تمرین یازدهم

THE ELEVENTH PRACTICE

CREATING Frameworks for Possibility

WHEN DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech to the crowd massed on the Mall in Washington, D.C., on that hot August day of 1963, he was addressing not only the thousands gathered there to hear him. He sought to awaken an underlying desire in all people: in the perpetrator and in the wronged, in whites and in blacks, the ones on this side of an issue and those on the other. King’s vision spoke to that which is fundamental to any human being, the theme that unites and uplifts the people on the street, the privileged in the suburbs, and the politicians in office. He demonstrated with body and soul that dreaming can make a difference.

And he sustained the distinctions of that vision with his work and with his life.

The foremost challenge for leaders today, we suggest, is to maintain the clarity to stand confidently in the abundant universe of possibility, no matter how fierce the competition, no matter how stark the necessity to go for the short-term goal, no matter how fearful people are, and no matter how urgently the wolf may appear to howl at the door. It is to have the courage and persistence to distinguish the downward spiral from the radiant realm of possibility in the face of any challenge.

As a species we are exquisitely suited to thrive in an environment of threat where resources are scarce, but not always ready to reap the benefits of harmony, peace, and plenty. Our perceptual apparatus is structured to alert us to real and imagined dangers everywhere.

Yet we do have the capacity to override the hidden assumptions of peril that give us the world we see. We can open a window on a world where all is sound, our creative powers are formidable, and unseen threads connect us all. Leadership is a relationship that brings this possibility to others and to the world, from any chair, in any role. This kind of leader is not necessarily the strongest member of the pack—the one best suited to fend off the enemy and gather in resources—as our old definitions of leadership sometimes had it. The “leader of possibility” invigorates the lines of affiliation and compassion from person to person in the face of the tyranny of fear. Any one of us can exercise this kind of leadership, whether we stand in the position of CEO or employee, citizen or elected official, teacher or student, friend or lover.

This new leader carries the distinction that it is the framework of fear and scarcity, not scarcity itself, that promotes divisions between people. He asserts that we can create the conditions for the emergence of anything that is missing. We are living in the land of our dreams. This leader calls upon our passion rather than our fear. She is the relentless architect of the possibility that human beings can be.

But the gravitational pull of the downward spiral is strong indeed; it is the milieu in which we dwell. How do we reliably bring forth possibility in this context and take to our wings?

FRAMING POSSIBILITY: THE PRACTICE

The practice of this chapter is to invent and sustain frameworks that bring forth possibility. It is about restructuring meanings, creating visions, and establishing environments where possibility is spoken—where the buoyant force of possibility overcomes the pull of the downward spiral.

The steps to the practice of framing possibility are:

1. Make a new distinction in the realm of possibility: one that is a powerful substitute for the current framework of meaning that is generating the downward spiral.

2. Enter the territory. Embody the new distinction in such a way that it becomes the framework for life around you.

3. Keep distinguishing what is “on the track” and what is “off the track” of your framework for possibility.

Here is a story in which a leader creates a framework for the possibility of learning to live with differences. It tells how she ever-so-elegantly entered the territory.

A New Children’s Story

A little girl in second grade underwent chemotherapy for leukemia. When she returned to school, she wore a scarf to hide the fact that she had lost all her hair. But some of the children pulled it off, and in their nervousness laughed and made fun of her. The little girl was mortified and that afternoon begged her mother not to make her go back to school. Her mother tried to encourage her, saying, “The other children will get used to it, and anyway your hair will grow in again soon.” The next morning, when their teacher walked in to class, all the children were sitting in their seats, some still tittering about the girl who had no hair, while she shrank into her chair. “Good morning, children,” the teacher said, smiling warmly in her familiar way of greeting them. She took off her coat and scarf. Her head was completely shaved.

After that, a rash of children begged their parents to let them cut their hair. And when a child came to class with short hair, newly bobbed, all the children laughed merrily—not out of fear—but out of the joy of the game. And everybody’s hair grew back at the same time.

THE TEACHER INTERVENED on the divisions occurring in her classroom by reframing the meaning of the child’s strange appearance, releasing the little girl from her identity as a feared alien. The teacher distinguished baldness as possibility—a fashion statement, an act of choice, a game to play, an opportunity for solidarity and connection. No one was made wrong. There was nothing to fix. And the new statement was more compelling to the children than their fearful imaginings because it provided a whole field of play.

