resiliency

Anatolian Festival Offers a Break and an Education

May 20, 2013

So every now and then, for the sake of resiliency, it’s good to shut down the computer, take your best friend (my husband) and head out for an adventure.

This past weekend, Asia Minor (now Turkey) beckoned—and we didn’t need our passports. For the fourth year at the Orange County Fairgrounds, one could step back in time and experience the amazing history and diversity of a land bordered by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the West.

We entered the festival area through the “Civilizations Path”, which consists of 14 gates each representing different civilizations like The Hittite Empire, The Kingdom of Commagene, Lydia, The Persian Empire, The Urartu State (Armenians), The Phrygia, The Ionian Civilization,The Assyria, Troy, The Roman Empire,The Byzantine Empire, The Great Seljuq Empire, The Ottoman Empire, and Turkish Republic. Anatolia has been a cradle for all these and many other civilizations throughout the history. At each gate, actors wearing authentic costumes of each civilization welcomed us.

Three dimensional giant-sized replicas of five different cities of Anatolia (Istanbul, Konya, Mardin, Van, Izmir, Gaziantep, Adiyaman and Kilis) and the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul were assembled with panoramic backgrounds. Artisans traveling from Turkey displayed and demonstrated many traditional handicrafts like hand-woven carpets, the arts of water marbling, calligraphy, stone-carving and filigree during the four-day festival.

The replica of the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul housed more than 120 booths with food, handcrafts, souvenirs, and art exhibits. Had we wanted to, we could have freshened ourselves up with a cup of Turkish coffee or several glasses of tea at another busy spot of the festival area, named after The Traditional Coffeehouse. Just like the real Grand Bazaar, we watched artisans displaying hand-made jewelry, scarves, lucky charms and hand-woven carpet displays accompanied by the Anatolian hospitality.

For us, sampling food was a treat. We split everything to share the tastes: a spicy beef kebab, and doner (Gyros), stuffed grape leaves, stuffed peppers, some thin pastry stuffed with pistachios, and my favorite: sticky ice cream. A long steel pike and plenty of muscle helped the ice cream showman pull this tough, stretchy Maras’s ice-cream from a barrel. I put out my hand to take the cone and that quick, he flipped it upside down and handed me an empty cone while the sticky cream stayed balled up on the pike. It was a combination of magic, good humor, and skill. Yes—also pretty tasty, too.

Under a hot Southern California sun, dancers in multilayers of colored ethnic garb kicked and hopped and swirled before a backdrop of the Bosporus, in the courtyard of the Topaki Palace, and in the amphitheater at Ephesus.

Why we need RESILIENT,OPTIMISTIC College Graduates—

May 1, 2013

Guest post— with permission from my twin brother John McDargh, Ph.D.:

2013 Senior Recognition Dinner 2013 Boston College Club

I first want to thank Jean Yoder and her colleagues for the great privilege of addressing this remarkable gathering of women and men who are leaving this BC community a different place than you found it when you entered four years ago simply by virtue of your individual and collective investment of passion, creativity and care.

I am not sure why Jean offered me this opportunity to honor you – I didn’t think to ask her - but one reason may be that I simply have been around this place a rather long time. When I was in the Coast Guard we called the man who had been on the ship the longest time the “plank owner”. As I crossed the Charles from Harvard 34 years ago to teach the psychology of religious development, I now am beginning to think of myself as a “plank owner” on the good ship BC.

Now of the best things about being on board this long is not just that you move up from steerage to cabin class, but that you get to be unapologetically a life-long learner. One of my favorite authors , the British pediatrician and psychoanalyst David W. Winnicott, dedicated his very last book “to my patients who paid to teach me”. If I were writing such a dedication it would be “to my students who paid to teach me”.

What I want to share in these brief reflections tonight is what over 8.5 student generations (do that math that is 34 divided by 4), YOU have taught ME about the three essential qualities of leadership that students contribute to steering this vessel called BC into the future..

Some of these are qualities you hopefully share with the faculty, staff and administrators - some are distinctively your own because of the place young adults occupy in the cog-wheeling of generations.

The first quality I want to introduce by way of something I heard over 25 years ago when Helen Caldicott , the great Australian physician and anti-nuclear activist packed St. Ignatius church to talk about the threat that a nuclear war would pose to the planet. She began with this story:

Three men in New York had met in graduate school and become close friends despite coming very different backgrounds. Seamus was an Irish man who came to New York by way of Dublin. Pierre was originally from Paris and the third friend, Abe was the homeboy…. a New York Jew born and raised in Brooklyn. One of the rituals that bonded them over the years was faithfully, once a month to meet for drinks and dinner at their favorite bar on the lower west side. At that meal the other ritual evolved that each time one of them had to propose a question to get the conversation rolling , and that same man had to be the first to try and answer it.

