On Leadership

I was hijacked last night into attending a going away celebration for a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. She’s an amazing person with a strong personality, my favorite feature in my female friends. The party was all former work buddies, and the friend who invited me is another strong smart kick-ass-and take-notes kind of gal. (You see the theme here, don’t you?)

The gathering was held at a little Champaign bar called Flute in the Flatiron District. It was dark and a little smoky from the too-pungent candles burning to mask the stale smells behind the bar. It had that old red curtained look that says simultaneously trying too hard to be a revered neighborhood establishment and brothel. My kidnapper lead me back to the party room, where I saw smiles light up on faces I hadn’t seen in almost a year. These were the people who spent so many hours together with me driving the advertising or web campaign projects forward with little applause from their client audiences. They were, as I remember, motivated by each other’s company and intelligence. (The latter was not in short supply at this particular agency.)  I got some hugs, some pats on the back and a few kisses. I had fun years ago with these people. Now I had reason to remember.

The going-away girl was leaving the agency for a new job. It is more than another job, though. It is an opportunity, as the headhunters and realtors like to say. In her case, it’s true. There is a startup, a need, a skill set that she alone possesses. There is a connection through a friend, a cultural match and a nervous expectation on all sides for great delivery of service and performance for a company with big plans. There is a vision. 

I loved seeing her so relaxed, holding a $30 glass of Champaign for which the waitress never warned of the price. Somehow my friend, who is French, understood that this was the moment for a slip on extravagance and not a scene with a too-busy and ill-tempered waitress.  She turned to me with a smile that said this was not her first glass, then gave me a big hug for the surprise I presented by showing up. At gatherings like these there is only one moment to speak privately with the person being toasted, so I took my cue.

I said in all frankness that I was so happy for the company that hired her. Without taking a breath for her to respond, I continued. I told her she needed to move on, that her full talent was yet to be realized and that her personality, which is brassy and strong, was a magnetic force that drew others to her. I told her that she had charisma, that she was a natural leader, and that she wasn’t yet aware of how powerful a tool that skill really was in the world. I told her this new job is a big responsibility and that we should always take on responsibilities that we are not sure we can handle. That it’s good to be a little scared. It keeps us sharp.

She was uncharacteristically silenced. She blinked once and said what a beautiful compliment that was. I countered with its truth. What she said then surprised me a little. She said not all people like her, which might be true given the very strong and French manner she has of conducting herself at meetings. (I love the way she speaks. So declaratively without hesitation. But that’s me.) 

In all honesty I can’t remember how I responded to her, but I have thought about it since. I think the currency of an effective leader is not friendship. On the contrary, friendship can actually hinder a leader from doing her job. Professional friendships can present an opportunity for a raised eyebrow outside the relationship. I don’t mean to say friendships are not healthy in business. Some close friendships have been born from close working situations (even the occasional affair, which has its own set of feature-benefits and pitfalls). I only mean to say that friendship is not the means by which leaders lead. As I looked at this young woman, I searched for the reason I think she will lead effectively. I have a respect for both her skills and for her direct, results-producing communication. The truth? When I first met her, she frightened me a bit. Her directness threatened me, mostly because I am usually the one doing the offending with my freelance-trained personal branding confidence. (Yes. I can be a dick in a meeting.) So it dawned on me that the most effective leaders I have known barter in respect. I had respect for their personal and professional skills. And they showed respect for my effort and ability. It’s a very pragmatic thing to trade in when you are running a business. Someone you respect can get shit done.  And you’ll work harder for someone you respect. It’s not mood-based.

I told my friend that she had a charisma and that’s why people were drawn to her. While that’s true (at least in my opinion), what I think she will really need is the dual ability to draw people to her and cultivate a mutual respect. Developing mutual respect among peers is a learnable skill, an overlooked yet totally renewable resource in business. I learned it from my managers, but not by instruction. By example. 

