Bird's Eye View

Kris Manos and The 19th Amendment And Strong Women Everywhere

I thought you should see the comment that Kris Manos made on my post of a couple of days ago, celebrating the 90th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage in the United States.

Kris wrote:  "I have my great aunt's diary from 1920 in which she describes her first voting experience, in a small town in New Hampshire.  The town gathered, and everyone voted aloud.  She cast the lone vote for her candidate.  I imagine the conviction and strength that must have taken, and am so proud of her, 90 years later."

I did not know Kris Manos' great aunt but I, too, am proud of her.  As we all should be.  And proud of all women who are brave and strong and act on their convictions.

Perhaps this would be a good moment to think of all the good, brave, strong, women of conviction you know and celebrate them.  Then think of one in particular.  If she's alive, perhaps you may want to give her a call and tell her how she has inspired you.  

That would be a conversation she will remember a long time.

Kasper Rorsted Says "Just Talk To Me"

Sunday's NY Times has a column in the Business section entitled "Corner Office" by Adam Bryant.

I loved the last one, entitled "No Need to Hit The 'Send' key.  Just Talk to Me."  Bryant has written up his interview with Kasper Rorsted, the CEO of Henkel, a consumer and industrial products company based in Dusseldorf, Germany.  Basically, Rorsted is saying that e-mail just doesn't cut it in terms of effective human interaction. 

 
 

He says e-mail is often disruptive in corporate cultures and cannot replace what he calls "presence."  And he claims never to read an email on which he has been copied.  He says, "When I see on an e-mail ''cc Kasper" I delete it.  I don't read it."  Why not?  He says it would be a waste of his time.  If someone wants to contact him, they can write to him.  People who copy others are often just trying to "cover their back."

Rorsted sounds like a no-nonsense guy running a global business.  Yet he is dependent on the most personal of human connection--face to face conversation--for getting business done most effectively.  In fact last year he just moved his office to the U.S. and traveled around here for six weeks without going home.  This year he is going to do the same in Asia, visiting as many sites, employees and customers as he can.

Not sure what this is doing for his home life, but it sure is an effective way to get down on the ground with the constituencies of people who make your business run.  

Next time you are tempted to write an email to the person two cubicles away from you at the office, resist the temptation.  Get up and walk over there and say what you have to say face to face style.  It will no doubt be more effective and you need the exercise.

90th Anniversary of 19th Amendment and Women's Suffrage

Hard to believe, but yesterday was the 90th anniversary of women in the United States having the right to vote.  The word suffrage means the right to vote and has an ecclesiastical meaning as well: an intercessory prayer. Hmmm.

What does women getting the vote have to do with conversation?  Plenty.  If you don't vote, you don't have a voice in matters that count.  You aren't in the conversation.

As important as this is, voting is a right that most women in the U.S. pretty much take for granted, giving little thought to the fact that less than a century ago, this right was not theirs. In the last Presidential election nearly a third of eligible female voters didn't get to the polls. They didn't exercise the right their grandmothers worked so hard to secure for them.  That effort less than a century ago was a major fight.  It didn't just evolve over time.  Women fought for it, were jailed for it, were severely punished, even beaten because of their outspoken efforts to get the right to vote.  Hard to believe, no?

I confess that until I read a couple of notes sent to me yesterday on the subject, I had gotten pretty lax in taking this seriously.  I had forgotten that our grandmothers and great grandmothers made this happen...only 90 years ago!  1920 isn't all that long ago.  At one point in 1917 when women picketed the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote,33 of them were arrested for "obstructing sidewalk traffic" and jailed in Virginia, where the warden ordered his forty guards to teach the women a lesson which resulted in their being beaten, given only water to drink out of an open pail.  One of the women, Alice Paul, went on a hunger strike so she was tied to a chair, a feeding tube forced down her throat until she vomited.  It took weeks of this before the press got word of it.  

I'm told HBO released a documentary called Iron Jawed Angels several years ago starring Oscar winner Hillary Swank, depicting the battle women waged so you and I and others could have our say in how our country, our states, our communities are run.  Sounds like it's worth viewing.  Probably more than once.  Yet I never heard about it.  Gotta check out netflix for this.

