Recently, I visited one of the sensational special towns in America: Sausalito, California, is a beautiful place on the North side of the Golden Gate Bridge, toes in the San Francisco Bay, forehead in the quirky bedroom-hills that rise mystically in a tribute to can-do residential construction and inventive street design. To live there is to enjoy Life in civil liberty, close to the Natural World.

The main drag, Bridgeway, parallels the sailboat festooned marina. On a conspicuous street corner is the popular Taste of Rome café. There, on a morning, one orders breakfast or coffee served by Brittany, the most remarkable barista de café on the planet. She is strikingly, humanly, an attraction! She delivers excellent food and beverages, but it is her attitude that attracts people — draws them magnetically — into the place.

If smiles, gestures and talk were luminous threads of gold, she weaves experiences of heart-filled distinction for each customer. No one is ignored her grace. The woman is a dynamo of cheer that triggers reciprocity. I ordered a medium very chocolate mocha (“You got it!” she said, like I owned the place) and it triggered a relational appreciation that was infectious long into my day.

Later, I spoke with my host — a dear friend who lives in architectural splendor on hillside stilts — about the woman who serves at the café, and before I could finish my friend extolled recollection and appreciation about the Paragon of Attitude. Clearly, I’d discovered a known treasure.

The next day, my host and I took a morning stroll on the boardwalk by the marina, and intent on stopping for coffees, we burst into appreciation for the treasured woman at the café. We could have spent the time otherwise.

On entering the café, I saw the woman was being of service, balancing lattes and bagels, and so I greeted her. She’d served me only once before, and in the same sentence convinced me I was recognized and told my friend that she’d start “her favorite” — a medium extra wet latte — and the woman was quick, and accurate. As we chatted with The Most Remarkable Barista on the Planet, a burly Russian Sausalitan witnessed the scene appreciatively, and said he was allergic to caffeine and the only reason he comes there each morning is the woman who serves black coffee and new possibilities.

She told us it flows from her choice of awareness at the start of every day. She chooses indomitable heartfulness. Really large, with extra foam! “You got it!!!”

Inside us all is a pulse like her’s…this being of service heart that transforms days and visions. 

How do you influence such possibilities in people? What is your strategy for generative action?

One of our innate tests of effective leadership is reverence.

Sadly, reverence is somewhere off-stage today, jammed into a box in some civic storage facility for a social fee. There, we keep the nostalgic things, and stuff we are just too lazy to handle but we suspect still have value. Like reverence.

You remember reverence, don’t you? It’s about deep respect for someone or something. Somehow, we’ve lost respect for the word, and “reverence” makes us feel uncomfortable outside of a religious context. We live in a world lacking respect. Respect is due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others: respect for human rights.

“Leaders” who cause trauma are partly to blame. Yet, if we aren’t practicing a strong set of core social values (like fairness and reciprocity) that preempt gregarious greed, we play a role in this, too. When people imitate arrogant, selfish leaders, they get what they deserve, and this is very difficult to reverse.

We must be discerning about the company we keep and where we place our reverence. Lofty aspirations are less important than attending to worthy and virtuous actions. The company we keep and the discernment we bring to our attention and attendance is of primary and disproportionate importance.

Feeling deep reverence for your politicians or corporate executives, lately?

If so, write and tell me who they are and what supports your reverence. I’d like to feature them appreciatively.

[Fritch Consulting facilitates business growth by collaborating with leaders who are striving with core-values to insightfully "do the right thing."  I write and speak out of my deep concern for the current crisis of integrity in leadership, with the hope of creating a more discerning conversation and promoting effective action.  Your viewpoints are appreciated and I would be happy to continue the conversation — so I encourage you to Comment (below) or contact me directly: bruce@fritchconsulting.com.  — Bruce W. Fritch]

It’s that time of year to reflect on personal effectiveness and to navigate the course forward. Newton informed us that speed is measured relative to some relevant object. Similarly, strategic effectiveness is evaluated relative to one’s mission.

