When am I Cooperative Enough?

This past week I was in Durham NC doing a bunch of teaching, when a curious student posed a question I'd never fielded before.

I had just finished making the case for why people who want to create and sustain cooperative culture need to do personal work to unlearn competitive conditioning if they want to avoid being drained by an endless swirl of combative dynamics when people disagree. Persuaded by my thinking, this woman was (reasonably) wondering how much work did she need to do before putting her oar in the water.

What a good question! In some ways it's just another version of an age-old dilemma about when do you have enough information to take action. After all, you never know everything. When does the value of waiting to gather additional data drop below the cost of delaying a response? Sometimes this is clear cut; other times it can be excruciatingly obscure.

Still, on the question of being "cooperative enough," I think it's useful to identify some markers. Here are some things to think about. Progress against these markers are positive signs. To the extent you struggle with these skills, it means you have more work to do.

•  In cooperative culture, how things are done matters as much as what gets done. Thus, being cooperatively sensitive implies a consciousness and facility with process. You should know that this matters and have a pretty clear sense of how to do things well.

•  The ability to consistently think in terms of what's best for the group, distinguishing that from personal preference.
•  The ability to see an issue through another's eyes (rather than only through your own).

•  A solid understanding of what it means to be a productive, disciplined, and courageous meeting participant (I'll give you a hint: meetings are not open mic). This means a lot of things, including, knowing what the topic is at any given moment, having done your homework on the topic, knowing what kind of contribution is called for at any given moment, supporting the facilitator if some participants are misbehaving, looking for ways to bridge between people who are struggling to hear each other, owning your stuff if you've having a reaction, reining in any impulse to be aggressive and attacking, and speaking your truth—even when you doubt it will be a viewpoint that will be popular.

•  Developing emotional literacy—the ability to articulate clearly what you're feeling and to hear accurately what other's are reporting about their feelings. A deeper nuance here is the ability to function well in the presence of another's distress.

•  Being open to hearing critical feedback about your statements and actions as a member of the group. Can you do this with minimal armoring or defensiveness?

•  How open are you to the perception that you are oblivious to your privilege?

The Dogleg Left to Mobile

Yesterday Susan and I crossed the midpoint of our fortnight vacation in the Southeast. While we won't be Marching through Georgia (shades of Sherman), by the time we're done with our maneuvers will have had boots on the ground (or at least sandals) in Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana.

We celebrated Pi Day by wrapping up our Florida visit, and renting a one-way Elantra from Alamo for a one-day run from Tampa to Mobile, about 530 miles. Today's entry is an amalgam of our observations en route.

—We awoke Thursday morning in Sarasota, where we had been graciously hosted by Susan's brother and sister-in-law—Chuck and Lana—since the southbound Silver Meteor deposited us in state March 8. They live more-or-less in the midst of the retirement stretch from Tarpon Springs to Fort Myers. According to Chuck the Gulf Coast specializes in Midwesterners, while the Atlantic side draws more Easterners. (What do I know, they all look alike.)

In any event, our visit coincided with spring break, so the age profile at the beaches and tiki bars was seriously leavened by an infusion of youth.

—After Chuck delivered us to the Alamo lot in downtown Tampa and we executed the paperwork, it didn't take us long to get of town and leave retirement Florida behind. The first third of our trip was up the spine of the state on I-75. I was curious to see what we'd see away from glamor of the coast…

There were occasional wetlands, woods, agricultural fields, and then, increasingly as we wound north, horse paddocks. We saw signs for bags of oranges and pecans at welcome centers, but did not see a single live example of the Sunshine State's iconic fruit producer: an orange tree. This was a disappointment both from a visual and odiferous perspective, and contrasted sharply with my olfactory memories of a family trip in 1967 at the same time of year—from which I recall the magic of driving through acre after acre of orange tress in bloom. Fifty-two years later there were no trees. (Where is Florida growing all its citrus these days—oranges are still reported to be its top export?)

—Right around the point where I-10 intersected I-75 (the site of our dogleg lefthand turn, near Lake City) the terrain changed. Instead of continuing on to Valdosta GA, the drive west through the panhandle was characterized by pine trees left and right.

—At the turn there were a couple of billboards that got our attention, advertising how firing automatic weapons was "fun for the whole family, so come on down to Guns America!" Eh? 