In the realm of possibility, there is no division between ideas and action, mind and body, dream and reality. Leaders who become their vision often seem uncommonly brave to the rest of us. Whether from the middle of the action, or from the sidelines, they are a conduit for carrying the vision forward. Like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., they simply don’t resist stepping into the breach with everything they have if they see that is what is called for.

Legend has it that an encounter took place between King Christian X of Denmark and a Nazi officer shortly after the occupation of the Danish capital in April 1940. It is said that when the King looked out the window of the palace and saw the Nazi flag with its swastika flying over the roofs of the government buildings, he called for a meeting with the commander of the occupying forces.

The King requested the flag be removed. The Nazi officer refused.

King Christian walked a few feet away, and spent some moments in thought. He approached the officer once more.

“And what will you do if I send a soldier to take it down?”

“I will have him shot,” the officer replied.

“I don’t believe you will,” said the King quietly, “when you see the soldier I send.” The officer demanded that the sovereign explain himself.

King Christian said, “I will be the soldier.”

The flag came down within the day.

THE THIRD STEP of our practice, distinguishing the on-track and off-track, is about maintaining the clarity of the framework. Being “off-track” often signifies that the possibility of a venture is momentarily absent, or forgotten, or has never been clearly articulated. Perhaps people have been riding on their initial feelings of inspiration, which have begun to fade. Sooner or later things tumble into the dualistic structures of right and wrong and spiral downward.

HIGH SPIRITS IN SÃO PAOLO

BEN: On our 1997 tour to Brazil, the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic gave its first big public concert in the Teatro Municipal in São Paolo after three exhausting days of rehearsing, sightseeing, and touring. The house was filled to capacity. The enthusiasm of the warm-hearted, passionate Brazilian audience was overwhelming. Brazilian national television filmed the event and, afterward, projected it on a ten-foot screen in the foyer so the kids could see themselves. They were high as kites. Now the problem was to calm them so they could get to sleep and be fresh for the concert the following day. It was after midnight when we returned to the hotel.

The next morning I received an angry note from a guest saying he had been woken by a group of noisy musicians. Several other guests had been disturbed as well, the hotel staff informed us. Four students were found on the roof after 3 A.M., and four others were picked up in an unsavory part of town in the early hours of the morning by the security squad of our sponsor, BankBoston.

The next day, the orchestra was to play not one but two concerts, an outdoor event at 6 P.M. in front of fifteen thousand people, and an indoor performance at 9 P.M. of Mahler’s technically and emotionally draining Fifth Symphony. The chaperones swung into action and demanded that I read the students the riot act. They wanted me to remind the kids that they had signed a contract prior to setting out on the tour forbidding them to consume alcohol or break curfew.

Roz and I consulted on the telephone, from Brazil to Boston, and addressed the problem, as we always do, with the question, “What distinction shall we make here that will bring possibility to the situation?” A broken contract points to the dualism of good and bad, and leads into the downward spiral, so we looked for another framework in which to consider the young people’s behavior. I realized that while the rules for the tour had been carefully set up in contract form, I had never formally discussed with the kids their purpose for being in Brazil, beyond giving concerts. Purpose, commitment, and vision are distinctions that radiate possibility. We decided that I should hold a conversation about vision with the group, as a framework for addressing the late-night events.

Summoned to the auditorium, the diffident young players sat as far back as possible, their teenage bodies in various postures of exhaustion and protest. Every face, innocent or malfeasant, reflected that they were about to receive a well-deserved dressing down. “Last night after the concert,” I began, “a woman came to me and told me with absolute honesty that the two hours she spent listening to Mahler’s Fifth Symphony had been the most beautiful two hours of her entire life. You gave a great performance last night, and she was not the only one moved and changed by it.” Their faces looked blank for a moment, as though they could not hear these words that were so unexpected. After a pause, I went on, “What else did you come here to offer the Brazilian people?” One by one, from various parts of the hall, came answers to the question: We came to show them the best of America! That great music is a way of communicating friendship and love. We came to show respect for Brazil! That teenagers can make great music! That music can be fun! That we are happy to be here! By now the answers were coming from all corners, and the faces were lit up with joy.

When exuberance and ease were palpable throughout the room, I said, “Of course, if you’d given a terrible concert last night, you probably would have all come home and gone straight to bed. It was precisely your exhilaration at having participated with so many people in great music-making that resulted in four kids being on the roof. It’s just surprising that they didn’t float any higher on sheer energy! But does waking the hotel guests at night represent the gift we wanted to bring the Brazilian people? Obviously not. We got off track. You have to know where the track is to get back on, and you’ve all just expressed that beautifully.” Two of the kids volunteered to write letters of apology to those who had been disturbed at the hotel, and others thought of additional ways to brighten our image with the people of São Paolo. No one felt blamed or made wrong. We left the auditorium with everyone in high spirits, ready to give two invigorating concerts.

