CAN LEADERS CHANGE? YES, BUT ONLY IF THEY WANT TO

Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

We are all of us balloons dancing in a world of pins.

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself.

There’s a Zen tale of a lion who was completely convinced of his dominance of the animal kingdom. One day he decided to check whether all the other animals knew that he was the king of the jungle. He was so confident about his position that he decided not to talk to the smaller creatures. Instead, he went straight to the bear. “Who is the king of the jungle?” asked the lion. The bear replied, “Of course, no one else but you, sir.” The lion gave a great roar of approval.

He continued his journey and met the tiger. He asked the striped creature, “Who is the king of the jungle?” The tiger quickly responded, “All of us know that you are the king.” The lion gave another roar of pleasure.

Next on his list was the elephant. He caught up with the great beast at the edge of a river and asked him the same question: “Who is the king of the jungle?” The elephant trumpeted with raised trunk, grabbed the lion, threw him in the air, and smashed him into a tree. After a moment he fished him out of the tree and pounded him on the ground, then lifted him up once more and dumped him into the river. With the big cat gasping for air, the elephant pulled him out, dragged him through the mud, and finally left him draped over some bushes. Dirty, beaten, bruised, and battered, the lion struggled to his feet. He looked the elephant sadly in the eyes and said, “Look, just because you don’t know the answer, that’s no reason for you to be so mean-spirited about it.”

As most of the examples in Part One of this book illustrate, many leaders are like the lion. Listening and careful observation aren’t something they’re good at. Reality-testing isn’t their forte. Instead, driven by the forces of narcissism, they create their own reality, seeing only what they want to see. Furthermore, they’re not very open to change. As the jungle tale suggests, change isn’t a simple process, nor is it a comfortable one. The unlearning of habitual patterns can be decidedly anxiety-provoking. Like the lion, many executives hold on to their own personal logic, illogical as that logic may appear to others. Instead of making an effort to change, they stick with the status quo, even if they end up dragged through the mud and miserable.

Unfortunately, they rarely go down alone. When executives cling tenaciously to the status quo even when it isn’t working, the mud-spatters are far-reaching. And the more senior the executive, the more devastating the potential consequences. Given the power that leaders wield, their personal dysfunctions often become organizational dysfunctions. The results, some of which we’ve looked at in previous chapters, include collusive interactions, unrealistic organizational ideals, toxic corporate cultures, neurotic organizations, faulty patterns of decision-making, motivational problems, organizational alienation, and a high rate of employee turnover ¹,²,³,⁴–⁵.

Part of what makes change hard for executives is the very thing that makes it so necessary: organizational leaders are always “on stage” at work. Every move they make is carefully observed, analysed, and discussed by colleagues and subordinates. Given that scrutiny, apparently innocuous actions can have dramatic consequences. As a participant in one of my senior executive workshops said, “Every day when I go into the office I have the ability to make the lives of my ten thousand employees either miserable or positive. It doesn’t take very much to go either way. That’s an awesome responsibility. I need to keep reminding myself daily of the role I play.” To fill that role successfully, executives need to put the interest of the organization before their self-interest; speak to the collective imagination of the organization, so motivating people that they give their best and more; face reality as it is, not as they would like it to be; and be confident enough of their own abilities that they’re not afraid to encourage and develop the next generation of leaders.

WHY RIDE A DEAD HORSE?

Many executives genuinely want to fit the above description, but they keep getting derailed by their human foibles—those dispositions discussed in earlier chapters. They want to keep an eye on the competition but verge into paranoia; they want to benefit from the wisdom of others but become swamped in dependence; and so on and on. They keep doing and saying the same destructive things over and over again. Apparently they’re not familiar with the old Sioux Indian saying: “When you discover that you’re riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.” They seem to believe that they can resuscitate the horse.

But even many executives who claim to believe in the value of change undertake it only half-heartedly. Although they give lip service to change, they’d rather see others change than change themselves. And some executives don’t so much resist change as misunderstand it; they have the will but not the skill to change. They need help to navigate the change process. John Maynard Keynes had a point when he said, “The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget their old ideas.” Far too many people are frightened of new ideas, though it’s often the old ideas they should worry about.

