Dene Rossouw

New blog site for Dene Rossouw

2010-08-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

Just to let you know my new blog site is at www.denerossouw.com.

The power of one's own story - a dialogue with cancer - Dr Bruce Mills

2010-06-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

Together with my colleague and friend, Tracey Wimperley, we are exploring the way people transition to the next phase in their lives, often after working many years in a particular job and usually after a lot of soul-searching and anguish. Eventually these seekers of a purposeful life find their true calling, passion, north star or essential story. Sometimes it happens because of an event.

This got me thinking about Dr Bruce Mills, who I met when I lived in Nova Scotia. Bruce's story is incredible. It's a story of how his life was transformed because of an event and how his commitment to engage in an inner dialogue with self and others enabled him to navigated his way through to savour every moment of life.

Dr Bruce Mills

Self talk - a dialogue with cancer

Dr. Bruce Mills - My own survival story is an amazing one, but probably not unlike many others you will know. One is faced with an impossibility – only to survive it by accommodating major change re some horrific condition. There are many factors at work when this happens, not the least of which is a human instinct for life and living. When drowning, humans always seek the surface. But life is nothing unless it means something. We do not survive for nothing; neither are we saved to either boast or complain. We survive - and thrive - because our lives are now remarkably changed by some event – sometimes the very process of survival of the impossible is transforming. We are not necessarily stronger. But we are changed.

Another factor that must be considered is “the miraculous” aspects of life. Some of us survive on a most tentative and improbable (unbelievable) basis. I am one of these for which no rational explanation exists. Despite tumours, metastases in brain, spine, hip and shoulder joints etc – I lived and a mere two years later, not a single signature could be located via diagnostics. The life I now enjoy should not be my life. My life, my survival is technically and rationally impossible. No one can explain or understand my survival – I cannot, even on my own, comprehend why I continue to live, despite the odds that so compellingly go in the opposite direction. So, in order to understand, it is necessary to go beyond human explanations. For this explanation, I need to invoke aspects of the divine as these pertain to my human and very personal / unique experience.

Another important factor has to do with compromise: When death comes, we often find ourselves bargaining for one thing in exchange for something else – life in exchange for some new limitation or condition. This can be of nearly cosmic proportions – life versus death, for example. Cancer and its effects and treatments cause severe tissue and nerve damage, which, in turn, cause numerous problems for survivors. In my case, death would have been a welcomed relief from my depleted, deteriorating and most painful human condition. I purchased my life from death: My life exists because I was able to willingly (and gratefully) accept pain and drugs as conditions of my survival.

But pain is not meaningless / life is not meaningless. Pain is the voice and the reason I must survive. It is not an enemy. It is the price or the currency of survival or the counterpoint that keeps me close / attentive to my very precarious existence. Pain awakens an acute awareness that I am very much alive, but that this life is not to be taken for granted. In fact, I live very close to the edge and this is what pain means. It is a struggle, sometimes, but life is always one step ahead of where the pain comes from and what it means. Pain does not beckon us towards death and despair unless we are stupid and mindless. Instead, it teaches us to fight and to struggle and to move from one place to another – constantly. It motivates me to live – not to give up. It is the instinct to find the surface when I am drowning.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to have made the costly journey (for not everyone has the resources to afford such experiences) are blessed with very special lives. The alternatives are not, for us, tenable ones. Death would have been, for me, a very easy prescription to take. I did not fear it any more than any other intervention. Instead, I was sometimes afraid it would not come for me. For this reason, I stockpiled a cache of drugs in the event I needed to go into death on my own. The drugs would be my pathways into death if death did not, on its own, show the way. Living with pain, though, is a far greater challenge than a painless death. And, the price for living is great indeed.

And regarding the “miraculous” factor: Pain and its concomitant effects (fear, despair, panic etc) have brought me to the feet of God. It has taught me that I am neither alone nor helpless. It continually reminds me that I am alive and that my life is not merely a psychobiological event. Pain is a bewildering process of solving the various existential puzzles on a daily basis – and it brings these into my awareness. I am not alone or helpless. And God will not take pain away now or ever because it is the price I must pay for the life I have been given, in exchange for my escape from death in 1995. And when I live in a puzzle-solving mode, there is no darkness. I am told that things will get worse for me over time. I must then focus on the present and prepare myself for what will eventually come. When severe pain comes, it can create existential crises in relation to what is supposed to happen. Or it can cause disembodiment and alienation to avoid thinking and awareness. For me, pain positions me in my immediate world. It keeps me grounded and focused.