So one month it was Seamus’ turn. “Suppose you went to see you doctor for your annual check up, and he takes some tests and a week later calls you in and tells you this: ‘I’ve got bad news for ya.. I am afraid ya have a rare and fulminating cancer that is incurable.. You only have two weeks to live’. What would you do? “

“Ok, Seamus”, they say, ” you posed the question, you know the rules, what would you do?”

“Well I’ve thought about it and I would lay in crates of Guinness and bottles and bottles of the Jameson’s Irish Whisky. Then I would invite my best mates - including you lads of course - and a fiddler and for two weeks we ‘d have great craic. We would tell stories, sing songs and stay gloriously, bloody drunk the whole time”

“So how about you Pierre?”

“Two weeks? I would take ze presidential suite at the Park Plaza. I would hire ze best chef in New York to prepare three meals a day. I would have a king size bed in ze bedroom and for two weeks I would be there with my beautiful wife Yvette …….. and my lovely mistress Michelle …………. And… why not? … my boyfriend Jacques. And for two weeks ze food and ze sex would be magnifique!

“Abe” , they both ask “ What do you think, the doctor tells you that you only have two weeks to live, what would you do?”

“Nuch, two weeks the doc says, me…….? I’d go for a second opinion!”.

Helen Caldicott’s point is that faced with a diagnosis of impending disaster and a planetary catastrophe , we urgently need ordinary people who will respond not with fatalistic resignation or denial, or retreat into personal pleasure, but rather will go for a second opinion – in fact will create the conditions to make their own second opinion, thus becoming resiient in the process. Over the years this has is what I have learned. Student leaders are the folks who refuse to take no for an answer or accept that a condition can not be healed or changed. – it is perhaps our responsibility as your partners and colleagues or companeros to provide the longer perspective on how long it takes to turn the Queen Mary – but we require the urgency and prophetic witness of each new student generation to challenge our complacency and resignation. We need to be challenged to work together for an alternative , more humanly desirable future.

John

Vodka, Humor, and Curiosity Equal Resilient Traveling – Part One

March 28, 2013

The invitation to keynote a Human Resource Summit in Bogota, Columbia appears like a miracle from my mom who insisted—in the last few weeks of her life—“Be daring. Have an adventure.”

We sit in Business Class on American from LAX, another miracle (milagro) because that fare was actually cheaper than the flexible economy fare! Within 15 minutes of takeoff, I pull out my pen to fill out the immigration form. Yikes, ink explodes from my pen in all directions, covering the form and my right hand with permanent black ink. Polished nails now look like I have changed oil, rotated tires, and dug in the dirt for years. No manner of soap & water or hand sanitizer dims the charcoal color. The flight attendant suggests vodka.

“Why not?” We all laugh. Other people drink while I soak a rough wash cloth with Absolute and wrap it around my hand. You just have to laugh. I promise the flight attendant a cut of the profits if we create a new ink remover called Vanishing Vodka.

In Bogota, my husband and I meet up with another speaker from the U.S., Joe Robinson and his wife Marcia. Outside, the driver spots my now-gray hand waving. As the smallest one, I am wedged next to the pile of luggage that with each bump or right turns begins to bury me. You have to laugh.

América Empresarial proceeds to turn the Bogota Sheraton into a worker-intense, trade-show-heavy, production-impressive event. I meet with my interpreter, Sebastian, a thin, intense, and incredibly brilliant linguist who becomes my alter ego for almost two hours. I can’t help but wonder how the audience feels about a male voice coming out of my mouth, particularly when I mention my Bill and our 33 years of celebrating “montheraries”. You have to laugh.

I love to ask questions. A smile and a question evoke much information as well as evoke patience when events don’t go as planned. I imagine how much worse the traffic would be if there were not a law that only cars with even-numbered license plates could drive on even-numbered days and visa versa. I discover that married couples wear their wedding bands on their right hand. I discover that despite cracked and uneven sidewalks, women adore enormous high heels. Trash barrels are small so the burros with sidesaddles can be loaded to cart away refuse. And the six-inch step up and down the oldest cathedral in Columbia (Candelaria area) is required to keep out the rain water torrent that creates a river of refuse on the street.

