Last week I wrote about how insightful nighttime dreams can be, and it got me to thinking about the benefits of daydreams. The fact is, dreaming is part of everything I do with clients, whether planning for business or life.

But you know, I’ve found we’re not very good at it. Somewhere along the way from childhood to adulthood, dreaming is given less and less time to the point of not even being considered a valid use of our attention. Frivolous, going no where, waste of time, not possible… you name it, dreaming gets tossed into a mental circular with one of these tags.

Sometimes, for those who are lucky, life proves us wrong. One day, a client was excited to share with me that she was going to a ball in Paris. She said she had always dreamed of doing so. A frequent international traveler, speaker and author, it didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

However, when I asked her if going to a Paris ball appeared on her Dream Inventory, she said no, looking a bit puzzled. She added, I didn’t think it would ever happen. Then she realized that she, like so many others, without thinking had been qualifying and limiting her dreams.

Other times, for those who dare to dream and believe, they prove life wrong. Concerted efforts are great at producing a twist of fates. In a business where it is said “most don’t make it the list of actors and actresses that dared to dream is extensive. Johnny Depp, Sandra Bullock and Courtney Cox among others have shared their propensity to dream and its impact on drive and achievement.

Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper celebrates the Top 40 under 40, business people who realize their dreams in the first three decades of life. Among the winners’ reasoning for success, you will find reference to dreams.

William Andrew of Ontario says he dares to dream; Rob Dynan says “anything is possible”; and Olga Kovalchuk says to “think positive, dream big.”

The strength of belief was most evident in comments by David Henderson, a 37-year-old also from Ontario: “I believe success involves waking up everyday to relentlessly, rigorously and passionately pursue your dreams of a better world.”

There are so many testimonials that dreaming is part of the formula for success and happiness. Whether a rags to riches story, or a conquering of physical disabilities, or an “I’ll show them” attitude in response to put downs and negative feedback, there seems to be endless proof that dreaming and believing are first steps in great achievements.

Still it is not a practice or belief of the majority. Most want to believe, but somehow never grasp it in an intentional way. I suppose they are more inclined to grip on to an age-old obstacle, that being fear.

Yanni would agree. When releasing his eighth album, titled “Dare to Dream,” back in the ‘90s he said it came “from a realization that not only don’t people go after their dreams, they often are afraid to dream at all.”

Life comes with no guarantee, not an external one anyway. Within, each one of us has access to the only guarantee we need, belief in self and our dreams. A high school entrepreneur, having launched several start-ups and making her first million by graduation, cited belief in self, including one’s dreams, as the No. 1 ingredient for success.

The net is rich with stories and advice on dreaming and achieving. With a few clicks you can immerse yourself in inspiration and all you need to get on with dreaming. As a bit of encouragement, I’ll leave you with a short poem by Julie Anne Ford:

Dare to dream

Simply said, it’s the straightforward truth. So, dare to dream and tap into life’s guarantee.

Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

Seems we never have enough time. Those who have all they desire are few and far between. The rest tend to eliminate the fun, settle for less, or burn the candle at both ends. None are great options. However, there is another way.

First, I must say I truly believe in and love a good night’s sleep. There’s nothing like waking in the morning totally relaxed, with your muscles feeling like half melted marshmallows, free of all tension. Your mind meanders back, peeking a bit at the world and then retreating. Slowly and comfortably, you unite with the new day.

Nonetheless, the night offers us another way to overcome some of our greatest obstacles of the day. Don’t jump to conclusions, you still get to sleep as much as ever. You see at night when the conscious mind shuts off, the subconscious stays on duty. In fact, it never takes time off. It is our autopilot, doing its work at all hours, everyday.

Still skeptical? Let me share some history and a bit of firsthand experience. We’re all familiar with the sewing machine, but perhaps not how it came to be in 1845. Its inventor, Elias Howe got stuck on how to make the needle work. In hand sewing, the needle is pointed at one end and has an “eye” at the other to carry the thread. That did not work on the machine, and neither did moving the “eye” to the middle of the needle.

Then one night, after puzzling all day on this, the right design came to him in a dream. It was an odd dream, one that had natives poking him with pointy spears that had holes near the point. And so he awoke with the answer that still works today.

