute, but the content elaborates on the negative forces that work against the titled attribute.

I find myself anticipating an exposition of the positive attribute (e.g. “depth” in this chapter, “intimacy” in the previous), and come away disappointed when the emphasis is on all that works against intimacy and depth.

With that off my chest, let me think about the problem of speed in my life.

The first insight that caught my attention was how legitimate needs for quick action, immediate decisions and demanding schedules can expand without my noticing into more fundamental and insidious changes to my character, my lifestyle and the very frame of reference from which I approach my work.

When we talk about being intentional in the design of workplace cultures here at Bold Enterprises, the issue of the uncritical buy-in to the fast-paced, non-reflective approach to workplace productivity becomes enormous!

We feel like we don’t have a choice, when, in fact, we do! We feel like we will be left behind, lose out, or miss something vital. Again, we don’t need to argue that there are indeed occasions for quick, decisive action. What we want to notice is whether we can no longer tell the difference and all of life and work ends up being rushed.

The second insight that was cause for pause came with the question, what have I postponed in life in order to keep pushing fast and hard on my work?

I can feel my insides wince with the question. I think of my marriage and kids. I think of my volunteer ambitions. I think of my spiritual and physical health. What takes a hit each time I choose to push blindly ahead on an urgent work matter? If I paused to think about it, would I have made the same decisions?

The value of asking such questions is to inform our future choices, not judge our past choices.

What kind of life do I want going forward? Where do work, success, and the expectations of employers fit into that bigger picture of who I am and who I am becoming?

Where can you carve out a bit of space in your schedule to pause and think more critically and reflectively about your day, week, or life?

What was your main take-away from this chapter?

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

We usually associate intimacy with romantic relationships, family relationships, and close friendships… in that order.

Block highlights the importance of this human, relational, connected, interactive, interdependent reality of working with other people.

As you know, I have long counted “Intimacy” as one of the five fundamental “Cries For Life” that, when working with people, we need to account for. So I was very excited to jump headlong into this subject.

I came away from this chapter a bit hungry still.

I thought Block did a better job warning of the dangers of virtual relationships, marketing based relationships, and digital isolation than he did of proposing strategies and ideas for building intimacy into one’s workplace relationships and culture.

Having said that, I did come away thinking hard myself.

The issue of showing up versus hiding at work arose for me. I can choose whether to bring myself fully to my work and the other team members or I can hide. I hide when I email the person sitting around the corner from me. I hide when I keep ideas for improvement to myself to avoid criticism. I hide when I don’t communicate how someone else’s mistakes affect my work negatively.

I show up when I can communicate directly, regularly, sensitively, and without manipulation. I show up when I put my ideas out on the table and engage others in their benefits and downsides. I show up when I confront problems without anger or pouting.

I can also build intimacy by surrounding myself with people who are different than myself. The diversity of skills and styles will not only combine to build a stronger team, but the interdependence will result in higher levels of trust, motivation, and empowerment. People are much more responsive to a leader who needs and values their unique contribution than one who merely gives all the orders and makes all the decisions.

Collaboration can feel as much like a painful wrestling match as it can a delightful dance number. More contact, more communication, and more knowledge of each others’ personal styles, preferences, capabilities, weaknesses, etc. In a word… more intimacy.

I‘m a big believer in more of each other. More time. More overlap. More knowledge. More interdependence. More trust. More communication. More debate. More celebration.

What about you? How intimate would you describe your workplace to be? Its benefits? Its downside?

What was your main take-away from this chapter?

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

Reform, for example, is an extremely grounded and practical outworking of idealism.

The point, of course, is the one that Block makes in chapter four… that our culture casts accusatory aspersions on idealism that both trap people in the fallacious perspective that nothing is possible except what already exists and chip away at the confidence of those dreamers with the eyes to imagine and create all that might still be emerging.

An unrepentant dreamer myself, the challenge of this chapter came in recognizing how many of the lies about dreamers I believe (whether I like to admit it or not.)

I am often torn between what I want and what “I deserve.” Self-interest, as Block describes it, puts me in a fallacious battle over my worth with people and forces I haven’t met yet. The battle becomes a distraction making it difficult for me to recognize opportunities and directions that are deeply attractive and fitting.

I can’t help wondering if I am one of those people who “abandon their desires because they think they won’t be rewarded.”

How often, when the topics are job searches and careers, do I feel I must be willing to leave my deepest values, desires, dreams and passions at the door? Why is that? What lie have I bought into, that I would volunteer to leave myself deepest self out of the discussion without even being asked?

I also find myself guilty of allowing my “value to be defined by others.” They have the jobs, the position, the power. For some reason, then, I feel I need to pretend to be what they are looking for. I want to appear to have all the attributes that they highly value.

I become an unwitting participant in the sustenance of the system that marginalizes and diminishes me. How ironic! I give up my own place at the table where the definition of what matters is discussed.

My challenge is to recognize the difference between my core values, ideals and dreams and the skill/wage exchanges being offered in the job market. My challenge is not agreeing to be someone other than myself, even if as I agree to perform a job that is not a perfect match.

