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Synergize

2/27/2019

I want to talk about how synergy is the culmination and an underlying essence and guide of all the other habits we have learned. When we put into practice being proactive and defining our goals, synergy starts to happen for us - we start to see opportunities present themselves to us that synergize with our dreams and aspirations. Some call it "the secret," others call it "blessings," and others call it angelic assistance. It may just be that when someone works towards what they want, they start to manifest it themselves because those around them observe their diligence and proactive demeanor and open doors for them overtly or behind the scenes. In any case, synergy starts to be felt within this invisible process of manifestation started by the first two habits.

However, if we don't put first things first, we fall out of synergy because we are out of alignment with what is really important to us. We experience what we may consider set-backs and obstacles. We feel that our "flow" is disrupted and that achieving synergy is elusive. In my experience, these are often nudges that help me get back into alignment and in touch with what is most meaningful to me. They help me slow down to enjoy the journey, refine my dreams, and reassess priorities. Sometimes they serve to re-calibrate my compass, which has been pointing to a false North, which had put me on what I thought was the right path for my life. When I combine the first two habits with putting first things first, I experience a burst of serendipity and open doors - aka synergy.

The same is true of Covey's fourth habit of highly successful people. It states to "think win-win." Win-win solutions are inherently synergistic. When we employ the win-win paradigm in our lives and our work, we move into a new level of synergy because we become active agents in creating synergy with others and for others. We take synergy a step further and go from experiencing synergy in our lives to nurturing synergy in those around us. This, in turn, allows us to experience even more synergy like a wave of momentum moving us forward towards our own dreams AND the dreams of those we synergize with.

This goes hand-in-hand with being an active listener and seeking first to understand. We can't truly employ win-win thinking without being a good listener and internalizing other people's opinions and perspectives. I would say it is impossible to achieve win-win solutions without the ability to truly listen. This means not just listening when someone comes to us to speak to us, but also creating opportunities and eliciting conversations that will allow us to engage with what our colleagues, friends, family, students, etc. think about things that affect them.

I spoke with my family and children about synergy. They were aware of this concept, even my youngest of only six years old, because it is a common word used in our home. It is also a very common concept in the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact, it is one of the reasons why my husband and I chose to settle here permanently. Our adult son shared that he was very glad that the schools he went to in San Francisco all had educational leaders that appeared to understand and employ the concept of synergy intentionally in the schools he attended. He has grown up with this concept and thus, considers it common sense, but acknowledges that when he lived in rural Arizona last year, the "vibe" was different. When I asked him to elaborate, he said that it felt like most people he worked with at a supermarket in Arizona were more competitive, not as cooperative, and more suspicious of each other. In contrast, at his job at a market in California, co-workers were quick to figure out ways to help each other, coordinate schedules, divy up tasks in a synergistic way, etc. This ultimately made everyone's work more efficient, pleasant, and in his words "even fun." I agree that all aspects of life are more "fun" with synergy so they and I committed to synergizing even more with the distribution of household chores.

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Seek First to Understand and Then to be Understood

