WHY GROWN MEN SIGH

In the midst of e-mail exchanges with fellow members on a provincial board I serve, I produced an over-the-top, hyper-coy euphemism for looming trouble ahead by declaring, "The anal effluent is moving toward the rotary air handling device".


Afterward, I wondered where in my grotty psyche this came from.  Then, I remembered.

Years ago as a young pup consultant in an old, prestigious consulting firm I was tasked with reviewing C.V.s of hundreds of expat Canadian scholars and recommending which ones the Federal Government might wish to lure back to Canada to counter the mythical "brain drain" then thought to be threatening Canada's future.  How the Feds thought they would do the luring was unclear but they were willing to commission the research so...

My marching orders were clear - look only at those in hard science programs; no unproductive artsy/literary/musical/philosophical people were wanted.  I waded through stacks of turgid stuff about nascent engineers, baby computer boffins  and mad mathematicians in the making in search of those predestined to "Build Canada's Future".  Boring stuff until I hit pay dirt.  I came across a newly-minted PhD in Chemical Engineering whose doctoral thesis was entitled, "The Effects of Axial Rotation in Sewage Flotation Tanks." 


 Wow!  I discovered the first Canadian to have received a doctorate in Shit-Disturbing.  Here was a young man who could become a great political leader or Canada's answer to Saul Alinsky.  I delivered this exciting news to the solid grey Partner to whom I reported.  He stared at me for a moment, sighed and dryly inquired, "Evans, did you find any nuclear scientists?"


My solid grey boss often wondered about me and sighed.  He began doing so after the day I recommended a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to celebrate the firm's first ever hiring of a foreign born, dark skinned consultant.


These days, others stare at me and sigh.  Let them.  I still think that a PhD in Shit Disturbing is a rare and wonderful credential to have.  

MORE ON LEADERSHIP - A Folk Tale

I go on about leadership because it is mostly evident by its absence in the Canadian polity.  We do not see it in business, political life or the media and we all suffer for its lack.  I wrote a book about it (MORAL LEADERSHIP:  Facing Canada's Leadership Crisis - McGraw-Hill Ryerson.)  I have lectured about it in the tradition of, "Them what can, does - Them what can't teaches".

There is an old Spanish folk tale that gets at the essence of leadership, which to my mind is simply the exercise of moral courage.  The tale goes as follows,

There was a little man and he led a little life.

One day, he began to pack his little bag.

They came and they asked, "What are you doing?  Where are you going?"

He replied, "I am packing my bag and going to Conamera."

They said, "You mean, you are going to Conamera God willing."

He replied, "No, I mean I am going to Conamera."

So God changed him into a frog, and placed him in the Frog Pond for seven years.

When God changed him back, what did he do?

Well, he began again to pack his little bag.

They came and they asked, "What are you doing?  Where are you going?".

He replied, "I am packing my bag and going to Conamera".

They said, "You mean you are going to Conamera, God willing".

He replied, "No, I mean I am going to Conamera...

Or back to the Frog Pond."

The Little Man reminds me of another Little Man I met only once, several years ago.  I was called in my role as a consultant to do damage control and trauma intervention at a necessary but lamentable firing of a long-serving Vice President of a major Canadian university.  The President - the Little Man I refer to - was on sick leave.  He was in the last stages of dying of ALS.  When I arrived, the executive who retained me and was to have delivered the bad news to the VP informed me that he received a note from the President which read as follows,

"I hired her.  I mentored her.  She reported always to me.  I will dismiss her - personally.  I owe her that respect."

An hour later the President was helped from the ambulance and for the last time into the big leather chair in his office.  He was given a pad and pen because he no longer had the ability to speak.  He wrote a while and handed to result to his distressed executive to read on his behalf.  The VP was invited in to the office.  The appointed executive read the words written to her while the President maintained unswerving eye contact.  He then held her hands for a moment, nodded farewell and went home to complete the process of dying.

Afterward, I glanced at the handwritten script.  At the top of the page the President had printed in caps,  

"DIGNITY".

This Little Man (he was tiny in stature) was one of the special people who enriched and informed my life.  He was a leader; an exemplar and a man of real courage.  I met few like him in my long business career.  I see none like him in the world of politics, the big bureaucracies and the importuning social service agencies.  To find his like I have to hark back to the gritty, raucous NCOs and officers in the military from whom I received my earliest training in being a leader and in just being a man.  They did the right thing, usually, these gutsy ruffians.  They did it sometimes in ways that would curl your hair and send smarmy, politically correct nice nellies to the fainting couch but dammit, the right thing.  Honouring dignity can come in interesting disguise.