As my friend Stephani Cook wrote to me yesterday, "Refresh my memory.  Some women won't vote this year because...why, exactly?  We have carpool duties?  We have to get to work?  Our vote doesn't matter?  It's raining?"

Let's make sure every woman you know exercises her right to vote.  And that she casts an informed opinion.  You can't be part of the conversation unless you make your voice heard.

Roses And Thorns: Conversation With Umber Ahmad

I had breakfast this morning at Centro, a terrific restaurant close to Grand Central, with a new friend, an amazing young woman who excels in multiple categories.  Her name is Umber Ahmad and to say she is  a partner and executive director of an investment advisory firm with offices in both Dubai and New York City is just a teaser.  Besides her impressive experience in financial services, Umber's got chops in lots of other areas.  She got her undergrad degree from MIT, where she specialized in Genetics, then went on to get a masters in International Health Policy from the University of Michigan and after that an MBA in Finance and Health Care Management from Wharton.  While at MIT, she did genetic research as part of a human genome project there and MIT obtained a patent on one of the processes she helped develop. 

   

Umber is a global citizen in many ways.  She speaks Urdu, Punjabi, English, French, Spanish and enough Italian to socialize.    She told me about an exciting film project on which she is executive producer (yeah, she does that, too) and she's the show's co-host.   In fact she just came back from Mexico where they filmed a segment.  We got around to the subject of food and why no matter where you grow up, conversations over meals are important in shaping children's views of the world as well as their attitudes and ambitions. 

Umber's family made a big deal about the evening meal.  Her father, a surgeon, made an effort to get home every day to spend that important time with his family and her mother instituted, while Umber was very young, a ritual that became part of those family gatherings.  Her mother explained that every life has both happiness and sadness; that every day some things will go well and others not so well and that the mix of all those experiences is what constitutes a full life.  At every dinner, Umber, her sister and Umber's parents each offered up to the rest of the family the "roses and thorns" of their day.  Roses were the things that went well; thorns, those things that were obstacles, tough to deal with, not so nice.

 

After our breakfast, I thought a while about my frustration that so many families--at least American families--don't have dinner together, much less a family conversation, every day.  Some do in fact eat together, but they are watching a television show or otherwise distracted from any kind of meaningful exchange taking place at the table.  Think of Umber's childhood and how important the lessons were that she learned with her family over dinner.  Here are some that occurred to me:

1) Every day has high points and low points.  It's all part of life and we learn from both kinds of experiences.

2) Everyone--no matter how important, how rich, how gifted--has these high points and low points in their day.  As we come to accept that in our own life, it is helpful to know that other human beings walk the same experiential path of happiness and sadness.

3) By sharing our triumphs and our challenges, we learn from others how to handle both.

4) Sometimes talking with others about a challenge we are facing is enough to turn it into an opportunity.

 

How about you?  Do you have a "roses and thorns" discussion over dinner?  How would dinner be different if you did?  How would your relationship with the others around the table differ if you did?

Conversations in Starbucks And Other CoffeeHouses

A funny thing has happened to my neighborhood Starbucks.  It closed down for a week or so and lo!, when it reopened last week, it revealed a new look.  Well, more of a new "look and feel" because the new look has a lot to do with how one experiences Starbucks.

The old model at my corner of Manhattan had tables and chairs where people sat and talked, often in small groups.  In some cases, people monopolized tables for hours while working in somewhat isolated fashion on their laptops, ears plugged with iTunes or a cell phone. 

 
     

In the new model, all the tables are gone.  Instead, there are a couple of counters where people can sit in solitaire fashion, and work on a laptop or read the newspaper.  But the counters are not useful for a conversation among more than two people.  There are little high hat tables with stools, where a couple of people--maybe three if pressed--can have a conversation.  Or one person can work on a laptop.  But I doubt that laptop experience will encourage the kind of hours-long effort people felt they were entitled to by buying one coffee in the old style store.  

