The Fruits of Staying Neutral in the Triangle

A recent New York Times article about Barack Obama’s time at the University of Chicago Law school got me thinking about triangles.

The article talks about how Senator Obama would listen carefully to the two sides of an argument (the base of the triangle), but stay neutral to those two sides (as the top of the triangle).

Early in the article Richard Epstein, a former colleague is quoted:
“His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings.”

And later on the article states:
When two fellow faculty members asked him to support a controversial antigang measure, allowing the Chicago police to disperse and eventually arrest loiterers who had no clear reason to gather, Mr. Obama discussed the issue with unusual thoughtfulness, they say, but gave little sign of who should prevail.

A couple of things strike me here.

The first is the potential power of being that neutral presence between two opposing – and even polarized – parties. In being a skilled neutral presence and a good listener, one could bring the discussion to another level by giving both sides a generous audience with which to clarify their thoughts.

Is a heated argument really helped by having more people to argue one side or the other with added eloquence or conviction? I doubt it – give me a great listener any day and the process has a much better chance of moving forward.

The second thing that strikes me is that Senator Obama’s neutrality is regarded with a certain disdain. As if it’s a sin to be neutral on an issue. Yet I wonder if taking stands comes at a cost, and as such is an endeavor to take on carefully and intentionally. “Pick your battles” if you will

I could see how such a positioning could be seen as frustrating for an intellectual, and yet be very pragmatic. It leaves me to wonder if I too readily take stands, especially on polarized issues, and that what cost. Perhaps I can benefit from more often being neutral in the triangle.

Leadership, community, and reaching out

One of my passions is dancing in Argentine tango. And because it “takes two to tango” dancing tango means being part of the tango community. I have had the opportunity to visit and be a part of many different tango communities, and I’ve begun puzzling over why one community feels so different from the next.

I don’t have “the answer” but I have noticed something. In every community there are people who are the de facto leaders – because they are organizers, or they have been around for a long time, or they are exceptionally talented. And the way in which they interact with the rest of the community, especially new people, has a big impact on the vibe of the group.

I was recently visiting Eran in Philadelphia and we went out to a milonga. Within about five minutes of my arrival, a kindly Italian gentleman introduced himself and asked me where I was from. He was extremely welcoming, friendly, and encouraging.

Furthermore he checked back with me through the night a couple of times to see how I was feeling. It isn’t always easy to walk into a room full of strangers, and so getting a good welcome makes a big difference. And I’ve found that as the evening progressed, most people there were also pretty friendly. I believe that the leaders of this community had set the tone.

So what does this mean for me as the leader? I naturally tend to be a bit introverted. And so it wouldn’t be my first impulse as a de facto community leader to reach out to people, introduced myself, and help them get comfortable in the room. And yet it can make such a huge difference for helping a nice community to get rolling.

Leaders can make a big difference for a community by setting a norm of being welcoming and reaching out – connecting.

Naming confusion and emotional fusion

Eran and I have been teaching an in-depth class on Supportive Listening over the past few months. And in the class discussions about the at times irresistible urge to give advice, we've talked about emotional fusion, or fusion for short.

The one liner on emotional fusion is this:

Emotional fusion is when the boundaries between two people become blurred to the extent that it's unclear where one ends and the other begins.

Much more on this later. For now, I found a fascinating New York times article about how some Barrack Obama supporters are taking on his middle name, Hussein as a show of solidarity.

On the hand, sure, Obama's getting a rough time from hard core conservatives about a given middle name that doesn't play well in part of the country. And some of his supporters want to take a stand and say "this isn't right." Fine.

But it seems very "fusiony" to me to then take on that name as well. Seems to blur the boundaries between self and other. This is one symptom of Obama-mania--supporters who take on his name.

Whether I support Obama or not is beside the point--the broader issue is that there is a man running for president, and a phenomenon around him. Something special is happening, and everyone picks up on that--even those (especially those?) who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

It leads me to wonder, in the midst of such emotional intensity, and the resulting fusion, where this energy may lead, and what the guy at the center, Mr. Obama, would be wise to do about it.

Pitfalls of Research

The world's understanding of leadership, at a detailed level, is anecdotal at best. Sometimes we can point to someone and say "now there's a good leader." But how do we know? And how did they get that way?

Cutting-edge research, such as the use of fMRI scans of brains, has great promise to unlock the mysteries of leadership. I believe that we need strong links to hard science of some kind to build a foundation upon which to move the field of leadership development forward. Things we can measure that go beyond one's whim on a multiple choice scale on any given day.

But of course it will take some time as the field sorts out the new research data and methods. In the mean time, what's happening is that research is quoted several times down the chain, and by the time it ends up in the newspaper, it can be very distorted.

My friend and colleague Eran Magen has been fantastic about pointing out to me my own faults of what I think is "proven" and "understood" from brain research. For example you may have heard of the "evils" of the amygdala, which is blamed for "hijacking" people's reasoning in times of crisis.

This was supposedly deduced by studies in which the subjects are being scanned, and then are put through a stressful situation, and asked to make choices. Sure enough, the amygdala lights up, and they make dumb choices. Cut and dried, right? Ah, but the problem is that the amygdala "lights up" (gets a lot of blood flow) in really different situations, too. Rather than being a panic button, it could simply be something that activates when the brain thinks something important is happening, be it dangerous or otherwise.

Here's the key point I want to leave you with--be cautious of any research that you hear quoted, especially from a distance, that makes a clear, simple, definitive conclusion about human behavior and leadership. We're still in the early days.

How surfers deal with intensity

Have you heard of Mavericks? It's the big surfing competition near Santa Cruz, California that happens in winter, depending on predicted wave conditions. The organizers watch for just the right time, and if it happens, then they call the surfers, and the competition starts 3 days later. Some years the contest doesn't happen. But it did this January.

If you haven't seen the pictures, have a look--the waves are a big. As you might imagine, it is actually dangerous. The waves can reach 30 feet, crest to height. In fact in 1994, legendary surfer Mark Foo died in the waves at Maverick. It's for real.

Now picture it--you're a surfer competing in Maverick and you've made it to the final 5. There is prize money on the line, IN ADDITION to huge, exhilarating, but dangerous waves. Faced with this situation, the final 5 in this year's contest made a very interesting decision going into the final: they agreed to split the prize money.

huh? What happened to competition? To winning?

I have a speculation. I wonder if these guys wanted to just take the money out of the equation, reduce the intensity.

Why? To be looser, have more fun, and of course be more capable in the waves. A better chance at flow. I mean the stakes are already high enough, so why not take the money out of the equation, and be left with just good, clean competition? I wonder, too, if the high physical stakes creates a certain kinship.

Read for yourself and see what you think.