The Root Values. Releasing the Power of Community

The Root Values:Releasing the Power of

Community

Kevin A. Phillips

THE ROOT VALUES: RELEASING THE POWER OF COMMUNITY

© 2010 by Kevin A. PhillipsAll rights reserved.

PREFACE


PREFACE

Empowering Community

I have been working with empowering communities for the whole of my professional life. I have sometimes been frustrated in this effort by institutional inertia coupled with simple fear and complacency common to us all.

What success I have seen has come by way of the adoption of five Root Values that release the power of community.

By community I have something specific in mind.

First, a community consists of unique individuals. Each person stands apart from every other. There is no pressure to conform. Each receives every other as a unique and irreplaceable gift.

Second, a community involves people in relationship. They know each other's names. They know each other's stories. They are in touch with each other's personal struggle as well as their dreams and aspirations.

PREFACE

Third, a community is supportive without being indulgent. Peo-ple experience regular validation and affirmation. They neither crumble nor attack when they encounter conflict. This inspires the generative capacity of the whole.

Finally, a community is fruitful. It solves problems leaving im-provement in its wake.

Therefore, a community consists of individuals in relationship who experience continual growth and learning with the result that the world is enriched.

I have spent a lifetime striving to encourage the formation of this quality of community. Everywhere I go find people who long to live their lives as a whole person, engaged in a whole greater than themselves. People long to be indiduals, but not alone, to share life with others, but to others honor their uniqueness.

No one person can build a community. But everyone can en-courage its formation. I have written this book in the hope that it might help you release the power of community.

You may run a business and be frustrated by the lack of cooperation among your employees. You may be a manager and be frustrated by infighting on your team. You may be a teacher who wants to encourage your stu dents to work together. You may be a pastor who would like to see your church come alive.


If you are willing to take responsibility for improving the quality of the life you share with others, this book is for you.

A Word about Faith

The heart of this book comes from thoughtful reflection on the Ten Commandments. In my effort to make my appropriate con-tribution to community I discovered that the Ten Command-ments are not a religious rule book, but instead disclovse a set of five values that releases the power of community.

I call them "Root Values" because they work beneath the surface of our experience and nourish life in community. They safe-guard the sanctity of personal freedom while at the same time make possible human connection.

In the Hebrew conception of being and becoming, humanity is created in the image of the Creator. “Male and female he cre-ated them.” Later, when the divine is asked for a name, the re-sponse is unequivicable, “I am who I am.”

“To be Holy” does not mean to be “pure” or “morally upright.” Holiness is separation, otherness, uniqueness. The divine name, “I Am” is holiness expressed. It is bequeathed to every child born.

Each of us is holy in so far as the freedom to be “I AM,” is an ir-repressible longing imparted at the moment of our creation.

Our middle name may well be, “Not You.” Freedom flourishes in space and separation.

But despite the irrepressible longing for freedom, the heartbreak-

PREFACE

ing moment in the story of the Garden, comes not in an expres-sion of freedom, but in the consequences following a misuse of it. The great “I AM” is walking in the Garden in the cool of the morning and experiences an unnatural silence.

“Adam, where are you?”

“I hid myself because I was naked.”

“Who told you, you were naked?”

Shame and fear always accompanies an irresponsible expression of freedom. While personal freedom demands expression, and will always and appropriately push back against the encroach-ment of others, it nevertheless has an equally, if not more power-ful longing to be with others. A misuse of freedom is mani-fested in broken relationship.

If we share the divine name -- I Am, and our middle name rein-forces the requirements of freedom – Not You, then we also have a last name, a family name we are all share. “But With You.”

The name we share, a name that was bequeathed to us in our cre-ation is, “I Am Not You But With You.”

The Root Values show us the way be individually who we are, while pointing toward they way may unite authentically with one another. This is the power of community.

Some may object that because the Root Values come to us from the Hebrew Bible that they must be religious. They do, after all, find expression in a thoroughly Hebrew conception of reality.


Because many associate the Hebrew experience exclusively with religion, I am concerned that an anti-religious bias may prevent some from giving the Root Values a chance.

For who are wary of religious imperialism, here is something to consider.

The association of the Ten Commandments with religion is a projection of our contemporary culture to an ancient text. Reli-gion did not exist in the 2nd Millennium B.C.E. as it exists for us today.

The ancient world did not compartmentalize their experience. The “separation of church and state” was not an issue for citi-zens of the 2nd Millennia B.C. They made no distinction be-tween “the sacred” and “the secular.”

The divine was continually active. The sun coming up in the morning and the return of spring was as miraculous as the story of the parting of the Red Sea.

Faith did not mean “belief in the existence God.” The divine was everywhere assumed. Rather, faith had more to do with the courage to become fully human. Abaham is the father of faith because he left the comfort of what he knew (“his country, his kindred and his father’s house”) and risked the unfamiliar.

Abraham related his own longing for becoming and completion in the language of his day. Talk about the gods or Yahweh1 was how people made sense of their world. Today things are much more complex.

The Ten Commandments provide the basis for my exploration of

1 In the Hebrew experience the name means “I AM.”

PREFACE

the Root Values, but they are not particularly religious. They simply come to us out of an ancient conception of reality. Moses, like Abraham, spoke naturally in the language of his age.

A brief review of each of the Root Values suggests their rele-vance to the whole of the human experience.

Legacy: Every person lives in time. We make meaning as we participate in the unfolding story of our lives.

People: Every person shares life with others. The truly isolated perish.

Commitment: Survival involves action. At its base, Commitment is the will to move.

Autonomy: A person is bounded both physiologically and psy-chologically. When I bump into a wall, my hurting head re-minds me of my physical limits. When I bump into your differ-ence of opinion, my reluctance to listen reminds me that my psy-chological limits are just as real.

Truth: An infant begins life utterly dependent. As it grows its vitality depends on its ability to learn.

I consider myself a person of faith. Like Adam, I hide when I feel ashamed. Like Abraham, I hope for the courage to leave what I know that I might become more fully who I must be. Like Moses, I need guidance to play my appropriate role in the life of an empowered community.

The Root Values release the powe of community.


Contents

PART ONE

I Introduction 1

II Moses 7

III The Empowered Community 21

IV The Ten Commandments as Root Values 37

V Legacy 52

VI People 65

VII Commitment 78

VIII Autonomy 91

IX Truth 106

PART TWO

X ATypology of Community 121

XI Building the PACT-L Model 150

XII The Legacy Polarity 167

XIII Increasing Relational Capacity 185

XIV From Values to Beahvor 208


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INTRODUCTION

A Question

My basic understanding of community comes from the Book of Exodus, found in the Hebrew Bible. When I read I stand back-ward in time, peering into the distant past. I hear the voice of Yahweh speaking to an ancient people.

Does the Hebrew experience of so long ago really have anything to teach us today?

There was a time when change required millennia. Youth vener-ated elders because their long-lived experience held wisdom of what makes life flourish.

Wisdom passed from one generation to the next. The Proverb says, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." One generation taught the next

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ROOT VALUES:REALEASING THE POWER OF COMMUNITY

how to breath life into community.

Today grandparents grow up in one world. Their grandchildren grow up in another.

My grandmother was born in a world without automobiles, air-planes, telephones, or even radios. As a child I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. My sixteen year old daughter sends text on a mobile phone. She posts video clips on YouTube.

Technical innovation defines our lives. Older generations seem out of touch, not sources of wisdom. What does the old have to say to the new?

We strain forward to discover the next new thing. Why look back to discover what has already passed away? What can the Book of Exodus possibly bring to Twenty-first century living?

Craig Wildman graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a doctorate in engineering. He works in re-search and development for a renewable energy company based in Southern California.

“We are working on some very interesting problems associated with generating power with solar energy”, Craig said. “We are looking for greater efficiency. It raises interesting questions.”

Craig leans forward into innovation believing solar energy can improve people’s lives. But despite a career in technology, he is circumspect in its use.

“I try to use technology sparingly,” he said. “I do not have a TV. I pay a premium in rent to avoid driving to work. Technol-ogy seems over-rated in general to me. There are so many hid-den costs."

He earned his PhD studying fluid dynamics and heat transfer in

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INTRODUCTION

combustion systems. He has done a lot of thinking about the im-pact of the automobile on the human experience.

“There are upsides to owning a car. It facilitates the distribution goods people need. It allows people to live with less density. It has even cleaned up the streets. You don't have to deal with the manure from so many horses.

“But there are downsides too. There is pollution. I drive to the supermarket. I drive to work. I don't get exercise from walking.

“Of even greater consequence is how the automobile has changed the whole dynamic of the culture. Nobody walks any-where. Nobody is on the street.

“No one feels safe walking. You no longer see people you know.

“A car comes with lots of benefits. But there is a trade off. It hurts the environment. It undermines your health. It limits com-munity.”

Craig Wildman has a thoughtful perspective on the value of technology. While leaning forward into innovation, he recog-nizes its limits.

Does it help to look back from time to time to see where life has been before we step forward into where life is taking us?

What is happening to community-building practices that were once common knowledge among our elders? Are we so caught up in the next new thing that we are losing what we value most: A warm smile, the affirmation of an old friend, a comforting em-brace?

Exploring the Hebrew experience holds great promise in an age when community is fading. In the ancient story of Moses and a band of Hebrew slaves struggling to find their way to freedom,

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is the memory of how to release the power of community.

An Opportunity

We live in an age of such rapid change and find building com-munity a challenge. This includes social mobility. We move away from those we love. Few know our story.

Technology both contributes to our experience of lonlieness while also providing a way of escape from a life void of the one thing we value most but do not know how to find, a life enriched by others.

"No one sings anymore," Craig Wildman said. "Everyone lis-tens to music alone on an Ipod or a MP3 player. People don't get together to make music."

To hear the voice of community, open the Book of Exodu. Miriam leads a group of woman in a dance. Without the aid of technolgy they make music the only way they know how.

I will sing unto the LORD,for he has triumphed gloriously;the horse and rider thrown into the sea

The Book of Exodus portrays the dramatic story of the liberation of Hebrew slaves from bondage in Egypt. But there is more to this story. After liberation comes the formation of a band of slaves into an empowered community.

In Exodus 19 Yahweh expresses the purpose for the liberation of the slaves from Egypt.

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I

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INTRODUCTION

bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peo-ples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

The Hebrew people escape Egypt for a reason. At Mt. Sinai they enter into covenant together and are constituted a people. The challenge from this dramatic beginning is to become a cer-tain quality of community. To succeed they must “hearken” to the voice of Yahweh. The dated English word "hearken," used by translators in the 16th century, means to listen and carefully to consider someone’s words. I “hearken" when I remain open to your intention and at-tend to the meaning behind your language. It means to truly em-brace the spirit of your words.

Some translations use the word, “obey,” suggesting submission. I shut down my own thoughts, longing and dreams. I must sur-render my sense of personal identity. When I obey I lose myself in the demands of another.

“To hearken” elevates the dignity of the one who listens. Obedi-ence demeans the one who submits. The frst projects honor, partnership and grace. The second projects servitude and humil-iation. It is the difference between strong-hearted concurrence and slavish compliance.

It will take time before the Hebrew people learn “to hearken” to voice of Yahweh – and the voices of one another. It is not easy to tame a Legacy of violene and abuse that prevents a person from experiencing genuine freedom in relationship with others.

Following the exodus they were no longer slaves; but they were not yet free. They remained bound by habits born of oppres-sion. Habits of the heart oppressed them with more debilitating effect than Pharaoh removing straw from their bricks. They car-

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ried their bondage with them, ill prepared to take on the respon-sibility of freedom.

The Book or Exodus relates the beginning of the transformation of this band of slaves into an empowered community. Insofar as they embraced the challenge expressed in their covenant they would overcome the burden of their past.

Yahweh promised blessing. Yahweh's voice would show the way. Ten Words would convey the covenant that would trans-form their lives. If they would only hearken to the voice of Yah-weh, they would release the power of community.

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Moses

FAILED LEADERSHIP?

By any estimation Moses was a leader of world-transforming significance. But evaluated by popular notions of take charge heroic leadership styles, he is uninspiring.

At what should have been his greatest moment he stood power-less before his people -- former slaves afraid to take responsibil-ity for their future.

They stood at the threshold of a fruitful land. Blessing, abun-dance and prosperity awaited them across the River Jordan. Scouts brought back reports of fruitful opportunity. They car-ried clusters of grapes, pomegranates, and figs.

Every new endeavor comes laden with risk. The future remains unknown. But every new endeavor also comes laden with hope.

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Multiplying blessing never fails for lack of promise, only for lack of courage.

Cowardice and courage are habits formed over a lifetime. Habit determines whether you walk into tomorrow anticipating oppor-tunity or shrinking back in fear. Such habits limit the formation of community.

The habits of the rabble that followed Moses through the wilder-ness had been formed through years of slavery. Habits of per-ception blinded them to the gifts they possessed as a community. They looked at one another and saw only slaves.

Emtional habits filled them with doubt. Anxiety undermined their confidence.

Their attitudes also were bound in the chains of slavery. They did not believe they could overcome whatever challenge awaited them. They did not believe their neighbor would support them. They did not believe that risk leads to reward, or that failure is never an end but always a new beginning, or that success takes action.

Habits of thought determined how they would experience the land across the Jordan. Was it the "Promise Land" or "Land of Dread?"

They imagined giants . They feared fortified cities and other un-known dangers. They looked beyond the clusters of grapes and pomegranates and dates and saw only disaster.

Moses failed to inspire them to embrace the promise of life to-gether. But was it Moses’ failure or their own?

They failed to embrace their potential as a community. They turned their backs on the promise and condemned themselves to wander aimlessly through an empty wilderness for the next forty years.

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MOSES

Moses stood powerless before their refusal to embrace a hopeful future.

It is an old, old story renewed in every generation. Organiza-tions or teams fail not because of lack of talent. Fear keeps peo-ple from reaching out to one another. Habits of neglect, avoid-ance, domination and indulgence undermine the creative poten-tial of community.

The Hero-Myth

Moses failed to rally his people. Despite his failure popular im-ages of Moses as a heroic leader persist.

An older generation remembers Charleston Heston in the epic film, The Ten Commandments. He leans into a wind that blows across the Red Sea. He lifts his staff and the sea parts. The 1998 animated film, The Prince of Egypt perpetuates the image for a younger generation.

The presentation of Moses as a heroic leader echoes Max We-ber's understanding of leadership. Writing in the early part of the twentieth century in post World War One Germany, his interest was to understand how a German government could reestablish political legitimacy following the fall of Kaiser Wilhelm.

Weber promoted “Leadership Democracy.” He envisioned the rough and tumble of local politics elevating certain individuals above the masses. The purpose of a democracy was to rise up a heroic leader who possessed the character, courage, and charisma to wield the power of state.

This gives expression to a common longing in us all. Who doesn't wish for a superman to swoop down from the skies and save us from the uncertainty and confusion of human freedom?

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How much easier life would be if we lived in an age of heroes.

Field Marshal Eric Ludendorff, the embodiment of German au-thoritarian ambition once asked Weber for his definition of democracy.

“In a democracy the people choose a leader whom they trust,” Weber replied. “Then the chosen man says, ‘Now shut your mouths and obey me.”

That, Ludendorff must have thought, was a democracy he could believe in.

Authoritarian rule by the heroic leader had been a European ideal for centuries. The Greeks and Romans believed the Fates signaled out individuals to rise above their peers. In the age of the Church, Bishops taught that the laying on of their hands con-ferred the power of the Holy Spirit to those deemed worthy of leadership. Kings claimed a similar gift by divine right.

American cinema perpetuates the heroic model still today. Con-temporary action-adventure flicks energize the hero-myth. Little wonder readers of the story of Moses project the heroic ideal.

These heroic tales resonate with us. Childhood experiences of dependency are imprinted on our souls – our unconscious – that remain with us forever. In our immaturity we transfer childish expectations to heros we project only to be disappointed time and again.

Pitty the simple human being upon whom heroic attributes have been projected. It is an impossible task to ask anyone to fulfill the unlimitted expectations of a childish imagination.

A closer reading of the Book of Exodus provides ample evi-dence that Moses’ place among the “charismatic leaders” of the world is not justified. The story tells another tale.

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MOSES

As a young man Moses shelters in the privileged sanctuary of the house of Pharaoh. Suddenly he swings unexpectedly and without explanaton to an impulsive and unproductive act of vio-lence. The text presents ambiguous motives. His action is in protest against abuse of power. (He kills an overseer for beating a Hebrew slave.) But he lacks the courage to take responsibility for his action.

Rather than challenge the system he abandons it. He flees into the wilderness. He trades the security of Pharaoh’s house for the refuge of the house of Jethro -- a strong man in the land of Mid-ian.

His habitual cowardice becomes clear when he stands dumb-founded before a burning bush. In response to a call to set his people free he falls back on the reaction of cowards everywhere. He makes excuses.

His lack of heroism continues in Egypt. He fails time and time again. He proves to be an unsuccessful negotiator. He musters no argument that wins the freedom of the Hebrew slaves. It takes ten plagues, the last of catastrophic consequence for the first-born of Egypt, to break the bonds of slavery.

During their midnight escape Moses’ ineptitude leads the people into a trap. They find themselves up against the Red Sea with the rumble of Egyptian war chariots just beyond the rise. It takes a miracle – literally -- to pull them out of disaster.

He leads the people into the desert without having given any thought to appropriate logistics. They lack both food and water. Again, it takes a miracle to save the people.

In the end he fails to deliver on the ultimate promise. He brings them to the threshold of a land ‘flowing with milk and honey.’ He lacks, however, the rhetorical skill to overcome the people’s fear. It would take a generation -- and another leader -- to fulfill the promise.

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Moses dies an old man within sight of his objective. No monu-ment remains to celebrate the “charismatic power” Max Weber and popular American sentiment ascribe to him. The people he led fail even to mark his grave. He is buried on some forgotten height overlooking a goal that in the end he never achieved.

If one cannot attribute the emergence of an empowered commu-nity to the intervention of a heroic leader, what explains the transformation of this band of Hebrew slaves? What finally re-leases the power of community?

A Different Kind of Leadership

Moses was most emphatically not a charismatic leader. But the popular understanding persists nevertheless. Legend, myth, his-tory, or hype -- hearing the stories of great leaders awakens our imagination. We thrill to the idea of dynamic power, conquest and miraculous victory.

But investing in heroic tales comes with a price. It undermines the formation of community. It absolves us from taking respon-sibility for problems we share. Stuck in childish dependency, we turn away from one another and look for someone to come and save us.

If I am not a hero, if I lack the strength of Hercules or the nobil-ity of King Arthur, or the visionary courage of Joan of Arc, how can I be expected to lead? Like Moses we stand in the shadow of what appears to be an impossible challenge and say, “Who am I that I should go to the house of Pharaoh?”

You may never face a nine-headed Hydra, pull a sword out of a stone or be addressed by an angel. But you do exercise influ-ence. At home, at work, at church, at school, or just among a group of friends -- leadership is not the responsibility of a cho-

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MOSES

sen, charismatic few. It is the responsibility of us all.

Heroic tales fire the imagination. But they do little to help us understand the role we play in empowering community. Turn-ing the biblical story into a heroic tale fails to shed light on the genuine nature of Moses’ leadership or our own.

Instead of a heroic leader the Book of Exodus portrays Moses as an awkward man who stumbles into an uncertain future, carried forward by a promise. How does such an unpracticed leader succeed in the transformation of a band of slaves into an em-power community?

The answer is that he does not. The Book of Exodus remembers him not for what he accomplished, but for what a community ac-complished in relationship with him. Moses was transformed by the empowering of the community much more than the commu-nity was transformed by him.

In his early years Moses spent most of his time in a quiet, reflec-tive mood. But on occasion he could be roused to fits of anger and even violence.

He was a thoughtful man who swung between extremes of stub-born resolve and periods of withdrawal. He killed an Egyptian overseer because in the high emotion of the moment he lacked within himself any other option.

Unconscious habits formed in childhood ofte determine how we relate to one another. Habits keep us inflexible and unrespon-sive to a changing social environment.

We want security. We find a groove when we are young. We stick with it. We do what we know. We do what feels comfort-able.

Sigmond Feud identified this behavior as “transference.” We transfer feelings, associations, and patterns of relating from early

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childhood experiences to relationships we have today.

For many of us, our relational style remains unconscious. We do our best to match-up with people who happen to conform to our own style of relating. We often form aggressive or avoidant associations with those who do not.Because we are limited by such habits our relationships become less constructive. Over time they may become toxic.

Leadership as Life with Others

Moses was not the heroic leader we sometimes imagine. He was limited as we are. But he shared life with others. He chose to invest in a common journey with former slaves. He did not stand apart from them. Their struggle became his struggle, their burden his burden. This resulted in unimaginable stress. The Book of Exodus records numerous lamentations of Moses as he cries out to Yah-weh in his frustration. In community he was pushed up against the limitations of his personal style – the habits that constrained him. He had no choice but to learn to be more intentional in how he related to others.

We live in an unimaginably vast network of projecttion and con-ter-projection, of transference and counter-transference. As a re-sult other people exert a tremendous amout of pressure on any one individual.

Moses might have been crushed by the murmuring crowd but for one thing. The covenant-making event at Mt. Sinai introduced this band of slaves to a set of values that would transform them.

We begin with the story of Moses because this is where the story of empowered community begins.

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MOSES

Among the literature of the Ancient Near East the Book of Exo-dus is unique. Most ancient cultures identified deity with monarchical power. Cultic language provided symbols for es-tablishing the personal legitimacy of the leader. The masses ex-isted to serve him.

Pharaoh exhibits this characteristic quality of ancient tyranny. Once the norms of a social system are set, it is a rather simple thing to reinforce dependency and submission through strategic application of power.

Most story-tellers and poets of the ancient world promoted their leader. But the Hebrew prophets were different. They under-mined the authority of kings to promote the legitimacy of the community.

Moses is but the first example. He stands in the face of Pharaoh and shakes a defiant fist. Prophets to come would likewise stand in the face of kings and shake a defiant fist.

Moses was no charismatic leader. The genuine agent of trans-formation in this story is the covenant made at Mt. Sinai, and the Ten Words that, overtime, replaced the values of bondage and oppression with five Root Values of genuine freedom.

Ten Words made the difference between a chaotic band of slaves dying in the wilderness, and an empowered community ready to embrace a more hopeful future.

The Book of Exodus begins the story of an empowered commu-nity that learns to embrace responsibility for its common life and claim its freedom. If a band of Egyptian slaves can be trans-formed into an empowered community, so can we.

“The One”

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This story has never been more relevant. Moses was not the heroic leader so often portrayed in the popular imagination. Awkward, clumsy, non-charismatic leadership continues to take place today in business, schools, non-profit agencies, families and even among casual groups of friends.

It can begin in the board room, the corner office, the copy room, the storeroom or the basement. Wherever people gather to ad-dress the challenges of their lives you will find leadership.

The story of Moses portrays leadership as a quality of commu-nity rather than the character of an individual. Leadership ca-pacity describes the effectiveness of a group of people working together, not the ability of one person to compel others to act. Real change comes through the power of community.

Despite the promise of an empowered community the ancient hero myth continues to disempower community. As long as people look up to heroes rather across the table to one another they will miss the opportunity to enter whatever promise lies be-fore them.

The challenge of overcoming hero-longing is ever present. For this reason alone the relevance of Moses (the anti-hero) and the vital importance of community and the Root Values that em-power it will endure.

In the Presidential election of 2008 hero-longing pushed the campaign of Barack Obama toward a heroic narrative. Oprah Winfrey risked much when she introduced him at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa.

"For the very first time in my life,” she said, “I feel compelled to stand up and to speak out for the man who I believe has a new vision for America. . . .I am here to tell you, Iowa, he is the one. He is the one!"

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MOSES

Republicans pounced on the opportunity to lampoon Winfrey’s endorsement. A television spot featured messianic overtones. Following Obama’s successful visit to Europe Republicans mocked his appeal calling him “The Biggest Celebrity in the World.”

Despite Oprah’s over-zealous endorsement and the Republican attempt to exploit the vulnerability of his popularity, Obama consistently shifted the focus of his campaign away from him-self, to his supporters. He kept the work of change among the people.

His staff rallied get-out-the-vote efforts among neighbors. The innovative use of communication technology encouraged fol-lowers to become leaders.

Obama’s inaugural address conveyed confidence in a nation of 300 million leaders.

My fellow citizens, I stand here today humbled by the task before us. . . . America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

The new President acknowledged that leadership extends be-yond the White House. He attempted to overcome the heroic thinking that persists in every generation and undermines the formation of empowered community.

There is one advantage to hero-worship. When a project stalls the same people who make a hero can un-make him. In failure they have a ready object upon which to caste their blame.

Both the worship of heroes and the scapegoating of them pro-vides opportunity for people to avoid responsibility to address challenges they share.

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Leadership and Society

The enduring relevance of the anti-heroic theme in the story of Moses becomes clear when we consider the story in the context of history. The leader as hero emerged at a time when a man’s physical size and courage was the determining factor in over-powering an enemy in conflict. (Ancient tales of heroic women are rare.)

Stories extol the virtues of warriors who demonstrate merit in feats of glory. The Iliad relates the story of Achilles who gains glory in striking down Hector before the gates of Troy in single combat.

Note how the well-known story of David and Goliath turns this story on its head. The giant Goliath falls in single combat, not to a great warrior, but to a shepherd boy with a slingshot.

Outside the Hebrew experience legendary stories legitimized the authority of leaders like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Ancient leaders wrapped themselves in whatever stock image of the heroic was at hand. If successful they themselves became material for heroic tales to come.

As society changed new models of leadership emerged. Physi-cal strength no longer elevated heroes. The mighty warrior gave way to the military strategist and logistical expert who through great feats of planning provisioned soldiers. Napoleon was a small man with a big mind. The mind of Lord Wellington was bigger still.

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MOSES

With the Industrial Age power shifted from land to urban cen-ters. The strategic deployment of raw materials and massed la-bor rather than armies claimed the high ground over hierarchies of power.

Pharaoh traded his chariots for a balance sheet and an income statement.

The years following World War Two accelerated social change. Just as the age of agriculture yielded to industry, the Industrial Age gave way to a new consciousness. Communication satellites signaled the change.

The War in Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America. The glory of war related in epic poetry lost its luster when pre-sented in graphic detail on television sets on the evening news.

In the 1970s elders bemoaned the loss of respect for authority among young people. It was not that the young lacked respect for authority. Rather, the center of authority was shifting.

Heroes rise quickly in an age of electronic media, Barak Obama being but the latest example. But what electronic media gives, it also takes away. Heroes began to fall with greater rapidity as hero myths became impossible to sustain under the unrelenting gaze of content-hungry media outlets.

Heroic tales arose at a time when people responded to heroic leaders. This habit of thought persists. But signs suggest it may be weakening.

A new center of authority is emerging. In an age of fallen he-roes, only one source of authority remains: that of the empow-ered community.

In the first decade of the Twenty-First century the global ecnon-

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omy underwent dramatic transformation. After twenty years of unparrelled economic expansion, the world experienced one year of unparrelled economic collapse.

In 2009 the world economy collapsed at a faster rate than any time since World War II. Analysts described events as the great-est financial crisis since the Great Depression.Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan described events as “by far” the worst in history including the Great De-pression.

One out of every four families owed more on their mort-gages than their houses were worth.

Economists predicted chronic long-term unemployment to last until the year 2014.

A Gallup survey reported 20% of eligible workers unem-ployed, twice the office 10% unemployement rate.

44% of families experienced a job loss or pay cut. Local banks under stress from commercial real estate

foreclosures reduced loans to small business further slowing local economic recovery.

No hero can save us from the challenges we face today. The problems are pervasive, complex and overwhelming.

We will no longer measure ability in terms of a charismatic leader. The individual will no longer be celebrated. The clay feet of the powerful are too readily exposed. The challenges are too great.

Those who would exercise influence in this new world will do well to recall the ancient wisdom found in the Book of Exodus. Moses was not a heroic leader. He was a simple man who joined himself to a band of slaves. They were transformed by five Root Values that endure.

The time has come to release the power of community.

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MOSES

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3

The Empowered Community

Moses was a surprising leader. No one would have suspected Moses of organizing a social movement or leading a revolution. But Moses did not do it alone. It took an empowered commu-nity.

You see an empowered community in what a group, team, or or-ganization can accomplish together. An empowered community is fruitful. Creativity and vitality flow out of its common life.

A community consists of individuals in relationship who experi-ence continual growth and learning with the result that the world is enriched.

It may be a business that remains innovative and competitive in the midst of a changing market -- like a Google that defined the search engine experience or an Apple that defined how music would be distributed.

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THE EMPOWERED COMMUNITY

It may be a social movement. The Civil Rights efforts gained ir-resistible momentum in the 1950s. The catalyst was "the be-

loved community" that gathered around the friendship of two Southern preachers, Ralph Abernanthy and Martin Luther King.

It may rise up out of the fellowship of a church, synagogue, mosque or temple. Such places are built with the hope that they might become centers of empowered community.

An empowered community is not an accidental collection of ran-dom people who happen to live in the same neighborhood, work in the same building, or visit the same place of worship. An em-powered community does not come about by accident.

What makes the difference is the degree to which one person can maintain her unique identity while at the same time being bonded in relationships of mutual support with others.

The Community Paradox

Consider the community paradox: The stronger the individual, the greater the potential for community. It takes strength to yield something of your personal interest to serve a common purpose.

In community individuals come together. Each one possesses unique gifts and talents. Each has the courage to be who she is

and the grace to welcome the other person as he is.

The Book of Exodus begins with the Hebrew people enslaved to Pharaoh. Pharaoh gathered individuals but kept them weak. He was not interested in participation in an empowering commu-nity, but exploitation.

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They had migrated to Egypt at a time when their ancestor Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham and Sarah served Pharaoh as chief steward of his house.

Through a carefully administered agricultural policy he had saved the Egyptian people in time of famine. A grateful Egypt welcomed Joseph’s family fleeing the same famine in Canaan. Many generations later, “there arose in Egypt a new King who did not know Joseph.” This simple sentence can stand as head-line news in any age. Corporate memory is short when it is con-venient to forget.

The German people “did not know” the contributions of their Jewish neighbors during the Nazi era.

The American people “did not know” the contribution their African-American neighbors during the years of Jim Crow.

In Rwanda the Hutu did not know the Tutsi during the genocide of 1994 in which 800,000 Tutsi were cut down with machetes.

Neighbors in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other hot spots around the globe do not know one another.

This loss of recognition fails to see the individual. The unique potential of each person gets lost in the crowd so that all that re-mains is the crowd.

Failure to celebrate the individual dissipates the potential power of community. Without the individual, community fails.

In community each individual has a responsibility "to know" her neighbor. Each person celebrates the other and builds up the strength of each so that each has the strength to extend grace to welcome another.

In this way a community develops its power, one person at a time. Honor the sanctity of the individual and the community

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will flourish.

Therefore every organization fails at the individual level. A business fails when employees do not feel appreciated. A church fails when a visitor is overlooked or a lay leader gets burnedout for lack of support. A school fails when a teacher no longer cares and a child becomes a statistic.

Organizational failure is failure of community at a personal level. For this reason personal values impact organizational per-formance.

The Root Vaues’ Story

The Book of Exodus weaves within its narrative examples of Root Values that release the power of community. These values, embraced by each person, allow the group to leveral the uique gifts of the individual.

As a Root Value, Legacy serves as a repository of experience. Every community carries a memory. Indeed, a community is constituted by the story people share.

When a newcomer embraces the story of a community as her own, she becomes one with the community. When people no longer attend to one another, they stop telling the story. The community ceases to exist.

When the Book of Exodus introduces Moses, the Hebrew people exist as a collective, but they are not yet a community. Their identity is limited to a genealogy. They share a common ances-tor in Abraham, but that is all.

Once again, Pharaoh's interest was exploitation. He wanted la-bor, not partners. The irony of tyrants is that in their abusive ways they establish a basis for a common experience among the

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oppressed. This leads to their downfall.

Labor unions find their inspiration in the abuse of management. An experience workers share. African-Americans organized around a common experience of segregation and social injustice. The seeds of community are planted by a common experience.

Though the Hebrew people lacked a common story, they shared a common experience. A story waited to be told. Liberation awaited a story-teller.