Finally, my date with death was to have been during Christmas 1995. This is a most interesting living metaphor. Although I waited with diligence and much preparedness, it did not come for me. It wavered and teased and seduced during those few weeks I spent here with my family who patiently waited with me. I did the same, toying constantly with the suicide cache. Teasing death even more, I stopped taking important drugs. I quit chemo and refused any more surgeries. Nothing was therapeutic anyway. All the interventions were designed to reduce pain. I taunted death even more by reducing morphine from 1200mg to 300 (my current level). I wanted to see how close to death pain could possibly take me and to discover, on my own, whether it would come or whether I would reach such despair that I would go into death on my own. I was searching for a rationale, sound reason to commit suicide – if death did not come for me. I was ready.

I slept cautiously in my parent’s downstairs guestroom – ever ready. Death, I knew, would be a lion-headed man who lived behind the head of the bed. He smelled of oranges. He did, several times, come out and try to frighten me, but he was never successful against my struggle. My parents kept a warm fire burning all those long nights and my sister slept in another room close-by. There was a nearly child-like feeling of cosiness and comfort – being there now, as I had been once, as a child who was cared for and who had no worries. My nights were nevertheless terrifying because sleeping was then so close to being dead that it did not come easy. My family would visit during the night and I was always awake. Someone would come to rub my legs or to turn me. I weighed 90 pounds and was extremely weakened. There is a video of me playing the piano: I am pathetic and emaciated and look very close to death.

All the evidence was in – this life I now know should not be / cannot be. Sometimes, when I awoke during those nights, I was not certain I was still alive. There were so many hallucinations or visions. Sometimes, I could be in several places at once, and not know which was the real place. Sometimes, my dreams took me so far away that it was a struggle to find my way back to my bed. These dreams, I knew, could take me into death. I knew that, when death came, that I would enter a dream. From this entry point dream, I would fall into other dreams until I had dreamed myself so far away that return would be impossible. I knew that my state of mind at that time needed to be good, or else the dream could be hellish and frightening.

There was one other thing: The tantalizing threat of a precarious survival – ever miraculous. One oncologist urgently called me in Halifax to express her anger that I had decided never to return for treatment. There was, she said, one risk-lade and drastic measure that she would be willing to provide. But I would need to return to treatment in Ottawa immediately after Christmas. The resulting survival would be two years added to my life. But, the price would be the loss of the use of my legs. There would be stoma / colostomy etc. and there would be little dignity for me during those precious, high-priced two extra years – if I survived the dramatic measures in the first place. Still, given my situation and the obvious paradox of my little dance with pain and death, I turned down her offer. I never saw the oncology clinic again.

So, there is the whole thing about not going along with the written script. One day, my physician came to my Ottawa home for the ultimate family conference to explain to them when / how / why I was about to die. This was in late October. My father asked, over and over, “What does this mean?” Doctor would tell him, over and over in response. My sister ran screaming through the house and her screams were like scalding lightening. My brother would not believe. My mother, who had been there for several months, knew everything already. I saw horses and trains coming through the walls. It was all a culmination of the darkest horror, for this was my life they bandied about in words and strong emotions. Such was the time that my doctor, when he finally left, forgot my medical records and his expensive pen in my upstairs office. This doctor, by the way, is the one I am now working with on the book. He had been, before, a best friend and clinical / research colleague. Now, he was my physician. I despised him for a time. Today, we are very close friends and continue to work on VIP national projects.

That night, I had a dream that came somehow between those fragments of horrible physical manipulation in my bed. I dreamed that my history was written in the medical records and with that same pen that doctor had left behind in my home. Somehow, I came to realize that I could, if I took that pen, rewrite everything and change the ultimate outcome. I could alter my human condition and thus, change the end-result. And this is what I did – on a very unconscious but wilful level. I could and would no longer believe everything that was being said. I would alter my fatal prognosis, on my own, by becoming apostate or heretic. I would quit all interventions and thus confound all the experts. In so doing, I would also throw myself, my very life, into the mystical odds that the universe contains. It would not matter – whatever the outcome. I would open myself to the potential of a different personal history – one that had not yet been defined in the history (medical files) or written, ie post-mortem (the pen). I would indeed change it all and affect an unusual difference. There was great freedom that resulted from this vision. I felt immediate release and accepted my future.

