I am preparing for my first Ted Talk, in Burlington, Ontario, May 27th.

It’s a real honor to be asked to participate. The theme of the Conference is “Passion For Compassion.”

I am going to address The Teachers of the Heart.

Who has taught you the most about love and compassion? What have they taught you and how has it changed the way you think, feel and act?

I’ll be sharing The Four-Chambered Heart, an indigenous archetype first introduced to me by cultural anthropologist, Angeles Arrien.

The Full, Open, Clear and Strong Heart provide a classroom for the development of love and compassion.

My thesis at Ted is that we have spent so much money on the development of our minds and far less on the education of the heart.

But what if our global problems could only be solved by better hearts?

A statistic that startled me as I was preparing for the talk is this: last year the global military expenditure was U.S.$2.1 trillion!

That’s a ton of money to spend on fear, aggression and defensiveness.

What if we channneled $2.1 trillion dollars into kindness and compassion?

The world would look very different.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.

“Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become.” –Leo Szilard

By now, I am sure you must think of me as an uber Catholic, what with my blog on the persecution of Women Religious by the Vatican; and my newsletter on the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin.

Despite the fact that I work for two religious denominations, I am not what you would call a practicing Christian.

I have my spiritual practices but sitting in a church pew isn’t one of them. Unless I’m taking my 98 year old Aunt to Mass. I just do that to be near a real holy person. And so that she won’t try to walk alone to church again.

After spending the past few days in a convent working with some of the finest women anywhere I find myself increasingly outraged by the Vatican crackdown on the Nuns.

Where are these guys heads?

They’re talking about investigating a community of senior citizens for being too “liberal.” That’s elder abuse if you ask me.

I think Women Religious across North America–and those who support and are the beneficiary of the good work that they do for society– should march.

The sight of these elders linking arms in self-defense against the male hierarchy of their own church would and should shock society.

The Nuns have enough to worry about without this bunch of knuckleheads searching for evidence that they are soft on gays, abortion and women priests.

They’re trying to help the poor, sick, and dispossessed. At the same time they’re running schools, literacy centers and hospitals.

Try that when you’re in your seventies and beyond!

The Church has got more pressing problems than this nonsense. I say march. Show the world who the Catholic Church is so afraid of.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.

Agence France-Presse reports that the Vatican is at it again, adding to a long list of missteps by attacking U.S. women religious for their “liberal views.”

According to the news report, "The Vatican has issued a scathing condemnation of the main association of Catholic nuns in the United States for taking liberal stances on contraception, homosexuality and female priests."

Citing "serious doctrinal problems" the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has appointed an Archbishop –a man– to investigate and oversee The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents 45,000 U.S. nuns.

If the Church is looking to send a message and set a tone, this appointment certainly has.

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of a Catholic lobby group is quoted in response to the Vatican crackdown: "It's painfully obvious that the leadership of the Church is not used to having educated women form thoughtful opinions and engage in dialogue. We haven't violated any teachings."

As a volunteer consultant to the Dominican Sisters, I can tell you that what I have seen is a community devoted to service to the Church, the poor, and society at large. It is a community whose average age is 75. Most entered religious life in the 1960's, during the Renaissance of Vatican Two.

That's a lifetime of service to the Church.

Like anywhere, you find a diversity of views, both left and right. I have heard some vigorous conversation about the role of the Church, and women religious, in today's world. What I have never seen or heard is anything remotely akin to the "corporate dissent" or "radical feminist views" that LCWR is charged with.

I see and hear women who are deply concerned about injustice, poverty, education, literacy and health care issues. I also see and hear women searching for ways to make a difference in the world as their community ages and declines.

The Church, from my vantage point, is made better by it's women religious. They are a treasure to be acknowledged and supported. Instead, they are being investigated.

At least the Vatican is consistent. They fumbled the child abuse file. They are fumbling the ball again on this crackdown.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.

Like millions of others, I watched Bubba Watson break down after sinking his putt on the tenth at Augusta to win the Masters. It was a great victory.

Watson has never taken a golf lesson in his life. He is one-of-a-kind. He cried as he hugged his caddy, his Mom, and as he acknowledged the crowd.

He acknowledged his father’s recent passing, the adoption of a new baby, and realizing a life dream. It all made him cry.

There’s no lack of passion for what he’s doing!

Shortly after his victory, the critics emerged. There were those who applauded his show of emotion and those who derided it. Psychologists opined about “healthy responses.” Others suggested that “manly men” don’t cry.

It reminded me of a recent newspaper article. The National Post’s Christie Blatchford wrote a column called “Toronto: City of Sissies.”

From the title you can imagine how that went over.

Billing herself “the toughest guy in the room,” Blatchford held forth about 10 year old boys greeting each other with a hug and the feminization of men:

“I am wearying of men who are so frequently in touch with their feminine side they, not to mention me, have lost sight of the masculine one. I’m just plain sick of hugs, giving and getting, from just about anyone, but particularly man-to-man hugs.”

I am sure Blatchford would also disapprove of Bubba Watson.

I think Bubba’s victory at the Masters was cool. And so was his willingness to share what he was feeling about achieving a life dream.

Real men cry. When they’re happy, sad, frustrated, angry and afraid. It’s a normal human response and good modeling.

It’s also the ultimate expression of strength– the willingness to be vulnerable.

Thanks, Bubba Watson. It was a double victory.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.

if we are to be more innovative as a nation, one step forward is to recognize that we have fallen prey to “branch plant mentality.”

Many businesses in Canada are multinationals. They are owned abroad–the U.S., France, Germany, Switzerland, Israel–and are operated as a part of a larger system. This can lead to dependance on the parent company to do the innovative work. The Canadian branch is directed to execute global strategy in the domestic market.