Their journey will begin with an event of such arresting signifi-cance that it will be anchored in the memory of story-tellers for generations to come. The Passover still constitutes the heart of Jewish identity. But in the days of Moses any potential for a communal identity had been broken by years of slavery.

Shared suffering serves as a basis for a common story. But in the opening pages of the Book of Exodus the suffering of the He-brew people had been joined to dependency.

They lived as characters in a story not their own. A powerful external force defined who they were and what they could be-come. Pharaoh’s story defined their lives.

Abuse of any kind breaks a person's spirit. A person looses her sense of self. She only knows herself as she is defined by oth-ers. She waits to be told who she is. She then submits to that perspective.

If told she is a slave, she believes it. If told she lacks initiative, she believes it. If told she has no capability, no future apart from the structure of oppression, she believes it.

To break the power of dependency one must embrace another Root Value, that of Autonomy. Autonomy is a clear, unambigu-ous personal identity. It embraces personal freedom without apology.

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Without the Root Value Autonomy, the story of empowered community could not have begun.

It can be said that the eventual emergence of Judaism, Christian-ity and Islam depended on the strong sense of Autonomy of two female slaves, Shiphrah and Puah. The text honors their indi-vidual and very significant contribution by not allowing their names to be lost to history.

Pharaoh instigates a social policy of infanticide in order to con-trol the Hebrew population. He exploits the strength of their

labor. He does not want them to become too strong lest a slave revolt undermine his power base.

He orders the midwives to kill all the sons born of Hebrew mothers. But two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, possess a strong sense of personal Autonomy. In a courageous act of per-sonal freedom they choose to break the law and risk the conse-quences rather than kill children.

When Pharaoh saw the midwives' lack of compliance he legal-ized the killing of Hebrew sons in the general population. One Hebrew mother -- another woman whose name is not lost to his-tory -- Jochebed, also possessed a strong sense of personal Au-tonomy.

Jochebed refused to surrendering her son to death. She placed him in a basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River. Pharaoh’s daughter discovered the foundling who was, of course, Moses.

To flourish, a community requires both a Legacy as well as indi-viduals who maintain their claim to personal Autonomy. Corpo-rate unity must be joined with personal freedom.

If individuals surrender their unique identities and the power of

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personal agency to be a part of the collective, hollow relation-ships result. Empty connections between people lack vitality, creativity and passion. Compliance or conformity is not com-munity. Other Root Values appear in the opening narrative of the Book of Exodus as well. Along with values of Legacy and Autonomy, we recognize the Root Value of People. The midwives refuse to kill the children. As a young man Moses comes to the aid of a Hebrew slave who is being beaten by an Egyptian.

The Root Values Truth appears as God hears the groaning of the people under oppression. Finally, the Root Value Commitment appears as God remembers the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Throughout the Book of Exodus one finds the Root Values wo-ven through its narrative. Together they create a value system that nourishes community. Strong individuals in relationship together extend grace to one another which allows space for each to become who she must become.

This results in continual growth and learning among individuals. This in turn builds the capacity of the community with the result that the world is enriched.

The narrative portrays each Root Value but it is not until Chap-ter 20, and the introduction of the Ten Commandments -- the Ten Words -- that we may discern the Root Values with distinc-tive clarity.

The Book of Exodus tells the story of how Five Root values transform a band of Hebrew slaves into an empowered commu-nity. The story continues to be told today. Indeed, it continues to be lived today wherever people embrace the five Root Values as their own.

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An Empowered Community at Work

Like Moses Aaron Bartley was a surprising leader. He entered Harvard Law School in the Fall of 1998 where he began to learn important lessons about the power of community. But he didn’t learn them in the classroom.

“We were a core group of 40 students,” Aaron said. “We were marginal to the culture of the institution until up to the very end when we took over the Administration building. That propelled us from the margins to the center. At that point we were not only physically at the center of Harvard University, we had taken over its leadership.”

Of only medium height and slight build, Aaron’s first school of leadership was as a boy soprano singing in his hometown church in Buffalo, New York. He moved to Cambridge to begin his study of law just as so many other students had done before, but with this difference. By his early twenties he had learned the value relating to others. He valued People.

Legacy

“I just started to get to know the workers,” he said. “I wanted to get to know people who were not a part of the same set of expe-riences that I had. You see people taking their ‘smoke break.’ You talk to them rather than walk by.

“I knew that their wages had just dropped, significantly, from $9.00 to $7.00 an hour. So that was a conversation starter. ‘Where do you live? How long is your commute? What are you paying for rent? How are you getting by?’”

Aaron’s takeover of Harvard University began with simple con-versations with janitors, dishwashers, and security guards. He connected with their experience. Rather than investing time

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with the heroes of Harvard University, Aaron gave his attention to the men and women who cleaned up after them.

Aaron asked them questions. He explored their experiences. In the process he helped them discover that their individual experi-ences were in fact a shared experience. They discovered they shared a common story, a Legacy.

The way they were treated at work provided the basis to trans-form this disparate band of laborers into an empowered commu-nity. He helped them take responsibility for the conditions under which they labored, conditions they shared.

People

“I probably know 350-500 workers,” Aaron said. "When I go back to Harvard today I get to see them all. I know them by the building they work in: Ronny Tolousma in the Science Center, John Sullivan in the Bio Labs.

“Frank Morely was 55 years old, but had the body of a 75 year old. He grew up two blocks from the Harvard campus, a work-ing class Irish guy. Four years earlier his rent had tripled. He had to move an hour away from where he had spent all his life because he couldn’t pay his rent.

"He had the Irish gift of language. He also had a very sophisti-cated sense of Harvard. He’d been there long enough to know the institution – who was in power, the values, how the place ticked. He became one of the leaders at our rallies.

“Another worker, Shakespeare Christmas, hangs out in the base-ment of the music building. He is an intellectual from the Carib-bean. He is as well-spoken as any Harvard student.

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"He grew up in the British education system and the Anglican Church. He gets his work done in six hours so he has two hours to read, and listen to NPR (National Public Radio).

"He worked a second job as well. He lived about an hour away because everything else was too expensive. He slept five hours a night.

“Edgar Varios is a Guatemalan. He’d been part of the social movements in Central America in the 1980’s. He fled Guatemala because of blood-feuds and other disputes. He was a very developed social thinker and a great leader.

“Another guy with a lot of experience was Roosevelt Felix. In the Dominican Republic he’d led economic development projects in the banana region along the Haitian border. He lost his job when his political party lost power."He had a very sophisticated sense of organizational dynamics. He worked as a janitor in the basement of Harvard Business School."

Autonomy

Aaron has broken the habit of looking for heroes to solve his problems. He values Autonomy and has a strong sense of per-

sonal freedom.

He looks for partners. He finds them one at a time, people who struggle with shortcomings and limitations of all kinds. But be-cause he values Autonomy he looks for where their individual strengths come together to compensate for personal weakness.

What could a kid in his twenties do that could make a difference in the lives of 2,000 workers employed by the most prestigious

educational institution in the world?

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Pharaoh shows up in many ways and in many places. Aaron Barley stood like Moses against improbable odds and shook a

first in the face of Pharaoh.

Commitment

Another Root Value is Commitment. Nothing of significance can happen without it. People live in emotional systems that re-sist change. Both positive goods and negative effects exist to-gether in very stable social structures.

Personal habits of perception, feeling, attitudes and thoughts do not change easily. Most people will fight to maintain a familiar system rather than risk an alternative future they do not know. It takes commitment to see real change through.

“For three years we had tried everything,” Aaron said. “We had over 30 different rallies. We’d bring the president of the univer-sity a Valentine card saying something like: ‘Will you be my Valentine? Will you give these workers a living wage?’

“We did a sit-in in the Admissions Office during freshmen ori-entation. We had a rally that included Matt Damon and Ben Af-fleck. They are Cambridge guys and had come from a working-class background. Ben’s father had even been a janitor at Har-vard.”

After three years of advocacy Aaron and his team of fellow stu-dents and workers had made little progress. No one was listen-ing.

But Aaron and the empowered community that gathered with him valued Truth, another of the Root Values. After listening to each other’s stories and assessing the relevant data, they be-lieved in what they were doing. Time was running out.

“The take-over of the Administrative Building was a ‘now or

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never’ proposition. A lot of us were about to graduate. People were beginning to wonder if the Administration would ever re-spond to our appeal. It was a ‘Hail Mary’ pass that happened to connect.

“We were aware that our email was being read by the Adminis-tration. We wanted to know if they were aware of our plan. Three people kept constant surveillance.

“On the day of the event we met in a basement next to the Ad-ministration building. We stormed the office with 55 people.

"We secured the bathrooms, then moved into the other rooms. We had letters for the staff explaining what we were doing. We did not engage them in conversation.

“We ended up living with ten police officers throughout the month. It was a tactical play on the part of the Administration. They were sending us a message: ‘Any minute we can remove you.’

"But we ended up making friends with them. They were work-ing class people. They were not from the same class as the typi-cal Harvard student. They knew what we were about. Even the head guy -- he was a retired State Trooper. He had a role to play in terms of his office, but he supported us.

“The first few days we made our own food. Then that ran out. We had cells phones and access to the Internet. We pushed back in the media against the Administration’s attempt to starve us out. People brought food. We got incredible donations. One restaurant brought a meal every day, feeding 55 of us.

Truth

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“The action galvanized people’s sense of justice. There were two mass marches every single day. We had as many as 7,000 people outside the building, everyone from workers to students to professors."Homeless people moved in near the building. There were hun-dreds of tents, people sleeping out on campus. The Administra-tion could not do business. You could not ignore the mass of people who supported us.

“The steps of the Administration building became a concert venue. There was amazing art -- from signage, to dance perfor-mances, to all kinds of cultural stuff that just came out. We did not anticipate that at all.

“It ended with a negotiated settlement. The Administration would not publicly commit to a wage. But they agreed to a com-mittee that would make a binding recommendation.

"We got to appoint three professors and three students. There were three representatives of the Administration on the commit-tee. The wage and benefits policy was eventually adopted.

“I graduated two weeks later.”

When Aaron Bartley entered law school, the janitors, dinning workers and security guards at Harvard University earned $7.25/hour without benefits. Today, they earn $18.00/hour with health insurance.

Aaron has moved on to found a not-for profit organization in his hometown – PUSH Buffalo, “People United for Sustainable Housing.”

Today, a janitor at Harvard earns $10,000 a year more than the Harvard Law grad who led them on a three year journey to re-ceive a living wage from the most powerful university in the world.

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http://www.pushbuffalo.org/


That is what can happen once you learn to release the power of community.

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4

The Ten Commandments as Root Values

Value Awareness

There is no greater power in the world, than the power of com-munity. Five Root Values – People, Commitment, Autonomy, Truth and Legacy – lead to its formation.

The importance of an organization having shared values is ac-cepted in business schools everywhere. Writing the value state-ment has become a necessary drill in almost every corporate of-fice. People sit around a conference table and nod their heads -- some in agreement, most fighting sleep.

Not everyone understands why articulating a clear set of values matters. Besides, among the countless values that a group can come up with, who is to say which ones really count?

Value words fill the white space on a flip chart:

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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS ROOT VALUES

Respect Integrity Communication Excellence

The challenge is landing on the set of values that will make a difference.

One management consultant related how he once participated in a value identification process with his consulting firm. These management professionals regularly counsel others on the im-portance of having shared values.

“After talking for hours we came up with a value statement,” he said. “But after the meeting we never looked at it again. It didn’t mean a thing.”

The Challenge

What makes developing a value statement so hard?

Consider first that organizations do not have values. People do. Organizations consist of a number of individuals, each of whom give expression to a unique set of values. The acquired their values unconsciously as children. They remain hidden beneath the surface of their lives.

We each grow up in a particular family, in a certain neighbor-hood, absorbing attitudes and learning behaviors we pick up from those around us. A specific culture influences who we be-come. This process is so much a part of our lives it goes unno-ticed.

Who ever stops to ask: What values shaped my life growing up where I did? How do my values differ from someone who might have grown up elsewhere?

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Few people take time to dismantle the value system that churns deep within their hearts. Everyone has values. Not everyone knows what their values are.

When you lack value awareness resolving conflict is difficult. There are so many layers. If we do not know what we value we only skip along the surface. The deep stuff never gets resolved.

Who gets the bigger piece of pie? This may be children fighting over a real pie. This may be a metaphorical pie related to appro-priate distribution of limited resources in a business.

One layer beneath the pie conflict involves behavior. Someone does something that raises other people's awareness that an issue exists. A child reaches across the table to grab a piece of pie. A manager distributes a budget that presents a plan for the alloca-tion of resources.

Go even deeper and we encounter emotion. Someone feels be-trayed, short-changed, taken advantage of, at risk, or some other pain that results in reactivity.

Beneath the presenting issues, beneath the behavior and the emotion is a set of values that give the issue, behavior and emo-tion meaning. Values make it matter.

When Values Conflict

Moses and his people faced a fundamental conflict of values. They begIn their journey across the wilderness. The presenting issue involves food and water. As we suggested earlier, Moses' lack of planning reveals his poor judgment as a leader when it came to logistics.

“Would that we had died in the land of Egypt,” the people moan,

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“when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full.”

They complain of lack of water. "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt?” they ask. “To kill us and our children and our live-stock with thirst?"

This was no minor conflict. Moses feared for his life. The peo-ple were on the verge of revolt.

On the surface the conflict seemed to be about material issues. The people were hungry and thirsty.

But beneath the surface certain values informed how they expe-rienced their need, and how they expressed it. Values informed the meaning of their experience.

The deeper issue was a familiar and often repeated value conflict between Liberty and Security. Moses assumed Liberty as a value priority. The murmuring crowd valued Security.

Every despot knows a dependent people will readily trade per-sonal freedom for the promise of sufficient comfort. The emper-ors of Rome gave the people “breads and circuses” in exchange for compliance. Hitler and Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Long years of forced labor had developed a habit of dependency among the Hebrew slaves. They would not embrace their free-dom until someone satisfied their longing for security.

Not until the people embraced the Ten Words would their values begin to unite them into a community ready to accomplish meaningful work. Where people lack value awareness and alignment, community falters.

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Why It Matters

In December 2001, the Enron Corporation filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas. A month later, in Sugarland, an upscale suburb of Houston, law enforcement officers found a man in a shiny new 2002 Mercedes-Benz with a 38-caliber bullet in his head.

The Coroner confirmed Cliff Baxter’s death a suicide. Investi-gators had hoped to question Baxter, an Enron executive, about the corporation’s recent collapse.

The company had overstated its profits by $580 million. Enron executives unloaded more than $1 billion in company stock from their personal portfolios while at the same time encouraging em-ployees to buy the stock. They knew the company was finan-cially unstable.

Thousands lost their jobs. Their life savings disappeared as their retirement funds fell from over $80 a share to less than one dol-lar a share.

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his life?” Jesus asked. Sitting in his new car with a revolver in his hand, Cliff Baxter knew the answer to that question. He left a note for his wife.

Carol, I am so sorry for this. I feel I just can't go on. I have al-ways tried to do the right thing but where there was once great pride now it's gone. I love you and the children so much. I just can't be any good to you or myself. The pain is overwhelming. Please try to forgive me.

The values listed on the flip chart above -- Respect, Integrity, Communication, Excellence -- were the published values of the Enron Corporation.

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It is as good a list of values as one is likely to find. But the list failed Enron. It failed Cliff Baxter. If he had been more aware of what he truly valued, his life might not have come to such a tragic end.

Instead of a list of value words that become an ideal to which no one really aspires, the Root Values provide insight into what people truly value. Awareness of these values, and respecting them in one another, brings people into alignment and enables them to do the work that results in community. It empowers a community to flourish.

Without sufficient value awareness and alignment, chaos reigns.

Chaos

In September 1991 the Tailhook Association gathered in con-vention in Las Vegas. Founded in 1956, this not-for-profit orga-nization supports retired and active Naval Aviators.

The annual symposium features workshops and speakers that en-courage the development of airborne naval warfare. This partic-ular event drew nationwide attention when 83 women and seven men accused fellow members of the Association of sexual ha-rassment and assault.

In the wake of the scandal 14 admirals left the naval service. The Secretary of the Navy resigned. President George W. H. Bush appointed 36 year old Sean O’Keefe the new Secretary of the Navy. His mission: Restore the honor of the service.

“This was a case when the conduct on the part of a handful of in-dividuals compromised the integrity of the service,” Sean said.

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He perceived a failure of institutional culture. Some depart-ments were scrupulous in maintaining discipline and order. They held officers and enlisted personnel to high standards of accountability. Other naval communities indulged poor behav-ior. The Navy lacked alignment in its values.

“Among Submariners, if you don’t follow the instructions to the letter, even if everything goes right, you are held accountable. It’s a very unforgiving discipline. Aviators are much more free-wheeling.

"The differences in culture are huge. You have the Surface Sailors, the Submariners, the Supply Corps types, the Aviators, the Marines. There is a wide range of different cultural influ-ences.

Keep It Real

“Not long after I became Secretary of the Navy I ran a little ex-ercise with the senior leadership on the uniform side of the house. I gathered the admirals together and said, ‘There is a set of established principles and policy that are referred to as, Core Values of the United States Navy.’ To every flag officer sitting there I said, ‘Write it down. This is a pop quiz.’

"Not one of them got it right. Not one. I said, ‘Tell me how valuable you think those core values are?

“You are the KEEPERS-OF-THE-VALUES, and you don’t even know what they are. I am not passing judgment. But if you don’t know these values, how can you expect anyone else to know them?

"'Before we leave here, everyone in this room is going to agree on just three. What are the three core values of the United States Navy?”

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Sean did not ask the admirals to imagine what the three core val-ues of the Navy ought to be. He asked them to identfy what the core values of the Navy are and have always been.

A meaningful value statement for any organization must be real for every individual in it. The admirals sitting around the table searched their souls and reviewed their Legacy.

People just do not know what their values are. We live habitual lives.

Friends who help us discover what we truly value, become pow-erful influences in our lives. Leaders who do not know what they value, only lead us into confusion, misunderstanding and distress.

An Impossible Task

If you had to come up with a list of five values that have always been at work in the human heart, at all times and in all places, what would you include on your list? What would your spouse include, your neighbor or your children? How much work would it require to get everyone to come to a consensus?

An empowered community requires a clear set of values every-one shares. To build one, one option is to try get everyone in the room to debate the question. Imagine the challenge!

First ask each person to identify what he or she values most. Be sure to include the children, the teenagers, the drunks, the ego-tists and the cynics. You have to include everyone.

Next, lead a discussion in which everyone feels heard, appreci-ated and honored. And remember, you cannot exclude the chil-

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dren, the teenagers, the drunks, the egotists or the cynics.It does not count if you only include the healthiest, most emo-tionally mature people in the group. The goal is to have every-one listen to everyone else. The discussion has to be real. It has to be authentic -- no holding back. Good luck.

Now that you have accomplished the first two steps (something I have never been able to do) invite debate, argument, disagree-ment and conflict. The goal is to come to consensus on one set of values everyone truly shares.

Do you really want to do this?

How is nourishing an empowered community even possible if it involves working for value alignment among people who bring unique experiences, personal challenges, and irritating habits to the group?

One person must not inhibit another. Intimidation is outlawed. Watch out for that person who undermines his neighbor. What do you do with the quiet, sensitive soul who lacks the confidence to share?

The whole process breaks down before it can even begin. Who can number the obstacles to a successful completion of the project?

We have seen how the values of Liberty and Security conflict. If you are not truly heard my desire for Security may result in a community structure that leaves you feeling constrained.

Your desire for Liberty may result in a community structure that leaves me feeling anxious. The common values we identify to-gether must cover the whole of the human experience, without contradiction or conflict.

The challenge is overwhelming. No wonder so many people feel frustrated in community. We lack the ability to discover a

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set of values we all share.This is complicated by the fact that technological innovation changes traditional social structures faster than established com-munities can adapt to them. Rituals nce conveyed habits of com-munity-making from one generation to the next. They lack rele-vance in the new environment.

What becomes of our longing for community? Do we set it aside and endure isolation? Do we seek distraction or self-medi-cation?

Or do we simply accept our alienation? Are we resigned to liv-ing with anxiety and loneliness we are powerless to overcome?

The Ten Commandments

The ancient wisdom found in the Torah saves us the need to sift through the unique value sets of every person on our team, in our organization, neighborhood, church, synagogue, mosque or temple – whatever your context for community-making. We need not sit for hours in a conference room trying to figure out what values everyone shares.

The Ten Commandments provide five Root Values that live in the heart of every person. These Root Values energized the covenant-making experience at Mt. Sinai. They transformed a band of Hebrew slaves into an empowered community. They release the power of community today.

Many traditions have long recognized “two tables” or “tablets” in the structure of the Ten Commandments. The first table pre-scribes one’s relationship with God, the second one’s relation-ship to one’s neighbor.

To discover the Root Values expressed in the Ten Words, sim-

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ply place the two tablets side by side. This results in two corre-sponding sets in parallel, five paired sets.

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not kill.

You shall make no graven im-age to bow down and worship it.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

You shall not steal.

You shall remember the Sab-bath day and keep itholy.

You shall not bear false witness.

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not covet.

Each paired set expresses a common value. In other words, the five Root Values emerge out of each paired commandment. Five values inform one’s relationship with two subjects: God and Neighbor.

The value becomes one commandment when addressed to God. It becomes a different but related commandment when addressed to Neighbor.

To discover the Root Value simply ask: “What value captures the essence of each paired commandments?”

The first and sixth commandments have to do with the value of Persons. To have another god before Yahweh is to deny Yah-

weh’s personhood, Yahweh’s relational character. It reduces Yahweh within the scope of one’s own experience to non-being.

Obviously to take the life of one’s neighbor reduces the neighbor to non-being. Jesus notes in the Sermon on the Mount that call-ing another person, “a fool,” results in the same thing. It under-

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mines a person's sense of self. Anything that reduces another person’s essential dignity is tantamount to murder because it de-nies the value of Persons.

The second and seventh commandments have to do with the value of Commitment. It defines a process of healthy interaction.

The prophets commonly associate idolatry with adultery. Adul-tery violates mutually agreed upon expectations between covenant partners. It erodes the bond of trust which serves as the only genuine link between personal agents who would share life together.

Commandments three and eight hold up the importance of per-sonal boundaries. Taking the name of the Lord in vain fails to honor God’s autonomy. It attempts to access God’s power apart from relationship with God.

Similarly stealing takes a neighbor’s goods without regard for an appropriate relationship. It fails to respect the neighbor’s per-sonal authority.

The value expressed in the fourth and ninth commandment is more subtle. Sabbath keeping is both a call to community as well as a challenge to remember and to speak the truth about the na-ture of reality.

To bear false witness is to misrepresent the human experience. The truth is made known as partners each bear witness to what they experience as the move together in a new reality.

The common value shared between each commandment is an orientation to Truth that is communal in nature and explored in dialogue with others.

Finally, the value expressed in the fifth and tenth commandment is also rather subtle. To honor mother and father is to honor the

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bearers of tradition, the history of the family and the community. It expresses a certain orientation to the past.

Covetousness also expresses a certain orientation to the past, one’s personal past. It expresses dissatisfaction over your present condition and seeks in someone else’s experience what you want for yourself.

This dishonors your personal history. It fails to embrace and to learn from the past. When you covent you wish you could in-herit the experience of someone else. The common value shared here is an appreciation for the past as a resource for continued growth and learning.

Think carefully about how these commandments are paired. You will discover the five Root Values:

People – You are of eternal worth. Commitment – Anything you accomplish of significance

requires the sustained investment of your personal will. Autonomy – You are unique and possess personal free-

dom to influence who you are and who you become. Truth -- You want to know what will provide security

and what will help your life flourish. Legacy – You live your life one day at a time. Signifi-

cant moments reside in your memory as a resource for learning and as a personal testament of your contribution to the human experience.

The Root Values resonate deeply in the human heart. How im-portant are they? Consider a few simple questions.

How do you feel when someone insults you? How do you feel when someone breaks a commitment to

you? How do you feel when someone tries to tell you what to

do? How do you feel when you do not understand a situa-

tion?

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How do you feel when you meet someone new who shows no interest in your story or no appreciation for your experience?

The Root Values are very important to your personally. But now consider their importance in community building.

You must protect the freedom of the individual. After all that person is the community's source of creativity, vitality and sup-port.

At the same time you guard the freedom on the individual, you must also encourage people to connect. You hope to see bonds form that will endure.

An empowered community comes about when one person can relate to another without loosing her sense of self in the process. The Root Values create a value system that both secures the in-dividual and readies the individual for relationship with others.

The Golden Rule, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you,” proves the universality of the Root Values. Each value expresses an essential quality that secures the personal dignity of an individual. Extending the same consideration to others protects one person from exploitation by the community.

Consider the Root Values framed by the Golden Rule. People: Do you want to be valued? Value others. Commitment: Do you rely on others to keep their prom-

ises to you? Keep yours. Autonomy: Do you cherish your personal freedom? Re-

spect the personal freedom of others. Truth: Do you seek what is important to you? Listen to

what is important to others. Legacy: Does your personal story inform your life? Re-

spect the personal story of others.

Most people feel a sense of injustice when one of the Root Val-

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ues is violated. Conversely, most people feel honored when someone shows respects for the Root Values. Honoring the Root Values helps another person feel safe. It opens a person up to respond to an invitation to the possibility of a deeper relation-ship.

People who raise awareness of the Root Values in the lives of others are in a position to enter into dialogues of substance about secondary values and priorities with greater freedom. Human bonds endure to release the power of community.

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5

Legacy

Commandment Five: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

Commandment 10: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s."

Every journey begins with a first step assuming, of course, you have a place to stand. The ground provides the resistance that propels you forward once you decide to move.

A journey into community begins with your ground -- your his-tory, your personal story. Someone ready for community values her own Legacy. She embraces the past for its lessons.

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Talk to your parents and your grandparents. Listen to their sto-ries. Their experience informs who you are and who you will be-come in ways you will not understand if you do not know the Legacy.

"It occurs to me how much people really look for their own lega-cies." Craig Wildman said. "There is really no concrete and im-mediate need for this. It is just something people seem to do.

"I was in a fraternity in college. Later I was resident advisor at a coed one. In both places every freshman was matched up with a big brother or a big sib', in the case of the coed fraternity. There was this long history or who was connected via big brother rela-tionships A kind of legacy developed."

Craig describes how his fraternity created its own genealogy. It went back for generations of undergraduates at MIT.

"One could say the legacy claim of your big-big-big-big brother was weak at best and generally meaningless," Craig said. "Nev-ertheless a lot the undergrads bothered to figure out who that al-umn was, a person they had never met.

"Were we making up for something missing here?"

Human beings make meaning for their live through the stories they tell. We look for connections in the past knowing that who we become depends on who the people were who came before us.

Knowing the story empowers us. Neglecting it means we walk in the world blind to forces that have shaped who we are.

Coming to terms with your own story is not easy. Your Legacy comes freighted with disappointment. This may include feelings of shame and guilt.

The present moment may be informed by your Legacy to the de-

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LEGACY

gree that what you see is more darkness than light. You may feel defensive or guarded. Defensiveness is a sign of something waiting to be learned.

Someone who values Legacy holds on to the lessons of the past but leaves the baggage behind. Are you ready for relationship? Make peace with your past. Your personal story is always your greatest teacher.

Someone ready for community is non-self-condemning. Con-fonting your past, working through it, listening to the stories and learning their lessons strips the past of its power to harm.

It helps a person appreciate the Legacy of others. Her willing-ness to be non-self-condemning allows her also to be non-judg-mental. She is profoundly reverent in the presence of another person’s struggle to become who he is.

Moses fled Egypt in shame. He killed an Egyptian overseer for beating a Hebrew slave. He found shelter in the house of a Mid-ianite clan leader named Jethro. He married the man’s daughter and worked for many years as a shepherd. He rebuilt his life.

His Legacy now not only included having grown up in the house of Pharaoh. It had been enriched by his embrace of the accumu-lated history of the house of Jethro as well. But all of this was built on the Legacy of his birth-mother.

While leading the flock of his father-in-law across the wilder-ness, he encounters something miraculous, out of the ordinary, something beyond the scope of his experience. The voice that addresses Moses claims the authority of Legacy. "I am the God of your father,” the voice said, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

This Legacy provides the primary context of what Moses would become. (Although he lived in the house of Pharaoh he had

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been raised by his birth-mother who had become his nurse maid.) All other stories would be subordinated to the Legacy Moses shared as a descendant of Abraham.

This did not obliterate his Egyptian experience. Nor did it de-value his life in the house of Jethro. His Legacy of having been born of a Hebrew mother informed and completed both.

The House of Abraham

His Hebrew Legacy begins with the story of Abraham, an un-known native of the land of Ur. As the story goes a mysterious call separates him out from the masses of the ancient world.

Few remember the names of the great kings of Ur. Who remem-bers Ur-Nammu, Shulgi, or Amar-Sin? Everyone knows the name of Abraham.

Abraham steps out of the darkness of pre-history. He responds to a mysterious call that, unlike the call of Moses, lacks the con-text Legacy brings. This alone makes Abraham worthy of the ti-tle, “Father of Faith.” He responded to a promise that he could not fully understand.

"Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you," the voice said. "And I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse. In you all the na-tions of the earth shall be blessed.”

The story of this beginning, of this promise, wasn passed down through the generations. It passed from Isaac to Jacob, to Jacob’s twelve sons to their descendants in Egypt. This Legacy carried the identity of the people.

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LEGACY

They knew themselves to have been set apart for blessing. But whatever the blessing entailed, it was not for their indulgence.

This was no exclusive claim to privilege, no “divine right” to anything. According to the promise they were blessed to be a blessing to others. It was all inclusive. It extended to all the na-tions of the earth.

The story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the story of the work-ing out of this promise. Any number of events put it at risk. The bareness of Sarah, the violence of tribal conflict in the land of Canaan, treachery, betrayal, greed and fear all make an ap-pearance in the Legacy that preceded Moses.

Moses was raised in house of Pharaoh under the protective eye of Pharaoh’s daughter. But he was nursed by his own mother. He grew up hearing the story of their heritage.

He was a son of Pharaoh by adoption and blessed to receive spe-cial privilege as heir of the nobility of Egypt. But he was also a son of Abraham by birth and by faith. He was a son by faith be-cause he embraced this identity as his own.

The voice addresses Moses with the words, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," The Legacy of his Hebrew forbears filled his heart with meaning and understanding.

Advancing the Legacy

Legacy as a Root Value is a central theme of the biblical narra-tive. How many have tried to read the Bible “cover to cover” only to fall exhausted when they have come to the “begats?”

Genealogies break up the biblical narrative with mind-numbing

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regularity. What for us is an incomprehensible list of names, is for people closer to the source a memorializing of their Legacy.

Legacy provides context and meaning. To disregard one’s Legacy is to neglect the context of one’s life. It reduces life to a meaningless series of random events. A truly meaningful life re-quires context.

Your Legacy includes your own experience and the experience of your family. This is your identity by birth. But your Legacy may also include an association by faith.

Your faith Legacy includes the story of your tribe, your nation and your world. The broader you draw your Legacy circle, the more meaningful your life becomes.

Moses was comfortable living the life of a shepherd in the secu-rity of the house of his father-in-law Jethro. It provided a mea-sure of meaning. But once he was addressed by “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" his circle of meaning expanded to include the whole world.

Moses could not know it at the time. But in responding to the call to “set his people free,” he set in a motion a new part of the story. He and the people he led would enrich the Legacy of Abraham for generations and gerations to come.

He could not know what he had set in motion. In leading the liberation of a band of Hebrew slaves he would advance the Legacy of Abraham to include all the nations of the earth.

Legacy at Work

Your Legacy provides the context that gives life meaning. Moses’ personal Legacy included many narratives feeding into

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LEGACY

one story.

His Hebrew mother contributed the story of God’s covenant with Abraham. His Egyptian mother contributed access to Pharaoh and a certain social legitimacy in Egypt that his brother Aaron lacked. His father-in-law Jethro provided an extended clan in the wilderness that provided emotional support if not a power base in the wilderness.

Like Moses each of us carries a Legacy that equips us to tackle the challenge of the day. Each of our Legacies is unique. Each one enriches the community of which we are a part

Can you embrace our own Legacy as a gift? Do you embrace the Legacies of others?