How, then, can corporate leaders master the change process? What can they do to make themselves receptive to change so that they can better motivate and support their employees? How can they make their organizations better places to work? In short, how can executives become better leaders?

Greater self-awareness is the first step toward becoming more effective as a leader. If leaders want to reinvent or renew themselves, they have to look within; they have to explore their inner theater. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Thus the intention to change implies a willingness to engage in self-exploration.

But that willingness is just the beginning. Let’s take a look at the change process and see what it entails.

CHANGE AND THE TRIANGLE OF MENTAL LIFE

In our effort to understand the complex process of change, it helps to look at human behavior as being made up of a triangle of forces: cognition, emotion, and behavior. This triangular force field determines the script that’s acted out in our inner theater. That script involves all three elements of the triangle of mental life and, as was discussed in Chapter 1, is written in response to the motivational need systems on which choice is grounded.

Taking this basic triangle of mental life—with its linking of cognition, emotion, and behavior—as our point of departure, we can see that for any change effort to be successful, the individual seeking change has to be swayed both cognitively and emotionally; in other words, a person has to be affected in both the head and the heart if behavior is to change. Affect and cognition go hand in hand; they’re inseparable in all things, including the determination of behavior. Although someone seeking change needs to see intellectually the advantages that a change effort will bring, cognition alone isn’t enough; that person also needs to be touched emotionally. The three legs of this triangle of mental life are closely interwoven. Architects of leadership change programs, take note!

Figure 8.1 Triangle of mental life

HITTING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL

Initially, in my role as an educator and consultant, when I addressed the subject of changing people and organizations I quite naively used what we might call the lecture method. I composed long harangues, explaining to executives where and why they were making faulty decisions, why their organizations were malfunctioning, and what and how they had to change. I used every kind of logic I knew to explain why they couldn’t continue doing things the same way they’d been doing them. Although intellectually I may have been quite correct, I soon discovered that my interventions didn’t make an iota of difference. Most of the executives I dealt with paid lip service to my exhortations but merrily kept on with their old ways. Eventually, as I kept hitting my head against the wall, I realized that I needed to find a different angle. I was using a filibuster of logic when logic alone wasn’t good enough. I had to reach these people in a different way to help them change themselves, and their organizations with them.

It was a participant in one of my intensive leadership workshops who helped me see a new way. This executive, Chet Parker, had received a considerable amount of feedback from the other participants and faculty about his tendency to remain emotionally aloof in difficult situations, using distancing as a defensive mechanism. We had noticed that, when stressed, Chet withdrew and didn’t react, a pattern that would surely have negative effects on the decision-making processes in his organization. The problem was so pronounced that I’m sure he must have heard comments about it before. In other words, cognitively he must have been aware of the problem. But knowing the problem in his head was apparently not good enough. He had to experience whatever was going on in his “gut” as well. It was obvious that additional “ammunition” would be needed to make him change his ways interpersonally, to make him more effective in executing decisions. The question was, What could be done to get a “hook” into him? What could I, as a workshop facilitator, do that would make a real difference? How could I understand and overcome his resistance?

To find the hook I needed, I decided to consult with the people who were most important to Chet. With his permission, I contacted not only co-workers but also his close friends, his wife, his children, and other family members, asking them via e-mail to describe how they perceived him and to suggest what he needed to change about his behavior. When I presented this information during the second week of the workshop, I could see that the feedback was beginning to stick. One response—a very emotional statement from his nineteen-year-old daughter—really shook him up. With teary eyes (very unusual for an otherwise alwayscomposed banker) he shared the e-mailed response from his daughter expressing her sadness about his inapproachability. She wrote about her long-frustrated wish to be closer to him—to have a real relationship with him. She referred to all the efforts she had made in the past to create such a relationship.

This note was the turning point for Chet. From that moment on the other participants noticed a change in his behavior. He became truly emotionally involved in the discussions that took place at the workshop and finally heard the insights provided by the other participants. The other presentations began to touch him emotionally. Most importantly, however, he began to experiment with other ways of behaving when in stressful situations outside the workshop. That isn’t to say that there were no lapses. But what kept him on course were the comments made by the other participants reminding him of the feedback from his daughter any time he fell back into his old behavior patterns. The other participants functioned as a “learning community” to reinforce desired behavior. Gradually, over the course of half a year, Chet’s new, more expressive behavior became second nature to him.

