On this day of celebrating our nation, I am thinking about Tekahionwake, a.k.a. Pauline Johnson, who grew up a short drive from where I did. Tekahionwake was a Canadian writer and performer popular in the late 19th century. She was known for her poems and performances marking her First Nations heritage; her father was a Mohawk chief of mixed ancestry, and her mother an English immigrant. During her childhood, her home at Chiefswood in Brantford was visited by many notables of the age, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, painter Homer Watson and vice-regal Lord Dufferin. Her clever acrostic poem about our home and native land always makes me smile.


CANADA (ACROSTIC) 
By Tekahionwake (E. Pauline Johnson)

Crown of her, young Vancouver; crest of her, old Quebec; 
Atlantic and far Pacific sweeping her, keel to deck. 
North of her, ice and arctics; southward a rival's stealth; 
Aloft, her Empire's pennant; below, her nation's wealth. 
Daughter of men and markets, bearing within her hold, 
Appraised at highest value, cargoes of grain and gold.

To follow up my post last year, I am thinking of Flight Sergeant Alfred Reid Chalmers on this Remembrance Day. Chalmers lived at 20 Gerrard Street East. He served in the 101st Royal Air Force Squadron during WW II. 
   During a bombing run in the Air War over Denmark, on the return flight Chalmers's Lancaster bomber was attacked by a German night fighter and his plane crashed at Dejbjerg. Reports were that the plane exploded in the air and crashed in the fields below. A search for the crew remains was first conducted by the Wehrmacht and then a search was organized under the command of Captain Kisbye of C.B.U. in Herning and the remains collected were placed in four coffins and taken to the Dejbjerg cemetery where members of the resistance movement had dug a grave. On September 14, 1944 the crew were laid to rest.

More here: http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/collections/virtualmem/Detail/2270940?Alfred%20Reid%20Chalmers/

Remember a soldier from your Toronto neighbourhood here: http://globalnews.ca/news/932833/

On this day, it’s not the sound of the firewood crackle in the cottage stove, not the taste of cool maple syrup on warm pancakes, not the feel of the smooth canoe paddle as it dips in the early morning water, not the smell of the hickory bbq sauce on marinated chicken breasts, not the sight of sparkling sunlight on a rippling lake, that I am focused on. Today I’m locked on words, Canadian words, the words of man of letters Francis Reginald Scott. I did a school project on the lawyer, politician and social activist years ago and a few poems stuck with me like sap on my hand from a tree trunk as I steady my way down to the water’s edge.  One is below. 

Happy Canada Day!

Lakeshore by F.R. Scott

The lake is sharp along the shore
Trimming the bevelled edge of land
To level curves; the fretted sands
Go slanting down through liquid air
Till stones below shift here and there
Floating upon their broken sky
All netted by the prism wave
And rippled where the currents are.

I stare through windows at this cave
Where fish, like planes, slow-motioned, fly.
Poised in a still of gravity
The narrow minnow, flicking fin,
hangs in a paler, ochre sun,
His doorways open everywhere.

And I am a tall frond that waves
Its head below its rooted feet
Seeking the light that draws it down
To forest floors beyond its reach
Vivid with gloom and eerie dreams.

The water's deepest colonnades
Contract the blood, and to this home
That stirs the dark amphibian
With me the naked swimmers come
Drawn to their prehistoric womb.

They too are liquid as they fall
Like tumbled water loosed above
Until they lie, diagonal,
Within the cool and sheltered grove
Stroked by the fingertips of love.

Silent, our sport is drowned in fact
Too virginal for speech or sound
And each is personal and laned
Along his private aqueduct.

Too soon the tether of the lungs
Is taut and straining, and we rise
Upon our undeveloped wings
Toward the prison of our ground
A secret anguish in our thighs
And mermaids in our memories.

This is our talent, to have grown
Upright in posture, false-erect,
A landed gentry, circumspect,
Tied to a horizontal soil
The floor and ceiling of the soul;
Striving, with cold and fishy care
To make an ocean of the air.

Sometimes, upon a crowded street,
I feel the sudden rain come down
And in the old, magnetic sound
I hear the opening of a gate
That loosens all the seven seas.
Watching the whole creation drown
I muse, alone, on Ararat.

We mark Remembrance Day on November 11. This year my thoughts turn to three specific souls who were lost in World War I.

Thanks to Global TV Toronto's incredible Canada Remembers website, Torontonians can find out about WW I soldiers who paid the ultimate price using its interactive map. 

www.globalnews.ca/topics/canadaremembers2012

Sergeant Frank Jarrett, Sapper Edward M. Agnew (Military Engineer) and Private Arthur C. White, these three men either lived or had next of kin who lived on Gould, Mutual and Church Streets; streets I walk every day.

