Declaring Breakdowns

Preface: The 5 AM Club

I was leaving Bengaluru in February 2012, after my wife and my daughter left me on 31 August 2011. I was returning back to Pune, which was home. My wife moved back to her parents’ place, which was also in Pune; my then company was headquartered in Pune; and my parents also lived in Pune. I had all the reasons to return home to Pune.

The one concern that I had was that my entire structure, a group of friends I had come to trust, who held me together and saw me as who I was—‘a possibility’, lived in Bengaluru. I feared that once I moved back to Pune, I would lose touch with them and then they would not be available to support me.

Before I left Bengaluru, I met two of my friends, Jerry and Dinesh, over dinner. This concern was constantly on my mind, and I wanted to do something about this. Over dinner, I shared this concern with Jerry and Dinesh. What ensued was an interesting conversation and resulted in the creation of what we called ‘The 5 AM Club’.

We invited 4 other friends, Rajesh, Priyanka Shylendra, Saju Joseph and Sumit Gupta, in addition to Jerry, Dinesh and me—and the 7 of us formed ‘The 5 AM Club’.

All of us connected on a conference call at 5 AM every morning. The calls lasted between 20 and 25 minutes.

Before we began the conversations in ‘The 5 AM Club’:

ł. Each one of us identified our important cares or the different areas of our life that mattered to us.

I identified the following areas that I cared for (at that point in time in my life):

• My family
• Gift Your Organ Foundation
• My organization and the growth of my organization
• My personal development
• Once we had identified what we cared for, we declared a future in each of these areas. We asked ourselves in each area of our care, ‘One year from now, on this date, where will I be as a matter of my choice?
• The next question we asked ourselves was, ‘So that I get to where I want to be 1 year from now, where will I need to be 3 months from now, ł months from now and 9 months from now?’

Once we had declared our future of 3 months, ł months, 9 months and 1 year, we asked ourselves, every morning, ‘To achieve this future, what is it that I need to achieve today so that I achieve the future that I have declared?’

The following morning, the group would ask the other person whether she/he had indeed achieved what she/he had declared. The group provided support to individuals and acted as the structure for fulfilling the future that each one of us had created.

Interestingly, the following were the extraordinary achievements of individuals in The 5 AM Club:

1. Jerry Martin doubled his salary in 4 months.
2. Saju Joseph wanted to move with his family to the USA, and he did so. Today, he works as a senior executive in one of the largest IT companies in the world.
3. Priyanka Shylendra, as the Director Operations of the Gift Your Organ Foundation, declared that she would work with the

Karnataka state government and offer organ donation as a part of the driver’s license form. She achieved this in 4 months from the start of the club. The impact with this one move was that the Gift Your Organ Foundation had 7 times more pledges in ł months than what the Karnataka state government had in 7 years. In ł months, the number of organ transplantations that took place in Karnataka doubled from what had happened in the previous full year. The Karnataka state government acknowledged Gift Your Organ Foundation for their contributions.

• Sumit Gupta started his own company in an area of his passion— cricket.
• Rajesh, a wheelchair-bound person, a dear friend and my coach, declared that he would buy a red Hyundai i10 within 3 months. Let me bring some context here—Rajesh does not belong to a rich family. He had to work hard to get to where he has reached. When he declared he will get a red Hyundai i10, he did not know how he would do this (remember, he is wheelchair bound and his legs do not function). Only once he made the declaration, he identified agencies in Europe that manufactured equipment for cars for the differently abled. He imported that equipment and requested Hyundai to fit the equipment into the car.

Personally, I had some huge successes too. As I had mentioned earlier, my wife and daughter had walked out on me. I declared a breakdown and created a future stating that, come what may, I would get my wife and daughter back in my life. Not only did they come back in my life, after 20 months of separation, my wife and I have become parents of twins since. So, we now are a family of 5 with 3 children.