2/27/2019

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Seeking first to understand and then to be understood is the foundation needed to truly implement win-win solutions and make stakeholders feel welcomed and listened to. Active listening is a skill that requires intention, practice, and determination. Holding one's tongue and waiting for the other person to express themselves fully takes patience and discipline. Asking follow up questions before speaking one's own opinion takes a bit of courage too, especially the topic is controversial and we do not agree with the speaker's opinion.
One habit I have tried to adopt since learning about active listening is to first ask follow up questions and then when the person has completed speaking, repeat back to them a summary of what they said by starting with "I heard you say that...." and then asking, "is this correct?" This is not agreeing or disagreeing with them. It is simply reflecting back to them the main ideas of what I understood them to say. This gives them a chance to clarify anything I may have misunderstood.
Depending on the situation, the moment may not be appropriate for me to immediately give my opinion back. As a school leader, I must remember not to form or express my opinion until I have had a chance to listen to other stakeholders involved in the situation before speaking. This is oftentimes difficult because the other party may want an immediate response from me. In those cases, I thank them for sharing their views with me and let them know that I have other community members to listen to and will take their views into consideration when assessing the overall situation. I ask them if it is OK to reach out if I have any further questions and assure them I will be communicating my final decision on the matter to them as soon as possible. I also assure them they can come back and speak to me anytime or reach out to me via email too if they have anything else to add.
I find that most people are not used to this type of approach and want an immediate response or want to know if I agree or disagree with them. However, when they see how deliberate I am about hearing everyone out equally before opinning, they appreciate the extra effort and attention to everyone's perspectives.
I find that children and youth especially appreciate attentive listening of their perspective or version of events, especially when there is an altercation with a teacher or another student. When an adult takes the time to really listen and ask follow up questions without immediately giving advice or telling them what they should or shouldn't do, they learn to trust that adult and over time, open up more and more. This is especially important with children who are frequently sent to the office or with troubled teens who are having a hard time following the school rules. They often have an underlying story to tell that they do not feel anyone cares to hear or that is not relevant to their behavior. For example, there was a young child in one of my programs who always showed up in a bad mood and immediately started picking fights over toys with the other children or doing things to disrupt circle time. By engaging in active listening with him and asking him follow up questions at a later time in the day when he was in a better mood, we quickly found out that he does not usually eat breakfast before arriving at our day camp and his parents had just gotten divorced. He was now living with only his mother and hardly saw his father anymore, something he was very upset about. His father used to always take him to preschool and since moving into a new house with his mother, she had changed his preschool to our day camp. The little guy was going through a lot and it was affecting his behavior. Because we listened, we were able to help him. We changed our morning routine to start off with 45 minutes of free play and serve up a table full of fruits, breads, and cheeses that the children could gravitate towards on their own, in the case that they had not had breakfast or were hungry. We found that this new routine helped more than just this one student and that many of them came to school hungry and eager to just have some free, unstructured time after being told what to do all morning to get out the door. I also spoke to his mother about the morning routine with dad that he missed so much and they were able to work it out and start having dad pick him up in the mornings to bring him to our day camp (aka his new preschool). His behavior changed immediately and within weeks of these changes being implemented, his incidents of aggression and tantrums went from more than ten per day to a few a week, if any.
I spoke to my own children and family about this habit and to the young ones, this was a totally new concept. However, they immediately recognized teachers or adults in their lives who practice active listening and those who do not. I was very surprised by their keen observations and the clues they used to determine if an adult was really listening to them or just hearing them. My six year old flat out told me that that is the reason that she doesn't like one of her aunts, who she used to visit a lot when we lived close by. I asked her to tell me more about that and she gave me an example. She said that one time she and her cousins were watching a movie at her aunt's house and it was almost over. The aunt came in suddenly and said it was time to go eat dinner. The children tried to tell her that the movie was about to end in less than five minutes and that they really wanted to see how it ends. The aunt spoke over them and said to "turn off the TV NOW" and when they didn't move immediately she got upset and said "I am tired of you kids not listening to me!" My daughter then said to me "She wasn't being a good listener Mommy. She got mad and said we don't listen to her, but the truth is that she didn't listen to us. Why did she have to make us go eat dinner at the exact moment that we were finishing a movie? She never even let us finish the movie after dinner. That was rude." I have to agree. Not listening can be very rude, and children can tell when an adult is not listening to them and it truly impacts how much children respect them. My daughter has never talked back or acted "disrespectful" towards my sister so my sister has no idea that inside she is not respected by her niece. My son said that he feels the same way about one of his teachers who he feels never listens to him, except for when he is answering a question in class. Thus, he said he has no desire to talk to her and work things out because "what is the point? She already has formed her opinion of me." It will take time for my sister to regain my daughter's respect and my son's teacher may never regain his respect before the year is over - all over something as "simple" as listening. Not listening can truly make or break a relationship and even affect a teacher's ability to inspire her students to learn in their classroom.
This reminder of the importance of active listening has been timely. I spend a lot of my time at home these days reading course materials and doing homework instead of hanging out with my children. I have caught myself nodding "yeah, yeah, aha" when they come up to me while studying and in actuality, I am still thinking partly about my coursework. I see now that it would be better to simply say "I can't wait to hear all about that, I will be with you in a moment" or close my computer and clear my mind of everything and look at them and really engage with what they are saying.

