When I was going through Marine officer training, one of the things we had to do was learn how to dig foxholes. For those of you not familiar with military traditions, a foxhole is a pit that combat troops dig to give them shelter from enemy attacks. My training course occurred in northern Virginia, during the summer, when it was not only hot, but humid. So digging anything was not fun. Being young and lazy at the time, I proceeded to dig a foxhole that was barely big enough to hide me from the enemy. I was standing there admiring my handiwork, my homage to minimalism, when old, grizzled Gunnery Sergeant Ford approached. He looked at my foxhole, which was really more like a scratch in the ground, and then he looked at me.  I prepared myself for one of his famous verbal reprimands. But he surprised me when instead of a reprimand, he crossed his arms across his chest, got this far away look in his eyes like he was remembering something important and then simply said, “Lieutenant, you never dig a one man foxhole. When the battle comes and the bullets start flying, I don’t care how tough you are, you’re going to want somebody there next to you. So the bigger your hole, the more support it can hold.” And then he walked away.

That lesson stuck with me. It turned out that he was right. When I was in combat in Desert Storm and the battle came and the bullets started flying, I wanted as many of my fellow Marines around me as I could find. So we dug huge foxholes and like the lyrics from Billy Joel’s Goodnight Saigon: “we held on to each other like brother to brother.” And together, we made it through that ordeal.

As I was thinking this week about the tough time that a lot of us have been going through over these past couple of years, for some reason I was reminded of the lesson that Gunny Ford taught me more than 20 years ago. Sadly, there is something in our American DNA that brings out the individualist in all of us. We try to do everything on our own—we love to build one-person foxholes.

So I thought it would be fitting to share with you what wise Gunny Ford shared with me in the forests of Quantico, Virginia: “Never dig a one-person foxhole.” When the oil rig blows up and your means of making a living starts disappearing, when you get laid off and you start falling behind in your bills, when your customers stop spending and your business starts to go under, when your parents get ill and your brother gets cancer, when all these difficult circumstances come your way, you’re going to need somebody there next to you. So the bigger your foxhole, the more people you can have in it.

Now is the time for us to come together to support one another. I invite you to open your eyes and your lives to the people around you. If you need help, ask for it. If you can give help, offer it. There are too many of us for any one of us to struggle alone. Let’s all start digging gigantic foxholes and make room for other people in our lives.

Please allow me to close with the quote that appears at the bottom of all of my emails. It is a line from another song, this one called What Susan Said by the late Rich Mullins: “And if your home is just another place where you’re a stranger, and far away is just somewhere you’ve never been. I hope that you’ll remember, I am your friend.”

Warmest Regards,

Coach Paul
www.lifechangingcoaching.com

“And if your home is just another place where you’re a stranger, and far away is just somewhere you’ve never been. I hope that you’ll remember, I am your friend.” – Rich Mullins

Life-Changing Coaching by Paul Edward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 License.

Leaving aside the political implications of Republican Senator-elect Scott Brown’s come-from-behind victory in Massachusetts last month, the events that shaped the results of that Senate race provide us with an invaluable lesson on leadership and life.

I believe that to be an effective leader, one has not only make good decisions, one has to also make good “anti-decisions.” Most of us know about and practice the art of good decision making, which involves saying yes to the right things, but few of us are aware of the importance of good anti-decision making, which involves saying no to the right things. In other words, effective leadership requires disciplined focus.

A year before this week’s Senate election in Massachusetts, President Obama took the oath of office and became America’s 44^th President of the United States. In his inspiring inaugural address, excerpted in the following paragraph, he laid out an enormous plan for change:

“For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.”

I counted seven objectives in that one paragraph, which is actually fine, even commendable. When I was learning the art of leadership as a young midshipman in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Program at the University of Southern California, one of the things we used to say was “make no small plans.” This was a pithy reminder to us fledgling leaders that effective leadership required boldness and vision. I was therefore very encouraged by our new president’s big plans.

As the days following President Obama’s inauguration began to pass, I realized that he seemed to be making the same mistake that most new leaders (and many of us) make, faced with so much that needed to be done, instead of implementing his big plans one small piece at a time, he was attempting to do everything at once: create jobs, overhaul healthcare, protect the environment, transform education, and combat terrorism (which wasn’t on his original inaugural list). Ironically, in the very next paragraph of his inaugural address, President Obama acknowledged the challenge he would be facing:

“Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.”

It turns out that whoever it was who was questioning the scale of the president’s ambitions was right. Very few systems, particularly those involving human beings, can tolerate too many big plans being implemented at the same time. President Obama is learning the hard way that effective leadership requires a disciplined focus that says no (or at least not right now) to the right things. In his pursuit to do it all, it appears that voters, at least in Massachusetts, feel that the president hasn’t done anything: jobless rates are still rising as stimulus money sits unspent in federal coffers; healthcare reform is stalled; environmental legislation languishes in committee; education spending is decreasing in most states across the nation; and the war on terror continues to consume even more people and scarce resources.

But this doesn’t have to be the end of the story. The president is not the first leader to experience his big plans lose momentum and flounder. Thousands of leaders have faced similar challenges in their lives as they worked to turn their visions into reality. Those leaders learned that the pathway to success involved becoming skilled at decision-making and disciplined in anti decision-making. What the president needs to do (or you, if you find yourself in a similar situation) is choose one objective to work on at a time, like job creation, for example, focus on achieving that objective, and use the momentum from that achievement to begin working on the next objective.

This is what the miracle in Massachusetts has to teach us, if we are willing to listen and learn.

Warmest Regards,

Coach Paul
www.lifechangingcoaching.com

“And if your home is just another place where you’re a stranger, and far away is just somewhere you’ve never been. I hope that you’ll remember, I am your friend.” – Rich Mullins

Life-Changing Coaching by Paul Edward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 License.

Once a year, we pull back the curtains and invite people to come and take a look behind the scenes of coaching. This year I want to invite you to attend the International Coach Federation (ICF) Orange County Chapter’s International Coaching Week celebration on Friday, February 19th, 2010.

Here is the official invitation from the event organizer:

Whether you are a potential coach or client, come and discover the life-changing power of coaching! You’re invited to attend our International Coaching Week on February 19^th 2010 at Brandman University in Irvine.  The ICF Orange County chapter brings coaching awareness to the Orange County community as part of the global International Coaching Week.  You’ve heard of coaching, you’ve thought about hiring a coach, but you’re not sure what it’s about or what it can do for you.  This is a great opportunity to experience coaching from 15 of Orange County’s top coaches with presentations focused on business, life and career.  Plus, FREE one-on-one laser coaching from our coaches.  $19.95 gets you in to this full day event to experience coaching and make 2010 the year to unlock your potential.  Seating is limited to 100 so register early and secure your seat and schedule your laser coaching session with one of our coaches.

To register or learn more about ICW click here.

I will be presenting a seminar on Countering Executive Derailers at 2:00 PM that afternoon, so I hope to see you there!

Warmest Regards,

Coach Paul
www.lifechangingcoaching.com

“And if your home is just another place where you’re a stranger, and far away is just somewhere you’ve never been. I hope that you’ll remember, I am your friend.” – Rich Mullins

Life-Changing Coaching by Paul Edward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 License.