Just as I was leaving the hall, one of the chaperones said, “But you didn’t punish anybody!” And then he added as an afterthought, “Though, I don’t suppose they would be in the mood to give another great Mahler performance if you had, and, really, I don’t think we will have to worry about them again.” A VISION IS A powerful framework to take the operations of an organization of any size from the downward spiral into the arena of possibility. Yet, while most organizations use the term “vision” liberally, we have found that few have articulated a vision in such a way that it serves that purpose.

VISIONLESS MISSION STATEMENTS

The term mission statement is often used interchangeably with the word “vision” in business and political arenas but, by and large, mission statements are expressions of competition and scarcity. A mission statement characteristically draws a picture of the company’s future, including its position in the marketplace, and designates the steps to fill out the design. That design is more often than not some version of the aspiration to be Number One; by definition an exclusive—and excluding—objective. This kind of statement may motivate people competitively, but it does not provide a guideline for all aspects of the company, nor does it inform people as to its meaning and direction. There is no long line.

Example: “We are to be the preeminent supplier of the most innovative technology in office design in America.” (Between the lines, a little voice from inside or outside the company walls is crying, “What about me?”) (Another asks, “Why?” “What for?”)

VISION

A vision has the impelling force of a long line of music. Mozart’s soaring duet from The Marriage of Figaro lifted the prisoners’ spirits high over prison walls in the film The Shawshank Redemption.

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free.

In this way, a vision releases us from the weight and confusion of local problems and concerns, and allows us to see the long clear line.

A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria that distinguish it from the objectives of the downward spiral. Here are the criteria that enable a vision to stand in the universe of possibility: • A vision articulates a possibility.

• A vision fulfills a desire fundamental to humankind, a desire with which any human being can resonate. It is an idea to which no one could logically respond, “What about me?” • A vision makes no reference to morality or ethics, it is not about a right way of doing things. It cannot imply that anyone is wrong.

• A vision is stated as a picture for all time, using no numbers, measures, or comparatives. It contains no specifics of time, place, audience, or product.

• A vision is free-standing—it points neither to a rosier future, nor to a past in need of improvement. It gives over its bounty now. If the vision is “peace on earth,” peace comes with its utterance. When “the possibility of ideas making a difference” is spoken, at that moment ideas do make a difference.

• A vision is a long line of possibility radiating outward. It invites infinite expression, development, and proliferation within its definitional framework.

• Speaking a vision transforms the speaker. For that moment the “real world” becomes a universe of possibility and the barriers to the realization of the vision disappear.

Vision-Led Goals and Objectives

Inside of the framework of a vision, goals and objectives spring from an outlook of abundance. A goal—even the goal “to be Number One in office design in America”—is invented as a game to play. Games call forth a different energy than the grim pursuit of goals in the downward spiral. They draw out the creativity and vitality of the players, without denying that the level at which they play may have something to do with whether the team qualifies for the next round. Under a vision, goals are treated as markers thrown out ahead to define the territory. If you miss the mark—“How fascinating!” Neither you nor the vision is compromised. In the pursuit of objectives under a vision, playing is relevant to the manifestation of the possibility, winning is not.

Examples of “Visions”

Here are some examples, from our interactions with organizations, of visions that meet the criteria of frameworks for possibility. An international food distribution company was inspired by “a vision of a world in ethical, sustainable partnership.” A company that designs inexpensive home products found their expression in “the possibility of joy in the everyday,” and a group of officers from the U.S. Army resonated to “the possibility of a world living in freedom.” Barbara Waugh, worldwide personnel manager of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, spoke of the transformation that took place when HP’s competition-driven mission statement was finally turned into a real vision. “I grew up thinking that change was cataclysmic,” Waugh said, “and probably accompanied by music. The way we’ve done it here is to start slow and work small. At some point, it begins to multiply, and you get transformation—almost before you realize it.” It happened during a meeting to plan a celebration of creativity at HP Labs. Laurie Mittelstadt, a materials engineer, posed a simple yet powerful question to the group: “Why aspire to be the best industrial lab in the world? Why not be the best lab for the world? In fact, why not say ‘HP For the World?’” 1 The subtle shift of language tapped into a new reserve of energy. A senior engineer created a picture of what “For the World” meant to him. He took the now-famous photo of Bill Hewlett and David Packard, both of them staring into the garage where HP began, and superimposed a photo of the Earth taken from an Apollo spacecraft. Waugh’s group turned that picture into a poster for an HP Labs Town Meeting. People from the rest of the company became so enthusiastic about the image that about fifty thousand of them bought the poster.

