Here are three themes discussed in recent columns.

1.  Listen.

Kasper Rorsted, the chief executive of Henkel, the consumer and industrial products company based in Düsseldorf, Germany, stresses the importance of listening to people at all levels of the organization.

I do less e-mail and a lot more of being present. Last year, I just moved my office to the U.S. and traveled around for six weeks without going home. This year, I’ll go to Asia for six weeks and will visit as many sites, employees and customers as I can. So that’s one — just understanding how important it is to be where the business is and understand how it works.

How do you listen and incorporate information from people across the organization?

2. Don’t take it personally:  business is business.

Lisa Price, founder and president of Carol’s Daughter, a beauty products company, had this to say about learning to detach in business.

I have learned to be distant without really being distant. I’m very friendly with everybody, but I would get so invested before, and if there was a transition for whatever reason, it would hurt for me to lose that person. And that discomfort is very hard to deal with, and it doesn’t really have a place in business.

So I’ve found this interesting space within myself, where I can have these really great relationships and work closely with people, but still have that distance. I feel like I’m in a place now where I can be close to you and collaborative with you, but I don’t get as emotionally attached.

How have you found this space in your leadership style?

3. Fail and learn from adversity.

Quintin E. Primo III, co-founder and chief executive of Capri Capital Partners, shared his experience coping with adversity. Capri is a real estate investment and development firm based in Chicago.

It was a very frightening period for me, but what I’ve learned is that one must have faith, faith in something larger than yourself, or you truly will be sunk. Whether that faith is faith in the common good of man, whether it’s in universal rhythm or karma, or whether it be simply in God, there has to be something larger than you.

How do you cope with adversity and failure as a leader?

With 57+ channels and nothing on, now might be the time for a Leadership Channel. There is a lot of material available to assemble a daily line up that gives viewers of all ages a little bit of insight into how leaders (fictional and real) emerged from sand traps and slumps to make a real difference. Who hasn’t heard the desperate plea for ethical, thoughtful leadership in the private and public sectors? With the nation’s return to prosperity considered by many to be a long, tough road, emerging leaders need all the help they can get.

My Leadership Channel would not have reality-style programming and would steer clear of self-promoter style leaders and motivators like Donald Trump and others who might use our airwaves to support their speaking careers.

Our generations are blessed with preserved television programming, movies and recorded historical events.   They hold great value and insight into the very best Americans have to offer.  As a collective national asset, they deserve discussion and analysis through a leadership filter. noted authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner define five primary leadership practices of modeling the way, enabling others to act, encouraging the heart, challenging the process and inspiring a shared vision.

Some ideas I have for content:

• NASA was built and excelled before our eyes and well reported on television. Yet today, we have lost sight of how, for generations, it functioned to inspire a shared vision.  Science, risk, patriotism!
• Friday Night Lights (TV) has enjoyed excellent reviews, yet a small pool of followers on TV during its four-year run. This show oozes leadership practices required of adults in a small town and motivated high school football players.  There is the best plot on TV today to discuss at the family dinner table – ethics, relationships and what it takes to be a member of a team.
• Re-runs of professional women’s tennis from the 70s and early 80s, where efforts of Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova consistently projected “yes we can” to the young women of the baby boom.
• A season-by-season analysis of Alexis Carrington Colby (played by Joan Collins) of Dynasty to inaugurate original programming… sort of a “How Not to Lead.”

Finally, I can envision that programming remains fresh through a highly collaborative process where viewers are encouraged to submit content suggestions and the programmers actually act on them. Online evaluations replace Nielsen ratings.  Leadership training is not a secret, expensive luxury afforded to the privileged or chosen few. Nor does it need to be dry and humorless. What would you add to the line-up?

The essence of Mindful Leadership is to take time to reflect, allow your mind to quite, focus on a specific topic and be fully present in everything you do.  This is more important than ever in our increasingly fast paced world where it never seems like we have enough time to get done with our task list let alone take time away to think about the future and reflect on the past.   I had a chance to start my journey toward this goal and spend a few days at an innovative conference with the University of Minnesota’s Center Spirituality and Healing on Mindful Leadership.