Ever heard of the German scientist Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz? Yes, he’s another dreamer who contributed Structural Theory and the Benzene molecule to the world of organic chemistry. Here’s what happened in his words:

“… I was sitting writing on my textbook, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. …long rows sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail…”

These stories may seem farfetched and so long ago. So travel closer in time to today, for there are people who understand and make use of their subconscious during slumber. I am one of them. I remember, when in high school, working on an algebra problem all weekend long to no avail. What can I say, I loved math. Then, as with our inventor and scientist, the answer just came to me in my sleep. No amazing dreams, just the answer.

Later, when working as a Features Editor, we did a story on just this topic. And we discovered it doesn’t require waiting for nighttime shut eye. A TV repairman just took a nap any time he was stumped, and voila, he awoke with the solution.

So how does it work? Research at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, spearheaded by a leading expert on the positive benefits of napping, gives us a clue. Sara Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, reported that REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is rich in dreams, stimulates associative networks, allowing the brain to make new and useful associations between unrelated items.

“Fluid interpretation is a hallmark of a creative mind, from idle word play to the abstraction of shapes that led to the solving of neurochemical transmission or structure of the benzene ring,” wrote the research team in their findings. They go on to support the experience of our scientific dreamer. “These findings on the role of REM sleep in creative problem solving underscore the Nobel Laureate Friedrich A. Kekule’s recommendation: ‘Let us learn to dream.’”

The key was to prime the brain before sleep. In doing so, many have a hard time shutting off the conscious mind, which, in addition to being incapable of the same cognitive level as the subconscious, runs interference. REM sleep is the key, allowing the subconscious to do its magical connections without distraction. In a way, it’s a form of multi-tasking, a seemingly effortless one.

Most of us will still need to make the most of our days. And that, quite frankly, will take some conscious time management. But, as our friend of a couple of blogs ago, Thomas Edison, would say, “Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.”

Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

Our patriotic fervor is most widely celebrated on Independence Day, as evidenced by the parades, speeches, picnics, music and fireworks. These illuminating events are celebrated as a nation, as the land of the free safeguard’s each and every person’s independence, as they themselves so define it.

The original text, tucked in the memories of most, reads:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,
That all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by the Creator of certain undeniable rights,
That among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Since the initial battle against the British monarchy, we have, with love of country, fought the visible foes of individual freedom. Many, however, fail to conquer the silent enemy.

Freedom speaks to the values and aspirations that are unique to each of us. At the heart of this undeniable right is the liberation of the spirit and soul of self. That’s an internal battle that can only be won by oneself.

We hold dear the freedom to choose, and yet we so often forfeit it, going along with external pressures, popular trends and thoughtless autopilot. I’ve known those who went through with a wedding for fear of what others would think if they canceled it; those who took a job they didn’t want so as not to disappoint someone who helped them get an interview; those who pursued careers to win approval from parents; and those who went along with unethical or illegal actions in order to stay employed.

There are many, many more examples. You can easily come up with some of your own. We could be judgmental, but if we’re honest we’ve all been there at one time or another. And so when someone steps forth and challenges a block to their individual rights, we observe with interest. And in the case of victory, we are collectively uplifted and inspired.

The challenges are ongoing, as is the case with the women of Swaziland who just this year one the right to have land, bonds and other property registered in their names. Interracial marriages were not legally sanctioned until 1967, and in 1994 a woman had to appeal for the right to hang an anti-war sign in her bedroom window. One just need check a list of ACLU victories to get an idea of the broad range of rights that at one time didn’t exist. And most came to be because one person, one individual felt hindered in their ability to live and be as they chose.

There is nothing like the energy and elation that comes from a personal win, especially one that escapes the trappings of ideas and opinions indoctrinated by one’s family, culture, society or workplace. Moving beyond persisting patterns of perception, a sense of obligation, a need for others’ approval, we find every moment is filled with an opportunity for personal choice and well-being.

Our forefathers intended liberty to go beyond the physical shackles, to those of the heart, mind and soul. I believe they understood that would lead to a harmony with self, and in turn would extend into the world. With harmony come greater levels of joy, health and prosperity.

In any field, those who are most memorable pursued life in their own way, often moving against some trend or popular belief. Or as Robert Frost expressed, they “took the road less traveled.”