One morning, I am sitting in the breakfast room of my beautiful Ottawa house. The ceilings are very high and there are large windows through which a bright December sun fills the room. Snow is on the ground but the sky is a perfect blue. I am reading the newspapers and having coffee. From the night drugs, I am feeling heavy and tired and nauseated. There is a sudden spark of energy that happens and I am – all at once – acutely awake and aware. Everything is suddenly bright and loud and sharp and it is as if I am waking from a long sleep. I have only recently come home from yet another surgery to “debulk” the tumour – ie to reduce its mass to prevent even worse pain due to pressure on the spine. It is in that perfect, single moment that I decide to throw myself away from the orthodoxy: I will no longer believe their written words. This is not a history I am writing for my own life. It has been, all along, a history they are writing for me. It must be changed, if I am to survive. A few days later, I flew (accompanied) to Halifax for my Christmas death gift. It came close, over and over, but ultimately, it never came for me. Instead, I survived Christmas 1995. My gift was this precarious life. In return for this life, I have accepted pain. And there is fear that comes and goes. Notably, though, as I have said, this life is precarious.

Precariousness keeps me alert and very much alive. It is the great price for living. Take nothing for granted. Live each moment fully. Find and focus on the most important things.

Something aside: I experienced after, among colleagues who knew me before, a very palpable sense of “benevolent distrust”. Many people think I am somehow “compromised” because of illness and drugs. Among a smaller circle of these people, there is a kind of patronizing suspiciousness regarding my credibility. I was fortunate in that I was immediately sought for an important piece of international research (immunology) in March 1996. My success with this piece led to another national/international project that lasted through 1998. In both cases, my bosses were incredibly accommodating and understanding. This was, though, not always the case in the years since 1995. As recently as this past April, a small contingent of colleagues crowded me at a Toronto hotel to express concern that I did not appear to be well. They pressed for details that I would not provide. They are like vultures, seeking any reason to discredit my work. Among them, they create and circulate rumours. I actively need to avoid this kind of negativity and have adopted a life philosophy of focusing on goodness and ignoring all the rest. We all must do this if we are to maintain health and well-being.

Fortunately, I experienced on a first hand basis, the kind of discrimination that many people with disabilities experience. This experience provided me with the kind of first hand insight I needed to do my professional work. This insight, I believe, gives me even greater credibility than I had previously. But not everyone would agree with this statement. The professional HIV / palliative care community in Canada is relatively small. When Bruce got sick, everyone knew. I could not keep secrets from anyone and there were so many rumours. I was a hero for some, and a poor victim for others. It has been a tightrope kind of challenge ever since. Here in Halifax, I feel completely safer. I sometimes write emails to the negative people and then delete them. This helps me to process negativity in a way that is both safe and emotionally therapeutic.

My survival created a big buzz due to my professional position. There were newspaper articles and other PR things in professional journals and media – none of which came even close to describing what had happened. I was another (of the many) “miraculous cancer survivor.” There was much distrust from the idea that what had happened could possibly be miraculous. It was, in any case, exceptional and they could not deny this. Following PR, cancer patients called and wrote. I tried to tell them about letting go. I tried to convince them to rewrite their own histories. But it was and is much more than this. And colleagues called and wrote from all over the world as if to see if I was still myself, despite the rumours.

People said I was heroic or that my struggle was heroic. But there was no struggle and I was no hero: I did absolutely nothing, in fact, that could be considered a valid, sensible contribution to my survival. I quit all the interventions that were designed to save me. I knew, though, that despite the heroic efforts of others, that the prognosis could not be altered. I was deemed hopeless from the very beginning by the best minds in the business. How could I change their minds and, through this, the prognosis? How could I create optimism and hope that would ultimately contribute to my survival? Among the physicians – this was not possible.

It was, indeed, something entirely different than heroism on my part. It was, instead, the act of “giving in” to whatever might come – whether death or something else. That was when the bargaining and compromises came in. You see: I did not fight for my life any more than I struggled to die. I simply allowed each moment to come as it might. And the moments all came and went. Time and the increasing distance I achieved in moving away from hopelessness healed me. This was a dynamic, troubling, destructive and creative process. It was very difficult to do, given the context in which I existed – one of extreme despair. There was then, very little “positive energy” among those who surrounded me.

I remember this: It is November 1995. The end is very near. But the Reach (Ottawa) annual celebrity auction is being held and there is a great outpouring of voices calling for me to attend – sort of a “last hurrah” kind of thing. People had not seen me in months. And, if I were dying, surely this would be the occasion to celebrate my life. My physician prepares a special cocktail that will allow me to survive the event. My mother is with me and we are chauffeured to the underground garage of the Westin Hotel. An RCMP officer and an aide greet us. They take us the great distance up to the salons. Thousands of people are there and, as I enter the enormous rooms, there is an audible hush. I am utterly stoned out of my mind when they seat me in a quiet place on a sofa that overlooks the glittering lights of the city. I cannot take all the noise and the bright lights. For several hours, people come and go. They are saying, mostly, goodbye, over and over. They hug and kiss me. Some bring little cards and gifts. The hotel lets me smoke and waiters bring wine and food. It seems to last forever and when it is time, the RCMP officer and the other fellow take us back down to the garage and we go home. The next day, there is a radio show and a celebrity tells my story and asks everyone to pray.

