The Path of Mastery: Don’t Overlook the Forest-Trees Connection

The Stress Doc critiques two recent speaking performances.  And while he did justice to the individual pieces, did he really see or connect the big picture?

The Path of Mastery:  Don’t Overlook the Forest-Trees Connection

Once again, I’m reminded that it is “The Path of Mastery” …there’s no final destination, at least when it comes to strategic understanding and skill development. 

I led two programs this week, “Finding Your Voice at Any Age,” as a guest presenter for a UU Congregation, and garnered the nickname, Sermonator.  The other, “Leading with Passion Power:  Inspiring with Courage, Clarity & Creativity,” at the Virginia Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) State Conference.  And while both programs basically went well, and some might think me overcritical, there was a pattern in my presentations that needs to be examined and modified.

Seeing the Leadership Forest for the Trees

It might stem from my being an inclusive thinker, a “forest” person.  My drive is to illustrate diverse components, e.g, in my SHRM program, personal energy and passion, loss and “letting go,” disarming power struggles, creative risk-taking, mind-mood motivation and communication, etc., that contribute to the compelling-captivating leadership dynamic.  (We were not able to engage the last section.  However, preparing for more material than I use is not simply, or mostly, an obsessive tendency.  I want the freedom to improvise or spontaneously include concepts or exercises that are the best fit for the learning/relationship building moment.)

And while differentiating each part – power struggles, risk-taking, i.e., “the trees” – through conceptual bullet points and a small group exercise (not necessarily in that order), I have overlooked an important step.  In my mind, having previously worked with the components, I perceive the intrinsic, holistic interrelationship – the trees-forest gestalt.  But I have not asked the participants whether and how they perceive the relationship between each concept-tool-technique segment and the overarching topic of “passion power” leadership.

Perhaps I’m also caught up in that eternal rushing stream.  Being conscious of time constraints (as a Mega Speaker I had two hours), once finishing a particular conceptual segment, I’m moving on to the next tree.  If not careful, my inclusive thinker bias can lead to overload.  Realistically, I may need to display a tree sample rather than all the forest trees. 

Song and Voice Connection

The UU program was an opportunity for me to illustrate a number of different scenarios for discovering and cultivating a voice:

1) playing with kids or recalling childhood pain and conflict,

2) communing with nature, and

3) being conceptually challenged – by a colleague to expand both my range and focus or by my own churning-on-a-creative-problem mind…leading to an “Aha!’ moment:  when a vision leads to a voice!

In the presentation, one personal learning curve segment stands out.  I showed an anti-bullying power point slide song.  It’s to the tune of the children’s camp favorite, B-I-N-G-O.  (“There was a farmer who had a dog, and BINGO was his name, oh.”  I turned B-I-N-G-O into…

In my school there is a kid      

And Bully Boy’s his name, oh

Blaming me for what he did

And tries to make me cry, oh…

B-U-L-L-Y… B-U-L-L-Y… B-U-L-L-Y…

And Bully Boy’s his name, sigh.

(Email stressdoc@aol.com for more info on how the song can be used as an educational/discussion tool.)

I was pleasantly surprised.  The wide-ranging in age adult members were really into singing the chorus.)

Anyway, after the program over lunch, a friend and I did a debrief.  She thought the pieces all fit my “Finding Your Voice” theme except, perhaps, the “BULLY Boy/Girl” Slide Song.  When I said, the song speaks of the child turning to a trusted adult which, in turn, helps him stand up to the bully…the voice connection was clear.  However, she insisted, I needed to underline for the audience the moral of finding your “standing up to the bully” voice.

And she was right.  Either I need to make the point or, even better, take the time and have the audience make the connection between “the trees” – anti-bullying song – and “the forest” – “Finding Your Voice” sermon theme.

Closing Summary

So, my learning takeaways:

1.  Be flexibly realistic about the optimal number of program trees and your allotted time

2.  Don’t quickly move on to the next foundational piece after illustrating through concept summary and group exercise a particular tree

3.  Recognize that grasping a tree does not mean having a handle on the forest context

4.  Make sure you check in with your audience after each tree illustration, ideally providing them an opportunity to make their own forest-tree connection.

Amen and women, to that!

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative.  Current Leadership Coach/Training Consultant for the international Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University at the Daytona, FL headquarters.  A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army.  Presently Mark does Critical Incident Debriefing for organizational/corporate clients of Business Health Services.  The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World.  Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info, email:  stressdoc@aol.com.