Stephen is descended from the White Russian elite who served Czar Nicholas before the October Revolution brought Lenin and the Bolsheviks to power in 1918. On the other side of the family he is the great grandson of early 20th century American indus-trial wealth.

“Both sides of my family had been extremely wealthy during a certain time in history,” Stephen said. “My Dad’s family had been in the upper class of the Russian Empire. They’d served as Russian ministers, generals and professors. All that was wiped out by the Communist Revolution.

“My mother’s family had been even wealthier. Her grandfather had been one of the pioneers of the electrical industry in the United States. He’d been a president of General Electric. He was friends with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

“His son had managed to dissipate the family fortune by the 1960s. As a result there was always a hang-up in my mother’s family over money, wealth and class.

“My mother and her older brothers had all been sent to boarding

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school. They lived a certain life-style. But as my grandfather’s inheritance dwindled her younger siblings lived on the other side of the line between the wealthy and the middle class. There was always tension in the family.“Growing up I’d always had the idea that I would solve the fam-ily’s problems by re-creating the wealth and restoring the family fortune. That was part of what was driving me.”

Stephen graduated from Georgetown University. He started a business with two friends. After several profitable years he turned down a slot at the Harvard Kennedy School of Govern-ment to begin an MBA program at the University of Michigan.

In graduate school he partnered with a young man from Jordan and a Swiss Hotel/Restaurant group to open a resort on the coast of Turkey.

This promising beginning collapsed when the Swiss pulled out at the last minute. Stephen lost his investment. It was every-thing he owned.

Stuggling with Legacy

As a young man Stephen imagined a Legacy that positioned him as a member of the social elite. He embraced an identity as one of the upper class, a member of the American Industrial Nobil-ity.

In reality he grew up in a middle-class family. He constructed a pseudo-identity he overlaid against his lived experience. With the loss of the Turkish resort project his dream of restoring the family fortune was washed out to sea.

Valuing Legacy requires a willingness to embrace all of your life's experience. We often try to bring forward the good parts of our past and leave the rest behind. The biggest hindrance to

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LEGACY

entering an empowering relationship is not past failures, but fear of former failure.

We present ourselves putting our best foot forward. We forget that the lesser foot must also always come along. Denial crip-ples us, not our humanity.

“The collapse of the Turkish resort project was the first time I had lost a significant amount of money,” Stephen said. “I was devastated. I had an emotional breakdown and was depressed for a year.

"I look back now and see that as the greatest thing that ever hap-pened to me. But at the time it was devastating.”

What is so great about a failed business venture, losing every-thing you have, and falling into a deep depression?

We all have things in our past that make us blush and cringe.We doubt our personal value. We question our capacity for commitment. At times we may have been unduly influenced by others, even abused to the point that we had lost our sense of identity and perhaps our dignity.

We have blamed others for our failures, made excuses and lied to ourselves. We have hid from our own experience. We feel fragile. We try to forget the difficult times, the hardship, the hurtful moments, the moments of which we are most ashamed. We are afraid to face our Legacy.

“Error is not blindness,” Nietzsche said. “Error is cowardice.”

To embrace one's Legacy as a Root Values is to bring the past forward. The hard times hide all the best lessons. Why devalue your Legacy?

It undermines confidence. It prevents you from coming to

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terms, once and for all, with your fundamental identity. In fail-ing to value your Legacy you feed the demon who whispers daily in your ears, “You don’t measure up.”Stephen spent a year struggling to come to terms with his Legacy. He worked to understand how it informed his priorities and his self- understanding. He spent a year wrestling with the demons of his past.

An Authentic Legacy

“So why was it so important for me to make the business so suc-cessful? I was able to get at some things that had been in the background that I had not seen and that were having a negative influence on my life.

“I became a very different person on the other side of my emo-tional breakdown. My wife and I often joke that she would never have married me, or even spent time with me in that pe-riod of my life.

"When I came out the other side I was a very different person. Wealth was no longer the driver and achieving a certain status was no longer important to me. I began to focus on the question, ‘So what really does matter?’ That set me free from all the ex-pectations I’d put on myself.”A neglected Legacy will limit your ability to enter authentically into relationship with others. Shame shackles you. You may not necessarily feel shame so much as observe it through the avoidance of your Legacy.

“I needed to be set free from all the expectations I’d put on my-self,” Stephen said.

The first step to valuing his Legacy required him to ask funda-mental questions about who he was and how his past could em-power him to become the person he hoped to be. Before he

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LEGACY

could walk, he had to appreciate the ground upon which he stood.

The opposite of shame is not pride, but humility. Shame grows in the toxic environment of denial. Reviewing the disappointing moments in our past hurts. But if we stay with it, work to under-stand it, embrace it, and learn its lessons, we discover that we endure.

We discover goodness in weakness, power in vulnerability, and success in failure. Shame gives way to humility. Valuing one’s Legacy – the good and the bad – nurtures health.

“Before the breakdown I was unnaturally optimistic,” Stephen said. “I was confident to the point of arrogance. I was driven by the need to amass wealth. It was a little like living in my own made up dream-world. I already thought I was what I was al-ways trying to become.

"It was all manufactured. It effected how I related to other peo-ple. I related to others as the character I wanted to be, not as the person I really was.”

After the collapse of the Turkish resort project Stephen stopped and reviewed his legacy. He gave up playing a role of his own invention.

Stephen had not valued his Legacy. He denied the deeper truth of his family history. He had become captive to an incomplete family story that distorted who he really was.

"Each side of my family dealt with the loss of their fortunes dif-ferently. On my father’s side the attitude was, ‘Thank God we are educated. The rest of it doesn’t matter.’ They immigrated and were able to start their lives over again in the United States."On my mother’s side they were still trying to live the life-style of their former status. They maintained membership in the De-

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troit Athletic Club. When I was born my name went into the ‘blue book,’ the social register.

"The reality was that we lived the life of a middle-class family in the suburb of a factory town. But we were still trying to repre-sent ourselves – sub-consciously in some cases – as something else.”

Stephen invested a year in exploring his legacy. He opened it up and unpacked it. He embraced it. He learned the lessons it had to teach.

He asked: What motives, values, and beliefs has my legacy given me that can serve as a foundation for a more authentic and productive life?

After recovery Stephen went on to work for a Telecommunica-tions company. As his career developed he eventually took on a sales organization in a very competitive market in Europe.

He started with a team of five people and a sales target of $5,000,000. In three years he had built his team into a 200 member sales organization closing $500,000,000 in annual sales. Stephen credits his success to breaking free of habits of mind that had limited him.

“I came out of the breakdown more grounded. I now interacted with people on terms of who I really was as opposed to the fan-tasy I had created. I was happy being myself.”

So much of our Legacy shapes the present moment we take it for granted. A deep, driving force lies beneath the surface of every life. This irresistible, unseen momentum propels us.

Stephen’s Legacy includes Russian generals and American in-dustrialists. Your Legacy is unique to your own experience. It will either inspire you or cripple you. It depends on what you do

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with it.

To value Legacy means to explore it. You can understand it. You can practice being grateful for everything that has contrib-uted to who you are today. It is a gift you bring to community.

To value Legacy also means you are willing to listen to the sto-ries of others. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone lives a life that matters.

When you listen, you connect. When you listen without judg-ment, you empower.

Value Legacy and you will begin to release the power of your community.

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6

People

Commandment 1: "You shall have no other gods before me.

Commandment 6: "You shall not murder."

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” So we teach our children. But is it really true?

Sticks and stones break bones. But ridiculing or shaming an-other human being breaks souls. It also undermines the power of community.

Everyone would readily agree that murder works against the no-tion of valuing people, but so also does calling your brother a fool.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago,” Jesus said. “'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject

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to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. . . . Anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

Do not let Jesus’ reference to “judgment” and “the fire of hell” distract you from the central point. This is no religious argu-ment for the existence of hell. He is not threatening to send any-one there.

Religious authorities have long used such references as instur-ments of control.

Jesus is using language of judgment to make a compelling case of the enduring value of People. The sixth commandment was not limited to murder. It includes respecting the personal dignity of others.

Moses acted out of this Root Value when he struck down an Egyptian overseer for beating a Hebrew slave. We see in his ac-tion an imperfect expression of a value for People. Indeed, the shame with which he fled suggests a measure of remorse in hav-ing taken the Egyptian’s life.

We find a number of other instances of how the Root Value of People is portrayed in the story of Moses, both in its observance as well as in its neglect.

The Book of Exodus describes Pharaoh’s oppression of the He-brew people without moral commentary. No where does it say, “This is wrong.” Readers respond with compassion expressive of this Root Value when they read of the treatment of the He-brew people.

In each of our personal Legacies we can remember having suf-fered some form of abuse at the hand of one tyrant or another – even if only on the playground at school.

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“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” we are taught to sing. “But words can never hurt me.”

Reflecting on our Legacies we know that words hurt. They also justify tyrants. The Nazi holocaust of the 1940’s began with a holocaust of words in the 1930s.

Faced with the prospect of his slave population growing too strong Pharaoh orders all male infants of Hebrew mothers to be killed. Two mid-wives refuse to comply. In breaking the law they elevate the Root Value of People above the authority of the state.

It goes without saying that building community must include valuing people at some level. But there is a difference between valuing People as a theoretical notion of justice, and valuing people one by one as you encounter them each day.

“I love mankind,” Charles Shultz said. “Its people I can’t stand.”

The Root Value People recognizes the intrinsic worth of others. People are not objects to be used. They are fellow human beings to be supported and loved. But this, as the old saying goes, “is easier said than done.”

Personal Resistance

Loving other people is difficult. Another person always repre-sents a measure of resistance. Call it push back, disagreement, or conflict. Introduce another person into your world and you are immediately confronted with the problem of “the other.”

John Macmurray recognized the value of other People with par-

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ticular clarity. His philosophy of “persons in relation” describes the value of other people as necessary in the development of the one’s own identity.

According to Macmurray, “the Self” (one’s personal identity) is constituted by the presence of another person. He argues that until you are in relationship with someone, you do not meaning-fully exist.

Do not let the philosophical language intimidate you. Obviously your body does not “disappear.” But your emotional and intel-lectual significance does indeed begin to fade. Left alone long enough, you will die.

J.R.R. Tolkien provides a brilliant portrayal of this in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Fans know well the story of Smeagol who discovered the ring of power. Seeking to posssess it, it came to possess him.

Smeagol becomes Gollum as his life deteriorates. He did not nurture relationships with others. The sole focus of his life was possession of the ring, As a result he began to fade. His inabil-ity (or unwillingness) to be in relationship stripped him of his personhood.

The Root Value People does not just help people feel better. We are co-creators of one another. How we treat one another influ-ences who we become.

Honoring this Root Value builds the vitality of community as it breaths life into the individual members of it every day. I need another person I can “bounce ideas off of.” I need an-other person to tell me “I am doing a good job.” I need another person who will respectfully listen to me, and speaking from from a foundation of genuine concern “tell me I am wrong.”

Other people energize the significance of my existence. They

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give me life. Without an experience of “the other,” “the self” cannot be said to exist in any meaningful way.

Resistance provides the basis for the formation of personal iden-tity. Another person pushes back. She tells me I am alive.

Most husbands and wives experience this regularly. The one you live with is generally the one who knows you best, and helps you to know yourself best. An authentic interchange be-tween partners helps to clarify what is important to oneself.

When listening with genuine appreciation accompanies speaking with openness and honesty, the exchange is empowering and deeply satisfying. When listening stops and speaking becomes defensive or accusatory, people are hurt.

Resistance Not Abuse

Do not confuse personal resistance with mistreatment. Re-sistence is a natural result of sharing life wth others. The pres-ence of another person helps me to discover the boundaries of my life. Another person is limiting in the positive sense of defining and brining greater focus to who I am.

I know myself fully as “me” only when I am in relationship with you. (Martin Buber describes this beautifully in I and Thou). If I remain out of relationship too long I lose myself. I know my-self reflected in the eyes of others.

What happens if the other person in whose eyes you see yourself disdains you? What if he holds you in contempt, or shames you?

This was the crippling experience of the Hebrew slaves. It is also the experience of living in an abusive household, working for a disrespectful boss, or trying to navigate an impersonal, dis-

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missive institution.

We begin to experience ourselves as unworthy. If we remain in such relationships our sense of self becomes self-loathing. We become diminished to the point that we will no longer be able to share our gift with the world. Community is diminished. Personal resistence is not abuse. But abuse is an excessive form of personal resistence. Managed from the right perspective mis-treat can serve to reinfornce an even great sense of self.

Did Moses' first encounter with Pharaoh result in failure? As-sessed from the perspective of the goal – the liberation of He-brew slaves – it was a miserable failure. But when framed in terms of the personal formation of Moses it was a great success.

Sometimes when we encounter others who present resistance we dehumanize them. We may dismiss what they have to say as Pharaoh did. Or, take a more passive-aggressive approach and gossip about them in an attempt to strip them of their influence in the lives of others.

Doing this we deny the Root Value People. We diminish our own identities. In devaluing others, we devalue ourselves. Con-versely when we encounter the resistance of others as a gift, we are enriched.

Pharaoh’s, “No!” generated in Moses a profound “Yes!” Pharaoh’s resistance gave Moses a much greater sense of him-self, of his mission, and of his resolve.

How grateful Moses must have been for Aaron's support, valida-tion, and affirmation in the face of such hostility. The Root Value People highlights not only the importance or resistance, but of encouragement as well.

Moses led a group of Hebrew slaves into the wilderness. They grumbled for lack of food. They grumbled for lack of water. Moses could have simply walked away. After all, the wilderness

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was no wilderness to him. It was the land of his father-in-law Jethro.

But Moses did not walk away. He endured the murmuring of the people. He continued to engage. He continued to be

present, even in the midst of discomfort. How grateful Moses must have been for Jethro's uncompromising support.

In his willingness to stay connected through conflict, Moses honored the Root Value People. In relationship with supporters like Aaron and Jethro, he was every day transformed into a more empowered person.

People at Work

The Root Value People not only highlights the need to celebrate the intrinsic worth of others. It also highlights the need to cele-brate the moments when another person seems to get in the way.

Getting in the way lets me experience the limitations of my in-fluence. It gives me a greater sense of where I stop and others begin. The resistance of another person helps my own unique qualities come to life.

In 1995 the largest industrial fire in the history of Massachusetts broke out at the Malden Mills factory in the small town of Lawrence. With an unemployment rate of over 14%, the fire put 3,000 irreplaceable jobs at risk. The insurance company agreed to pay $300 million to settle the claim.

Henry Feuerstein founded the family owned and operated com-pany in 1906. Henry’s grandson Aaron, already in his seventies, had inherited the family business. He had reached an age when most men are ready to retire.

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Feuerstein could have taken the $300 million and retired in lux-ury. But he would have left another dead mill town in Massa-chusetts. Instead he invested the insurance money to rebuild the factory.

But that was not enough. Constructing a factory takes time. The families of his employees needed to eat in the mean time. He borrowed another $100 million to continue to pay his 3,000 em-ployees until the factory could open again.

Good intentions to not always work out. In November 2001 Aaron Feuerstein filed for bankruptcy. Financing the cost of re-building the factory outdistanced the income Malden Mills could generate in a slow textile market.

The Union of Needle Trades, Industrial and Textile Workers Lo-cal 311 rallied behind their cash-strapped boss. Despite layoffs employees continued to maintain passionate loyalty to the com-pany.

Said one 22 year employee, "If anybody can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he's shown time and time again he can."

Feuerstein did not give up the fight. He believed he could save his company and keep working on behalf of the people of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Asked what he wanted engraved on his tombstone when he went to work for the last time, he replied, “He done his damndest.”

Creating Conditions for Happiness

Aaron Feuerstein “done his damndest” because he understands the Root Value People. When people believe they are valued and feel valued by others, they accomplish amazing things to-gether. Such goodness multiplies as affirming power moves

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from one person to the next in an expanding circle of influence that enriches the world.

In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith describes how self-inter-est drives the economy. But earlier he had written another

book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. It begins with a simple observation only the most mean-spirited person could deny.

How selfish man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of oth-ers, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he de-rives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.

“Happiness” meant something different for Adam Smith than the passing mood we associate with being “happy” today. Happi-ness described a social condition that enabled people to flourish. It could never be achieved outside of living life together with others.

Thomas Jefferson had this notion of happiness in mind when he penned the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un-alienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pur-suit of Happiness.

The Declaration of Independence assumes the Root Value Peo-ple as a first principle. The self-evident truth of the right to pur-sue happiness excludes any treatment of others that would deny that pursuit. It excludes any social condition that prevents an-other person from flourishing.

The “principle of our nature” that takes pleasure in seeing the well-being of others is the Root Value People. The recognition of the importance of the pursuit of happiness highlights this value in the founding document of the United States.

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Aaron Feuerstein took such great pleasure in seeing the well-be-ing of others that it cost him $400,000,000. It was not too high a price to pay measured against the value of People.

Someone who values People expresses great appreciation for what they bring to a team. They speak freely about their gifts, abilities and talents. They acknowledge the shortcomings and

limitations of others, but never allow that to get in the way of celebrating their basic worth.

Billion Dollar Assets

Tim is a direct seller of automation and industrial control prod-ucts. For seven years in a row industry surveys have consis-tently recognized his company as number one for technical ser-vice excellence.

“Each one of my employees,” he says, “is a billion dollar asset,”

What does a billion dollar asset look like?

“I met John at a karate class. He was young, probably 19 years old. There was something special about this guy. I saw that right off the bat.

“Everybody is God’s creation. If you look at somebody, and you try to turn off your prejudice, their hair cut, the clothes they wear, etc. you see potential.

"There was something that glowed about this guy, so I watched him. He took care of his younger brother. He came from a poor family. The world held him at a pretty low level. He didn’t

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have a college degree. He worked at Wal-Mart. He lived at home and contributed what he earned to support his parents. Yet this guy always had a smile on his face.

“One evening I brought him over to our facility after karate. I showed him around and then invited him to apply to work for

us. He started in our warehouse. He was strong physically. He was dependable. He took the job very seriously.

"Eventually he began to get involved with one of our technical teams. I kept up with him. (I keep up with a lot of people around here.) I heard good things from his team captain. He kept taking on more and more responsibility.

“He is one of our billion dollar assets because there is such goodness down in there somewhere. We encouraged him to go get a college degree. We reimbursed him based on his grades. If he earned an 'A' we gave him 90% of the cost of tuition. If he received a 'B' we gave him 80%.

“During this time he got married. Then he got financially strapped. I found out he had taken a second job back at Wal-Mart.

"'Listen, I said, 'we can help you out.’ We don’t do shift work here, but I knew I could trust him. I had him come in at night and do odd jobs. Customers request a catalogue. Or free sam-ples have to be stuffed inside a bag – that kind of thing, all kinds of odd-ball jobs.

"Over time, not only did he get his two year degree. He com-pleted his four year degree. Now he is going back to get his master’s degree.

“He came in here making minimum wage. Now he is earning a significant salary. He is doing that because he invested in him-self. He is an American success story. I believe he is going to

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keep going, and keep growing.”

John invested in himself because Tim values People. Tim helped him see capabilities in himself that he may not have seen otherwise. He saw himself reflected in Tim’s eyes.

When Tim looks at people, he really sees them. He sees them in the fullness of their individuality. He sees each as a unique per-son with gifts and talents to be shared.

Tim talked about Beth.

“Beth came here and interviewed for an entry level sales posi-tion. She used to work as a 911 operator. Her husband was a police officer.

'You could tell she lived a tough life. She didn’t trust many peo-ple. She did not take care of herself. She was extremely over-weight. She was obese.

“But she had a strong work ethic. She really cared about doing the right thing at work. Now don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t perfect. She had an edge to her. She could be pretty hard on someone who didn’t measure up to what she believed was their responsibility to the company.

"We attract a lot of people who don’t have a formal education, who have not had a lot of opportunity in life. And they come here and they take off. I mean, in a really good way.

“Beth worked her tail off. She was number one in sales. In our industry a typical sales person usually processes $200,000 in sales a month. She hit a $1,000,000. The whole team excelled. She brought everyone up. When someone runs that fast, every-one else just trys to hang on.

“Beside all that she is constantly telling us how to redesign the

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business, how to redesign our process to make it better for our customers. That’s what I love about people like this. They are going to push us hard to make the company better.

“She had an idea about how to apply 911 principles to our busi-ness. When a customer calls she wanted to know why we couldn’t very quickly triage that customer, figure out what the problem is, and immediately direct that customer to the best per-son on the team who can answer that question as soon as possi-ble. It’s a really great concept. She pioneered that process for our company.”

What does it mean to really value People? Tim recognizes capa-bilities in others and calls them out. He begins with the assump-tion that everyone that works for him is a “billion dollar asset.” He receives the gift each person brings to his organization, fans the flame, and then gets out of the way to watch them glow.

Embracing the Root Value People challenges a community to celebrate the life of one another. It also challenges people to provide the resistance that helps others become more than they ever thought they could be.

If all you did was truly learned to value People, that alone would empower others to pursue happiness and energize the creativity and vitality of a team or organization. That alone would release the power of community.

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7

Commitment

Commandment 2: You shall not make for yourself a carved im-age, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. . . .

Commandment 7: You shall not commit adultery.

People who value Commitment recognize the link between inter-nal resolve and external results. Intentional change of any kind requires an investment of the will. Hope moves out into the world through Commitment.

Imagine the commitment required of Moses. He returned to Egypt and stood before Pharaoh ten times with the same simple appeal, “Let my people go.” How many times can you endure hearing “No,” before you give up?

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Portrayals of Commitment fill the Book of Exodus. Do you fo-cus on the miracles?

There is the burning bush, the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, Manna in the wilderness, water out of rocks, a divine voice on a mountain – the book runs over with the miraculous.

If you look past the miracles you will discover how often the story lifts up the Root Value Commitment. Miracles do not make the Book of Exodus distinctive. The power of the story is in how a demoralized band of Hebrew slaves find their strength through repeated demonstrations of Commitment.

Seeking the Death of Moses

When Moses returns to Egypt to confront Pharaoh the Book of Exodus includes a startling and disturbing story.

He travels with his Midianite wife Zapporah and their son. They stop for the night. Without warning or provocation the text says, Yahweh “sought to put Moses to death.” What can this mean?

Earlier the story portrayed Yahweh as compassionate. The I AM hears the suffering cry of the descendants of Abraham. Yahweh remembers the covenant of Abraham and comes down to liberate the people from Egypt.

How is it that once calling Moses to set his people free Yahweh now seeks to destroy him?

Later in the story we find a similar incident that helps us under-stand. After the covenant-making event in which the people commit to "hearken" to the voice of Yahweh and keep his covenant, Moses goes up the mountain to be in the presence of Yahweh.

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While Moses is away the people come to Aaron. They ask him for an idol, a clear denial of the commitment they had just made. Aaron complies with the request. He fashions a Gold Calf. The people bow down to worship.

The response of Yahweh is severe. Yahweh's intention is to kill the people. "Now therefore let me alone," Yahweh says, "that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them."

Moses quickly steps in and plays the role of mediator. He re-minds Yahweh of the Legacy of Abraham. "Remember Abra-ham, Isaac, and Israel," he said, "your servants, to whom you swore by your own self."

Moses makes an appeal to Commitment. Yahweh sets aside the divine wrath. Returning now to the story of the threat against Moses' life, we find similar themes.

Yahweh intends to kill Moses, the man who had just agreed to partner with Yahweh in the liberation of the Hebrew slaves. Yahweh intended to kill the Hebrew slaves who had just become partners with Yahweh.

In the Golden Calf incident, the cause was a failure of commit-ment on the part of the Hebrew people. The story does not make clear the cause of wrath in the story of the threat against Moses.

Ancient readers would have known the cause. They would have picked up a sub-text that is obscrure to us. But we find a clue in the response of Zapporah, Moses' wife.

Similar to the way Moses interceded with Yahweh, reminding Yahweh of the Legacy of Abraham, Zapporah plays the media-tor here.

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Moses’ death is averted when Zapporah quickly circumcises her infant son. “Surely,” Zapporah says to Moses, “You are a bride-groom of blood to me.”

The act of circumcision seems arbitrary, even barbaric to one unfamiliar with the Hebrew Legacy. But to one who stands within the family story the message is clear. Since the days of Abraham circumcision had always been a sign of commitment.

“You are a bridegroom of blood to me!” declares Zapporah. The term “bridegroom” is clearly a reference to commitment-mak-ing. That the commitment is made in blood suggests the depth of the commitment represented by circumcision.

This story only makes sense within the Legacy of Abraham and the Root Values framework.

This is not a "test" for Moses (and Zapporah). It is a call to commitment. There is now no turning back.

Demonstrations of Commitment

Commitment will make the difference in this story. It is the only thing Moses brings to the encounter with Pharaoh. He will need it.

Moses confronts Pharaoh for the first time. Pharaoh registers his refusal to let the Hebrew people go by increasing their work load. In response the people turn against Moses. They blame him for having aroused Pharaoh’s anger.

Moses, in turn, makes his complaint to Yahweh who calls Moses to stand by his commitment just as Yahweh has stood by his commitment to the descendants of Abraham. Moses stands firm,

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despite his rejection by the people he had come to liberate from slavery.

Moses’ commitment precedes the people’s willingness to fol-low. “They did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.”

The infamous plagues follow Pharaoh's initial rebuff. With the final plague (the death of the first-born of Egypt) comes the ini-tial call of commitment to the Hebrew slaves.

Only those among the slaves who demonstrate their commitment through the sacrifice of a lamb will be spared the fate of the Egyptians. Clearly Passover is a call to Commitment.

Indeed, the detailed instructions associated with the event (“roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. . . do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water,” etc.) tests the resolve of this dependent people.

Other demonstrations of Commitment follow. The most signifi-cant comes with the covenant-making event itself.

On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness.

There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God. The LORD called to him out of the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel:

"You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed hearken to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peo-

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ples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set be-fore them all these words that the LORD had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do."

Immediately following this event we receive a presentation of the Ten Commandments. The recurring theme makes the point of the story clear. No one releases the power of community without a clear, unambiguous call to Commitment.

NCAA Soccer

The year before Tim took over as head coach of the men’s soc-cer team at the University of California at Santa Barbara, “the Gauchos” had never made it to a Division I, NCAA tourna-ment. They finished the previous year with a record of two wins and seventeen losses.

“When I met with the Athletic Director, the goal was never to win,” Tim said. “The program had dropped down to the level of embarrassment. There were no resources provided.

"The NCAA allows us to recruit ten players on scholarship. We had two. They allow three assistant coaches. We had one. We paid him $5,000/year.

“So you have no history. You have no tradition. You have no resources. The stadium itself is a 35 year old metal complex that is rusting out. You have nothing to attract players.

"In NCAA Division I soccer, UCSB was at the bottom. I took

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the job at UCSB because I had an itch. ‘Could we win here?’”

A pseudo-community consists of a group of people who value conformity and comfort over vitality, creativity and life. The en-ergy of the group remains focused on resisting change, living in denial, and undermining and discrediting “outliers,” those who refuse to conform.

The Hebrew slaves in the desert stumbled along in this fashion until they were challenged by the covenant-making event. They received the Ten Words that would transform them.

Similarly, the UCSB Gouchos stumbled along as well. It took a coach who understood the Root Value Commitment to transform a casual group of guys into a team that could win.

Hard Decisions

Tim’s prospects of building a winning soccer program at UCSB were about as remote as Moses prospects of getting a band of Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. Moses at least had a burning bush to inspire his commitment.

“I became head coach in February 1999. I inherited 24 players. After working with them for eight weeks, I walk out onto the field and cut almost the whole team -- 18 players.. “The issue was not talent. It was lack of commitment. They didn't care about what they were doing.

“One kid had an alcohol problem. He’d been kicked out of the dorms three times.

“The previous season the team made a trip to play the University of Washington. The goal keeper and their leading scorer did not go because they had a fraternity function. The team gave up

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nine goals. It was the most lopsided loss in UCSB history.

“Their lack of commitment infected the whole team. There was no way to fix it. In addition to the freshman, I kept three other players.

"One had been cut the year before. He came back and had to fight to get back on the team. I kept him.

“Another guy was passionate. He really cared. I kept him.

“I had a fifth year goal keeper. During his freshman year he had his face kicked in at a game against Fresno State. He had to have reconstructive surgery. He was out for two seasons. No one thought he’d ever play again. But his attitude was, ‘I’d do anything to get back on a soccer field.’ I kept him.

Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher of Commitment, described “the will to power” as the vital center of individual vitality. We do not merely have a will to live, we want to flourish.

Nietzsche pointed to the creativity and greatness released when someone taps into the passionate motive energy that lies just be-neath the surface of our awareness. Once energized the Will punches through limits of convention and pushes beyond the empty shell of social habits of conformity to express the vitality of the human experience.

Unfortunately people readily yield to the pressure of mediocrity. Excellence establishes a standard beyond the norm. True excel-lence, therefore, is abnormal by definition.

A person who strives for excellence will experience rejection. She must have the resolve to press through the inevitable os-tracism that comes with personal striving. Only after she wins the prize is she celebrated. The journey to excellence requires

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courage and commitment to press forward.

Too many of us forgo the vitality of real community for the mush-headedness of the herd. Real community never has a chance to start because it requires a shared commitment to excel-lence at every level among every one. Pseudo-community be-comes the norm. We settle rather than strive.

Moses' commitment enabled him to push through apathy gener-ated by generations in slavery. Tim had to push through the ap-athy of spoiled children in a university that tolerated poor perfor-mance.

Commitment over Talent

“I recruited guys I called ‘second-chance players.’” Tim said. “These guys were looking for an opportunity because something had gone wrong before.

“One guy had had cancer in his hip -- a good player. But when they cut the cancer out all the scholarships went away. They never thought he’d play soccer again. But he was committed.

“We traded high talent players for high commitment players. That season we went from 2-17 (two wins, seventeen losses) to 13-7. It was the biggest turnaround in Division I NCAA soccer.

“The next season we won our conference. We were excited. This would be the first year in the history of UCSB that we were going to make the playoffs. We were at a sports bar watching television as they announced what schools were going to the na-tional tournament.

“As we sat there, they named forty-eight schools. They did not name UCSB. They left us out. We were the only team to have

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won their conference no to go to the national tournament.

“The team was shocked. They said, ‘Next year we are in the same situation. Even if we win the conference, we still have no

guarantee that we will be invited to the national tournament.’ It focused the team. They couldn’t take anything for granted.

“This led to the 2002 season. We opened against the University of Michigan and scored 5 goals by half-time. We went on to score 63 goals in the next twenty games and ended the year with an 18-2 season.

“Being snubbed by the NCAA galvanized the team’s commit-ment. They knew that poor play in just one game might be enough to exclude them from the playoffs.

“They led the country in scoring in 2002. They led the country in defense in 2004. We played nine overtime games and didn’t lose one. We went to the national tournament in 2004.

“In the sweet sixteen we were in North Caroline playing against UNC Greensborough. Four minutes into the game we lost our forward. We had to play with one man down, against the high-est scoring team in the country.

"We beat them, 1-0. These guys would not be denied their place in the national tournament.”

Tim values Commitment. He understands that leadership that fails to call others to commit, fails all together. Genuine commitment cannot be coerced. It is not a matter of compelling obedience. A genuine call to commitment motivates the free expression of a human heart.

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Rebuild

“The team that took us to the National Championship graduated in 2004. In 2005 we had to reinvent ourselves. Because of our success our program had risen in visibility.

"Our recruiting was pulling in a higher caliber player. The local kid who might try hard was not at the level of play of the talent we were attracting. We were dealing with superstars now. That means egos. We were dealing with kids who were talking about who would be be their agent.

“The 2006 team began as the most disappointing one of my ca-reer. We started the season in dysfunction. There is no other way to put it. They weren’t playing for each other.

“We were 7-6 when we played UC Riverside, which was the last place team in our conference. UCSB had never lost to River-side-- even in the bad years. We went down and lost 1-0.

“As we were pulling out of the parking lot the bus bottomed out on a curb. We sat there for three and a half hours waiting for someone to come pull us off. The guys had a lot to think about.

“After the Riverside disappointment, we were scheduled to play Cal-Poly. One more loss and our season was over. We would not make the playoffs.

“I said, ‘This next game will be Senior Night.’ (Senior Night is the last game in which the seniors play. It is the last game of their soccer careers.)

