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Enlightenment

admin / October 10, 2015

When was the last time you were enlightened? Have you noticed how the intensity can vary from insight to rapture to genius? When greater understanding or resolution of a lingering question presents itself, do you liven up and pause to grasp it? A fresh idea, or simply re-understanding what we thought we knew, can bring transformative feelings of renewal, engagement, and at times the conviction that we are indeed moving in the right direction toward a meaningful goal. It has been said that, “artists from Picasso to Bob Dylan and entrepreneurs including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs changed the world by finding “radically new ways of looking at old problems.” They cut through all the accumulated stuff — forget what’s been done — to see something special, something new.”[1] Effective leaders know how to create work environments where enlightenment is possible. People are more attentive and focused when they participate and anticipate that learning and progress are imminent. Team leaders who encourage colleagues and employees to compliment one another’s strengths and to fill in for one another’s weaknesses promote conditions where people feel more purposeful, connected, and valued; this contributes to productivity and a sense of well-being. [2] I was enlightened the other day and the effects linger. David Whyte,[3] a gifted poet and business consultant, ran a workshop at a coaching conference[4] in Boston and I was in the room. David Whyte combines poetry, storytelling, and consulting to help people have crucial conversations about complex contemporary workplace challenges. He explained that great poetry bypasses the rational brain, speaks directly to the heart, and then invites the rational brain to seek understanding. Through this art, he helps people cut through information overload and reframe struggles that show up at work. Issues challenging leaders today are different in part due to the heightened pace of change and breadth of knowledge we deal with daily in the Information Age. Challenges today can be of multicultural, global, and existential dimensions for people at all levels of an organization. I confess I have never encountered or considered poetry as a tool for coaching in a corporate context until David Whyte enlightened and moved me. In the workshop, he told stories about travel, friendships, and clients that inspired the several poems he recited. At the end of each recitation he paused and 25 of us were entranced. We sat alone together in silence, wanting to break through to comment, but we could not form words adequate to express our thoughts. A few tried and could only express tears. One poem -The Faces At Braga – stirs compassion in me for my wonderful clients. The Faces At Braga is a poem about one of David Whyte’s experiences visiting a cave at a monastery in Portugal accessible only those who are invited in by the monks. This cave exists today. Inside the old shrine room there are hundreds of faces carved in devotion out of wood and hung centuries ago. The only way to see the faces in the cave is by lighting the candles made of yak butter. In this excerpt, David Whyte implores us to see our weaknesses as part of what makes strength possible, adding space for growth, and inviting help and conversations into our relationships. Leaders, who willingly partner with a coach, come to realize that they do not have to change who they are to lead well, but they do need to have exceptional self knowledge about: Who they are now,What is going on for them here,What strengths they have that contribute to their own and collective successes,What weaknesses they have that get in their way,What weaknesses they have that could contribute to collective success (yes, success), andHow to have conversations about their own and other’s strengths and weaknesses. Leaders cannot be equally competent in all areas. People who have been invited to assist gain a sense of purpose, feel engaged with one another, and spontaneously seek ways to troubleshoot and shore up a leader for the benefit of a shared goal. It is in that space, where there are no authoritative answers, that enlightenment and discovery can occur. In many companies today, ‘failure’ is reframed as an opportunity for learning. When mistakes are not hidden out of fear or shame, conversations that follow will enable teams to self-regulate, enlighten one another, and become mutually accountable for meeting the courageous standard set by a leader to stay ahead by pressing from one challenge to the next with commitment, conviction, and humility. Faces At Braga (excerpt reproduced with permission) “If only we knew as the carver knew, how the flaws in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core, we would smile too and not need faces immobilized by fear and the weight of things undone. When we fight with our failing We ignore the entrance to the shrine itself And wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good. And as we fight Our eyes are hooded with grief And our mouths are dry with pain. If only we could give ourselves to the blows of the carver’s hands..” [1] Zane J. Peder, In the Age of Information, Specializing to Survive, The New York Times, March 19, 2015, Education Section http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/education/in-the-age-of-information-specializing-to-survive.html?_r=0 [2] Rath, Tom and Conchie, Barry: Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow, Gallup Press, Copyright 2008 [3] http://www.davidwhyte.com/biography.html [4] http://www.instituteofcoaching.org [5] Whyte, David River Flow, New & Selected Poems, 1990, 2014 Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington; excerpt from The Faces At Braga pp 296-297 – reproduced with permission full poem text