The key driver for me attending this event was that Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, was one of two people leading this retreat and participants would get a chance to spend two days with him.  Mr. George is a great leader who I have had the pleasure of meeting in the past and who now teaches at Harvard Business School, provides commentary on many business issues for major cable news networks and is a best-selling author.  If you are looking for a great business book I strongly recommend his book titled True North.

The innovation of this conference was that it focused on bringing together Eastern and Western philosophies to work together.  Bill George shared his research on leadership development and Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche shared his wisdom from an Eastern perspective.  It was amazing how well the two worked together to weave the various practices into a toolkit that participants could use going forward.  The sessions included leadership development principles, meditation and very powerful combined dialogs where both men carried on a discussion about a specific related topic and took questions from those gathered.  I encourage you to read Mr. George’s reflections on the retreat and review the material that was presented over the two days.

Everyone involved within the community or in a leadership role struggles with the question of balance and how to get today’s tasks done while also thinking about the future.  Mindful Leadership isn’t the one thing that will solve all problems and give the perfect answers, but I do believe it can play a role in helping.  I am just beginning my journey and ask you to consider following some of the links above and stepping outside your comfort zone in the future to learn more about Mindful Leadership.  The next stage in my journey is to participate in a Mindful Leadership series that my company started a number of years ago and which many of our senior executives have completed.  I encourage you to watch for opportunities in your life to learn more about Mindful Leadership and start your own journey.

Nobody asked for help.

That case stands out in my mind because it existed in an otherwise happy, healthy workplace, but this “excessive individualism” is pretty darn common.  If we take a moment to reflect  – on other’s behavior, never our own! – this becomes quite clear.  My friend, executive coach Tom Laughlin (caravela.us) certainly wasn’t surprised by my story, noting, “The primary model that we use in building community is based not on people’s willingness to give help, but on their willingness to ask for help.”   In fact, there are generally many more people willing to help than to ask for it.    At the very core of community is a shared willingness to support one another.  That means that community members must also be willing to be supported.

Let’s admit it: asking for help seems risky.  We feel like we understand our own capabilities and motives, but we may question those of others.  Asking for help can also make us vulnerable.  Nobody wants to seem needy.  Everybody is so busy with their own stuff. To make matters worse, we tend to embrace a myth of rugged individualism: we identify with the “Lone Arranger,” the individual achiever, the solo hero.   Asking for help seems far from heroic.

Excessive individualism certainly results in sub-optimal performance.  Perhaps the greater shame, though, is the lost opportunity to connect with others.  Working together builds relationships.  How many great friendships have been forged while working on common projects?    As one grizzled (oops, I mean, “seasoned”) project manager observed, “I’ve turned adversaries into allies just by asking them to help me out.  I had to trust them a little first, but then we grew to really trust one another.  Someone I once considered almost an enemy is now one of my closest friends, and it started when I absolutely needed her help on a work project.  Asking wasn’t easy, it kind of sucked, but it really paid off in the long run.”

‘Nuff said.

Take a risk that pays off: reach out to others and ask for help, early and often.   Chances are, you’ll do better work, and have fewer strangers in your life.  You will also help others to contribute and to connect in meaningful ways.  What could be more heroic?

You hear the complaint time and time again:

• The judge in California is an activist, and has no right overruling Prop 8 when the voters approved it.
• New York should NOT allow an Islamic Center to be built near Ground Zero because MOST Americans are against it.
• The filibuster should be abolished because it blocks the will of the majority.
• President Obama should get troops out of Afghanistan immediately because the American people want him to.

The “majority rules” argument is made on both sides of the political aisle.  And the argument is always flawed.

The United States is a Representative Democracy.  Yes we elect leaders via a “popular vote” but virtually every other institution of our government is designed to prevent popular opinion from dictating policy.  (I like to think of it as an “Anti-American Idol” insurance system.  If the popular vote can make Clay Aiken a star, I don’t want it anywhere near public policy.) Thankfully, through the electoral college, the filibuster, the judicial system, the First Amendment to the Constitution… America has developed a vast array of mechanisms to protect the voice and the interests of minority populations.

Recent debates around marriage rights and the “Ground Zero Mosque” offer clear testament to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in creating a system to protect against the monopolization of power… the “slippery slope of tyranny.”

