Measurement by story

David Herbert1 Comment

Measurement is part and parcel of the recent Olympic Games. The fastest, highest or most guarantees Gold. But measurement by number isn’t what makes life count.

I am enjoying Organic Community by Joseph Myers. He reminds us of the place of “story”. “Story is the universal measurement of life” and “reducing living organisms to a census count demeans the way we were created.”

Conversations #3

Myers reminds us that “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.” He quotes Peter Block, from The Answer to How is Yes:

The quality of our experience is not measured by the seconds on the clock, but by the timelessness of our experience. We fool ourselves if we ask how long it will take before we know we are, become conscious, identify with our purpose, or remember our own history in  a more forgiving way.

The things that matter to us are measured by depth. Would you assess your humanity by its pace? When I view myself as a time-sensitive product, valued for what I produce, then I have made depth, extended thought, and the inward journey marginal indulgences.

But stories represent a problem for managers. Stories can’t be managed, but numbers can. Myers again: “Churches don’t become legendary in the community grapevine via reporting of numbers. They become legendary through the sharing of their story of mission within the community.”

The photo is from  “camera baba” aka Udit Kulshrastha 

David Herbert1 Comment

Every year Snugbury’s Ice Cream Farm entertain Cheshire with a sculpture with a good twist of humour. Last year it was the meerkat. The previous year was Big Ben. This year it’s for the team pursuit in the Olymplicks. Mike Harper, of Harbrook Engineering, is the creator of this piece of art. It took 3 men 3 weeks to fabricate the steel, and 4 people 2 weeks to stuff the straw. The piece weighs 7 tons, is 35 feet high, with the bike alone being 8 feet tall.

a most inspiring award

David Herbert3 Comments

Well, blow me down. I’ve received a nomination for  a Very Inspiring Blogger Award from Ivon from his Teacher as Transformer blog.

Isn’t that lovely? And isn’t the award a great way of building community? Now, I’ve got to nominate 15 other blogs and their authors as “Very Inspiring”, by which I mean that their blogs are inspirational to me. I know it’s not going to change their life, but it’s proof to them that they are making sense – to me, at least. (And it is reassuring to know that we are making sense to others).

And it’s going to get their oxytocin levels going! Dr Love – aka Paul Zak (can I change my name?) has researched the “moral molecule”, the chemical in the blood called oxytocin. It turns out that “being treated decently causes people’s oxytocin levels to go up, which in turn prompts them to behave more decently, while experimental subjects given an artificial oxytocin boost – by means of an inhaler – behave more generously and trustingly. And it’s not solely because of its effects on humans that oxytocin is known as “the cuddle hormone”: for example, male meadow voles, normally roguishly promiscuous in their interactions with female meadow voles, become passionately monogamous when their oxytocin levels are raised in the lab”.

So, let’s hear it for the male voles, and for social networking. Zak recommends, according to Oliver Burkeman writing in the Guardian

we should all be doing more to boost oxytocin in benign ways. He recommends a minimum of eight hugs a day (pets count, too); massage and even soppy movies seem to work: he has done the blood tests. Interactions on Twitter and Facebook seem to lead to oxytocin spikes, offering a powerful retort to the argument that social media is killing real human interaction: in hormonal terms, it appears, the body processes it as an entirely real kind of interaction

Get pressing that like button! William James claimed that “the deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated”, and a Harvard psychologist speaks of the importance of having a praise-criticism ratio of at least 5:1. Does anyone ever complain that they are praised too much?

Award ceremonies contain suspense, appreciation and thanks. Awards are prized and hard to come by – when we think of the Oscars, Olympics and such like. But there are everyday awards that are not so hard to come by, but are equally prized and create community. I had my own New Year ceremony which you can read about here. But there are awards to be made in our everyday world. These awards are not made with fanfares or fine words, but may consist of a “thank you” or simply a smile.

I’m not going to think too hard about the awards I am going to make today, but among them are my nominations for a Very Inspiring Blogger Award. (I am only including blogs which have recent posts).

