Change of Plans...

I was let go today. All of the tension finally came to a head and my boss decided the program will be in better hands if she finds someone else to run it. Of course I'm angry about the whole thing but also carrying a boatload of shame around having been fired. It's kind of like getting my first speeding ticket, or cavity filling - the blemish is there on the record for everyone to see. I got sacked, booted, canned.

Obviously I whole-heartedly disagree with the reasons for my termination and firmly believe it has everything to do with me personally - which simultaneously means it is not about me it's really about her. It’s my judgment that my boss is emotionally immature, incapable of living without projection and is uncomfortable around people who set boundaries and speak up for themselves rather than roll over when she yells louder.

The upshot is that I am staffing an initiation weekend for a group I have mentioned before; The Mankind Project and their New Warrior Training Adventure. The processes and events that comprise the weekend will provide great and powerful chances for me to accept this and move through it with maturity and power., therby automatically making room for whatever is next in life.

And In This Corner: Conscience vs. Ego...

My boss and I went toe-to-toe today and it was ugly. For myself, I own that I was reactionary and that I could have handled her initial communication in a way that would have diffused the tension. Instead I chose more of an attack. This set off a series of verbal jabs wherein she accused me of not doing my job, not taking things seriously enough, that Everything is a priority, and that I need to be supervised like a 2-year-old because I don’t do what she says when she tells me to do it. I in turn went on to note that it is probably not a coincidence that in three months they have lost $90,000 in funding under her leadership and that since she was being paid a hefty chunk from this grant for “Administrative Duties,” that I could use some more help from her due to the overwhelming size of the project.

Apparently, I should have flat out accused her of being the Enron of the non-profit world. I received an immediate eruption of how the board cleared that part of her salary, that if I wanted to question it I should talk to them and that this was the first and last time I ever question her salary.

To say that I’m really pissed off would be an understatement and it would be very easy to trash her up and down on these pages. Instead, I offer a summary of what I deem to be the difference between my boss and me; a passage from “The 8^th Habit,” detailing the difference between Conscience and Ego:

Conscience is the still, small voice within. It is quiet. It is peaceful. Ego is tyrannical, despotic and dictatorial.

Ego focuses on one’s own survival, pleasure and enhancement to the exclusion of others and is selfishly ambitious. It sees relationships in terms of threat or no threat, like little children who classify all people as “He’s’ nice” or “He’s mean.” Conscience, on the other hand, both democratizes and elevates ego to a larger sense of the group, the whole, the community, the greater good. It sees life in terms of service and contribution I, in terms of other’s security and fulfillment.

Ego works in the face of genuine crises but has no discernment in deciding how severe a crisis or threat is. Conscience is filled with discernment and senses the degree of threat. It has a large repertoire of responses. It has the patience and wisdom to decide what to do when. Conscience sees life on a continuum. It’s capable of complex adaptation.

Ego can’t sleep. It micromanages. It disempowers. It reduces one’s capacity. It excels in control. Conscience deeply reveres people and sees their potential for self-control. Conscience empowers. It reflects the worth and value of all people and affirms their power and freedom to choose. Then natural self-control emerges, imposed neither from above nor from the outside.

Ego is threatened by negative feedback and punishes the messenger. It interprets all data in terms of self-preservation. It constantly censors information. It denies much of reality. Conscience values feedback and attempts to discern whatever truth it contains. It isn’t afraid of information and can accurately interpret what’s going on. It has no need to censor information and is open to an awareness of reality from every direction.

Ego is myopic and interprets all of life through its own agenda. Conscience is a social ecologist listening to and sensing the entire system and environment. It fills the body with light, is able to democratize ego and reflect more accurately the entire world.

Huddle Up...

This is one of the coolest parts of my job - I get to create this team to run this center.

I am past the fear of holding interviews and have learned how much of a balance the whole thing is between mind and gut. There were some candidates who, although I wanted to hire them, just didn't sit well with an inexplicable *something* inside that led to me not hiring them.

But now I have the majority of this staff assembled - teachers, child care workers and security - and I get to lead them through something I think is missing from most organizations: Mission, Vision and Values work. In our first full staff meeting today I broached the topic of this work and after the puzzled looks went away, gave them an exercise to help define thier own personal values which will ultimately help determine their own personal sense of mission. I am eager to see what they come up with.

It's no secret I am a disciple and fan of the whole FranklinCovey model. And the work that I have done with The Mankind Project's 'New Warriors' has only served to reinforce it. Now, I get the chance to pass it on to a group of people; and here is where I'm getting really hyped.

I am a believer that if all members of a team have input on the overall vision, values and mission, they will work harder for it because they have a stake in it. There is something in the bigger picture which contains a piece of them; they helped to build it; it is theirs. In my old job I was handed a small plastic card and told that these were the company's Guiding Principles, and that I was to conduct myself in accordance with them at work. Their principles were not objectionable, I just couldn't get excited about them because they weren't mine. I had no stake in their creation or execution but I was suppose to be excited about them.

And I could get into the reality of a nationwide company polling all of its employees for their input, but that's not what this post is about. This one's about my chance to take a samll team, craft a mission with them and help bring it to fruition. That's something I can get out of bed for everyday.

I recently read a poem whose bottom line was the fact that it is our power to choose (our attitude, response, etc.) which will determine how the ship of our life sails and I could not agree more. Therefore my personal mission for this community center is to empower these students to become the captains of their own ship.