Research Limitations

As I round the corner and head for home I feel Methods in Research has been a bittersweet experience for me.  It's no secret this is a tough class with too much expected in too little time. Compound that task with teaching through independent learning, uncertain feedback from fellow students and late-in-coming instructor comments which tell rather than show and the end result feels like an exercise in futility. 

Once I blew past the useful but dry text I realized I had to conduct a literature review, write a research proposal and organize it in a creative way. Top that heavy load off with patchy information on how to do all of this and I realized I was already up a creek looking for a paddle. I thought this was about as much fun as teaching myself how to juggle. When is the right time to throw in that third object? I can feel it, but I can't explain it. And apparently neither can anyone else.  As I fixed lunch yesterday I thought if this research project was an exercise in intellect (like fixing a recipe) it could probably done fairly easily for it would merely be structuring puzzle pieces which already exist. But I chose graduate school based upon something I am passionate about and were I to lose heart and allow the intellectual process to dominate my learning; I would learn very little and care even less.

My research topic has been silence. In the past I could withdraw into silence with practiced ease. It is no discomfort for me to remain silent. Sometimes my retreats were petty and other times it seemed like a better idea to allow the other person to vent their anger without interruption. However in both cases my silence seems to hurt others and leave me untouched. So I wanted to use this time to find a positive way in which silence could be chosen. 

I felt similar sense of frustration when I graduated from college. My major was English and all my life I loved reading. I came to the point in undergrad that I promised myself I could quit reading after I graduated. After I gradated and separated myself from that program I found I still loved to read.  Now I find I truly enjoy the thrill of research but perhaps this online format is the pits. Perhaps it is academia and I which do not agree.

In undergrad I only filled out end of the class surveys for classes I liked. Yep, all those mean (art history), harsh (history of Japan) and mediocre teachers received nothing from me. I highly value insightful feedback and, for me, it takes a lot of effort to think about and articulate it. So I have a working philosophy of only spending my time and energy on the things I want more of.  I haven't filled an end of the class survey out since the third class in this program.

Once I saw it was me who had the issues with the program format that no amount of feedback would change, I could not see the point in repeating myself. In silence I have had to come to grips with my dissatisfaction with parts of this program. In silent reflection I have learned the limitations of an online class teaching research methods. In silent reflection I have realized research methods may not have as much meaning to me as practical life applications. I mentally debate with myself which course of silence is healthy. I wonder, if in deliberate silence I will learn more than silent teaching has ever taught me.

Murder(ous Thoughts) and Meditation

Dhamma.org

"It is a thin line that separates us from these people who stare at us from inside this cage. The same thing that does not go beyond the threshold of our thoughts have crossed, in their case, the threshold of action. But still we are alike, inside our heads we are all potential criminals" from Doing Time, Doing Vipassana.

 Through much of this graduate program I have sought an answer to who is responsible for the ugliness in organizations.  Is it, in the case of prison the criminals behind bars who maintain aggressive stances to survive? Or is the prison responsible through inhumane treatment to maintain control over agitated, aggressive prisoners?  Of course I've come to realize a complete answer is not available (because it always depends), instead we can only develop a better understanding of the organization and its people. 

Doing Time, Doing Vipassana is a fascinating study that reminds us: "We are all prisoners undergoing a life sentence, imprisoned by our own minds. We are all seeking parole, being hostages of our anger, fear and desire." The film literally shows us how to transform some of the most desperate members of society through sitting in silence. This practice of sitting in silence was replicated in a U.S. documentary 10 years after the first film. I recommend seeing both Doing Time, Doing Vipassana and The Dhamma Brothers to see the power of transformational silence. 
Doing Time, Doing Vipassana from Enlightening Eight on Vimeo.

Through my pursuit to understand silence I have learned to appreciate those who fear silence. For in silence we can no longer run, we must face our true selves. We cannot escape our problems, our responsibilities, our mistakes. Even knowing this, I still study silence; for their is an even greater reward to sitting in silence. That reward is we are not likely to choose or sustain murderous thoughts.

Silence as a Weapon

It has been difficult for me to write this post.  I have learned so many wonderful, positive aspects to silence and that is where I would like to focus. However, when I mention silence to others I am usually bombarded by the person's historical pain from one silent "treatment" or another.  Somewhere along the line of human development silence has crept in the arsenal of human warfare.

Is it an issue of authority?  On the first day of school a child begins to learn to silence her voice.  When you break a rule you are banished to a time out zone, to remain silent. The school librarian is perhaps the most famous shoosher, followed closely by the movie buff.

As an adult if you break the law and are sent to prison your voice is silenced and if you break prison rules you will be sent to solitary confinement. Prison gangs and thugs dominate prison yards, cells and floors; silencing other inmates.

Ok, I'll admit the preceding paragraph is based upon observations of documentaries.  But Western society has long publicly celebrated the strong, silent type male and spread the myth that women talk too much.  It is true silence hurts, even when it is not intended as a weapon.