Bogota is a city of contrast. Security in the form of military, police and private guards, are as common as stars on a clear night. Yet at the national airport, we stroll through security without disrobing, shedding shoes, showing liquids, or taking out computers. Go figure. And you just have to laugh.

Resilient Father/Son Run Marathons-Despite GREAT Odds

February 14, 2013

The first time my twin brother John, a professor at Boston College, saw Dick Hoyt and his son Rick in the Boston Marathon many years ago, he burst into tears. As John now relates, “What a parable of faithfulness and devotion and freedom. Both of them. They began competing in marathons when Rick was 15 years old. He is now 51.”

I share the following notice because of the power of the story. And, who knows, perhaps some of my readers will be in Boston this Monday, Feb 18 and want to come out to the Boston College campus.

Team Hoyt is an inspirational story of a father, Dick Hoyt, and his son, Rick, who compete together in marathons and triathlons across the country.

Rick was born in 1962 to Dick and Judy Hoyt. As a result of oxygen deprivation to Rick’s brain at the time of his birth, Rick was diagnosed as a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. Dick and Judy were advised to institutionalize Rick because there was no chance of him recovering, and little hope for Rick to live a “normal” life.

This was just the beginning of Dick and Judy’s quest for Rick’s inclusion in community, sports, education and one day, the workplace.

In the spring of 1977, Rick told his father that he wanted to participate in a 5-mile benefit run for a Lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Far from being a long-distance runner, Dick agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair and they finished all 5 miles, coming in next to last. That night, Rick told his father, “Dad, when I’m running, it feels like I’m not handicapped.”

This realization was just the beginning of what would become over 1,000 races completed, including marathons, duathlons and triathlons (6 of them being Ironman competitions). Also adding to their list of achievements, Dick and Rick biked and ran across the U.S. in 1992, completing a full 3,735 miles in 45 days. The 2009 Boston Marathon was officially Team Hoyt’s 1000th race.

In 1975, at the age of 13, Rick was finally admitted into public school. After high school, Rick attended Boston University, and he graduated with a degree in Special Education in 1993. Dick retired in 1995 as a Lt. Colonel from the Air National Guard, after serving his country for 37 years.

This was then:

This is now:

“Resilient Dynamism” Theme for World Economic Forum

January 31, 2013

At Davos, Switzerland , the scene for this international summit, Klaus Schwab, executive chairman and founder of the Forum describes the theme of RESILIENT DYNAMISM as “the ability to respond to the many global risks we currently face and to seize the opportunities it provides.”

Fascinating: in the face of risks, seize opportunities.

Before one can seize them, one must be on the lookout for them. Paying attention with your eyes wide open is a critical factor in discovering and uncovering what gold lies beneath the surface.

I am keynoting a conference next month for administrators of community colleges. The educational systems nationwide have been hit hard with the economic downturn. Voter approval of tax increases is but a stop-gap measure. It is time for groups like this (and others) to look beneath the obvious. It is time to stop thinking “phew-we can get things back to normal.” “Normal” and “back” are words that belong with the dinosaurs.

Instead, the questions now could be: who needs out services that we never thought of? Where can we create strategic alliances from what we “thought” were competitors? How do we tap into our customer base (in this case students) and ask them to help us create the future. Government, healthcare, education (as well as many companies) are all pretty hide-bound institutions. But it does not have to be that way.

Like the conversation in Davos, maybe we might all put on wide-range glasses and ask ourselves: What is the opportunity that we have been given?

That’s resilient dynamism.

Resiliency Lessons from Mama

January 28, 2013

Today is the one-year anniversary that my twin brother, my sister and I surrounded our almost 96 year-old Mom and loved her on her final solo flight “home”.

Can’t help but think about the lessons she handed us—some of which are only understood in hindsight. They are all related to resiliency—to growing through challenge or opportunity. Here are but a few:

Traditions can be broken. Mom was one of three women in med school at Temple University when she graduated in 1937. Caring for people was her passion. Caring for her country was even greater. Mama was one of the 1073 Women Air Force Service Pilots who collectively flew over 60 million miles of domestic wartime duty in WWII, Forty years later, these non-traditional women were finally honored with the Congressional Gold Medal by a country that almost forgot them.

“No” does not mean “NEVER”. Although Mom and her fellow pilots were not permitted to become active duty military as promised, they kept the faith. Many of them became instructors, commercial pilots, and flight nurses. Because they HELD FAST to their belief that women could perform this duty, they paved the way for today’s women in the cockpits of military planes. .. women like Lt. Col Nicole Malachowski, the first female Thunderbird pilot.