Ideas for Coaches

Note to Self: “You Are Not In Prison”

admin / August 1, 2015

It is a beautiful Friday summer afternoon and you have had a long, challenging, deadline driven workweek. There is one more assignment to go before your weekend will begin with a date at 7:30 pm. Your boss has twice reviewed the document due next week, edited it, and asked for additions and deletions. One more draft to go. The trees outside are green and leaves are waving gently in the summer breeze… Finally finished, you: Attach it to an email, Press send, Stand and stretch, Punch the air, Walk to the restroom, Return to your office, Shut down the computer, Pack your briefcase and… Just as you are about to turn off the light and walk out, your boss appears at the door and calmly says, “I know this is taking longer than expected, but I have a few more things I’d like you to change for me….” and he asks you to remove things that he had asked you to put in before. He suggests a different word here, a new word there, and an idea about how an excel chart might be helpful, too. He asks if you could cancel your evening plans because he just wants to get it done tonight. You both know that he doesn’t need it until next week but he’s hyper-focused. You say “yes” but you want to roll up in a ball and die. After all, you’ve been at the company five years longer than he has and you know that your new boss is probably trying to impress his new boss and feeling pressure to deliver on promises made during the interview process that landed him the job. You get it, but you feel disrespected, abused, demoralized, and exhausted. You can’t push back, you don’t know how to say ‘no’, and you don’t have the energy to do that tonight, anyway. You take a breath and start to work another late night. You call your date and cancel; you are both disappointed. It wasn’t too long ago, when you were happy at work, but this new, hypercritical, overbearing, and self-centered boss has ruined that. Its Friday and you are already dreading Monday. You don’t want to quit, you like your work, and so what do you do? You Are Not In Prison When there is intense pressure from above, it will roll down throughout all levels of an organization. Leaders, blindly driven by their own pressures and anxieties, often pass that on to their subordinates. This can damage morale, motivation, productivity, and emotions of the people needed most for success. In an ideal environment, all employees feel safe giving feedback to one another to help co-create a productive, responsive work environment. Good leaders, who are able to listen with their ears and intuition, respect personal boundaries and are aware of how their behavior and demands impact others who have less power and status at work. During times of intense pressure, when there is a foundation of trust and respect, everyone on the team will willingly bear down together to give extra time and effort. Then the team will share the relief when the job is done and share the success or disappointment that would follow. When your boss makes demands based disproportionately upon what would make him or her look good, then you have to remember that you are not in prison. You are in the present moment. When the day began you chose to be there and you can manage how you feel about it by exercising strategic, respectful, self-preservation. You can wallow in or learn from the challenges because it is not easy to see the clear path. It takes courage to sidestep pressure from above, and presence of mind to not label a challenging environment as either “good or bad,” but simply what it is. It takes self-awareness and self-respect to act in a way that is professional, ethical, and fair to you. In the scenario above, there is a lesson about managing up by not letting down until you are truly done. Next time, when you complete the onerous, last task: Stand and stretch, Punch the air, Walk to the restroom, Return to your office, Pack your briefcase, Shut off the lights, Attach the document, Press send and shut down your computer, Leave the office, Turn off your phone. Even if you get an email or call asking that you finish something “important” by Monday, you will at least have had a few hours to decompress. You are not in prison. You don’t have to escape and run for your life. But you owe it to yourself to preserve your health and enforce reasonable boundaries. Enjoy your weekend.

