Dear Friends,

I wanted to get this edition out early...so you can read it and hopefully draw from it, before the year-end festivities. If perhaps the thoughts that follow: musings on the world, business and life, jiggle your neurons, turn a few tumblers, or even warm the cockles of the heart...fantastic! If not, they may still be a worth a few moments of reflection...AND action!

So, to this moment and all of 'these moments' that will give us our opportunities and potential in and for the coming year!

GLOBAL MUSINGS

1. Beware of generalizing from the present...draw perspective from the past.
   
   We are facing perilous times and we need to build bridges not barriers. Recently I've seen a spate of claims coming out claiming that Muslims come from a faith-tradition that is inherently violent for example.
   
   Of course these presenters, whether in books or on television, don't mention that the human family can take turns hanging our heads in shame over the years.
   
   The past shows us that there are no particularly 'damaged' people. We've all had our moments in the sun -- great empires have spanned the globe --- they've come and they've gone. Today's power structures are unlikely to be any more permanent than their predecessors.
   
   Equally, virtually all empires have committed great brutalities, particularly against those they have stigmatized as being 'other'. It is called objectification and is one of the sources of human brutality.
   
   Islam is in a battle to define its modern day identity. This is a battle that has been waged in recent memory by other faith traditions, and is being waged indeed by nation-states and even regions of the world today. The defining of the people we wish to be, and of the moral standing of our foreign policy and other choices, is for example a struggle that is very vital and urgent in the United States today.
   
   If we agree that good, progressive people, anywhere in the world have more in common with each other, than they do with bigots or murderers they happen to share a national or religious affiliation with -- then let's make that reality ever more evident to everyone.
   
   Polarization is the beginning of the end. We don't have to excuse acts of violence to not generalize from a few villains to the overwhelming majority around the world who would vote for peace and progress -- because all our lives depend on it.



2. Dialogue with everyone that matters...especially with those you fear and who infuriate you.
   
   In business and in life, this is true. It seems to be argued that if you discuss something with someone, you 'legitimize' them or their views or acts. That's madness.
   
   If you can only dialogue with those who agree with you, or who have already changed course, then dialogue becomes mostly cosmetic and human communication gets reduced to vapid inanities.
   
   You dialogue with, debate, and engage the very people you DON'T agree with. That's the hope of dialogue! That's how messages make it across and inroads are made...even incrementally.
   
   Wars are rarely fought by protagonists who still have open, viable channels of communication with each other (for example the US and Russia, or the US and China; or even Israel and Egypt since the Camp David accords, etc).
   
   But dialogue isn't just 'natural' - it takes work. We've been misled into thinking that making strident statements is what communication is all about, that refusing to be open shows decisiveness rather than mulishness.
   
   Dialogue IS about transformation. When we're stuck, open dialogue, without sacrificing values and priorities, but being open enough to find new creative ways forward is the essence of leadership. From dialogue comes fresh design, and hence a more attractive future.



3. Challenge statements you hear -- particularly from the halls of power.
   
   One of the ways we give up our freedom and our influence as citizens of nations and hopefully as agents of history is to be duped by rampant disinformation, or partial information, that is handed to us.
   
   I live in New York City and am proud to do so. One of the things I admire about New Yorkers is their ability to smell 'baloney' a mile away.
   
   Governments often suggest that patriotism means going along without question with whatever policy they've minted. That's absurd. Why should any patriotism you have attach to the current government, rather than to what you believe to be the larger interests of your community, country or people?
   
   Why is it that 'patriotism' means 'pro war' in so many places? Why can you not believe such violence except as an absolute demonstrated last resort is NOT the nature of your country or its ideals?
   
   Let's not be cowed by propagandists and browbeaters.
   
   Let's leave ourselves open to getting the facts unromantically, sifting them as per our values and beliefs as well as the pragmatics of the situation. Then we can be TRULY patriotic...by being informed, not infantilized by Orwellian double-speak.