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Habit of Thought: Thinking "Win-Win"

2/8/2019

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Civil war is an example of the dramatic consequences of leaders in a society having a win-lose mentality. The fundamental break down of civility and the ability to communicate, collaborate, and live together can lead to terrible atrocities. The mindset that in order to win, someone has to lose, and that competition is "the name of the game" has a very dark side. It can even become a justification for allowing injustice and inequality to exist and the perpetuation of it. For example, in El Salvador, I was raised among the one-percenters. When I became of age to start to see and wonder about the extreme poverty and war around me, I was told by different adults in my life that they were people that did not want to play the rules of life and get an education and work hard to get the good jobs. And that in life, regretfully, there are winners and there are losers because there are only ‘so many’ good jobs. That that is just how life is so I should be thankful my father was a winner and I should work hard to be a winner too.

I am so glad I decided to get my higher education in a country where freedom of thought was allowed and where there were great advances in the study and art of interpersonal relationships. It was in an Arizona sociology class at the age of nineteen that I first learned the concept of win-win. It was like a breath of fresh air. It offered my mind an escape from the fatalistic, unjust, and depressing world view I had learned in war-torn El Salvador. Win-win outlined an alternative way of living at the micro and macro level. I quickly saw its value in my personal life and the opportunity it opens up for dramatic positive change in places like El Salvador, if the leaders there ever learn and adopt it.

Later in life I moved to San Francisco, California and the more time I spent working and integrating with the people of this special city, I noticed that the win-win mentality was the norm. Although I only planned to stay in San Francisco for a year, this particular feature of the San Francisco Bay Area has kept me here for almost two decades. And although I have looked elsewhere, I have been hard pressed to find another place in the world that is so committed to this way of being. I believe the level of peaceful interpersonal coexistence, the level flourishing and the amount of abundance in the Bay Area community is a testament to the power of this type of thinking to create peaceful and thriving communities. Of course, San Francisco is not perfect and there are still social problems, but it is a far cry from El Salvador where hardly anyone believes in, or even knows about, the win-win paradigm.

It is no wonder, then, that a habit of an effective leader of an educational community is to think win-win. Just like the win-win mentality can transform whole cities, it can transform and enrich any community for the better, including schools, of course. Win-win thinking includes the needs and desires of stakeholders. Everyone involved or affected by a decision knows they are equals and their voice matters. Win-win makes sure everyone grows together and allows for good-faith compromises. It also has the power to transform the way of thinking of the students. When adults in the school model the win-win ethos, this can help the children transform their relationships with each other and within their own families. However, for this to happen successfully, the win-win model needs to be employed in the classroom environment and in the behavior management policies of the school too, so children understand that this is the ideal the school community strives for when working out challenges, decisions or solving disputes.

It is unfortunate that win-win thinking is a relatively new concept and that it is not as prevalent as it should be. It is depressing that humanity has endured, and continues to endure, terrible consequences because of win-lose thinking. However, seeing what is being accomplished in places like San Francisco and hearing an increasing number of U.S. representatives, governors and mayors speak of win-win solutions, gives me hope that win-win thinking is catching on and spreading.

I have been a win-win thinker since that fateful day in an Arizona sociology class when I was given this concept and the language to articulate a more just and fair way of thinking. I have employed it in my own family relationships and it is a key component of my leadership kit for whatever project I contribute to. I have seen how win-lose thinking has contributed to the woes of places like El Salvador. Thus, I have also become a strong advocate of win-win thinking as part of my peace-education work and I teach it intentionally to the students in all of my programs. I particularly think it is important to teach it to preschoolers and in elementary school because I believe that if a child learns this way of thinking early in life, it can positively influence them and the relationships they engage in throughout their lives. If enough children in a community have this mindset, as they get older and become decision makers and leaders, it can even positively transform their communities. One thing I can do, is find or write an article about win-win thinking to post on my Facebook page, where I have contact with many Salvadorians from the 1%. I can also send it privately to those which are now congresspeople and mayors or married to influencers. Hopefully those in my generation will be more open-minded to the win-win mentality than most of my father's generation.

