Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Leadership As Art

Needless to say neither Jack nor myself think much of Donald Trump as a potential president.  To take the issue one step further – Donald Trump does not do leadership as art! What a bother!  He takes up so very much space that should be focused on the people, not the man for himself. 

And to think I registered myself as an Independent recently so I could feel comfortable about voting Republican this time around!

With this casting away of Trump in mind, of course, we join countless others hoping that the citizens of our country will, when election day comes, hold a clear enough vision in their minds of what genuine, exceptional leadership looks and feels like to defeat the prospect of this man as president, once and for all. 

It is not my way to spend much time on negativity, no more than is necessary is my personal policy. So I won’t spend undue effort addressing the whys and wherefores of not liking Trump, and all he is representing in the persona he stages. Suffice it to say – enough is enough!  So, like many others, I am praying that enough like-minded people will make their voices heard at the polls to demonstrate the quality and personal character for which we are yearning to lead this great country of ours. And that it will not be Trump!

What else can a sane person do? 

The challenge is a bit like managing the intrusion of the stink bugs that seem to have awakened recently in my house!

With this in mind, I turned my attention to what I most admire in leadership values and styles. At New Horizons we call this the “Exceptional Leader” who, of course, is adept at helping to guide others to build and sustain “Exceptional Communities.” Be they the smallest constituencies of the nuclear family or as large as the world stage.

Jack, my radio show co-host, and I have, thus, begun to generate discussions on this theme of leadership the whole of March. As we delve into the topic it looks as if we might have enough to talk about here to last us for a good while. 

If leadership is on your mind, as it is on ours as presidential election campaigning takes more and more space on center stage these days, as it is now doing, I encourage you to listen in to our radio shows on leadership on live broadcast or after the fact on podcast. And, even more energetically, join us on our Coffee House by Conference Call Forum immediately following our broadcasts.

I think Jack and I are offering an open door to personal and shared exploration of what “Leadership In A Sea of Controversy;” the sea we are currently swimming in these days, is at its higher end. What does top quality leadership look like and feel like? What does it produce when it is offered as “art” which is exactly what the U.S.A deserves. It is not Trump!

So join Jack and I on this week’s show titled Leadership Role Models – A Personal Story 


Thursday, March 31
6:30 p.m. 
Also on podcast

I will be telling a personal story on this program, illustrating the kind of leadership Jack and I have been referencing. Based on the thinking of my dear friend, now deceased, Rabbi Edwin Friedman, which Jack and I have been recently discussing, it will be a story of a very ordinary man, my father, In his various role as a parent, a businessman, president of our synagogue and a leader in many endeavors of the larger civic community within which I grew up, I saw leadership of a highly refined level in simple, everyday terms. 

Reflecting on the radio show themes Jack and I have been presenting I realize that I experienced exceptional leadership characteristics in my father as I was growing up. Especially when he faced the most daunting challenges of his life with the kind of dignity I wish always to embody. I was blessed to have my father as a role model.  

Today is his birthday. Had my father lived he would be one hundred and three years old. He has, unfortunately, been gone now for forty years. Some of the best gifts he left behind for me as a legacy are that which he gave me through my just being by his side as he encountered life, simply and so exceptionally.

When I think of it now I see that my father did leadership as an art without ever giving it a second thought beyond just being who and what he was as best he knew how.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Here’s How We See The Problem of Polarization – And – The Solution

Is your group, organization, family, or congregation polarized?

Characteristics of cultural polarization include:
  • Emotional barriers
  • Defensiveness, anger, blame
  • Withdrawal, avoidance, collusion
  • Communication Breakdown
  • Seeing the “other” as an enemy
Based on New Horizons intriguing Cultural Mediation approach for empowering exceptional leaders and developing exceptional communities we are able to learn how to:
  • Avoid Communication Breakdowns
  • Dialogue Rather Than Debate
  • Improve Leadership Skills
  • Improve Communication Skills
  • Improve Cooperative Problem-Solving Skills 
  • Overcome Problems Of Diversity And Other Cultural Differences.