“‘What do you mean, Senior Night?’ they asked. I said, ‘Well,

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if we lose the next game then I am going to go with all the younger players. We are going to be done with our seniors. We need to develop the future.

“'You seniors might want to invite your parents.’ I said, ‘because this is the last game you are going to play. But I don’t want to be responsible for putting players out there who don’t have as much to lose as you guys. So you tell me who you want to play with. You pick your team for this game.'

“One of my captains met me in the parking lot. ‘Tim, I looked around and I didn't see two other players that I wanted to play with.’ I said, ‘Well that’s a problem. You have two more days to figure it out.’

“We drive up to Cal-Poly. The captains call the team together. ‘Look, this may be our last game. And we are not sure who to tell Coach to play. So we want to know if any of you are not ready.’

"One guy said, 'My hamsring is feeling tight. I don;t think I can give 100% today.' He pulled himself out. But he was the only one.

“We scored two goals in the first 10 minutes. It was a defining moment.

"The team decided they wanted to go somewhere. That was when they committed. We went on to win the next nine games in a row. We made it to the national tournament.

“We played in St. Louis in the semi-finals. A big storm hit on Friday. They moved all the games to Saturday.

"We played in the afternoon. It was 25 degrees. We played into overtime, 110 minutes. We win but we did not make it back to the hotel until 6:00 PM.

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"After this exhausting game, we had to be back on the field at 11:00 AM the next morning.

“We played UCLA in the finals. They were playing for their 100th National Championship. They were motivated.

"They beat the University of Virginia 4-0 in their semi-final game. They had had the opportunity to rest some of their play-ers. It did not look good for us.

“Before the game the sports broadcaster comes up to me and says, ‘You know Tim, finishing second is great. There is noth-ing wrong with that. You still will have had a great season.’

“We didn’t come to the National Tournament to finish second. We beat UCLA. It was the first national title in the history of UC Santa Barbara athletics.

"This was the same crew that six weeks earlier was sitting on a bus that had bottomed out after losing to Riverside. You would not have given them a prayer.”

You would not have given them a prayer, but for one thing. The Root Value Commitment, releases the power of community.

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8

Autonomy

Commandment 3: You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Commandment 8: You shall not steal.

The Root Value Autonomy defines the dividing line between people. It marks where one person stops and another person be-gins. Our physical autonomy – that we have distinct bodies – obscures the fact that we do not always live with distinct emo-tions. We sometimes loose our emotional autonomy.

When you waking up on the wrong side of the bed, results in me having a bad day, I have lost my emotional autonomy.

When you ask for my opinion, and instead of sharing it with you I try to figure out what you think, I have lost my emotional au-

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tonomy.

When my sense of serenity depends on the height of your happi-ness, I have lost my emotional autonomy.

Our lives merge I need you to supply my sense of security or my identity. When I fail to take responsibility for myself, when I blame you for how I feel or the condition of my life, I have merged with you.

I begin to live my life only with your permission. I lose my unique perspective. I want to know what you see and what you think. My personal power shrinks away. My creativity dies. I have nothing to contribute of my own that enriches the commu-nity.

We neglect the Root Value Autonomy when we surrender our identity to another person in this way. Your life is a gift to share with others. When you merge with another person, your gift goes away. The world is diminished by your lack of participa-tion. Community suffers.

Similarly the Root Value Autonomy is violated wherever a spouse, parent or manager tries to control you. Seeking to have power over another person dishonors Autonomy.

Pharoah’s Tryanny

Authoritarian states violate Autonomy when political systems secure the privilege of the few at the expense of the many. The-ories of democracy seek to secure the Autonomy of citizens. But care must be taken that the “tyranny of the majority” does not violate the Autonomy (the rights) of the minority.

This Root Value anchors the wisdom behind the “separation of church and state” clause in the second amendment to the Ameri-

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can Constitution. Churches dishonor their deepest Legacy when they attempt to use the power of the state promote a dogmatic social agenda.

The Root Values story in the Book of Exodus begins with the vi-olation of Autonomy under the coercive power of the state. Moses helps the Hebrew slaves escape tyranny.

Perhaps the most striking quality of the biblical narrative is how consistently Yahweh honors personal Autonomy. This explains why a lightning bolt does not come down from the sky to “strike Pharaoh” in his refusal to let the Hebrew slaves go. It would have been an easy solution to the problem of oppression once and for all. But the lightning bolt never comes. Yahweh honors Autonomy, even the Autonomy of a tyrant.

Once at Mt. Sinai the covenant-making event begins with a clear, unambiguous act of boundary setting.

“And you shall set limits,” Yahweh says to Moses, “For the peo-ple all around, saying, 'Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.'”

The biblical narrative everywhere secures the inviolability of Yahweh’s autonomy. The design of the Tabernacle reinforced this Autonomy. The symbol continued in the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem where the “Holy of Holies” defined a clear line of demarcation between Yahweh and the people.

The word "Holy" originally meant "set apart," "unapproachable," "wholey other." The vale, or curtain of sepa-ration in both the Tabernacle and the Temple defined the line. Yahweh is not to be approached.

The cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy" in the temple is a song in celebra-

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tion of divine Autonomy. A "holy man" is a person set apart. A "holy people" or a "holy nation" defines a distinct community.

That the word "holy" now carries connotations of "moral purity" suggests how far religious piety has wandered. Exhortations from the pulpit "to be holy" are more often attempts to control personal behavior -- an act of dogmatic tyranny -- than it is a call to safe-guard one's personal autonomy. Can there be a more tragic irony? A word that once secured the Root Value Auton-omy is now used regularly to violate it.

Just as Yahweh demanded that the divine autonomy be held in-violate, so also does Yahweh respect the Autonomy of the peo-ple. We see this in the appeal to covenant-making. The divine compact is not compelled, but invited.

In the Burning Bush incident, the voice invites Moses to com-mit. Yahweh does not force Moses to action.

In the covenant-making event at Mt. Sinai, Yahweh invites the people into partnership. “If you will hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,” Yahweh says. The covenant is dependent upon the consent of the people.

Even the Golden Calf incident displays respect for Autonomy. The people choose to build an idol. Moses recognizes Yahweh’s authority to destroy the people. Nevertheless, Moses claims his own personal Autonomy when he argues with Yahweh. Argu-ment and negotiation requires autonomous partners.

We also see this in the construction of the Tabernacle. In the ap-peal for supplies and material Moses respects the Autonomy of the former slaves. By this time in the narrative they are now emerging as an empowered community.

Unlike Pharaoh who coerced the people to build, Moses’ calls the people to build the Tabernacle for Yahweh. They responded “everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit

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moved him. . . . brought (material for the Tabernacle) as a freewill offering to the Lord.”

Autonomy and Commitment

The Root Values of Commitment and Autonomy have a para-doxical relationship. Without Autonomy, Commitment is not possible. Commitment requires that an autonomous individual freely chose to limit personal freedom in the service of a shared interest. Where there is no real autonomy, there can be no real commitment.

Once committed, one’s freedom is circumscribed or bounded. But it is a limitation one chooses for oneself. If it is compelled, it is not commitment.

Commitment requires saying yes to one thing, and no to every other option. In committing to go to Egypt to challenge Pharaoh in the service of Yahweh, Moses turned his back on life as a shepherd in service to Jethro.

The autonomous individual may choose, as Pharaoh did, to use his freedom in the service of self alone. However, as the Book of Exodus suggest, a team or organization (or even a band of

slaves) who choose to limit their personal freedom and unite, will ultimately prevail.

Without Commitment, autonomous power is limited to what one person working alone can accomplish. Furthermore, in a crowd Autonomy is further weakened through unending strife. Many pseudo-communities (some churches, schools, businesses, etc.) fail for this reason.

Seventeenth century political theorist Thomas Hobbes imagined

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“the state of nature” to have consisted of autonomous individu-als in perpetual conflict. He described the potential problem of freedom.

In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; nor navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. (Chapter 13, Leviathan)

Autonomy unsupported by Commitment results in perpetual conflict. Hobbes’ world is filled with autonomous individuals who only under duress finally yield personal liberty to an overar-ching power, a “great Leviathan,” who brings personal interest to heel.

For Hobbes, only the coercive power of the state could limit the risk associated with personal freedom. Jean Rousseau challenged this view.

In Social Contract Rousseau envisions the genesis of society in people freely choosing to come together. Commitment enables life to flourish.

Rousseau argued there comes a moment in “the state of nature” when obstacles to personal freedom are greater than the individ-ual’s power to overcome them. The autonomous individual gladly surrenders natural liberty to a broader community so they may work together in a common cause.

Hobbes sees social origins in reluctant commitment to do no harm. Rousseau sees joyful commitment enriching the life of community. Either way, in the service of security or enrich-

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ment, people yield their Autonomy to one another to serve a common good.

The Founding Fathers constantly negotiated the paradox of Au-tonomy and Commitment. Some, like Thomas Jefferson tended toward a Rousseausian vision of community. Others, like Alexander Hamilton tended toward a more Hobbesian view. Nevertheless they understood the paradoxical role commitment plays in the securing of personal liberty.

Where Virginian Patrick Henry exclaims to the Virginia House of Burgesses, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, solemnly says, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most as-suredly we shall all hang separately.”

Psuedo-Community

Earlier we suggested Frederick Nietzsche was the philosopher of Commitment, one who celebrated the power of the Will. It is not surprising that he is also preeminently the philosopher of Autonomy.

Nietzsche is sometimes criticized for his advocacy of a neo-aris-tocracy in the late 19th Century. He lifted up the excellence of the “Noble Spirit” over and against “the herd.” Detractors sug-gest he undermines democratic values.

A closer reading of Nietzsche shows his criticism of the herd fo-cused on what we are calling pseudo-community. He had dis-dain, even contempt, for easy conformity to social habit. Be-cause it costs nothing and risk nothing, it is worth nothing.

By contrast an empowered community consists of the type of people Nietzsche envisioned in his description of “the Noble.” In the following passage, note how confidently he embraces the

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Root Value Autonomy.

Signs of nobility: never thinking of degrading our duties into du-ties for everybody; not wanting to delegate, to share, one’s own

responsibility; counting one’s privileges and their exercise among one’s duties. (Beyond Good and Evil, paragraph 272.)

When you value Autonomy you honor personal boundaries. Each individual forms a whole, complete unto oneself. When people value Autonomy they delegate responsibility to one an-other, even as they hold one another accountable to their com-mitments.

Here is the paradox of the Root Value Autonomy. An autono-mous self cannot thrive outside of relationship with others, but only autonomous individuals can release the power of commu-nity.

Law of the Self

The word "Autonomy" means "law of the self." To be autono-mous is to have clear boundaries for one's personal identity. I am not you. You are not me.

The maturation process is a movement toward greater and greater Autonomy. A newborn cannot survive without the nur-turing support of a caregiver. A toddler relies on a parent for se-curity.

As children get older they test the space between themselves and their parent. They are looking for the defining line between where the parent stops and they begin.

The trauma of the teenage years establishes the identity of the child as a unique person. Peer pressure results from teens who

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are trying to establish a sense of personal Autonomy apart from mom and dad. The journey can be traumatic.

They have not yet learned to fully embraced their uniqueness. They trade the security of parental validation for the affirmation of their friends. They lack confidence to think for themselves.

A mature adult has a well-developed sense of personal Auton-omy. Sadly some adults never develop a strong sense of self. They suffer in a swirling chaos of other people's feelings, thoughts, and perceptions.

Others sometimes find themselves in relationships in which their personal Autonomy is not honored. All abusive relationships are violations of personal Autonomy. Over time an adult can can lose her identity and return to a condition of childish depen-dency.

A person ready for community has a strong sense of personal Autonomy.

The Root Value Autonomy secures personal freedom. Clear separation between individuals make possible a relationship as two banks of a river make possible a bridge.

Moses maintained his unique identity in relationship with Yah-weh. He was never “absorbed” into the Divine Mind. The Di-vine Spark did not live within him. In relationship with Yahweh he always remained his own man.

Marine

Joel spent his career in the Marine Corps. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in the spring of 1963. His choice of schools was deeply influenced by his family Legacy.

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“My father was an early naval aviator. We were stationed in Hawaii in 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. At the time he was on patrol looking for the Japanese fleet.

"Later he commanded the most decorated ship in the Navy, The USS Enterprise. He got his orders and they said, 'You are going to get one of the four great carrier commands in the Pacific. That is the good news. The bad news is the other three great carrier commands are Japanese.”

Joel’s father valued Autonomy. He understood the risk, ac-cepted the responsibility and fulfilled his mission.

The value of Autonomy secures the liberty of the individual. It undergirds the exclamation of liberty loving people everywhere, “Am I not free!”

Much earlier Jesus of Nazareth had also claimed the Root Value Autonomy. They don’t crucify conformists.

He encouraged others to claim their own ground as well. “Let your yes be yes,” he said, “and your no be no."

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

"Leave the dead to bury the dead. Come and follow me.” We honor the Root Value Autonomy when we invite participa-tion from others. Autonomy does not coerce, compel or other-wise force people into doing what they otherwise would not freely choose to do.

Joel’s father accepted the risk and responsibility of command of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The Japanese still controlled the South Pacific. His embrace of his personal Autonomy empowered him to get the job done. No one else would do it for him.

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He established a rich Legacy in the Navy. He was the comman-der of an aircraft carrier. He became an Admiral commanding the Second Fleet, and then the Sixth Fleet.

This Legacy must have exerted significant influence over his son Joel. But Joel had his own sense of Autonomy. Perhaps his fa-ther respected his son’s personal freedom. Though he attended college at the Naval Academy in Annapolis he chose to serve the Marine Corps rather than the Navy.

“I liked what I saw as leadership in the Marine Corps as opposed to the Navy,” Joel said. “In the Navy the officers saw their men at quarters, at Zero-Eight Hundred. They then went off and did whatever naval officers do for most of the day. They didn’t seem to have much connection with their men.

"In the Marine Corps you were constantly with your men, and by the time I left the Marine Corps, women as well.”

Joel had learned to claim his own ground. His father was the Navy admiral. He would learn his life lessons in the Marine Corps.

“My epiphany came as a midshipman at the Academy. We went down to Norfolk and I was put in charge of a squad of Marine Reservists. We were in our combat gear and had to get over a triple concertina of barbed wire.

“We threw a canvas sheet over it. I realized I had to go first. Up and over I went, falling on my face, coughing up sand. I’ll be damned if those marines didn’t follow me.

“That did it for me. That was hands-on leadership. If you aren’t willing to do it, you don’t ask someone else to do it for you.”Valuing Autonomy Joel knows what it means to accept responsi-bility. In 25 years as a Marine no one would have ever seen him looking around for someone else to do a job that was his to do.

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If there was a job to be done, and it had his name on it, he did it.

He maintained a clear sense of personal boundaries. Because he valued his own personal Autonomy, he learned quickly to value the Autonomy of others.

“I learned an important lesson in the basic school. They gave you a problem: The General wants a flag pole put up in front of his tent.

"They gave you all the pieces to the flag pole -- ropes, wrenches, pipe -- all types of things. Proud of my engineering degree from the Academy, I figured out how to put up that flag pole in a flash.

“They were all impressed. But then the instructor looked me up and down and said, ‘Nice flag pole. But you failed the exercise.

“I did not understand. But then the instructor said: ‘The solution is to say to your sergeant, 'Gunny. Put up the flag pole.’ That is his job.

"You are an officer. You do your job. Let others to there’s. Su-pervise to the extent necessary. But don’t do other people’s job for them.’

Risk

Joel learned that as important as his own Autonomy is, so also is the Autonomy of others. People feel empowered when they are given responsibility and then are held accountable for it

But there is a risk. Autonomy is personal freedom. Once given an assignment not everyone will use their their personal free-dom, in a responsible way.

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A Gunnery Sergeant worked for Joel in a Marine Corps recruit-ing assignment.

“I had seventy-five enlisted recruiters working out of 26 offices. We had a high mission (goal). Our station had not made mission in five years prior to me getting there. “The Marine Corps had a high standard for who we were recruit-ing. We wanted to keep out the trash. If the army wanted that kind a person, I could trade the Army three rocks for one young man who would make a good marine.

“I told the men, ‘My job is to create the environment that allows you to succeed. If I do my job, you can do yours’.

“I divided the area into five sections. I took a Gunnery Sergeant off mission so that he did not have to recruit. I put him in charge of one of the areas.

"I didn’t lower the overall goal for recruits in that area. I made him responsible not for an individual goal, but for the area goal. After about a year – 14 or 15 months – we started making mis-sion.

“The system worked. I could hold each of those Gunnery Sergeants responsible for their area and they performed.

“I only had one of the five fail me. This man didn’t have a lot of motivation. He was not making the mark so the Sergeant Major went out to talk to him.

“The Gunny said, ‘But I’m traveling 30,000 miles a year.’

"Maybe. I went out to his house one day unannounced. He had the government car up on blocks in the driveway -- the engine running, the wheels spinning. He was in the house watching TV. You aren’t always going to get a diamond.”

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Fortunately during his tour in Vietnam as a young lieutenant Joel led a group of diamonds. He led a Reconnaissance Platoon who valued Autonomy as much as he did.

“I was stationed in Hawaii. The man that I was replacing re-ceived a Medal of Honor in Vietnam, posthumously.

“When I took over I went to work only to discover that the whole platoon was ‘in hack’ for a barroom brawl in Honolulu.

“The marines had met at a certain hotel. Most were in their ‘civvies’ but one man came in uniform. The bartender said, ‘We don’t serve enlisted here.’

“Well, the platoon didn’t like that. They threw the bartender in the swimming pool. Then they threw the piano player in the swimming pool. Then they threw the piano in the swimming pool.

“They weren’t bad Marines. They weren’t troublemakers. This is you call, ‘unit cohesion.' They stuck up for one another.”

Beware of a platoon of Recon Marines with a strong sense of the Autonomy of their unit. You may end up in the swimming pool.

“Their motivation was incredible. There was not one loser in that outfit. But that’s because it was tough to get into.

"The Marine Corps has a tough recruitment policy number one. The Marine Infantry is tougher still. Then Marine Recon is above and beyond that. They don’t have a lot of problem moti-vating people.

“A Recon Marine has responsibilities often reserved for officers other units. He has to call in naval gun fire or direct air support to a target. These are young men -- 18 year old. You looked for the best and brightest, one man at a time.

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“We arrived in Chu Lai in March 1965 to build an airfield. In 30 days we had a jet capable runway.

“As a Reconnaissance platoon we operated deep behind enemy lines. We collected information, captured prisoners. I was in-volved in some 30 patrols. We were all in it together.

"Of the first four Purple Hearts, I received two of them. I was not sitting back somewhere drinking Kool-Aid telling them to go out into harm’s way.

"I had 26 men. Sometimes we would patrol in force trying to lo-cate the enemy. But for the most part my men worked in four-man teams. It was a lot of responsibility.

“You give them a mission. They could just find a safe location, a rock or bush somewhere, and hide for the four days they had to be out there. Or they could do the mission.

“They were getting into location and spotting the enemy. You didn’t have to be there to kick them in the butt. You didn’t have to explain to them that you don’t smoke a cigarette out there be-cause Charlie can smell it a mile and half away.

“These are young men, 17, 18 years old. A corporal is maybe 20. I was 25 and they called me ‘the old man.’ These were good men.

"I go to reunions now with my unit. Most of them came back and became professional people. One guy is a heart surgeon.”

When people value Autonomy they accept personal responsibil-ity. They recognize the job is theirs to do. If they don’t do it the job does not get done.

When you value Autonomy you call others to embrace their own Autonomy as well. Without it there can be no real accountabil-ity. With it you can release the power of community.

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9

Truth

Commandment 4: Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.

Commanment 9: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

As a Root Value Truth is about how you encounter reality in and through your experience with others. Exactly what this means is rather difficult to nail down.

When we think of the word “Truth” we of course think about it in the common sense way everyone has grown up with. Truth is an idea. Your idea may be “true” or “false.” What can be sim-pler?

Well, put a case of beer on the floor in the dorm room of any college campus. One of the debates likely to come up as they twist the top off a bottle of Bud is whether Truth is “absolute” or “relative,” “objective” or “subjective.” Suddenly the meaning to

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“Truth” is not simple at all.

Their literature professor tells them that Truth is pliable and ex-pressive. They learn that Truth is “subjective,” that it exists in

the mind and shapes how we experience the world. They learn that the artist’s job is to create “Truth.”

Their science professor tells them the exact opposite. There they learn that Truth is fixed and durable. They learn that Truth is “objective,” that it exists in the mind as a description of an un-changing world. They learn that it is the scientist’s job to de-scribe it, not create it.

In both cases Truth is an idea -- whether conceived as an objec-tive understanding of the world or a subjective expression of the imagination.

“I met a handful of philosophers during a year I spent at the Uni-versity of California, San Diego,” Craig said.

“They could never say anything simply. Every time one of them made a statement, the others attacked the first one's assumptions. Nothing conclusive was ever said. The discussion quickly went over my head. I never learned anything from them -- except don't study philosophy.”

The meaning of “Truth” as an idea is not as simple as it first ap-pears. The confusion begins with Plato – a Greek philosopher of the 4th century B.C.E. He taught Truth existed in a place far away from the concrete stuff of daily living. Your senses are not to be trusted. Your imagination provides access to this purer realm, the realm of the “Ideal.”

Aristotle was Plato’s most memorable student. He learned from his teacher and then turned his teaching on its head. Truth does not exist in the realm of the Ideal, Aristotle taught. It existed in the stuff of daily living. You can trust your senses. Truth

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comes through investigation and analysis.

Greek philosophy launched two thousand years of philosophical debate in the Western world. Most of us are not a part of the conversation. But without Plato and Aristotle, what would col-lege students have to talk about into the wee hours of the morn-ing? We leave it to the experts -- who we don’t understand any-way.

Something Solid

But Truth as an idea is not its only meaning. We also use the word in another way. We use it also to refer to how we experi-ence relationships.

A person who does not “tell the truth” is “a liar.” People feel in-secure in relationship with him. A person who is “true blue” is someone you can trust. When I say, “Trust me,” I am making an appeal to Truth as a relational quality.

This usage of the word is its most ancient meaning. The words Truth and Trust share a common Indo-European root, deru. Deru means “to be firm or solid.” Deru, also provides the basis for the word Tree. Thus, Truth, Trust and Tree all point to the same human experience: coming into contact with something REAL.

When Moses used the word Truth (in Hebrew ‘emeth), he used it in a way similar to ancient Indo-European tribes. The Hebrew word has less to do with thinking than with coming into contact with something hard. There is substance here.

In our discution of the Root Value People we explored how an-other person provides the basis for establishing your sense of self. We said another person provides resistance. This en-counter with another person allows me to experience where I

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stop and the other person begins.

Not unlike other people, Truth involves an encounter with a real-ity that provides resistence against which “a self” discovers its limits. Truth provides “push back” that allows me to experience my personal limits.

Falsehood is fantasy. It is like a mist that disapates leaving no impression. It yields when pressed. A person (who out of des-peration or denial) embraces falsehood becomes increasingly isolated from others as she flees the heaviness of the REAL. The mass and weight of Truth can be difficult to bear.

For both Aristotle and Plato (and subsequent college students) "Truth" lives in the mind of an individual. It is an idea -- some-thing to think about, argue over and defend. For Moses and his community Truth is something you bump into. It leaves a bruise.

The Root Value Truth gets at your authentic encounter with real-ity. It is what you perceive, think, feel, and believe about the world. It is a profoundly personal experience.

That Truth is deeply personal, however, does not mean that Truth is private. Truth is not an expression of individuality. Un-til Truth is shared with others, it does not exist at all.

Truth-Making

When the Hebrew slaves arrived at Mt. Sinai, Jethro -- Moses’ father-in-law, comes to Moses who relates all that had transpired in the liberation of the people from Egypt. Jethro listens care-fully.

“Now I know,” Jethro says, “That the LORD is greater than all gods. . . .”

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Jethro encounters Truth in his conversation with Moses. Moses does not convince him of an idea. He relates his experience. Jethro looks out across the encampment and sees wood fires burning and children playing and men and women – all former-slaves – going about their day. Jethro and Moses are Truth-making. It happens in the sharing of experiences, not in the arguing of ideas.

Truth is a product of community. Sharing life with others re-quires you to interact and engage. You share your experiences constantly. You feel the solidity of trusted friends.

Conflicts arise when perceptions or interests compete. In the mingling of community, sometimes we embrace one another. Sometimes we clash. Remember, personal Autonomy is a nec-essary aspect of community.

When each person stakes a claim, when they begin to argue, try-ing to convince one another of who is right, they are not partici-pating in the Root Value Truth. Quite the contrary, the first ca-sualty of such encounters is always Truth. .

In conflict, you honor the Root Value Truth when you come to-gether to build a shared perception of reality. Each person brings her own Legacy. Each speaks out one her own sense of Autonomy. Each honors People and makes a Commitment to an outcome that enriches the world.

The Root Value Truth is not something to defend. It is some-thing you participate in with others. You come to what’s REAL together.

We construct the Truth together when you contribute what you perceive, and I contribute what I perceive. Together we build a common understanding that informs how we will engage what-ever challenge lies before us. Truth-making provides a basis for common action.

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After Jetho’s visit with Moses, he observes that Moses is over-whelmed with responsibility for mediating disputes. The people have set him up as their authority. They are falling victim to the hero-myth we described earlier.

When people could not agree, they brought the issue to Moses. Dependent people do not take responsibility for their own prob-lems.

Jethro challenges Moses. He encourages Moses to push respon-sibility for Truth-making down among the people.

“Look for able men from all the people,” Jethro said. “Look for men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hun-dreds, of fifties, and of tens. Let them judge the people at all times.”

Enrichment, not Correction

The qualifications for Truth-making is not dependent on intellect or education. It is character. But it is not “moral uprightness,” Someone who merely “follows the rules” is likely to be blind to Truth. Life never conforms to anyone’s rule book.

The quality of character needed was solidity in relationships. Look for men “who are trustworthy and hate a bribe.” One ver-sion translates the Hebrew, “men of Truth, hating covetousness.”

Such a person perceives the world from her own point of view. She is open and responsive to the perspectives of others. She is strong enough in her own sense of Autonomy that she does not get lost in alterative perspectives, but she is able to appreciate how another point of view enriches Truth.

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Truth as a Root Value, then, is something you build as you live your life with others. It is not an idea. It is what emerges as you engage the challenge of living in community.

The seventh Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness,” establishes an environment for Truth-making. It challenges you to speak what you know of your own experience – imperfect and incomplete though it might be.

Your perspective is the lumber used to build Truth’s house. One brings the concrete for the foundation. Another brings pipe for the pluming. Another brings the glass for the windows. You need the perspective of others.

I listen to you in order to be enriched by what you see and hear. I do not listen to you looking for weaknesses in your argument, or for blind spots in your perception. It takes a community, ev-eryone sharing what they see, "bearing witness to the truth." Truth is constructed by what two or more people share together out of their own experience.

The Imagination

Some may object that the notion of “Truth-making” seems arbi-trary. Isn’t Truth something a person discovers? Doesn’t the truth already exist “out there?”

Something exists out there. No one disputes the nature of reality as something beyond the control of any one person. Every Tree, every deru, proclaims the Autonomy of the world. The chal-lenge is seeing it.

Our imaginations take what our eyes and ears see and hear and shape it to make the world comprehensible. We are not passive receivers of sense-data. Our imaginations make what we see and hear meaningful. Sense-data becomes perception.

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The challenge is that my imagination is limited. It uses my Legacy to inform what I perceive. What I am able to see today depends to a great extent on what I saw yesterday.

It is very, very difficult to look at the world with fresh eyes. We celebrate great scientists, for example, for their ability to look at the world and see new realities that had always been there, but were simply never “seen” before.

A great scientist opens up the limits of her imagination so that she can look out at a very old world, but see something new.

Truth-making is a process by which what I see is enriched by what you see. The proverb draws on Truth as a Root Value when it says, “There is wisdom in an abundance of counselors.”

For Plato and Aristotle and the Western philosophical tradition Truth is an idea. For Moses it is something constructed and shared together. You encounter the Truth as you live it out in re-lationship with others.

Demonstrating Truth

Truth-making out in the Book of Exodus through demonstrations of power, through action and through experience.

At the burning bush Yahweh asks Moses to return to Egypt – the place he fled in shame and fear – to make an impossible appeal to Pharaoh. Moses is full of self-doubt. He also knows very lit-tle of this voice that calls him to such a challenging task. Thoughts race through his mind: Should I go? What is my au-thority? What am I to do?

"Who am I,” Moses said, “that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

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"I will be with you,” Yahweh said. “And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."

Moses is looking for reassurance. Yahweh’s assurance comes af-ter the fact. This will be the sign: After you succeed, then you will know.

“How will I know?” Moses asks.

“You will know when you stand on this mountain with the band of Hebrew slaves you have led out of Egypt.”

Later, when Moses returns to Egypt, Pharaoh refuses to let the people go. Moses does not argue. He drops his staff on the ground. It becomes a snake.

Then Moses touches the Nile River with his staff and it turns into blood. Then comes a plague of frogs, then gnats, then flies. And so it goes, demonstrations of power build until the final act – Passover.

All of this is in response to Pharaoh’s question when Moses first makes his appeal for the release of the Hebrew slaves. "Who is Yahweh,” Pharaoh asks, “that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh and I will not let Israel go."

Pharoah’s error is in his presumption of authority. Rather than Truth-making with Moses, Pharoah relies on his own limited perception of reality. Moses, for his part, does not argue, teach a catechism class or appeal to religious authority. He simply allows Yahweh to act. The Truth is known in the experience of the relationship. No ex-planation needed.

Notice the appeal Yahweh makes to the Hebrew people in the

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covenant-making event.

“'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt,” Yahweh says, “and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to my-self.”

Yahweh appeals to the people’s experience in relationship with him. Reality is a hard teacher. It was for Pharaoh. It is for us.

Truth as Lived Experience

To honor the Root Value Truth is to stay in touch with your lived experience. It means to listen carefully to others as they struggle in their shared experience in relationship with you.

The Root Value Truth is ever-present. It is always emerging. Once a moment passes and its Truth is apprehended in commu-nity, its memory becomes part of your Legacy.

Truth never exists yesterday. It is for today. For this reason ar-guing “about Truth” or “for the Truth” lacks meaning. Truth is something we discover together.

Some people live "the day before yesterday." Others live "the day after tomorrow." Those who honor the Root Value Truth live fully today, one day at a time.

The 9th Commandment, “Do not bear false witness,” is a call to pay attention and to share your experience as carefully as you can.

Whatever our motive we often interpret our experience to con-form to some stock narratives in our culture. Are you a Horatio Alger -- rags to riches? A Peter Pan – lost boy? A Joan of Arc – triumphant female?

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To honor Truth as a Root Value is to set aside the stock narra-tive. Live your experience. Enter into relationship with others. Be open to the surprising, shocking, and sometimes even scan-dalous experience of the Truth you will discover once you begin to listen and to share what you see and hear.

Trust your experience with others. Honor the five Root Values. Not only will you will know the Truth, not only will the Truth set you free, the Truth will enable you to witness the power of community.

Truth and a New Reality

The Root Value Truth emerges in relationship with others. You know the Truth as you live it.

Once you are willing to learn from your Legacy, you will be open to learn from new experiences as well. The lessons keep coming. As you learn to value Legacy, People, Commitment and Autonomy, the Root Value Truth comes almost as a matter of course.

Truth is not something you carry around in your head. It is something you live in your life. It does not dwell in your past – that is Legacy. It emerges in the present. It remains unknown, and unknowable, until it is lived.

The President of a pharmaceutical company gave Kathy respon-sibility for opening a new market. This was something entirely new for the company. It had never been done before.

The drug had previously been used by prostate cancer patients. Now it had been approved by the FDA to treat endometriosis, a painful and sometimes debilitating disease in women.

“We were trying to launch our product in the female market

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place,” Kathy said. “And it just wasn’t taking off. The physi-cians were not embracing the new treatment. “At the time, physicians treated endometriosis with a pill. Un-fortunately, the pill they were using had an ugly side-effect pro-file.

"Women would end up with male hair growth patterns, weight gain, deepening of the voice, acne – all undesirable side-effects.