I plan to go over this habit with my children and husband. They are all very familiar with win-win because I have constantly and relentlessly solved family disputes in this way. However, it has been a while since we intentionally discussed why getting to win-win is important and now that my children are older, I can talk about how win-lose can contribute to bigger social problems. I also want to get a reflection from them on what the impact of having a mother that is always thinking win-win has had on their home life experience, sense of agency and interpersonal relations.

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Habit of Integrity and Execution - Putting First Things First

2/6/2019

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"Putting first things first" is a challenge for me, because, as noted in a previous reflection, life circumstances force us to have priorities that do not directly relate to our life's mission or they can feel like they are taking us away from our goals. For example, I am a mother of young and older children and when I made the decision to have them, I made a commitment to caring for them and doing everything I can to help them succeed and become happy, non-violent and productive members of society. I also am a daughter of a sick and disabled father and in Latin America we are taught to take care of our parents and I want to.

On the other end of the spectrum is my deep passion to nurture peace in the world so that I help leave this world a better place than when I found it, in part, with a deep regard for the children, those who will inherit it. Striking this balance was a challenge since I spent years working most evenings and weekends on peace work. This involved traveling away from home as part of my sustainable development work in Costa Rica, creating and managing Conexiones Institute, and studying to improve my skills and knowledge, which took me away from being with my children.

When Conexiones grew exponentially due to my dedication and the increased community demand for my work, I should have felt very successful, having accomplished and exceeded some of my goals and with lots of potential for immediate growth. I could have gone to weekend trainings to rewrite a business plan for scaling up, evaluated my curricula to make sure it was really an idea worth spreading, and looked for seed funding to transition into a larger entity with more impact. But at the pinnacle of my “success” with regards to a huge life goal, I was not happy and the idea of scaling up at that moment, with a 4 and 9 year old still to raise and an elderly father living alone, it did not sit well. I had already missed key moments of my other children’s lives, had missed countless family dinners and Sunday brunches, hardly saw my dad, and my own health was deteriorating.

I was slammed with the realization that my steadfast determination to be a force of good in this world had eclipsed many of the other areas of my life. I had not put first things first and, in the end, the big rock of “personal mission” had turned into thousands of small administrative and teacher prep tasks (pebbles) that consumed almost each waking moment and crowded out things that I should have tended to with as much dedication and love as I did for the vulnerable communities I worked with in Costa Rica or for my students at Conexiones, my expressions of peace work.

I had to "put first things first" and in my case, that meant putting my children, health, husband, and extended family relationships first after many years of semi-neglect. I proceeded to close Conexiones at the zenith of its growth and take an 18-month sabbatical to recalibrate and practice restorative justice after years of overly zealous proactivity and sometimes putting my life’s mission over personal, familial and community responsibilities and priorities. I realized that, in the end, there was not a HUGE rush on “saving the world,” as bad as things are out there, and that I can always come back to peace work and big visions later when my kids are older and there are different circumstances around me. And I could more clearly see there WAS an urgency to invest in those other “big rocks” that were time sensitive like my health, my parenting responsibilities, taking care of my elders, and my relationships.

A take-away for me is that proactivity and focus on the end result needs to be applied to many areas equally. I, and other aka-workaholics who focus too much on being proactive towards their work or mission-related goals, risk faltering in other areas, and missing out on the journey with those that are around us. I understand the argument that getting distracted or procrastinating by doing things for others can take us away from our personal goals, but what if our social responsibilities to our children, elders and community are priorities that cannot wait? I suppose the key is balance, something that is a constant in my life, especially at this stage. One thing I can commit to right away is to stop and take a break each day that my children come home from school. I started practicing this recently and it has been a wonderful beginning of a new tradition whereas we sit down and have a cup of tea or juice and a snack together and check in with each other.

I spoke to my family about this habit and they recognized that this is one of the most important habits and that the first two without this one can lead to imbalance. They added that there are many different personal goals to consider and it is OK to get passionate and intent on reaching a goal, but do not let it interfere with priorities that cannot wait. And in the end, as one of my son's said, peace begins at home and a full belly.

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Leadership Habits

Synergize

Seek First to Understand and Then to be Understood

Habit of Thought: Thinking "Win-Win"

Habit of Integrity and Execution - Putting First Things First

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