Mission – be it organizational or personal – is mystifying to many. And yet, a mission that is well conceived and well executed can be purposeful, differentiating and profitable. When mission powerfully informs action, it is a vital tool for success.

Most people favor mission statements that are brief, to the point, and memorable. I agree, yet every mission statement regardless of length should trigger curiosity and prompt conversation.

My mission is to support extraordinary leadership. Since you are reading this, my guess is: we are well matched.

A simple test of mission-orientation is congruence over the course of time.

What is your mission?

Consider this: Mission is the difference one intends to make in the lives of those one serves. If you wish, you can write me about your mission. My email address is bruce@fritchconsulting.com.

Bob Schieffer is one of the grand masters of television news journalism. He is easily irritated by flack politicians, and impatient to get to the truth. In his job as anchor of the venerable “Face The Nation” on CBS, he appears to regard many of his guests as leadership impostures.

So, his commentary on the December 18th broadcast was an arrow to the heart of the matter, a bullseye shot, well earned and well delivered. You can view it here — all one minute and 45 seconds of it.

It begins: “After watching Congress flounder around for an entire year and manage to accomplish nothing, I’ve come up with my own reform plan: Just create a Second Congress…”

Realizing how the self-justification of personal greed and status grandiosity corrupts, Schieffer gets rid of these motivations entirely. His highly focused and functional Second Congress would do the work that desperately needs to be done, while the current Congress — stripped of all authority — would continue to devote itself to ”finding ways to avoid doing anything that actually mattered to anyone but them.”

Do you presume your “constituents” appreciate your leadership? Do you know? How can you be sure? 

Have a competent, incorruptible, third-party researcher conduct a “leadership 360 study.” The feedback you receive from this data obtained confidentially from your boss, peers and direct reports will give you the truth and the consequences, with recommendations for improving your leadership effectiveness.

Isn’t the world a very silly place right now? What a funny stage the United States of America presents for watching the play of “leaders.” Come laugh with me at just a few of the jokers:

• ”Stunned Disbelief Jon Corzine” — ex-chief executive of defunct MF Global, accused of disappearing up to $1.2 billion of customer funds — testified before the Congress of the United States on December 8th, declaring, “I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date.” That’s too hilarious for the work of professional gag writers. He was the CEO! It is very complicated to disappear $.5 billion to $1.2 billion. You don’t do it alone. Yet no other adults on the planet stopped it before it completely disappeared. Who’s laughing now? Do you suspect that Mr. Corzine, who had been U.S. Senator Corzine and Governor Corzine of the State of New Jersey, left the Congressional hearing and proceeded into the rest of his life with a sense of entitlement?

• Ah! The U.S. Congress and the Executive Branch is so full of jokers today that despite oaths to work for the public good, these jokers bend noise and light to make their corruption sound and look attractive…but, only to themselves! Wait! Hark, what goes there? Isn’t that America going around in circles, headed down the drain? What a riot!

• Recently, a well-known assistant college football coach and a well-known assistant college basketball coach were accused of molesting minors countless times, without any other adult stopping their pedophile practices. Isn’t it uproariously funny to consider these guys may have qualified for the priesthood.

• Of the eight major banks that did receive TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) Funds, including Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. (including Merrill Lynch), Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of New York Mellon and State Street Corp., governments have not brought indictments against any of the executives or board members. What a practical joke! Just ask the investigative team at “60 Minutes,” who must be slaphappy after researching this bizarre blockage for nine months.

• Kooky practitioners in the fields of organizational effectiveness (OE), organizational development (OD), and leadership development (LD) can receive masters and doctorate degrees in their “profession” without the commitment or know how to sustain core values in organizations. Rather than being champions of core social values in the face of arrogant executive superficiality and greed, they are happy with the intriguing fun of intervention processes aimed at tactical change.

