Hip & Sage

Refreshing Youth! Professional, too.

A hip and sage friend of mine sent me this email. I loved it and asked her if I could share it with you. This is a great example of a hip and sage mindset and a good illustration of the differences we might encounter when working with Ys and Xs. I love how she goes with the flow and sees the strengths they bring to the project.

I have to tell you something funny.  I am involved in a website redesign project right now with two very brilliant people in their early 30's.  It has been so eye opening working with them.  They are so smart and I feel so lucky to be working on this project with them.   And they
are definitely making me stretch to keep up with them.  Their work habits are the most eye opening- coffee shops, iPods, marathon meetings and then taking a few days off to go biking or party til all hours and then pulling all-nighters to make deadlines.  Yet- they are so
professional and confident with the client.  They are not afraid to respectfully voice their opinion and on the flip side will listen to the client and accept their opinions & preferences. It's amazing and I'm loving every minute of it!

 

A day later....

On e of my young colleagues just used a very funny phrase with me.  Today, she told me that she just needed to "Go Analog."  Translation - she had to unplug her computer and do something out of the wired world.   Today, she is sewing something for her niece.  I love that recognition of needing balance.

The Hip and Sage Psyche - And Hip and Sage in Practice

Hipness is a state of mind - I have written and said this many times. I love it when I come across someone who boldly personifies the spirit of hipness:

• she is open
• she is interested
• she is eager to try
• and she follows this up with action

Last week, I taught a two-day class. One of the class participants was a sage professional who is also very hip. She asked lots of questions, engaged in the conversation, and then sent me an email two days after the class telling me (and showing me with URL links) what she had put into practice. That's how the spirit of hipness becomes the PRACTICE of hipness.

What to blog, why blog, who is your blog and what do apes and Socrates have to do with it?

Are you considering starting a blog? Do you blog but question its purpose and most useful point of view? I love this post from Charlie Jacobs, from the Management Rewired blog, called Socrates versus the Apes. Check it out. Here is a snippet:

Socrates is the role model for these writers. While revered (and feared by some) as the wisest of all men during his time, he was careful to assert his ignorance, and to question more than declare. In Plato's Symposium, we see his belief in a competition of ideas, not to determine whose is better, but to arrive at bigger ideas that incorporate opposing points of view.

Charlie's post is an intriguing essay about the tenor of our writing and styles that we find while clicking through blogs. Like Charlie, I love it when the post starts a provocative and lively debate and when all parties are open to disagreement and willing to be influenced.

This notion of bendable strength is at the heart of what it means to be hip and sage, too. Blog on, Charlie, blog on.

Create a Connection Culture - Michael Stallard

Becoming and staying hip and sage professional is about creating connection and engaging in continuous learning. Check out this You Tube video from hip and sage Michael Lee Stallard. His book is a great choice, particularly for those of you who love history.

How to Get Things Done. Period. Hip and Sage Role Model - Jodee Bock

I love this post from Jodee Bock called, Insight Without Action Makes No Difference. And as I read it, I reflected on how Jodee is a great role model for continuous learning and growth. Be sure to check out her blog - I think you will find it helpful and interesting.

This post is an important one for those of us who endeavor to stay current. Intentions alone won't cut it and we know this It is so easy to put off learning new things. We are all so busy.

Well, if you suffer from the bug called procrastination, check out the post and get into action.

Hip and Sage Yanni - These Young Musicians Have Given Me Life

Here's another example of the power of connecting with younger professionals to rejuvenate your work. Yanni, just came out with a new CD called Voices. He works with four young and talented singers and it is obvious that the learning and expansion happened all ways - from Yanni to them and them to Yanni. Here's a quote from Yanni from one of the behind the scenes videos about this project.  

"These talented people I am working with, they are so into what they are doing.....they've given me life."

I think this kind of experience is available to all of us, no matter what we do for a living. Connecting and working with younger talent is exhilerating! What ever YOU LOVE doing, you can love it even more when you reinvent yourself learn from others.

If you want to see the performances, Yanni and the Voices team are touring and there is a PBS special of a live concert they recorded at the beginning of the tour. Info on the Yanni site.

An Enigma Named Ralph

I told a shorter version of this story in Hip and Sage, but here is the longer - and more colorful - version.

As he walked on the hollow hardwood stage, his worn and scarred plain brown cowboy boots boomed and echoed. He looked, spoke and moved a bit like John Wayne. A hero with big flaws. Several hundred middle and senior-level managers from a mid-western Fortune 500 company - many of them wearing navy blue suits and red striped power ties  - looked up at Ralph as he began talking. I was one of the middle managers in the audience, but I did not wear a navy blue suit or a red striped power tie. The company had hired Ralph to kick off a yearly management conference held in their worldwide headquarters’ city of Dayton, Ohio. Ralph was hired to get us started, motivate us to think differently and to reinforce a number of points that our company’s senior leaders had apparently failed to successfully communicate. Ralph did these things, and for that he earned his generous speaking fee. He projected a colorful PowerPoint presentation onto the stage wall, which was a bigger deal back in 1997 than it would be today. Ralph shared two-by-two models, charts with boxes and arrows, and pithy one-liners framed around a well-told story about how he had turned his company around. Like many leaders on the speaking circuit, Ralph had a best-selling book that described his professional makeover as CEO and President. We all got copies and I eventually got my signed.

Ralph started the meeting off, showed us his two-by-two models, said what our leaders could not in ways they had not, and then he kept going - an enigma of strength and softness, confidence and humility, popular business jargon wrapped and rephrased in his gritty style. Blue suits shifted in their chairs, took a few notes, but their eyes rarely strayed from where Ralph stood high and alone on the vast wooden stage.

I do not know if our minds were ready for Ralph. As a conservative and often unexciting large company over 100 years old, we had not previously hired motivational speakers like him. Mine was a company of blue suits and red striped power ties and managers who were nothing like John Wayne at work. What took us by surprise, why our eyes were glued up toward and on him, was Ralph’s willingness to be vulnerable, show us that he was fallible and share his success story – a considerable financial achievement – with humility.     

The blue suits were not easy to impress. Motivational speakers often failed to cause even a modest stir in thinking or enthusiasm. Ralph’s power and humility perked us up like a fully dressed banana split served after a banquet lunch of broiled chicken breast, wild rice and steamed broccoli. Ralph said that he was the problem with his business, that he was the one who needed to change, and told us – not sugarcoating the less flattering details - who he had to become in order to change. He asked questions that probably provoked private “oh, shit” moments for half the blue suits in the room. I believe all great leaders learn lessons along the way but Ralph surprised us that day in Dayton, Ohio in 1997 with his story of how he learned to lead by being a better follower. It was on this morning that I first began distinguishing and thinking about what sageness could look like in business. Ralph followed and reinvented his company and his career as its CEO. Ralph was an enigma because he was wise and catalytic, strong and soft, unrefined and elegant, filled with humbleness and ego.

My leadership team ended up working with Ralph several times over the next year. Once, we flew up to Ralph’s company and toured his facilities. I was struck by how Ralph and his employees – most much younger  - communicated and connected. At Ralph’s plant, the culture oozed mutual respect and cross-position collaboration. Ralph employed several methods that helped him move from near-curmudgeon to hip and sage leader within a few years. Are you curious about what Ralph did? Stay tuned to future posts.....