A few days later, due to the activity, I am back in hospital for yet another de-bulking surgery. This time, the hospital neglects to provide morphine but I don’t notice. I am so utterly painful that I have nearly separated my consciousness from my physical state. They discuss removing the frontal lobe tumour through my eye or nostril: I cannot even imagine such horror and refuse. They instead work on the primary tumour. It is all so lonely and no one visits now. Because I am special, they do diagnostics in the middle of the night and there is no other doctor or patient anywhere to be seen. I am treated very well. Others were less fortunate. Still, there were those months of chemotherapy – waiting and waiting or being refused because I was too weak to survive treatment. We would be sent home. My mother was there the entire time. Once, we had a car accident. This time was immeasurably horrible. Everything was wrong.

When I am released from hospital a few days later, I am feeling very unwell. On arriving home, I am nearing unconsciousness and my mother asks about morphine. I tell her I do not remember. My doctor calls and asks and we tell him. Now, I am close to going into a coma and having seizures. He tells us what to take and I go up to bed until he arrives. I am thinking of my suicide cache and about this horrible life. Maybe today will be the day. Although death could have come that afternoon, I am soon stabilized and asleep. Life was making me so dizzy and people could not understand that this was the time for silence and stillness. Every effort resulted in some negative outcome. Things were getting worse and worse and I could see no way out. At least though, they had all been given the chance to say goodbye.

The one, most positive thing was my dog, Napoleon. He became my spiritual mentor. I rescued him (a Briard) from the euthanasia table. In turn, he rescued me. But this is another story, far more complicated. I will tell you too, if it is important, about the days and months over two years that lead up to all of these events. I was, to say briefly, both aware and unaware that I was sick. Even in the worst of circumstances in those two years, I was unable to process the fact that something was terribly wrong in my life. It all started on the day of my brother’s wedding when I began to bleed in the most private way. From that day until these days, I lived and lived and died and died.

Yet, I often wonder if that journey away from silence and stillness did not somehow motivate life. There were literally hundreds of people who visited my house. They kept me sitting up. They made me laugh and eat. They touched me and wrote letters and called and sent caterers and food. I could not, by this time, remember how to use a computer or to do many other basic things. Health Canada sent a team of people to remove all their active files from my office. The credit cards were all paid off. The will was done and instructions for DNR were all in place. The time was indeed drawing near and it was all so unreal – yet so absolute and fearful. Each day that I would wash my face I would look at myself and wonder if this would be the last time. I was soiling my bed and clothes. I could not eat for the nausea and often spilled food all over myself. Scores of specialists were treating me at home and they were doing their best, I am sure. I (am) had been a man of enormous private dignity and this was all simply too much. I was a disgusting, ugly wretch and this condition could not possibly be my life – this life – but it was. It all culminated in this. The worst horror was that I maintained awareness of both the past and my current condition. Despite the drugs, I could still remember who I was and had been.

Christmas 1995 was indeed a surprising gift of monumental proportions. Either life or death would have been probably equal in value to me at that stage in the same way a little child will not value a toy airplane better than a toy elephant. I simply could not tell the difference except to know that my life, as it was then, could not be sustained. It was not even life that I experienced during those months. Perhaps I opened the death gift (escape) first. Perhaps the life / compromise / live with pain gift was opened next. But I truly believe that the real gift was the capacity to choose one over the other. And I truly believe that I was given this choice at some point.