Free to be how ever you choose isn’t necessarily about being different, rather it is simply about being authentically you. Take heart and yourself seriously, even if others don’t. Don’t worry about convincing, proving or showing others what is right for you. Just smile and be you. It’s your undeniable right.

And while these rights may not extend to rats, there’s a cute little guy of movie fame that couldn’t help but be himself. Remy, the lead in Ratatouille, leaves the French countryside to travel to Paris in hopes of becoming a chef. And despite his family’s doubts and the rat-hating humans, he becomes a culinary wonder.

Of course it’s just a story, not real. The real stuff happens when you choose that it should. And there are many that have chosen so, and their stories are real. You can start with some of our forefathers, and work yourself forward in time, until you, too, are included.

Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

During a recent visit to Quebec City, we went to the exposition on the Titanic. It was an incredible walk back in time. From the stories of the ship’s creators to those of its passengers, one couldn’t help but be moved by the excitement and grandeur of this maiden voyage and its tragic ending.

It led me to wonder about all the decisions that resulted in this ship, believed to be unsinkable, being broken in two and taking a dive for the ocean floor, leaving the 2,000 some passengers in its wake. And I realized that those decisions were made much like decisions made all the time, every day.

In the case of the Titanic, the focus was entirely on the gains this magnificent ship could achieve for the Star Line Company. Whether we focus on potential gains or losses determines how we deal with risk.

For example, if a doctor tells a patient they are going to die, they will take greater risks with treatments. They feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. On the other hand, if the doctor tells the patient they have a certain number of days to live, they are more risk averse. They frame their decisions around the days of life they could lose.

Oddly, the primary factor in decisions concerning the design and operation of this new ship was the perceived absence of even the usual risks. Standard practices, warnings and common sense were ignored.

In 1912, the Titanic was the world’s largest, fastest, safest and most luxurious ship, and the maiden voyage was meant to prove it. Confidence was in abundance as the design included 16 water-tight compartments, leading to the belief that the ship was unsinkable. Star Line management would not conceive of a situation where so many of the compartments would be flooded as to cause the sinking of its newest ship.

The high degree of confidence in the Titanic led to many out-of-the-norm behaviors. The designer was overruled on two critical matters. One, the water-tight compartments should have extended all the way up through the ship. However, that would have eliminated some living space.

The same type of rationale was used when it came to not including enough lifeboats for all the passengers. The decks, it was decided, would be too cluttered. These matters rested on one key factor: how conducive were they to the vision of making Star Line the leader in luxury experience and accommodations.

In addition, the lookouts stationed in the crows nest were without binoculars. In the hustle and bustle visual aids were forgotten or misplaced. No one seemed too concerned.

Ice warnings from three other ships were ignored. This is a hard one to understand. It was as if, like with youth, there was this sense of being invincible. The Titanic steamed ahead at full speed with the intent to surprise and impress with an early arrival in New York.

Without binoculars, the iceberg was sighted without much time to respond. And despite the quick reaction, the ship was clipping along at such a fast pace that it was almost impossible to safely clear the iceberg. Though the Titanic was saved from a head on collision, skimming within inches of the icy structure, below the surface the berg’s protrusions sliced into its side.

It seems all the world bought into the belief that the Titanic was this unsinkable wonder. For even the captain of the Californian, a ship just ahead of the Titanic that had sent the last iceberg warning, ignored the distress flares sent up. He figured Titanic was enjoying a bit of celebration.

More astounding was the unfailing belief of a passenger as she watched the ship on its descent from a lifeboat. “The first wish on the part of all was to stay near the Titanic. We all felt safer near the ship. Surely such a vessel could not sink,” recalled 40-year-old Elizabeth Shutes.

Like in the launching of the Shuttle Challenger, facts and experts were ignored. Appropriate questions were not asked and important input was simply dismissed. The decision-makers were so determined, it was as if they thought they could will success. Instead, they met with disaster.

It happens every day in business boardrooms and on manufacturing floors. Politics, influencing skills, position and intimidation get in the way of good decisions. Framing around gains or losses plays with our perceptions, and in some cases blinds us to balanced decision-making. Perhaps the error of our ways goes unnoticed; the consequences are not always as visible, nor as painful as our historic tragedies. Costly, nonetheless, they are.

Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

It was a blustery, winter day, much like those we are all too familiar with in Vermont. But no one was cold, even though they were all outside. I suppose they were hot with excitement, or perhaps fear.

You could hear a father yelling to his son, “Go get your mother, she’ll never have another chance to see anything like this.”

The day was December 9, 1914. The man was the owner of the largest laboratory in the world. His name is a familiar one: Thomas Edison. At age 67, he was watching his research complex go up in flames. All but a few buildings of the Edison Industries burned to the ground that day.

The losses exceeded $2 million. He had some insurance; less than $300 worth though. The building was made of concrete and in those days it was believed fire could not destroy such a structure. That belief couldn’t have been more wrong.

So how do you think our “light up the world” guy reacted? Remember he’s 67; he’d stuck it out through thousands and thousands of attempts (or some might say, mistakes) to succeed in developing the light bulb. How would you react if you showed up at work to find the place lost to fire? Imagine what would be happening in the next few days… the next weeks.

Edison didn’t waste much time wallowing in his sorrow. Nor did he let the expense of his losses drown him in pity or despair. No, it was quite a different reaction.

The next morning he returned to where his life’s work had been housed. While the fire had been brought under control through the night, all that remained were a couple of buildings and smoldering rubble. Edison stood there, looking over his losses. We don’t need to guess what his thoughts were, for he proclaimed:

“There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”

And start anew he and his team did, as if there was no time to waste. In just three weeks, Edison Industries introduced the world to a new and better phonograph.

Edison could have been a best selling author with a book on how to move beyond disaster. An appropriate title could’ve been: Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff.

Pretty much, Edison lived his life that way. He didn’t get more squeamish or weak-kneed as he aged. So often, we seem to tire of dealing with even the smaller, everyday adversities as our years accumulate. Not Edison, he kept a strong, youthful and atypical ambitious attitude

His perspectives were not the norm. For example, he never claimed to be an inventor despite his more than one thousand patents. Once when the governor of North Carolina complimented him on his inventiveness, he declared he was not a great inventor. His only claim to an original invention was the phonograph.

He explained all the ideas were not original to him. Instead he referred to himself as a sponge, soaking up ideas any where he could. Those with whom the ideas originated just never developed them. So he’d take them, do a little tweaking and improve them to a point of having value.

How is it that Edison worked his way through about 10,000 attempts to create the light bulb? How many goals have you ever pursued with such persistence? How about your company?

How could he move so many ideas to fruition when those with the actual concept took them no where? How many times have you or a friend had an idea only to see someone else develop it?

Why is it there are a few like Edison who don’t let even the big stuff get in their way, and then there is the majority, who often let even the little stuff stop them?

It’s time for the heart to heart, a look inside, some deep reflection. Can you honestly say you have a habit of pulling yourself up, getting on with life and business no matter the circumstances?

I can hear the excuses now. There’s always a reason why the other guy or gal can move on, but you can’t. There was something special about Edison’s situation, you’re so sure. There’s a piece of the story missing, some advantage or benefit that wasn’t mentioned.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. No special circumstance in this case, just a special person. Edison just didn’t believe in stopping. He didn’t see failure and disaster in the same way as others. Perhaps he didn’t see them at all.

So let’s cop ourselves an Edison attitude, and never acknowledge obstacles in the average way again. Let’s commit to not sweating the big stuff, and moving on.

Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

He was born in 1955, raised by adoptive parents in Silicon Valley and is among the top topics Googled today. A college dropout, he was a multi-millionaire before the age of 30. He was forced out of the company he started, only to return to become CEO after his second start-up was purchased by the first. And through the sale of yet another company, he became the largest single stock holder of Disney.

The ups and downs of business were accompanied by a few in his life. He’s survived pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant. As a leader, he has as much to offer about life as he does about business. For the two are not separate in his mind.

Reports of the younger Steve Jobs would not include him in the same sentence as a reference to leadership. Seems he was autocratic and a bit cocky. On the contrary, interviews with Apple’s CEO of the last couple of years are rich in insights for happiness and success.

On the business side, focus has been critical. Jobs will tell you it is not about just saying “yes” to one thing, but rather “no” to hundred great ideas. Without discipline in focus, the resources and energy aren’t available to get out in front in a competitive market.