Change and Resilience

Ch-ch-ch-Changes: Why we Hang On to What We Know

admin / June 30, 2015

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes(1) David Bowie’s song “Changes” has a celebrated stutter, Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes while he wonders “I still don’t know what I was waiting for…” The song strikes a personal chord for many listeners because in the period of time it takes to utter those halting four syllables (ch-ch-ch-ch), individuals and organizations will react with shock then paralysis or cautious exhilaration the instant they learn that there will be a change. Change management is big business. Individuals, teams, and multinational organizations invest time and money in experts to help them master the change curve, reduce resistance, and leverage the promise of revitalizing transformation. The cost savings measured in productivity and morale is well worth the investment of time and resources. The reaction to change is generally predictable. It falls along a curve that shows how performance and emotions are likely to be affected, from the rumors, to the announcement, through implementation, and to acceptance. Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross developed the curve based on her clinical work in grief and bereavement [2]. Subsequent research has shown that the curve applies equally to change in business. The final step after acceptance is letting go (decathexis) when feelings or attachments to the past are withdrawn and a renewed confidence about the present and future takes hold. Pace: Some people zip quickly along the change curve and enjoy it. Others will hold on more tightly as they move through the process – if at all – and progress and regress along the way. In teams, individuals can motivate one another with confidence and joy, or infect one another with doubt and despair. By observing employees closely and talking with them, you can identify where they are along the change curve. By mindfully appraising your own behavior and emotions, you will be better able to help yourself and your organization expect the highs and lows and move through them together with compassion and drive. The Status Quo: The power of the status quo[3] reinforces the desire for things to remain normal or the same. Every day, your mental and emotional energies are devoted to defending the belief that things are as they should be. Comfort with the familiar and the self-perpetuating nature of habits feed into change anxiety. It is hard for people to imagine themselves in new situations[4] in new roles. Who they will be? How they will be perceived? On a primitive level, we fear that change threatens our survival and our identity. We don’t know whether a new system will be fair, whether we will survive, both literally and figuratively (what if I get demoted, fired, don’t get that promotion? What if the new boss doesn’t like me? What if they cut funding for my project?) Successful change requires both social and neurological transformations. When we form habits our brains grow neural pathways that with reinforcement and practice fire preferentially over others. Well-developed habits drive our behaviors and thoughts even before we consciously form intentions to act or not to act. Our habits provide us with context and make things feel familiar. Our habits reinforceassumptions and beliefs about the way the world is. We feel like we are in control of our lives and our work. We know what to do, and can to predict what’s next. Our habits help us to feel safer in a chaotic world and freer from possible threats to our existence. Turn and face the strain: In the workplace, decisions to change are usually authorized at the top and are imposed on employees whose only real choice is to adapt. Some will and some won’t. When change of personnel or direction is necessary, introducing the decision with consistency, pace, and appreciation for its impact will accelerate progress. Even when change is agreed to through collaborative teamwork, it will take time for people to readapt to their external environment and reconfigure their internal thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about the new order of things. Trust has to be re-established, new predictions validated, and confidence restored. It is possible to intentionally reframe how we think about change and in doing so, reprogram our brains, and create new routines and habits. This takes time, strategy, and open acknowledgement of the process. A good leader will develop a system to help employees accept and articulate their concerns and to separate illusions and fears from the shared goals and challenges. A good change manager will help individuals and organizations process the vision, grasp the excitement and benefits of change, and develop the trust and confidence to let go of the past. (1)http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/davidbowie/changes.html (2)Kübler-Ross, E. (1969) On Death and Dying, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-04015-9; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation (3)Aaron C. Kay, Danielle Gaucher, Jennifer M. Peach, Kristin Laurin, Justin Friesen, Mark P. Zanna, and Steven J. Spencer, Inequality, Discrimination, and the Power of the Status Quo: Direct Evidence for a Motivation to See the Way Things Are as the Way They Should Be , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 2009 American Psychological Association 2009, Vol. 97, No. 3, 421–434 0022-3514/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0015997 (4)Kegan, Robert; Lahey, Lisa Laskow (2009). Immunity to change: how to overcome it and unlock potential in yourself and your organization. Boston: Harvard Business Press. ISBN 078796378X