I had understood that Starbucks was hip on encouraging conversations over tables in their store.  Maybe they don't love the hours-long table grab that some customers had been making part of their daily ritual of making Starbucks their office away from home.  What I'm interested in is whether the new layout discourages both.  I'll have to do some in-person research.  I made a mental note to do some in-person research.

So in opening the Dining section of my New York Times this morning, I saw an article headline that caught my eye: "Coffee Bars: Unplug, Drink, Go."  The gist of the article is that coffee bars all over the place are banning laptops, apparently after too many customers lingered too long, turning the place into their office and seen running extension cords across the room.  These establishments, says the article, are going the Italian route where the focus of the place is the coffee itself and the barista.  Customers at these places stand or perch on a stool to drink their coffee at the counter.  So my question is, does this encourage or inhibit conversation?

 

The article contends that the conversations are numerous and lively.  They are also relatively short.  People have a cup of coffee, talk with a friend or two at the counter, then leave.

Is this what my neighborhood Starbucks has in mind?  And will the new layout kill or encourage conversation? Maybe if laptops are more difficult to use in this place it will feel less like someone's second-hand office and more of a gathering place.  More "gemutlich" as the Austrians say (for you non-German speakers, it means something like "cozy").

I'll be back to report.

Yoko Ono Gets MOMA Visitors Talking Of Wishes

There are many ways to initiate conversation.   A curious one proving especially popular to MOMA museum goers is the Wish Tree placed outside the museum in MOMA's lovely courtyard.  It's a relatively small, spindly tree with bare branches, all the better for tying on a tag on which you've written a wish.  The installation provides the tags and the strings for tying and the pencils.  People stand in line to add their wish to the tree.  I guess it's a step up from throwing coins in the Trevi fountain in Rome.  And like Trevi, it attracts what appears to be a steady stream of tourists in addition to hard-bitten New Yorkers who for one reason or another are eager to share their wish with the world.

This wishmaking is more communal than throwing a coin into water.  Or making a wish as you blow out candles on your birthday cake.  By tying your wish on Yoko's tree, you let the world know of your wish.  Most people sign their name.  And a plethora of languages are represented on the tags.  The wishes I saw appear to be expressive of universal yearnings, like I wish..."to have amazing children."  Or I wish "I can survive the recession."  Or even "I wish to be happy in life."

   

 

What Yoko Ono plans to do with the tagged wishes is not clear.  Perhaps there will soon be a coffee table size book and a website and a recording of Yoko singing, all in celebration of the wishes?

Who knows?  Meanwhile, what is it you yearn for?  And are you willing to write it down and tie it to a tree in MOMA's courtyard?

With whom do you talk about your wishes?

Are You A Good Guest Tiffany Style?

Last Friday's New York Times carried a Tiffany's ad that they place from time to time, entitled "A Good Guest."  Here is what it says:

A Good Guest

Arrives slightly late.  And leaves on time.

A good guest brings energy and charm and a small present.

A dinner guest engages the person on his right and his left.

A party guest mingles and meets everyone.

A house guest is self-sufficient, not needing constant entertainment.

All good guests write thank you notes.

Very good guest also call the next day.

Several things crossed my mind as I read the Tiffany list.  Since I was a house guest this past weekend, it reminded me to write a thank you note (I did) and to call the next day (did that, too).  Fact is, I always write a note but don't always call the next day.  In fact, I've talked myself into thinking that a call is just an annoyance to the host, but I realize that's been my excuse for not doing it.  So Tiffany is the reason I was an extra good house guest this time.

The ad also made me think that except for the bit about arriving slightly late, this list is a fairly decent set of rules to be followed by employees.   An employee should definitely bring energy and charm to her workplace.  And if we consider our talents as gifts, then sharing your "gifts" fits here, too.  Engaging others while on the job?  Check.  How about pro-actively mingling and meeting others in your company?  Check.  Being self-sufficient and not needing constant entertainment?  You bet! 