I sold my last organization and set up a new company, in the area of generative leadership. Gift Your Organ Foundation, a charitable trust that a friend and colleague, Tina Budhrani, and I had set up, has seen many highs since too. I have completed a series of new learning programmes and continue to be enrolled in one programme in the

area of generative leadership inside of my commitment to my personal development.

Why am I sharing this with you?

The reason I am sharing this is because these are prime examples of what it means to ‘declare breakdowns and create a future of choice’. Everyone in ‘The 5 AM Club’ created a future—a future of design.

The questions that we asked—such as ‘1 year from now, on this date, where would I be?’ or ‘What is it that I need to achieve today so that I achieve the future that I have declared?’—are not routine questions that people ask themselves regularly. They force you to ‘create where you want to be’ and ‘what you should do today if you want to achieve the future you have created’.

I have invited thousands of participants of my programmes to declare breakdowns in areas of their care and design new futures of choice. These distinctions have worked not only for the members of ‘The 5 AM Club’ but also for my programme participants who have achieved new futures of design.

01 Introduction

I want to begin with a claim that declaring a breakdown is not a bad thing to do. On the contrary, it is a good thing to do. A very good

thing to do. That is exactly what all of us in the 5AM Club did.

When you declare a breakdown, you actively participate in your life, in the process of creating or designing a future of your choice. This book is about you getting skilled in designing a future of your choice. And to do that, you declare breakdowns.

One of the definitions of ‘breakdown’ in the dictionary is the act of disrupting an established order so it fails to continue.1 In Generative Leadership, we distinguish a breakdown as “an act of declaring a break in the current flow and offering yourself a choice in designing a new future”.

Humans are most times blind to how and when a certain order gets formed and then we do not even question this order. This order is the way we do things. At a lot of times, this order works for us. And at many other occasions, we simply continue to operate in this automatic or programmed mode without questioning the order that gets formed. This now does not work for us anymore.

The way to deal with this is to declare a breakdown.

When I use the word ‘breakdown’, a lot of people ‘listen’2 to a mechanical breakdown. In one of my consulting assignments with a global organization with a turnover in excess of $40 billion—a member of the top management team laughed when I suggested that they declare a breakdown. He looked at the other members of the top management team and laughingly said, ‘We declare breakdowns when the lift is not working, or the printer is not working’. Later, when he understood the importance of declaring breakdowns, he said, ‘This is so powerful! I’m surprised—I did not know this!’

This is the cultural blindness of today’s corporate world. Many executives across the world do not know when and how to declare a breakdown. According to them, common sense states that you do not declare breakdowns. As a matter of fact, Bert Lance, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in Jimmy Carter’s administration, was quoted in the newsletter of the US Chamber of Commerce, Nation’s Business, May 1977, stating, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

While Bert Lance’s claim does make sense in a lot of occasions, there are as many other occasions where it is prudent and makes business sense to declare breakdowns. There are hundreds of thousands of examples of businesses having closed down or gone into liquidation and a lot of these could have been saved, only if the relevant people within these organizations had declared a breakdown at the right time. Similarly, people would have saved their jobs; negotiators would have got the deals or contracts; teams would have completed their projects on schedule; and marriages would have been saved, if timely breakdowns were declared.

This book is an invitation to you to be aware of the drift you are in; be aware of your default future if this drift continued; and, to intervene powerfully to create a new future that works for you.

A Breakdown to be Declared

At this stage, in the introduction chapter itself, I want to declare a breakdown.

1. What is the breakdown that I am declaring?

The breakdown that I want to declare is that there are only very few people who understand the need and the importance of declaring a breakdown. This book reconstructs the meaning of the

word ‘breakdown’ and creates a powerful new interpretation that can be practiced to create new futures of choice.

• What is so?

‘What is so’ describes the facts around the concerned issue. If you were to take a camera and go into boardrooms of organizations or meetings conducted by managers or leaders, the camera would capture how people are ‘indulging’ in problems, refusing to solve these problems proactively and engaging in a game of blame.