And the nominations are (in no particular order and chosen from those who post regularly):

  1. Spirit 21 – Shelina Zahra Janmohamed
  2. Inspired Beeing – Cat Jaffee
  3. The Painted Prayerbook – jan Richardson
  4. Growing up with God – Rachael Elizabeth
  5. Simon Marsh
  6. shinystuff – Jan Dean
  7. Beyond the Edge – Viv McWaters
  8. Another Angle – Stephen Cherry
  9. Lost in the North – Dave Mock
  10. Plaza – Oliver Herbert
  11. People Reading
  12. Do not dance UK – Jose Campos
  13.  On the plus side – Lynn Walsh
  14. Christopher Burkett
  15. The Six Doyles – Katherine Doyle

The rules for accepting the nominations are:

  1. Link back to the person who nominated you
  2. Post the award image to your page
  3. Tell seven facts about yourself
  4. Nominate 15 other blogs
  5. Let them know they are nominated

So here’s the award

And here are seven facts about myself:

  1. I’m part of a lovely family – Jeanette, Adam, Oliver and Leo and their loved ones
  2. I was ordained in Sheffield in 1974
  3. I am still listening to Leonard Cohen and Paul Simon after all these years
  4. I love the beach – Patara and the beaches of Wirral and North Wales
  5. I’m intrigued by ideas of leadership and ministry (nominating here Dee Hock and Meg Wheatley for Very Inspiring Author awards).
  6. I follow the ups and downs of the Foxes – Leicester City – my home town team
  7. I recommended a book by Jay Griffiths to someone yesterday – A Sideways Look at Time

Thank you Ivon for nominating me and for inspiring me to today’s awards and community building. You would have been on that list.

Leaders in the new story

David Herbert4 Comments

Leaders who live in the new story help us understand ourselves differently by the way they lead. They trust our humanness, they welcome the surprises we bring to them; they are curious about our differences; they delight in our inventiveness; they nurture us; they connect us. They trust that we can create wisely and well, that we seek the best interests of our organisation and our community, that we want to bring more good into the world.

… What we ask of the tellers of the new story is their voice and their courage. We do not need them to create a massive training programme, a global approach, a dramatic style. We only need them to speak to us when we are with them. we need them to break their silence and share their ideas of the world as they have come to know it.

Meg Wheatley in Finding our Way (p.30)

Thank you to friend Helen Scarisbrick for drawing this to my attention.

Olympic medalling

David HerbertLeave a comment
Ellesmere Port gets the Olympics

I was there – at the Olympics on the day that Team GB won 3 golds in an hour! So were 70,000 others at Old Trafford to see Japan beat Egypt (eventually down to 9 men) 3-0. I got the Olympic sprit, had a great time and look forward to a return to Old Trafford on Tuesday to see the semifnals. It could have been Team GB v Brazil.

My blog stats read like the Olympic medal table. Except United States lead and UK comes second. China are nowhere – but it’s good to see French Polynesia getting a look in (only once, so not shown). The Olympic spirit is being in touch with each other, graciously. By the way, when did “medal” become a verb? I medalled, you medalled, he medalled, she medalled, they medalled.

Ringing true

David HerbertLeave a comment

20120725 Olympic opening ceremony rehearsal DSC_3479.jpg

Marcus Brigstocke couldn’t quite understand why there are so many countries represented in the Olympics. He assumes that some of the countries are made up. I too kept saying “where’s that?” as the athletes paraded. My favourite was Micronesia, which, if I remember correctly, is next to Amnesia, and next to its far larger neighbour Magnesia (famed for its milk and antacid industry). @marcusbrig has suggested other countries that could have been taking part, including Neverland, Narnia and the Land of Nod. Personally I don’t ever see Legoland being able to put together an opening ceremony like the one we saw on Friday, but I do look forward to the opening ceremony in Oz.