Invariably these ads (I've seen their ilk at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas also) feature a buxom woman cradling an automatic weapon. I reckon those NRA dues have to go somewhere (other than directly into the pockets of legislators), in their desperate rearguard attempt to slow the groundswell for gun control. Sigh.

—While the pine pollen season was just ending (for which we were thankful), we were sobered driving through miles and miles of damaged trees and twisted billboards, the devastating after effects of Hurricane Michael, that roared through here last October. Road crews were still cleaning up downed trees five months later, and there were untold numbers of standing trees that had been snapped off halfway up their trunk. It will take a long time for the panhandle to fully recover.

—For some reason, we saw almost no motorcycles in Florida, but we encountered plenty as soon as we crossed the line into 'Bama. I have no idea what that means.

—While we didn't see any oranges on our trip, we saw plenty of large billboards for personal injury lawyers. Three firms in particular advertised the entire length of our journey, even into Alabama. It struck me that all of these firms must be wildly successful if their business income compensates them for such outrageous advertising budgets. Undoubtedly there's more money in lawyering than orcharding.

—Right at the FL/AL border we noticed a billboard advertising the Lambert Cafe in Foley, located just south of Fairhope, where Guy & Elaine (my brother and sister-in-law, and our hosts for the next couple days) have lived happily since 2010. 

Lambert's is home of Home of the Throwed Rolls, and is a phenomenon I'm familiar with as an experienced Missourian. The mothership for this modest three-restaurant chain is in Sikeston MO and I've stopped there a couple times over the course of my years in the Show-Me State. It's a family style restaurant where, for a fixed price, you have access to servings of all the predictable components of southern cuisine (mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, overcooked green beans, hush puppies, cole slaw, ham slices, fried chicken, etc.). While there is nothing exceptional about the food, their gimmick is that when the roll guy comes around, he doesn't deliver to your table, he tosses you rolls from across the room—and you better be ready.

—The directions for our trip were relatively straight forward but we fumbled the ball at the end relying on the GPS on Susan' iPhone to bring us safely to the Mobile Regional Airport, and we lost about an hour wandering around the northwest quadrant of Mobile in search of a small airport. (Who know they could hide like that?)

Back in Tampa we made a deal with Alamo to buy the gas in the car, freeing us up from needing to leave any in it at end. In order to "win" our gamble we wanted to come in on fumes. Without intending to cut it that close, our unintended meandering meant we had exhausted our cushion such that the "get gas" idiot light was flashing at us as we finally eased into the Alamo car return parking slot at the airport. Whew.

—Guy & Elaine collected us there and we repaired to a nearby Winchell's Restaurant for a much-deserved round of cold adult beverages, up-tempo conversation, and a dozen raw, juicy gulf oysters. I satisfying ending to a long, yet informative day.

My Misadventure on the Road

I have been a process consultant and teacher for 32 years. I've been a cancer survivor for three. Last weekend the two intersected in an awkward way.

As you might imagine, most of my work with clients is on location—I travel to be with the group, anywhere in North America. For most of my life that's worked fine. I like traveling, I eat anything, and I could sleep restfully in a wide variety of conditions.

As I've aged, I have gradually became more picky about room accommodations but it has hardly ever been a problem. That reality was seriously challenged, however, when I started experiencing serious back pain in late 2014, which ultimately led to the discovery of cancer (multiple myeloma) in January 2016. No more Mr. Indestructible. I went 28 years as a consultant without canceling a single job due to illness, but my iron man streak ended dramatically when I couldn't get out of bed for a month, nearly died, and it took months of treatment to recover as I battled cancer and its side effects. That was sobering.

Eventually I was able to return to my career (albeit cautiously at first) in September 2016 following a stem cell transplant at Mayo Clinic, and I have more or less been regaining strength, stamina, and flexibility ever since—all of which is a good story. These days I do not book more than 1-2 jobs a month and allow plenty of time to recover between jobs. I also have a policy of not departing for a trip if I am feeling sick (note, however, that this is not the same a guaranteeing that I will arrive well, as this story points out).

While I thought I was being prudent. Maybe not so much.

You see, I still have cancer. While it's being contained by a carefully chosen chemotherapy protocol that I tolerate well, I am not cured. There are changes to my constitution that I sometimes fail to take properly into account. 

•  My back is permanently weakened (I have three fractured vertebrae) and should no longer lift more than 25 pounds (I'll never build another cistern).