In many cases, the domestic organization is a marketing and sales force. Where there is domestic manufacturing usually the operations group reports to a regional or international supply chain organization and deals with it’s own national headquarters as a client.

This can lead to a tactical focus only. Strategy, the home of innovation, becomes more about tweaking global initiatives to local markets. Productivity and profitability becomes the goal. Nothing wrong with a goal like that, except that after a period time, strategic thinking is no longer a competency.

It is muted and thwarted by complex organizational structures and bureaucracy that is difficult to navigate at the best of times. Innovative ideas, new products, services or processes often die within a bureacratic maze.

Eventually, people give up thinking outside the box because they can’t get out of out of it to begin with. Frustrated, and with little incentive to keep going, many Canadian managers “stick to their knitting.

Those who cannot stand it eventually leave for smaller organizations that provide a more creative environment or they become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses. Good solutions but not without their difficulties. Approximately 70-80% of new businesses in Canada fail.

What to do?

Innovation needs to be a value that is encouraged by domestic and global companies. Smaller countries, like Canada, can be excellent test markets because of a diverse population and international awareness.

Many companies use Canada to season it’s most promising executives for global leadership assignments. It can also be used to season it’s most promising thinkers and ideas and become an innovation hub.

As well, Canadian entrepreneurs need support from financial institutions, angel investors and the government. Currently, our risk averse business culture keeps innovation muted. When creative people cannot gain the support they need dometsically, they leave the country for more hospitable jurisdictions.

Finally, the brain drain needs to be seen for what it is– a competitive threat.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.

The news is full of stories about Canada’s innovation gap. The Public Policy Forum has published a report that blames Canada’s weak innovation and productivity growth on our relative inability to “connect the dots.”

An editorial in the Globe and Mail citing the PPF’s report, states “…(this) is not so much a matter of any supposed lack of inventiveness, or of deficient economic policies, as of a characteristically Canadian difficulty in making contacts and establishing practical collaborations among innovators and investors.”

Last night on The National, CBC’s flagship news program, host Amanda Lang called innovation “a missing component in Canada’s economic recovery.”

A panelist on the program, Professor Roger Martin described innovation as “something missing that the customer would love to have.”

Another panelist, Kunal Gupta, Chief Executive Officer of Polar Mobile, defined innovation as “taking a solution to market and having customers adopt it.”

I think both definitions– probably limited by the sound-bite timing of tv talk show– miss the basic driving force of innovation which is not relationship-oriented: the adventure of creating something from nothing!

But wait a minute! Aren’t we the people that invented:

• canola
• the walkie-talkie
• the television camera
• java programming language
• the BlackBerry
• the telephone
• the hydrofoil
• the electric streetcar
• the Canadarm
• the snowmobile
• bixi
• sonar
• basketball
• hockey
• lacrosse
• the goalie mask
• insulin
• the elctron microscope
• the garbage bag
• the alkaline battery
• the electric oven
• kerosene
• poutine
• butter tarts
• nanaimo bars
• peanut butter
• Marquis wheat
• Canada Dry

And that’s just a few.

Okay. That’s a hell of a lot of innovation.

If there’s something wrong, as the pundits and media suggest, maybe the answer is less about lacking creativity and more to do with the culture that we have created as a branch plant economy?

More thoughts on this coming up.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.

Wisdom keeper–
our long history
we entrust to you.

Now that we are gone
you must protect
this legacy.

Take the bundle.
Learn
its secrets.

Bead, bone, stone.
Seed, feather, quill.
A lock of hair.

Hear our stories.
They were lived
the hard way.

Carry this bundle.
It’s your time to lead
the millennial journey.

Paul Schratz, spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, appears to be the latest in a long lineup of tin-eared church apologists.

A recommendation presented by a panel at the Vancouver annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science called for basic rights for Whales and Dolphins–life, liberty and well-being.

Mr. Schratz is quoted as saying: “I sometimes wonder whether we’ve got our priorities mixed up when we treat animals and the environment with more respect than human beings. There are billions of people around the world who deserve our attention.”

According to Mr. Schratz, the Archdiocese “generally supports the ethical treatment of animals.”

I guess the suggestion that rights for dolphins and whales, who are endowed with high intelligence, self-awareness and socially complex systems, is too much for the Church.

“Where will this lead,” asked skeptics, according to reports in the National Post?

Hopefully to a recognition that the environment and it’s other occupants have basic rights too.

And, perhaps, to an expansion of compassion that will benefit the “billions of people who deserve our attention.”

Sheesh.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.

PBS is running a two-night, four-hour American Experience film focusing on Bill Clinton’s presidency. It’s a fascinating program.

It’s easy sometimes to forget how challenged Clinton’s political career actually was given his current popularity.

Today, Clinton carries himself like an elder statesman, someone whose combination of charm and smarts can cut through any issue, problem or challenge.

His work with the Clinton Foundation, in Haiti, brokering a deal with North Korea for the release of captured American journalists, and in relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina have made him one of the most widely admired people in the world.

That Bill Clinton is on view on PBS…but so is the man who consistently stumbled.

Despite major gifts as a politician, Clinton also had serious flaws. He was viewed widely as a reckless womanizer. Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and Monica Lewinski are apparently just three of hundreds of women Bill Clinton was alleged to be involved with outside of his marriage.

The cost of his dalliances?

His marriage to Hillary was strained to the breaking point. Clinton became only the second president in history to be impeached. Whether you believe the Starr investigation was a witch hunt or not, the four investigations cost U.S. taxpayers almost $80 billion according to CNN.

Yikes!

The moral of the story is giftedness and character are not mutually exculsive. Stay tuned for Part Two of the series, tonight on PBS.

© Patrick O’Neill 2012. All rights reserved.