Leadership Skills

Deflategate: The Need for Certainty and Trust in Delegation

admin / May 19, 2015

Certainty is comforting. It feels good to know what is right and what is wrong. Certainty builds confidence because with it, consequences are predictable, expectations and boundaries are clear, and certainty brings peace of mind by providing order to our experience of the world. Certainty can also be overused and morph into inflexibility and an autocratic style that demotivates, squelches creativity, demoralizes, and leads to the departure of valuable employees in an organization. Some leaders know how to use certainty to benefit themselves and their organizations. For example, the team leader who ensures that everyone leaves a planning meeting knowing exactly what their role is, what they must get done, and by when does this well. Other leaders, like team captain Tom Brady could have done a better job of protecting himself and protecting the Patriots organization by being clearer about his expectations. For the sake of full disclosure, I’m a Bostonian and Patriots fan. I will neither defend nor repudiate our local sports legend. However, for the sake of this discussion I will highlight how Tom Brady, as the team leader, failed to delegate well and is responsible for the fallout even if not responsible for the infraction. Certainty and Delegation The purpose of delegation is to save time and expense by creating agents who will help you do the work you are ultimately responsible for. There are two ways that leaders fail to delegate well. They are: (1) Micromanagement and (2) Over-Delegation. When a leader micromanages, s/he doesn’t save any time since there is never any letting go of the task. The leader who over controls the process, neither saves time nor develops competence in staff or colleagues. When a leader over-delegates, s/he assigns the task to someone who is unprepared or incompetent, inexperienced, untrustworthy, or over committed. The result is the same; the leader who over delegates does not save time because in the end, when the work is turned in, the delegator will have a lot of finishing and reworking to do. Furthermore, the ill-prepared delegatee ends up feeling like a failure or causes a big problem for the leader. That is what happened in Deflategate. Tom Brady is guilty of over-delegation. The simple task of making sure the footballs were at his preferred pressure per square inch (“psi”) has become a public relations disaster. Tom Brady did not communicate clearly about what he wanted and did not make certain that the person he delegated to was trustworthy. The ‘more probable than not’ standard is anything but certain and casts a shadow on Brady’s integrity. Clarity and Delegation Let’s take Tom Brady at his word, that he “would never do anything to break the rules… I believe in fair play and I respect the league…” Assuming that is true, Tom Brady failed to make certain that the football pressure task was delegated to people who understood his boundaries and were prepared to execute that responsibility scrupulously. The facts show that Tom Brady likes his footballs on the softest side of the legal limit -12.5 psi – and that locker room attendant Jim McNally and equipment assistant Jeff Jastremski knew that. There is no direct evidence at this time, that Brady instructed McNally to deflate the footballs below 12.5 psi. Brady could have said, “I want you to make sure the footballs are at 12.5 psi on game day and not a fraction more or less,” because if you want something done a certain way, you must make sure that you give clear directions and that those directions are understood. Even if he thought he had been clear about following the rules there is no room for ambiguity or blind trust when the stakes are high and temptation to cut corners is obvious. At those moments, it is more essential than ever that a team leader reiterate with absolute clarity the expectation that all individuals reporting to him or her will act within the parameters of the law. Trust and Delegation Tom Brady also failed to make sure that the people he delegated to were trustworthy. We know from the text messages that McNally felt disrespected by Brady. When you are a leader with power and the face of your organization, it is essential that the people closest to you have your back; they should care about the organization, and feel responsible for your brand and reputation. Leaders need assistants and colleagues who can sometimes protect them from themselves and maintain objectivity during stressful times to protect the organization they all represent. It is analogous to the familiar assertion, “friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”Tom Brady had a lot on his mind and winning in his heart leading up to the Super Bowl game; he needed to be able to trust the people in his inner circle to know the limits of acceptability and manage potential collateral damage of his world-class competitiveness. It was his responsibility to set the boundaries during calmer times, but now he is left with a big clean up job, in part because he over-delegated to untrustworthy, disgruntled staff. Certainty at Work In the workplace, there are rules, goals, and procedures to be followed. Some people will break the rules and get fired or marginalized, while others will break the rules and get rewarded for innovation and brilliance. How do people know: Which rules can be bent to liberate joy and genius at work? Which rules are non-negotiable and strengthen the team by avoiding violations of the law, or contracts, or ethical guidelines that hold an organization together? Which black-and-white limits diminish, demoralize, stifle potential, and lead to disengagement? To create an environment where delegation can succeed a leader must know and be able to explain why and when either rigidity or flexibility would be acceptable. It is not necessary to detail rules and procedures to cover all possibilities, but a good leader will set up clear guidelines so that people can make decisions with relative certainty that they are acting in alignment with the intentions and values of the leader and