"Our product was an injection and much more expensive. But it had minimal side-effects. It acted on the brain to shut down the production of estrogen, which is the ‘fuel’ for endometriosis. The physicians were not comfortable prescribing the new treat-ment.”

The company had a change management problem. They were trying to lead physicians into a new reality. The Truth was un-known and unknowable until they embraced the new therapy.

When Moses needed reassurance, all Yahweh said was, “You will know when the people worship on this mountain.” When the physicians needed reassurance, all Kathy could say was, "You will know when women are treated."

You only know the Truth after you commit.

Truth in Not Knowing

Doctors currently prescribed a cheap pill woman could take at home. The new therapy was an expensive drug that required a woman to come into the office once a month for an injection.

If you asked a woman suffering from endometriosis what she would prefer: take a pill every day that would result in facial hair, a male vocal range, weight gain and acne; or, stop by your doctor’s office once a month for a shot that had menopause-like

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side-effects. Most women would prefer the injection.

To value Truth means to be responsive at a level of encounter that penetrates much deeper than facts and data. It requires being open to the perspective of others. It involves embracing with humility the vast richness of the human experience.

You acknowledge your limits. You move forward into uncer-tainty. You embrace a present moment filled with risk and un-certainty.

“I had three partners. None of us had any experience setting up a new marketing effort. None of us were experts. We were not compensation and incentive experts, for example. We just asked: Did that seem reasonable? And then we picked it apart. That is how we did everything.

“We trained our reps clinically on a whole new level. We con-ducted medical and clinical training that was so in-depth they could talk to physicians at their level.

"They learned about all aspects of endometriosis – diagnosis to treatment, including the physicians’ goals and philosophies in diagnosing and treating the disease.

Kathy and her team discovered the motives, values and goals of the physicians as they entered into relationship with them. The Truth emerged as they engaged the new reality as it came into being.

The Truth becomes known through frank and open conversa-tion. People will disagree, not understand, express opposing views. They come with perspectives out of their unique experi-ences, their own Legacies. Truth is not something you defend, but something you discover with others.

Before Kathy’s team could sit down with a busy physician they needed to demonstrate that they had the physician’s interest at

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heart. They had to develop a sincere appreciation for what their physicians valued. It required a lot of listening. “I knew that I had some experience, I had some ability,” Kathy said. “But I was not so self-aware that I had a clear idea of what my strengths and talents were. But I knew that I would be sup-ported. That gave me confidence.” Making it Up as You Go Along

When people value Truth they enter the future with anticipation. Building on the foundation of their personal Legacy, they learn through an ongoing progression of experience that never stops. New experiences keep coming.

Alan worked for a high tech company in Silicon Valley. It was the mid 1980s and the personal computer revolution was getting underway. His job required an instrument to test floppy disk drives in computers – a necessary component of the personal computer in those days.

While supporting his clients he discovered interest in the instru-ment. He had discovered a marketing opportunity. His boss was not interested. The market was too small to justify the develop-ment of the device as a product.

Alan determined that a market that may have been too small for his employer was not a market too small for him. There was no way he could know where his idea would work. Once again, like Moses, the only way he would know would be once he was standing on the mountain.

Alan quit his job and set up his new business in his garage. He hired a couple of technicians, a couple of people to run the of-fice, a part-time engineer. Soon he was making real money.

John has built a brokerage firm for the selling of professional business services in a niche market. His primary clients are ag-ing professionals who have come to the end of their careers and

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are making a transition to retirement. They face the dual chal-lenge of selling their business and coming to terms with the emotional transition to a new stage of life.

John has done well. His clients value his compassionate pres-ence through the sales process. His staff loves to work with him. He has extensive knowledge of the industry.

John had aspirations to expand his business. He wanted to add additional services taking advantage of the relationships he had developed in the market for over ten years. His efforts stalled.

“My staff was afraid to make independent decisions,” John con-fessed. “They lacked autonomy. They took initiative when I was not around, but when I am in the office, they always ask me for direction.

“I think I have created dependency by not teaching people a complete picture of their jobs. I am embarrassed. I hate to say this, but frankly, I just make stuff up as we go along.”

There is no need to feel embarrassment. John is walking in the footsteps of Moses. He is not “making it up as he goes along.”

He is trusting Truth to emerge. He carries his Legacy with him as he commits to serve the best interests of his clients.

Knowledge is sometimes a trap. It becomes an anchor rather than a sail. The same hard earned body of knowledge that ap-plied in one context may not apply in the next.

More important than knowledge is the willingness to remain open to emerging realities. To value Truth may mean setting “knowledge” aside and embracing the discomfort of ignorance as you encounter something new and unexpected. Truth is not knowledge. It remains anchored in the concrete ex-

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TRUTH

perience of people. People who honor the Root Value Truth possess a capacity for intellectually honesty. They know what they don’t know. But they believe that they will learn what they need to know as they enter fully into relationships with others.

They lean into the future anticipating the opportunity to learn something new. Of even greater consequence, encountering the Truth with others, they release the power of community

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10

A Typology of Community

Who are You?

It does not take extraordinary people to build an empowered community. It takes common people, just like you, in an extra-ordinary relationship. We build an empowered community one person at a time.

When you look in the mirror you see your physical characteris-tics – the shape of your face, the color of your hair, your eyes. A mirror can tell you what you look like. But it cannot tell you who you are.

To find out who you are ask people who know you. They might name your parents and grandparents, describing you with refer-ence to your family. They might pull out your resume and re-view positions you have held, jobs you have had and projects

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A TYPOLOGY OF COMMUNITY

you have completed. Family and work history are components of your Legacy.

But of greater interest would be the stories they tell. Stories por-tray life-patterns and habits of behavior that reveal who you are.

The first two chapters of the Book of Exodus begin the story of Moses. It relates the context of his life. He was born in the house of Hebrew slaves.

In describing how he came to live in the house of Pharaoh, it suggests something of his mother’s character. She was a very resourceful woman. She maintained her sense of personal Au-tonomy despite an oppressive environment.

The story relates the death of an Egyptian overseer by his hand. This reveals something of his capacity for Commitment – he re-acted to cruelty. It also suggests a secretive nature. He hid the body and tried to avoid taking responsibility for his actions.

Moses may not have understood himself as well as the people who related the stories about him. We experience ourselves from the inside out. We often believe that because we have this internal perspective, we know ourselves better than other people do. “If only you really knew me,” I sometimes think, “then you would understand.”

This may not be always true. Point of view matters.

Stand too close to an elephant and what do you see? It depends where you are standing. To see the elephant in its fullness you need to step back. See the trunk, the tusks, the tail, and the tree-trunk like legs.

If you stand so close that all you see is the elephant trunk, you have not seen the elephant at all.

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No one stands as close to you, as you stand to yourself. What you know of yourself, you may know very, very well. But what you see may not be enough.

What did Moses see of himself? When Yahweh called him to return to Egypt to set the Hebrew people free, Moses balked. He was filled with self-doubt.

“Who am I,” he said, “that I should go to Pharoah and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Moses had an internal perspective on his own experience. But it was not enough. He stood too close to himself to see himself clearly.

If he had been limited to what he knew of himself, he would have never left the safe and predictable life of a keeper of sheep to play his unique role in the building of an empowered commu-nity.

We have suggested that a person is constituted by relationship with other people. Who I am involves what goes on inside of me, but I am so much more than that. I am how others experi-ence me. People do not interact with my “inner self.”

When you get to know me, yoy get to know me through my be-havior. You hear my words. You watch the expressions on my face. You observe my body language. You take note of how I treat others. You experiences how I interact with you.

I may think of myself in terms of my feelings. But.sometimes my deeper emotions remain hidden from me but not from you. I may be anxious for example, but not feel anxious. You see it on my face. Because you care you approach me and put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

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“I’m fine,”

I see the quizzical look on your face.

“Really, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Suddenly a rush of emotion washes over me. In your question I have become more aware of myself. You know me better than I know myself.

I may think of myself in terms of what I aim to accomplish. Sometimes my reason rises out of a habit of perception or thought that is ill-suited to the current circumstance. I think what I am doing is appropriate, right and good. But you see me mak-ing a terrible mistake.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The hit television show, The Office, has built its success poking fun at our lack of self-awareness. Steve Carell plays a most “po-litically incorrect” manager of a paper supply sales organization. Every episode celebrates the gap between how Michael Scott perceives himself and how others experience him. We look over our shoulder as we laugh. We wonder how the people in our own lives must experience us.

People do not see or experience our “inner self.” They do not see what we think or believe. They see what we do. Who you are, is not who you think you are. You are how people experience you. To discover who you are, do not look in a mirror. Ask a friend.

Values and Behavior

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A leading researcher defined a value simply as an enduring be-lief that certain behaviors or results should be preferred to oth-ers. Values inform the choices we make. You do what you want to do. It is not any more complicated than this. But what do you want?

For some people social expectation gets in the way of personal honesty, of knowing what they really want. Some of us get lost in a crowd. We listen so much to other people that awareness of what we truly value gets scrambled. Our unique identities get shouted down by a multitude of voices. The result is value con-fusion.

“I do not understand my own actions,” a first century Rabbi once said. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

What you do reveals who you are. To clarify value confusion, follow your behavior. It may be that you value what other peo-ple think more than you value what is best for you. Some of us struggle with the question: Who is the real me?

Others of us don't care what people think. We go through life with great awareness of what we want. We know what we want so clearly that we dismiss input from others that may suggest our behavior is getting us into trouble.

We may also have such great clarity that we believe we know what other people want, or should want. We are advise-givers or rescuers. Some might describe us as dictators.

Whoever you are, your values define your standards for living. Not only do they guide your conduct, they also drive your judg-ments, opinions, and prejudices. They are the window through which you look out onto the world.

Following Joel’s tour leading a recognizance platoon of Marines in Vietnam, he volunteered to work with the Central Intelligence

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Agency leading a covert operation.

“I learned at the Naval Academy a standard of ethics,” Joel said. “I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do. Then I went to work for the CIA. They taught me to lie, cheat and steal and hire people that do. In time of war the challenge is to keep your moral compass pointed in the right direction while the rest of the world is swirling around you.”

You may have never worked for the CIA, but you have probably struggled with choices that bring layers of values into conflict. A problem may have kept you up at night as you wrestled with a difficult decision. Value conflict, not with others, but deep within makes decisions hard. Unlike animals choice defines our lives. Put a rat in a maze and chart its behavior. Put a second rat in the same environment. Put one thousand rats in the maze, predictable patterns emerge.

Now put human beings in the maze. One will go after the food, just as you predicted. Another will make a speech. Another will go on a hunger strike. Still another will burn the maze to the ground decrying the injustice of being treated like a rat.

Human freedom makes us unpredictable when considered col-lectively. But take us one at a time, each of us are very pre-dictable, perhaps more than we know.

People who know us see the consistent pattern of our lives. They know us better than we know ourselves. We are free, but our values tend to endure. We can choose anything. But we tend to choose the same thing over and over again.

Our behavior remains constant. Our unique habits of perception, feeling, and thought inform our personal freedom in very pre-dictable ways.

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Mountains, rivers, and canyons take millennia to form. Geo-thermal pressure from below, the erosive effect of wind and rain from above along with other natural forces shape the planet. Similarly a long series of individual choices shape a life.

What impact does one snowflake on a mountain in Colorado make? But one snowflake after another becomes a snow pack that melts in the spring and flows into the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon results. One choice combines with innumerable choices to create a Legacy. One person may be confronted with a deep and impass-able chasm formed by his choice to drive home one night drunk. He did not intend to kill anyone. The choice to drink and drive that night is the culmination of many choices that suddenly ap-pears to be life-defining.

Another person makes small and insignificant choices every day. She respects others. She takes responsibility. She honors someone else’s personal space. She minds the truth. She learns from experience. These daily choices -- mundane and unexcit-ing -- are also life-defining.

What you do reveals who you are. All of your doing is informed by what you value.

The PACT-L Model

The Root Values allow us to build a mirror of the heart and pro-vides the basis for a typology of an empowered commutniy. We use this typoplogy to build a model that gives us greater under-standing into the nature of relationships.

We call it the PACT-L model, using the first letter of each Root Value in an acronym. Though it is not the order presented in the Ten Commandments, P-C-A-T-L, we switch the A in Autonomy and the C in Commitment to create the word “pact.”

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Commandment Root Value Commandment

No other gods People Do not Kill

No Idols Commitment No Adultery

Do not use the Name Autonomy Do not Steal

Keep Sabbath Truth No False Witness

Honor Mother and Father Legacy Do not Covet

A “pact” is an agreement. It is sometimes used as a synonym for the word, “covenant.” In the Book of Exodus, covenant-making is the context for the establishment of the Ten Commandments as the value-system that would transform a band of former slaves into an empowered community. “PACT-L” points to the Legacy of the Root Values in covenant making.

In the following chapters we will explore the model as we build it. We will demonstrate how values inform habits of behavior that become relational styles. We will also show how you can enrich your relational style. Enriching your relational style will help you be more responsive to others. Greater responsiveness to others empowers community.

As we begin please remember that any model of the human ex-perience can only be a very limited representation of reality. It provides a theoretical snapshot of very complex dynamics. The PACT-L model of the Root Values is no different.

It identifies habits that combine to create a relational style. These are behaviors with which we are most comfortable. The PACT-L model sets aside the wonderful richness of human com-plexity just long enough to allow us to catch a glimpse of how we prioritize the Root Values in our lives.

The model serves self-understanding. Resist using it to try to “pigeon hole” others. It is a misuse of the model to use it to de-termine or define how another person experiences the Root Val-ues. This violates another person’s Autonomy.

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It is very helpful however to use the model as a catalyst for Truth-making discussions. As you begin to discover how the Root Values influence your behavior, you may want to share your self-perception with others and seek their input.

Remember, to discover who you are, do not look in a mirror. Ask a friend. Invite people who know you to share their perception of who you are as they experience your most comfortable behaviors.

Keep in mind the goal is always self-discovery and self-under-standing. The model should never be used as a means of manip-ulation, intimidation or control. If you remain mindful of honor-ing the Root Values in your discussions, you will be unlikely to abuse the model.

Polarities

In building the PACT-L model we look at three different polari-ties. A polarity describes a relationship between two opposing principles or realities. The North Pole and the South Pole are polarities. They represent opposing ends of planet Earth.

The model relates each of the Root Values as three sets of polarities: between People and Commitment, between Autonomy and Truth, and we break up Legacy between Less Un-derstanding and Greater Understanding of one’s Legacy.

A polarity creates a continuum. Few people live at either the North or the South Pole. It is just too cold. Most people live

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somewhere in between. Likewise, few people “live” at either end of Root Value polarities, but somewhere between them as well.

To understand the Root Value polarities we consider each value in relation to the others. We look for that part of the value that places it in tension with its polar partner.

People and Commitment

Naming the Root Values presents a challenge. On the one hand, one must find a word that people know. On the other hand, the Root Values have a unique meaning. The familiar word there-fore takes on a specific meaning, an enriched connotation. It goes from being a simple word to a specialized term in the Root Value world.

To value People means to value all People. It is the value of in-clusivity. If I value one type of person and not another, or one ethnic group and not another, I am valuing a certain characteris-tic of some people. I do not value those who do not share that quality. I am not valuing People.

To value Commitment means to choose one thing instead of an-other. It is the value of exclusivity. When I commit to attend the University of California at Los Angeles, I deny every other university or college in the world. When I say “Yes” to UCLA, I am saying “No” to every other school.

The People – Commitment polarity defines a range of value be-tween “everything” and “one thing,” between ALL and ONE. Do you have difficulty committing? You are not ready to deny other options. You tend to be more inclusive. You are moving down the continuum with a lesser priority for Commitment, and a higher priority for People.

Conversely, you may be a person who makes decisions readily. This may be in regard to people, places or things. It does not

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matter. You are comfortable making choices. You have a stan-dard (which is a form of commitment) and when someone or something achieves the standard, you act. You are moving down the continuum with a lesser priority for People , and higher priority for Commitment.

Autonomy and Truth

Philosophers sometimes talk about what they call “the Particular and the Universal.” A “Particular” is one instance of a thing, a cocker spaniel named “Lady.” Or it could be a mixed breed named “Tramp.” Each is a unique, one of a kind, never to be re-peated entity. If you tend to focus on the individual instance -- the unique object standing before you -- you move down the continuum toward prioritizing the value Autonomy over Truth.

A “Universal” is a theoretical abstraction. The term “Dog” refers to a Universal. It is what Lady and the Tramp have in common. It is what the college students debating over their case of beer might call, “dogness.” If you tend to make connections between things and look for patterns, theories and principles, you move down the continuum prioritizing the value Truth over Autonomy.

A person who values Autonomy is detail-oriented and will tend to say, “But this is an exception!” A person who values Truth is big-picture oriented and will tend to say, “There are no excep-tions to the rule!”

Another characteristic in this polarity is that of “responsibility-taking” and “perspective-seeking.” A person who values Auton-omy will embrace responsibility readily. It comes with a very specific “someone has to do it” frame of mind. A person who values Truth looks naturally for input from oth-ers. The more information she has, the more readily she will be able to develop a theory that explains a more general principle. She is likely to be perfectly satisfied thinking though a problem, feeling little need to get out and solve it.

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Legacy: Less and Greater Understanding

Our final polarity establishes a continuum between Less and Greater Understanding of our Legacy. At one extreme we have little awareness of how our behavior and family history have contributed to our present moment. At the other end we have thorough knowledge.

Clearly no one lives at either end of the polarity. It is difficult to imagine a person who knows absolutely nothing of where she comes from and the behaviors that brought her to where she is. Likewise, life is too complex for anyone to have complete un-derstanding.

However, from time to time we do meet people who seem to live with a pronounced lack of awareness of how the past influences the present. There are at least two reasons for this, and probably more.

First, we live in a culture that forgets. In earlier times an ex-tended clan network relayed family stories to the next genera-tion. Grandma and grandpa shared family lore. Aunts and un-cles told tales on one another. Family Legacy mattered. Social mobility makes the maintenance of family ties difficult. The stories simply do not get told.

In Chapter 4 we observed how Stephen benefited from knowl-edge of his family Legacy. He moves up the continuum toward understanding of his Legacy. Those with less understanding of their Legacy may lack access to their family history, or perhaps they neglect it. They are unwitting participants in our culture of forgetfulness. A second reason a person might slide down the Legacy contin-uum toward less understanding of their Legacy is denial. The Twelve-Step community of Alcoholics Anonymous and groups they have spawned have popularized an appreciation of the role denial plays in the human experience.

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Sigmund Freud introduced the concept. He identified denial as one of a number of defense mechanisms he believed we use to cope with anxiety. Denial involves ignoring or refusing to ac-cept realities that feel overwhelming.

For a person who has experienced a great deal of trauma, denial is a gift. It can take time to heal sufficiently to be ready to em-brace and overcome a painful Legacy. Sharing life with sup-portive, empathetic friends helps a great deal. But we live at a time of superficial friendship and emaciated community. How challenging it is to navigate life’s difficulties alone. Sadly, for some denial may be their only source of support.

Denial serves an important role in a world that lacks empower-ing community. It helps hurting people endure. Unfortunately this coping mechanism comes at a high price. It keeps us igno-rant of our Legacy and limits our readiness to participate fully in relationship with others.

People-Commitment

We use the Root Values polarities to build the PACT-L model. We model the first polarity, People – Commitment, in associa-tion with a familiar management tool known as the Managerial Grid, developed by Robert Blake and Jane Mouton in the early 1960s. Earlier we explored the link the between values and be-havior. Values inform behavior, even as our behavior shapes our values. This linkage allows the PACT-L model to identifu value polarities through what we do.

Blake and Mouton plotted leadership styles in terms of the de-gree to which a leader had a “concern for people” and a “con-

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cern for production.” This clearly corresponds to the People – Commitment polarity.

Work involves people in relationship organized to complete a task. An individual can accomplish a task without involving other people, but the result is always limited to what one person can accomplish. An empowered community leverages the work of individuals who support one another in pursuit of a common goal.

At one pole is the task to be accomplished -- production. This requires Commitment. At the other are the relationships that get the work done – concern for People.

Where a task- oriented person has eyes on the goal, the person oriented to people tends to address process, specifically, how are people feeling, what are they perceiving and what are they think-ing about the job?

Connecting with another person requires attentive listening, reg-ular check-ins and empathy. This leads to a certain intimacy that may sometimes make task-oriented people uncomfortable. Con-versely, a task orientation may feel to some like neglect.

This is what makes the Root Values People and Commitment polar partners. Valuing people demands remaining open to ALL people. To respect some people and not others, diminishes what we experience as "a person."

If I observe you giving attention to me, but neglecting someone else, it raises the question: When will you neglect me? If I ob-serve you giving attention to a task when I feel the need for af-firmation or validation, I feel diminished.

Knowing this, it is tempting to promote a priority for People at all times. But this is naive. Nothing would get accomplished. There are times when the subordination of People to Commit-ment is appropriate. The farmer must commit time away from

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his family to plow the field. Otherwise all starve.

Commitment-making necessarily requires making choices to give one's attention to one thing (or person) and not another. At some point the demands of a commitment require the subordina-tion of a person to the task. To make an exclusive commitment

to a task, while maintaining an inclusive responsiveness to all people, simply cannot be done.

Those who prioritize Commitment over People prefer to concen-trate on goals. They are about outcomes, resources, and actions. “Leave your personal problems at home. We have a job to do here.”

Those who prioritize People over Commitment may sometimes feel alienated by “too much” emphasis on a project. The task- oriented person may miss the signals that say, “Pay attention to me. There is a person in here.”

A manager led a team of engineers that went through reorganiza-tion. Five of the engineers were part of his legacy team. Seven engineers were new.

One legacy engineer was particularly task-oriented. Dave had exceptional technical ability. But he struggled in relationship with others.

Before the reorganization the manager tolerated Dave’s lack of attention to relationships because of his technical competence. He was an individual contributor who had little contact with other members of the team. After the reorganization however, new technical specifications required Dave to work more closely with his fellow engineers.

The manager added team-building objectives to each engineer’s portfolio. Most of the team responded positively to this new em-

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phasis on relationships. Dave resisted. The manager sent the following email:

I am adding a new objective to everyone's training plan this year, an objective about being a team player. Please focus on encouraging oth-ers and collaborating with the team.

One measurement of that objective might be a peer who sends me a positive comment about how you appreciated them and encouraged them to complete a task. We will define together how this objective will be measured.

There are a couple of good courses on Team environments. As you put together your development plan, please make sure 10 of the 20 training hours are dedicated to teamwork. Dave responded with the following email:

It seems we are not in agreement about my contributions as a team player. Leaders come with many different personalities. Some are in-troverts some are extroverts. Just because I am an introvert, don't as-sume I am not a team player.

I feel I’ve been an extremely valuable team player and would be more than happy to provide you with a great number of examples to support my position. Additionally, I have provided you with several sugges-tions to improve productivity, such as injecting healthy competition into the process to increase productivity.

Dave makes a good point. People do indeed “come with many different personalities.” Dave’s challenge is not, however, that he is an introvert. He is so focused on tasks that he neglects re-lationships. He prioritizes Commitment over People to such a degree that it puts the development of an empowered community at risk.

The manager met with Dave following the email exchange and reviewed Dave’s relationship with his co-workers. (They regu-larly comment on what they experience as Dave’s bullying ways.) The manager reiterated that Dave’s technical proficiency

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was beyond dispute. What limited his advancement was his lack of appropriate attention to people.

Dave’s demeanor and attitude remained positive throughout the meeting. However, it became clear to the manager that Dave’s development was going to be difficult. Following the one on one Dave went over his manager’s head to the Group Manager with the following email:

I met today with my manager regarding my relationship with my team. My manager asked me to “get to know Janice, Stephen and Susan,” and produce for him a “list of how they contribute to the team”.

I’m not exactly sure how to interpret or carry out those instructions. Frankly, I think I’m a highly productive team player. I work very hard for the team. It’s offensive to me to suggest otherwise, and I do not feel that his position is at all justified.

The Group Manager ended this round of discussions with the following email:

I spoke with your manager. What is apparent to us is that while you do help your colleagues and impart knowledge to them, you come across as being less than cheerful. This causes some consternation, and it is in this area that we would like to provide you with guidance, so that you become an even more valuable member of the team. I am sorry that you have been offended by the very well-intentioned actions of your manager.

Dave has aspirations for promotion. Unfortunately he lacks the self-awareness, humility and willingness to learn to manage the Root Value People – Commitment polarity. Others may focus exclusively on relationships. They may make a decent friend, (if somewhat indulgent) but unless they learn to lift up goals, the re-lationship will lack fruitfulness.

Individuals who have greater awareness of how they prioritize the Root Values in their lives, in this case the People – Commit-ment polarity, can learn to attend to both tasks and relation-ships. A deadline looming in the eleventh hour may require that

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you close the door, turn off the cell phone, take a recess from others, and get the job done. If you have tended to the needs of people, most understand and even support this subordination of relationship to task.

Likewise, sometimes you have to put a task on hold in order to tend to the needs of others. When the team is forming, you in-vest time getting to know the players. In the midst of the daily grind you check in, touch base, stay connected. You monitor how the team is feeling, what the team is thinking. Sometimes you put the task on hold in order to tend to relationships. Some of us feel more comfortable when we give greater atten-tion to tasks. We prioritize the Root Value Commitment over People. Others of us feel more comfortable tending relation-ships. We prioritize the Root Value People over Commitment.

The challenge is to discover how we prioritize each of these Root Values in relation to the other. Once we know this, we can appreciate that certain behaviors that reinforce this value priority have hardened into habits. These behaviors feel most comfort-able. They make us feel “normal.”

It may be helpful to think about the polarities in their extremes. At the Commitment end of the polarity a person is frozen. Her life is reduced to an absolute focus on one thing. An addict, for example, is hyper-focused. She neglects the people in her life because of her commitment to one thing, whatever that one thing is.

At the extreme end of the polarity she actually looses her ability to commit. She has become utterly closed to other options. When there are no options, there are no choices. The wholly committed has become determined by the one choice to the ex-tent that all other choices have been obliterated.

At the other side of the polarity, where somepne is completely oriented to other People, a person spins in a confusing vortex of

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opinion. Her life is so open to the perspective of others she has lost herself. A person's life has become all options. This all in-clusive orientation cause a person to loose context and her frame of reference. She has lost her place to stand. She is in free fall.

No one of us lives at the extreme end of the People - Commit-ment polarity, but we do tend to prioritize one value over the other. This orientation informs what becomes our most comfort-able behaviors.Unfortunately not all circumstances call from us our most com-fortable behaviors. Raising awareness of the value-behavior connection is a first step to expanding our options when we come to play our unique role in an empowered community.

It not only allows us to ask: What is needed here? Greater Commitment to the task? Or Greater attention to People? It also allows us to act.

AUTONOMY – TRUTH

The PACT-L model accounts for each of the Root Value polari-ties. The first polarity, People – Commitment, is demonstrated by behavior as addressed by the classic dichotomy between rela-tionships and tasks made popular by Blake and Mouton’s Man-agerial Grid. The second polarity, Autonomy –Truth, is demon-strated by behavior in a commonly experienced dichotomy pop-ularly known as the Flight-Fight response.

We live in a dangerous world. Houses and cars come with lock and key. You cannot get on a plane without taking off your shoes and passing through x-ray machines and sometimes feeling that little puff of air testing for bomb-making residue. Cars have seat belts and playgrounds post warn-ing signs about falling off the monkey

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bars.

But we are not just at risk physically. We feel at risk emotion-ally as well. Harsh words sting like a slap. Even a hard look hurts. A certain look from a stranger in a car on a highway – someone you do not know and will never see again – can com-municate disdain and contempt at 50 miles an hour that may take you a minute or two to get over, if not ruin your whole day.

Each of us has our own way of dealing with risk. But they all fall under one of two methods. Faced with risk some of us fight, others flee.

Some of us manage risk by going “outside” of ourselves to fight to make the world a safer pace. Others of us manage risk by fleeing “inside” of ourselves to imagine alternative worlds or to escape into fantasy. Our legs are not the only part of us that knows how to run away.

Aristotle identified these two ways of dealing with danger in his study of the Polis, the Greek city-state. “The body of the citizen is divided into two classes the warriors and the councilors,” he wrote. “The rational principle is divided into two kinds, for there is a practical and a speculative principle.”

The PACT-L model refers to Aristotle’s “practical and the spec-ulative principle” as the Active and Reflective Modes of being. If you set out to re-construct the world to make it a safer place, you operate in the Ac-

tive Mode. If you prefer to imagine alternative realities, you operate in the Reflective Mode.

When at risk some of us feel compelled to get out and take con-trol. Others of us prefer to escape into the world of ideas. We readily recognize each approach when we experience this polar-ity in the extreme: some are dominators, others are avoiders.

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In Chapter 8 we referenced a long debate in the history of phi-losophy that had begun between Plato and Aristotle. This debate may be more about relational style than it is about insight into the nature of Truth.

The urge to get out of oneself and control danger that character-izes the Active Mode of being results in a narrowing of one's at-tention to something specific. The Root Value Autonomy brings with it a finely focused vision.

Prioritizing Autonomy over Truth enables you to concentrate on danger. This translates to a habit of perception that sees the world in terms of distinct objects and discrete events. Like a lion who crouches low in the brush who is not interested in the herd, but in spotting the one wildebeest it can bring down in one vio-lent rush of fang and claw.

A person formed by the Reflective Mode of being develops a broader perspective. The outline of an individual object blurs into a mass. You may see the object, but what is important is the pattern created many objects together. In the Reflective Mode of being, you do not see the wildebeest. You see the herd.

History suggests Aristotle operated in a more Active Mode. Plato limited his activity to quiet meditation and scribbling down his memory of the conversations of his teacher Socrates. Plato clearly operated in the Reflective Mode.

Aristotle was very different. In addition to going out to investi-gate the natural world and cataloguing what he found, he also served as tutor to Alexander the Great. A more Active oriented king is difficult to imagine. He had conquered the world by the time he was thirty. Alexander's exposure to Aristotle did not blunt his Active nature, but rather focused it.

Just as the Active and Reflective Modes found expression in the unique philosophical orientations of Aristotle and Plato, they

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continue to frame discussions of the nature and meaning of truth today.

Physical scientists embrace a doctrine called the Correspondence Theory of Truth. An idea is “true” when it accurately describes an objective world. This external orientation to the world is con-sistent with the Active Mode of being. The scientific method tests the validity of a hypothesis against something “real.” It concerns itself with what is “out there.” The scientific method studies autonomous, individual samples and gathers facts to build a theory.

Post-Modernism (a movement that began among literary critics) takes a different approach. They embrace the Coherence Theory of Truth. An idea is said to be true when it is consistent with other ideas within the mind. “Truth” is not about what is “out there” so much as it is about what is “in here.” The purpose of Truth is to maintain a coherent and consistent model of the world within your imagination.

Where the Coherence theory is expressive, the Correspondence Theory is investigative. The first aims at creativity. The second aims at description. Look closely and you will see Plato and Aristotle standing in each camp.

Note that the Correspondence Theory of Truth allows science to pass its results to engineers. Engineers use the truths of science to make the world a safer place. It is the fight response applied to transportation systems, communication technology and power generation.

The Coherence Theory of Truth allows artists to share their imaginative vision of the world with us. They grant us a mo-ment of escape from our struggle for survival as we appreciate what their minds have created.

Aristotle has always argued for the importance of the concrete world. Learning comes by way of attentiveness to specific

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things. Look closely at what you hold in your hand. Plato has always argued for the greater importance of the world of our imagination. Don't trust your senses.

You probably have no interest in philosophy. But whether you think about it our not, you tend to favor either Aristotle or Plato. You prefer either the Active Mode or the Reflective Mode of be-ing. You prefer an outward, narrow focus demonstrating greater interest in a world of things. Or, you prefer to turn inward and take joy in a broader perspective and in the creative expression of your imagination.

A friend from California calls one type an “an inner dude,” the other “an outer dude.” Which is right? Does it matter? It is enough to acknowledge that this is the way we are. Some of us have habits of mind that tend to blind us to creative new possi-bilities. Others have habits of mind that tend to blind us to the reality of external constraints.

We all use both modes to manage risk depending on the situa-tion. But each of us will tend to favor, or give priority to one mode over the other. If you favor the Active Mode you “shoot first and ask questions later.” If you give priority to the Reflec-tive Mode you “look before you leap.”