4. Demand the 'reality' test of pronouncements/promises.
   
   US surveys show that automobile salespeople are the 2nd least trusted among professionals. The bottom of the barrel is scraped by, you guessed it, politicians.
   
   One of the reasons is that politicians have become associated, with some thankful exceptions, with windbag rhetoric. Pulpit pounding that rarely converts into meaningful action.
   
   So the next time you hear a 'promise' from anyone about a course of events, policy, whatever, apply the 'reality test'. In other words ask, 'how will the world be tangibly and measurably different based on what you are saying?' If there isn't a concrete counterpart in reality, then it's a smokescreen and you should give it the lack of credence it deserves.
   
   If there is a real outcome that can be linked with the utterance, go one step further. Ask for the milestones, the markers along the way that will let us know we're on course, and make sure they relate back to the outcome being stated.
   
   Apply this to your own promises too. Its eye opening and sometimes spirit-chilling how many 'assurances' leave our mouth without their practical translation ever having been established.



5. Don't despair -- activism WORKS.
   
   It's all too easy to get cynical and bemoan the worsening state of the world. However it is as counterproductive to envisage doom Cassandra-like as it would be to succumb to a Pollyanna-like myopia.
   
   The truth is that activism works. Let me supply two examples - one profound, the other more banal, but both indicative. When wars were fought in the 50's and 60's and large scale deaths caused, there was virtually no protest. It took years of mounting casualties before people found their voice and expressed their conscience. This ostrich-like reaction was made easier because we weren't bombarded by CNN and its ilk as well of course.
   
   Today, wars are protested even before they are fought. Even autocrats and dictators have to embellish the rationale for their actions now. Gratuitous violence or blatant injustices today just don't wash.
   
   And though we are far from routing racism and sexism - they are clearly less in evidence, and certainly far more on the retreat.
   
   Activism takes time…and today's frustrations become tomorrow's achievements.
   
   In a more mundane way, I sought to bring attention to the quite silly airport screening done in the US which was registering 'false positives' in terms of people whose names resembled those of terrorists. However, rather than going also with date of birth, middle names and other information, the database tagged you even if there was a similarity of first and last name. For 'John Smith' and indeed 'Omar Khan', this meant we were stopped each time. Moreover, and quite insanely, the database wasn't capable of being updated…so that once cleared, we could stop checking the same people over and over while claiming that we had 'limited resources' for homeland security!
   
   My article in The Washington Post (just Google 'Omar Khan Sensei' if interested), among other inducements, did lead to a revision. And as of today, at least 'officially', there is a way to annotate the database and new mandates to more effectively utilize the technology we have available (biometrics, retina scans etc) has been provided. Hallelujah!
   
   The effort was painstaking, the impact incremental and uncertain. However, that's no excuse not to seek to make an impact. The effort itself sets loose various energies…we become part of a pool of positive influence. Exactly how critical mass builds may be unknown. But build it does and it is palpable and powerful enough for us all to get busy making the contributions we can.
   
   The ripples in time make the waves.

1. The test of a strategy or business plan is the action it ignites or inhibits.
   
   Companies spend reams of time articulating strategies. Most of them make pitifully little difference to how the company prioritizes, budgets or acts. The reason is that many companies mean by 'strategy' simply a list of all their big goals. A strategy should instead be a point of view about (in the words of A.G. Lafley of P&G), 'where we play' and 'how we win'. Until a strategy encompasses that and provides clarity on those two fronts, it's largely hogwash.
   
   A business plan is hopefully the conversion of the strategy into an annual plan of action. A business plan too often derives from budgets that are set. That is completely backwards! A business plan should mandate a budget. A budget should be an expression of our best bets placed, in line with our strategy, as to how we will grow and deliver exceptional performance.
   
   The final indictment of most strategies and business plans is that they make no difference. No key action, or decision, can actually be linked to them. We often ask executives: 'Tell us one major decision you would or would not have taken based on whether it was in your plan.' Virtually none of them can suggest one. And as someone asked, why call these things 'confidential' if you can't point to anything in them that would really give your competitors a competitive advantage? Virtually no one can.
   