The Global TV map also links to www.canadiangreatwarproject.com, where you can find a wealth of information including their ages, occupations, when and where they enlisted, where and how they perished, where they rest - among other details.

Jarrett was a married butcher who enlisted late in 1915. He was a tall and handsome man at 30 who was assigned to The Second Battalion of the Canadian Railway Troops (CRT). The CRT built the railway networks that supplied the Front.  He had served previously with the 24th Canadian Regiment and the 7th Canadian Mounted Rifles. He died four months after he enlisted and is buried in Oxfordshire, England.

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/collections/virtualmem/photoview/392953/117097

A sapper is a soldier that has engineering duties. Originally used to build trenches under fire in ancient warfare, the term comes from the old French word sappe which means spade. Agnew also served the CRT, in the 5th Battalion.  He was a successful engineer working on a project in Northern Manitoba and left to enlist in Winnipeg in January 1916. He lied about his age, saying he was 43, when he was actually 53. Agnew was wounded by shrapnel while repairing a rail line near Ypres in October 1917. He was evacuated to England, and then to Toronto a year later, to recover.   He was discharged as medically unfit for duty a week after the war ended.  Sadly, Agnew died of his injuries in the summer of 1919 and is buried in Prospect Cemetery on St. Clair Avenue West.  His wife lived on Mutual Street.

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/collections/virtualmem/photos/425945

Arthur White was a chauffeur and enlisted on February 1, 1916 at 26.  He joined Toronto 169th Battalion.  He fought in Belgium and was reported missing October 13, 1917.  It is likely that he died in the first Battle of Passchendaele.  Not much is known about how he died and his body was never recovered.  White's name is inscribed on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, the memorial was erected for soldiers who were killed and whose graves are unknown.

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/collections/virtualmem/photos/1596996

On this day, I am grateful for the sacrifices these men made so that we can all be free.

July 1 is Canada Day.  The day when our thoughts turn to all things great, red and white.  It is the birthday of our home.

On this day I reflect on the words of philosopher Bruce Powe.  He wrote, in his book A Canada of Light, of his vision of our nation. 

...a Canada of light, a promise, a flash, an opportunity for reverie, a turning leaf, an opened door, a rendezvous of many cultures, a sometimes quieter street or pathway in the wailing world, an outpost, a DEW Line, the least likely place to incite mass ethnic hatred, a glimpse, a turning away, a provocation to think beyond single vision, a drama of inwardness, a site for talk and contemplation, a celebration of solitudes, a generous spirit wrestling with the demon of closure and the shadow of uniformity, where the vision of the country remains, fortunately, always ahead of its politicians.

He sees Canada as a “communication state”.  Something I recognize instantly.

...I perceive communication to be the value of Canada, the highest good of a state where understanding and misunderstanding, conciliatory conversation and vitriol, where constant negotiation and the expansions and limits of language, coexist. We have had to learn how to contact one another over an enormous land space...Technology forges connections and disconnections here.

We are bound together through the desire for discourse. Weather or world affairs, Canadians will talk it out. With respect for ideas and desire for precision of language, Canada is at our best when we listen, weigh, consider, contemplate, contribute, comprehend and resolve. Our reputation as middle power and honest broker was built on being the world’s communication state. 

This is why the current approach of the Canadian government baffles me. Why are the politicians in power so afraid to be Canadian?  

Adopting an increasingly uniform and dictatorial view of the way politics must be done, Canada’s standing on the world stage keeps slipping farther into irrelevance. Being the “go to” country for agreement requires confidence, good will, willingness to compromise, independence, openness and a healthy dose of “benefit of the doubt”.  The government is about finger wagging, oversimplifications, chest thumping, favoured friends, our way or no way, unyeilding moralism and sideline sitting.  This must change.

My hope is for a new page turned. A new Canadian approach that pivots on our nature as a communication state.  By 150, Canada is restored.  The world’s conflict zones welcome Canada in to guide mutual resolution.  The world’s faith in Canada restored, where our words and deeds lead the participants to say, “ah we can trust that Canada will understand and help us work it out.”

My best wishes for a wonderful day, hopefully with family and friends.

One of my all-time favorite leadership studies is found in Shakespeare’s Henry V.  The best portrayal is Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film. It features memorable performances by Derek Jacobi, Judy Dench, Robbie Coltrane, a young Christian Bale, Ian Holm and Paul Scofield and it is well worth picking up the rare DVD for your personal collection.