• What is the default future?

If no new action is taken in this area, executives and managers will continue to act the way they are acting. Despite their ‘best’ efforts to serve the organization, their actions will not serve the organization, and as a matter of fact may even be counterproductive.

• What is the new future that I am creating?

The new future that I am creating, right now, is that these executives and managers understand how to declare breakdowns and the importance of declaring breakdowns, and actively declare breakdowns. Declaring breakdowns will be a commonly used leadership move. Leaders and managers will engage consciously in the process of creating futures that work for them and for their organizations.

• What is missing today for that to begin happening?

People are not declaring breakdowns simply because they are unaware of this possibility and the power of this move. If they were aware of this, some of them would make attempts to learn this new leadership skill. However, because they are unaware, they are operating in a state of “no choice” in this domain. What is missing is the understanding and, more importantly, the skill of declaring breakdowns. And for them to get this understanding and skill, what is missing is an offer to them.

ł. Taking action/execution

This book is an offer to executives, senior managers and middle and junior managers. It is an offer to anyone interested in a life of design, rather than a life of drift.

I am, in the process of writing this book, taking the action and bringing into execution what I believe is a great need of the hour for the corporate world (and for people’s personal lives).

However, the key action now is that you learn how to declare breakdowns through the concepts and practices provided in this book.

What I have just done is followed a simple ł-step process in declaring a breakdown. Once I have declared the breakdown, I am managing the breakdown by identifying and then taking the missing actions.

This simple ł-step process is what this book is about. If you believe you are skilled in declaring breakdowns after having seen the process shown above, you can safely stop reading the book here.

However, if you do not have the knowledge or if you think you have this knowledge and not the skill of declaring breakdowns, then I strongly recommend that you continue reading this book. Our claim is that knowledge is of no use if you do not know how to use the knowledge, and for knowledge to be useful, you need to practise.

Through this book, I am sharing simple steps to creating a future of choice by declaring a breakdown. Through this book, I am also offering simple yet powerful generative practices to follow so that you can engage in embodied learning of important leadership distinctions. Just because I call these practices simple, it does not in any way make these practices trivial. These are integral to your learning.

Getting a breakthrough means getting a big and dramatic success, and not incremental success. My claim is—declaring a breakdown is your access to creating a breakthrough in your life.

Who is this Book for?

When you read this book, you will see me jump from personal examples of my coachees, to professional work-related examples of other coachees. I have also brought in a lot of my own examples from my personal life and also my work life. So, the question that may come up for you is, ‘Is this a book for results in a reader’s personal life, or to make one effective at work?’

This book has been written for anyone who wants to take care of what he or she cares for. What you may care for may be in the domain of your personal life, or in the domain of your work life. It is for leaders of teams, managers of groups of people, department heads, heads of functions and also for heads of organizations.

What is of importance is that you first know what you (as an individual, as a member of a team or an organization) care for, and then take care of what you care for. In my coaching work, there is a wide repertoire of examples that I could use, but I have intentionally brought in some personal examples shared by my executive coachees, because in that point of time, this is what my coachees cared for, and was of concern to them. The distinctions remain the same, irrespective of the domain of your life. It is important for you to acknowledge that you are at the source of your personal life and your work/professional life. This book is about you creating a powerful future that matters-to you.

This book is for you if you are really committed to designing a future of your choice. This book is not for you if you are committed to your excuses.

A Suggested Approach for this Book

I may have not met you and may never meet you personally (although I would love to). However, through this book, I would like to have a conversation with you, I would like to share with you some integral distinctions of leadership, of declaring breakdowns and of creating a future of choice.

My request to you is to read this book as if you and I were engaging in a one-on-one conversation. The other request that I have is when you read examples of others, see yourself in those shoes—make these examples personal.

Please participate with me in this conversation with an open mind, ready and accessible to receive some new practices.

If you follow the above-mentioned methods, I am certain you will enjoy reading the book, and get immense value from it.