Those of us who are more Active tend to give priority to the Root Value Autonomy over Truth. This does not mean we are not truthful. It simply means that we are attracted more toward the particular, concrete and the specific over the theoretical and the abstract. We are more interested in the outer world than the inner. Those of us who are more Reflective give priority to the Root Value Truth over Autonomy.

It may be that some cultures maintain a bias for one orientation over the other. For example, the West tends to celebrate the Ac-tive mode. Western institutions reward individual initiative and assertiveness. The East encourages compliance and indirect communication. These are characteristics of the Reflective

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mode.

This is not say that you will not find Active individuals in the East or Reflective people in the West. Rather, different cultures encourage different behaviors over others. This cultural bias will inform what is modeled for children, and what behaviors are reinforced to become habits as they grow.

Building the PACT-L Model

Having presented two of the three Root Value polarities, we are ready to build the base of the PACT-L model. Before we begin however, it may be helpful to review two different models of hu-man behavior. This will position the PACT-L model in the world of similar instruments.

Social Styles

David Merrill and Roger Reid developed their social styles ty-pology in the 1960s. They observed that personal style some-times complicates relationships. They believed that if people adapted their styles to match the styles of others, they would be more effective in relationships. (Personal Styles and Effective Performance, CRC Press. Boca Roton, 1999.)

Merrill and Reid identify four social style types: the Analytical, the Amiable, the Driver, and the Expressive. Similar to the PACT-L model, they developed a matrix along three polarities: Assertiveness, Responsiveness and Versatility.

The Assertiveness pole addresses whether a person tends to ask questions or inform. This polarity plots “the degree to which others see us as trying to influence their decisions.” The Re-sponsiveness pole plots how a person deals with feelings. Does a person express feelings freely, or try to control feelings? The Versatility pole measures to what degree a person is able to

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adapt to the social style of others.

Merrill and Reid participated in the school of behavioral psy-chology popular at the time. Behavioral psychology reacted against various Freudian schools of psycho-therapy that sought to describe motive powers at work deep within the human sub-conscious.

Merrill and Reid made a distinction between behavior (“the pub-lic you”) and intentions (“the private you”). They were not in-terested in exploring a person’s intentions. The inner world was not important. What mattered, they believed, was behavior. Their goal was to help people improve their relationships by be-coming aware of how their behavior was perceived by others.

“Learning to see ourselves as others see us,” they wrote, “can be a very rewarding way of understanding ourselves. More impor-tantly, it can lead to improved relationships, without requiring dramatic changes in our attitudes or values.” (Merrill and Reid, pg. 8).

The PACT-L model shares this goal. But it takes the process one step further. Merrill and Reid did not explore the link be-tween values and behavior. They did not address motive. They missed the opportunity to appreciate how adapting to new be-haviors leads to changes at the values level.

Because Merill and Reid did not develop the behavior - values connection, they failed to appreciate how addressing values can lead to changes in behavior. They missed an opportunity to fa-cilitate learning.

The PACT-L model demonstrates how addressing both values and behaviors aids in improving self-awareness. It also allows you to improve your relationships with others as you reflect on your values in light of your behavior. Finally, it helps you change your behavior as you 1) practice new skills, and 2) work on reprioritizing your values.

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An authentic relationship is the starting point of an empowered community. Appreciation for what others value enables us to appreciate their behavior without judgment. It also enables the creative resolution of conflict as we improve our ability to re-spond to disagreement at the value level.

The PACT-L model brings a "two-pronged" approach making the difficult challenge of adapting your relational style to appro-priate circumstances easier. Merrill and Reid provide insight into how social style informs interpersonal behavior. The PACT-L model steps beyond behavior to demonstrate how to address relationships at the values level as well.

Myers-Briggs

"I am an ESTJ. What are you?"

If you are familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), you may have heard (or said) something like this be-fore. The concepts behind the MBTI were first developed by Katharine Briggs and then picked up her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers through the 1920s and 1930s. It was formally published in 1944.

The MBTI is based on Carl Jung's brilliant analysis of psycho-logical types. (His Extroverted and Introverted type correspond readily to the PACT-L Active and Reflective Modes of being.) Jung identified four main operations of consciousness based on two categories: Perception and Judgment.

He identified a polarity in Perception between Sensing and Intu-ition. He identified a polarity of Judgment between Thinking and Feeling. Myers and Briggs adapted Jung's fundamental in-sight into 16 unique personality types.

Many people who have taken the MBTI find that the personality assessment aids self-understanding and even self-appreciation,

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though some find the instrument to be somewhat slippery. They report taking the test at different times and coming up with dif-ferent results. This is not surprising given the nature of the in-strument.

It depends on self-reporting in response to specific questions. Lack of self-awareness, or a bias toward what one may perceive as a more acceptable response influences results. This problem is typical with instruments of this type, including the PACT-L Personal Profile.

Generally the MBTI is a handy introduction to the brilliant anal-ysis of one the Twentieth Century's most gifted psychotherapist. But therein lies its limitation. It is a complex tool that requires significant study to master. The MBTI presents 16 unique per-sonality types. Once you master the meaning of your own type, you still have 15 more to learn in order to gain insight into how other people in your community think.

In addition, once you learn your "type," the instrument lacks clear guidance on how knowing that you are a "ESTJ" should in-form your behavior. This may have been the factor that inspired Merrill and Reid in their elucidation of social styles in terms of behavior without consideration for inner motives or processes.

The PACT-L model combines the advantages of attentiveness to behavior that Merrill and Reid emphasized with insight into the nature mental processes suggested by Myers-Briggs.

The PACT-L Model

In our discussion introducing the PACT-L typology, we set aside the Legacy polarity to introduce four relational styles of our ty-pology of empowered community: The Focuser, the Collabora-tor, the Challenger and the Encourager. Legacy is equally im-portant to all four and does not contribute to defining relational style.

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The different styles emerge out of habits that define our most comfortable behaviors. They are determined by how you priori-tize four of the Root Values – People, Autonomy, Commitment and Truth. But we all make meaning in our lives the same way, through the story of our life – our Legacy.

The greater the understanding of your Legacy, the more respon-sive you are to different life circumstances regardless of your most comfortable relational style. We will explore Legacy in much greater detail later. First, we will explore the four rela-tional styles in greater detail as we build the platform of the PACT-L model.

The PACT-L model operates along three axes, bringing to-gether three Root Value po-larities: People – Commit-ment, Autonomy – Truth, and a Greater Understanding of One’s Legacy – a Lesser Un-derstanding of One’s Legacy. If we set aside the Legacy po-larity, we simplify the model. We reduce a three-dimensional model to two di-mensions.

This provides a relational style platform. The horizontal axis represents the People-Commitment polarity, modeling your pref-erence for either relationships or tasks. Plot yourself along this axis, depending upon the degree to which you tend to prefer one side of the polarity over the other.

The vertical pole represents the Autonomy – Truth polarity, modeling the Active and Reflective modes of being. Plot your-self along this axis, depending upon the degree to which you be-lieve you are either a more Active or a more Reflective person.

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Pulling both axes together creates the relational style platform. Notice the platform presents four bases. Each base provides a home for each relational style: Focusing, Collaborating, Chal-lenging, and Encouraging.

Two Root Values anchor each base. Find your base as you de-termine which two of the four values you tend to prioritize over the others. Thus, Commitment and Autonomy anchor Focusing. Autonomy and People anchor Encouraging. People and Truth anchor Collaborating. Truth and Commitment anchor Challeng-ing. The anchoring Root Values govern the behavior associated with each relational style.

Later we will explore how an empowered community benefits from the behaviors associated with each of the relational styles. Now we turn to a closer look at the PACT-L platform and con-sider each of the relational styles.

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11

Building the PACT-L Model

Of Types and Styles

An empowered community consists of people who share the same Root Values. But they prioritize these values in different ways. This difference defines the unique character of each.

Aristotle may have taken humanity’s first, toddler step toward the scientific method. He peered into the swarm of creatures along the shores of the Aegean Sea and tried to understand what he was seeing.

He took careful notes. He made deliberate analysis. He slowly began to differentiate the mass of life he encountered as he made his way.

He identified characteristics that mattered. He created a typol-ogy of the animal world. A typology is simply a table (or a list) that organizes individual units into groups. His zoological typol-

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ogy provided a model for biologists for generations.

Classifying animals raises our awareness of species. It provides language that helps us to explore the animal world with ever more precision and insight. (Who was the first to recognize that a dolphin had more in common with an elephant than with a shark?) Close, systematic observation, and a willingness to be intentional in understanding what we see turns a casual associa-tion, or stereotypical bias into a meaningful typology.

How might a typology of an empowered community help us un-derstand the nature of relationships? It would provide a lan-guage that would help us explore how we expereince one an-other in community. With it we could develop tools that allow us to overcome the burden of broken relationships and release the power of community.

Such a typology would have to begin with the indivual. It would have to address both values and behaviors in a system that made personal interaction comprehensible. It would have to help us make sense of how people can relate more productively and with greater satistaction in larger groups as well.

The Root Values provide the fundamental priniciples we need.

Typing works on characteristics individuals share. The chal-lenge is to identify the essential common characteristic, while avoiding attaching secondary qualities of one individual to the entire class. A previous generation might have been surprised to meet an African-American physician, a female CEO, or an Elec-trical Engineer from India. Today, thank goodness, this is more commonplace.

We sometimes do this unconsciously and habitually. We distort our understanding of others. This is “stereotyping.”

We project an imagined quality of a group to the individual. “I am a computer science major.” (Nerd.) “I am a lawyer.”

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BUILDING THE PACT-L MODEL

(Heartless.) “I am a salesman.” (Sleazy.)

Stereotyping limits our ability to see. We fail to acknowledge the uniqueness of a person. We dishonor the person’s Auton-omy. We reject the unique gift the person brings.

Habits of thought and perception provide a sense of security. It is impossible to deactivate the model building nature of our minds, nor should we. It helps us make sense of a complex and confusing world. But lack of awareness of how stock images, prescribed scripts, or cultural narratives shape (and therefore possibly distort) how we perceive the world leaves us short-sighted.

Once we get to know someone and come to appreciate the rich-ness of her unique individuality, our initial typing fades. It has served its purpose. It provided a map to guide us into relation-ship with someone new.

In Part I we suggested that the Root Values live in the heart of every person. We pointed to the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”) as an intimation of their universal application. Although everyone has the same Root Values, not everyone is alike. We readily recognize differences among people. How is this possible?

The Root Values form a value system. This value system is timeless, diverse and adaptable all at the same time. We each have the same values, but we prioritize these values in different ways. It is not the possession of these values, but how we order them that makes the difference. Thus, we find the same Root Values in every person, but not the same Root Value priority.

To demonstrate how this works, set the Root Value Legacy aside for the moment. We will return to Legacy’s influence later.

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Consider two people. The first person prioritizes the Root Val-ues this way:

1.People2. Truth3. Commitment 4. Autonomy

What does this suggest about the person’s most comfortable be-havior? Because he prioritizes People over Autonomy, this per-son is likely to be very warm and friendly.

That Truth is second in his Root Value system suggests he is a good conversationalist. He asks lots of questions as he demon-strates an active interest in the thoughts and perceptions of others. He looks for patterns and makes connections as he seeks the broadest possible perspective.

How might a different prioritizing of the Root Values influence someone’s relational style? Here is a second person with a very different orientation. She prioritizes the Root Values this way:

1. Autonomy2. Commitment3. Truth4. People

What does this suggest about the person’s most comfortable be-havior? Because she prioritizes Autonomy over People, she is likely to be independently-minded. She maintains a very strong sense of self.

With Commitment as her second Root Value she projects strength and determination. She stands up for what she believes in. She gets the job done.

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We can build a simple typology of relational styles based on how individuals prioritize these values in their lives. A rela-tional style represents a pattern of behavior with which a person is most comfortable. There is nothing fixed or permanent about a person’s style. It simply expresses habitual patterns of relating to others.

To determine the four basic styles, identify the two primary Root Values in a person’s Root Value system.

The Focuser The CollaboratorAutonomy TruthCommitment People

The Challenger The Encourager Commitment People Truth Autonomy

This is the basis of our typology of an empowered community. We will explore each of these relational styles in later chapters. We introduce them here to invite you to begin to think about your most comfortable relational style. How do you prioritize the Root Values in your life?

Understanding clearly who I am is a difficult challenge. A look in the mirror provides a reflection of my physical features. The Root Values are a mirror that reflects an image of my heart.

Focusing

People whose most comfortable behavior is Focusing value Au-tonomy and Commitment. Commitment involves a movement of the will, a deeply personal, sustained intention that strives to overcome difficulty.

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Autonomy and Commitment are complementary values in Fo-cusing. One autonomous person makes one Commitment. A group cannot commit, except one person at a time. Because Autonomy is linked with Commitment, Autonomy is directed inward. Contrast this with someone in the Encouraging domain where the complementary value is People. Autonomy linked with People inspires an outward orientation.

If you are more comfortable Focusing you have a strong sense of personal boundaries. You take responsibility for yourself. You know what you think and readily take action. You make choices and stand by them. You accept the consequences of your choices. You know the power of commitment to surmount obsta-cles and succeed.

Lou Gerstner, former CEO of RJR Nabisco, and then IBM, has said, “Lack of focus is the most common cause of corporate mediocrity.”

“A successful, focused enterprise is one that has developed a deep understanding of its customers’ needs, its competitive envi-ronment, and its economic realities. This comprehensive analy-sis must then form the basis for specific strategies that are trans-lated into day-to-day execution.” (Louis Gerstner, pg 222 Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Harper Collins, New York, 20020, pg 222)

What Gerstner says about a business also applies to a person who values Autonomy linked to Commitment. Such a person has developed a deep understanding of herself. The ability to fo-cus requires commitment and the ability to stand alone against the crowd.

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Champ worked for Lou Gerst-ner when Gerstner was CEO at RJR Nabisco. After graduating from college Champ joined the Navy serving on a destroyer in the North Atlantic during the Cold War.

“We chased Soviet nuclear submarines as they came out of the Arctic Ice Pack. We followed them down to Cuba. Our job was to pick them up, which wasn’t always easy. We’d stay with them without them knowing we were there. If we heard the doors to the nuclear warheads opening up, we were supposed to go over the top of them, and whatever they got launched we were supposed to take in the gut. We’d all die, but we’d save the country from a nuclear strike.”

After the Navy he went to law school. He practiced law in Raleigh, NC. There he attracted the attention of RJR Nabsico. He became the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. Following his time at RJR Nabisco he successfully led a series of “turn-around” projects serving as CEO in a number of companies ranging from the greeting card industry to high technology.

One of Champ’s joys is mentoring young executives. He pos-sesses a strong sense of Autonomy. He knows what he is about. He also knows what he looks for in people with whom he is willing to partner.

“The business has to make sense," Champ said. "I have no inter-est in the ‘Silicon Valley business plan.’ You know how it goes: ‘All we need is 1% of the market and we will have a billion cus-tomers and we will worry later about how we monetize it be-cause our technology is so cool.’ I don’t go with that. So they have to have a comprehensible, reasonable business plan.

“They have to have proof that they have the ability to execute.

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They have to have the understanding that they have a lot to learn. And then I think I can help them.”

If your most comfortable behavior is Focusing, you are a respon-sibility-taker. Your strong sense of Autonomy coupled with Commitment readies you for action. Champ learned his lessons in responsibility-taking as a young officer in the Navy.

“What I remember most about my service in the Navy,” Champ said, “was having huge amounts of responsibility at a very ten-der age. When you are aboard ship, and there are 14 officers and 210 men, and you are having people who are dying and there are a lot of people whose lives are on the line, you are del-egated a lot of authority and you have to grow up really fast and get serious. The party is over.

“Authority is not a job title. Authority is the way people per-ceive you. You have to guard that so that you remain someone who is worth following. I was 23 years old. A senior chief on a destroyer is 45-50 years old. He knows just about all there is to know about everything. But you are in charge. And you have to make that clear from the very beginning.”

Focusing associates with managing risk in the Active Mode. If this sounds like you, you maintain an outward orientation to the world. You pick up on material connections other people seem to miss. You take pride in efficiency. You don’t like to waste time, effort or energy on activity that is not tied to the goal.

You have a high tolerance for conflict. You prioritize tasks over relationships. If a relationship gets a little stressed in order to achieve the goal, so be it. “It is not my problem.”

“The rule in all the companies I have run is this,” Champ said. “You come in and you tell me what’s wrong. Then you tell me what you could have done to change it. I don’t care if 99% of it is somebody else’s fault.

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“There is always something you could have done to make it bet-ter. So before you start telling me about anybody else, I want to hear what you could have done to make it better. You tell me what needs to be done, and you tell me what you’re going to do to fix it.

“If you do that, than the only response you get from me is, ‘What tools do you need? How can I help?’ If you come in and minimize the problem, if you try to blame it on somebody else, what you’re going to get is. . . . I can do an ass-chewin’ that few people can imitate.

“There is a woman who works for me. Her peers warned her about my approach. She came in trying to minimize a problem and share the blame around. I said, ‘If ever you do that again. . .’ She told me she had never had anyone ever speak to her in that manner. And I just ripped her apart, right to point where she came to tears and then I said, ‘I don’t need tears in my office. Get the hell out, and when you can figure out what the problem is and take responsibility for it, you can come back here and we will talk about it.’ Well, she did. She is still here. She is one of the best I have.”

If your are comfortable Focusing, you do not look for external validation. Doing the job right is its own reward. But this also means that you may sometimes neglect to affirm others. Get-ting the job done is what matters. If someone gets their feelings hurt in the process, your response is, “Grow up.” You expect people to take responsibility for their feelings.

Although some may feel pressured by the intensity of your com-mitment, in your own mind you do not neglect people as much as you discipline yourself to reach the objective. You may sometimes feel frustrated by what they interpret to be other peo-ple’s lack of commitment.

The challenge for someone most comfortable with Focusing is to truly appreciate the perspective of others.

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Collaborating

People who are most comfortable Collaborating prioritize the Root Values People and Truth over Autonomy and Commit-ment. If this describes you, you take a genuine interest in the lives of others and want to hear their point of view. The picture is never quite complete. Another perspective always adds rich-ness to your understanding of the world.

You seek additional point's of view. You want to com-plete the picture. Your out-look on the world remains in-complete.

Truth and People are comple-mentary values. If you value Truth you look for patterns and recurring themes that help you formulate a theory. When Truth is linked to Peo-ple, you remain open to addi-tional insight and new ideas that will enrich your own under-standing.

Autonomy is subordinated to Truth in this domain. This means you hold your own ideas and your own perspective lightly. You do not push information. You pull.

Likewise, Commitment is subordinated to People. You remain open. If someone pushes you to commit, you politely demur. Rather than commit, you are likely to ask for her opinion. “What would you do?” Collaborators are in no hurry.

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Max works as a Human Resources professional in the telecom-munications industry. He valued working with a former Sr. Vice President who was a collaborating leading.

“Dan was brought in after the telecom company went bankrupt as the Senior Vice President responsible for the Human Re-sources department,” Max said. “What Dan wanted from his di-rect reports were their ideas. He didn’t care if he agreed. You could go toe to toe with him and back him into a corner. He wanted to hear what you had to say.

“He’d say something like, ‘What was your thinking there?’ He wanted to know how I got to where I got. And sometimes I couldn’t tell him. I am an intuitive thinker. I’d sometimes have to say, ‘I don’t know. Let me think about it for a while, I’ll come back and tell you.’ He’d give me space to allow me time to figure it out. But he’d always came back to me. ‘So what were you thinking?’

“Dan would come in with a problem and require that the team work the problem and come to a consensus on a solution. One time he came in with issue after a merger. He said, ‘We have to integrate six benefits systems. I want you to figure it out and come back to me with an answer.

“He wanted people to work collaboratively. It was okay to dis-agree. It was okay to argue. I facilitated a number of his leader-ship team meetings. He liked to work on a principle of consen-sus.

“I would work very hard pushing and pulling and bringing peo-ple to consensus and then, to find out what people really thought, he’d blow it up.

“I’d say something like, ‘Sounds like we are getting to consen-sus.’ I’d go around the table and everyone would nod. And then

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Dan would say, ‘Nope. I’m not there yet.’ He’d say that to get the group talking. He would say something controversial, push- back on someone’s idea – all because he wasn’t satisfied that all the issues had been adequately explored.

Dan’s collaborative style was difficult for some people to take.

“We were doing this staff development thing,” Max said. “Ev-erybody in the room had to rate their direct reports on a grid, and nobody could rate anyone higher than 10%.

“Richard was a compensation and benefits guy. He came in with his ranking and Dan took him to task. ‘Why did you put that person there? Tell me what your thinking is.’ Richard couldn’t handle it. He said, ‘Just tell me what you want.’ Richard couldn’t engage in the debate to get to clarity.

“A similar thing happened with Brian. Brian showed Dan his ranking grid and identified one of his direct reports as his next replacement. Dan said, ‘That’s crazy. That guy could never, ever take your place’ Brian went head to head with Dan for about twenty minutes trying to explain what Dan was missing. And it was not a discussion. It was an argument. After twenty minutes Brian said, ‘Have I convinced you?’ Dan said, ‘No you haven’t’ ‘Then I’ll keep trying.’ Brian said. And he did.”

Dan is very comfortable collaborating with others. Not only did he exhibit the Collaborator’s strengths, he was weighed down by the Collaborator's burden as well.

“Dan was a sensitive soul,” Max said. “He took a long time to get things done. A lot of people wanted to get things done quicker and some perceived Dan’s lack of activity as weakness or a lack of commitment to moving forward, and that probably hurt him the most.

“His feelings would get hurt when he was challenged on his depth of caring for people. I believe that when he had to let peo-

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ple go it was emotionally upsetting to him. He wanted to do it right. He wanted to do it carefully.

“He never went to a leader and said, ‘I need 15% reduction in headcount give them to me today.’ He really struggled. He wanted to make sure the organization kept the appropriate peo-ple. He was more interested in taking costs out of the business, than reducing headcount. He was concerned about process. He was concerned about mechanical resources and getting that right in order to protect folks.”

If you are most comfortable collaborating you value People over Commitment. If pushed to commit, to make a hard decision, you may withdraw. Your openness and inclusive orientation to the world makes it difficult to lock down on a position that ex-cludes other options. When forced, you have to step back to re-group and recover your balance.

“Sometimes, when Dan was challenged,” Max said, “he would retreat. He’d go in his office and shut the door. The message was always very clear: ‘You are not talking to me today.’ He’d go and sit on his porch and smoke a cigar. And then he’d reen-gage. On more than one occasion he’d say, ‘I was going to do something stupid. I needed not to be here.”

You manage risk in the Reflective Mode. You subordinate the Root Value Autonomy to Truth. You also prioritize relation-ships over tasks, the Root Value People over Commitment.

You take great joy in meeting new people and hearing their ideas. You are a natural networker. Your web of social contacts continues to expand. People love the way you listen to them. You are always more open to hear their point of view. People tend to characterize you as warm and friendly.

Because you like to remain open to new ideas, you hate to be put on the spot. Some may consider you to be indecisive. You think of yourself as circumspect.

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If you are a Collaborator your challenge is to take a stand on the issues that matter to you and claim sufficient Autonomy so that your point of view will be heard.

Challengning

People who are most comfortable Challenging value Truth and Commitment. They are careful observers and deep thinkers. If this describes you, you understand the power of commitment.

But your primary commitment is to ideas, and only secondarily to projects.

Unlike the person more comfort-able focusing, you take more joy in developing the plan and im-proving the process than in exe-cution. Once you have worked out the solution you are more than happy to hand it off to oth-ers. You are ready to solve the next problem.

You manage risk in the Reflective Mode, but prioritize tasks over relationships. But your tasks tend to be conceptual rather than practical. You understand the obstacles to goals in depth. You are almost hyper-vigilant in your attention to detail, but in a theoretical way.

You understand the connections between things. You abstract principles from what you see and apply it to other situations. People are most impressed by you depth of insight.

You also do not mind working alone. You may even prefer it. You enjoy setting your sights on a goal and then getting down

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and getting to work.

You provide depth of insight. You are thorough and disciplined. You are never in a hurry. You would rather be “right” than “fin-ished.” You want the time to study the problem.

You probably do not feel like you need much praise or attention – at least not consciously. But deep down you really do appreci-ate it when someone acknowledges the effort you put into solv-ing a complex problem.

As a keen-eyed critic, you are at your best improving the process. But you may discourage others as you point out the po-tential failure while overlooking successes. This can be particu-larly difficult in long-standing institutions that are themselves bound by habits that resist change.

It requires forethought, discipline and courage to challenge the process in a change averse environment. But you have this in abundance. Besides, conflict does not bother you. When it gets hot, you simply disappear. .You are so interested in how things work, you may neglect peo-ple. You can sit in a crowded room and be unaware of what is going on around you. You may miss non-verbal signals that oth-ers find obvious. You are the “absent minded professor.”

In a crisis you are ready with input that gets the project moving again. But sometimes you may withdraw from others, and dis-connect. People may wonder what you really think. It is more important for you to have an idea, than to share it.

If you are a challenger, your challenge is to come out connect with other people and make yourself available so they can part-ner with you, enrich your ideas and appreciate all that you bring to a community.

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Encouraging

People who are most comfortable with encouraging value Au-tonomy and People. If this describes you, you see others with great clarity. You are a "good judge of character." Because the complementary Root Value with Autonomy is People, your

attentiveness to particu-lars is directed outward. You see another individ-ual very clearly.

You also manage risk in the Active Mode, but un-like the orientation of those whose most com-fortable behavior is fo-cusing, you prioritize Re-lationships over Tasks. You have a very high re-gard for people. You value people so much that you see individ-uals in their wonderful uniqueness. You appreciate how each one brings a special quality to the world.

You see both strengths and weaknesses. But you are not a critic. You have a great capacity for empathy. At your best you are truly affirming. Validation is so rare people hunger for what you provide. Your friendship is deeply appreciated.You have a deep, intuitive sense of what individuals feeling. They don’t need to tell you. Somehow you just know.

You are also loyal. But your loyalty is not out of a sense of commitment. It is born of attachment. As long as you sense a meaningful bond you are a fierce friend. But if you sense a break, you can abandon a relationship though it will cause you great emotional distress.

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The difference between attachment and commitment is that the first is born of emotional identification. The second is born of a sustained intention. The person who is most comfortable focus-ing, commits. She values Commitment over People. The person who is most comfortable behavior is encouraging, attaches.

This difference may be difficult to distinguish. Marriage vows are exchanged. One partner may be making a commitment to a project: the institution of marriage. She is making a statement about a sustained intention. The other partner may be express-ing an emotional attachment to a person. He is making a state-ment about emotional presence and responsiveness.

In the marriage ceremony the words and actions are the same. But the actions of each partner are very different. The same dy-namic applies in business partnerships, friendships and other re-lationships.

If you value People and Autonomy over Truth and Commitment you experience commitment as a feeling. Your relationships with others hurt or feel good. You take joy in them or you are burdened by them. This makes you a passionate ally.

However, because you tend to subordinate the Root Values of Commitment and Truth, you risk doing the work of others rather than broadening their perspective to see a larger Truth or calling them to Commitment. You identify so much with others that you have a hard time watching someone struggle. You feel tempted to rescue others, to take the burden off their shoulders. You may indulge those you care about most, rather than chal-lenge them to overcome obstacles that hinder their full flower-ing.

You call out the talents and abilities of others. At your best, in a crisis you inspire others to act. But watch out, if you are not careful you may be tempted to step in and save them, and in so doing take away their opportunity to learn.

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12

The Legacy Polarity

The PACT-L model begins with a description of how two Root Value polarities work to inform a person’s relational style: Peo-ple – Commitment, and Autonomy – Truth. We have introduced the Root Value typology and explored how we can explain dif-ferences between us in terms of different ways we prioritize four of the Root Values.

Focusing prioritizes Autonomy and Commitment over People and Truth.

Collaborating prioritizes People and Truth over Auton-omy and Commitment.

Challenging prioritizes Truth and Commitment over Au-tonomy and People.

Encouraging prioritizes Autonomy and People over Truth and Commitment.

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Before we consider how the Root Values help you improve your relationship with others, we must add the third polarity to the model. This polarity “splits” the Root Value Legacy between Less Understanding of one’s Legacy and Greater Understanding of one’s Legacy.

If you live without understanding of your Legacy you live at a great disadvantage. You become a victim of your own actions as you are pummeled by consequences for behavior you do not understand. It is as if you throw a brick in the air only to have it come down to hit you on the top of the head. You do it not once, but over and over again.

Today Noah works as a manager at a grease manufacturing plant in Tehachapi, CA. He has risen to his current position over the past four years. He manages three departments and he manages men twice his age. He is twenty-four years old. Barely five years earlier he had was trapped in the world Methamphetamine addicts -- Chrystal Meth.

“I started smoking pot when I was 13 years old,” Noah said. “At 17 I was sick of high school. I was using every day. So I got out of school and worked full-time for my brother in construc-tion.

“Then I started using Chrystal Meth. I had some kind of logic in my mind that said it would be a good idea to quit my job. I was still living at home, sneaking around. That went on for six months until my dad drug-tested me.

“My parents tried to do an ‘intervention,’ but I would have noth-ing to do with it. I knew I did not want to quit. I thought I was still having fun.

“A friend’s mom said, ‘Let him come live with us and he can work on getting sober.’ That did not work at all. I would go out for weeks at a time and when I was ready to crash I would just go there and sleep for a couple of days and get up do it all over

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again.

“I worked my way up to being the main dealer’s right hand man. You think you are in a position of trust. But in reality you are just being used. But I was young and I was stupid.

“There was this other drug dealer. He kept telling me, ‘Don’t hang out with that dude. He is using you.’ I blew him off. I had a ‘you are just trying to hold me down’ kind of attitude. In ret-rospect he was trying to protect me.

“Soon after that he was murdered.

“My drug dealer friend pulled a gun on me and put it to my head. Someone had accused me of being a snitch. I denied it. He told me who had accused me. He handed me the gun and said, ‘Go deal with it.’

"I hadn’t spoken to my mom for about six months, so I called her. As soon as I heard her voice my heart just broke and I started balling. At this point I realized what my life was becom-ing. I didn’t want to use any more. I felt dirty. Mom said, ‘Just come home.’

“Two days later I was walking down the street and the cops picked me up. They kept me in jail for two days while they questioned me about the murder.

“After my release I spent the night in my truck and went home the next day. It took two weeks for me to work the drugs out of my system. It was a rough come down. I stayed clean for an-other six months. Then I went out and started using again.

“I met Jenifer and we were using together. She was on a court-ordered drug rehab program. She failed three times. At this point she was going to prison if she didn’t get straightened up. So we decided to try to get clean together.

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“We were doing random court-ordered drug testing. Right be-fore she was admitted to rehab, we found out that she was preg-nant. At that point I got serious. I found a job at K-Mart. I was 19 years old. I married Jenifer and we had our baby. I have been clean ever since.”

Families live out patterns that recur across generations. They form emotional systems that maintain coherency as each mem-ber of the family becomes part of a greater whole. Each of us lives out a particular role, our behavior reinforced by others in the system.

Among the things we learn from our family are basic habits of relating. We also pick up coping strategies to help us navigate life's challenges. In our families we learn the fundamental skills that we bring to community.

Noah has lived out a pattern that is consistent with the story of his family. His mother got married soon after she turned 18.

“It was a very abusive marriage,” she said. “We divorced after four kids. I had this thing with the kids where they would go to live with their father, come back and then they would leave again.

“I went through a period over about nine years where I made several mistakes. I have always been self-destructive. I don’t know why. You know how the closer you get to the very thing you want you blow it up because it is not going to work any-way?

“I had two children by two different men before I met Noah’s fa-ther. So I had six children by three different men by the time I met Paul. He married me and became the father of my children and raised them as his own. And then we had two more. Noah is the baby. We have been married 28 years.”

Noah and Jenifer’s son is now four years old. They have an-

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other baby on the way. The greater the understanding Noah and Jenifer have of their Legacy, they more intentional they can be in the raising of their children. Parents model behavior that they have had modeled for them. These become habits for the next generation. Most of these are healthy, beneficial and life-giving. Some may be less so.