   So, let's be different. Let's create strategies that come from both analysis and our view of both our own capabilities and the emergent trends of the market and the emerging needs of our customers. Let's decide where we're going to play, how we're going to win and how we're going to be dramatically different enough to sustain that.



2. Let's communicate early, not as a last resort.
   
   I know a major company where the chief laments are not that there is insufficient capital (their parent company is awash in cash), or that they lack vision or strategy (they actually have a compelling way forward they are implementing and which will likely secure industry leadership for some time), or even that they are hemmed in with outdated systems or stultifying bureaucracy (they are a relatively young offspring of a venerable parent and are run as a separate profit center).
   
   So what's the problem? Dwindling morale because the bosses don't engage their people, spend inadequate time appreciating good effort, have coteries of 'yes men' around them, listen poorly, and are so busy driving otherwise laudable change that they haven't noticed the termites gnawing away at the foundations under their feet.
   
   And while the leaders have made it hard to give them feedback, none of the complaints above are hard in absolute terms to address. A number of the senior leaders are well respected, so a bit more time, a bit more acknowledgement and appreciation, a little more time to close the mouth and open the ears, and creating a next-level team empowered to safeguard and cultivate a culture that can provide a platform for this change, is the order of the day.
   
   This isn't heavy lifting objectively. But it apparently is subjectively. We humans will do almost anything else, and as a last resort if all else has failed - will 'consider' communicating with each other.
   
   Let's be different. Communicate early and often. Set up listening posts and relay stations. So contributors help us make our lives and companies better. Let's make our peace with the fact that leadership is a contact sport, and outlaying the energy for human interaction is the best investment we'll ever make. The cost of its absence is astronomical, as everything else that's 'right' then becomes wrong.



3. Let's have real visions not empty slogans.
   
   How often do companies claim to have a vision when what they really have is a set of words? The 'gas quotient' does not demonstrate the vitality, reality and urgency of a vision.
   
   A vision is our greatest aspiration for the future. It is what we are staking our credibility, our imagination and our talent on making manifest.
   
   But real visions aren't just stated…they are expressed in behaviors, priorities and paradigms. Most companies spend 85% of the time 'wordsmithing' the semantics of the vision and barely 15% of the time aligning people around it and igniting their priorities accordingly.
   
   Spend 85% of the time deciding, debating and agreeing the behavioral implications of the most relevant, gripping future you want to collectively take a stand for. It should express the best of what we're capable of, resonate with our values, and demand that we re-invent what's currently possible.
   
   If any of that is real, it will have implications for everyone. Get that aligned. Get deliverables and performance measures in synch with that. Confront blockers and celebrate exemplars. Hold all leaders accountable for advancing agreed goal-posts that deliver this vision.
   
   Then the words will shine with meaning and be an anthem for the actions by which they are becoming real.



4. Bosses need motivation too.
   
   A client came to me with a quandary. This client was a Regional Director and he had a global boss who was a real nightmare. This boss was a walking billboard of seeming emotional narcissism. His reality was the only one that counted.
   
   After each country visit, he left the team in shambles. It took days, sometimes even weeks, to pick them up off the floor and get them positively re-focused.
   
   My client asked me how he could give a boss renowned for being unwilling to hear feedback, exactly that. The fear was that he would be treated to his boss' well known cocktail of outrage, swagger and derision.
   
   I asked if his boss had ever done a country visit that HAD gone well. My client, let's call him Joe, was surprised by the question. 'Yes, when he visited our Vietnam office last week, he was surprisingly positive. He had a great exchange with the team. To be honest, they were really ready for him and had a great story to tell. But he left them energized. Maybe he'd had a good week-end!'
   
   I suggested that Joe let his boss know what a great visit that was. That IS feedback! Bosses need to know when they're doing it right too. Motivate your boss was my suggestion!
   