The Promise of the Book

This book invites you to your power, including your power of creating and realizing futures that you care about. The promise of this book is to provide the knowledge of how to declare breakdowns and the workbook provides a platform to get skilled in declaring and dealing with breakdowns effectively.

In addition, this book will give you an insight into several generative leadership practices that have the potential of having a significant positive impact on your performance. You can only get skilled by ‘doing’ the practices over and over again.

My request to you is not to read this book as some book to get done with, but one that provokes you, stimulates you, arouses you to go into the depths of your reflection. Please engage with the practices elucidated in the workbook. My guess is if you pick up this book after

ł months, what did not seem relevant ł months ago will seem relevant ł months later.

This book also suggests several pauses for reflection. Please do stop and reflect on these questions. The real value of this book will not be in the reading of it; the real, juicy value of this book will be in you stopping and engaging with what gets provoked for you in the questions asked in this book. This book is about your life and living, not about information to remember, understand or to agree with or not.

What is Learning?

The general understanding held by many is that you learn by knowing. There is a common myth and a cultural blindness that understanding something cognitively is the same as ‘knowing it’ or ‘having learned it’. Learning, true learning, means to shift embodiment (what our body can see, attend, do and experience habitually), to shift the capacity for action and to shift what outcomes can be produced and promised. Learning is not just understanding and is not only academic. By understanding the concepts in this book, you will only ‘know about’ how to declare breakdowns. However, for you to ‘know’ how to declare breakdowns, you will need to actively practise the distinctions provided in this book. There is a difference in ‘knowing about’ and in ‘knowing’, and the difference is practice. This distinction was made by the ancient Indian scriptures, but has been forgotten in our current common sense of learning and education. Many of us, frequently, confuse ‘knowing about’ with ‘knowing’.

Learning is a function of regular practices that allow us to embody new skills and to act in new ways. By merely reading books, watching CDs or hearing audio tapes, you do not learn to embody new ways of being. What is required is to create new practices and take new actions.

Let us take the example of swimming (you can take driving, cycling, speaking in front of an audience, IT, conversing, managing teams or

any other skill). If I gave you a book on ‘How to learn swimming in 10 days’, would you be in a position to learn swimming in 10 days? Obviously not. To learn swimming, you need to get into water and practise the concepts of swimming. In a classroom, or by reading a book, you will only learn about swimming, you will not learn swimming.

Similarly, this book does not intend to make you more knowledgeable with information, which is not my endeavour. The objective of this book is to strive to make you skilled in declaring breakdowns and in the ł-step process of creating a future that matters. To get skilled, you will need to ‘do’ what the book recommends you to ‘do’ in the workbook and in between chapters. And the more you do (practise), the more skilled you will get in declaring and managing breakdowns effectively. And by doing so, you will increase your capacity to choose the future you want and to make it happen.

What is learning?

Learning is to shift embodiment, to shift capacity for action and to shift what outcomes can be produced and promised.

What is not learning?

Learning is not just understanding and is not only academic.

How does learning happen?

Learning happens through action and through practices. By understanding the concepts in this book, you will only know about how to declare breakdowns. However, for you to know how to declare breakdowns, you will need to actively practice the distinctions provided in this book. These is a difference in ‘knowing about’ and in ‘knowing’, and the difference is practice.

Reflective Pause

1. What has learning meant for you till now?
2. How is this understanding of learning different from your earlier understanding?
3. What new learning (through practice) have you recently undertaken?

Notes

1. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/breakdown, accessed 1ł February 201ł.
2. There is a difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is a biological phenomenon, and listening is a linguistic phenomenon. To listen is to interpret what you hear. You can also listen to what you smell, what you see and what you feel.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Lance, accessed 1ł February 201ł.
4. Richard Strozzi-Heckler, The Leadership Dojo: Build Your Foundation as an Exemplary Leader (California: Frog Ltd, 2007).