I had a cup of tea yesterday morning which I didn't write about because it seemed more esoteric than I wanted to tackle at 6am so instead I chose to write about a cup of tea I had the previous day. As it turns out, yesterday's esoteric cup of tea predicted a portion of the content we covered in the institute.
Creepy, right?
Here's what it said:
There is nothing more precious than the self.
How this relates to the institute.
Yesterday we were introduced to the Johari Window which is, in my interpretation, a model that can be used to understand group dynamics and it looks like this:
We talked about how it is important to slowly increase the size of the public self through self disclosure because the more I know about myself and the more I share what I know about myself - that's appropriate and timely - the better I'll be able to work with others and the better others will be able to work with me. A suggested phrase to say, perhaps at the first meeting of a newly formed team is, "here's what you need to know to work well with me." If each of the members self disclose how they function with most teams and share that info with the rest of the group then everyone has a better idea of how they can be successful and how they can help the team be successful.
When we increase the public self through self disclosure we decrease the private self but only to the point where it's appropriate for the situation. I have come to view these frames and fluid and situation-dependent. I'm not sure if that's what the authors intended but that's how I see it. We can also increase the public self and diminish our blind spot through feedback. Since the blind spot is made up of things others know about me but that I don't know about myself, it's pretty simple to open that pane by asking questions about yourself of others. One thought I had jotted down in my notes was to do a public perception survey of myself with colleagues because I have had moments where friends have told me, "I don't know if you're aware of this but when you did X it appeared to me as though Y." And of course I was not aware in the moment of how my behaviors were being perceived. My Mom is great for pointing things like this out to me. And that's all I'll say about that.
So, how does this relate to the tea?
My first instinct is to disagree with the tea bag. In my meditation practice and readings, I feel like the goal, if there is such a thing in meditation, is to diminish the self and the ego that's attached to its hip. But if I take one step back I can see more clearly how it applies to this situation:
There is nothing more precious than the self because if we don't know the self then those four Johari window panes become nothing but a mixture of blind spot and the unknown.
We are like puzzle pieces. If we aren't aware of our shape and our design, how will we ever know where we fit in with the rest of the puzzle pieces that make up any given situation?
How do we come to know the unknown?
This is where I believe meditation and mindfulness training can really take leadership to the next level. Leaders who are able to delve into the unknown more readily and more courageously than others are at an advantage especially if they can help others delve into the unknown in timely ways.
I tweeted about the role meditation training (and beginner's mind) seems to play in leadership (it has had a huge impact on my leadership development for sure) but we seem to be dancing around the topic in the institute and I would guess that's because the act of meditation still has religious connotations for some folks.
For me, meditation is not religious at all. It started out as a stress-reducing technique that got me through a divorce and a very challenging work situation; both of which just happened to occur over the same two-year period. But after the dust settled, I am still practicing and have continued to reap the benefits. It's helped me train my parasympathetic nervous system so I am not quick to react emotionally in difficult situations (like when my mom points out my blind spots lol) and I am able to take a couple steps back to say, "hey, can we pause for a minute? I'm starting to feel my blood pressure rise and my face is getting warm so, I must be getting upset by ________ which means I'm not hearing anything that is being said." This has worked so well for me but I got there through sitting and breathing and also by listening to a lot of Tara Brach's mindfulness podcasts. She gave me a lot of good language to use when in situations that initially make me clench and recoil (aka upset me). Her podcasts are free on iTunes or on her website (http://www.tarabrach.com/audiodharma.html).
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