Branagh, himself, was 28 when he starred in and directed this monumental tale, for which he was nominated for Academy Awards in acting and directing. The film was fashioned from his performance as the youngest actor to play the lead in Henry V for the Royal Shakespeare Society in 1984. So, the making of the film is life imitating art.

I love the film because it’s a tale of a young leader who everyone underestimates, and the elder King Charles VI of France openly ridicules, prevailing and conquering France against the odds in the name of the rightful, and historically illusive, union of England and France. The young underdog triumphs.

Henry V, known for partying with naves, rogues and commoners in Shakespeare’s Henry IV before his father dies and foists the restless prince unto the throne, is an untested leader who rises to the challenge. It’s a story of risk-taking, overcoming negative perceptions, proving leadership, then persuading foes, namely French Princess Katherine (played by Branagh’s first wife Emma Thompson) - who hates Henry for embarrassing her father, brother and their subjects, to accept him as King and also husband. In the blink of an eye, Henry V morphs from war epic to romance in a way that only the Bard could pull off. 

What does this have to do with UK media executive Stephen Lambert’s popular reality show Undercover Boss?

Well, I applaud the way Shakespeare, and Branagh, tackle the tendency of leaders to become isolated from those being lead. In Act IV, Scene i, the night before the famous Battle of Agincourt, Henry dons a disguise, seeks the pulse of his frontline soldiers, weighs his moral justification for war and wrestles with his humanity against his high office in the face of the candid hopes and fears of his soldiers.

With lessons learned, Henry gives one of the most inspiring speeches in literature, The St. Crispin’s Day Speech, zeroing in on their common cause, as honourable underdogs.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. 
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition….(IV.iii.60–63) 

With that speech, Henry rallies his troops to beat the French army that is five times the size of England’s.

Undercover Boss mirrors the scenes in Act IV.  In the TV show, C-suite executives of impressive companies don disguises and take on the jobs of their frontline staff, often poorly. It’s where humbled bosses develop new insights into the backbones of their organizations and reclaim their humanity by connecting with staff via the very real and inspiring stories they live when they punch out each day. At the end of each episode, leaders speak to assembled staff about the wisdom gained from their experiences and individually reward the participants with promotions, opportunities for career development, work celebrations, dream vacations and tools to help overcome the adversity in their personal lives.  

Bridging the employee/boss gap is essential for leaders to be great.  

Undercover Boss is reality TV at its best. The best of the best I’ve seen has been an episode in my home country Canada, coincidentally, featuring the president and CEO of FedEx Canada, Lisa Lisson.  Single mother, first female and Canadian president, Lisson worked her way up to the corner office via her own inspiring story during 20+ years with the global package delivery service, but none of her career experiences prepare her to deal with her time with four very special individuals within her ranks.  

You can see for yourself in Canada on the W Network: 

• June 7 at 9 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific), 
  
• June 10 at 12:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific), 
• June 11 at 12:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 11 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific)
• July 2 at 10 a.m. (Eastern/Pacific)
• July 19 at 9 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific)

www.wnetwork.com/Shows/Undercover-Boss-Canada/Episodes/Season-1/Fedex-Express-Canada.aspx#top

Even if your company is small and you could never disguise yourself, you should strive to bridge distance between the shop floor and the corner office. Leaders need to constantly seek the truth within their organizations.  Manage by “walking around”, conduct confidential engagement surveys, create an environment that fosters respectful dialogue, reward ingenuity, spend “hands on” time trying different frontline jobs. 

Even if you commit to some of these tactics, you’ll go a long way to becoming an honourary Undercover Boss.  Just like Shakespeare’s Henry V is.

You don’t have to be Mark Hurd (Hewlett-Packard) or Harry Stonecipher (Boeing), both fired CEOs, to know that North American corporate leadership is in crisis. With reckless Wall Street executives defrauding investors and gambling on risky investments (credit default swaps), taking massive government bailouts, then rewarding their leaders with massive performance bonuses, it is no surprise that the public has a jaded view of corporate and financial leadership.

The high profile series of corporate and personal scandals by some chiefs have left many of the best and brightest disillusioned and thinking twice about taking the helm of organizations. Add to this, the new world of cyber, citizen journalism and advocacy played out in the wild west of social media.  

In 2008, a survey found that only 29 per cent of CEOs believed that social media tools can be an effective way to influence stakeholders while an equal proportion (29 per cent) believed social media outreach is ineffective.(i) In three short years, a global executive leadership survey released in June 2011 found that 65 per cent of business decision makers now believe that new media actually makes crises more difficult to manage and only 54 per cent of respondents have crisis management plans to address it.(ii) Most importantly, 81 per cent of respondents now believe that new media’s role in driving reputation during a crisis is on the rise.