There is so much more. There was the dark night when pain was personified and hid in my dressing closet. He came out of the darkness and wrestled with me in my bed, trying to beat me down. That same night a nine-foot beam of light of an angel came into my bedroom and the darkness was entirely dissipated. There was the dream in which I am dissembled into 10,000 pieces spread on various tables – and they cannot figure out how to put me back together again. There were the dreams of being dead and in the presence of a great king who would allow me to pass back to life if only I could give him gifts of jewels for his costumes – and I had nothing. Only Napoleon could pass back and forth, and I gave him stones to carry to my family that waited on the other side of a stonewall. There was the sense, when it all began and throughout, of splitting into two people – a living Bruce and a dying Bruce. A friend even had a dream of the two Bruces. This happened one day while I was preparing a speech, sitting at my computer in my office. It happened suddenly. I was, from that moment on, becoming increasingly afraid of myself. I became afraid of my house. I delivered the speech in Charlottetown. Aside from the speech, I spent most of the time in bed in the hotel, hiding myself away. I passed via Halifax and visited my family and we all knew but said nothing, no matter the obvious signs that I was not well. We said nothing because, sometimes, when you speak aloud some fear, it becomes real. And it did. At the very last minute I boarded the Ottawa flight and headed to my doctor immediately. It had all culminated in a level of fear that I could no longer sustain. I do not know why I waited so long. But I did. I should have known better. Yet, if I had gone earlier, what would be the difference? Yes, there is so much more.

When they do the diagnostics, they give me the films to take to the specialist the following day. I bring them home and hold them up against the white walls. I see the tumour that lives inside me. The specialist says: you have seen these, yes? I say yes. He says we can do nothing. You have waited too long. This is now impossible. Please go home and we will call soon with biopsy. I am ironing white sheer curtains when they call and it all falls into place. You see how the strangeness becomes interwoven with the mysterious and that evil cannot be circumvented by either neglect or indifference. I did not bring this on myself. I am not guilty. This was my path and, perhaps, I become disoriented due to some detour to avoid the obvious destination. Again, the story is very complicated, but it has continued, like all good stories, to include all things, including a kind of redemption and freedom from fear. It continues, even now. But I think the hard part is now over. I am here.

So, here is life as it is. It is life, despite pain and morphine and the numerous complications – ie and fairly regular (every eight to 10 weeks) episodes of disproportionate illness / pain. It is difficult to make any plans and I have restricted my travel considerably. But I am here, in Nova Scotia and at my place in Herring Cove and there are the dogs and the long walks along the shore. I have now (as of April) mostly retired from professional work and concentrate on music and writing. Since coming here in 2000, I have composed 43 CDs of music. The songs come and come. I hear them and play them. I am in the process of hiring a musical agent. The songs began when I was at my worst and they have never stopped coming. I do not either read or write music. Many hours are in the gardens or walking along the shore. And I pray or meditate every, single day. But I am certainly not dying. Indeed, I am living more now than I have ever lived before.

There is an ancient, natural well below the house in the forest. Once, this was the main source of water for this place. I go here to pray. And I ask that God fill me, as the well is filled, with all that is good. Once filled, I ask that I reflect God in all that I am and do and say and think and feel. And I pray for the presence of God to displace evil, illness, pain, fear and anxiety: Where there is light, there cannot be any darkness. I will not ever forget that life has, as its source, some great entity that we cannot possibly understand. I do not question this. It is important, however, that we stay in close contact with this source. It is important that we are reflective and that we are grateful for all things. It is important that we share, as best we can, the gifts we are given with others. It is important that we do not waste life on fear or dwell in darkness. The moment we turn away from the source of life, we will begin the spiral towards death and meaninglessness.

So a major aspect of my healing has had to do with visualization and via somehow connecting with forces that I perceive to be much more potent than the pen and paper history that was written for me by physicians. There is much more to the story than physical contingencies. This is an important observation – one that can only be made via experience.

As I have said, the life of this survivor is a very tentative life, all based on a bargain. This bargain is a sustained one, continuing each moment of each day. I must not ever give into pain, for this will compromise the bargain that was made in 1995. I must live with pain and accept it and to search for meaning – as it compels me to do – and to find God and be near to him. Again, there is so much more to this story.

But may I say: Life is so ultimately different than it was before cancer. I do not take a single thing for granted – not walking, seeing, hearing, thinking or feeling – nothing. All are gifts that we must notice and be grateful for – each moment of time too is a very precious commodity. We are here in these moments to live for the sake of living. It is not about getting rich. It is not about living forever (gyms and jogging etc). It is about living – here and now – all the time. Ultimately, it is about learning to die. We must not die because life cannot sustain us. Instead, we must die because life is somehow a cumulative process of becoming meaningful / giving gifts / goodness – death is our reward for and an outcome of goodness and not a penalty. When death comes, we should be able to say that we have lived enough and that the time is now right. We must adhere to the adage: The more we live, the less we die. When death comes, we must be ready and not startled or afraid. This whole experience has taught me to be ready – as pain teaches me to see the brightness of this life, despite the temptation to live in misery and darkness (ie complaining / regret etc). And too, we must somehow come to understand that death is a door. It is not a wall. It is a transition, not an end. This understanding, when we believe in a fundamental way, is life giving.