   As we suspected when hearing Joe's lavish enthusiasm, his boss was intrigued. 'What about all the other visits?' he asked. Joe smiled and said, 'Well we all have ups and downs…but THIS visit was fantastic, and the team is really revved up as a result!' Not surprisingly his boss insisted on knowing what made this visit so different. And as he had asked, he was willing to hear the feedback, which Joe expressed in terms of what his boss had done 'right' in Vietnam not all that he'd done 'wrong' the other times. 'It was great how you listened, how you publicly thanked those who had worked so hard, it was encouraging to have you out in the field with the troops, thank you for giving them the space to present their ideas too.'
   
   Catch your boss doing things right…motivate them to repeat it. Bosses are human. We all need to know what's working, how we're coming across, and how to get our teams to rally. It's up to us to get that message across to those who can influence all of us the most.



5. Help your team REALLY celebrate!
   
   I've heard it all over the globe. Ask companies and teams within those companies whether they celebrate enough or effectively enough, and the answer invariably is 'no'.
   
   The answer is not as one person (I hope jokingly!) suggested which was to appoint a Director of Celebration!
   
   Celebration is first behavioral. So if leaders have high energy, share positive buzz with their teams, order in an impromptu pizza to share with the team while recognizing that week's stars, place a call to say 'thank you', or stop by an office to cheer AND challenge…then celebration will take flight in that workplace.
   
   But celebration can't be by rote, and it can't be an empty formality. Let's be clear, an 'official' company dinner is NOT a celebration! It's a compulsion. It can be okay as a recognition if put on with some panache and if say that person's spouse and possibly other family are present to help them enjoy the limelight.
   
   A plaque takes little energy, so it's a memento, but not something that will reverberate in the memory.
   
   We want to celebrate and recognize in a way that warms, inspires and excites. So it's far better to give someone a season ticket to a favorite sport, or for a smaller 'win', a night of dinner and the movies to enjoy with their family. Instead of the boring plaque, how about flowers and a handwritten card of appreciation delivered to the family home? And if you have to give the plaque, how about a surprise party thrown by senior management with balloons and confetti, with a real keepsake they can decorate their home with?
   
   Real celebration and real recognition also involves knowing the people involved. In a recent conversation one executive opined (in front of his boss), 'It would be a great motivation if when I'm traveling for business, I didn't have to dash home that same night to save costs. If it's a great new location, say Sao Paulo for my first visit, a week-end there would be a great incentive.'
   
   His colleague furrowed his brow and said, 'Wow, we're really different. For me, I want to get home to my wife and kids, I travel too much already. I want to see new places with them. So, if someone knew that, and could let me schedule meetings so I can catch the last flight back, or if occasionally when coming to the head office, I got an extra ticket to bring my wife along…that would be spectacular!'
   
   The leaders present remarked to me that this was an eye opener. By getting to know each other (leadership is about building relationships based on merit, trust and mutual commitment) they realized they could also differentiate meaningfully in terms of the type of recognition and appreciation lavished.
   
   While the examples above all cost varying amounts of money…it's the gesture, its imaginativeness, and its applicability to the person that matters most. One colleague getting an afternoon off to play golf can be as powerful as a spirited mention in the global newsletter to another.
   
   When we win, when we deliver, let's help each other feel good…each in our own ways, in the ways that matter and turn us on. To get that right, we have to get to know each other. Anyway, without that, what is there really to celebrate?

1. Design a life you love you live…a week at a time.
   
   We could all take the Hallmark route and say 'a moment at a time'. As essential wisdom, it's absolutely on the money. However, in practical terms, we usually need a planning horizon.
   
   Not all weeks are created equal. We have some that seem to be teeming with potential and wonderful opportunities. Others we grit our teeth and try to make it through. And there are all the gradations in between.
   
   But no matter the seeming complexion of the week, let's try and create islands of delight, of stimulus, of joy, of wonderful interaction. No matter how much or how little opportunity we can create that week - this is the mortar that will hold the 'bricks' of our life in place.
   
