Attentiveness – A Seed of Excellence

To be or not to be…that is a famous question. I am convinced that an important way to be is to be attentive. As the monk Thomas Merton wrote, “By being attentive, we can find ourselves engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained.” We need to be attentive humans for one another and for ourselves. Let’s consider our level of attentiveness.

To illustrate the importance of being attentive, I will tell you about three people – Sarah, Kamara, and Tonio. Sarah is a dancer, and a dancer has to be attentive. Sarah is attentive because I know she focuses on the details, is mindful and observant, and pays attention to what is happening at the present moment. As a result, her degree of satisfaction has increased with her level of attentiveness.

Being attentive is the art of conscious living, observing one’s self and activities – the sensing, feeling, thinking, judging, reflecting, deciding, and acting – in order to gain new insights about ourselves. By paying attention to what is happening in our hearts as well as our heads, we may question our deeply held intentions and desires. We learn more about ourselves. We are likely to be more human.

I met Kamara Abdul in the restroom at the airport one night. He works for the company that cleans the restrooms, and his tee-shirt had “Committed to Cleaning Excellence” on its back. My business is excellence, so you know I had to ask the question. After asking his permission, I asked, “Are you really committed to cleaning excellence, like it says on your shirt?”

It is 10 PM and the airport was crowded with tired, frustrated, impatient people whose flights had been delayed or canceled. The restroom was crowded with these travelers. Who even notices a small, bald man who is continually wiping, picking up those aggravating little wet scraps of paper, and cleaning mirrors? We expect clean restrooms, and only notice when they are unclean. But what do you think his answer, in heavily accented English, was? His answer was YES. After a few more questions, I had learned that he is trained to pay attention to a number of items that need to be addressed regularly, in order to achieve cleaning excellence. Whether Kamara is happy or not, I do not know. I believe he is committed to being attentive to the details his work requires.

Tonio, as told in a folk tale, is a young man of wealth because his father is a rich farmer. Tonio spends his time visiting the taverns and other haunts of the idle rich. His father, on his deathbed, says, “Pay attention to what I tell you; keep a sharp eye on the farm and take care of business.” Did Tonio follow his father’s wishes?

No, he continued to party with his friends, even as his family and neighbors scolded him for squandering what his father had provided. When he finally noticed the farm was being ruined, he sought advice from everyone. None of it helped, until he went to an old woman who practiced magic. After hearing his tale of woe, she gave him a small chest bound carefully with bands of brass. In the top of the chest, there was a small hole. The old woman said, “In this chest is magic dust. Every morning, before the dew dries, take the chest to every corner of your farm. Do not neglect any spot. Do this every morning, and you will prosper like your father prospered. Never let a morning pass and never till the day you die break the bands and look inside. If you do, the magic will be gone.”

The magic worked. Tonio went every morning to every place on the farm where work was being done. And he prospered, just as his father had prospered. On the day of his death, he got his son to open the box. Under the lid were written these words: “Look you, the master’s eye is needed over all.” In the bottom of the chest were ordinary grains of sand. Tonio, because he became attentive, was the reason for the prosperity. The magic is paying attention to the people, the property, and the process of farming.

Sarah, Kamara, and Tonio illustrate the importance of being attentive. What about us? Let’s agree that an important quality of being human is to be attentive to all the world offers. To be attentive is not a question, it is an answer. Let’s make our answer, yes, and be attentive to those in our lives. As Mary Oliver says in a poem, “Attentiveness is the beginning of devotion.”

Posted February 12th, 2007 in Seeds of Excellence

Faith – A Seed of Excellence

“In genuine cultivation of practice, in the end there is just one road: carrying out vows.” Master Nan Huau Chin expresses my beliefs about faith well. A belief system that is not practiced has little value. My wife and I were talking recently about marriage. Like most couples, we wonder why we got together and why we’ve stayed together for thirty-six years.

I told her that, for me, it has to do with the wedding vows – the richer, poorer and the sickness, health and the other promises. Faith in someone or self or something requires making a serious commitment. I do not make many vows, but the few I make determine how I live daily.

I have to practice all the time. The practice is imperfect. It can also be frustrating, exhausting, and boring. When I vow to do something, the vow leads to goals, plans, actions, and evaluations. These are necessary to know how well I am keeping faith with my philosophy, my mission, my values.

Faith, as a seed of excellence, works the same in all of life, including work. When a company or a person has faith in an idea or a change for improvement, that is the first step. A biblical verse says, “Faith without works is dead.” What does that mean, when applied to business?

It might be that all involved must believe in the new idea or change; have faith that it will work and vow to make it work. The understanding and acceptance of anything new or different is a huge step, and takes time. Making the idea work is ten times harder. Most companies declare that the new idea or change is the way that work will be done. Then they forget to develop an implementation plan, thinking that the vow is sufficient. Saying something is so doesn’t make it so.

Faith as a seed of excellence for me involves the vision, the vow, the quixotic journey to help others understand and accept, practicing what I believe all the time, and the humble realization that it takes all involved collaborating in practical ways to keep the faith(and do the real work).

Posted January 6th, 2007 in Seeds of Excellence

Hope – A Seed of Excellence

“Dum spiro, spero. As long as I breathe, I hope.” That Latin proverb emphasizes the importance of hope. At the Kids’ Philosophy Slam, the question posed to the children was, “Which is more powerful, fear or hope?” Elsie, an eight-year old, replied, “Hope is like a gentle breeze, and fear is an icy, biting wind.” (Source: Utne, Sep-Oct, 2006)

How do we provide hope for Elsie? When I was a child, we lived for a time in Hopeful, Georgia. I sometimes wonder if the people who first settled there had come from a place of fear, looking for a new start in a place where hope could thrive. I’ve passed through Hopeful, Georgia many times since my childhood, and the words on the sign help me be more hopeful. We need reminders to remain hopeful, since the world is filled with things that cause fear.

I read a brief editorial in The Wall Street Journal recently. It speaks of Naguib Mahfouz, who was stabbed in the neck in 1994 by someone who took offense at a religious allegory Mahfouz had written forty years earlier. He said, “It became apparent to me that between me and death there was censure, but that I was condemned to hope. Mahfouz died recently, of natural causes, at age 94. We need people who remind us that we should remain hopeful, even though there are many reminders of censure.

I believe hope is a seed of excellence is because excellence in life and operational excellence in pipelines will never be achieved unless someone or some people provide a message of hope. That does not mean one can just hope, and not do anything to improve. Hope provides the starting point in getting started on the road to excellence. A person filled with despair, disenchantment, and fear can get stuck, wring one’s hands, and gnash one’s teeth. The same is true for an organization.

When someone, filled with hope, believes that life can be better and begins working to make it better, then that seed can be sowed along the path that is taken. As hope flourishes and excellence sprouts, fear does not seem so powerful. As long as I breathe, I hope. That’s neat!

Posted September 14th, 2006 in Seeds of Excellence