The transformation that I saw in Chet helped me to look at the personal change process in a different manner. It confirmed for me the importance of the triangle of mental health, and it illustrated the power that various constituencies can have in encouraging change. As people from home, the office, and the newly established learning community—people whose opinions Chet valued—were drawn in, all these parties acquired a stake in the change effort, and they all reinforced Chet’s experimentation with new relational approaches. This strategy helped to create the “tipping point,” that point at which Chet realized that the cost of staying with the status quo was much higher than that of experimenting with new options, and he was able to begin lowering and working through his resistances.

THE CEO “RECYCLING” SEMINAR

Once a year I run a workshop at INSEAD called “The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders,” a workshop shaped by my work with Chet and others like him. Approximately twenty very senior applicants (many of them CEOs) are invited to participate. These executives apply to the program for a variety of reasons. They might, for example, be dealing with a seemingly insoluble dilemma, negative feelings about themselves, or perceptions of the world and others that tend to make fulfillment seem impossible. Typically, these dilemmas aren’t clearly articulated in the applicants’ minds when they apply to the program.

To be accepted into the program each potential participant has to complete a complex application form. The information provided helps me to make an initial assessment about the suitability of the candidates for the program. Is their psychological makeup sufficiently robust to withstand the rigors of the program? Will their presence add to the program? The application includes a series of short essays that can be seen as psychological preparation for what the program will have in store for them. It makes future participants aware that this isn’t yet another typically run executive program. In addition, all future participants, wherever they’re located, are interviewed by me, either face-to-face or over the phone, to help me ascertain whether they have what it takes to go through this kind of workshop. During the interview I explain to them that, in contrast to other programs, the “life” case study will be the main source of interpretive material. I ask them if they think they can handle such an approach. Although many of them say that talking about themselves in an intimate way is no problem, my experience tells me just how anxious and defensive it will probably make them. Still, if the interview reveals traces of psychological-mindedness—that is, the capacity to be open and responsive, and a serious interest in understanding themselves—I know I’ve got a good candidate.

The workshop consists of three five-day sessions with breaks of approximately seven weeks in between, followed by a three-day session half a year later. The expectation is that the participants will learn more about themselves each week we’re together, agree on a “contract” specifying what they’ll work on while on the job and at home, and return to the workshop for the next session to deepen their understanding. I assign “homework” particular to each individual, to be tackled between the modules and monitored by the other participants. (Mutual coaching is part of the design of the program.)

I run the program with the help of a colleague. Having a second person in the workshop allows for a more complete view of what happens in the group and serves to protect both faculty members from major blind spots. In addition, having two faculty members gives each of us the opportunity to move in and out of active and passive observational modes. The interchange between the two workshop leaders also provides a model for the participants of ways of relating to each other and handling conflict, and provides the participants with a richer way of understanding complex human phenomena.

Although the basic material of the workshop is the “life” case study, as noted earlier, the first week of the program is fairly structured. Part of the time is spent on a number of interactive lectures/discussions concerning high-performance organizations, organizational culture, leadership (exemplary and dysfunctional), communication, the career life cycle, cross-cultural management, organizational stress, and other organizational dilemmas. Built on this structure, the workshop’s central model of psychological activity and organization is the personal case history. At some point during the multiweek process, each participant sits in what some have described as the “hot seat.” Although this is voluntary, eventually everyone does it, realizing its importance. The presentation of one’s life story is a process of self-discovery, giving a framework to previously puzzling experiences and actions. As listeners compare their own stories, the narration also helps the other participants better understand problems in their public or private lives. Puzzling and disturbing as some of these presentations can be, the emerging material helps participants become better at the process of making sense of the human experience. As Henry Thoreau once said, “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”

During the second week of the workshop some time is devoted to the processing of a number of multi-party feedback instruments and a personality test, providing the person not only with rich feedback from the organizational world but also from family members and friends. This information serves as the basis for a more refined action plan in the period between the second and third workshop components. The main focus of the third week is the consolidation of the acquired insights, the internalization of change, and future action plans. This process of consolidation is then further reinforced by the short workshop half a year later.