Early childhood experiences define our “normal.” These experi-ences inform how we see the world. They help us to define what is “safe” and what is “dangerous.” These become habits of per-ception that are very difficult to overcome because they provide the very material by which we interpret what goes on around us.

An even greater challenge is to identify and assess habits of emotion that are modeled for us as children. When do you get angry? What makes you sad? What triggers your anxiety? When do you feel happy? What make you uncomfortable?

The difficulty with emotional habits is that we associate what we feel with our very identities. If I am not what I feel, than who am I? We resist evaluating the meaning of what we feel within the greater context of the human experience.

Sometimes a habit of emotion can lead to destructive life choices. When you are abused, do you feel outrage? Or do you feel sympathy for the person who is treating you poorly? When someone performs a kind service for you, do you feel gratitude? Or do you feel a sense of entitlement, perhaps even treating the other person with contempt?

These are all habits of emotion. An emotion that was learned can be unlearned. Greater understanding of your Legacy enables you to position your life within a larger story. Your past informs your present. But your past need not determine your future.

Greater understanding of your Legacy is a necessary step in helping you to discover a “new normal” for yourself and the people you love. Behaviors that persist into the present may

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have been meaningful in the past, but become less than helpful in a new environment. Some may be harmful, others even abu-sive.

If you do not know the story of your family, you may pass on habits to future generations that you would not wish on your children. It will also limit your capacity to give your best gift to others.

The third polarity in the PACT-L model asks: How well do you know your story? Greater understanding of your Legacy em-powers your community because it empowers you.

Habit and Intention

Habit and Intention are two aspects of Legacy. These provide the poles in the third polarity of the PACT-L model.

Habits are behaviors to which we have been conditioned by our social environment by way of repeated practice. A habit is an archive of behavior. An archeologist of our souls could dig down through the layers of our habitual emotions, perceptions, thoughts and behaviors and tell the story of our lives.

Habits express the most potent part of our Legacy. It is that part of our story we carry forward each day through our behavior. Much of what I do today has been determined by what I have done yesterday.

At the opposite pole of the Legacy polarity is intentional action. Intention is directed by conscious choice in response to a unique situation. It requires a certain independence from our personal Legacy. When we act intentionally we are acting with the great-est degree of personal freedom.

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Thus, at one end of the Legacy polarity are those behaviors that are most dependent on our Legacy -- Habits. At the other end are behaviors that are least dependent on our Legacy – Inten-tion.

Both Habit and Intention are necessary for a happy, fruitful life. Habits release us from the burden of having to rethink every act we per-form every day. Imagine having to think about how to brush your teeth every morning. Your mother may have worked very hard to instill in you this healthy habit. Your dentist can tell if she succeeded.

Unlike Habits, intentional behavior requires a great deal of thought. The more intentional a behavior, the more thought required. First you must imagine an alternative future. You must paint a picture of what you hope to achieve. You evaluate the risk. You assess your capacity. You estimate your probability of success. You engage your will. You follow through. You review the out-come.

Exhausted? Thank goodness for habits. Habitual behavior, however, sometimes masquerades as intentional. The problem is that not only do we have habits of behavior, we also have habits of perception, of emotion, and of thought. I may think before I act, but if my thought is habitual, and my perception is habitual, and my emotion is habitual – the action at the end of the chain may feel intentional, but it is just a long parade of habits dressed up in intentional clothing.

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THE LEGACY POLARITY

Habits

What do we mean by habitual perception, emotion and thought?

Of Perception

Optical illusions play on habits of perception. You may be familiar with the Dal-matian Illusion. If so, you can readily see the dog in the picture.

As a matter of fact, if you know this illusion you cannot fail to see the dog in the pic-ture. You see the dog be-cause you “know” it is there. You see what you expect to see. You have formed a habit of perception.

If you are not familiar with the illusion, what do you see? Dots scatter haphazardly across the page. But already you are desper-ately staring at the picture, working hard to the see the dog hid-den among the dots.

Those unfamiliar with the illusion see dots because that is what they expect to see. They must study the picture, with great in-tention. (Keep looking, the dog is really there.)

Habits of perception, like habits of behavior, help us navigate a complex world. Imagine if you walked out the door and had to make the same visual effort to negotiate your commute to work every morning that you have to make to see the Dalmatian in the picture?. Life without habits of perception would be exhaust-

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ing.

Of Emotion

Habitual emotion is not unlike habitual perception. We feel what we have learned to feel in reaction to specific circum-stances. Our emotional landscape is planted by early experi-ences most of us no longer remember, but our emotions do.

Emotions are patterned for us by family and friends. We learn how to “fit” emotion to circumstance. We return to it so regu-larly that it feels natural. We assume everyone feels the way we do.

When someone challenges an emotional response we sometimes take offense. An emotion feels normal, appropriate and right. It may be. But it is also a habituated response we have learned and practiced so often and so frequently that it has become a part of us.

Many years ago a neighbor died unexpectedly. Playing tennis one day, down he went. No warning. No prior symptoms. He left a wife and two daughters.

The neighborhood families were close. The widow asked sev-eral families to sit on the altar platform to provide emotional support during the funeral. One family included ten year old twins.

At ten years old the boys lacked emotional maturity. Sitting on the platform before hundreds of people who had come to pay their respects to a dear friend, the twins laughed all the way through the service.

The laughter was not intentional, of course. The twins had de-veloped the habit of expressing discomfiting emotion through laughter. The widow’s maturity manifested itself in her graceful tolerance of the behavior. Their mother’s maturity manifested

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itself in her maternal intolerance of their behavior when they got home.

You also have developed habits of emotion. You react emotion-ally in predictable ways to specific circumstances. You learned these habits sometime in the past and you return to them regu-larly. They have become a part of who you are.

People who share common cultural cues also share similar pat-terns of emotion. The closer people are the more uniform their emotional makeup.

Members of a family display emotional behavior in concert with one another. They “understand” one another emotionally. They share emotional habits they have learned growing up living to-gether. When we leave home and go to school or to work, we take our emotional habits with us. They help us regulate our be-havior and stay in (more or less) healthy relationships with oth-ers.

Sometimes families imprint habits of emotion in us that create challenges for us. An abusive father may generate an emotional habit that causes one to withdraw when we are in the presence of certain types of men. Having grown up in a chaotic household may have generated an emotional habit that pushes someone else to feel very uncomfortable in an environment that lacks clear and unambiguous structure.

When emotional habits create problems for us, we sometimes find it necessary to learn new emotional habits. This is not an easy thing to do.

Just as habits of perception help negotiate our physical world, habits of emotion, help us negotiate our social world. Despite the occasional challenge, habit of emotion make life with others much more manageable than if we had to sit down and figure out the myriad of non-verbal emotional cues we pick up every day.

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Of Thought

Finally, not only do we have habits of behavior, perception and emotion, we have habits of thought as well. Medical students spend years studying medicine and looking over the shoulders of more experienced physicians. Law students invest hours im-mersed in law libraries and drilled in law school about legal precedence. Airline pilot master technical manuals and train in flight simulators going over and over again crisis scenarios that involve everything from wind shear to mechanical failure.

The aim of intensive study and training involves more than memorizing data or expanding one’s knowledge. The more challenging goal is to discipline the mind, to develop the mind of a doctor, a lawyer or a pilot. Training creates habits of thought -- mental models -- that allow you to move quickly and effi-ciently when confronted with a problem.

Life reinforces habits of thought freeing us from the burden of having to actually think. It is very helpful most of the time. Sometimes it is not.

Racial prejudice is a particularly destructive form of habitual thinking. Fifty years ago Ralph Ellison published, Invisible Man. Ellis tells the story of a young, African-American man who moves from the south to New York City seeking opportu-nity. But what he finds are lies and betrayal. He encounters the habitual thoughts of an entire culture. The title refers to an in-visibility not of the body, but of the soul. He says,

"I am an invisible man. When (people) approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagina-tion. . . (they see) everything and anything except me."

The Civil Rights Movement invested heavily in changing this broadly shared habit of thought. Gender bias, classism, and

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stereotypes of all kinds persist, habits of thought all.

If you don’t struggle with the arithmetic when balancing your check book, be grateful for your capacity for habitual thinking associated with numbers. Do you cook? If so, you don’t spend as much time deciphering a simple recipe as some do. Cna yuo raed tihs? Chnaces aer hbats aoscisoetad wtih raednig mkae slepl chcek uenncerassy.

Habits of perception, emotion and thought make life efficient. They also make change in our basic orientation to life painful, difficult and fearsome. People who languish in lifeless pseudo-community avoid the painful work of breaking habits of percep-tion, emotion and thought.

The challenge of building an empowered community requires addressing habits that undermine relationships. Habits of per-ception, emotion and thought can blind you to simple realities that others see very clearly, but that put your life at risk. This is the where the hard work begins.

Hale Koa

Jim was a career officer in the United States Army. Before he retired he worked with an operation called the Moral Welfare and Recreation Operation. The MSRO runs a series of hotels, golf courses, bowling alleys and other recreational facilities all over the world. It provides affordable recreational opportunities for soldiers and their families. The MSRO does not receive ap-propriations from Congress. They are a self-funding, self-sus-taining entity.

Jim described one operation in Hawaii.

“In the mid 1970s they were having huge computer processing problems; they contracted it all out. They brought me in to take

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a look at it and it was an unbelievable mess. Once we got the books reconciled, which took about a year, we brought the IT operation ‘in house.’ I became the Information Systems guy for operations all over the world.

“One of the hotels was the Hale Koa on Waikiki Beach. It had been losing money for years. This was during the Vietnam era. It was always at capacity, always busy. There was no reason why it should be losing money like it was.

“A colleague went there the year before to look at the operation. It was primitive, absolutely primitive. Point of sales were cash registers. Books were kept with a number 2 pencil. Receipts weren’t kept in a shoebox, but almost. My boss sent me to fig-ure out what could be done.

“Several things became clear very quickly. In the hotel side of things they were in pretty good shape. They were breaking even on the rooms. In that business you break even on the rooms; you make money in the bar and in the dining room. The front desk was in good shape. The bar was making good money; but the dining room was just losing its butt.

“So I spent a couple of days in the dining room. The Food and Beverage Manager had been around a lot of years. He seemed to be a reasonably competent guy. After two days of tracking what was going on it was clear there were two problems.

“The first problem was what they call in the business, ‘shrink-age.’ The staff was pilfering from the kitchen. This was a com-mon problem in hotels and especially in the hotels in Hawaii.

"Instead of paying a decent wage, the management winked at pilfering. Because they weren’t automated, they had no idea what their costs were. If you don’t know what your costs are, you have no idea whether you are making money or not.

"We got a handle on the accounting side so that we could at least

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measure the performance in the kitchen. They were losing about a dollar per plate. I sat down with the Food and Beverage Man-ager, with the General Manager in the room, and I showed him the numbers.

“And that was when I discovered the second problem. I said, ‘The costs are exceeding your pricing on the menu. You are los-ing a dollar per meal.’

“The Food and Beverage Manager said, ‘Yeah, I understand that. We will make it up.’

“’How are you going to make it up?’ I asked.

“’In volume.’ He said.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute. If you try to make it up in volume you are selling more and more, right?’

“’That’s right,’ He said.

“’Then if you are selling more and more, and you are loosing a dollar a plate, then you will end up losing money faster and faster,’ I said

“He gave me a blank stare. He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. It will be okay.’

“That was the second problem: the Food and Beverage Man-ager. He couldn’t see that he was sending his hotel down a sink hole.

“I said, ‘How will it be okay? The more you sell, the more money you loose. How will it be okay?’

“He said, ‘It will work out. Don’t worry about it.’

“The General Manger looked at me. Fortunately he understood

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it and worried about it. I went back to the States and helped him re-price his menu. I never found out what happened to the Food and Beverage Manager. But he was not longer employed by the Hale Koa on Waikiki Beach.”

The Food and Beverage Manager couldn’t “wrap his head around the problem” because his head was wrapped around habits -- habits of behavior, perception, thought and emotion that prevented him from understanding what for someone without those habits, was a rather simple matter of arithmetic.

Habits sometimes undermine yourability to contribute fully to your community. If you are not careful, the habits of you life -- habits of perception, emotion, though as well as behavior -- may send your community down the sink hole.

Intention

We all have habits and we can’t live without them. Habits of be-havior wrapped up with habits of perception, emotion and thought, makes life so much easier. We would end each day in exhaustion if not for our ability to put our minds on cruise con-trol.

Remember sitting behind the wheel of a car for the first time? How difficult it was to keep your left foot on the floor and shift your right foot from the accelerator to the brake, without stomp-ing on the break and sending you passenger through the wind-shield!

You had to concentrate. Nothing felt natural. Nothing was easy. You had to be intentional about everything you did. You had to be intentional, that is, until the actions required to drive became habitual. Once they became a habit, driving became easy.

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Life would be easy if everyone complemented your unique habits. Empowered community would be a snap. But people come with the own Legacies. We do not share the same habits.

What happens when my personal habit becomes an expectation I place on you? How do you feel when I demand that your life conform to my need for comfort?

The more my choices are determined exclusively by habit, the less satisfying my life with others becomes. Cooperation be-comes a burden. It is so much easier for me to do it myself. I become less supportive, less productive, less fruitful, more lonely but ever so much more comfortable in the familiar habits of my life.

Intention is the highest expression of personal freedom. Without our ability to act intentionally our Legacy becomes a prison. Change celebrates release from the prisons of the past. As you learn to embrace the discomfort of acting with greater intention you become truly free.

We tend to prefer habits to intention because intentional behav-ior is just too hard. Consider what it involves.

First, you must stop what you are doing. Then you must assess your current situation. If you are chained by habits of percep-tion, emotion and thought, this can be very hard indeed. You must work to get behind what you see, feel and think. What in your Legacy has the potential to blind you to current realities?

Next, you must imagine an alternative future. You back off of your habit of perception and work to see the world in a whole new way. You must study the dots looking for a new pattern. Remember the Dalmatian Illusion.

You may have to check your habitual emotional reaction. What are you feeling? Is it appropriate? Can you tolerate the possibil-

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ity that your habitual feeling is pushing you in the wrong direc-tion? Can you act against your feeling and make an alternative choice? Can you embrace the intolerable discomfort of adjust-ing to a “new normal?”

You will have to question habitual thoughts in which you have put so much confidence in past. Can you be wrong? Is it possi-ble that you lack sufficient information? Do you need guid-ance? Are you open to allowing others to challenge your think-ing?

Or, perhaps you really do have all the information you need, but you have a habit of delaying making a decision. Your search for more information may be more about avoidance than seeking clarity.

Finally, to be intentional means you may have to try something new. No matter how successful you have been in the past, trying something new means embracing risk. It means feeling abnor-mal, strange, not your natural self.

No wonder you do not like change!

What happens after you take the first few steps down the path of a new intention and you begin to pick up signs of failure? You encounter your first obstacle and your entire being begins to scream: “Stop! Go back to the old familiar habits that have worked so well in the past!”

The more intentional the behavior, the more unnatural it feels. The former habit just feels right. But feeling right, is not being right. Doing the right thing poorly is always better than doing the wrong thing well.

The habits of our lives sustain who we understand ourselves to be. After looking hard at the world with a fresh set of eyes, after enduring the emotional waves that wash over us, after taking the

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risk of failing -- after questioning habitual perceptions, emotions and thoughts that surge through us – what have we done if not called into question the very foundations of our lives, our very identity?

Habitual reactions lack precision. They are more an expression of convenience than relationship. When tired, we tend to fall back into habits. This is more than okay. It is necessary for a healthy life. But life in an empowered community sometimes requires us to act with greater intention.

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13Increasing Relational Capacity

The Irony of the Extreme

One challenge associated with building an empowering commu-nity involves habits. We tend to behave in ways that are most comfortable for us. We avoid unnecessary difficulty. We go with the routine and with what works. We even go with what works when it does not work anymore.

Remember the story, “The Scorpion and the Frog.”

A scorpion came to a river too wide to cross. He found a frog.

“Would you be so kind,” said the scorpion, “as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"

“What assurance do I have,” replied the frog, “that if I give you a ride across the river, you will not try to kill me?"

“Because, you see, I cannot swim. If I kill you I will die as well.”

Upon consideration of this thoughtful reply the frog agreed. But

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half-way across the scorpion raised its tail and drove it into the back of the frog’s neck stinging the frog and delivering its deadly poison.

“You fool!” cried the frog. “You have killed me and now we both must die.”

“I cannot help it,” replied the scorpion. “It is my nature.”

Unlike the scorpion in the story, we do not have a fixed nature. We have freedom to choose how we interact with others. Never-theless, the story resonates. Habits of perception, feeling, atti-tudes, and thoughts appear unalterable.

We regularly return to habits of relating to others. Rather than learning to relate to others in new, more productive ways, we persists in styles that we had learned as children. When anxious we tend to return with even greater zeal to what we know. It helps us feel more confident. But feeling confident is not the same as being competent.

How we prioritize the Root Values reinforce behaviors that make us feel as if we are possessed of a fixed nature. If I am most comfortable with Focusing behavior, that is what I tend to do – especially when I am stressed.

I may value my personal Autonomy and lock down on Commit-ment so tightly that others experience me as a Controller. I fail to sufficiently value People and Truth. Operating out of habits that had been formed long before I can remember, I disregard the thoughts and feelings of others.

In my zeal for responsibility-taking, I neglect perspective-seek-ing. In my narrow sense of Autonomy I overlook a broader per-spective of Truth. In my rush to “get it done” I neglect People. Others experience my “Commitment” as stubbornness.

Similar descriptions of relational dysfunction apply to each of

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the behaviors we have identified in the Root Value typology. In certain situations:

Focusing will sometimes feel to others like Controlling. Collaborating will sometimes feel to others like Waf-

fling. Challenging will sometimes feel to others like Manipu-

lating. Encouraging will sometimes feel to others like Rescu-

ing.

When we have a limited set of behav-iors from with to draw in our relation-ships, we are less responsive. Lack of self-awareness pre-vents us from appre-ciating how others experience us. Our avoidance of per-sonal discomfort further complicates the relationship. This un-dermines the power of community.

The habitual return to one behavior results in extreme behavior when applied in the wrong situation. When anxious we tend to do what makes us comfortable. Unintended consequences re-sult, often the very opposite of what we intended. Working harder at what we know, we achieve what we do not want.

In Part One we explored how the Root Values form the value system of ancient Israel. The Ten Words gives expression to the Root Values as each contributes to one of five sets of command-ments. We can also identify in the story of Moses four charac-ters exemplify who exemplify the four PACT-L relational styles.

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Pharaoh: Focusing/Controller

Controllers operate in the Active Mode. As a controller Pharaoh prioritizes Autonomy and Commitment to the neglect of People and Truth. He is so caught up in the building of his monuments that he demands performance without consideration for the per-spectives of others.

The goal of Focusing is to accomplish the task. But in the ex-treme the motive becomes the exercise of power. Controllers appear impatient. They invade others' space. Controllers fail to pick up on feedback that could otherwise help them adjust their behavior. They demand obedience and become tyrants.

Pharaoh fears the strength of the Hebrew people. "The Israelites have become much too numerous for us," he says. "Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

Pharaoh's goal is national security. But rather than partnering with this segment of his population, he enslaves them. When this fails to limit Hebrew power, he institutes a policy of Hebrew infanticide. This also fails. Rather then make his country more secure, his harsh policies have simply created resentment within his population.

At the extreme the Controller has claimed so much autonomous power that he has alienated all others. Like Pharaoh who in the end loses his Hebrew labor force, the Controller ends up with no power at all.

Moses: Challenging/Manipulator

Challenging operates in the Reflective Mode with a priority given to Truth and Commitment. Moses was clearly a deeply re-flective man who was committed to the liberation of the Hebrew slaves.

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But his reaction to the injustice as a young man was indirect. Though we lack complete information, his murder of the Egyp-tian overseer suggests he was probably a Manipulator in his younger years.

His mother and his sister certainly exemplify this tendency in their plot to hide baby Moses among the reeds in the River Nile. They strategically place their basket in a place frequented my Pharaoh’s daughter. They then position themselves conve-niently so that when the adoptive mother goes looking for a He-brew wet-nurse, Moses’ mother gets the job.

Manipulators find ways to get things done. They don’t wait for others to come on board. They work alone.

They can feel cold and remote. Their motive is knowledge. They can get so caught up in peering into the mystery of the un-known that they lose sight of others. “Please” and “thank you” do not come naturally from the lips of Manipulators.

The irony of the extreme is that they seek knowledge. But a full and complete understanding of any problem comes from people sharing information. Manipulators become lost in their own thoughts. They are no longer aware of the questions people are asking. Their limited perspective results in theories that become increasingly irrelevant.

People resent what they experience as the Manipulator’s stand-offish arrogance. But when Manipulators learn to supplement their habitual behavior with new intentions associated with giv-ing attention to others, people appreciate their great depth of in-sight – just as the people came to appreciate Moses.

Aaron: Collaborating/Waffler

Like challenging, collaborating also operates in the Reflective Mode. But with this behavior, People replace Commitment as the primary Root Value associated with Truth. The Book of Ex-

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odus suggests Aaron was most comfortable collaborating.

When Yahweh needed to find a spokes person for Moses, Aaron was the ready choice. He was good with words, as many people comfortable with this behavior are.

In the extreme people comfortable with collaborating can be-come Wafflers. They become so attentive to the perspective of others that they lose sight of their own point of view. They fail to take a stand.

In the story of the “Golden Calf” Moses is delayed returning from his meditations on the mountain. (It is not unusual for those who prioritize Truth and Commitment over People to “dis-appear” from time to time.)

The people become anxious. They ask Aaron to fashion for them a golden calf to objectify the god who led them out of slav-ery. This is clearly a violation of the second commandment: You shall make no graven image. Nevertheless Aaron yields. Because Commitment is a lower priority Root Value, he lacks the will to stand up against the people. He waffles.

Aaron values Truth over Autonomy. This does not mean that he necessarily possesses the independence of mind to defend his own point of view. It means, rather, that he remains open to multiple perspectives to inform his own understanding – for good or ill.

Aaron also values People over Commitment. He truly enjoys his relationships with others. He enjoys his connections so much that when it is time to make a decision, he falters. He wants so much not to alienate others that he is unduly influenced by them. A Waffler sees merit in what everyone has to say.

The irony of the extreme is that although Wafflers desire friend-ship, they end up driving people away. They inadvertently trivi-alize the perspectives of others as they fail to validate any one person, or conversely, fail to challenge another point of view.

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People feel Wafflers do not take them seriously. All they hear is too-easy agreement.

Jethro: Encouraging/Rescuer

People most comfortable with encouraging operate in the Active Mode. But because the Root Value Autonomy is partnered with People, attention is directed outward to others. In the story of Moses, Jethro demonstrates great insight into obstacles con-fronting his son-in-law.

People most comfortable encouraging watch others and see each in terms of their uniqueness. They value Autonomy and there-fore see each person in terms of their individuality, in terms of what makes the special. They see strengths and weakness.

Jethro watched Moses and saw his tired eyes, his stooped shoul-ders, and his wearisome gate. He was aware of Moses’ burden long before Moses was aware of himself.

Jethro encouraged Moses. He came along side the burdened leader and gave him wise counsel. “The people are coming to you to adjudicate their disputes. Appoint judges from among them. You need not be troubled with every question.”

Jethro demonstrates maturity in his counsel of Moses. He is, af-ter all, a wise elder. Perhaps in his younger days, if his encour-aging behavior was habitual, he might have fallen into the ex-treme. If encouraging is habitual a person becomes a Rescuer.

His motive is to exercise influence. He would have managed risk in the Active Mode – on behalf of others. If he had ever be-come too caught up in someone else's struggle, he would have fallen into the trap of, “I would rather just do it myself.”

In this story we see Jethro’s maturity as a wise older man. In-stead of doing for Moses he stands alongside him without taking

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over his burden. In this way he avoids the irony of the extreme.

Rescuers want to build confidence, to call out the abilities of others. But when stressed or under a deadline they lose pa-tience. Despite their high-regard for people, instead of building confidence, they inadvertently undermine it. By doing for oth-ers, they broadcast an unintentional message: “I don’t really be-lieve in you.”

An Empowered community consists of individuals in relation-ships characterized by a certain quality. They pursue common goals that are genuinely shared. Thy are mutually supportive without being indulgent. They are challenging without being di-minishing.

Unfortunately most of us have habits that limit our relational ca-pacity. Our priority tends to be personal comfort rather than re-sourcefulness in relationship. But if our goal is to live in an em-powered community, at some point we must come to terms with how our behavior sometimes undermines the very thing we hope to achieve.

Although we live with certain habits that define our relational style, we do not have to be imprisoned by them. We do not have a fixed nature when it comes to how we relate to others. We can learn to appreciate each of the Root Values. We can practice new skills that will enrich our options in relationship. We can increase our relational capacity. To that task we now turn.

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A First Step

We sometimes get stuck in habits of relating. Whether we are most comfortable Focusing, Collaborating, Challenging or En-couraging, our relational style becomes a relational stressor when we are limited to one basic set of behaviors. Controllers, Wafflers, Manipulators and Rescuers undermine the power of community.

We all sometimes fail in relationship. It comes with sharing life with others. Failure awakens us to the need to learn and grow. An empowered community consists of people who learn to in-crease their capacity for relationship.

In failure we become more self-aware. We soften and become open to learning. In our efforts to develop greater responsiveness we adopt new behaviors. The PACT-L model helps us under-stand how we may approach new ways of relating to others.

Divide the PACT-L matrix along four points of the compass: North, South, East and West. Notice that each axis demarcates two hemispheres.

The Active – Reflective polarity defines the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The Task-Relationship polarity de-fines the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. This links each relational style in pairs. The point of intersection is the one Root Value each type shares with its partner within a hemisphere.

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Northern HemisphereFocusing -- Autonomy -- Encouraging

Southern HemisphereCollaborating -- Truth -- Challenging

Eastern HemisphereFocusing -- Commitment -- Challenging

Western HemisphereEncouraging -- People -- Collaborating

Focusing and Encouraging (the North) share the Root Value of Autonomy. Collaborating and Challenging (the South) share the Root Value of Truth.

Look East to West. Focus-ing and Challenging share the Root Value, Commit-ment. Encouraging and Collaborating share the Root Value, People.

This pairing of types sug-gests the range of behav-iors accessible to us as we begin to move out of our most comfortable rela-tional style. When we begin to supplement our habitual behav-iors, we generally alternate between behaviors within a hemi-sphere.

We tend to anchor ourselves to our primary Root Value. The Root Value that ranks lowest in our Root Values systems re-mains stable as well. We then move North and South within the model -- or East and West -- depending on how we rank the two remaining Root Values.

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For example, consider one person’s Root Value system. He val-ues: 1. Autonomy2. Commitment3. People4. Truth.

His first rank Root Value and his fourth rank Root Value remain stable. He will tend switch the second and third ranked Root Values. Therefore his primary behavior is Focusing. But when he switches Commitment and People – his second and third ranked Root Values, his Root Value system takes on the profile of Encouraging.

1. Autonomy2. People3. Commitment4. Truth.

This results in an East to West behavioral migration from Focus-ing to Encouraging. This migration is not permanent, however. His primary behavior remains Focusing. He has simply adopted the supplementary behavior to serve the circumstances of the re-lationship.

Consider a person who demonstrates a Root Value system that supports Collaborating as the most comfortable behavior She ranks her Root Values:

1. People2. Truth3. Autonomy4. Commitment

Her primary Root Value People remains stable. Her fourth rank Root Value Commitment remains stable as well. Her easiest

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adaptable behavior comes when she switches the two middle terms. Truth will move to the third rank, which Autonomy moves to the second rank. Her Root Value system become:

1. People2. Autonomy3. Truth4, Commitment

We can see that in this configuration of her Root Value system she has taken on the behavioral profile of Encouraging. There-fore this person will tend to migrate North and South between Collaborating and Encouraging. The Root Values Truth and Au-tonomy switch places in the second and third rank, while the Root Values People and Commitment remain stable in the first and fourth rank.

A problem with our most comfortable behavior motivates a “hemispheric shift” between behaviors. I find Focusing is not working. I want to avoid the excesses of the Controller. I shift to my subordinate behavior, either Encouraging or Challenging, depending on how I rank my secondary Root Values.

If you are most comfortable Encouraging, you may feel trapped by trying to “support” people in your community. You realize that there is more rescuing going on than genuine encourage-ment. You shift to your subordinate behavior, either Focusing or Collaborating. Once again, it depends on how you prioritize your secondary Root Values.

The same thing applies if you prefer Challenging. You may in-creasingly become aware that people are slowly withdrawing support because they are losing trust in you. Or, if you prefer Collaborating you may begin to sense the frustration of col-leagues because you are failing to take a stand.

The PACT-L Model presents two hemispheric orientations, North-South, and East-West. It explains how we shift to a sup-

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plementary behavior. Two Root Values define our dominate style. Some improvement comes when we adopt behaviors asso-ciated with a supplementary style.

We move to a style that shares a common value. If in my Focus-ing behavior Commitment is my primary Root Value over Au-tonomy, Challenging becomes my supplementary style. If I pri-oritize Autonomy over Commitment, Encouraging will become my supplementary style.

We tend to favor a “North-South” movement, or an “East-West” movement depending on which Root Value holds the higher pri-ority. We move more easily into behaviors that share a common Root Value because it feels more “natural.”

A shift within the hemisphere requires the least amount learning. It also causes the least amount of discomfort because our first rank Root Value and fourth rank Root Value remains stable. It allows us to remain anchored in our primary Root Value.

If my most comfortable behaviors is Focusing my anchoring Root Values are Commitment and Autonomy. However, either may be dominant.

If Autonomy is dominant, I will tend to move “west” to manage unwanted controlling behavior. In frustration, if I have failed to rally my team, I may exclaim in frustration, “Fine! I will do it myself.” I have exchanged controlling for rescuing.

Consider the movement from the opposite side. The Rescuer perceives personal improvement when trading rescuing behavior for controlling behavior. Having grown tired of doing every-one’s work, the Rescuer becomes a Controller, barking orders.

If the Controller’s dominant Root Value is Commitment, rather than Autonomy, (that is, more balanced between the Active Mode and the Reflection Mode, but with a strong bias toward

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Tasks away from Relationships) the Controller will move south and trade controlling for manipulating. Likewise, the Manipula-tor with a dominate Root Value of Commitment (bias toward tasks and but balanced between the Active and Reflection Modes) will move North and trade manipulation for control.

If the Manipulator’s primary Root Value is Truth (bias toward the Reflection Mode and more balanced between Tasks and Re-lationships) the movement will be to the West. The Manipulator will surrender goals to in order to gather more information.

Likewise if the Waffler’s dominate Root Value is Truth (bias to-ward Reflection Mode and balanced between Tasks and Rela-tionships) she will slide to the east. Rather than taking a public stance on a position, she will work in the shadows. The Waffler has become a Manipulator.

But if the Waffler’s primary Root Value is People (bias toward Relationships but balanced between the Active and Reflection Mode) he will move north, and trade waffling for rescuing. He will do others people’s work rather than take a stand and risk alienating others. The Rescuer, on the other hand, whose pri-mary Root Value is People, will move south, preferring to re-main in conversation than risk alienation by calling someone to commitment.

Horizontal movement in the PACT-L model can actually limit the development of your capacity for relationship. Genuine growth requires that you work at the value level. This involves, 1) learning to appreciate all the Root Values, 2) practicing be-haviors that express each of the relational styles, and 3) allowing yourself to be formed by all the Root Values, while being sup-ported by partners who understand the challenges associated with breaking habits and engaging new intentions.

The alternative to making a hemispheric shift is to move diago-nally across the PACT-L model. This is much more difficult to do. Someone most comfortable Focusing will find learning how to Collaborate extremely difficult. Likewise, if you are most

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comfortable Collaborating, Focusing may feel next to impossi-ble. The same can be said for the Encouraging – Challenging di-vide.

Diagonal movement across the PACT-L model requires substi-tuting your first and second rank Root Value with your third and fourth rank Root Value, giving special consideration to your lowest Root Value priority. You must elevate your fourth rank priority to first place. This does not happen without great inten-tion and without a great deal of practice. We call this, The Diag-onal Challenge.

