Breaking Barriers: Arts for Peace!

"In China the dance troop engagements concluded," Thomas Warfield recalled, "so I decided to travel and see China on my own. I boarded a train and set out. Though I spoke Cantonese, I could not speak Mandarin so signs meant nothing. After a long ride the train stopped though nothing was in sight but a small girl digging in the sand. As I stepped down, she literally shook, shivered and backed away. Suddenly she stopped making circles in the sand with her stick. Her eyes fixed frightened on me... she stood statue-like. No doubt I was the first black person she had ever seen and she did not know what to do. She had not realized there were people on this planet very different from herself."

Circles in Sand "Slowly - maybe over thirty minutes - I made my way to the stick, kneeled, and slowly began to make circles in the sand," Warfield continued. "Before long the little Chinese girl found another stick, settled on a nearby spot and drew sand circles once more. We were quiet, but somehow I felt we connected deeply as our hands moved the sticks in rhythm. She drew, then I drew - her line, then mine. Before I knew it, another train stopped and I determined that I must leave. So I put down my stick, looked at the little girl and waved as I boarded the train."

Eventually Warfield realized this encounter was the most meaningful connection he experienced in life to that point. "It surpassed language, race, age, gender, class -all the cultural issues that separate. Yet, I connected powerfully."

Who is Thomas Warfield? His mother's a minister and his father a conductor. He's the nephew of internationally renowned singers William Warfield and Leontyne Price. He made a name in dance...

Warfield's career spans 14 years with the Opera Theatre of Rochester, and performances with the New York City Opera and Metropolitan Opera afforded him the experience of working with many of the world's leading artists, including directors Franco Zefferelli and Spike Lee, composers John Adams and Marvin Hamlisch, scientist Carl Sagan, singers Placido Domingo and Beverly Sills.

As a professional dancer, singer, pianist, actor, composer, choreographer, music & theatre director, teacher, producer and poet, Mr. Warfield has traveled to dozens of cities throughout the U.S. as well as Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Athens, Taiwan, Bangkok, Seoul, Stockholm, mainland China and Macau - where he was associate director and guest artist for a Chinese dance company, and decorated as an honorary citizen of Macau. For 2 years, Thomas was dance captain and performer with the Viva Musical Circus in Japan - a goodwill collaboration between American, Japanese and Russian (Moscow Circus) artists.

PeaceArt helps define peace "Art's about creativity captured through love and understanding," says Warfield. "The arts connect to people as I connected to that young Chinese girl - Arts soar above barriers that keep us apart - language, race, age, gender and class." Warfield founded and now directs PeaceArt International, a non profit organization. Artists of all genres participate to build peace and community through "individual and collective creativity in the arts."

Poetry Circles for Peace Thomas Warfield uses his talent to create a circle for peace. He decided to begin with a poetry project - He invited people to contribute two lines of poetry for A Global Poem In Praise of Peace. Soon his mailbox was flooded with mail from around the world, from all kinds of people. Mother Teresa told Warfield she could not write a poem, but she jotted down her thoughts. Warfield says her ideas are absolutely powerful. He had poems from President Jimmy Carter, soldiers in Nicaragua and Leonard Bernstein amongst others. He is currently compiling these poems to publish as a book.

Legacy circles As I listened to Warfield today, I asked, "What am I doing to create peace and understanding with people different from me?" What would I include in two lines of poetry? Here's a rough start...

Build brand new brain dendrites... oh move your feet to butterfly, brush color, write, act, make melody of...
Love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, hospitality...

What's your life legacy for generations coming? What two lines would you create? Create your two line poem and I'll add it here....

Thanks, Galba Bright of Tune Up your EQ for taking the challenge to write the two line poem, "As for me, from my heart, 'A vision without passion is merely an idea. Developing people and transforming organisations is my powerful purpose.'"

Galba, thanks... you make a great difference for people in Jamaica and beyond!

Al of 7P Productions shares a quote that moves his life forward...

"Only love creates something out of nothing." Al we're glad you shared this quote since it shows that love is the core of creativity.

Silence Stirs Insights

The notes of the lecturer are passed to the notes of the listener - without going through the mind of either... Mortimer Adler

Have you stopped to wait in silence after asking a question when leading?... It seems risky and uncomfortable... What if no one says anything? The gut screams that you'll appear foolish since you appear to be wasting time. So why bother?

Connections - Silence allows folks just a bit of time to link what a speaker says to their ideas, knowledge and experience. Silence provides enough space to make connections. When you stop and pause, it opens space for deeper thoughts.

Learning - Leaders around a table have a chance to think and reflect... when this space is provided some of our most important thinking occurs - and ideas come forth that're otherwise smothered. "Some leaders view staff development as conveying information," Dennis Sparks, of the National Development Council claims. "It's not about what a trainer or coach does, but the effort invested by leaders as learners as they participate." Spaces of silence allow for reflection.