Don’t despair!  Smart leaders will use this climate to restore trust and integrity through concrete action starting from inside the organization. The road back to respectability runs right through your own hallways. 

Under this leadership crisis, here are my five ways to assure confidence, morale and productivity. 

1. TURN UP THE FREQUENCY – Regular interaction with your troops is vital. If your team is alienated from you, and unaware of your vision, they will be incapable and unwilling to make, and keep, it successful. Leaders have more tools than ever to do it. Swedish hospital CEO Rod Hochman, interviews other key hospital executives and employees for his cleverly named “Rodcasts.” But though it looks like he’s in charge, his communications lead handles everything for him. There's no script. Typically they film everything in one take. In Robert Milton’s autobiography Straight From the Top he admitted how critical his daily voicemails to all Air Canada employees were to keeping employees onside during a hostile takeover attempt. Even if you’re not a billon dollar business, you too can fuel your team. For example, create a blog on your intranet and feature entries from top leaders and encourage staff to read and respond. This is a hi-tech, but more importantly, hi-touch means of sharing the vision, promoting strategy, hearing feedback and boosting comprehension of key activities.
2. DON’T FEAR SOCIAL MEDIA, INFLUENCE IT – Social media’s influence is growing especially with baby-boomers. In fact, from 2008 to 2010 the percentage of people using social networking sites fell among 18 to 22-year-olds by 12 per cent and among 23 to 35-year-olds by 8 per cent. Meanwhile, social networking use increased among 36 to 49-year-olds by 4 per cent and among 50 to 65-year-olds by 11 per cent.(iii) Social media also offers  organizations opportunities to have strategic hi-touch public conversations with key stakeholders. Northshore University Health System, affiliated with the University of Chicago, recognized the trend of patients gathering online using social media to discuss health circumstances and share advice on how to seek treatment. The suburban Chicago health network used its online platforms, Sharecare (health expert network) and NorthShoreConnect (patient records portal) to bring patient conversations already taking place, in-house. The effort has enabled the health provider to keep an edge over its rivals in the Chicagoland area, it also has been named among Thomson Reuter's list of the industry's top 10 hospital groups, in part because of its social media savvy.
3. REWARD INGENUITY AND COMPREHENSION – Great ideas are free only once. If you want to encourage a culture of innovation and efficiency you have to make it worth everyone’s while. Performance reviews should allow for bonuses and rewards geared to an employee’s concrete efforts to improve quality. If you don’t have a program, start one immediately. Similarly, key managers’ abilities to achieve understanding among subordinates should be a main priority and be tracked, acknowledged and evaluated. Senior executives at GE Card Services are reviewed annually by subordinates and assigned scores based on a leader's ability to be understood. Not only are their wallets affected, but the company can quickly isolate poor messaging, employ new learning tools and train staff to ensure quicker adoption of priorities and change.  
4. EMBRACE DISSENT – Most managers would prefer their employees simply accept their word and that would be the end of it. In the new age of transparency, workers thrive on the openness and exchange of ideas. Everyone is familiar with the story of the janitor who had the “million dollar” idea but kept it to himself because “no one asked him.”  Organizations cannot ignore employees or wait to hear from them – they have to make it part of their business. You can create and administer a regular employee pulse survey relatively easily.  It is important to include a score on how top executives are communicating corporate strategy and vision. National Semiconductor has an effective online intranet poll called The Ballot Box that mixes general interest queries with business-related questions.'
5. CLOSE THE CORPORATE GENERATION GAP – If you belong to an established or successful business, you’ve got a mix of people who have many years of service and staff who have joined more recently. There is much to learn from both. Leaders need to capitalize on the best of the experienced and new to address rapid change. The best way is through a strategic mentorship program. Former GE CEO Jack Welch underscored this in his book Jack: Straight from the Gut. He relates how both he and his protégé learned from the GE mentorship program he established. Welch learned about using technology like email and the Internet and the protégé learned about the strategy of running a billion dollar business. A few hours a week of shared experience can lead to improved performance for the experienced and the new.

By building a finely-tuned, nimble and responsive team where everyone supports the mission, outside threats to the boss and organization will be easily neutralized. 

****
i. 2008 PR Week/Burson-Marsteller CEO Survey, November 2008.
ii. 2011 Crisis Preparedness Survey by Burson-Marsteller/Penn Schoen Berland, June 28, 2011
iii. Pew Internet and American Life Project, Social networking sites and our lives, June 16, 2011