A vision is an open invitation and an inspiration for people to create ideas and events that correlate with its definitional framework.

“Tonal” Organizations

A vision can also be likened to the “tonality” of a company or group—the key in which the piece is written. Atonal music—music with no home key—never developed into a universal art form precisely because there is no sense of destination. How can you know where you are unless you have a point of reference? Music that explores only simple tonic and dominant harmonies is boring because there is no room for development. Or analogously, how inspiring is it to work for a company governed only and forever by its habitual way of doing things? Complexity, tension, and dissonance can give life to an organization as they can to music, but they do not present a coherent structure unless you can hear the home key, or connect to a vision. When a vision is leading an organization, it is instantly and steadily accessible to all members of the group. A vision is the organization’s own toes to nose. It becomes the source of responsible, on-track participation.

THE BOUNTY OF VISION

BEN: Under the leadership of our vision “Passionate Music-Making Without Boundaries,” the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra has flourished in the last four years beyond all expectations. Our budget has tripled, and we are running comfortably in the black—a most unusual situation for a nonprofit classical music organization—yet we’ve never raised the price of our lowest priced tickets, and we give away any returns to homeless shelters. We take on the projects that come our way that express our vision, and we find a way to pay for them, so every aspect of the BPO, including the budget, is defined within a framework of possibility. The results? Recordings that are compared favorably with major professional orchestras, programs and talks to get people who have never been to a classical music concert excited about music, a tradition of preconcert talks that are now drawing almost a full house, and an annual event where we team up with the phenomenal Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble to put on a great concert and a huge party with wild dancing. And when we want to do something like take the orchestra, two choruses, two children’s choirs, and eight soloists—four hundred musicians in all—to Carnegie Hall in New York City to do Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, we find a way to do it.

When the office staff insisted on renting a storefront in a busy urban shopping area, I remember being puzzled as to why they were so adamant—since the majority of our business is conducted on the telephone and computers. But they knew. Passionate Music-Making Without Boundaries cannot be shut in. So now we have a BPO “storefront” with flowers in the window and a huge mural of an orchestra at play, and music radiating out onto the sidewalk. We have installed a bench there so people can sit and listen and eat their lunch. Our oft-sung vision energizes us to find new ways to extend the reach of music and guides us in all our decisions.

After one of my talks to an international group of young CEOs, in which I spoke at length about the practice of “being a contribution,” the president of a Hong Kong company came to me and posed a question that has been asked many times by many others. He said, “I like very much contribution. But what about money? You have to make money!” My answer was that money has a way of showing up around contribution because money is one of the currencies through which people show they are enrolled in the possibility you are offering. That answer apparently was not enough for him. He rapidly countered, “But what about the stockholders?” At this point his diminutive wife standing at his side gave him a firm jab to the ribs and said, “No, not the stockholders, the children!”—because it turned out the company produced the motor for a tiny children’s car. In his concern for the stockholders, this CEO had forgotten that the company was formed around the idea of making a toy that children would love to play with. And, in fact, that distinction may never have been clearly articulated as a vision, so it was the more easily lost, and with it the framework of possibility it could have provided. At that, the man laughed what I like to call “cosmic laughter,” because he got the whole thing in that moment—how absurd human beings are, and how magnificent.

OFTEN THE EXPERIENCE of a personal crisis or a failure will constitute a basis for the creation of a personal vision, which in turn becomes the framework for a life of possibility. Alice Kahana, an artist living in Houston, has a painful and vivid memory of her journey to Auschwitz as a fifteen-year-old girl. On the way, she became separated from her parents and found herself in charge of her little eight-year-old brother. When the boxcar arrived, she looked down and saw that the boy was missing a shoe. “Why are you so stupid!” she shouted at him, the way older sisters are inclined to do. “Can’t you keep track of your things?” This was nothing out of the ordinary except that those were the last words that passed between them, for they were herded into different cars and she never saw him again.

Nearly half a century later, Alice Kahana is still living by a distinction that was conceived in that maelstrom. She vowed not to say anything that could not stand as the last thing she ever said. Is she 100 percent successful? We would have to presume not. But no matter: Such a distinction is not a standard to live up to, but a framework of possibility to live into.

