Week 22.44 Stars Everywhere

I was on a walk in Riverside Park the other day. After a storm, the wind blew many fall leaves off the trees. They were lying on the ground like thousands of stars fallen from the sky, leaving the branches above less abundant, less firey, and less beautiful. At first, I thought, how sad, the leaves had only recently turned, and now they are on the ground, no longer rustling in the trees, no longer the marvel of passing eyes, no longer bursting with ariel color. Upon further reflection, I saw the beauty in the leaves on the ground, the beauty of the individual leaf, like a single star fallen from the sky, still burning bright with its onlyness, unique color, shape, and style. And I thought, there are stars everywhere.?

Like the leaf stars that have fallen on the ground, we are each made up of stars on the inside, waiting to be seen and recognized. To be seen by eyes. The little acts of kindness, the moments of creativity, and the feeling of love are each stars we carry in our memory. They represent the countless moments when we were our best selves, often only known to ourselves. Sometimes we put another first, did our best, or did the right thing. We spend so much time looking at the branches of the trees, what we have, and what the future holds that we forget to enjoy the stars of our life, successes, passions, and humanity. Like the leaves on the ground, the memories of our past are beautiful moments of truth, statements of perfection, little monuments to life waiting to be celebrated.?

They are also stars all around us in the people we love and lead. The eyes sparkle, the fingers curl, the mind creates, and the stars light up with the magic of the people we know, the people we meet, and the people we love. We are so busy taking everything for granted, wanting more or wanting different, that we overlook the magic of what it is. Our friends are there to help us, our colleagues waiting to collaborate, and strangers who catch our eyes with a slight smile are each twinkling stars in our life. Bright shining moments of the daily, unremarkable life are nothing short of remarkable by their very existence. Past friends that we no longer see, present friends that we have gotten close to, and future friends that we do not even know yet, each become stars in our life, too often taken for granted, too infrequently celebrated, too soon forgotten. And yet, every so often, we can take a moment, pay attention, reflect on their beauty and appreciate their existence.?

And there are stars in the world around us. As I think about being in relationship-first with the world, I recognize that the world never judges us, the world is never distant, the world never hesitates, and the world never holds back. The world is fully present in every moment, always ready, and never falters. It is nothing more and nothing less than what it is. And what it is is beautiful moments, large and small, forest, trees and leaves, each the perfection of itself. This leaf is not more perfect than the other; it is the perfection of itself, and in its perfection, we can see it as the star that was part of the growth and color of the tree, now a star lying on the ground. Soon it will be a star providing for new growth. Everything around us all the time is a star in its own place, brilliant, unique, singular.

There are stars everywhere. It is up to us to see them. When we look inside ourselves, we can find galaxies of stars of past moments when we were perfection, stars of moments present when we are just right, and stars of the future waiting to be realized. The people around us also shine their unique lights, available for us to see, illuminating us and making us shine brighter. And everything in the world around us is available to be seen for the beauty that it is, for the potential that it has, for the miracle that it is. We don't try to take, own, extract, or transact with stars. We yearn to be in a relationship with them. In our relationship-first world, when we see the stars in ourselves, the stars in others, and the stars in the world every day, we glow brighter and, for a moment, touch perfection.

Leadership Lessons from Liz Truss’s Downfall by Harry Kraemer, Jr.

Anyone stepping into a new leadership role is likely dreaming of early successes. You walk in, make some exciting changes, improve the way the organization operates, and immediately earn the trust and respect of your team. But, of course, it’s almost never that easy. There’s going to be a learning curve, perhaps a steep one. Challenges may look very different on the inside than they did from the outside. And any number of factors, both within and outside your control, can trip you up at the start of your tenure. For a particularly egregious example of a leader failing right from the start, look to Liz Truss, who resigned as prime minister of Great Britain amid a massive economic crisis of her own, making only 44 days into office. The article describes the four dimensions of values-based leadership that are key for a leader to embody, Kraemer says. But it’s also crucial that leaders convey that they embody these values to their teams, starting the very first day. Doing so will minimize the risk of making a massive mistake early on. And, if you’re still unable to avoid the mistake, it will minimize its impact. “On day 1, you go to your team, and say, ‘I am well aware of the fact that I don’t know all the answers, and I need to rely on all of you,’” Kramer says. You assure them that you want to hear from them if they disagree with you and that you are open to changing your mind. Additionally, they need to know that if you do make a mistake, you’ll own up to it. “Not only is that the right thing to do from a values standpoint, but it’s the right thing to do as a team: you become comfortable challenging me, and I’m comfortable hearing it.”

5 ways to create team resilience in the era of hybrid work?by Keith Ferrazzi

In the hybrid work world, high-performing teams have committed to building each other’s resilience: a commitment that has been dubbed co-elevation. They work to a new social contract that explicitly acknowledges that leaders can no longer play the traditional caretaker role but rather see the success, energy, and resilience of peers as a collective responsibility of the team. Our research has led to the creation of a suite of high-return practices (HRPs) based on high-performing teams. HRPs that boost team resilience in the era of hybrid work include: 1. Serve, Share and Care 2. Asynchronous work improves team resilience 3. Independent observers and bulletproofing 4. Candor breaks 5. Energy checks. Ultimately, team resilience is like a battery. It needs to be restored and recharged regularly. Teams that put in place measures to do that will find that they are better equipped and – more importantly – willing to undertake any challenge. Read the full article here

A Leader's Job Is To Prevent Problems Before They Happen. Here's How by Robert Glazer

There is a reason that airplanes don’t regularly fall out of the sky, despite millions of flights per year on aircraft with thousands of moving parts: preventive maintenance. Airlines recognize that, in aviation, the cost of not addressing problems before they happen is especially high, so preventive maintenance is a top priority. In contrast, we generally fix problems with our cars after they happen. Several weeks ago, Hurricane Ian, a massive category four storms with 150mph winds, lashed the west coast of Florida, causing astonishing destruction, flooding, and power outages for nearly two million residents. Early estimates say that Ian did over $40 billion in damage, a cost that will be borne by taxpayers and insurance companies. Those fortunate enough to have insurance will see their premiums raised to cover the catastrophic losses; many without insurance have lost everything. Babcock Ranch, which opened in 2018, buildings and houses are powered by emissions-free energy, residents drive electric cars and golf carts, and children ride their bikes to school. Plus, the community was designed to account for global warming and natural disasters such as Hurricane Ian. Developers selected a site 30 miles inland and about 30 feet above sea level to maximize protection from the wrath of Florida’s weather. They built power lines underground to avoid weather-driven outages, installed massive pools around the neighborhood to stave off flooding, and even designed the streets throughout the community to hold floodwater and prevent homes from getting soaked. Great leadership is not just about solving the problems of today. It’s also about anticipating future problems and understanding how tomorrow’s challenges can be today’s opportunities. While some of the initial prospective residents of Babcock Ranch may have balked at the additional costs of the community’s features, my guess is that today every resident is grateful they chose to live there, and their list of interested prospects is bigger than ever. Robert Glazer has an excellent newsletter and you can read the whole story here

With love, wonder, and gratitude, Scott.