I recently saw a documentary called My Reincarnation. It was a familiar father son story. Yet unfamiliar because of the reincarnation twist. The son was a recognized reincarnation of the father's uncle. The son grew up in Italy (watching a Tibetan talking with his hands Italian-style was very amusing) and outside of Tibetan culture. The father taught outside the home and around the world; he was greatly appreciated by the community and the son felt disconnected from his father.  The son's main issue? His father did not answer many questions and the son could not understand his father's silence.

Is the silent person the abuser? What responsibility does the other individual hold to interpret silence? Of course it is more complicated than that. Only one truth seems to hold me for further study: evaluate the motivation behind silence before ruling it a weapon.

Silence to Purify the Self

As I work through the mandatory text book chapters which seem little more than narrative links of one dictionary definition to another, I've needed to take regular breaks to clear my cloudy thoughts. At work I've had several conversations with colleagues which have made me see some people navigate the organization like it is a game. I'm not sure which is worse! But as I examine these topics for a commonality I find they have one thing in common: they are mind-numbing through noise.
 

Credit

It's true not all text books are best selling page turners (and I admit this text does inject interesting studies frequently) but when I started graduate school I knew there would be times I had to push through areas to grow and get to the other side of the road. By the way the chicken made it just fine. Another side of me screams NOOO when I hear a person in a leadership position spend a great deal of time telling me how messed up the organization is and then say: "I get paid decent money and life is fine in the organization if I just do what I'm told."

While I am willing to sacrifice a couple of hours to boring parts of a text book and not put up a fight--I am not okay with selling myself out to the long term support of the status quo. At times I am greatly frustrated because I do not know what I can do to make a difference in organizations where people (in my opinion) have sold out. I know many people who feel frustrated in a similar way yet choose to withdraw from the situation and nod with absent eyes until the situation improves. This is one of the reasons why I think I find organizational silence to be so interesting. Because I believe the individual can heal when she chooses to take responsibility for her self development. Allowing others to silence us is not healthy.

Book

Finding silence and allowing it to heal us is healthy. One story I am reading is about Yolande Duran-Serrano in the book "Silence Heals." Her observations have helped me see how noise disconnects me from myself. "I have the impression that the tiredness, the loss of energy that used to occur in the past, comes from identifying with the agitation. We believe our thoughts. We take part, agree, disagree, become anxious, react. We say I want it, I don't want it, we predict we calculate."  For me I need to disconnect from the agitation of others--they do not define me. Instead, I need to get in touch with what is right for me.

Duran-Serrano describes one way of doing this, "And then there is the delicious flavor of silence; a constant sweetness. There is no longer a voice judging, condemning, subduing, draining energy. And even if from time to time a thought occurs, it is so sweet--it leaves a feeling of lightness." So practicing silence can restore my energy, it can purify me from negative thoughts and it can help me realign to myself.

In Pursuit of Silence

As the last few strands of sunshine in summer break trickle through my fingers I am preparing myself for my next class. I have three classes to complete the program and I apparently saved some tough ones for the end.  In my next class, Methods of Organizational Research, in part, we conduct a literature review.  I was advised by a classmate to have my research question ready before I started the class. My search for a question started with organizational silence. Although I do not have a perfect research question a scant breath or two before the class starts I have delved into silence.

Originally I read about how silence can crush an organization--and there is plenty of literature on that, but I came to sharpen my focus on the benefits of organizational silence. Can the organization thrive in the midst of silence? When is silence appropriate? What does silence mean to the individual who practices it? Obviously I have a lot of questions but few answers. I think that is one of the most promising feelings I have before each class. I know I will emerge more comfortable and confident with the topic and I will (in sometimes the most unpredictable ways) have applied the concepts in a way which deepens my gratitude for the knowledge.

In an earlier post I became interested in John Francis and his 17 year vow of silence. In preparation for this class I just finished "The Ragged Edge of Silence: Finding Peace in a Noisy World." In truth much of the book seemed more than I expected about being silent so we can become better listeners. Even so, I did pick up a gem when Francis' father spoke the words which seem to dig into some of the issues that interest me: "After the [Master's] ceremony my dad came back to my apartment and asked, 'How do you do that? How do you walk into a town that you never been in before and bring all these people together without even saying anything? How do you do that? I really want to know."

Considering his father had uttered the most discouraging words amongst his family, it was great to see the father find value in his son's unusual methods of living in the world. In response to his father, Francis writes, "I looked at him. And in the looking I thought about all the words I would have said--or could have said--about how it is not so much what we say without lips, but what is in our hearts, and how we all long for that kind of straight talk. When we can listen with our hearts, there is nothing that we cannot do together. And how do we listen with our hearts? The answer is with love: talking straight from the heart." This advice, of course, is wonderful. But as I just stepped into this topic I have some work to do to find out how to apply this in an organization.