Change and Resilience

Resistance: “To be, or not to be…” To do, or not to do…

admin / April 25, 2015

Wrestling with inner conflict about whether to do something now, or later, or never, is a battle so fundamental to being human that Prince Hamlet’s famous lament “To be, or not to be…”[1] is among the most memorable questions of all time. Hamlet struggles to decide between enduring another day of life, with all its anguish, or choosing death, with all its uncertainty. While most of us are thankfully not often faced with dilemmas requiring a choice between two such profound alternatives, we still spend precious time and energy in poetic indecision, weighing out plusses and minuses before choosing to act, or not act. Any external force that stops us from moving forward with an action or a decision is resistance. Resistance can also be an internal force. Internal resistances are rooted in comfort with what is familiar and in our instinct for self-preservation when faced with change. The value of being stuck in a well-developed behavior is self protection. Some people flow with new situations and disruptions more quickly and comfortably than others. Nevertheless, we all experience resistance at some time because it is the way we slow things down to safeguard ourselves against the unknown, which could be fraught with danger and pain. Internal resistance shows up in many forms, including: anger and aggression toward others, anxiety, avoidance or procrastination, blaming, denial, distractibility, excuses, flight, guilt, inattentiveness, interrupting, physical symptoms like headaches or fatigue, rationalization, self-sabotage, and stress. When you get in the way of getting things done you are experiencing resistance. When you force back feelings you don’t want to feel or shift away from thinking about issues you prefer not to recall, that is resistance. Friend or Foe On the one hand, resistance is a friend, when danger is real. For example, you might hesitate if you sense that a particular action could be a career-killing move. Would doing something to advance yourself over your team cause an irreversible breach of trust? Could something be done at another time – just not right now – to mitigate negative consequences? Is the risk in saying something, or in how it is said? Resistance can be your friend when it enables you to pause, to manage your emotions and behavior, and honor intuitions helping you ‘survive’ or thrive in a given situation. On the other hand, resistance is a foe when your feelings and rationalizations hold you back from doing your job or continuing to develop new skills, try new things, again new insights, or see any value in getting ‘unstuck.’ When you are able to distinguish between real and imagined dangers, it can make all the difference in how efficiently you manage your energy and your day. Our limbic brain[2] is primitive, non-verbal, and responsible for our feelings. It doesn’t know the difference between fears that are real or imagined. Once ‘danger’ is perceived we shift to ‘fight or flight’ and those responses are not always expressed as observable behaviors. Internalized ‘fight or flight’ can throw us off track because decisions made under their influence still seem rational. For example, if you are promoted to a position of greater authority, it will take time for you to fully integrate your identity into the new role. Some people will want to be perfect from day one, and may resist taking risks out of fear of making mistakes. The anxiety around the possibility of being judged poorly can take on a life of its own and start to slow the organization down. Resisting for too long might feel like prudence, but to others eagerly waiting for leadership, it can feel like aloofness, obstruction, or incompetence. Resistance Assistance There are ways to work around resistance and thereby diminish its power. I offer you these seven steps: Acknowledge that you can be your cagiest opponent and that you are capable of outsmarting yourself. Try to get a true sense for how badly you want something. Accept that you might not ever fully understand why it is so hard for you to start or finish something you want to or must do. Allow yourself to not know why. Admit when you alone are responsible for not doing something. Ask yourself kindly, ‘what story am I telling myself about what is going on here?’ Answer ‘What do I need to help me break through the cycle?’ What one, new, concrete thing could I do to change my position relative to my goal? Your resistance will tell you where your energy is stuck. Activate – Do that one thing. Acknowledge your progress and go back to #1. My Story: Overcoming Bloggers Block For many professionals, developing an online presence is a necessary or possible advantage. The lowest hanging fruit is the website. What about blogging? I have spent hours enabling my inaction trying to answer that question. For those of us who have endured that kind of thinking and intentionally chosen not to blog, that is fine. For those of us who like to write and want to blog but spend more time resisting than writing, I ask, what do you need to convince yourself that it is safe and possible for you to proceed, even if some of your concerns turn out to be true? I am posting today because I took myself through Resistance Assistance (above). I identified that what I needed to get unstuck was to find another person who shares this particular blog-resistance, resolve together that there is no longer any value in staying stuck, and to hold each other accountable to writing and posting. Heather Kennedy, Sparq Coaching and Consulting, turned out to be just that person. Together we founded the Content Creation Society. We have agreed to the SMART Goal[3] of one blog per month. We write then critique each other’s work, provide supportive accountability, and stand as offensive linemen against each other’s resistances. We have created a safe coaching space for one another, in which to pause, assess, and then venture into the unknown with confidence and certainty that, come what may, we will survive another day after posting our