Jobs understands people, the right people, are key, as is delegation and decision-making. “When you hire really good people you have to give them a piece of the business and let them run with it,” he told Fortune magazine. But in doing so, he wants them to make as good or better decisions than himself, so having them up to speed on all parts of the business is crucial. There are no silos for Jobs.

But how does he decide on the right people? Competence is a given, and beyond that the “real issue” is will they fall in love with Apple. This is where life and business blend. It’s all about passion and why an applicant would want to join the team.

This is in total alignment with Jobs approach to life. “I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers,” he said.

He urges people to not settle, but rather keep looking. With work being such a large portion of life, he believes the only way to do really good work is to love what you do.

Living that belief, Jobs says he looks himself in the mirror everyday and asks: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? Whenever the answer has been ‘NO’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

What would you answer your Self in the mirror? Does passion drive you to work every morning? Or are you among those who believe you will be happier when you don’t have to work any more? Perhaps there are too many years before retirement, so you dream of winning the lottery so you can quit.

That’s exactly what one Iowa firefighter did a couple decades ago, as reported in the Des Moines newspaper. With the assurance of a check much larger than his current paycheck, he quit. He bought cars, vacationed and just lived the good life. Then, with the lottery money still coming in, he applied for his job again.

You see he missed the job and all that it meant. What he discovered was that it wasn’t just about the paycheck. Like Jobs, he really loved his job.

As he discovered, and Jobs professes, loving what you do is powerfully fulfilling. And the cliché version of the good life is not dream worthy. This is not a new notion, just a good one to revisit from time to time. French author Albert Camus summed it up rather well many, many years ago:

“Without work all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless life stifles and dies.”

Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

Intuitively it makes sense that transparency with employees allows for greater engagement and more lucrative financial outcomes. Leaders who are transparent evoke trust and a higher level of loyalty.

That newspaper turnaround that I mentioned a few weeks back was accomplished by opening the books and sharing financial results on a monthly basis. It empowered employees to participate in developing new and better processes and products.

I didn’t really think about transparency as putting the employee first, but that’s exactly what it does. And when you take care of the employee, they in turn feel compelled to take care of the customer.

In the latest Inc. magazine, Matt Blumberg, CEO and chairman of the New York company Return Path, talks about transparency and how he has ranked the shareholder behind the customer, who comes after the employee.

Shortly after hiring a Vice President of People to formalize and preserve the company’s culture, Blumberg’s philosophy of transparency and employees first was put to the royal business test. He and his team had decided to sell off part of the company, and proceeded to struggle with what to tell the staff.

The top team was divided, debating about impact from competitors and clients, potential workplace anxiety and talent flight, as well as the trust factor. Blumberg resorted to calling his executive coach, who was able to help him figure out how to maintain alignment with the company’s values and culture. Employees heard it first hand from Blumberg.

In the end, a sale didn’t take place. That portion of the business was broken off into a separate entity, and all continue to prosper.

Prosper and transparency are heard in conjunction more and more. Case in point, the man who wrote the book, Employees First, Customers Second, heads up the fastest growing and most profitable global IT services company. Business Week lists it as one of the 20 most influential companies in the world.

CEO Vineet Nayar, flipped the org chart upside down and made management accountable to HCL Tech’s 57,000 employees five years ago. It’s not just lip service, either. Performance appraisals of all HCL senior managers are posted on the company’s intranet. You can’t get more transparent than that.

Nayar is all about embracing change. He says Gen Y will require high transparency in business. After all it is the generation that grew up in the Facebook community, where they share all.

His implementation strategy incorporates what has been on the business platform for sometime, at least in discussion. It includes creating urgency, sharing the current state so employees can see future possibilities, building trust through transparent communication, nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset, and decentralizing decision-making.

In addition, he transfers the ownership of change to employees. That pretty much gives them license to do some of the driving, or to take the lead so to speak.

Change is known as The New Normal at HCL. Employees are put front and center. You can see for yourself at Unstructure.org, where videos from the company’s conference can be seen.

The opening video is all about kids’ perspectives. And from their mouths, we can hear how change is, indeed, the new normal. Internet is listed among the planets, and as for marriage, the chapel will be left behind for a Facebook ceremony.