So, here is part of my story for you. It is, perhaps, an unusual story of survival in the greater context of the human condition as a whole. But, I believe all humans have the potential to experience and tell similar stories. As you develop your project, you will no doubt come across these similar stories. It is not about remarkable people, for I am hardly a remarkable man. It is, instead, about the remarkable events and the way we navigate our way through these events. Each of us has within us the intuition or instinct to navigate in the right direction – whether life or death. It does not matter, for the solution is always correct. We are not powerless anymore than we are alone in the universe. The maps exist. We must find them and learn to read them. This is the purpose of living: To follow our path and not get lost in the various detours. We must not go in circles. Life is not a trampoline either – jumping up and down on the same place but not ever getting anywhere. It is about moving from point A to point B. We must always move forward, even when bad things happen. We must find goodness and progress in all things – not only the happy moments!

Bruce Mills is a Nova Scotia songwriter / musician. His award winning songs include R&B, Jazz, folk / Celtic ballads, gospel, semi-classical, instrumental (film / television) and even seasonal (Christmas) music. The songs are recorded and produced at Denmark Productions by acclaimed engineer / technician Dennis Field. Mr Field is often a judge at the annual Juno Awards and he is an active promoter of music in Canada. Bruce writes all lyrics and music and performs vocals, keyboard and digital string accompaniments on most of the recordings. After a long time away in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Atlanta and extensive travels in Europe and Africa, Bruce returned to Nova Scotia in 1999. His song writing work then became a full-time occupation. Since 1999, Bruce has written an extensive repertoire It is from this resource that he is developing songs for production. Among other prizes, Bruce won the Paramount Director's Award for his "Heart's Reflection." Bruce Mills lives with his dog on the beautiful Nova Scotia coast.

Seeing but not seeing

2010-05-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

One year. That's how long I searched for a small book on Appreciative Inquiry in our home library. Our library is essentially a stack of book racks, filled to over-capacity with books.

To put it more correctly, it was over a period of a year that I tried to find this little book. I was looking for a "little" book [4x5 inches], a summary of appreciative inquiry, thin [80 pages], short, with an orange cover.

Or that's what I thought I was looking for.

I eventually gave up and said to my wife Deborah, "We must have lent it to someone, because it's definitely no longer here." I used the royal "we," just in case she might 'fess' up to lending it to a friend.

Even though it never turned up, from time to time I would visualize what it looked like, and would go through our library again. I hate losing books. We never lend our books out anymore. We've learned the hard way. Despite promises, our books never came back.

Two days ago as I was doing preparation for a coaching session, I went to the library to get a book on a subject I was working on with my client.

As I looked through the rows of books, the book on Appreciative Inquiry leaped out at me. Was it the same one I was looking for all this time? This one was much larger than the one I was looking for [5.5x6.5 inches]. And it wasn't orange but blue.

Was it the same book? Yes it was.

This experience got me thinking about how easily I could be convinced about something or someone and be totally, totally wrong because I have a preconception embedded in my mind.

The book I was looking for was small and orange, right?
Yes, right. In fact its the average height of many books in our library and its blue.

A lesson for me
Lets say I interact with a client who, because of rumours from colleagues, is perceived to be a bit weird. That perception could govern my actions and infiltrate my conversations. I could perceive that person through the lens which reinforces a blueprint of this person already embedded in my mind. This perception will colour my approach and I will see this person as I predict him or her to be.

How many people do not fit the image we have already constructed of them and thus we don't see them for who they really are . . . ?

To engage or not to engage

2010-05-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

That's the question I ask myself when I am in a shopping mall or walking along a long corridor at the airport.

So here's the situation. I am walking along a long corridor at the airport. I'm thinking about my next connecting flight or getting my baggage or about a point I want to emphasize at my next presentation. My mind is definitely not on signing up for another credit card.

And that's what the people at the desk are trying to do - to get my attention by offering me a reward, say a zillion air miles if I sign up for their card.

What do I do? I avoid eye contact and fake a smile and say "no thanks" as they begin to approach me with their clip boards.

I feel bad afterwards because I realize that I'm not following any of the principles I teach in my workshops. And I'm treating these people as if they were low life forms.

I know I don't have to sign up for anything. But what I need to do is at least engage with the person and say no in a respectful way while making eye contact.

It feels good to say "no", rather than avoiding saying "no." When I say "no," I have thought through my reasons for saying "no." I get to practice saying "no" using my personal power instead of avoiding the engagement, however brief.

When I avoid saying "no," I realize it's because the voices in my head are screeching that I'll end up being persuaded against my will if I engage. And of course, my stock excuse is I'm in a rush.