Ai Weiwei’s contrast in the Guardian between the Beijing and London Olympic ceremonies is telling. For me, the Opening Ceremony rang true. Aidan Burley MP’s tweet apart (he wrote: “Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap. Bring back red arrows, Shakespeare and the Stones!”)  the Opening Ceremony has been praised from all quarters. Danny Boyle held up a mirror to the world representing his reading of this “green and pleasant (ironic) land”. People liked what they saw in the mirror, and us Brits said “yes, this is us”. We recognise how the industrial revolution ripped our landscape and communities apart, and we recognised the values which have made for modern Britain. These values of care, generosity and hospitality are not exclusively British, and they are contested values in Britain, but care, generosity and hospitality were celebrated as the building blocks of community. It was good to see the parade of achievements (music, film, comedy) alongside the parade of sporting talent, and to see the national treasure of the NHS polished to the wonderful accompaniment of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and In Dulce Jubilo.

So many highlights rang my bells. Besides the NHS scenes there was the ringing of the bell, the music, Rowan Atkinson, the drumming (particularly Evelyn Glennie), the Industrial Revolution, the silence, Abide with me, the cast of volunteers and ordinary people, the inclusion of the construction workers and the marvellous lighting of the cauldron designed by Thomas Heatherwick.

Michael Sadgrove has posted his reflections on the Opening Ceremony. He highlights the spirituality of the Opening Ceremony. For Edward Green the Opening ceremony is a sign of the shape of the church to come.

The photo is from powderphotography

Lousy leaders

David Herbert4 Comments

Dan Rockwell has posted a list on what makes lousy leaders.

Lousy leaders:

  1. Need to know more than others.
  2. Can’t explore for fear of being wrong.
  3. Won’t ask obvious questions for fear of looking dumb.
  4. Need their egos stroked.
  5. Wonder who’s out to get them.
  6. Fear high performers; they need the spotlight.
  7. Struggle to collaborate.
  8. Won’t change their minds.
  9. Feel isolated and alone.
  10. Sacrifice long-term success for short-term profits.

Lousy leaders can’t serve others because they serve themselves.

I call them “mis-leading”, and that is the point Vicki Davis makes in her list of 10 terrible traits of lousy leaders.

Social capital & a man in a hat

David Herbert1 Comment

Parker J Palmer (worth following) shared this link from the public square of Sadabell in Spain. Turn the sound up, watch, enjoy.

It made me think ……

Public gathering, public square, ode to joy and delight
brings life to creases in old faces
Hands wring pleasure.
Young hands wielding innocent batons
conduct the mood of the moment
Public gathering background noise
Baby face smiles first music to the ear
Girl scales lamppost entranced
public square
ode to joy. Heaven.

The Fourth of July

David Herbert1 Comment

There are already “safe spaces for respectful conversations across partisan divides” which have been developed with great care through community development. They are shockingly liberal and discomforting, but need treasuring and multiplying. The above sign is from St James’ Church, Piccadilly in which rough sleepers mix (and sleep) with other worshippers (gathering from across many partisan divides) under one roof.

Parker J Palmer, in the Huffington Post draws attention to a project organised by the Wisconsin Council of Churches (with backing from Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities) initiated by a call from thirty-six religious leaders from across the state have called for “a Season of Civility“. Amidst “partisan rancour” they realise that they “must create ‘safe spaces’ for respectful conversations across the partisan divides. And we must move beyond the walls of our congregations to include everyone in our local communities in this dialogue.” They are using Parker Palmer’s Healing the Heart of Democracy to help guide their thinking, focusing on five “habits of the heart”:

  • understanding that we are all in this together (where have we heard that before?)
  • an appreciation of the value of “otherness”
  • an ability to hold tension in life-giving ways
  • a sense of personal voice and agency
  • a capacity to create community

Palmer’s Huffington Post article is written with American civility (or, lack of) in mind, but the issues he faces are universal. They transgress partisan divides. “The powers” have ways of discouraging us from rattling cages and discouraging conflict. In workshops (safe spaces?) I have seen that conflict has negative connotations for most people. But Palmer reminds us that conflict has a real place in the development of civility, community and society. “America was founded on the historically novel and radical premise that conflict and tension, rightly held, are the engine, not the enemy, of a better social order.” “The civility we need will come not from watching our tongues, but from valuing our diferences and the creativity that can come when we hold them well.”