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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday, September 11, 2000 Volume II Number 37
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FOCUS - Being There
“Dad, are you multi-tasking?”
It was our oldest daughter. She is a schoolteacher. I revel in her stories… stories of unruly children who present a classroom challenge. Students with short attention spans and learning disabilities. And a distinct lack of self-confidence. Parents with blinders on – so entrapped by mind numbing routines and day-to-day survival that their children often suffer neglect, and sometimes abuse. And our daughter, like Ann of Green Gables or Christy (her childhood heroes who also chose education as a career), views each day as an opportunity to prove to the world that anyone can learn and that no student is beyond hope. She’s incurably positive.
“How did you know?” I asked wondering how my two-things-at-once behavior had been so apparent.
“Dad… I can always tell.”
And she was right. Again. I was busted. Busted for multi-tasking.
With the wireless telephone tucked between my shoulder and my ear, I listened. But I was also tapping away at the keyboard of my notebook computer thinking that I could both listen to my daughter tell about her most recent classroom encounter and finish off that e-mail message… and get away with it. But she could tell. I wasn’t all there. I wasn’t really tracking her story, as I ordinarily do.
Her question pierced through the haze of my distraction. We both laughed.
It seems that when our children are really young, we parents are easily annoyed. And then when our children grow older, they return the favor. Even though I sometimes annoy my own daughter, I know she still loves me. And if I handle it right, I can convince her to repeat it again… because I really do want to hear it.
But, even so, I feel like I need a confessional booth and a sympathetic minister of grace. I communicated an unspoken signal to my daughter that I want to take back. These are some of the most rewarding and satisfying moments of my life, these little vignettes I hear from her, and I let them fly by like a bird on the wing… here for an instant and then gone. Never to be recovered.
All in the name of time management.
“I’m sorry punkin… forgive me. I just turned it off. No more computer. No other distractions. You’ve got me. One hundred percent,” I said.
* * * * * * *
There are two ways to look at a motorcycle.
One way is to look at the parts. The constituent pieces. Motorcycles have become more sophisticated in time, but the basics remain the same. Two wheels. A saddle. Handle bars with a throttle and the front brake lever on one side and the clutch on the other. Gear shifter at the right foot. Rear brake pedal at the left. The motor is mounted in the frame. The pistons and valves rings and spark plugs drive a rod attached to a crankshaft lying horizontally and perpendicular to the frame. At the end of that drive shaft is a gear semi-wrapped in a chain. The links of the chain connect the drive shaft to another gear on the rear wheel.
Our motorcycle is comprised of hundreds, maybe thousands of machined parts. They must fit together with a high degree of precision. There are bearings. And bolts. And screws. Piston heads. The manifold. Exhaust system. Brake pads. Rims and spokes. Tires and cables. Filters and tubing. And dials and gages and insulated copper wires and light bulbs.
A competent mechanic can disassemble the whole thing and lay the parts on the concrete floor of the garage. With the help of a detailed schematic, he can re-assemble it all, part by part – and the thousand or so different pieces all come together an become a unified, single unit. The parts become whole. We call it a motorcycle.
There is another way to look at a motorcycle. It is an entirely different perspective than that of the mechanic.
It’s the view from the saddle.
It’s turning the key to the “run” position, releasing a pulse of electricity from the battery through the wires, a current that enables each system to come alive. Hitting the start button, spinning the starter creating a high pitch whine, which in turn engages the gas engine, turning the crank until the first internal combustion when the spark plug ignites an explosion of misty fuel and drives the pistons into a controlled generation of raw power. A twist of the wrist at the throttle, and the throaty exhaust trumpets the start, alerting the entire neighborhood. The ride is about to commence. Three or four twists of the wrist confirm it, this baby is runnin’.
When you are at a stand still, you must balance your motorcycle with your feet on the ground. But as you gently turn that throttle and release that clutch in a practiced combination of tandem moves, the motorcycle pulls forward underneath you, the vibrating pistons purr, the machined parts sing a song of mechanical symmetry, and the acceleration is matched only by exhilaration. Your feet leave the ground and balance is assured by the gyroscope effect of the spinning wheels. A still summer day becomes a breeze and then a blast against your face as the RPMs multiply and you run through the gears to cruising speed.
Straight roads are OK, but your motorcycle was made for the turns. The winding uphill climb to the top of the mountain. The tall stand of trees on either side of the highway amplifies your sense of motion and speed. As you slow down for the turns, you downshift and feel the backpressure of the pistons compressing air in the cylinders, and then you accelerate out with a turn of the wrist, all the while keeping those RPMs up. Like a slingshot. You lose track of time. Your bike becomes an extension of your will. You are in control.