Where were you desires, dreams and values challenged by this chapter? What was your main take-away?

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

Hence chapter three. Chapter three is where we get the opportunity to check our spoken aspirations against our actual behavior.

I often have myself convinced that I want one thing, and then find that I am acting in such a way that sabotages or contradicts my own desires.

Block does a nice job of pulling out several of these behaviors that work against our dreams.

When swimming around in my own head, it is easy for me to convince myself about the sincerity and passion of my desires.

When confronted with a behavior, like seeking the approval of those in power or collecting “enough” data to make an informed decision, I have a tool for reconnecting myself to reality.

I have a tool to help me shift my focus away from those things that are outside of my control back to my own choices which are in my control.

I have a tool help me notice when I am giving away my power or shifting responsibility off of myself. I don’t need to beat myself up for doing so, as much I need to celebrate catching myself in the act, so to speak, earlier than later.

The good news of chapter three is that I don’t have to stay blind to the subtle means I employ to avoid what I want. The sooner I can spot a fear, an escape, a defense, an excuse, or a weakness, the sooner I can address it.

The sooner I address my “defenses against action” the sooner I’m back to taking action and on the way to being, living and making the unique contribution that I have to offer the world.

Which of Block’s defenses against action do you relate most closely with? How can you reframe an excuse you’ve been making to avoid responsibility into an opportunity to embrace responsibility?

What was your main take-away from this chapter?

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

I think this could be my personal catch-phrase this year. Bold, exuberant, playful, comfortable, audacious, and free from the self-diminishing constraints of playing by someone else’s rules, requesting someone else’s permission, or asking someone else for directions.

My key to Block’s second chapter is realizing that, “we name the debate by the questions we choose.”

I am central to what sort of opportunities are available to the unfolding of my own story. If I frame the plot as linear and scripted by the system, then I have prejudiced and limited my own possibilities.

If I frame the plot as open and not fully imagined until I contribute myself to the process, then the possibilities are unlimited.

If I am looking for the rules, or permission or instructions then I have given away my birthright, so to speak, without anyone even having to steal it from me.

How can anyone else answer whether there is a place for me at the table? The longer I wait for an invitation, the longer I wait.

The second insight from this chapter that resonated deeply with me has to do with the willingness “to address questions that we know have no answer.”

Open-ended questions versus yes-no questions, I understand. Open-ended questions for which there is not definitive answer? That blow my mind a bit.

It’s the exploration that has the value, not the final answer. To find the answer is to end the exploration, hence the value of complex, probing, reflective questions that facilitate the exploration.

The third whammy to my gut came when Block asserted, “What keeps us stuck is the belief that someone or something else needs to change before we can move forward.”

It’s is very difficult to make room for the possibility that many of my frustrations with others, the closed networks, and how experts are credentialed for example, may be excuses I’m using to let myself off the hook.

It’s a valid point. Am I a spectator hoping someone will invite me into the game, or am I a player stepping forward and creating a place in the line-up for myself?

Can I say it and mean it? “Ready or not, here I come!”

Which of Block’s six reframed questions did you find the most helpful? Challenging? What was your main take-away from this chapter?

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

What if such assumptions were to trap one’s thinking? To mislead and ensnare one in a labyrinth of well-meaning but ultimately self-defeating dead ends.

Peter Block begins his reflections in chapter one of The Answer to How is Yes with just such a survey of fallacious starting points.

If you are new to Thought Leaders Unpacked™ we are not summarizing or reviewing content when we explore these books one chapter at a time.

We are learning, each one of us in particular. We are responding to what challenges us personally.

I am stunned by the insight that asking “How?” assumes that I don’t know and that someone else does know.

I am stunned to witness how easily I denigrate my power, my experience, my wisdom, my expertise and my ability to solve problems by how I frame the question. How I frame the question in terms that assume I am not a crucial part of the answer.

The second personal challenge I encountered was the possibility that my “How?” questions were helping me to miss or avoid more significant questions like, “Is this worth doing?” and “Is this something I want to do?”

I’m somewhat astounded at how little attention I give to some of these more fundamental questions. And I have worked through a couple rather significant career adjustments!

I’m not even sure if I feel I’m “allowed” to consider what I want, since I’m part of an immediate family and a larger community to which I’m accountable. How do I include myself in the process?

The third powerful challenge to my assumptions came with the possibility that letting cost or time constraints dominate my decision might be a rationalization for not acting on something I believe in deeply. Ouch!

I consider myself a person of deep conviction. I feel I’ve organized much of my life and career around those convictions. At the same time, though, there is much I have not yet found my way forward. Much that I have not done, finished, achieved or acted on.

How might I be choosing to stay trapped on this side of success by choosing to believe the barriers are all issues of acquiring skills, financial resources, and knowing the right people?

It’s a question worth exploring. It’s a question I want to explore.

What about you? Of the six “How?” questions posed by Block, which ones do you tend to buy into, lean too heavily upon, or find yourself asking over and over again?

What was your main take-away from this chapter?