Leadership Skills

Inauthentically Authentic

admin / January 12, 2015

Is Authenticity going the way of Privacy? Are both vestiges of our pre-digital and pre-Internet past? There was a time when we would carefully invite others into our personal lives and make a special effort to share interests, photographs, and secrets. But that norm has been turned on its head. To be interpersonally engaged today you share your personal life, thoughts, and experiences and you must vigilantly protect anything you decide is private with firewalls and passwords so secure you block yourself from access. The Millennials live their lives as stars of their own reality TV shows publishing everything on social media platforms not so secretly hoping to become a viral phenom. If you are reading this, or if you have a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account, you too have been infected with Millenialitis. For a long while in leadership development research and thought, authenticity has been considered the hallmark of superior leadership. In 2005 it was said, “It’s the real thing – the attribute that uniquely defines great leaders.” https://hbr.org/2005/12/managing-authenticity-the-paradox-of-great-leadership. The authors go on to point out that it is the art of managing one’s sincerity, honesty, and integrity – knowing how much to disclose and when – that distinguishes great leadership. They caution, “authentic leaders don’t really fake it to make it.” Just the other day, I watched Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk during which she advise us to “fake it till you become it” because our body language will shape who we are. https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are Herminia Ibarra in her new 2015 article says, “the notion of adhering to one “true self” flies in the face of much research on how people evolve with experience.” https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox. In my effort to reconcile the virtuous admonition to be authentic with the advice to fake it, I have concluded that the concept of “authenticity” has become so nuanced that it has imploded under the weight of exceptions and because some of today’s most abhorrent, crudely violent leaders can also claim the mantle of ‘authenticity’ it can no longer be considered a badge of greatness. I believe that opportunities for, and the responsibilities of, leadership happen at every level of social, political, and organizational hierarchies. The expectation around our zone of personal privacy has shrunk. The pace of change has accelerated requiring continuous adaptation. Authenticity is both situational and a perception. Because authenticity can be achieved by persevering through faking-it to becoming-it with practice, posturing, and sophisticated digital enhancements when necessary or available, we have to look for something more immutable than that from our leaders and from ourselves. When circumstances inspire collective outrage we are able to get a glimpse of transcendent qualities that we hope our leaders and our neighbors embody. Most recently, the Je Suis Charlie Hebdo reaction to the murder of 12 employees of that French satirical newspaper and the reaction to the January 7, 2015 kosher supermarket murders inspire unity rallies to stand up together against being intimidated by fear. Another example is that thanks to a citizen bystander who videotaped the death by police brutality of Eric Garner we express collective outrage through the “I can’t breathe” protests. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2014/dec/04/i-cant-breathe-eric-garner-chokehold-death-video. These collective actions are great, authentic, and something even deeper than that. I do not have a catchword or phrase to offer you for what that is that we need from our leaders and ourselves in this digital age. It is hard to articulate the dynamic mixture of core personal attributes that are the hallmark of superior leadership. But as I stand on the bridge between 2015 and the past, I embrace the future and nostalgically wave my handkerchief goodbye to the static and innocent benchmarks of privacy and authenticity as pillars of dignity and greatness.