Why not follow Nayar’s lead and welcome some of this change inside the walls of our business? There have been enough success stories to show it works. It’s time to believe and get on with empowering employees.
Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

I spent a couple of days last week pedaling my services at a business expo here in Vermont. I wasn’t the only one offering leadership development and coaching. So as good marketing would have you do, I gathered the data on ROI and bottom line impact of my services.

Unfortunately it wasn’t until this week that I read about the “leadership shortage,” as reported by bloggers Sue Ashford and Scott DeRue on the Harvard Business Review site, blogs.hbr.org.

Here are the facts, according to them: 60 percent of companies are facing a leadership talent shortage and another 31 percent expect the shortfall to interfere with performance.
This would lead one to believe leadership development is in high demand, right? Our bloggers tell us an estimated $12 billion was spent last year on said development, which amounted to just under a quarter of the budget allotted for all training and development.

(So I’m sitting here scratching my head, thinking this lack of response is a shortage of leadership in and of itself.)

Ashford and DeRue go on to propose what’s needed to grow new talent. I share some of their views, as do others. Our bloggers speak mostly to cultural values that will allow for the growth of leaders. Keeping the approach simple, they advocate for learning from real life, going beyond skills and knowledge to establish leadership principles, rewarding for growing leaders, and realizing leaders are needed at all levels.

There’s nothing new here, and yet somehow the validity of these notions have not elevated them to a level of common beliefs and practices in business. (Again, I’m puzzling over the current ‘leadership.’)

Leadership comes from within, and thus development rather than training is appropriate. More than general principles, a leader needs to be clear about their personal values. Or in the words of Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, it’s about knowing what you stand for, as an individual. That’s what attracts followers, whether loyal customers or employees, he adds.

According to Peter NG Kok Sung, chief investment officer for the government of Singapore and speaker on “The Contemplative Executive,” the first challenge in achieving this clarity is that of stepping back from the “busyness of business.” An advocate of John Main’s teaching on meditation, Kok Sung quotes Main on the high pressure world of today’s executive: “It’s as though we were rushing through our lives, and in our hearts there is the flame of a candle. Because we are moving at such high speed, this essential interior flame is always on the point of going out.”

Main says a leader must stop being a “busy body,” become quiet, to get in touch with what Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO, called the over-arching quality of a leader, that of authenticity or one’s humanity. Welch further explained it is who we are in our soul.

If today’s executives don’t get it, and aren’t slowing down enough to respond to the shortage they themselves have identified, how will they allow for the development of new leaders? How will they go beyond surface training to a deeper level, one that develops individuals into the leader within, to stand strong in who they are at their core?

Perhaps it would be helpful to contemplate the words of a recognized and successful leader as written in his dying days. Kok Sung relates what he read in Chasing Daylight, a book by the former CEO of KPMG, Eugene Kelly. In his last 100 days, as brain cancer closed in on him, he shares what he learned about clarity and simplicity:

“I had long believed that a successful business person could, if so inclined, live a spiritual life. And to do so it wasn’t necessary to quit the boardroom, chuck it all, and live in an ashram, as if only a physical departure that dramatic would confirm a depth of feeling about larger issues, including one’s soul.

After the diagnosis of my illness, I still believed that. But I also discovered depths to which a business person rarely goes. I learned how worthwhile it was to visit there, sooner rather than later, because it may bring one greater success as a business person and as a human being. You can call what I went through a spiritual journey, a journey of the soul. A journey that allowed me to experience what was there all along but had been hidden, thanks to the distractions of the world.”

Leadership and its development should not be allowed to be lost in the hustle and bustle of the routines of daily business. New leaders, not a crisis, should be the making of the current leadership.

Anita Ancel is President of Ancelary Group, a Vermont firm that helps executives and their teams develop attitudes and habits for ongoing success.

You can often hear the assumptions being made if you listen for them in a conversation. Sometimes it’s a comment that will give it away, other times it is the lack of one. Either way, assumptions tell about the people making them.

These conclusions, made in the absence of knowledge, might be made at the conscious level, but frequently are driven by some kind of subconscious belief and can involve being judgmental. This does not imply, however, that there is any ill intent.

When facilitating communication sessions on this topic, I often start off by tripping into the room. A little later, I’ll ask participants if they checked to see what I tripped on or just assumed that I was a klutz. Klutz it is.