Sponsored By New Horizons Support Network, Inc.
Phone: 240.409.5347
Zonesofpeacenh@aol.com
New Horizons is a 501 C 3 non-profit educational organization
Founded -- 1980

For inquires, contact Lynn Cullather-Popkin
Cell: 301.775.1432, email: aasscc@yahoo.com

Saturday, March 26, 2016

As We Roll Out Our Expansion, Do You Know Who We Are?

Meet New Horizon’s Small “Zones of Peace” Founders

New Horizons Executive Director And Founder, M. Anastasia Rosen-Jones

Anastasia Rosen-Jones has close to forty-five years of experience in the mental health field. As a Certified Transactional Analyst and Gestalt therapist in a private psychotherapy practice in the Washington, D.C. area, Anastasia’s innovative therapeutic community approach was thoroughly researched and written up in her three manuscripts written for Random House, Inc. These books were unpublished, however, due to her losing her eyesight in 1998. 

After seven eye surgeries, Anastasia regained her eyesight fully in 2006. Her clinical background uniquely equips Anastasia to now analyze organizational snags and develop strategies that empower and transform groups, organizations and communities.  

Retired as a psychotherapist, Ms. Rosen-Jones is the author of six full-length works in progress and numerous articles.  Anastasia, also, presently writes for three blog sites and hosts two online radio shows.

New Horizons Curriculum Development Director, Sue deVeer

Sue deVeer, a career Quaker educator of more than forty years, knows that questions can be more important than answers. Strongly rooted in the Quaker values of simplicity, peace, equality and social justice, Sue brings a unique perspective to the development of the Small “Zones Of Peace” Project Conversations.  Her specialties as an educator are experiential education, environmental education, curriculum design and consensus decision making. 
Sue, making her own personal donation to
New Horizons, is wishing you will do the same.

At New Horizons Sue, one of New Horizons’ esteemed board members, is responsible for the originating and development of all “Conversation” program designs as well as being the Chairperson of the New Horizons Harpers Ferry Retreat Center Remodeling Project. In her “spare time” she runs the Always In The Garden Project in Fairfield, Pennsylvania which includes an e-bay store and the natural products of her fifteen acre farm and garden.

** Anastasia Rosen-Jones is shown with Murat Yagan, New Horizons community development mentor and the last living elder of the ancient Abkhazian traditions of the Caucasus Mountains known as Kebzeh. Mr. Yagan passed away in 2013, two days after his ninety-eighth birthday.



Our Beloved Murat, 1915 -- 2013

Also, meet our longest-term Board Member, Lisa Boyer, With us since 1999!

Friday, March 25, 2016

New Horizons Conversations Project Is Expanding! Yeah!

Assessing our net gains and losses from last year’s series of Coffee House Conversations we came up with a major expansion plan intended to take our best out into the Washington D.C. region and beyond.

(This we will do as we continue to assist Frederick County, Maryland as it strives to reach its "exceptional" best -- which some of its key leaders and other citizens are doing each and everyday. New Horizons applauds these folks who were among the many that attended our Coffee House Conversations last year!

See our evaluation of where we think Frederick still needs to develop more proficiency at the bottom of this linked article. And how incredibly awesome we think Frederick is in this linked article.)

Polarization does not need to be a way of life!
Conversation is our style.

If your group, organization, family or congregation is polarized, call us for a specially- designed analysis of the stuckness and a guided pathway out of it!

A Small “Zone Of Peace” can be anywhere ▬

Mahatma Gandhi suggested -- 
We do best to begin by carving out territories or zones of peace in our personal relations where violence and deceit won’t be used.
We at New Horizons have come to believe he was right! When building world peace is the goal, you can begin by creating small “zones of peace” from which you can reach out and build larger ones, if you choose.
Even a tent can be a
small "zone of peace!
Yum!

The unfortunate thing, however, is that creating or finding “zones of peace” is not easy in this day and time of fast-paced living, economic pressure, school violence and threats of terrorism.


New Horizons’ Small “Zones Of Peace” Project Has A Solution!

Cultural Mediation Conversations – Coaching, Consulting and Trainings


(Coffee House Conversations, I’ve Got A Dream Conversations, (Abkhazian) Dinner Conversations and many other formats, specially designed for your group or organization, even family and friends. 