John and Yoko

I was just listening to the old Dick Cavette interview of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that was taped around 1971. Apparently it’s the anniversary of John’s death today. Dick Cavette wrote in his usually charmed and eloquent style of how he came to interview the odd iconic pair. Insights he’s gained in the ensuing years on what it meant and how it went.

John talked about death for just a minute. He wasn’t comfortable with the fame he had, and ruminated on how fame really made the experience of being a Beatle kind of awful. He just wanted to be left alone to write music. And be with Yoko. He said he didn’t really care about what happened after he died. He wanted to be forgotten. He marveled at how when a person said something he probably forgot it immediately and someone would bring it up years later and say, “what about this thing you said?” And John made the joke that he had forgotten it or his mood had changed. Almost as if someone else had said it.

This was oddly prophetic coming from a man who, after his death, has been quoted through his song and speech countless times. Everything he said became a sort of gospel. But I was so charmed by him, just sitting there being John Lennon. The fact that he never got old and became this doddering old guy in an interview filmed with some other talk show host, maybe plugging his memoirs or his latest album, struck me as oddly funny. John would never grow old. He inadvertently discovered the fountain of youth by dying young and leaving a sweet, intelligent, highly-quotable legacy.

My birthday came a few days ago. I wrote as my FB status: growing old is a privilege. When I wrote that, I was thinking how so many people in my life will not celebrate a birthday ever again. I think of my friends over the years who have died, my father, other family members who would love to share a beer and toast themselves over a too-sweet piece of cake and a candle. That’s how that felt when I wrote that. Now a few days into my 49^th year (ouch) I am revisiting that phrase. John Lennon made me think that maybe the privilege is not just having a birthday but redefining yourself as you age. John is the same forever now, unable to say anything more. Whatever he is remembered for is static, perhaps being reinterpreted like scripture by the priests of modern-day historians.

The privilege is really ours to squander.  I am not the person I was even a few months ago. Life forces me to change and duck and roll as it continuously throws punches my way. But that’s not new. I’m just more aware of it now since the changes of the last year forced me to wake up, strap in and grab the wheel of this out-of-control race car. Not even a year ago I told myself I could not see the future. I was too busy looking back at the past trying to understand what the hell that was and mourn its demise. At best, it’s a hazy view looking over my shoulder at the past. There are sweet spots and bitter, bright and cloudy. Even though the view was bad, it was better than looking at the bleakness ahead. I just saw an empty landscape there.

I don’t know how it happens, but life moves through all the time. I am not even aware of its motion. I am like a ship crossing a great ocean at night. No points reference. Nothing to hang onto but the stars. And suddenly I’m in this new part of the ocean. Had I been paying attention I would have seen it coming, or relaxed knowing that it would eventually arrive. Wherever the now location is, I see something here I didn’t know existed: the chance to make of it whatever I want. If I ignore the opportunity altogether, the environment will be the defining factor. However I approach it, I’m in this new oceanscape. And unlike John, I can change what happens now.

Pressured

So I’m out with a friend for dinner and another friend greets us. I get up to give him a hello and I see some weird cloudy sh*t moving in from the side of my vision. I hang into him as the clouds take over. I find myself staring into his blank stare. Now I’m sitting on the bench. My friend is sitting next to me. Also the blank stare. Twilight zone. “Are you OK?” Me: “Uh, What happened?”

One of these guys is a nurse. Thinks I had a stroke. Asks me to read some signs. (apparently when you have a stroke you can’t read for a while.) I read the signage. In the clear, only not quite. What the hell was that? A drop in blood pressure, he says, from standing up.  Great. I’ll spend the rest of my life sitting in a wheelchair afraid to greet anybody.

Now, a few years back, when I was having a helluva time trying to get a job out of grad school, I was having these amazing headaches. Stressed. Not sleeping. Whackjob 101. So the doctor says, blood pressure is borderline.  So on top of being stressed about everything else, I have to be reminded that I’m now MIDDLE AGED! So I take some low dose of BP medicine. My whole family is on this drug, so I feel like there has been some personal guinea pig action close to home. I won’t die from side effects. Aside from being so expensive I apply for a mortgage to get my first doses. (More stress/no insurance.) But al in all, a successful induction into the perma-pharma-addicted population. Headaches gone. Sleeping better. Ta-dah!