Some mechanics are good riders. Some riders, good mechanics.
But the rider and the mechanic have two very different perspectives on the same machine. The two may not understand the other’s concerns. Or the other’s motivation. Or the other’s techniques.
In fact, they may not understand each other at all.
* * * * * *
Appropriate responses have everything to do with proper perspectives.
There may be no better way to illustrate the point than this conversation between a young man and a young woman.
What if we were
sitting in a sidewalk café overhearing the following exchange between a fiancée
and her betrothed?
She: “I’m
so looking forward to our wedding day. I
do love you so much. I really wish
I could see more of you. There’s
so much about you I want to know better.”
He: “Yes, dear, I know. I’m going to send you a book that describes more of my life. I’m sure you will get a lot out of it.”
She: “I’ll be glad to read it, but I just want to hold your
hand.” She continues somewhat
mischievously. “I just want to
kiss you.”
He: “I’m sure you do, beloved.
Let me send you an audiotape describing the role of physical affection
at different stages of courtship. You’ll
find it worth while, I’m sure.”
She: (Somewhat disappointed) “That’s wonderful, darling.
It’s just that I look so forward to our wedding day.
I want to be with you so badly. I
think of us, you know, being ‘together’ day and night.”
He: “Yes, intimacy is important.
I’d like to send you to a weekend seminar that would really be quite
helpful.”
About this
time, most of us would say, “what a stiff!
This guy doesn’t have a clue about how to love a woman.
(Brent Curtis, co-author of The Sacred Romance)
There is quite a difference between knowing “how to” and doing. Books and seminars and audio taped lectures can tell you all about marriage and intimacy and communication and parenting.
But who wants to just read about it?
Wouldn’t you rather do it?
* * * * * * * *
Robert M. Pirsig is an author and a professor of philosophy and rhetoric. As a child, he was a mathematics prodigy. Later, as a young student, he believed that all of life’s riddles could be resolved by rational thought and scientific formula. He completed a PhD in math at age twenty-one.
But math disappointed him as a worldview. He found its limitations. He turned to philosophy. He pursued graduate studies, but soon concluded that Western philosophy was simply a logical extension of the rationalism he’d mastered in mathematics. So he turned to the East. He studied Zen.
Some years later, he and his
twelve-year-old son took a summer cross-country trip on his Honda
motorcycle. As he wandered through the Rocky Mountains of Western
Colorado, and the red sandstone deserts of Utah and Arizona, and the tall pines
of the high country in northern New Mexico, he had lots of time to think.
He became obsessed with the greatest philosophic riddle of all – how to reconcile the rational with the transcendent. Empiricism and existentialism. He wanted to author the first workable unified theory. He believed he could do it.
As he turned a corner, it hit him like a blinding intellectual flash. He saw the connection. There in his mind was a metaphor that gave him a clue to the mystery that had haunted him nearly all of his adult life. It was his motorcycle. And the two opposing perspectives. The mechanical view. And the rider’s view.
A whole flood of other connections filled his mind. The two perspectives, still unreconciled, symbolized the gulf between Western and Eastern philosophy. The West – systematizing the parts. The East – taking the ride. Not just East and West. Science and Art. Math and poetry. Left-brain, right-brain.
Ultimately, Robert Pirsig failed to build that bridge. His obsession landed him in a psyche ward, unable to function.
After his recovery, he wrote a book. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It became a rip-roaring best seller. It’s a primer on philosophical thought.
And it taught me that for the most part professional philosophers are at the end of the day just as confused as the rest of us.
* * * * * * *
As a leader, you need to think theory. You need to consult advisors. You need bullet lists and memos and books that tell you “how to.”
But remember this, your fascination with doing it better, your need to improve, your theorizing… all can become a pointless distraction. You may find yourself multi-tasking – and the people most important to you are having trouble getting your attention.
This Monday morning, don’t get lost in the parts and the pieces and the schematics and the owner’s manual. Get in the saddle, turn the ignition key “on” and take this thing for a ride.
Your people need to know where you are going. Show them, and take them along.
The people closest to you don’t need your bibliography – your book recommendations – they need you.
We may know a lot about our spouse, but do we know our spouse? We may know a lot about our children, but do we know our children? We may know a lot about our colleagues, but do we know our colleagues?
Some of us know a lot about God. But we do we know God?
That philosophical riddle that confounded the likes of Robert Pirsig… there is a bridge. Pirsig never found it. That bridge spans the gap in our spiritual quest. And when you understand that, you’ll find a peace that passes all understanding.
Rest in that peace. Connect with your people. Focus on one at a time. Be there. One hundred percent.
And enjoy the ride. 
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2000
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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