The LIFT Blog

By Robert E. Quinn

This has been a difficult year in the corporate world.  There is a wide sense of discouragement and fear.  Many people who are normally effective leaders are failing to take initiative.  This fuels an already negative context.  What is to be done?

This week I was teaching a group of executives about leadership.  I was trying to help them understand an elusive concept:  We transform the world by transforming ourselves.  I cited Thoreau’s words from Civil Disobedience: “Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything that was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; aye, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.” [1]

An Example

In sharing this quotation I again suggested that we change the world by changing ourselves.  The executives found the concept elusive and questioned the practicality.  By way of illustration, I asked them to consider a number of stories. One story came from the book, Building the Bridge as You Walk on It. [2]  It is about a woman named Gail.  She was married to an abusive man.  One day he was beating her with a belt.  In the middle of the extended attack, she describes an unusual event.

“Time slowed down, almost coming to a stop, and I remember hearing a voice inside me say as clearly as if there had been someone in the room talking to me, ‘You know he’s crazy, but you must be crazy too for putting up with this.’  In that moment of realization, I was transformed from the victim of an abusive husband to a woman who had choices, and I knew, even though I was not yet ready emotionally or financially, that I would leave the relationship.”

“I never said a word to him or lifted a finger to defend myself, but the most amazing thing happened. Immediately following, or maybe simultaneously to my thought and my decision to leave, he stopped hitting me and screaming at me, dropped the belt, and walked away.  We never spoke of the incident, and he never raised his voice to me or lifted a finger to harm me in any way after that.  It was as if he somehow sensed that he would never be able to treat me that way again.”

“In a moment of profound awareness I had taken personal responsibility for my own sense of well being, and I had changed in that instant on a deep, fundamental level. The shift in me completely changed the way I regarded myself and profoundly changed the way he interacted with me forever. Within months I had enrolled in graduate school, moved out of our apartment, and filed for divorce. I had changed the world by changing myself.”

In this case, several important changes take place. First, she becomes clear about her purpose.  She exercises agency and chooses the result she really wants to create. Second, in clarifying her values she finds increased courage to enact who she really is. Third her relationships change. Notice that she expresses no bitterness towards her husband, she recognizes his craziness and does so without judgment, she is actually more open to him.  She is more other-focused. Finally, she is more open to new experience, even though she is not “ready emotionally or financially,” she knows she is going to leave.  She has the courage to move forward in the face of uncertainty.

How To Do It

In the classroom we analyzed several other cases that showed how people going through deep personal changes tend to gain capacity in each of these four areas.  Next we reviewed empirical research that suggests the same. [3]  Finally I helped them identify and analyze the deep changes that had already occurred in their own lives.  It all started to crystallize.  A few people shared their own stories.  As they did, there was a growing sense of awe.  The people in that room were beginning to see the value in what I was teaching.  They were beginning to understand the power in the words of Thoreau.  I told them that by asking four simple questions, they could elevate themselves in any situation:

• To become purpose-centered they can ask, “What result do I want to create?”
• To become internally-directed they can ask, “What would my story be if I were living up to the values I expect of others?”
• To become other-focused they can ask, “How do others feel about this situation?”
• To become externally-open they can ask, “What are three (or four or five) strategies I can use to accomplish my purpose for this situation?”

Action from principle is revolutionary and it does change things and relations.  It is not just an attractive philosophy. The power of the positive is demonstrated scientifically.  We can access it to transform ourselves and others.

[1] Thoreau, H. D. 1993. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays. New York: Dover Publications, page 7.

[2] Quinn, R. E. 2004. Building the Bridge as You Walk on It: A Guidebook for Leading Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pages 30-31.

[3] Quinn, R. W. & Quinn, R. E. 2009. Lift: Becoming a Positive Force in Any Situation. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 2:46 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.