親愛的朝邦之友:

迎接2021， 我們祝福您健康! 平安! 順遂!

2020 新冠肺炎挑戰許多人的生活工作的模式。朝邦也做了幾個新嘗試，其中之一就是 「對話影響力」成功案例的 線上分享會，以及「對話的勇氣與實踐」線上課程。並且成功的舉辦第二屆「對話影響力」表揚暨工作坊。2021年我們將持續耕耘與精進「對話素養」。2021年的首刊是從我很喜歡的 Dr. Brene Brown的 podcast 節目整理出來的，希望你也會喜歡!

Barack Obama on Leadership, Family, and Service- an Interview by Brenne Brown

布朗博士與前美國總統專訪精華：談領導、家庭與服務

2020年12月7日，布芮尼·布朗(Brenne Brown)訪問前美國總統歐巴馬，一起談領導力、家庭與服務。大家閒聊了一下疫情間的措施後，布朗提起歐巴馬在童年時期所學到、所有孩子都應該學到的能力。布朗認為「那些可以承受矛盾的不安，就是真正的變革型領導者」，而且，歐巴馬的生命就是因成長環境中二元性特質之間的張力而塑形。

歐巴馬總統解釋他的出生就是一種二元性，從不同種族的父母、雙親成長的不同環境，到他成長過程自我發掘與理解的旅程。他對自己身份認同上的和解過程，讓他學習到「看見生命中矛盾、模糊、灰色地帶、荒謬之處，但是卻不被擊倒」的能力。

歐巴馬總統也談到母親的理念如何影響、助瀾他培養這些能力。她簡潔的一句話道盡一切：「世界很複雜。」每個人理念不同，如果因為個人偏見而忽略不同觀點，就無法真正聽到他們的想法、理解他們。要挺身領導眾人，就必須理解你想要啟發的這些人的故事。

另一個領導者需要的學習：「你的高度越高，你就會面臨更多的挑戰、問題、沒有完美答案的議題。」或許沒有完美的答案，但是可以透過「熱烈討論、精確分析、優質的資訊」，比較不同觀點，過濾不好的答案，注入人性的思維，排除不理想的成果，最後做出對整體而言更好的決策。

從母親生活風格繼承下的態度，就是她對於「那些過度自信、習慣貶低他人，或單純因為不認同自己特定理念而生氣的人感到懷疑」。歐巴馬相信每個人都是自己的個體，認同馬丁·路德·金恩博士的「兩者/都是」的做法，而不是「或許/其中之一」的作法。同時，如果要「追求社會的變革，你需要政策、分析與好的想法，也需要故事、恆心、熱情與勇氣。」這些理念深植他內心，讓他保有開放的心態，免於掉入同溫層的錯誤安全感。有時候成為領導者，不只要擁抱該群族的理想，也要「挑戰你的同族的既有思維」。比較好的作法是「接納個人與群組的主張，別事先設想是否能與他們在價值觀上有所連結。」

布朗與歐巴馬都一致認同，在現在的社會中，在媒體與新聞上不斷強調必須選邊站、社區越來越狹隘的影響下，要有獨立思維並不容易。要努力自己把事情想清楚，似乎讓人更為孤單。對布朗而言，「理解那孤單、或是勇於表達不受歡迎的觀點…就是成為自我的一部分，是堅持自己價值觀的一部分，而這就是大膽領導的核心元素。」

訪談的最後，布朗提出了幾個快問快答題。

布朗問：「在您曾經接受的關於領導的建議中，什麼是您認為值得分享的，還有哪些是不怎麼好、您需要先提醒我們要避開的？」

歐巴馬:「最好的領導的建言是…聆聽人們、聽他們的故事。不要告訴別人他們需要關心什麼，仔細聽他們、找出他們真正關心的是什麼。人們常常弄錯，誤以為領袖是那個說話的、告訴別人該做什麼的人，其實領袖是聆聽其他人、幫助他們更有力量的人。」

布朗問：「對於領導，什麼是一個既定的印象，或是我們應該捨棄的迷思？」

歐巴馬:「要成為一個很強的領導者，你必須強勢。」

布朗問：「有什麼很深刻、普世的學習，不斷在您面前提醒您不要忘記的教訓？」

歐巴馬:「…在公領域中，人們情緒上的反應多於理性的反應。」「人們可能會記得你說的話，但是他們絕對不會忘記你為他們帶來的感覺。」

最後，「能不能請您很快形容您現在的世界，您希望這個世界的樣貌，還有當您是一個社區的組織者時，最重要的問題是什麼？」

歐巴馬: 「這個世界是分裂、焦慮、挫折、部落般山頭林立。我期待的世界是團結、公平、豐盈、不那麼物質主義。就如我在稍早談到的，或許這是年齡的一個功能，我相信自由市場是一個可以在社會中創造無比財富的機制，這就跟個人的自由很像，我覺得這是很有力量、很重要的。但是我覺得，不管你是左派或右派，或是中立，我們都會對某些事情非常執著，而忽略人與人的連結、目的、服務所帶來的喜悅與意義。」

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本文節錄自:

Brown, B. (2020, December 7). Brené with President Barack Obama on Leadership, Family and Service. Retrieved 2020, from https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-president-barack-obama-on-leadership-family-and-service/

On December 7, 2020, Brenne Brown interviewed former U.S. President Barack Obama with a focus on leadership, family, and service. After some small talk on family and adjusting to COVID-19 quarantine conditions, Brown brings up the topic of a skill set that Obama acquired in his childhood that should be taught to all youths. Brown declares that “people who can hold the discomfort of paradox are truly the most transformative leaders among us,” and that Obama’s life was defined by this skill set of holding the tension of duality.