Despite the hyperbole and scare tactics around the issue, gay marriage is quite simply a question of civil rights.  It’s no coincidence the arguments against gay marriage are nearly identical to the arguments that were once made against interracial marriage.  The only difference seems to be that interracial marriage opponents were afraid the couples WOULD reproduce, while some gay marriage opponents cite the INABILITY to reproduce as a reason to deny this right.  (See the absurd StarTribune column by Katherine Kersten that seems to also make a case against marriage for people who can’t or don’t want to have children… talk about a slippery slope!)

The outrage surrounding the Islamic Center in New York is, at its core, a test of one of our most basic principals as a country.  Can a nation founded on religious freedom prevent one group from exercising this right just because they want to do it near Ground Zero?  If you start to make exceptions to religious freedom, where exactly do you draw the line??

Think of where America would be without checks on “majority rule.”  Civil rights, women’s rights, Social Security, Medicare… even something like Target Field… the list of “unpopular measures” that have benefited this country and our community goes on and on.

The Founding Fathers were indeed visionary in setting up a democratic system of government that would at the same time look out for the rights of minority populations and opinions.  Before you criticize the system remember, today’s majority could be tomorrow’s minority.

How do you feel about the concept of “majority rule?”  What are the best and worst examples of laws, rulings, etc. that have gone against the “will of the people?”

I just completed a year of service through AmeriCorps with Rebuilding Together Twin Cities, an affiliate of a national non-profit housing organization working to preserve affordable home ownership.  Rebuilding Together provides repair and rehabilitation services to low-income homeowners at no cost to the homeowner. As part of my year of service, I spent a week in New Orleans last August.  This was my first trip to this incredible city, and I was shocked by the number of homes, whole blocks and neighborhoods, that were still damaged and vacant.

Even though some time has passed and many people have been able to return to their homes, much remains to be done in this region as people are still trying to reclaim their homes and communities.  Together with volunteers and sponsors from around the country, the Rebuilding Together network is coming back to fulfill a promise this month.  With over 700 homes already rebuilt through their Rebuild 1000 initiative, the Rebuilding Together network will rebuild 50 homes in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans from August 24^th through 28^th.  The goal of this event, Fifty for Five, is not only to help these homeowners return to their homes, but also to raise awareness about the need that still exists in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf.

There are still ways to get involved in this incredible event and to help the people of the Gulf Coast.  Text “BUILD” to 85944 to donate $10 to help fund Rebuilding Together’s work in the Gulf Coast.  Consider volunteering with one of the Rebuilding Together affiliates located in the Gulf, such as Rebuilding Together New Orleans (www.rtno.org).  Follow the Twin Cities team’s efforts in New Orleans through our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/RebuildingTogetherTwinCities or discuss the ongoing need of homeowners in the Gulf Coast with neighbors and friends and help those around you remember that the people in this region still need our help.  Collectively, through these seemingly small actions, we can help Gulf Coast residents who are working to reclaim their homes and lives.

~ Michaela Brown is a guest contributor.

This past weekend, we spent a day in western Wisconsin at a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm.  With about 4.5 hours in the car and a chance to pick up and deliver some expensive veggies, one of our fellow Saturday harvesters worried about both the convenience and the value of the buy.

As a deal seeker, I feel very differently about the full experience of partnering with our CSA. As we were talking through it, we settled on this being an example of a values buy and not a value buy.  Turns out we agreed, more for less isn’t always best. It feels great.

Hands that get dirty, using a knife to cut onion tops, looking at 15 vegetables with perfect color…and working side by side with the incredibly thoughtful people that created the program.  Funny thing, I thought the best part was a bursting bag of veggies delivered weekly and two blocks away.  When we loaded up the kids and veggies for the trip back home, we thanked Mike and Patty for having us.  They looked at us strangely and then said, “no, thank you.”

When do you put your values in front of your value?  Paying more at a coop, choosing a local hardware store over the Home Depot, what buy do you feel great making?

To learn more about Springhill Community Farm, visit:  http://www.springhillcommunityfarm.com

Austin always tops the lists of great places to live for young/creative people. The city markets itself with “Keep Austin Weird” or “Live Music Capital of the World”. What is Minnesota’s brand?

A few weeks ago the Star Tribune published an editorial urging Minnesota to tell our story more effectively. The article was written after national site selectors visited Minneapolis-Saint Paul and praised several civic efforts.