Note to self

As long as my life is not in danger, I'll flip the switch to always engage, my new default. That means I will lean in to a conversation, listen and speak my truth and then lean away if I need to. It's better than defaulting to leaning away and never getting to speak my truth to these people [and other people with clip boards on street corners and in shopping malls].

Today I decided to act on my resolution. I approached a person with a clip board in the shopping mall. I leaned in and tried to make eye contact. This person just looked past me and missed the opportunity.

Too bad. At least I was ready and feeling good about it.

Insight
The principles of engagement are 24/7. Even when no-one is looking.

~ Dene Rossouw

Real customer service is intuitive

2010-05-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

I’m waiting for a client to arrive in the Bean around the world coffee bar at the Lonsdale Key in North Vancouver. It’s a beautiful April spring day. The windows are open wide. I notice an old lady enter the coffee bar through the open doors in her motorized wheelchair.

“How are you doing Sylvia?” asks Jeff, the owner, walking up to her.

“Alive,” comes the reply. Sylvia is paralyzed from the neck down.

Jeff takes a tissue and wipes her nose.

“Would you like a coffee?” he says.

“Same as usual,” says Sylvia.

Jeff brings Sylvia’s coffee, adds milk and sugar, and places it on a small customized tray on Sylvia’s chair near her mouth. He then places her special straw at just the right angle so Sylvia can suck up her coffee.

If customer service is alive and has a spirit, I have just seen it in action:
Customer service = customer care = customer success.

The real spirit of customer success in this coffee house appears to have no rules, only values:
– You are family
– You are welcome here
– Enjoy our quality coffees

Sylvia, like any other customer, is treated like family. She’s made to feel welcome. She feels valued. She enjoys the coffee. Sylvia is glad to be alive.

Real customer success is intuitive.

~ Dene Rossouw

Mind the gap

2010-05-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

If you have traveled on the London underground, I’m sure you are familiar with the voice recording that reminds us to mind the gap each time we step on and off the train.

Imagine being in London and hearing Mind the gap when we step on and Mind the gap when we step off, day in, day out. It eventually becomes meaningless, so we ignore the voice and the gap.

In the workplace, its much the same, except we don’t have the recording. Every time we step into a conversation and every time we step off from a conversation, there’s a gap.

Over time, and often unbeknown to us, the gap takes on a life of its own, as it gets bigger and bigger, exponentially bigger.

The gap is a moving divide that represents a lack of shared understanding between employees and management, between the organization and its customers and stakeholders.

If we did have a voice going round in our heads every time we stepped into a conversation, it should be close the gap, so that when we step off from the conversation, everyone is on the same platform, so to speak.

How does one ensure this happens? I have developed a transferable practice called the three keys of engagement that can be applied to any conversation. It’s easy to incorporate into your style and gets you great results. And every time you use the three keys, you ensure shared understanding and close the gap.

Ask me about sharing the three keys with your group.

~ Dene Rossouw

Power differentials - lessons from a cat

2010-05-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

As a kid I thought that guys kept dogs and girls kept cats. I also believed that all dogs were male and cats were female. Although I’m still a dog kind of guy, my skewed thinking has come to haunt me. We now have a cat and she’s male.

His name is Duke. I often refer to him as our walking tub of lard (don’t let my wife hear that). Our tub of lard, or Duke, has a simple routine: eat, sleep, eat sleep, sleep-sleep (the extra sleep is for the night time). If you say it over and over again, you’ll find there’s a rhythm to it – eat, sleep, eat sleep, sleep-sleep. It’s a cat rhythm. On weekends when Duke’s not working at sleeping, he might check out what the squirrels are doing in the trees from the vantage of the balcony.

I think Duke’s actually an alley cat that struck it lucky (don’t tell my wife this either). Why? He knows all the tricks one would normally pick up on Hastings street on Vancouver’s east end. And one of those tricks is panhandling.

For example, according to his internal time clock, when he decides its time for grub, he doesn’t take a rejection lying down. Just for the record, Duke gets fed at 6am and 6pm. But more often than not, his internal time piece is running fast. So 4pm in our human time is actually 6pm in his time.

So after I turn down the request to feed him immediately, he recovers from this rejection very quickly. It usually takes only a minute or two of deep kitty reflection and investigation of all orifices before he decides to make his move and give me a head butt.

That’s right, I’m working at my computer and this head will appear just below my elbow and in a split second I’ll be mistyping or spilling my coffee. There’s no ‘have a nice day’ from Duke after an initial rejection like they do on Hastings. No, Duke immediately gets dirty and head-butts.