• The EPA, after months of inaction and more months of “studying the problem” finally declared that hydraulic fracturing (commonly called fracking) by pressure injecting caustic chemicals deep underground to obtain natural gas, is probably harmful to health. In Wyoming, ground water in proximity to fracking operations was found to contain dangerous quantities of some funny stuff potable water must not contain: benzene, methane and the chemicals that comprise household bleach. EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency. Citizens of Wyoming are still looking for environmental protection from their state government.

• And then there are those fruit loop funsters, the troopers at record-setting Goldman Sachs, which recently announced mega end-of-year bonuses, rivaling the prior record for bonuses, set in the years those hilarious humanitarians were receiving TARP funds. Emmett Kelly, eat your heart out!

How do you deal with these zany pranksters many call “leaders”? Do you read the news each day near a toilet, afraid the violent laughter that ensues might make you pee in your pants? Essentially, my question is: How do you contain yourself?!!!

Today, there is a crisis of leadership integrity that is widely discussed and documented, but there is little being done about it.  In fact, one of the biggest stories written in the last four years is the lack of consequence for Boards and C-Suites (offices of the corporate Chief executives) that have behaved in a sociopathic fashion.

When the early luminaries of the field variously called “organizational effectiveness” (OE) or “organizational development” (OD) or “leadership development” (LD) initially asserted themselves, they were action researchers, developing their concepts for assessing organizational effectiveness and for improving the effectiveness of organizations.  Greater organizational effectiveness was a good investment, it was reasoned. Constructive impertinence was their brilliance brand, and they focused on business and military organizations with a certain righteousness.  Among those who articulated OE/OD/LD thinking were Chris Argyris (double-loop learning and organizational learning), Len Nadler (mentoring, workstyles and life styles), and Warren Bennis (ethical influencing, and change leadership). They were not intending to serve a sort of impermanent Lego Capitalism.

Their perspective was highly responsible: To influence C-Suites and entire organizations to consciously maintain core civil values as the lodge pole of any organization’s effectiveness. Core civil values were regarded as the responsibility of the leaders of the organization. Leaders, it was held, had a serious responsibility to civilization and the community, and shareholders would profit from this. The corrupting theory that shareholder value was paramount did not occur until the 1980s, as MBA programs proliferated.

But the challenge of upholding core civil values paled in the competition with personal wealth building — an intrigue that increasingly infected corporate C-Suites and Corporate Boardrooms.

That the field of OE/OD/LD changed significantly in the last 30-years is obvious. It was one of the few developments where the C-Suite did not demand more. The field failed at its original nobel goal, overdosing instead on subordination and an addiction to “group process.”

The process of superficiality and greed-socialization implied by the widening pay gap between the average CEO compensation and the average hourly worker wages has informed the growth of anxiety, fear, and mediocrity in organizations. This is widely known, but it has not appeared to inspire an effective reaction from the OE/OD/LD field.

To be effective, the practitioners of organizational effectiveness, organizational development, and leadership development must become:

• More strategically related to the growth and success of the organization.
• Less oriented to tactics, manipulation and intervention  process.
• More responsible for core civil values of the C-Suite, the organization, and Civilization.
• Higher profile – less contract and project-oriented – more mission-oriented.
• Less a subsidiary of HR.
• More of a Conscience of the Corporation.
• More tested for budget and technique.
• More accountable for courage and moral imperative.

OE/OD/LD has not had its intended impact – and in essence, the impact has not been strategic and lasting.  In the process, billions of dollars have been wasted. It is not likely that this will change for the better without persistent and brilliant change within the community.  It’s time for the practitioners of organizational effectiveness, organizational development, and leadership development to transform — becoming conscious, brilliant and persistent in finding ways to achieve the goal of effecting this change, transforming the quality of leadership, innovation and culture of American organizations.

If you think this crisis will pass like a Veterans’ Day Parade where you watch and thank God you are not marching, think again! If you don’t understand your stake in this opportunity, call me. Let’s have a conversation.

I enjoy holidays, and Thanksgiving is my favorite! It is a day for gratitude and good conversation, sincerity and reflection. Born out of Early American multi-cultural history, it is simultaneously universal, and it supports our global appetite for right action. I am with family and fun in Vail, Colorado, this year. As I recall, each of my Thanksgiving holidays have been loving and wonderful, and I am truly thankful in my heart.