Fast forward two years: I get divorced, pull a disc in my back, go through physical therapy and get the sage advice to lose weight and get in shape. Today I have lost 15 pounds and am in the best shape I’ve been in 10 years. (See? There are a few silver linings to the dark cloud of breaking up.) But wait. The dark side. I am still using this blood pressure reducing crack. My nurse buddy takes my pressure: 103/58. I have the BP of a 16 year old living in  Sub-Saharan Africa. So my doctor says dump the drug and let’s see what happens. So this week is a big experiment. I am drug free to see if I’ve kicked the high blood pressure habit. If this is true, this is amazing. I thought once you go on that stuff you’re forever popping pills from pharmaceutical companies that take all your disposable income for the rest of your life, switching them with higher and higher priced versions as much as your body and insurance can tolerate. This is a pleasant surprise, baby. Preventative medicine can not only keep things from happening, it can reverse the verdict on some decisions.  Maybe I should give up smoking crack, too.

Why the Big Suit?

I’m not big on suits now, but I used to think it meant you had a real job when you wore a suit. When I first arrived in the Big City years ago I had three suits. I wore them every day to my job as a glorified secretary. I looked ridiculous. I wanted to be an account exec. The suits were hand me downs from my brother, who was a lawyer, so I thought I was way stylish.

Not too long after that I decided that account work was for dorks and that I really wanted to be a Creative,^TM one of those cool guys who wore jeans to meetings and never seemed to get enough coffee. I became a copywriter. Years of meetings later I was still wearing jeans. Then I started making some money. I started to eat better lunches (not pizza), hanging out in film editing houses where sweets and sandwiches kept coming in. I also bought better jeans. The jeans started to have bigger waist sizes. I became creative director (for a hot minute) and found myself in the unfamiliar situation of having to wear a suit to present my work to the Client®.  I already had a suit in my closet poised for the odd wedding or funeral that might pop up, but that rag was feeling a little, um, dated. So I went out and bought a New Suit.^SM

The new suit was an understated dark blue, no stripe, Italian number. Nice fabric, two button, ventless. Sweet. No sooner had I returned from the store when I discovered that my awesome job running the creative department was over. For whatever reason I was back to actually doing the work. Bummer. I was a jeans-wearing grunt once again.

Today I have a meeting with another Client.^TM  This time I’m a Strategist,^SM which means I generally talk more and produce almost nothing but PowerPoint decks. For this meeting, where I will actually meet a person, I need to wear a suit. So I took to my closet in search of that Italian number. I took it out and tried on the jacket. When I looked in the mirror I saw David Byrne from Talking Heads. The shoulder pads jutted out like a linebacker. I looked like a kid dressing up for Halloween. And the pants revealed something else: I was a fat Creative Director. I could probably have put these pants on without unbuttoning the front now. I looked like either a very stylish homeless guy or Tom Hanks in the last scene of Big. The suckiest part of this picture is the price tag dangling off the cuff of the suit. I hadn’t even worn it once and it had to be retired.

Now I remind you that this meeting is Today. There is no time to get this thing tailored, but another suit or make amends to the Fashion Gods. I have to return to my reliable-yet-dated suit. This is not good news. I wanted to look good. These clients are Bankers.^® My perception of bankers is that they consider dry cleaning an annoyance the rest of us must tolerate. They take a new suit every day fresh from the wrapper, put it on and go. The creases and stretches are inconsequential to them. In with the new. What it also means is that what I say has to outshine my lack of a New Suit.^SM I have to sound better than I look.

