Memorable…

I’m reading Churchill A Biography © by Roy Jenkins.  Churchill of course, was a world famous leader with a world famous persona and someone often quoted even today - 59 years after his passing.  59 years after?  I’d call that memorable. 

His critics (of which he had many) would suggest what he spoke about and how he spoke it was, 

     More memorable than meaningful 

                        Roy Jenkins 

Winston Churchill certainly had a memorable style.  He was meaningful, too.  Here’s what I found on Google (but don’t ask me to remember where I found it): 

Historians widely attribute Churchill with being “the greatest statesman of the 20th century.” Churchill was an effective leader and statesman because of his tremendous ability to inspire people; his unique strategic insight; his relentless passion; and his imperturbable personality. 

In addition to being highly publicized during his time, Churchill was highly criticized.  To be fair, that’s nothing unique.  He was a politician and a leader.  Plenty of fodder for criticism there: 

The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. 

Will Rogers 

When I led sales teams I always worried about connecting with my salespeople.  When criticized, it made me feel I was failing them; made me question my inspirational skills.  Criticism can have that effect.  We all have our critics, even the great ones.  But meaningful leaders don’t let criticism get in the way: 

The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided. 

Casey Stengel 

I get the challenge of being meaningful in the 21^st century.  As a leader or a parent or a teacher or just an individual, meaningfulness in today’s day and age seems to be fleeting.  Is it going the way of memorable? 

Have you noticed the disappearance of memorable, especially as it pertains to social media?  Maybe it’s related to our ever-shortening attention span which I wrote about recently.  (Did you see it?  Do you remember it?)  Maybe we are losing “memorable” on purpose: 

Irish Blessing: 

May you never forget what is worth remembering, or remember what is worth forgetting. 

Unknown Sage 

Struggling with “worth remembering” vs. forgetting happens to me all the time.  I see something posted on LinkedIn, Facebook, or some other social media site and it doesn’t register immediately.  When I go back and try to find it I feel the weight of 2.5 quintillion bytes of Internet data (that’s 2,500,000,000,000,000,000) created each day preventing the ability to retrieve anything.  Meaningful; memorable; it doesn’t matter; it’s buried. 

“Don ‘t worry, Gary” you might offer; just use the Google machine.  Ian Leslie wrote this about that in Curious ©: 

Human memory is inefficient and unreliable in comparison to machine memory, but it's this very unpredictability that's the source of our creativity.  It makes connections we'd never consciously think of making, smashing together atoms that our conscious minds keep separate.  Digital databases cannot yet replicate the kind of serendipity that enables the unconscious human mind to make novel patterns and see powerful new analogies, of the kind that lead to our most creative break throughs.  The more we outsource our memories to Google, the less we are nourishing the wonderfully accidental creativity of our unconscious. 

Not being “wonderfully accidental” might mean we are all becoming less memorable (and less meaningful, too).  Relying on Google and the AI machines can lead to diminishing meaningful, don’t you think?  Ah yes, “thinking”… don’t get me started! 

                                                            GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

NTK …

I was reminded of the Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington movie, Crimson Tide, the other day.  Did you see it?  I consider it "must see" for managers and business leaders. 

There were so many examples of leadership styles and management techniques in that movie, all set in a high-tension storyline.  There was racial tension between Hackman and Washington; age tension; the "corporate ladder" tension of a commanding officer threatened by the second-in-command replacing him (which happened briefly during the movie). 

There were many examples of Gene Hackman using management techniques to put subordinates "on edge"; contrasted with Denzel being Denzel and remaining calm and reassuring to all around.  Not to mention the high-tension storyline - a US submarine accidentally bringing the world to the brink of thermonuclear war. 

I was reminded of this movie when one of my clients was telling me about his resignation.  He told me he was a senior member of his team.  Maybe not second-in-command, but senior enough to have earned the privilege of “being informed”. Instead, he told me he felt he was constantly being left out; kept in the dark.  He found that to be disrespectful.  So he quit. 

IMHO, all employees want to be kept informed.  No one wants to be left out; kept in the dark.  I believe adults want our leaders to continually communicate, " where we're at and where we're going... where we're at and where we're going..."  

I suppose we should be mindful of Abbott's Admonitions: 

If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. 

If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. 

And Captain Penny reminds us that management techniques used at work may not work the same at home. 

Captain Penny's Law 

You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool Mom. 

The leadership style I particularly tuned into in the Crimson Tide movie was Gene Hackman’s line he yelled over and over in the face of every scene of crisis and tension, "Keep your people informed!" 

Now we all know business is not war and thankfully we don't face life or death crises week in and week out as portrayed by Hollywood.  Hopefully, at your company you don’t face racial tension; age tension; corporate ladder tension; and the like in Crimson Tide.  But keeping employees continuously informed seems to be a good management practice – a good business practice - to me. 

In leadership’s defense, we followers have a responsibility, too.  If we don’t hold up our end of the bargain we discourage management from keeping us informed: 

Chisholm's Third Law 

No matter how long or how many times you explain, no one is listening. 

Unfortunately, that can lead to another management practice that is all too common in corporate America today – NTK; need to know.  This phrase even shows up in the Cambridge Dictionary©: 

            on a need-to-know basis 

If you tell people something on a need-to-know basis, you only tell them the facts they need to know at the time they need to know them, and nothing more. 

NTK doesn’t need to cause animosity; we don’t always have to quit do we? 

Shirley's Law 

Most people deserve each other. Forgive and remember. 

Nonetheless, which would you prefer from your managers and leaders?  Gene Hackman yelling, “Keep your people informed!”?  Or NTK? 

Personally, I'm hopeful our managers and leaders watch Crimson Tide. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.