How can we connect our community to Austin, Texas? The Minneapolis Regional and Saint Paul Area Chambers of Commerce intend to find out. They will host the 9th annual InterCity Leadership Visit in November. By invitation only, the civic leadership of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, will travel to Austin with a delegation of 75 community/regional representatives. The first trip was to Denver in 2001 and the ICLV has since traveled to Seattle, Boston, Dallas, San Diego, Toronto, Atlanta and Charlotte to learn about city and regional best practices.

This trip has two objectives. First is to introduce the delegation to Austin’s innovative ideas, programs and initiatives. The second, though initially less tangible, is far reaching. Relationships will develop during this shared educational experience. We will return with a more cohesive team of civic leaders working on behalf of our community. The ICLV enhances the dynamics of community vision and problem solving.

Who knows, come December, you may see some “Texas swagger” right here in Minnesota.

Learn more about Austin’s very cool brand at http://www.downtownaustintv.org.  What would be a cool brand for the Twin Cities?

• In January, the Supreme Court ruled that government cannot ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.
• Target Corporation made a $150,000 donation to a political group, MN Forward.  MN Forward was established to focus on job creation and economic growth during elections.  The organization has endorsed Republican Gubernatorial political candidate, Tom Emmer.
• Tom Emmer is against gay marriage.
• Gay-supporters have demonstrated against Target.  Moveon.org is organizing a petition, “I won’t shop at Target until it stops spending money on elections. Companies like Target should stay out of elections, period.”
• CEO Gregg Steinhafel apologized to Target employees and reiterated the corporations commitment to “fostering an environment that supports and respects the rights and beliefs of all individuals.”

There are many ways this blog post could go.  At Michael Caputo’s MPR Insight Now they discuss the Supreme Court’s decision and the free speech topic.  Also, worth noting is that Target isn’t the only corporation making donations – their donation has just received most of the attention.  But what I would like to know is what people think the role corporations should take in political campaigns.  At the heart of Target’s contribution was their support of fiscal policy.  The criticism they now face is the result of a candidate’s social policy.  Target doesn’t take their civic activity lightly.  The clearly define their role on their corporate website.

I am wondering what people think about corporations being involved in political campaigns.  How do you think corporations should be engaged in political campaigns?  How should corporations define their civic responsibility?  What happens when there are contradictions?  Would a corporate donation to a political campaign affect your buying decisions?

I look forward to hearing from you.

I’ll argue with the Reeve Foundation about how they defined the Top 20 and how they received input to make their decisions.  But, it’s also a wake-up call to show us that perhaps we’re not as good as we think we are when it comes to livability for people with disabilities, especially those of us who use wheelchairs.

How they chose their list
Of 100 major U.S. cities looked at, the Reeve Foundation said they avoided cities with extreme temperatures or snowfall. Which doesn’t explain why Chicago, Denver, Miami and several Texas cities made the cut. Extreme heat and humidity can be dangerous to folks with impaired circulation due to spinal cord injury. And, winter in Denver can be just as dicey as it is here.

Other criteria they used:

• air quality
• number of physicians, rehab specialists and rehab centers
• accessible fitness and recreation facilities
• paratransit systems
• if the city had large numbers of physically disabled people
• employment rate of people with disabilities
• age of the city (old building are harder to make accessible)
• spending and eligibility requirements for Medicaid

My argument for why we should have made the list:

• Paratransit systems are no longer the only transit to consider for people with disabilities. In the Twin Cities, we also have light rail, accessible mainline transit buses and even taxis. Also, Minnesota is one of the nation’s leaders in employment of people with disabilities.

• My employer, Courage Center, was one of the first in the nation to offer a fully accessible fitness center.  And, these places prove the “if you build it they will come” theory.  We continue to expand and offer even more fitness options throughout the metro area.

Where we need to improve
Seattle, Atlanta and post-Katrina New Orleans, lead the nation in housing and other public access issues, such as curb cuts. Chicago was called out for its Healthy Community Mapping System, which aims to point out the real accessibility of buildings and streets.

Earlier this year, I wrote about visitability. I encourage you to read more and help us make changes so there is no debate that the  Twin Cities is the most wheelchair friendly city in the nation.  With or without our climate.