We all make assumptions, but we may not always be aware of it, or why we do so. A great illustration of this is the last jury scene from “Twelve Angry Men,” a 1957 movie starring Henry Fonda.

By the last scene there are three guilty votes, down from 11 jurors believing a boy stabbed his father to death. It is 6:15 in the evening and some want to declare a hung jury. Tempers are all too evident. They decide to go through the evidence one more time.

The last holdout switches his vote after a photo of he and his son falls out of his wallet. He loses it, saying something about rotten kids. He, along with all the other jurors, now understands the bias that was driving his perspective.

You’ve probably run into such prejudices. I have. I’m not a car person, but there is one car that I’ve always liked, an Audi TT. I have one. It’s a 2001, silver with the classic lines that are lost on today’s models. It’s a fun car to drive and gets about 33 miles to the gallon. Oh, and I bought it used, as part of my recycling philosophy.

Friends or not, the typical assumption is that I am rich and this is an expensive car. Well, it was cheaper than the used Subaru Outback that I used to drive when I had kids to chauffer. And it was cheaper than most of the cars these assumers buy.

My husband works with some engineers who had a similar experience. They bought an old, inexpensive Jaguar. After losing too many jobs to assumptions that they would be too expensive or were making too much money, they got rid of it.

Now, I don’t think there is anything wrong with buying a new, expensive car. I don’t assume that people who do are greedy, uncaring or self-centered. But sadly, I’ve heard such assumptions.

Sometimes people just can’t help themselves. As was the case with one friend, who, after I quit my job commented, “You must of gotten one heck of a package.” I realized quitting such a job just wasn’t in his realm of possibility.

Another friend said I was able to quit because I had a husband to support me. I kindly told her it wasn’t the first time I had quit a high paying job. The first time I was a single mother with two children still at home.

Remember our subconscious often plays a part in assumptions, while we remain unaware. You can test this for yourself, if you’d like. I’d suggest you try Race Implicit Association Test or IAT at www.implicit.harvard.edu. It measures your subconscious attitudes toward blacks and whites.

Know that you probably have conscious attitudes that will differ from, contradict even, those that show up on the IAT test. Most do. Harvard’s Mahzarin Banaji says if you’ve lived in North America long, you’ve been inundated with images and information that link whites with good things, and will accordingly create a subconscious bias.

You know, you can’t go wrong with making one assumption. I’ll bet you know what it is.

In January, I sent out cards to current and past clients, encouraging them to see the opportunities beyond the obstacles. The possibilities, numerous and varied, are there if we choose to look.

Obstacles are most often tagged as matters that hinder or create difficulties. Interfering and interrupting, they are seen as a nuisance. Sometimes it’s nothing serious, just an annoyance to be shooed away as if it were a bothersome fly. That’s the glass half-full perspective.

Half-empty looks different. It’s worse. Obstacles become monstrous. They’re our deepest fears, come to stare us in the face of our weakest vulnerabilities. They penetrate our resolve. And we, we succumb.

Now, if we tilt our heads a bit and cock our attitudes we’ll realize there’s yet another perspective. What if we didn’t dread obstacles, rather we marveled in what they offered. Clearly they communicate if we stay the current course without some adjustment, we’re doomed. So why not welcome their lead.

These kinds of shifts are happening all the time; think about it. Experienced, white guys have been joined at the top of corporate ladders by the young, the female, the ethnic, the non-conformist and the globally-connected.

Commuting to the office to talk to others on the phone is frowned upon as not green. No office and virtual workers are more common place.

The mobile phone is replacing PCs as the main connection to the internet, among other uses. Half the Top 10 best selling novels in Japan were written on mobile phones.

The old adage of never give anything away for free has given way to a global free-for-all. Open source, shared templates along with co-creating have been embraced as lucrative business models. Even IBM came around to participating in open source software.

At the root of all of these shifts is a different view. Someone either didn’t see, or saw past and through, the rules, limitations and problems. From their perspective rose the alternatives and some new directions.

Traveling these new paths, the point of departure is often forgotten. The focus is ahead. The unexpected, the once unknown, and the never-before-imagined are along the way. Arrival is in a new place, until, again, seeing goes beyond.

From this vantage point, I’d say, obstacles are among our new, best friends.