Harvey Schachter, of the Globe & Mail’s “Monday Morning Manager” has been very supportive of my newsletters over the years. The Globe is Canada’s national newspaper.

Today, Mr. Schachter gave my latest newsletter, Transformational Leader, a half-page spread, featured below (from the on-line edition of the paper.) The graphic they used to feature the article was arresting. If you would like to receive the newsletter on a monthly basis you can subscribe by following the link to the Extraordinary Conversations website. The newsletter is free to subscribers.

The power of words

Leaders recognize them. And consultant Patrick O’Neill says in his Extraordinary Conversations newsletter that seven words, applied with integrity and precision, can transform your relationships

Globe and Mail Update

Published on Monday, Aug. 30, 2010 7:01AM EDT
Last updated on Monday, Aug. 30, 2010 7:20AM EDT

YES

Yes sends a clear message, confirming agreement with someone else’s point of view. When we say yes, we are often accepting a request to do something (or refrain from doing something), and accepting responsibility for a certain action. “Yes is not perhaps. When we muddle the two words we make a mess,” Mr. O’Neill writes. “Perhaps is an expression of uncertainty. It is a valid response when there is a requirement for further thought, negotiation, or where we may lack the authority for agreement.”

NO

This is tougher to say, and if you don’t then you may agree to things you are half-hearted about. Being overwhelmed at work may result from an inability to say no or to negotiate better time frames. “Sometimes avoiding no and going with the flow is the worst thing you can do. It can damage relationships as quickly as a misstated yes,” he says.

PLEASE

Our workplaces are less hierarchical and less command-and-control than in the past. You won’t succeed by barking orders, as if in the military. If you want employee commitment, you must treat others with respect and master the word please.

THANKS

This recognizes the actions of others who have helped you. It should be commonplace at work but Mr. O’Neill has spent hundreds of hours in many organizations over the years listening to employees complain about the absence of this word at work and trying to rectify the damage caused by its absence. “In my experience, a little more time spent by leaders saying thanks to their people and giving credit where credit is due, goes a long way to improving morale,” he writes. “An honest, heartfelt thanks is one of the most empowering experiences you can have. This is especially true when the person delivering the appreciation is an authority figure, or is a figure of respect.”

HELP

When we need assistance, this is the word to use, but often we choke it back, spending hours or days in quiet desperation trying to figure something out or trying to cope with too much work. “Maybe we think it betrays weakness, incompetence, or we’re too proud to ask? But the request for assistance advances action. Refusal to ask for help always creates a bottleneck,” he notes.

STOP

We are all operating on hyperspeed these days, but sometimes a leader must recognize it’s time to put on the brakes rather than risk the fallout from reckless driving. “It is the appropriate word when people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, are confused about what to do, or are on a collision course with each other. Activity that is manic is a sign of panic,” he says. Stop can also signal that limits or boundaries have been crossed.

SORRY

We all make mistakes – even male leaders, Mr. O’Neill notes. When people have been hurt, you should express regret and repair the relationship.

© Patrick O’Neill 2010. All rights reserved

Get comfortable failing.
Chance often ends with a rude thump.
Those who eventually succeed
try again, try differently, try better.
Those who give up
quit on themselves.
Failure is the occupational hazard
of invention.
It goes with the territory.

© Patrick O’Neill 2010. All rights reserved

My colleague and friend, Philip Shepherd has accomplished the impossible: he has published a fine, new book New Self, New World. I know it has been a multi-year labour of love.

I admire Philip for his unwavering commitment to making this important contribution. It’s not easy being an author, especially today. In light of the sorry state of the publishing industry, his achievement is even more remarkable.

Author and teacher Andrew Harvey, says in the foreword to the book:

“Philip Shepherd, in his profound and original masterpiece…now adds his distinctive, elegant, fierce and tender voice to those of his distinguished evolutionary predecessors. His book–written over a decade of painstaking, gruelling self-exploration, and with the highest nobility and clariety of soul–provides us all with an indispensible guide to why a radically embodied divine humanity needs to be birthed now, and birthed fast, and it shows us how to allow this bewildering and majestic destiny to be worked out in and through us through divine grace.”

New Self, New World is an important book. It is published by North Atlantic Books.

© Patrick O’Neill 2010. All rights reserved

In that house
you were conceived.
See that room
on the second floor
to the left?
That’s it, that’s the holy place.

Later,
your mother and I
went for a walk
up the mountain,
stopping
at a clearing.

Chickadees
sang to us
from the spruce
trees,
told us your name–
the name of a girl.

We vowed
to make
a home
on the spot
where the birds
foretold your birth.

© Patrick O’Neill 2010. All rights reserved

Take care of the children,
for they have a long way to go.
Take care of the elders,
for they have come a long way.
Take care of those in between,
for they are doing the work.

–African Proverb

Although the summer is only half over, it has been eventful.

In the space of a month three extended family members passed away. The youngest was just twenty years old; two elders, one in her late eighties and the other in his mid-nineties also departed.

There have been numerous lessons in these events, some of which I am still integrating. Here are some that I can share:

• It is sad when an elder passes. We suffer the loss of someone in our family who has meant something to us, who has contributed –for better or worse– something to our journey. They may be the last of their generation and that reminds us of our own impeding rendez-vous with death.

• The presence of death demands that we review our lives to make sure that we are living them according to what is most meaningful, what is most purposeful, what is most urgent. Death always asks us to consider: “Are you doing what you came here to do? Are you using the great gift of life to the fullest?”

• When an older person dies it is a sad event. But that death remains within the natural order of things. The tapestry of life continues to unfold as it should. When a young person dies the tapestry is irreparably torn. The loss of our children is an ordeal that no parent should ever have to experience.

• Death brings out the best and worst in people and families. It can be an agency for greater solidarity, deepening compassion, community building and generosity of spirit. It can also reveal pettiness, divisiveness, and mean-spiritedness. Death is an agent of revelation.

• The outpouring of love and support from friends, especially young people, who supported my nephew during his illness was deeply moving. Hundreds of young men and women paid tribute to him through their ongoing support before, during, and after his passing. Most of all, the loving kindness extended by his siblings and cousins touched my heart. It says a lot about my nephew. It also says a lot about the quality of people he had around him.

• Family is more important with each passing day. If the family is not close or has unreconciled differences, what is one small step that can be taken every day to bridge the differences? Such steps do not have to be transformational in themselves. Just a small step that is easy to do, and taken every day can lead to a breakthrough.

• We have a tendency to fall into magical thinking about our own mortality. No one is indestructible. We need to remember to “Live each day to the fullest.”

May all my departed relations rest in peace in the Shimmering World.

© Patrick O’Neill 2010. All rights reserved