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

As you are familiar by now, the chief criteria for book selection is that I have to be willing to learn, stretch and grow myself in the topic area.

Block’s premise is that we end up asking the wrong questions when we believe that life, work, and/or relationships are things about which we simply need to master certain techniques and do the “right” way.

He challenges the assumption that the answers to life and success are all out there somewhere outside of ourselves, and that we need to go discover them, acquire them, and apply them to ourselves.

Life, though, is not something that one can learn to do “correctly”.

He points out that we actually doubt our own abilities and unwisely invalidate our own unique giftedness by buying into the “how” questions.

These themes resonate deeply with me.

I am one of those people who inadvertently subject my dreams to the practical limitations imposed by those who pretend to know the answers. I also hesitate when the means to making a living are not readily apparent.

I am looking forward to taking a more probing look at what is most core to who I am and what I want to be about.

I hope you will join me on the journey and share your journeys as well. Get a copy of the book now and read along.

The Answer to How is Yes: Acting On What Matters

Part 1: The Question
1. How is the Wrong Question
2. Yes is the Right Answer
3. Defenses Against Acting

Part 2: Three Qualities
4. Recapturing the Idealism of Youth
5. Sustaining the Touch of Intimacy
6. Enduring the Depth of Philosophy

Part 3: The Requirements
7. Claiming Full Citizenship
8. Home School Yourself
9. Your Boss Doesn’t Have What You Want
10. Oh, by the Way… You Have to Give Up Your Ambition
11. Care for the Whole (Whether It Deserves It or Not)

Part 4: Social Architecture
12. The Instrumental Imperative
13. The Archetypes of Instrumentality and Desire
14. The Role of the Social Architect
15. It’s a Mystery to Me

Each week I will post my reflections from one chapter of The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
Welcome to the discussion!

Sports stories have been a staple of the entire book, serving as a rich source of performance under pressure examples.

With our focus now on sports themselves, I find the lessons and insights still broadly applicable.

My main take-away was the return to fundamentals. Fundamental skills. Fundamental discipline in training, practicing and honing those skills.

If I want to be able to rely on my skills under pressure, they need to be practiced to a degree that they are ingrained and feel natural.

While I understand the principle, I must admit the lifestyle of discipline, focus and training required to get to where my skills are so well practiced that they feel natural feels a bit out of reach.

I’m not sure if that out-of-reach feeling comes from never having been trained with the capacity to focus and work hard on a single skill like that. Or if the feeling comes from the scale of the mountain of learning yet to climb.

Countering my hesitation, though, is the calm assurance that is available to the thoroughly trained. The ups and downs of the journey along the way lose their power to validate or invalidate my progress. I paraphrase Sullivan’s quote of golfer Matthew Goggin, “Just because you haven’t done something before doesn’t mean you don’t believe you will do it eventually.”

Sullivan calls that feeling confidence. I might add the modifier, peaceful. An inner peace that you know you are doing what you need to do in order to perform at the level you want to perform.

That’s an attractive vision of performance, achievement, competitiveness and success to me. A vision that’s worth working for. Even if the work involved is difficult, regular, focused and continuous.

I hope you have benefitted from our journey through this book together as much as I have.

If you have a request or a suggestion for what book you’d like me to read next for our “Thought Leaders Unpacked” column, please leave a comment or send me an email.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t by Paul Sullivan. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning. 

If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

When it comes to straight-talking about money issues, the initial feeling is usually, “Ouch”.

Downsizing one’s plans, shifting into a lower gear, or turning around and going back all feel nasty when money is on the line.

When the money is coming in, there seems little need to evaluate one’s decisions. The inflow of cash is almost universally interpreted as validation.

But what if you could have been making more? What if you could have been making the same amount, but having done so in such a way that built a sounder financial foundation and infrastructure?

We usually don’t give a very thoughtful look at our finances until we run into trouble.

It might be too late to respond well by the time the stitching is coming unraveled or the ship has sprung a leak.

Hence the significance of being “clutch” with one’s money. In this chapter, Sullivan explores stories where people were and were not able to make crucial down-sizing decisions when information began emerging that trouble was in the air.

Especially interesting to me is the insight that money decisions are particularly difficult ones with which to reverse course. Of all the difficult and complex decisions we face at work and in life, we have a lot—maybe too much—of ourselves at stake in our financial decisions.

It seems that we should be congratulating ourselves for being able to adjust course sooner than later in a tough economy, after an unexpected job loss, or during a complex business crisis. But more common is the feeling of failure, loss or an ego-threatening blemish on our record.

And this negative interpretation of a difficult situation leads us to make unwise and often disastrous financial decisions.

What about you? Are you able to back off or cut back when reality no longer aligns with your original criteria for a certain financial commitment you’ve made?

Does turning around mid-course feel like a failure to you? Try writing down fifteen reasons why if feels that way. Then write down fifteen reasons that making the adjustment is actually a decision-making success.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t by Paul Sullivan. My reflections are my own and are intended to generate conversation, catalyze additional thinking and encourage mutual learning.
If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.