More on Forgiveness

I had lunch with a friend the other day and we began talking about forgiveness. My friend did not buy my graduate-school-developed  perspective that forgiveness is something which should be given when the individual is ready whether the perpetrator has requested it (or is aware of it) or not . In fact he said, is that what forgiveness means? I thought about the meaning a lot and looked more closely at the word, in pieces.

For.  Give.

Oh--I thought it is a gift for me, the perpetrator, for all.

One amazing Auschwitz survivor says: "Forgiveness to me means that whatever was done to me is no longer causing me such pain that I cannot be the person I want to be." In Leadership, Justice and Forgiveness we read Simon Wisenthal's book The Sunflower. In it provided the cultural background for me why those in the Jewish faith do not believe a person can forgive a crime or criminal on behalf of anyone but themselves. Yet Eva Mozes Kor does just that--to a vicious concentration camp doctor who performed horrific medical experiments on twin children.

On the 50th anniversary of liberation Kor made the unprecedented decision to forgive all Nazis in her own name. "When I wrote my declaration of amnesty I still wasn't exactly sure what I was doing. But once I read it and signed it the feeling of complete freedom from all the burdens, the pain inflicted upon me. It's a life changing experience to be free of that pain. Because just to be free from the Nazis that did not remove the pain they had inflicted upon me." When I see leadership actions like Kor's, I am further pushed to refine my approach to organizational problems. People used to speculate at work why I don't engage in organizational battles. For one thing I think it is a misdirected use of energy, exhibits poor interpersonal skills and almost guarantees I will have to atone for a mistake or forgive a person in the future. I would rather avoid that headache altogether.

Sometimes I think the world is absurd and it is best to observe rather than participate. During these times when my life seems to be in a valley rather than a peak I observe the story of Kor who was repeatedly rejected for employment because of her accent. I see this amazing woman shrug off this limitation, square her shoulders and remark "I was so surprised no one was going to give me a chance, after all I survived Auschwitz!" Her strength is awesome and she inspires me to make my first attempt at dealing with adversity with a dose of kindness. Learning how to forgive has taught me to see forgiveness as necessary, and also something to foresee and circumnavigate.

Leadership and Storytelling (Semester Summary)

Storytelling is a fabulous treat. Good storytellers will never go out of business--humanity craves a powerful story. Over the course of this class I have become much more aware of the stories I and those around me tell. With that awareness I have played and explored with story structure, content and emotional impact.

In this class, each story I crafted was mentally strenuous. Why? Because humans love a good story and when disappointed by a story they provide immediate feedback. Sometimes they don't have to say a word. So, the pressure to tell a good story is a heavy weight. I have found a leader can be loved or hated for his or her story.  I have spent a good deal of time reflecting on what I have learned in this course. In some sense I seem no closer to being a storytelling leader than when I began the course. Perhaps it's that good stories are elusive.

Andy and Red (Credit)

On that note, I took a different perspective of a favorite movie to observe the influences of a leader telling and retelling a story.  As I rewatched Shawshank Redemption I began to see who was telling the story.  I have always thought the story was about Andy Dufresne's trip into the depths of misery and triumphant climb out of it. This time however I realized the story is told by Red and the story is about Red's redemption.

During Red's parole hearing speeches he gives positive but canned affirmations that he has been rehabilitated in prison--and his parole is consistently rejected. Through the evolution of Red's story we find he is not in denial about his transgressions, "the only guilty man in Shawshank" and lives openly in prison as a con man who "knows how to get things."  As time passes he admits he's an "institutional man" who doesn't think he can make it on the outside. To which Andy counters: "You underestimate yourself."

Here is where the beauty of a leader telling a good story can change the course of a person's life. Yet it is also the part which caused me the most deliberation in telling my stories.  Over summer break I've looked deeper and found Parker Palmer's "Let Your Life Speak:  Listening for the Voice of Vocation." It's a fabulous book about finding our calling. As a leader Palmer reminds us if we are in the wrong position we can do great harm to those under our charge.

"If I try to be or do something noble that has nothing to do with who I am, I may look good to others and to myself for awhile. But the fact that I am exceeding my limits will eventually have consequences. I will distort myself, the other, and our relationship--and may end up doing more damage than if I had never set out to do this particular 'good.' When I try to do something that is not in my nature or the nature of the relationship, way will close behind me."

Stories should not be used to manipulate and persuade people. They should be carefully constructed from the leader's authentic self to enrich the organization. It's no wonder the stories I wrote for this class were so challenging--I had to go deep within myself to find the story. Storytelling is so fundamentally human that we all understand immediately and intuitively when someone is not telling the full story, or cheapening it with a personal agenda.

A No Excuses leader may need to finely tune her or his diplomacy skills but should always tell an authentic story for the growth of all. To do that, the leader must know his or her staff, place the others highest needs at the top of action list and with humbleness tell the group's story so the emotional impact fuels the group forward.