Kettle Bells are ringing

I was just stretching. Minding my own business in one of the classrooms at New York Sports Club. Normally I work out in the morning, so the classrooms are blissfully quiet, dark and empty. Tonight: bright as a June morning. So I get down to it, the ridiculous poses and grunts that accompany my attempts to be limber in the face of middle age. Some activity was happening in by the door. Normally just another midlife refugee who wants to stretch and escape the pounding decades-old beat of the gym’s music selection. My iPhone thankfully blocks out the un-deejayed selections. 

So as I lay on my stomach trying to arch my back like a seal, I see black shoes in front of me. For a second I think, Your ear buds are preventing you from hearing anything. Comments, music, fire alarms. Maybe you should take them out to see what’s up. I look up t see a handsome, tall black man in one of those muscle shrink-wrapper shirts. He smiles, politely asking, “So? You taking my class?” 

Lately, since my “divorce,” my philosophy has been, Whatever opportunity comes along, just say Yes. This philosophy has gained me some cool new experiences and got me into some weird situations. Maybe this is the former. Worth a try.

“What’s your class?” I said.

“Kettle Bells,” which came out of his mouth with a smile and a wink that said, Get ready for something.

“Umm… OK. Yes.” (There’s that philosophy again. I should do something about that, huh?)

So there’s one anther guy I the room. A middle aged white guy like me in reasonably good shape. No fat on him. I thought I could beat him in a race but maybe not arm-wrestling. I introduced myself/he did the same (Jeff). Now we’re all family. What can only be described as an ass kicking. There were a few pieces of gym torture equipment I had to help bring out. Two different weights of kettle bells, which look like little bowling ball purses covered with rubber so you won’t scuff you good shoes. Some dumbbells, a platform made of stacked plastic squares, and two pieces of rope about 30 feet long each. This was going to be interesting. Also: the gym outside the window to this classroom was packed to the gills with spandex-clad gym rats. That, coupled with the June morning lighting, made me feel like a lab experiment, or worse, a make up gym class from the 7^th grade.

So Black Adonis says, “We’re going to do something called Spartacus.” So me, I thought this involved some bad drag and a Tony Curtis impression. Nope. It’s 10 exercises done for one minute each in succession. Ten minutes? That doesn’t sound bad. So B.A. gets us warmed up, stretched out a little with jumping jacks, push ups, squats. So far, easy.

From here the test begins. Jeff and I do a 10 second version of everything. Push ups, lunges, squats while holding our rubber purse kettle bells, rows with dumbbells, more lunges with dumbbells. It goes on through all ten. All the time the rats outside the window are watching. No problem.

So B.A., who is yelling instructions at the top of his lungs to just us two, says we are ready. The next set is one minute each. The first minute was a snap, the second I felt a little burn. So what?  By the third minute I thought the clock was slowing down a little, but he had his iPad showing us the time. Coming up on the fifth minute I was breathing heavy, pulling my arms with the dumbbell over my head with that sound. You know that sound? The very quiet groan you heard from your dad as he got up in the morning? Now my dad was an athlete of sorts, so I thought that sounds came from the same place my morning sounds came from when I was young. I just loved sleep so much I didn’t wan to get up. And me making that sound was an effort to ward off the day and my mom telling me that school was a-coming and I’d better be ready NOW. As I’ve aged, I now realize that sound my dad was making was coming from moving limbs that would rather stay still. I was making that sound because my body was saying, Be still! Fool! You should be watching television and drinking a cold one! Lay down! For the first time in a long time this voice was making some sense.

I’m in pretty good shape for somebody my age (47). I had to get it together. I go to the gym because (1) I’m single now, (2) I live in New York City, and (3) I’m gay. It’s the law. The fear of being single, the affinity for drink and the inability to et any sleep over the last 8 months while we separated allowed me to trim down my pork-bun-like figure to a more svelte Nan-style consistency.  I thought I had it going on. Until this class.

So I’m sweating now. And like any male, I’m trying to hide that, which is tough without a towel. It’s only been eight… long…minutes. I look over at Jeff, who is… standing still!