The deal is that "conversations," highlighted by storytelling, combined with "breaking bread" is a sure-fire winning combination for community-bridge building across barriers of diversity.) 

We can even be your Sunday brunch entertainment and so much more. 

Based on our intriguing model for empowering exceptional leaders and developing exceptional communities


For inquires, contact Lynn Cullather-Popkin
Cell: 301.775.1432, email: aasscc@yahoo.com.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Mr. Trump’s Love Fest

When my son was little and we would have arguments it would always end up, somewhere along the line, when he was being extremely volatile, that he would say “Sorry, I love you mommy” for whatever the mean-spirited behavior he had done. 

After a while I got tired of routinely saying “o.k.” in response. Instead I started saying “Well, o.k. but how about if you also act like you love me?”

That’s what I am thinking today about Mr. Trump’s “love fest.” If it is such a “love fest,” how come it feels so unloving and even scary to so many people. 

Love isn’t supposed to hurt and make you afraid. You can feel it when there is love behind the message. When it’s not there, you just have to wonder, is my take.

That’s what I’m suggesting in my article, To See Or Not To See Your Dark Side, Or What Makes Donny Run?  

How can gut instinct, if not for good solid logic, be wrong in so many dissenting opinions that are saying there is potential danger here in the kind of rallies being held on behalf of Mr. Trump? How come he doesn't seem to be listening to any of us who think differently than him at this point? And reassuring the concerned rather than dismissing it all with bluster?

The kind of president I want would not turn a deaf ear to so many voices of his constituents!

Monday, March 7, 2016

The Love Behind The Message At The Coffee House Conversations

Check it out!

I just got off the air from doing a gorgeous, heart-warming show with much said about New Horizons' Coffee House Conversations.

If you have liked/loved our Coffee House Conversations program -- and -- are up for going with us to the next steps, dialouge versus debate as a pathway to "awe," hear what Kim, my Anastasia The Storyteller side kick, did with me on this show! It was quite beaut-i-ful!

Monday, March 7
11:30 a.m.



(If you miss the broadcast, also on podcast)



I haven't calmed down yet from the excitement!
And we have been off the air already for twenty minutes!

Wow!

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Exploring Leadership Styles and Values In Modern America

I had a rather naïve plan in mind this past Thursday evening in developing our script for the Possible Society In Motion Radio Show Jack and I did. Taking up the central formula New Horizons holds for its leadership training in our Exceptional Community Model, I completely ignored the many complexities that go into training Exceptional Leaders, concentrating on only one facet of the whole.

Oops, I was that blind to even my own multifaceted leadership repertoire!

Thank goodness I believe that in the best of training and development effective leadership almost always incorporates a stance of leading and following, simultaneously, as well as being, always, both teacher and student. I soon learned a thing or two in this week’s radio show broadcast process. 

As a result wisdom and experience showed me that I needed to quickly rearrange the original plan – on the air -- following the cues of Jack’s input, putting us on an entirely unexpected track. But isn’t that the
way skillful leadership is supposed to operate; think on your feet and make adjustments when necessary as quick as you can?

So it was that Jack and I, planning to do a show with the title theme of “The Role Of Leadership In Building Exceptional Communities,” made a speedy change that had us even changing our show’s title. (Thank goodness for the adaptability of online radio postings.)

By show’s end I knew that I needed to, also, as quickly as possible, get myself over to our Blog Talk Radio web site and change that title!

Our original title didn’t fit at all as both Jack and I “led” our program in quite an unexpected direction.

Thus our title – and – our program theme, as it turned out, became “Exploring Leadership Styles and Values In Modern America.” It was a lively and fun show with illustrations of successful leadership styles and values, even in the teamwork modeling Jack and I did. And, as it turned out, our new way was better than the old, actually giving us a new and unexpected angle for our unfolding plans for a year ahead of interesting shows.

Check out how Jack and I explored leadership styles, values and ways of behaving on – 



Hear us, on podcast, set the stage for a year ahead of Possible Society In Motion Radio Shows that will, no doubt, be taking up one of our country’s most pressing current concerns ---


Leadership In Modern America
One of our main Possible Society In Motion Radio Show agendas for 2016

Can’t beat that for timeliness in a presidential election year! 
Especially this one!