ENVIRONMENTS FOR POSSIBILITY

The person who rigorously maintains the clarity to stand confidently in the abundant universe of possibility creates an environment around him generative of certain kinds of conversations. We come to trust that these places are dedicated to the notion that no one will be made wrong, people will not be talked about behind their backs, and there will be no division between “us” and “them.” These environments produce astonishing results that can take people in wholly unexpected directions, perhaps because all their gates are open—inviting us to play in the meadows of the cooperative universe.

THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT

BEN: I often begin my Monday master class at Walnut Hill with a topic that has only tangential relationship to music. It is a way of getting the students to think of their lives in a wider context than the daily routine of practice, classes, and occasional performances. As a teacher I have an enormous opportunity to create possibility in every conversation. One class launched into a fascinating discussion about risk, danger, and breaking through barriers. Because I was going to NASA to give a leadership talk the next day, it occurred to me to ask the students to write about the similarities between the NASA program and their life with music. They know by now that what I mean is, “Talk about the dreams and aspirations in common, talk about spirit, talk about being.” But I wasn’t altogether prepared for the mastery with which they spoke of both music and the space program as possibility. Here are some of the spontaneous expressions they jotted down in class, addressed to the people I was about to meet at NASA.

In the same way NASA uses mathematics and machinery, we musicians must use sound. Sound can explore the soul, coax out dreams and possibilities that before were lost in inky blackness. A beautiful sonata escapes gravity. We are not very different, you and I. Our minute individual persons are small, but our life-journeys can span galaxies. NASA is granted billions of dollars and, for the insistence of possibility it bestows on the world, it is worth every penny.

Amanda Burr, age 16

You are the diplomats, the representatives of the world over here. You are going into the nowhere to search and to be intrigued at the smallest inkling of discovery. You are representing us to discover, explore, and find the possibility to escape the box known as earth, and go as far as possible. You have the responsibility to push thinking and ideas beyond limits, into the ethers, through the nothing into the something…. Music is similar to space, it is an exploration, a responsibility to push through the confines of pages of music, to go as far and as fast as the mind will work….

Dave Lanstein, age 16

The world counts on you to open up new possibilities and discover what we humans can do…. The only time when music or space have boundaries is when humans create them. Thank you for keeping the possibilities alive.

Ashley Liberty, age 14

When I came to give my talk to the NASA employees at the Robert Goddard Space Center, I walked on stage, looked out over the sea of faces, and saw there the very people described in the letters I held in my hand. During my presentation I told the NASA audience about the young people at the Walnut Hill School, read the letters, and left the originals with them. Not long after, I received a communication from the project manager. He said that the presentation had had a big impact and had helped reenergize and refocus many in the audience who had forgotten why they had come to work for NASA in the first place. And then he went on: NASA was … incredibly moved by the talented young students who wrote their wonderful “letters to NASA.” The letters captured a simple beauty as to why NASA exists. The students communicated in a way that those of us who work here have never been able to express. As you know, each person asked for a copy of the letters and was overwhelmed by the power of the message and the talent of your students.

Our people were so moved that they decided to write letters to your class. Their enclosed letters are a personal “thank you” and reveal a side of NASA not typically seen—a warm, emotional side that gets to the core of why we do what we do.

Please let your students know that when we showed the letters to one of our Space Station senior managers, the decision was made to include them on future space missions. The letters will be placed on a CD-ROM being prepared for the initial builders and inhabitants of the Space Station. Your students’ words will continue to inspire our explorers, especially during the long and isolated times when they will face their greatest challenges in space.

On behalf of all of us at NASA, please give our heartfelt thanks to your students for their inspiration.

Sincerely yours,

Ed Hoffman

Program Manager/NASA

THE PRACTICE OF framing possibility calls upon us to use our minds in a manner that is counterintuitive: to think in terms of the contexts that govern us rather than the evidence we see before our eyes. It trains us to be alert to a new danger that threatens modern life—the danger that unseen definitions, assumptions, and frameworks may be covertly chaining us to the downward spiral and shaping the conditions we want to change.

But look what magical powers we have! We can make a conscious use of our way with words to define new frameworks for possibility that bring out the part of us that is most contributory, most unencumbered, most open to participation. And why not say that is who we really are?

Here is an example of a leader, framing possibility, offering a new way for us to define ourselves. Nelson Mandela is reported to have addressed these words of Marianne Williamson’s to the world at large.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous—

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people

Won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.

It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone,

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously

Give other people permission to do the same.