Musings

A Small and Regrettable Act of Patriotism

admin / January 5, 2015

Dear Mr. President, When people are told that they cannot do something our response is often defiance and the urge to resist authority. That is why I gave a fist-pump and I loved it when you told Sony Pictures that they made a “mistake” by pulling Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s, The Interview from theaters in response to the Sony hack and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s subsequent threats against our freedoms.http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/19/remarks-president-year-end-press-conference. You also pointed to my city’s proud “Boston Strong” moment as an example of great community resistance against “being intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.” So, this past weekend, when my son asked if I wanted to rent The Interview from on-demand and watch it with him, I wrapped myself in the American Flag and said, “Absolutely!” The truth is, that I had no previous interest in seeing this particular type of comedy and would not have rented it or gone to the theater to see it, threats or no threats. But, I patriotically and proudly put $5.99 in the U.S. Bank of Civil Liberties and defiantly, eagerly waited for it to begin. As I watched, I sank deeper and deeper and still deeper into the cushions of the couch and wished with each passing minute, that this was not THE movie that so deeply and publicly offended supreme leader Kim Jung-un and is now destined to be seen throughout the world. This example of comedy from Hollywood is a typical American misogynistic, idiotic, vulgar, violent, bloody, male-adolescent humor movie. And, yes, there are funny moments, but it is mostly gross and cringe-worthy. To make matters worse, James Franco’s acting is disturbingly bad. Kudos goes to Eminem whose cameo appearance is the only part worth watching. In spite of a few laughs, Mr. President, as the Leader of The Free World, when many were paying attention to your reaction to the Sony cyber attack, I wish you had acknowledged that it was in poor taste to make a movie about the murder of a sitting leader even if he is a reprehensible dictator. Kim Jung-un is bizarre and unsophisticated by our standards, but I felt diminished watching him being blown-up in a slow-mo conflagration while the CIA cheered on. You had an opportunity to elevate our cultural dignity a little bit by not ignoring a plot that did not play well to the global audience. Leadership at its best is demonstrated in unanticipated moments, large and small, when people feel confused or threatened. We want to be able to turn to our leaders to offer us vision, understanding, and the inspiration needed us to move together toward a common, greater purpose. The magnitude of the cyber attack on Sony revealed our personal and national vulnerabilities and that is real. Still, I wish I wasn’t led to feel that watching The Interview was somehow a patriotic act. Certainly, bigger issues like Isis, Boko Haram, Immigration, the Economy, and Climate Change connect us to the people of other nations, but so does Hollywood. We love going to the movies and people all over the world love American movies as a way to escape, imagine, and feel better. In this time of true terror, does it really make sense for leaders of countries to support – or at least offer no comment on – pop-culture endorsements of assassinations? In my opinion, your silence was not helpful or leadership.

Author name: admin