Obama explains how his origins exemplified duality, from his biracial parentage, the contrasting childhoods of his parents, to Obama’s own childhood journey of self-discovery and understanding. His experience in “[reconciling] different parts of [his] identity” is what taught him the skill “to see the paradoxes, the ambiguities, the gray areas, the absurdities … of life, but not be paralyzed by them.”

Obama then talks about how his mother’s philosophy influenced and aided the development of his skill set. She summed it up in a simple phrase, “the world’s complicated.” To expound on that, people are individuals with their own ideals and complexities, and if you dismiss them out of hand due to personal biases, then you will never truly hear them or understand them. If you aspire to leadership, then you must understand the story of the people you are trying to inspire.

Another lesson for leaders, “the higher up you go, the more you will be confronted with challenges, problems, issues that do not yield a perfect answer.” A perfect answer may not be possible, but by having “rigorous debate, good analysis, good facts,” comparing multiple differing points of view, it is possible to remove bad answers, have some humility around expected outcomes, guard against suboptimal outcomes, and end up making better decisions overall.

The second part of Obama’s mother’s lifestyle that he inherited was that she “was suspicious of people who were too sure of themselves and justified putting other people down or being mad at them just because they didn’t subscribe to a very particular ideological view.” Obama believed in the individual belonging to themselves and adopted a “both/and approach,” from Dr. Martin Luther King, and not an “either/or approach.” That, “in pursuit of social change, you need policy and analysis and smart ideas, but you also need stories and grit and passion and courage.” It was an internalized code that kept his mind open and kept him from falling into the false security of familiar categories and constructs. Being a leader is more than embodying the ideals of the group; sometimes, it is about “challenging the conventional wisdom of your own cohort.” It is better to “take individuals and groups … on their own terms and not make assumptions ahead of time about whether or not [you] can connect with them over their values.”

Brown and Obama then agree that it is difficult to be an individual in today’s society, attributing the difficulty to the influence of the media and news stations reinforcing the ideas of taking sides and narrowing communities. It makes people lonelier for trying to think things through on their own. To Brown, “understanding that loneliness, of taking an unpopular stand, … that’s part of belonging to yourself. It’s a part of staying in alignment with your values and that’s the heart of daring leadership.”

Brown and Obama go on to talk about how the tension of balancing family and work, and maintaining that tension of duality continued to help Obama in continuing to ask himself the hard questions. Having hard, tough questions repeatedly being raised resulted in better decision making, because to Obama, “the best assurance that a decision was good was if [he] understood the downsides, … the costs, … [and] internalized that there was a price to pay for it.” You cannot have true faith in your ability to succeed if you do not first fully understand all the obstacles and hard truths that are in your way.

Closing out the interview with a few rapid questions, Brown opens with “Vulnerability is…”

“Inevitable, be open to it,” replied Obama.

Brown asks, “what’s a piece of leadership advice that you’ve been given that’s so great, you should share it with us or so crappy, you need to warn us about it.”

“The best piece of leadership advice was … listening to people and their stories. Instead of telling people what they should care about, listen to find out what they actually do care about. And people tend to make the mistake of thinking a leader is the person who’s doing all the talking and telling other people what to do as opposed to hearing other people and then helping empower them.”

“What’s one stereotype or myth of leadership we need to let go of?”

“That to be a strong leader, you have to be domineering.”

“What is a hard leadership lesson that the universe just keeps putting in front of you and will continue to put in front of you until you nail it?”

“…in the public realm, people respond emotionally more than they do analytically.”

“People may remember what you said, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel.”

And lastly, “Can you quickly for me describe your world as it is and how you’d like it to be, which was your big question when you were a community organizer, right?”

“The world as it is, it is divided, anxious, frustrated, tribal. The world as I’d like it to be is more unified, more equitable, more generous, and less materialistic. One thing, and maybe this is a function of age, as I mentioned early in this interview, I’m a believer in the free market as a mechanism to create incredible wealth for societies, and it is compatible with individual freedom in ways that I think are really powerful and important, but I think that both on the left and the right, and in the center, we are so obsessed with stuff and haven’t spent enough time thinking about the joys and meaning that come from human connection, purpose, and service.”

Quotes from:

Brown, B. (2020, December 7). Brené with President Barack Obama on Leadership, Family and Service. Retrieved 2020, from https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-president-barack-obama-on-leadership-family-and-service/