Active Listening - When silence occurs as others speak, you engage active listening, something most humans do not do since in many cultures including the U.S. , we're formulating our next words and waiting our next opportunity to jump in and speak. When we engage in this, we really do not listen. However, we could learn from Asian cultures where speaking patterns differ and people pause to think and don't have the pressure to jump in just to fill a pause. How would you rate your listening skills?

Community - Important and lasting learning occurs in community. The Inuit elders' talking stick can work as a tool to enforce silence and enhance individual thinking and reflection until space is provided for input as each holds the stick to speak. Dr. Ellen Weber saw the effectiveness of a talking stick when living with the Inuit for two years in the High Arctic and uses this approach at many of our MITA sessions. Any neutral object serves well. Talking stick sessions ultimately lead to new ideas at the table. And, people in the community tend to bond more as deeper thinking emerges and they learn more about each other at a deeper level.

Voice - Though it may seem strange to include voice in a post on silence, many voices are never heard when only a few speak. For instance, Anna, one of my commenters said last week, "I know that I know, but my confidence level would be sometimes low. And I sometimes could not believe how many engineers I saw that they argue their way so strongly that they are right, later to find out that they were wrong." Anna's voice was important, but was often held back at engineering tables. Spaces of silence, along with the talking stick, can bring new confidence to all players so that their thoughtful contributions can come forth. What might happen in your team?

Reconfigures Minds - the most powerful changes in thinking create new neural networks in the brain and develop relationships that sustain us and our work. Stillness and spaces to reflect enable that process.

Cultivates the Heart - Silence affects your beliefs in ways that affect you and other leaders.

Ready to Still Your Voice? Consider ways stillness might be used to begin a conference or meeting, as a transition between topics of discussion, or to help leaders in meetings reflect on what they've learned, gather their thinking or ponder where to from here. Surprises come to those who listen.

Thanks, Steve Roesler, you stirred my thought and research on silence in your post on Employee Needs. This post cooked a few days on the back burner.

Remember, Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing... William S. Burroughs



Thoughts?

It Takes Art to Create Diversity that Works

Diversity in the workplace not only helps companies stay in tune with customers, but stirs ideas and positively influences workers’ attitudes according to Washington Post columnist, Shankar Vedantam. On the other hand, it takes real art to create a truly diverse environment where people respect and value each other. What makes the difference?

Interestingly, Margaret Neale of Standford’s Graduate School of Business, disentangled 50 years of research on diversity to see:

diversity across dimensions, such as functional expertise, education, or personality, can increase performance by enhancing creativity or group problem-solving. In contrast, more visible diversity, such as race, gender, or age, can have negative effects on a group -- at least initially.

Surprisingly, teams more alike, who get along well, are less likely to find innovations that work because they share similar perspectives and get stuck in ruts. In fact, they perform lower on group problem solving tasks.

So where to begin...

Focus on commonalities first. Recent research on the brain reveals that “one way to reduce prejudice is to emphasize how alike different groups are.”

Try assigning roles and then switching them. Roles might be devil’s advocate, cheerleader, inventor, organizer and social chair. Team members can suggest roles and change them.

Create opportunities to tap peoples’ brainpower. To counter peoples’ views that “Diversity Training Stinks,” Ellen Weber asks, “Where could a community go when we tap into more people’s brilliant minds for answers?”

The art of putting all this together makes the difference...One problem groups encounter, is that a groups’ goals and values can lead to contentions and conflicts. Paradoxically, this can lead to better performance if managed effectively. "Managers simply must get team members to be in agreement,” Margaret Neale maintains, “about what the task is and the values that drive its pursuit." The tone managers set initially in meetings to establish a group's mission and values helps bridge diversity along both visible and invisible lines.

What's the difference? Recent findings show diversity pays since, “Customers and employees want to shop and work in environments which reflect their local communities,” Lesley Strathie, Chief Executive of Jobcentre Plus concludes. And, by enlarging the scope of their recruitment base, employers can plug skills gaps, improve retention and increase productivity.

The art of creating diversity well reaps rich dividends. Diverse workforces lead to better business! Ready to change your approaches?

Liz Strauss Celebrates Bloggers' Diverse Talents

A visit to Liz Strauss's blog takes your breath away at times. Surprises there make it hard to predict what Liz will introduce next. I delight in new discoveries with each visit.

One of the best parts -- Liz loves to celebrate so she creates spaces to honor bloggers' diverse gifts. These center stages include S.O.B.'s, Successful and Outstanding Blogs, B.A.D.'s, Blogger A Day and The Mike is On. Liz thinks these can help us all get smarter and I so agree.

Recently Liz named Brain Based Biz as a S.O.B. I am humbled and say thanks for this recognition.

You're a great innovator and community builder, Liz. What would the blogosphere be without you? I anticipate more adventures, both serious and fun as I stop by Successful and Outstanding Blogs to see what's up next.