So what about thank you notes?  We often see bosses being advised to write notes and say thank you for work well done.  If we stick with the Tiffany list,  perhaps more bosses would be thanked as well.  Now that's a nice thought!

What kind of conversation would result from that, do you think

What Will You Talk About This Weekend?

I'm going on a two day retreat, starting this evening, with a group that takes a two day respite twice a year to discuss whatever is on our minds.  There are six of us, all with business executive experience representing an interesting diversity of industries and background.

 

The conversation never fails to be fascinating.  Sometimes we employ a facilitator or moderator, sometimes not.  This time, part of the weekend will be facilitated by a professional (not me; otherwise I'd not have a chance to participate myself) and I understand this gentleman is gifted at getting to the heart of matters in discussions.   I'm looking forward to it.

Why the facilitator?  We've found that as in a family any group (and this one has met for more than 20 years) becomes a family of sorts.  And that means, as in any family, each of us adopts a particular role into which we settle and we generally act consistently with that role.  A number of years ago, we employed Jeffrey B. Rubin, a remarkable man who is a trained psychiatrist and practicing Buddhist and has written extensively on subjects of personal, intellectual and emotional growth.  He does psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy and likes to talk about his work as helping people live their lives as a work of art.

I still recall the first time Jeffrey joined us.  He pointed out this role playing that inevitable occurs in groups and challenged each of us to come to our next session together having answered the following questions:

1) What is the role you feel you play in this group (e.g., are you the creative one? the judge? the organizer? the whiner? etc.)

2) How comfortable are you with this role?

3) If you were to change it, what role would you prefer to play?

Wow!  We came to our next session with insights each of us had gotten from that exercise and it dramatically changed the way we related to each other and to the group experience as a whole.  We still talk about that experience and have gone back to it to take stock of whether any of us has fallen into a routine with which we're not happy but not sure how to escape.

Jeffrey won't be with us this time, but no doubt we'll be talking this weekend about what works in our lives, both personal and professional.  We'll talk about what doesn't work, or at least doesn't work as well as we would like.  It's a funny thing about discussions like this: no matter who is talking, what they have to say--if you are actively listening--will trigger something in you.  It's often the case that whatever any one of us cites as an issue is something that has taken place in our lives too, perhaps at a different time.  But it's as if each of us speaks for all the rest.  And it's a good way to get a variety of perspectives on a subject.  I know I often get caught in my own brain games and need the fresh approaches other people's take on things give me.

I've thought a lot about Matt Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist, and I'll be looking for examples of what he claims form the basis for innovation: the exchange of ideas on which everyone in the group can build, thus enhancing, shaping, making the resulting idea better than the one each us had on the subject when we started. 

So what will you be talking about this weekend?

Has Steven Slater Made "Polite Debate" An Oxymoron?

Is there some kind of crazy pill being put in our drinking water that makes people behave so badly and so publicly?  Or is it just that incidences of adults acting like brats are now captured on YouTube and other media and thus quickly than would have happened in total-tech times (yes, there really was an era--fairly recent, in fact-- when YouTube did not exist)?

I'm not sure, but if it's true that courtesy is contagious, then it must also be true that obnoxious behavior begets more of the same as well.  And there is lots of it these days.  People are just, well, mad.  Not only passengers on too-crowded and not well serviced planes, but the flight attendants who are overworked and harassed as well.  And the barristas at Starbucks, trained to recite lines like "If it's not perfect, tell me, and I'll make it right." can be irritating to the very people they are supposed to impress with their coddling efforts.

Alan Goldsmith, the genius behind Noodle Talk, sent me a couple of links yesterday, each of them an incident of terrible behavior in a retail customer/employee situation.  In one, a Starbucks customer got so angry when the barrista insisted that she indicate what she did not want on her bagel ("You have to tell me if you don't want butter or cream cheese") the store's manager called the cops and hauled her away.  And a woman in Toledo, Ohio, recently got so upset that at 6:30 AM her local McDonalds would not serve her chicken McNuggets, that she went on a rampage, striking the employee at the drive-in window (even trying to climb up into the window) and ended up smashing the window before driving off. 