   You see I can tell the story of say December 1st-7th in two ways. The first way is to describe how on the 1st I had an early morning telecom at home in New York, then met my financial advisor, and had a frantic set of meetings and client commitments all day. The next day we had to catch a very early flight to Toronto where I had to dash to get a legal document notarized and meet with a speaker's bureau. After the week-end we had to fly to London where I had client coaching sessions, confirmed a new contract, got a bad head cold and had to fly onto Dubai despite how I felt on the 7th.
   
   Or I could describe how I got a final evening at home before travel in New York and got the rare luxury of just ordering in a pizza and putting my feet up. I could describe how grateful I was that our flight arrived early and we checked into our favorite room at The Four Seasons Toronto. I could describe the joy of an evening with my wife's parents and one of our dearest friends in from Singapore who introduced us to another lovely person who joined us. I could relate the pleasure of being with other members of our family who have just had a child and the glorious yet simple pleasures of that togetherness. I could speak about the Hot Toddy that made my head cold seem far more manageable in London, and the pleasurable coaching conversations. I could mention that we had a beautiful walk through London to one of our favorite French bistros that now has an outlet there, Relais de Venise. I could speak about a bracing 7k trot through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and listening to John's virtuoso piano skills at the lounge upstairs in our hotel.
   
   Let's create multi-faceted highlights each week. Some weeks, it may be 10 minutes reading a favorite book, or sinking into a hot bath to soothing music, or walking the dog, or having a cup of tea in a favorite haunt, or sharing a glass of wine over a dinner with a loved one with the phone unplugged and the kids tucked away in bed.
   
   Pick what rejuvenates you. Fill the spaces of your life with that. As you do, these moments will fill our lives with the energy and stamina to create the success we want.



2. Create great quarterly projects - for health, for mind, for organization, for relationships, for the spirit.
   
   If you want a simple yet immediately applicable tip that you can literally 'take to the bank' to make next year more effective than ever, here it is:
   
   Every quarter have a project that touches at least one of the above dimensions. My wife and I have gotten into distance walking. When we're at home we do a 10k round of Nordic Walking roughly ever other day. But we're rarely home! So we look to other locations and other days when we can build this in. As we're aiming to complete several marathons in '07/'08, tangible minimums are fun to plan for and to enjoy here.
   
   Mentally, we all have goals. What's one simple course, book, skill, application, engagement that could make a difference in the next quarter? Publicize your commitment to it and reel it in. Four well chosen ones per annum can be truly powerful.
   
   Pick a mess in your life - a recurring meltdown, or case of poor organization, or suboptimal process. Take a deep dive and make peace candidly and courageously with what will be required to set that right. Stake your credibility on that commitment. Once such mess cleaned up a quarter can transform a year…even a life!
   
   Who would you like to deepen a relationship with, make time for, renew contact with, and get to know? 2-3 a quarter from whatever mix of the above categories creates wonderful emotional energy, as well as deepening our reservoir of human interaction, stimuli and hopefully nurturing as well. We all need to 'relate'. Let's make some choices here and reap the rewards of reaching out while also reaching 'in' within ourselves.
   
   Finally, what would feed your spirit in the coming quarter? It could be time for reflection, solitude, a visit to a place of worship, an act of volunteerism or compassion, helping out a friend who's struggling, or even helping out a neighbor or doing something for your community. It might even be finding a way to help your company make a difference…either through an act of social responsibility, or possibly by adding value to the families and lives of those who work there. However, one tangible 'something' you're going to try to experience, make habitual, explore or do, is the key.
   
   Quarter by quarter, we'll continuously improve the growth and satisfaction we experience…full steam ahead!



3. Let the holidays be catapults not cul-de-sacs.
   
   Many of us look forward to year-end festivities and holidays with relish. Something magical seems to be in the air. Hope, love, seems to be all around us…even if commercialized and rendered a bit sophomoric by monotonous jingles and cheesy holiday films.
   
   Yet many experience a let-down in the aftermath. We wonder, 'Is that all there is?' Or else we suspect that all the smiles glistening everywhere must suggest that others are tapping into the well of human happiness we hear being trumpeted everywhere. So why are we missing out?
   
