of our world. The sense-making work we do can either help or hurt our most important purposes. The more aware we are, the more we have presence of mind.
There are many practices for improving presence of mind. What follows are a tried-and-true few.
Mental Practice: Be for, not against
Most people move through congested areas with their attention on what is in the way. The next time you are in a crowded airport, train station, or shopping mall, focus your mind on a simple thought: “Where are the open spaces?” You will find yourself easily slipping into them.
This simple exercise illustrates the power of focusing on what you are for (open spaces) versus what you are against (people in your way). If we focus only on what we are against, survivalist emotions dominate as we give our attention to what we don’t want versus what we do. Tension rises and mental agility declines. In the presence of what we are for, our minds are fully engaged, relaxed vigilance is easier, tension goes down, and our mental agility goes up.
In an agile mind, what we are against simply informs what we are for rather than distracts from it. For instance, the people in our way in a crowd serve to help us see open spaces rather than present themselves as obstacles.
Your Vitality Imperative
Bring to mind the challenge you are using to assess the value of vitality. Make two quick lists:
• What are you for? What values, purposes, results, or opportunities are on your mind?
• What are you against? What criticisms, concerns, impediments, or risks are on your mind?
Then, looking at your “against” list, ask yourself, “What am I for that has me be against that?” If new things come to mind, add to the “for” list. Next:
• Give your relaxed, vigilant interest to each entry on the “for” list. What ideas or actions come to mind?
• Give your relaxed, vigilant interest to the entries on the “against” list. How many of them have been addressed already by focusing on what you are for? What additional ideas or actions come to mind?
Vitality Is Increased When Presence Is Practiced
Practicing presence—and actually getting better at it—is unusual. Those who make the practice habitual have an unusually clear and accurate connection to what is happening, unusual poise under pressure, and better access to their own talents. Also, presence is infectious. Your calm interest in what is actually happening can relax others and make a whole group smarter. In Social Intelligence, Goleman said, “We catch each other’s mood like we catch a cold.” The mood of presence is worth catching.
Here are some questions worth considering as you decide whether or not you want to promise presence in your personal and professional life:
• Where and when is it important for me to be fully present?
• How does the quality of my presence help or hurt the connections that build community?
• How does my presence help or hurt people making a significant contribution?
• How does my presence influence people making a choice to do great work?
• How can I develop more presence today? What, if anything, will I do differently?
To advance your mastery of presence, more resources and practices—including full color versions of tools referenced throughout the chapter—can be found at thevitalityimperative.com/presence.
When it comes to being a Vitality leader, presence is the first thing. However, it is not everything, so let’s move on!
PROMISE #2
The Power to Appreciate the Purposes, Worries, and Circumstances of Others
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
—Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
People believe leaders who really understand and care about their aspirations and struggles. And when people believe in their leaders, everything is easier.
—Al Miksch, CEO, Audio Precision
Every year, more than 20 million babies are born prematurely and at risk of dying. Of those premature births that do result in death, 98 percent occur in the developing world in large part because the infants cannot be kept warm.
Stanford’s design institute, known as the d.school, features a curriculum that teaches empathy as fundamental to great design. In 2007, a group of d.school students took on a formidable challenge: design a solution to neonatal hypothermia that costs less than one percent of a state-of-the-art incubator.
The students began by listening to learn the purposes, worries, and circumstances of the parents in developing regions. While visiting rural India, they discovered that many incubators went unused because the hospitals were too far from the villages. Also, midwives delivered most children at home, while hospitals were strange and feared. Even if incubators could be made more cheaply and brought to the villages, unreliable electricity was a prohibitive problem. Devoted mothers were worried about keeping their babies warm in circumstances that precluded traditional incubator solutions.
This empathetic research led to crucial criteria: any solution needed to be locally available, nonelectrical, portable, sterile, and reusable. During the discovery process, parents, midwives, and doctors at local clinics felt understood and respected, and they in turn became creative co-conspirators.
The result was an extraordinary, elegant solution that looks much like a tiny sleeping bag. Using waterproof materials like those in high-tech camping gear, the students made a hooded wrap to fully enclose the baby. An insulated sleeve in the back of the hooded wrap holds a wax-like material that can be heated in water and hold the resulting temperature for four to six hours. Close to one hundred fifty thousand babies have benefited from the solution, a product known as Embrace.
This story serves to illustrate what we’ve learned from our work with four hundred organizations in more than one hundred countries:
• People long to be understood. When you appreciate purposes, worries, and circumstances, people feel known.
• People long to be valued. When you learn from others, they feel valuable and legitimatized.
• Connecting with those deep longings unlocks contribution and causes vitality to soar.
The Economist honored the Embrace cofounders as winners of the 2013 Innovation award for social and economic innovation. Such is the power of honoring the innately human desire to be heard and valuable. True innovation begins not with assumptions and opinions; instead, it begins with deep, empathetic research that creates communities of contribution.
Imagine