Are these people one-off nuts?  Or do they represent--Steven Slater style--a general feeling of helpless anger at life in general, at all the things that don't work as we want them to?  My guess is that yes, these people are highly unusual in their acting out, but they nonetheless are symptomatic of something else going on.  We've lost it, ladies and gentlemen.  In fact, there are few ladies and gentlemen among us. 

 
It's not just in New York, this place where anonymity reigns (or appears to).  The chicken McNuggets fan was in Toledo, Ohio.  But I do wonder about small towns and whether behavior is different there.  I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin and I've talked with others who have similar backgrounds and we agree: there is a chilling effect on your instinct to cut someone off at an intersection when you know it is likely you'll see them again in church or at your grocery store around the corner.  Are people equally ticked off in small-town America but they just don't act out because they are inhibited by a kind of "Politeness from Proximity" phenomenon?

Not sure.  But there is something about saying hello--even to strangers--that happens in some locales that I like.  Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

Talking About The Proposed Mosque Near Ground Zero

I wasn't going to do this, feeling it better to let this debate simmer down a bit before I talked about it.But on some level this may be one of the more important national topics to come along for a while.

The facts are pretty clear: prior to September 11, 2001, a couple named Daisy Khan and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, New Yorkers who apparently care passionately about the need for inter-denominational exchange, initiated an effort to convert a piece of real estate in the Wall Street area into a community center where Muslims and non-Muslims could meet, interact, enjoy recreational facilities and the like.The space was also designed to include a mosque where Muslims would be invited to worship.

Not such a big deal except that the effort only now is coming to fruition and, in the interim, the horrific events of September 11, 2001 intervened. And we know that it was Islamic extremists whose acts of terror destroyed the World Trade Towers, killed about three thousand people (including Muslims) in the process, and changed America forever from a place where "these things don't happen" to a place where anything--including terrorist activities, can happen.

There are many Americans who feel strongly that to allow the planners of the center to go ahead with this proposal would be disrespectful of the survivors of the 9/11 atrocity and would not honor those who died at the hands of Islamic extremists.  Other opponents argue, in effect, that hardworking, patriotic Muslims who follow Islamic rule should not be allowed to proceed with their totally legal effort to complete their community center because it would incite other extremists. 

I admit that I, too, fear the possibility that some crazed terrorists could seize on this opportunity to wreak havoc close to the scene of the 9/11 tragedy.  But I feel even more strongly that the smartest thing Americans can do is stick to our founding principles regarding freedom of religion, of speech, and of peaceful congregation and wish the community center well.  C'mon, Guys!  We should be protecting law-abiding Muslims, not persecute them for acts committed by people who they, too, reject.

I feel confident that Muslim Americans will take it upon themselves to support this effort and be as watchful as possible for fringe elements who may wish to turn their center into an instrument of evil.  And non-Muslims should, too. 

The planners of the community center have a legal right to complete their effort.  The rest of us have a responsibility to debate the importance of that right--even to listen respectfully when those that are upset by the plans for the Center voice their opposition--and then do what we can to make sure the Center is used for the purpose for which it is being built--the promotion of interfaith, inter-community peace. 

We will all benefit if we follow Mayor Bloomberg's direction on this one.  He took an Atticus Finch stand, saying "The government should never, never be in the business of telling people how they should pray or where they can pray.  We want to make sure that everybody from around the world feels comfortable coming here, living here and praying the way they want to pray."

   

He's right.This is America and the basic freedoms of all our citizens are at stake here. Let our Muslim neighbors finish their center and then let's all visit it.  I plan to do so.  I know my Dad, who was a big proponent of Constitutional freedoms, would be there, too, if he could.

And, by the way, the young woman here at Wf360 who checks my blogs for typos and inserts some of the pictures, is our summer intern from Germany.  And guess what?  She's a Muslim. We're so proud of Yeliz Calis and thrilled that she has joined us here at Wf360 to promote great conversations everywhere. I hope when she comes back to New York some years from now she'll be able to go with me to visit the  Muslim community center downtown.