The Lundins’ daughter, Carey, a TV and documentary producer (Citizen Kate)in Chicago, read my book recently and got in touch to tell me how many parallels she sees between her parents’ work and GameChangers.  She sent me a copy of The Healing Manager.  I’ve been reading it intermittently, and the more of it I read, the more, I am reminded of a favorite saying of, Derek Miller, one of my improv teachers.  “The story is always happening,” he says,  “before we’re here and after we’re gone.  We’re here to participate in it for awhile.”  Derek is talking about improv performances, but his words could apply to the work we do, or to life itself.  The depth of Derek’s saying really hits home when I read the The Healing Manager.

Ideas about working together collaboratively, of setting ego aside for the good of the community, of honoring everyone’s contributions and developing ‘quality relationships’ with one another–these are nothing new.  They’ve existed since the first six cave dwellers gave themselves a team name (Sabre Teeth?  Fire Monkeys?  Uggtopuss?) and assigned themselves roles and rules for hunting together.

Human beings have always known how to communicate on the emotional level the Lundins describe in The Healing Manager and that I write about in GameChangers.  Our most ancient ancestors had it in them to share important information with honest emotions–the beauty of cave wall drawings, the shamed slouch of a homo erectus shunned by the tribe, the alarmed howl of a sentry announcing an unwanted visitor.

And so I am given this great gift by Carey Lundin, an eloquent reminder written by her parents that we are forever seeking the same truths.  Following the same instincts.  Living the same story.  And that our obligation as human beings is to seek and express the best aspects of what we can be, and to make happiness always a possibility, even in the midst of the sadness we must inevitably encounter along the way.

Words from The Healing Manager by William and Kathleen Lundin:

“Ever since the industrial revolution employees and managers have been compelled to live a cultural myth that says emotions and feelings should not exist at work.”

“People change.  They find capacities they didn’t know they had.  They find their voices.  They look and sound brighter.  They begin to believe that values such as affection, mutual trust, and support have an important role to play at work.”

“While the big conflicts make headlines, the little, scratchy ones make the difference between profit and loss.”

“The ground rules (of the Lundins’ TQR sessions, my note) do not recognize status levels, and all employees are intermixed.  That’s the going-in bargain.  Confidentiality is agreed upon.  What people see or hear is no one else’s business.  No one can do or say anything that is judged to be wrong or stupid.  The sessions are so outlandishly different–breaking many of the usual taboos of work relationships–that they become hyper-reality.  They are powerful workplace theater.” (their itals)

“Trust is based upon discovery, of which there are two kinds.  There is the discovery of new ideas and feelings about oneself and there is the discovery of favorable attributes about others.  Employees will trust only those events of which they are part, not hearsay”

“There is potential for chaos as cultures change.  There is also potential for personal and corporate growth.  Know that culture change is a dynamic event, not always smooth.  Some former heroes will prove to be shams.  Some previously unnoticed people will become the new heroes.”

Other books by the Lundins:

When Smart People Work for Dumb Bosses

 Working with Difficult People