I Choose To Sing A Different Song

I ran into the excerpt from a new book by former spiritual adviser to President Barack Obama, Joshua DuBois. It quotes lyrics from a song by Nina Simone titled “Feeling Good”;

Birds flying high, you know how I feel

Sun in the sky, you know how I feel

Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel

It’s a new dawn!

It’s a new day!

It’s a new life for me

And I’m feeling good.

—Nina Simone, “Feeling Good”

DuBois in making his point that no matter what is happening around us, we still have the choice on what to keep our focus on, also quotes Psalm 59 which narrates the Psalmist choices in the midst of crisis:

See how they lie in wait for me!

Fierce men conspire against me

for no offense or sin of mine, Lord. . . .

They return at evening,

snarling like dogs,

and prowl about the city.

They wander about for food

and howl if not satisfied.

I will sing of your strength,

in the morning I will sing of your love;

for you are my fortress,

my refuge in times of trouble.

You are my strength, I sing praise to you;

you, God, are my fortress.

—Psalm 59:3, 14-15, 16-17, (NIV)

Then DuBois concludes that “Nina Simone and David remind us of one unimpeachable fact: whatever situations we face, the lyrics we sing today are completely up to us. We can choose to shout above the din outside our window and sing louder than the ominous noise approaching our lives. We can worship God today. We can love today, even when it’s tough. We can take control of our song, our Psalm”.

What a great word of encouragement from Joshua DuBois. I know that when I am faced with crisis – I resort to my native instincts of how people dislike me for whatever reason. I focus on the negative circumstances instead of looking to the larger work the good Lord is doing my life. The truth is it is up to us not the circumstances. 

Writing about habits of effectiveness, the late Stephen R. Covey said that to live effectively, we must be products of our own decisions not our circumstances. When we allow our circumstances to determine our responses we become reactive to “weather, to someone who has it in for us”.

But when we decide that no matter what happens, we have the power to choose. I need to remind myself of this constantly. Like the psalmist David, I can sing of God’s goodness in the midst of the storm. I can reflect on the grace that enables us to live and deal with life. I can remember that my story is only just unfolding and truly;

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
    nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

In a world of the whirlwind, it is easy to forget that the choice is ours - that the remote control of our lives lies in our hands. It is truly up to us to focus on that which brings peace. So I can dedicate my day to this fact and with help of God, live a life that reflects this undeniable fact.

And as John Steinbeck wrote in “East of Eden”, “And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected”.

Why We Do What We Do

As we match towards 2014, it is important to remind ourselves about why we do what we do as business. Why do customers continue to rely on our content, delivery capability and follow-up. Why do we continue to get referrals and why do people who attend our workshops give us 9 or 10 in our post workshop assessments.

To be sure, our plan is to run a profitable business, with solid margins and great pipeline of future business. But as I reflect, what keeps Julia Nansubuga  - a 6-7 month pregnant woman running through the parking lot of Uganda Revenue Authority to deliver a proposal ahead of time, is not the profitability of the business or the prospects of future options. And as the ex-Google Uganda employee opined “this is great and I know I am in the right place”.

That “right place” is right because of our mission. As FranklinCovey Executive Vice President, Sean Covey put it in his December memo to owners, “In the end, we do what we do because we care about our mission.  We are a mission driven business, not a business with a mission. Why are we in business?  Because we believe we can help individuals, teams, and organizations achieve their potential through applying universal principles of effectiveness.  This is why I, personally, belong to this organization versus any other, because I believe we have a unique stewardship to fulfill that no other organization on the earth can fulfill.  Our purpose is to unleash human potential and no one knows better how to do this than we do.  We understand the whole person.  We understand that culture (the quality of the relationships that exists within an organization) is the ultimate competitive advantage and eats strategies for breakfast”

And it is the unique stewardship to understand every client through a rigorous process of determining client requirements and collaborating to deliver a solution that exactly meets their needs, that sets us apart. It is this culture that we must work to improve in coming years ahead. We must look to every client engagement driven by our values of excellence, service, compassion and the integrity to deliver on our commitments. While ensuring that the quality of relationships in our side our team is driven by an intent and intense desire to make ourselves better people, our team a model for executing on our highest priorities and enable our customers to achieve.

While customers have told us that we have a 9 or 10 in content, delivery and follow-up, we must look inward to consistently deliver the same numbers for the way we relate as a team. Holding one another accountable and volunteering support where needed. No one has the exclusive reserve to knowledge or performance but as we value our differences, we will live out the principle that says together, we create a better and higher way. Indeed we must work on our relationships and way of doing things – our culture. It is this cultures not our wildly important goals or lead measures that will make the difference. It is our culture that will drive the 9s and 10s.

As Thomas Carlyle put it, “Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being”.  When we give our best to one another in service to the client and ourselves, we become our best and become what we were ultimately created to be.

On becoming African

It took my family and I almost two hours to get to the airport at Entebbe on Saturday. Traffic crawled along and we thought there was an accident on the way. But we crawled along until we go to Entebbe, no accident, just lost of cars and trucks on the road. We arrived at the entrance and we were told that our favorite airline gate was closed.

We pleaded with airport security and airline representative but we were told that we were late - gate closed an hour ago. So we called our travel agent who insisted that we could still board because aour seats were "available". She said "you be an African and put something in that man's hands". The "that man" was the supposed supervisor. I said "put something in his hands?", "yes!" was the response. So we ended up staying the night in Entebbe for the next flight where we did not have to "put something in that man's hands" and where I did not have to prove the authenticity of my Africaness.

Be an African? it got me thinking about the numerous negative associations with Africa. "This is Africa or TIA" is used to connote all the unthinkable behaviours we put up with. For example, only in Africa will a fake translator find his way to translate for world leaders on a day that we were celebrating the life of the great Nelson Mandela. Only in Africa, will $50 billion go "missing" as alleged in the newswires about the Nigerian National Petroluem Corporation (NNPC). And yes only in Africa will you have to "put something in that man's hands" in order to board a flight with four children to go on holidays after the checking had allegely closed.

But one can get carried away that all of Africa is like this or that some how Africans like mediocrity. The temptation to think that is real but we are reminded by J.S. Mills that the "worth of a state in the long run is the worth of the individuals comprising it". It is the individuals, it is not Africa. Samuel Smiles wrote in 1904 that "National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy and uprightness as national decay is of individual idleness, selffishness and vice". It is not because we have poor national leadership that people decide to take bribes. People make the choice to take bribes as people make the choice to deliver poor customer service or throw empty bottles of water from thier cars.

It will be too easy to blame the greed of one airline supervisor on the continent but the root of this type of behavior is located in the personal decision and choice of that supervisor. To ask for bribes to do your job has nothing to do with Africa. It was an individual choice. So we waited the extra day and took the flight complete with upgrades for my wife and I by another supervisor on duty who noticed that we did not board the previous day. Not to mention the wonderful time we spent with Simon R. from the Center of Creative Leadership (CCL).

And it is this type of simple acts by the second supervisor on the second day that gives hope and reminds us of what Samuel Smiles wrote so many years ago "The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. The common life of every day, with its cares, necessities and duties, affords ample opportunity for acquiring experience of teh best kind; and it is most beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for self improvement. The road to human welfarelies along the old highway of steadfast well doing; and they who are most persistent and work in the truest spirit will usually be the most successful".

Merry Christmas!