Life itself can be the greatest adventure. Mom didn’t seek fame or fortune but she could make any activity into an adventure. Whether sampling new food, going by herself to Italy (ok—there were people on the tour but she didn’t know them), or watching waves roll onto the beach, she never failed to express delight at the ordinary and extraordinary.

Sometimes resiliency is found in realizing the very precious nature of a single moment.

In the last few years, we called her “YoYoMa” because her physical and mental health went up and down like that toy. On December 31, 2011—for about 2 hours, our caregivers had her up and ready for 2012

Even with a stroke paralyzing her entire left side, her eyes were bright. She loved the altered universe she lived in. I told her I was going to go on a retreat for a few days and she announced, “I will go with you. Let’s be daring. Let’s have an adventure.”

Be daring. Have an adventure. Would that I could have taken her! But her words keep ringing in my head. That’s why I said yes to speaking in Bogota in March at ah HR conference. That’s why I am going to India for a week to lead a management retreat. I see Mom pushing me out the door, telling me to be safe, to call her when I land.

Where are you headed now? It doesn’t have to be a new land. I also realize that waiting for adventure is postponing life. Perhaps finding adventure in the ordinary might be the greatest skill of all—continually learning, seeing fresh answers, meeting new people, walking instead of driving, talking instead of texting.

Be daring. Go have an adventure!

Resilient Leaders Know “Soft Skills”

January 23, 2013

A recent national study by Dale Carnegie Training placed the number of “fully engaged” employees at 29%, and “disengaged” employees at 26% – meaning nearly three-quarters of employees are not fully engaged (aka productive). The number one factor the study cited influencing engagement and disengagement was “relationship with immediate supervisor.

So what determines if a relationship works? Daniel Pink suggests that engaged employees want autonomy, ability to grow in place, and meaningful work.

These 3 desires are the offshoot of a leader who practices these skills:

Clear communication and great listening. An employee can’t be autonomous unless the leader is confident of getting results. This means the leader has to set clear goals—in conversation with an employee—and then listen non-judgmentally as to what the employee thinks he/she needs tog et the job done. It’s a two-step process BEFORE a leader can actually step back.
In order to grow in place, a leader must be able to practice career conversations. Only when a leader has genuine concern about direct reports, can ask critical questions, and can be perceptive as to what an employee means by “grow in place” will this be achieved.
Meaningful work covers the gamut from work that is significant to the community—to the world—to being appreciated and valued because the work tasks are meaningful to the leader and other stakeholders. However, a leader does not ASSUME an employee knows the work is personally meaningful to others. Rather, a resilient leader does not hesitate to appreciate openly and specifically the impact of an employee’s efforts.

Resiliency Personified – On Stage and In Family

January 22, 2013

Can you look beyond the obvious to see possibilities? Resilient people can. Watch this video and I promise you—you will cry and believe. Sent to me by my very resilient twin brother. http://bit.ly/ppL0WA

Benedictine Resiliency at Age 99

December 9, 2012

Sister Helen Lange amazed me again! Sure she’s shown plenty of spunk in her life time: entering the convent in 1930, dealing with running a large Catholic elementary and junior high school in Jacksonville Beach, teaching others at Holy Name Academy in St. Leo’s, FL. and widely traveling, singing, directing, retreating, and praying.

But this last venture felt like the end of the line for my beloved junior high school principal. Macular degeneration had reduced her eyesight to simply shadows. It was harder to get out with the “red hat/purple scarf” ladies. But being moved to an assisted living facility—away from all she knew and the beloved routine of daily Mass, comforting rituals, and sisterly camaraderie left her upset and less-than happy.

That was 8 months ago. Her Christmas letter to me, dictated to a typist, once again showed this determination to see the glass half full. Imagine, age 99 and she can reframe a community. She says this:

“The lame, blind, the troubled in mind and body are now my new community. I am beginning to see the hand of God in this, it has become my garden of laughter and cheer. For example, Martha, age 90 came all the way over to my room in the opposite wing, looking for her car keys. I told her we’d go down to her room and look for them. I kept talking all the way down, trying to distract her. Since she loves to sing, I began singing ‘Let Me Call You Sweet Heart’. She chimed in and forgot all about her keys. God is still performing miracles. It takes so little to distract Martha., I must have a pocket full of fibs ready. I hope God forgets the number of fibs I have squandered. “

Reframing is an incredible resiliency skill. Sister Helen continues to laugh at herself and find joy in the oddities of her fellow human beings.

Imagine: Age 99. I wish I had 25% of her courage and ability to be an intelligent optimist.

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