If I still don’t get it after a severe head-butting, he will raise his ‘notice-me profile’ by jumping up and sitting on the highest piece of furniture, preferably at eye-level, so that he can work on me from a psychological level.

Have you ever had a cat stare at your every move? And I mean stare. In cat language its ‘hey you, #2!&*#! get with the program.’ After a while and predictably so, I can’t take it any more and give in, albeit at 5:30pm or thereabouts human time.

You might be thinking, “so what’s an half hour, he’s a poor starving cat.” Well, the downside is when morning comes round, his little clock is saying he hasn’t seen food for weeks and in human time it’s now 1/2 hour earlier: 5:30am. You can see where this is going.

It got me thinking about work and the power differentials we deal with every day. Duke was one-down in terms of getting my attention and I, the human was one-up. He first tried to get my attention (as a one-down) and after no response, he head butted me. After still no response, he decided that one-up works better and that’s where I eventually caved in [I slipped to one-down] and fed him.

Want to know more about power differentials? How can they work against us or for us at work and home? And how can we get better results without caving in to pressure like I did?

Or, how can we arrive at a different outcome without resorting to head-butting people when we want something? Or staring someone down at work with an evil eye when we disapprove?

Do you feel insignificant or powerless in front of certain people? Do you feel compelled to help a certain person out? Do you have a strong urge to put certain people down? What is the best use of the dynamics of power at work that evokes loyalty, innovation and commitment?

Want better results? Ask me about how to handle power differentials at work.

~ Dene Rossouw

Customer intimacy

2010-05-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

I have recently been conducting a series of 360 coaching sessions at Vancity, Canada’s largest credit union, on behalf of Kwela, a talent management company based in Vancouver. The last time I was at Vancity was three months ago in Oct 2009.

As I approached the front security desk to sign in, the security person asked me to produce ID. And before I could show him my driver’s licence, he said, “Your name is Dene and I think your 2nd name starts with an R.”

I was blown away with his ability to recall names, given the fact that 100’s of people come and go past his desk every day.

It just so happened that later I was talking to a director at Vancity who hires Fusion security and I told him about this person and his excellent way of engaging Vancity staff, members and contractors. The director knew all about this person and his natural ability to provide excellent and engaging customer service.

So, meet Shane Martin, a master of customer intimacy. People like Shane are extremely valuable to organizations because they are the front-line assets who interface regularly with actual customers, not numbers on a spreadsheet.

Shane naturally models and practices customer intimacy and service excellence. Research has shown that as a result of an engaging and meaningful interaction with a real person, customers become loyal advocates for the organization. And they keep coming back.

A February 2010 HBR article underscores the fact that a priority focus on shareholder wealth is deeply flawed. The priority is and always will be, the customer.

People like Shane are critical to the success of every organization that wants to shift to a customer-driven model, where customer value is the top priority.

And clients, like me, spontaneously tell the story.

~ Dene Rossouw

Conversations with a centre

2010-05-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

William Issaac, in his book, Dialogue and the art of thinking together, said that “Dialogue….is a conversation with a centre, not sides. It is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before.”

One of the most powerful tools of inquiry and being curious is called committed listening, which involves a set of interrelated skills:
open-ended questioning, paraphrasing, acknowledging feelings, providing non-verbal encouragement and summarizing.

Committed listening is the ability to listen to the unique experiences of another person by hearing not only the words but sensing and responding to the underlying feelings, and unexpressed meanings behind the words.

We each perceive our world through filters of our experiences to give it meaning. Because our perceptions become our reality, someone else will perceive the same event differently. A conversation with a centre, not sides, taps into the underlying drivers and interests that help design a new and often unexpected solution.

~ Dene Rossouw

Compassion

2010-05-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

Here are some points about compassion that we discussed at a recent Dialogue group evening hosted by David Gouthro at the Granville Island Hotel in Vancouver.

When I say we discussed, it was really a discussion with whoever was sitting next to me or opposite me while we were having a meal together.

Questions for discussion

Does compassion need action to be authentic? Can empathy trigger compassion? Or sympathy?
When we have genuine compassion, are we energized or drained? What type of personal energy are we using?
Where are most people positioned, who exercise genuine compassion, on Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs?
And are the ones receiving the compassion on a different hierarchy of needs?
And if people who are on the receiving end of compassion live on a different power differential according to Mazlow’s hierarchy, who has the real power?
And given there is a power differential, how does one exercise compassion without losing authenticity?

Some thoughts.

~ Dene Rossouw