•  I am prone to edema and need to remember to get up regularly and move around to minimize swollen ankles (how many hours should anyone sit in front of a computer screen anyway?).

•  The weakest system in my body is my lungs. Whenever I catch a cold, it takes me weeks to shake the cough. Last winter I was twice briefly hospitalized to get professional help shaking respiratory distress: pneumonia and RSV.

This last point became poignantly apparent a week ago when I was traveling to Vancouver BC to consult with a cohousing group. It took two-and-a-half days to arrive by train, and I noticed I was developing a cough as I arrived. Uh oh. The truth is, I'm immune compromised, and am now more susceptible to catching whatever is in the air around me, and traveling puts me at risk. If I'm going to continue to work as a consultant (which I am) it goes with the territory.

When I awoke Friday (after arriving on site exhausted at 1:30 am the night before) my energy was still pretty good and I was able to connect right away with the other two members of my team (whew). We mapped out who would do what and scheduled a relatively easy opening session for Friday night—our first plenary. My energy continued to be good enough to run a meeting with local facilitators that afternoon, and I presented a summary of findings (based on 15 hours of phone interviews with group members) during the plenary. Otherwise I turned matters over to my colleagues, and was very happy to collapse into bed right after the plenary ended. I was going downhill.

I awoke Saturday morning feeling worse. Despite that I felt compelled to answer the bell. We had a key moment queued for the first thing where we would work an example of a stuck conflict in the group and it was important that I take the lead on that. My team had hired us, in part, expressly because they believed I could successfully handle this dynamic and I didn't want to let them down.

I did the work, and it went well. I stayed to oversee the group's reflections on what happened, and then, on the mid-morning break, I went back to bed and turned everything over to my teammates. I simply couldn't do any more.

I slept for 22 hours, and felt somewhat better Sunday morning. Though weak (I hadn't been eating solid food) I jumped back in. Fortunately the work with the client proceeded well without me so we were in good shape (thank the goddess for competent teammates!). People were happy to have me back and I was able to be present and contributing the full time Sunday (seven-and-a-half hours). 

Members of the client group who were sitting near me kept coming up to me on break to tell me how amazed they were that I was functioning so well (given how poorly I looked and sounded). I thought they were being overly solicitous until 5 pm hit, we closed the weekend, and I completely ran out of gas. I had no idea how much I had been running on fumes, elevating my energy to meet the needs of the moment. I was one sick puppy.

Again I went gratefully to bed and didn't arise until 5:30 am, when it was time to be driven to the Canadian Pacific Depot and the start of my trip home. Traveling puts extra strain on me in that I have to schlep my luggage everywhere, plus I learned that my train home from Seattle was cancelled that day due to heavy snowfall in the Midwest, so I had cope with that logistical curve ball. That meant buying a last-minute plane ticket, and negotiating the following transportation legs:
—car to the train station in Vancouver
—light rail from King St Station in Seattle to SeaTac
—internal light rail at the airport
—one gate change at the airport necessitating that I redo the light rail to get to a different terminal
—flight from SEA to MSP
—van from MSP to Duluth
—car ride home

All of this took 20 hours and it was all I could do to climb the stairs, brush my teeth, and drop into bed when I arrived home at 3:30 am local time.

After listening to me wheeze at home for a day, Susan gently (though firmly) recommended that I call my primary care physician and get looked at. When I went in Wed it didn't take them long to determine that I might be fairly sick and was admitted to the hospital. Within a couple hours, tests revealed that I'd hit the daily double: I had both pneumonia and influenza A. Yeehah! That diagnosis got me promptly promoted to my own room, and they got me started on a course of tamiflu, an antiviral.

Before going to bed that night I sent an email to the client and my teammates, warning them of what exposure to me might mean, and then I drifted off.

Fortunately I bounce back well and I expect to be released from the hospital today, or tomorrow at the latest.

This is a damn good thing, because Susan and I have a major two-week vacation queued up starting next Tuesday where we'll visit Sarasota Fl, Clearwater FL, Mobile AL, and New Orleans—something we've been pointing toward for months, and I need to be well enough to make that trip. This turns out to be brilliantly timed after setting an all-time record for snowfall in Duluth for the month of February, and I do not want a lingering cough to monkey wrench our plans.

I tell you, this getting older stuff is not for sissies.