The Diagonal Challenge

An empowered community consists of common people in un-common relationships. It emerges when people begin to take re-sponsibility for the quality of their interactions. If you and I are limited in how we communicate with one another, the chances of forming an empowered community are slim.

Three steps enable us to increase our capacity for relationship. First, we raise awareness of the Root Values at work in our lives. We come to understand how what we value informs what we do. Second, we identify habits of perception, emotion and thought that limit our responsiveness to others. Third, we prac-tice new behaviors which in turn give us greater appreciation of each of the Root Values.

Early growth comes when we begin to practice a relational style that is contiguous to our base on the PACT-L model. Horizontal movement across the model requires less effort because we re-main anchored in our first rank Root Value.

To appreciate all the Root Values challenges us to elevate the Root Value we tend to neglect in our Root Value system. Prac-

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ticing new behaviors that give expression to that value is not easy. The PACT-L model represents this as a diagonal move-ment across hemispheres. We enter the opposite hemispheres from the one with which they are most comfortable. This is the diagonal challenge.

Negotiating our diagonal challenge is the most productive ap-proach to increasing our capacity for relationship. It is also the most difficult. Diagonal movement across the PACT-L model requires the re-prioritization of our Root Values. It requires a great deal of self-awareness, humility and a willingness to learn.

It also requires the tolerance of discomfort. We practice our least familiar behaviors. We embrace practices that feel clumsy if not emotionally painful. We may even have habits of thought that lead us to believe the new behaviors we are trying to learn are even wrong.

A person who is most comfortable Focusing has a Root Value priority of:

1. Commitment 2. Autonomy3. Truth 4. People.

Switch the second and third ranked Root Values and we see that her secondary behavior is Challenging. Her Root Value system temporarily becomes:

1. Commitment 2. Truth3. Autonomy 4. People.

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This shift in behavior is comparatively simple. Her primary Root Values remains Commitment and her fourth rank Root Value remains People.

Her Diagonal Challenge, however, is to practice behaviors asso-ciated with Collaborating. This move from Focusing to Collabo-rating will defy fundamental principles she holds dear. It re-flects an altogether new Root Value priority that subordinates her normally first ranked value to fourth place, and elevates her fourth ranked value to first place:

1. People2. Truth3. Autonomy4. Commitment.

This requires breaking long held habits. We become more inten-tional in our relationship with others. We adopt new skills that may be very uncomfortable for us at first, in order to partner more effectively with others.

I increase my capacity for relationship when I learn each of the four relational styles. I may always be anchored in my dominant style, but I learn to recognize situations that are best served by other behaviors.

I develop a genuine appreciation for all five Root Values: Peo-ple, Autonomy, Commitment, Truth and Legacy. I nurture these values through the practice of behaviors associated with each. Finally, I learn when to apply certain behaviors to specific social contexts. I make intentional choices informed by what the situa-tion demands.

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From Focusing to Collaborating

If you are most comfortable Focusing, you value Auton-omy and Commitment. You live in the Active Mode and are Task oriented. This em-powers you to focus exter-nally on the work that needs to be done. You subordinate the values of People and Truth.

You expand you capacity for relationship as you increasingly learn to value People and Truth as much as value Autonomy and Commitment. Remaining open to the perspective of others and honoring their fundamental worth helps you partner. You stop treating others as servants of your personal will. Learning to value People and Truth, you are drawn toward Collaborating.

As you begin this process you may have habits of emotion that make you feel that you are “caving in,” or not being “forthright,” or not “standing up for your position.” Can you overcome the urge to express yourself? Can you listen patiently and carefully to others?

You may feel like you are becoming a Waffler. The fact is you value Autonomy and Commitment too much to go that far. Au-tonomy and Commitment will remain your primary Root Val-ues. Addressing the diagonal challenge will simply allow you to collaborate when the situation requires.

In addition, when you elevate the Root Values of People and Truth, you will also become more adept at Encouraging and Challenging as well. You now have come to value each of the four Root Values. You are not only leaning to collaborate, you

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now appreciate the values that help you fulfill the role of Chal-lenging and the Encouraging as well. In addressing your one Di-agonal Challenge, you increase your relational capacity in all four relational styles.

From Collaborating to Focusing

If your most comfortable behav-ior is Collaborating you increase your capacity for relationship when you elevate the Root Val-ues Autonomy and Commit-ment. Learning to value your personal Autonomy helps you maintain appropriate bound-aries. It gives you permission to express what you believe to be important. You begin to em-brace your own perspective without feeling like it is at the ex-pense of someone else. In embracing Autonomy and Commit-ment you learn to take a stand.

To value Commitment, practice embracing goals. This inspires others to commit as well. Your best contribution of collabora-tion takes on greater power as people respond to you and experi-ence a call to commitment and come together under a common purpose. Valuing Autonomy and Commitment, in addition to People and Truth, you learn that at some point the talking must stop and the action begin.

As you begin to negotiate your diagonal challenge you may feel like a tyrant. You have habits of emotion that will make you feel that a call to commitment will result in the alienation of oth-ers. This fear may be reinforced when someone makes a differ-ent choice or disagrees with you. You will have to manage feel-ings of abandonment and loss. But you will continue to grow and gain confidence as you see real results from focusing as you help people find clarity of purpose.

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You now also develop greater competency Encouraging and Challenging as well. Encouraging and Collaborating already share the Root Value People. Learning to Focus you come to a greater appreciation of Autonomy. Encouraging behavior feels much more natural.

Likewise, Challenging and Collaborating already share the Root Value Truth. Practicing Focusing you exercise Commitment. You will find you are better able to encourage others as you de-velop competency Challenging to be the best they can be.

From Encouraging to Challenging

If your most comfortable be-havior is Encouraging, your primary Root Values are Au-tonomy and People. Your diagonal challenge is to ele-vate Truth and Commit-ment. Learning to valuing Truth, you discover there is power in naming the genuine capabilities of others. This gives your team confidence to take responsibility for themselves and for their own work.

Learning to value Commitment, begin to practice calling others to embrace their own responsibility. Rather than rescuing oth-ers, you encourage them to solve their own problems in their own ways. You help a team bring unique gifts and talents to-gether to achieve common goals.

You may feel you are “pushing too hard” when you call others to take responsibility. You will feel uncaring, or that you lack sensitivity. You may feel neglectful.

You will also be filled with doubt, that you are ignoring the

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needs of others. But you will learn a new of way of caring for people as you hold them accountable for their commitments. In time, once you elevate the values of Commitment and Truth in your life, you will become an even more powerful Encourager as you also learn to Challenge others to excel far above anyone’s expectations.

Addressing your diagonal challenge will also improve your abil-ity to collaborate and focus others. With Focusing you share the Root Value Autonomy. Learning to value Commitment will en-able you to call others to action. You share the Root Value Peo-ple with Collaborating. Learning to value you Truth will help you to appreciate their perspectives as well as their uniqueness.

From Challenging to Encouraging

If you are most comfortable Challenging your goal is to awaken the values of Auton-omy and People. You value Truth and Commitment over Autonomy and People. You sometimes fail to benefit from what you can accomplish by enlisting the help and perspec-tive of others.

You concentrate so deeply, you tend to work in the shadows. You sometimes fail to com-municate. Others may experience this as underhanded. But you would be surprised by their resentment.

Thinking is so much more efficient that speaking. You may also tend to under-appreciate how much people want to hear what you think. Your habit is to "stay in your head." You do not in-tend to neglect people. You simply look passed them because you are caught up in pursuing a good idea.

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Your diagonal challenge involves coming out of yourself to en-gage others out in the open. Self-disclosure may cause you to feel vulnerable and over-exposed. You come slowly to your ideas, but unlike the person who is more comfortable Collaborat-ing and who remains open to the perspectives of others, you “know what you know.”

Once you clamp down on an idea, you can be hard to move. Rather than debate an issue you have worked so hard to under-stand, you may sit silently in meetings and dismiss conversation partners as not yet having done the hard work of thinking.

Valuing People and Autonomy as much as you value Truth and Commitment helps you relate to others as individuals. It brings you out in the open where you discover that genuine partners can be cultivated who will advance the mission much more ef-fectively than you can alone.

It may be difficult for you when you have to deal with disagree-ment. You will have to resist retreating into yourself. You will be tempted to dismiss the perspectives of others. If you success-fully overcome these habitual reactions and can become more intentional in your response to others, you will discover how much people appreciate your insight.

In addition, learning to value People and Autonomy you will be-come much better at Focusing and Collaborating as well. You already share the Root Value Commitment with Focusing, and the Root Value Truth with Collaborating. Working your diago-nal challenge will increase your capacity for relationship.

As each of us begin to address our distinctive diagonal chal-lenge, we must try on new behaviors. This may feel odd, or even objectionable. Some of us will feel incompetent and clumsy. Others will feel rude and pushy. Habits will rouse doubts that may hinder progress.

Strong internal voices will resist the Diagonal Challenge. Like Milton’s demon whispering in the ear of our primordial parents,

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habitual reactivity will confuse us and limit our perception of al-ternatives to tried and true behaviors that have worked for us in the past, but that are not the best choice in the present circum-stance.

We need support and positive reinforcement from our peers. But in time we will grow comfortable with new behaviors. We will experience the natural feedback of improved results. We will continue to grow as we develop the ability to set aside old ways, and act with greater intention in relationship with others as together we build an empowered community.

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14From Values to Behavior

Anyone can say, “Value People,” or “Value Commitment.” The bigger challenge is to do it. Close your eyes. Hold your breath. Wish real hard. Any change?

Values and long held habits of perception, emotion and thought as well as behavior do not change without action. Here is a list-less group of people who spend most of their time avoiding au-thenticity or trying to control one another in an effort to feel se-cure. Among them power to change the world lies dormant. If only we knew how to release it?

“It is always legitimate to ask of any theory which claims to be true,” John Macmurray said, “what practical difference it would make if we believed it. If it would make no difference at all then the theory is neither true nor false, but meaningless.”

We have confidence in the Root Values concept because of the way it explains how common people come together to form un-common relationships. The power of a community is not in the talent of the people, but in their ability to leverage their unique gifts in a common purpose.

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I do not need to be a genius and you do not need to be a movie star to make a difference in the world. But we do need to be able to learn to relate to one another in a way that allows my simple idea and your modest talent to come together.

Our ability to relate to one another is the secret to releasing the power of community. What hinders us is not lack of brains or talent. We are held back only by lack of self awareness, old habits and a desire for comfort that keeps us frozen in medi-ocrity.

“Be transformed,” the old, crippled rabbi said, “by the renewing of your minds.”

Earlier we explored the Cycle of Development. Values and be-havior interact to either reinforce or transform one another. Val-ues determine what we do. Behavior expresses what we value.

When we behave in a way inconsistent with a particular value we experience internal tension. If I am most comfortable Col-laborating (valuing People and Truth) and my job requires that I fire a non-performing employee, I will experience much greater stress than my peer who is more comfortable Focusing (valuing Autonomy and Commitment).

The more “out of sync” my action and my value the greater ten-sion I will experience. If I can embrace the discomfort of the cognitive dissonance and persist in mastering the new behavior, my values will slowly change. As we practice new behaviors, slowly our values change. We become what we do.

We all have developed habits that express values and behaviors that have worked well for us in the past. But as we become more self-aware, we begin to realize where our current behavior is not working. We develop a willingness to change.

The deepest, most lasting change happens at the value level as we take action to practice a new intention. Although it is the

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FROM VALUES TO BEHAVIOR

most difficult, addressing our unique diagonal challenge in-creases our capacity for relationship.

We embrace the discomfort of trying on new behaviors. We feel awkward and clumsy at first. Where confidence accompanies habits, new behaviors come with doubt. You feel like a 12 year old, a time when just about everything you tried was unfamiliar.

If you can endure the discomfort, practicing a new intention will promote the associated Root Value. It will come alive in you. You will find your relationships enriched. You will experience greater responsiveness to changing circumstances in your world.

A value makes no practical difference if it cannot be translated into specific behavior you can practice every day.

Three behaviors will help you increase your capacity for rela-tionship. They are so simple anyone can learn them. In fact, you already practice them every day. Just as each of the Root Values already live in you, you already practice each of the be-haviors every day.

The challenge is not to learn something new, but rather to bring greater intention to something you already do. In other words, you will successfully navigate your diagonal challenge when you practice what you already know but neglect to use. It is a matter of emphasis and judgment.

The behaviors involve

1. Pacing. 2. Organizing for action. 3. Communication

Becoming more intentional in the pace of your interactions with others can bring greater balance to your Root Value system. Breaking habits of how you “organize for action” and becoming

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more intentional about how you partner with others will energize your Root Value system. Finally, remaining mindful of just one simple communication practice will transform your Root Value system. Doing these simply things will help you release the power of your community.

Pacing

Pacing is the rate of exchange between two people in a relation-ship. You may know someone whose relational pace is much faster than yours. She speaks very quickly. She may anticipate what you have to say, interrupting you in mid-sentence. You may notice that she expresses mild frustration when you take time to pause before you respond to her.

You may also know someone whose relational pace feels pon-derous. He is very deliberate in what he has to say. He seems to choose each word very carefully. He says nothing without thinking it through first. Sometimes when you ask even a simple question, he takes time – too much time! – to answer.

We can model pacing as a polar-ity between Ac-celeration and De-celeration. We overlay the pacing polarity with the Active/Reflective polarity. If your most comfortable behavior is anchored in the Northern Hemi-sphere you live in the Active Mode. You prioritize the Root Value Autonomy over Truth.

Your goal is to get outside yourself and make the world a safer place. You work fast. You are decisive. You want to kill the

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monster. If you prefer Focusing or Encouraging as your primary relational style, you have a habit of responding to situations much faster than people who are anchored in the Southern Hemisphere. You will tend to leave them behind.

If your most comfortable behavior is anchored in the Southern Hemisphere you live in the Reflective mode. You prioritize Truth over Autonomy. You go inside yourself to imagine a safer, more ideal world. You are in no hurry. The monster can’t get inside your head. Of course, if the monster does happen to get inside, you can always simply recede into the deeper recesses of your mind.

If you prefer Collaborating or Challenging you tend to approach situations thoughtfully. The slower you move, the more confi-dent you feel. You may experience people who are anchored in the Northern Hemisphere as somewhat impatient. You will tend to hold them back.

If you are most comfortable Focusing or Encouraging, as you address your diagonal challenge your goal is to move into the Southern Hemisphere. You challenge is to elevate the Root Value Truth over Autonomy. You exchange responsibility-tak-ing for perspective-seeking.

Feeling responsible inspires you to act. Why wait? This orien-tation accelerates your relational pace. Seeking the perspective of others necessarily takes time. There is so much to explain. It takes a lot of listening.

You have a lot of habits that rush you along the relational con-tinuum. You will have to be very intentional to slow yourself down. When it comes to pacing, you need to take your foot off the gas pedal and put it on the break. In doing so you may have to resist the feedback of your interior clock. You are used to ca-reening down the mountain like an avalanche. Attempting to ne-gotiate your diagonal challenge you may feel glacial.

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If you prefer Focusing you do well to slow down to give others a chance to catch up. Valuing Autonomy and Commitment you feel best when you are given authority to “command and con-trol.” Being Active oriented your eyes are always on the goal. You get busy solving problems others may not know yet exist.

When working with others you often feel impatient. You are a border collie. You are tempted to bark orders and snap at an-kles. You want others to move. Unfortunately, they are giving no sign that they have yet discovered where it is they need to go. “Just slow down!” is the heart-cry of people in relationship with you, while you want to scream, “What are you waiting for!”

If you prefer Encouraging you do well to slow down to give peo-ple time to find confidence to do the job. Valuing Autonomy and People, you feel best when others feel good. But being Ac-tive oriented you are in a hurry to solve other people’s prob-lems.

You are the parent at the Little League game biting your nails as you watch a nine year old step up to the plate. You have a hard time not stepping in and taking the baseball bat out of his hands after the first strike.

Anxiety motivates you to rush in and fix what most of the time does not need fixing. The more you watch someone else strug-gle the more anxious you become. “Just give me a chance to do it myself!” is the heart-cry of people in relationship with you, while you express genuine concern.

If your diagonal challenge requires you to move from North to South in the PACT-L Model, you want to decelerate. If you must move from South to North you must accelerate. Conver-sly, if you prefer Collaborating or Challenging you will want to stop riding the brake and give the system a little gas.

If you are most comfortable Collaborating, you speed up when

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you express what you think. But you may have a hard time making up your mind. You listen to the People you value so much. You enjoy exploring the perspective of others, but you are in no hurry to share your own.

Unfortunately this is exactly what people need you to do -- the sooner the better. Unlike those more comfortable Focusing who tend to overwhelm others with their own very energetic point of view, you “underwhelm.” You are quick to communicate inter-est, but slow to share information. “Just tell me what you think!” is the heart-cry of people waiting for you to speak up. “But what do you think?” is your familiar response.

Like those who prefer Collaborating, if you are most comfort-able Challenging, you also do well to speed up. But unlike Col-laborating types who slow down in order listen to other people, you slow down to give yourself time to think.

Deep in the Reflective Mode you invest in creating models of Truth so that you can commit to the ideas that matter. You listen to other people to gather information. You do not listen to the perspectives of others so much as evaluate them.

Unlike those who prefer Encouraging, who dive into deep water to rescue someone they fear is drowning (but who is most likely enjoying the water) you are likely to watch someone go down for the third time as you ponder the best way to help them. Until you address your diagonal challenge and speed up, you do much better writing a book on life-saving than serving as a life-guard.

To others you can feel cold-hearted, distant and uncaring. But you experience yourself as thoughtful. Speeding up for you means to coming out and engaging others openly and honestly. “Where did you go? Come out to play!” is the heart-cry of peo-ple waiting for you to engage. “I’m thinking about it,” is you habitual response.

Wherever you are anchored on the PACT-L model, breaking habits associated with relational pacing is not easy. We all have

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developed behaviors -- based on what we value -- of moving faster or slower in our interactions with others. Learning to be more intentional in our pacing increases our capacity for rela-tionship.

We can learn to how to modulate our pace depending on what the situation demands. Some of us do well to slow down. Oth-ers need help speeding up. Imagine the power of community re-leased when the person sitting across from us determines our pace rather than our unconscious desire for comfort only.

Organizing for Action

Any community – be it a family, a team, or a larger organization -- that would accomplish anything worthwhile must organize for action. This includes planning and execution. Some of us have developed habits that make us careful planners. Others have de-veloped habits that make us enthusiastic "doers."

If you are anchored in the Southern Hemisphere you are well-suited for the planning phase of any endeavor. If you are more comfortable Collaborating you gather information from many sources. You are open to new ideas and are able to listen to the concerns of every stakeholder. If you prefer Challenging you ponder solutions. You think deeply about prob-lems and penetrate what may appear to others to be impossible obstacles.

If you are anchored in the Northern Hemisphere are well-suited for the execu-

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tion phase. If you are more comfortable Focusing, you flat out get things done. Your sense of personal confidence gives you the courage to risk failure and strive even in the face of opposi-tion and resistance. If you prefer Encouraging you are a great motivator. You help others believe in themselves. You see peo-ple in terms of their unique capabilities and take great joy in see-ing them excel and win.

A community of thinkers and doers changes the world. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors remained on the move, living in no-madic communities transversing continents moving with their lunch.

As the more active among them chased down woolly mam-moths, more reflective types pondered the regenerative cycle of nature. It probably took generations of trial and error but eventu-ally they discovered an opportunity in domesticating wild grasses.

Planting grain required the clearing of land, opening dark forests to the life-giving power of sunlight. Some of the active-oriented members of the tribe shifted their attention from hunting game to felling trees. The world changed.

Increasingly nomadic communities settled to form agricultural societies around their garden plots. Food surpluses required them to organize in new ways, dividing their work among planters of grain, makers of tools and organizers of people. The changing world changed people.

More recently changes in the speed of microprocessors have al-lowed executives to carry storehouses of data on their hips and have access to a work force scattered around the globe. The world has come a long way from the days when hunters chased down a wooly mammoth with a stick. As we have changed the world, the world has changed us. But in at least one respect our relationship with the world has not changed at all. Organizing for action requires that we give attention to both pro-

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cesses and goals. A process is simply how something is done. A goal is what is done. What should be our aim? Clearing a plot of ground for planting? Or running through the forest after game? How should we invest our time, expend our energy and train our young people?

Furthermore we must organize for action on both a personal as well as an organizational level. Whether we are part of a small group or a major corporation, we establish processes that help us work together. This may be formalized in a book of policies. It may come about through an evolution of informal practices. These practices become institutionalized in a corporate culture -- the specific habits of a community -- that keep the wheels of the machine turning.

But the influence of culture is such that we sometimes forget that communities consist of individuals. Each of us come with our own personal processes that help us negotiate our life’s jour-ney. We have habits of perception, emotion, thought and behav-ior that define our relational style even apart from the influence of the organization.

We also come with personal goals. These may be very inten-tional, well-defined goals. “I want to become a doctor when I grow up.” Or they may be unconscious goals that never break the surface of awareness. “I will do anything to be loved and cherished by another human being.”

We sometimes neglect how personal goals and processes may undermine the achievement of the group. Similarly, we some-times forget how organizational goals and process can under-mine personal health.

It is never all about the organization. Some of us get so caught up in the goal that we may neglect the personal processes of oth-ers. But it is also never all about the individual. Some of us are so intimately in touch with the personal processes of others, that we lose sight of organizational goals.

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In an empowered community we are intentional in how we orga-nize for action. We learn to attend to the personal goals and pro-cesses of others while at the same time honoring goals and pro-cesses of the organization along the way. It is never all about the individual. Nor is it always about the community. Power comes in the push and pull of personal interest held in tension with the needs of others.

The line of demarcation in the PACT-L Model related to pacing was between the Northern and South Hemispheres. Those of us from the North do well to slow down. Those from the South do well to speed up. When organizing for action the line of demar-cation lies between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

If you value People over Commitment (Encouraging and Collab-orating relational styles in the Western Hemisphere) you have an uncanny ability to know what others perceive and feel. You stay in tune with their attitudes and thoughts. You are a master of personal process.

You are less comfortable zeroing in on goals. Calling others to embrace just one goal requires excluding all other options. It demands that you say, “No.” But you see so many good ideas and people feel great passion for them. You feel conflicted see-ing some value in every option.

Despite many good ideas, there can only be one idea that we em-brace together. (And it need not always be the best idea.) Al-though many goals are commendable, only one is achievable when it requires the combined and concentrated resources of ev-eryone in the room. When it comes to organizing for action, you who are more comfortable Encouraging or Collaborating are great monitors of process. But you struggle when it comes time to concentrate on a goal.

But where the West stumbles, the East (Focusing and Challeng-ing relational styles) excel. If you value Commitment you prac-tice exclusion all the time. You appreciate that commitment means denying one option to embrace another. You regularly

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sacrifice good ideas to serve better ideas. You identify goals readily.

But you tend to stumble by failing to attend to process. Individ-uals are processing all the time – in formal and informal ways – in the conference room, at the water cooler, over the internet. Organizing for action requires us not only to identify the goal, but to understand the processes by which people will authenti-cally embrace a specific goal as their own.

A goal is an idealized outcome. It exists as a hope. You project a vision that can be shared, but you must also inspire people to sacrifice alternative options and invest in the One Thing to be accomplished.

What do they perceive to be important? How do they feel about what needs to be done? What attitudes might hinder (or en-hance) their forward movement? How must they reprioritize their world in order to participate fully?

Organizing for actions requires us to express as clearly as we can the outcome we hope to achieve while tending to the process in partnership with others.

Those of us from the West (valuing People as we do) mind the process. Those of us from the East (Commitment being our pri-ority) are great with goals. To negotiate our unique diagonal challenge, some of us must learn how to attend to goals. Others of us must come to a greater appreciation of process without which nothing can be accomplished.

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Comnunication

We communicate through two basic behaviors, Listening and Speaking. Understand these words in their broadest possible terms. Listening is information-in. Speaking is information-out.

We listen with our eyes as well as with our ears. We listen with words as well. When we use language to invite more complete disclosure we are listening.

We speak with words but also with gestures, and expressions. Emotions speak. So does silence. Anything we use to make ourselves known falls under the term speaking.

Just as we map pacing and organizing for action on the PACT-L model, we map communication as well. Listeners anchor in the Southern Hemisphere, speakers in the Northern.

Those who are more comfortable Collaborating and Challenging value Truth. They have ready ears. Those who are more com-fortable Focusing and Encouraging, who value Autonomy, have active mouths.

This not to say that those from the South never speak, or that others from the North never listen. Rather, certain habits of communication have reinforced one over the other as a strategy to satisfy our need for security.

Through countless interactions beginning in childhood and con-tinuing into the adult years, certain behaviors come to dominate. If you demonstrate a more Reflective style you have picked up innumerable techniques for more effective listening.

You do not need to read books or attend classes on listening. You have done it all your life. It is a survival technique. Simi-larly if you are more Active you know how to get your point across. You do not need assertiveness training. You practice it

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every day.

The diagonal challenge requires Collaborating and Challenging styles to “speak up.” Focusing and Encouraging styles do well to “shut up.”

Is it possible that lovers tend to find partners who compliment their dominant style? If you are of the Southern Hemisphere, you may have experienced the tedium of a first date where you and your date sit silently across the table, each waiting for the other to begin a conversation.

If you are of the Northern Hemisphere with a date from the North, you may have experienced frustration because you could not “get one word in edgewise.” You might be surprised to dis-cover your date had the same assessment of you! But oh the joy when garrulous North meets attentive South. The conversation rolls as the North initiates topics of interest and the South re-sponds with a ready ear and thoughtful questions.

A relationship grows when partners learn to both listen and speak in equal measure. The key is to master two basic behav-iors: Asking Questions, and Making Statements.

Listening/Asking Questions

The Root Value associated with listening is Truth. Truth helps us see the big picture. Susan Scott uses the term “interrogating reality” to highlight the challenge of seeing the world clearly, “I’d like to get a firm grip on re-ality,” one per-son con

fessed, “but somebody keeps moving it.” To

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keep a firm grip on reality, learn to interrogate it.

Those of us who value Autonomy and Commitment may some-times lock down on a too narrow perspective excluding input from others. If we value Autonomy and People we may attend so much to the feelings of others that we forget to check in with them to get their own perspective on their experience.

The ability to ask questions comes with valuing Truth. The value of a good question goes a long way. “Active Listening” has been popular for many years among counselors, teachers, in parent-training seminars, as well as basic management classes. Active listening involves “listening for meaning.” It promotes the intention to understand another person’s point of view.

If you are anchored in the Northern Hemisphere, you may have heard of the importance of listening, but you may still be trapped in old habits of communication that prevent you from mastering good listening skills.

Speaking/Making Statements

Much attention has been given to training people to listen, rather than training them to speak. This may be because for so long traditional hierarchical organizational cultures have had a bias for the Focusing relational style. “Leaders” are Focusers. Such organizations tend to treat the other relational styles as follower styles.

Focusing/Controllers, coming from the Northern Hemisphere, do indeed become better leaders when they learn active listening skills. However, the PACT-L model suggests many of us strug-gle to speak. By speak, remember, we mean any act of self-dis-closure. In speaking we make our perspectives and intentions known.

The legacies of those of us with Collaborating or Challenging re-lational styles reveal just as many problems in community be-

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cause we fail to “speak up” as those who fail to “shut up.”

The Root Value associated with speaking is Autonomy. Auton-omy honors personal boundaries. It sees the world in terms of the particular uniqueness of people and objects. It is a defining value. It enables us to make clear distinctions.

Where someone who values Truth sees what things have in com-mon, someone who values Autonomy sees where things differ. Autonomy celebrates uniqueness.

Those of us who value Autonomy – the Focusing and Encourag-ing styles -- have great confidence in what they perceive. We see the world in high definition. We speak freely.

Those of us who value Truth – the Collaborating and Challeng-ing styles – speak less freely. We see the world in terms of the association between things. We ponder connections, likenesses and commonalities.

We do not speak what we know. Either we lack confidence that our understanding is complete (the Collaborating style), or, we commit to the idea without feeling a need to share it with others (the Challenging style).

In the case of the Collaborating style our thoughts are often pro-visional. We come to closure on an idea slowly. In the case of Challenging style we do not necessarily care to share what we think. Or thoughts are almost always private. We work hard to come to a conclusion. Once we get there, we can be hard to move.

Putting It All Together

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Earlier we explored how the PACT-L model demonstrates how we may increase our capacity for relationship. How we priori-ties each of the Root Values informs behaviors that become ha-bitual. If I value Autonomy and Commitment I will develop habits that may feel controlling in certain situations. To collabo-rate with others I must elevate the Root Values People and Truth.

This requires that I break certain habits and practice new behav-iors associated with Pacing, Organizing for Action and Commu-nication. Where I am anchored on the PACT-L model deter-mines specifically how I may best address my personal diagonal challenge.

A move from North to South requires being open other people demonstrated through a willingness to slow down and ask ques-tions. A move from South to North requires self-disclosure demonstrated through a willingness to speed up and make state-ments. A move from East to West requires tending to the per-sonal processes of other people. A move from West to East re-quires tending to goals that define the aim of tasks.

Consider how practicing these behaviors corrects the dysfunc-tion of the extreme behavior of each of the relational styles.

A Controller is someone who is limited to a Focusing relational style. If you are a Controller you increase your capacity for rela-tionship when you slow down and ask questions that address process. Asking questions hon-ors other people nad helps you be open to other points of view that exists beyond your own nar-row perspective.

You turn toward People who will enrich your understanding of

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the Truth of a particular situation as you listen to others. Asking questions enlists others in the project. You will find that as you learn to collaborate with others in this way, appropriate goals will come into even greater focus.

Questions that address process include: How do you feel about our challenge? What do you perceive to be the issue involved? How would you go about addressing the problem? How would you define the goal? What additional information do you need before you are

ready to commit?

A Waffler is someone whose relational style is limited to Collab-orating. If you are a Waffler, you increase your relational capac-ity when you speed up and practice making statements that ad-dress goals. Your diagonal challenge is to practice taking a stand.

Taking a stand helps you to elevate the Root Value Commitment and Autonomy. It sets you apart from the crowd. When you commitment to your own truth-statement, you begin to experi-ence yourself as someone unique and important.

Unlike the Controller, you need not worry about being overbear-ing. Your primary val-ues are People and Truth. When you take a stand it is likely to feel provisional to oth-ers. Your challenge is to be clear.

Make statements that address goals. For example:

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I believe the outcome should be ________. I think we have these resources available. I propose we include these action items.

A Manipulator is someone who is limited to a Challenging rela-tional style. If you are a Manipulator you increase your capacity for relationship when you speed up and self-disclose, making statements that address your own personal process.

When you self-disclose, you let others know what you are think-ing. This helps you learn to value Autonomy and People. It helps you receive others as genuine partners. At times you may feel that you are being quite open. But your habit of deep reflec-tion will lead others to perceive you as lurking in the shadows. They will not receive your ideas and feel challenged until they trust you. This comes through developing greater transparency,

You address you diagonal challenge as you self-dis-close, making statements about process. These state-ments are best framed as “I” statements. Others will feel appropriately challenged when they understand where you stand.

Statements about personal process include: I feel __________. I think _________. I recommend ___________. I am ready to commit because___________.

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A Rescuer is someone who is limited to an encouraging rela-tional style. If you are a Rescuer you increase your relational capacity when you slow doan and ask questions that address goals.

Your challenge is to raise questions about the Truth to help others perceive their own goals. In this way you will call them to Commitment, to take re-sponsibility for their own problems.

Because you value Peo-ple, when you raise an

difficult issue, it may feel intrusive to you, but it will sound most gentle in the ears of others.

Asks questions that address goals such as What do you hope to achieve? What resources do you see available to help us achieve

our goal? What actions do you think are required? \What actions are you prepared to take?

The PACT-L model helps us appreciate the importance of a di-versity of perspectives and strengths in an empowered commu-nity.

When we are Focusing we must make statements about goals. To ensure we include everyone, we do well to ask questions about process.

When we are Collaborating we ask questions about process. To ensure we do not waffle, we do well to make statements about goals.

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When we are Challenging, we ask questions about goals. To ensure that we do not manipulate, we do well to self-disclose, making statements about process.

When we are Encouraging, we make statements about process. To ensure we do not rescue, we do well to also ask questions about goals.

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Documents

The Root Values. Releasing the Power of Community