The ability of a person to emanate from a space of compassion, wisdom and strategic boundaries is a hallmark of the adult. The adult resides in each of us, more remotely in some than others.

It is our dharma to do the work of being our adult selves in the world…of standing to our full height…of being human beings. The Native Americans use that phrase as an honor, not as an excuse. For example, they confer on certain elders the title of true human being, or great human being. It honors the adult state — distinct from the adolescent — as the ultimate prize of contentment and happiness goes to the adult.

Among all of the tools in your “medicine bag,” the most essential are respect for your Self and respect for your Life.

What we are doing here on Earth is about personal growth and significant contribution to the container that is civilization. Here, we add value in two ways: (1) directly, by our actions every day, and (2) indirectly, by the example we set for others to emulate — profoundly, for our children and grandchildren and others do emulate. So, action supports emulation, and these yield civilization. We have a lot of choice in the quality of civilization that evolves.

In many ways, the legacy you leave lives in those who take inspiration for how they can act every day – when they see their possibilities reflected in the mirror you represent.

Be adult. Practice non-violence. Be clear about boundaries and goals. The Natural Force that aids truth and leadership and core values will be there to support you, illumining your actions. May the Force Be with You.

Are you consciously living with purpose and joy, with faith and contentment? Be thankful for that. Happy Thanksgiving!

There are people who are remarkable, core-values-oriented, inspirational leader-activists — and yet most people are not.  Humanitarian leader-activists are the ones who keep the fabric of civilization skillfully repaired. More so, at times, they weave it artfully, with new strengths, advanced patterns and compelling textures. They are human beings, and humanity depends on them.

Some are famous, including Ghandi, Angelou, Lincoln, Franklin, Teresa, Carter, Clinton. (Hardly an exhaustive list.) Thank goodness for them, and for the example they set. Knowing them enables us to emulate their actions. Civilization grows by such emulation.

You have heard of others who are private and humble, yet their impact exceeds their fame. One remarkably effective humanitarian we would be smart to emulate is Molly Barker, Founder and Vision Keeper of Girls On The Run International.

Girls on the Run® is a non-profit prevention program educating and preparing preteen girls for a lifetime of self-respect and healthy living through running. Their curricula addresses all aspects of girls’ development — their physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual well-being.  It is a lot more than a running program.

One of Molly B’s sayings is, “ The only requirement of having a dream is believing in it.” This artful leader runs her talk, weaving happy colors and genuine confidence into the fabric of civilization. In a few years, this four-time Hawiaii Ironman triathlete will have elevated the lives of millions of girls, and with this each of us!

I have no interest in calling someone a leader simply because they are in a position of authority. Given the state of the world today, we need leaders who have a constructive impact on civilization — an impact that supersedes greed.

It is remarkable how humanitarian leaders can proceed from dissimilar backgrounds — with dissimilar training, and dissimilar resources, and vastly dissimilar appearances — yet, similarly show signs of inner synchronicity and obvious inspiration. We know each is too rare. We group them, aware that the groupings are very, very small. Then, we ask what makes them do what they do: “What makes them tick?” …as we warm in the light of their aspiration.

It is so interesting to me to witness humanitarian leaders invariably holding the same reverence for humanitarian leadership. Same respect. Similar awe. Identical naive inquiry: “Isn’t it great! Thank God! What makes them tick?” You see, being such a human being does not proceed from heavy thinking — isn’t it more in the generous acting. We are left to use metaphoric language and imagery, dumb-struck as we are by their energy, persistence and vision, and often by their sacrifice, too.

As a student of leadership, I am not quick to explain their trick. After years of inquiry, I feel they each has a very special inner algorithm, the rhythm of which each must follow — for it is their inner program that makes them tick.

What are the signs of your inner program ticking generatively. Are you self-conscious with my question. Despite this, do you take a licking and keep on ticking, generously?