   Truth be told we think of the holidays as a spectator sport. We haven't accepted the fact that as with most of life, garbage in, garbage out. So the more we put into the occasions, the more we'll get out of them.
   
   Moreover, the festivities are meant to get us to reflect on what and who really matters to us in our lives. So what if we asked the following: 'It's January 2nd. What can I and we do to make the period from now to then as memorable, as heart warming, and as life-launching as possible?' And then have that conversation with as many of the stakeholders in your life and happiness as you can. See what you can co-create!
   
   And you'll pull it off - you'll find that time thinking about how to make each other happy, shared attention, listening to each other's stories, taking time out of the whirl to connect, to laugh, to celebrate, WORKS! Then, decide to let the holidays be a springboard for the year…not a way to keep what matters in suspended animation until the next 'official' time of year for merriment comes round.
   
   This season can't be an end unto itself. It has to be a portal…into possibility we first make real and then decide to extend and make into a way of life we share with those we love…all year.



4. Being Coachable sets us up for real success.
   
   It is highly fashionable to advocate coaching. This is one area in which fashion and good sense match perfectly. We have to coach growth, coach success and coach possibility in each other. However, the other side of the occasion rarely gets commensurate attention: being coach-able.
   
   In other words, how easy are we to coach? Taken further, are we a pleasure to coach? If not, we are making it harder for people to help us. Say there is someone who has a perspective that could help us, or experience they could share, or an idea to offer we can leverage. They try and share it with us and are met with resentment because they've dared to venture a suggestion to us. Or they get misunderstanding because we don't or won't listen. And finally, all they get is lip service when we promise to 'consider it'. As they see little change, they are unlikely to keep lavishing us with their energy and attention. They will go elsewhere next time to get a better ROI on their input.
   
   We want to be the best choice for people's energy when it comes to offering guidance, input and coaching. Even if we don't agree with someone's perspective, there is usually something to be learned from it. Even if all we learn is that this is how we come across to them - that's something.
   
   We all have friends and loved ones, or even peers and acquaintances, who have an idea for us that could benefit us. We need to make it easy for them to share it with us. And where we conclude with them an action should be taken, let's really take it, and demonstrate our application and offer them hearty appreciation.
   
   The world will help us succeed…if we'll let the people who constitute our world, make inputs that are welcome, listened to…and acted upon!



5. 'Empty' with someone you love...or empty with someone you'd like to love.
   
   To 'empty' in this sense is to remove our masks and share fully and completely what we're feeling…without agendas, or mascara, or subterfuge, without 'rehearsal', and without trying to achieve a particular impression or result.
   
   As I fully 'let go' and 'empty' where I am, I let someone know I am willing to be emotionally intimate with them. 'Intimacy' can be rewritten as 'into me see'. It is the ultimate invitation and a remarkable honor to do someone.
   
   Just like us, those we love need a chance to open up their full capacity for intimacy and loving behavior. Our emptying with them enables that. It provides them an invitation to also let go of the albatross of pretence at their end and let us have a window into where they are, how they are, and what they need.
   
   If trying to build a bridge to someone then emptying (perhaps not fully, but in any regard - our current mood, a view, a fear, a feeling, a hope, a dream) is a wonderful way to connect, to deepen a relationship, or possibly to ignite one. Done gently, respectfully, invitationally…it can be powerful. Moreover after such an exchange, the laughter is both louder and more real, the joys exchanged more exquisite and alive, and the entire interaction becomes abundant with humanity.
   
   'Emptiness' here isn't a vacancy, it's a clearing of space for something richer, deeper and possibly larger than the vacuous inanities that we sometimes settle for rather than locating the energy, the courage and the grace for real communication.

Omar Khan,
Senior Partner, Sensei International
Phone: 1 (212) 295 2191, Fax: 1 (212) 295 2121
e mail: omar@sensei-international.com

Omar Khan is a globally acknowledged leadership development innovator and success coach. He is a sought after change catalyst and a pioneer in transformational learning. He is the author of the acclaimed book SYNERGY as well as the newly released and much awaited, TIMELESS LEADERSHIP.