I suspect that I wrote this to challenge myself.  I invite you to do likewise.  Our screwed up world needs all the help it can get.

PS:  The previous post below about Irshad Manji may be helpful.

A NOTE ON LEADERSHIP AND A BOOK PROMO

What does a young, mouthy, brown-skinned Muslim dyke have to say about leadership in this complicated, fucked-up world of ours?  A lot.  And, she doesn't just say the words, she lives by what she says.  She is making a difference.

Irshad Manji's spark burns bright.  I met her years ago at a couple of Couchiching Conferences.  She would not remember me but I surely remember her.  As my old buddy Sister Ginny remarked at the time, "When Irshad matures a bit and gets focused, watch her go."  Well, she went.  And continues to go.  Her latest enema for a world in need of a good purge is in the form of a book,

ALLAH, LIBERTY AND LOVE

the Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom

Random House Canada 2011

Is Irshad a leader?   How many devout Muslims have you heard from who distinguish between Islamic faith and the corrupt, backward culture surrounding it?  How many are prepared to say in public, death threats be damned that the destructive, bloody-handed culture must be flogged into the 21st century?  How many are willing to challenge ossified old Imams on their own turf - interpretation of the Koran?  And how many speak with power and conviction to the fact that no woman of any faith or none is "lesser than" because she has indoor plumbing?  Irshad does these things with sometime ferocious passion and is heard.  She is a leader.

Since I am expiating some crankiness here, let me offend my Christian friends by inquiring not gently when Irshad's counterpart will emerge among them to shred the equally corrupt and backward Christian culture that is increasingly anti-science, anti gay, Islam-phobic, angry, insular, fearful, bellicose and intellectually barren?  When will we be done of abominations like the Vatican, The American Family Association, braying fundamentalist preachers on TV replete with bad hair and worse attitudes, the incoherent clattering of thousands of warring protestant sects speaking their crabbed versions of truth and the anti-social navel-gazing of ultra-orthodox Jews?  When will the humanistic sensibility so evident and so ignored in the texts and histories of the great religions regain its footing in this philosophically knackered world?  To their credit, at least the Buddhists manage not to add to the confusion.

As you might guess, I am a-religious and a bit anti-religious.  I am not a proponent of atheism.  That is one more "ism".  I am done with "isms"for they slam and bolt the door on the thinking, wonder and hope that sustain us.  If you want a label for me, try Pain in the Ass.

Once you all have given me a ritual beating for my rhetorical excess I will return to this subject.  For now, think about leadership in a world in need of it.  I have little talent for it but know it when I see it.  I wrote a book about it - MORAL LEADERSHIP: Facing Canada's Leadership Crisis (McGraw-Hill Ryerson).  It is out of print but is still around in university and public libraries if you are curious.  The essence of the book is a simple aphorism,

Leadership, stripped of all its rhetorical trappings is simply the exercise of moral courage.

The Epilogue read as follows,

"A down-at-the-heels fifty-something man in a dirty raincoat with a lunch bag protruding from his pocket stops at a newspaper box.  The door is not latched.  He opens the box and looks at the stack of papers.  A moment later, he closes the box firmly, rummages in his pocket, finds a toonie and shoves it in the slot and again closes the door firmly.  Having presented his morality play to an audience of one - himself - he proceeded down the street to the subway entrance.

This one very ordinary man performed a solitary act of faith and citizenship that speaks to the heart and soul of leadership.  He works for a company somewhere in the city.  He will vote in the next election.  He asks no more of his boss and of his chosen political leader than that they be as worthy of leading him as he is worthy of being led.

He asks for the exercise of moral courage and by his little act of faith, exemplifies it.  He is, after all, a leader."

I suspect that all of us can perform little acts of faith in defense of humanity and damn the personal consequences.  Better to speak out and risk being catastrophically wrong than to stand silent for you can always apologize, clean up the mess and step aside if need be.  May our failings be in commission rather than omission.

Here, the rant ends.  My next post will engage with something fun like proctology or castrating camels.

Note the Comments section.  Have a go - I would love to get some feedback here or on Facebook.

Read Irshad's book.

STUNNING FILM

Here is a link to a three minute film with six lines of dialogue.  It is breathtaking in its power and simplicity.

It reminds me of Hemingway's example of a six word short story,

Baby shoes for sale.

Never used.

The Link:  http://www.porcelainunicorn.com