Some of the insights from your seeking to achieve balance can carry over into the next challenge: the Prosperity Challenge. As we will discuss in class, true prosperity is defined as "a thriving, flourishing condition of knowing oneself; being at peace with it; and sharing confidently your essence with the world." Comments and ideas promtpted by the reading of CIB are welcomed.
By covering briefly the Nissan and Home Depot situations, we will segueway into failures of leadership. Not everyone is a good or effective leader-- we can learn from the errors as well as the successes.
Please share any ideas triggered by the three cases: Nissan, Home Depot and Mt Everest.
Have fun,
Hal
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4 comments:
I've always associated balance with direction. Balancing then always meant narrowing in on the "right" direction. It's taken a while, but I've come to see this relation as the VOJ. True balance as I’ve come to find it entails such a focus on the now that the nature of the moment gives further into itself, like zooming in on an infinitely small point. While you may never reach the end “point,” gratification is in the understanding and acceptance of your purpose. Ultimately, this purpose is your life. I’m not sure if Julie intended the double-meaning, or pun nature, of the following sentence when she said it, but it’s turned out to be a strong source for my personal insight: “Live life on purpose.”
This VOJ as I’ve come to see it recently is not narrowing anything as there is an inclination to assume more duty, more activity, and more risk-averse decisions with the hope that what is indeed right will somehow magically become self-evident at which point all those other assumed distractions will vanish. As I’ve just described balance as a reciprocating focus, this course graciously affords the exact opposite (unless following the path into a black hole is my purpose...).
I guess the idea here is that balance is achieved within. Essence is not something that will be picked at some distant point in time, but rather revealed along way, if you let it. As we talked about in week 1: what you do is not necessarily who you are. You can’t really know what to do until you understand who you are, and where you are is the VOJ. Introspective approaches to balance, and perhaps some woodshedding, look to be in order to exhume my EEE. “Don’t just do something. Stand there!”
As I sat in class on Monday and thought about the definition of prosperity-- "a thriving, flourishing condition of knowing oneself; being at peace with it; and sharing confidently your essence with the world."--I realized how important that truth is in our daily life.
I spent the entire week of Thanksgiving on my parents' farm in Indiana. It is a quiet place where life moves a bit slower than here in California. This change of pace, and spending time in the environment where I grew up, reminded me to be me and be happy about it.
Throughout class as I listened to the discussion and reflected on my week on the farm I wondered how many times I didn't embrace who I was and ended up not being prosperous because I wasn't true to myself. Whether in relationships, career pursuits or just how you spend your time, focusing on being true to yourself and becoming the best version of yourself really is true prosperity.
When I read the Mount Everest article, several thoughts came to my mind. Being an engineer, the first thought is: they could have used more radios, and that was reflected by a comment in the article too. There are quite a few instances where having more radios may have saved people. For example, where some clients were stuck just a little above camp IV, but they couldn't radio Boukreev who was actually very close to them from Camp IV.
My second thought is: in many cases, there are ill climbers that need to be brought down to rest or even abort the climb. I think that the lead guide(s) should have asked a Sherpa to escort those climbers, instead of doing it themselves. By choosing the latter, they could not as effectively provide vital service to the remaining climbers, and they also burn themselves out in the process. I can understand they want to help their VIP clients, but their own health, if compromised, can also lead to jeopardy of the remaining team, whose mission is much more demanding than being escorted to a lower camp.
My third thought is, in a way, both sides of the arguments have a point. Climbing Mount Everest is a dangerous undertaking in any day. On the other hand, if they had adopted the "No Expectations" approach, they would have avoided some of the unnecessary deaths. For example, Hansen was in bad shape already, although eventually he got to the top, he did not have the strength to come down. If Hall were objective, he would have recommended Hansen not to proceed. But since it's Hansen's second time in climbing Everest, Hall simply couldn't let him down, but that decision in itself was not in the best (objective) interest of Hansen's.
So climbing to the top of Everest may always be fatally dangerous, but the climbing experience, as long as one has an objective feeling of one's abilities, never has to be anywhere near that.
Finally, as a technologist, I had a wild idea on how to help people climb in bad weather conditions. On Everest, the two biggest problems are lack of oxygen, and cold temperature (exacerbated by strong wind and snow). The latter is particularly bad. However, if we can design a portable windfarm electricity generator, we can easily provide warmth in a camp. Basically, the stronger the wind is, the more electricity will be generated to provide heat in the camp. It seems this is a way to stand back up to nature :). One may even forsee a mini portable windfarm on one's hat and heating resistors wired in his/her clothes, providing heat in strong wind (but you'll need a strong grasp to avoid being blown away in strong wind). Just a wild thought, maybe some climbers will find that interesting.
-Wenyu
I would like to share some of my thoughts on the article on Mt.Everest. I thought the leader's role in the climbing team was unlike any real world scenario. In this case all the team members were highly motivated to reach the goal (attaining the peak) and the role of the leader was to guide them and assess whether it was safe for each individual to continue towards the goal.
Another comment I had on this article is the following. I also feel that the whole task of climbing Mt.Everest is so difficult that any team can fail given the unexpected nature of weather conditions in high altitudes. I think any amount of preparedness and planning can be insufficient. So it is hard to say what they could have done different after the fact.
Thanks to Julie,Hal and my classmates for this wonderful course. I wish good luck for everyone in applying the skills we have learnt in this course.
best regards
regu
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