Apart from the plenary sessions, participants spend considerable time in small groups in and outside the classroom. These interactions are extremely valuable because they serve to consolidate and internalize newly discovered behavior patterns. Eventually, the twenty people form an intense learning community, with each participant constructively giving feedback to anyone who falls back into a behavior pattern that he or she is trying to unlearn. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that by the third week, many of the participants know each other better than many of their family members do. Because by that point they feel safe with each other and have become more emotionally intelligent, the interchange in the plenary sessions is free-flowing and information-rich, with much less intervention needed by the faculty. Most important, by the third session the members of this self-analysing group have begun to take important steps toward change both at the office and at home.

Many of the groups, after concluding with their half-year follow-up, choose to hold follow-up sessions year after year. This offers the participants a chance to renew good friendships and reinforce new behaviors, and it gives the faculty an opportunity to assess the degree to which new behavior patterns have become truly internalized, and thus whether the change efforts have truly held.

LOOKING IN ON ″THE CHALLENGE OF LEADERSHIP″

Let’s look in as a new group of participants gather for their first “Challenge of Leadership” meeting:

Getting Started

The cocktail party that launches “The Challenge of Leadership” workshop has the familiar artificial quality found on many such occasions. There’s the usual nervous laughter, the clinking of glasses, the jockeying for positions. People mill around, trying to make contact and start up a conversation. Quite a few of the people present are ill at ease, unsure what to talk about and how to relate to each other. Topics of conversation range from recent political events, to travel, to cross-cultural anecdotes.

Though this looks like an ordinary cocktail party, with a random group of executives engaged in meaningless activity, it isn’t. The party has been carefully choreographed. There’s a purpose behind the social ritual. It’s an awkward but necessary step to get the leadership workshop on its way—a deliberate effort to prepare a group of individuals for change.

From all over the globe, the participants arrived earlier at their destination. Now they’re trying to feel their way around. Specialists on group behavior would call what happens at this initial gathering of participants the “being polite” group phase. During this time, the members of the group struggle with questions of inclusion and exclusion: Who else has been selected into the program? What’s the background of the other participants? What will they be like to work with? The tentative behavior of the partygoers is a snapshot in time, reflecting both their excitement and their anxiety.

A spectator from Mars would be amused to see this gathering of captains of industry, because in this context they look like fish out of water. For once, they aren’t in control. For once, they don’t know exactly what to expect. For once, they aren’t the ones pulling the strings. For once, they’re not masters of the universe. Instead, they’re anxiously testing the waters. They introduce themselves to each other. They engage in polite talk. Some maneuver awkwardly to position themselves among their peers. Some of them talk too much: that’s their way of coping with an uncomfortable situation. Others try to numb their anxiety by drinking too much. At a subliminal level they’re aware, however, that it will be harder to hide behind a public self here than it is at the office. It won’t be as easy to keep a mask on or to skate by with formulaic responses. Participants are well aware that they’re caught up in a totally unknown situation, and each one fosters specific fantasies and defensive reactions. Many thoughts race through their minds: Why didn’t I stay at the office? Why did I leave familiar ground? There must be a better way to spend my time. What am I going to get out of all this? What if this is just a waste of time? What am I doing here?

Although over the years word-of-mouth has been the most powerful driver behind executive applications, for a number of the participants gathered here the journey started when their VP of Human Resources or another colleague gave them a brochure about the program and it lit a spark of interest. Something in the description of the program piqued their curiosity or stimulated their fantasy. Some prospective participants see the workshop as an opportunity to do something different—to take a break from the routine of office life. Others see in the workshop a source of answers to the existential questions they’ve been asking themselves lately—questions about how to regain the former excitement of work, play, and marriage; questions about how to get out of their rut and restore the sense of discovery that used to make work a joy.

Among the prospective participants who read the brochure at their desk back home, there were a few who dropped out of the process when they saw how complex the admission form was. It asked far too many questions, for one thing. Such forms were good for students, sure—but at their level? Some of these questions were downright puzzling—quite different from the standard questions posed by journalists or investment analysts—and most of them were terribly personal. Who wants to write about things he or she is not good at? Who knows how to respond when asked about risks taken (and possibly lost)? While the questions asked on the admission form caused some irritation and anxiety, they clearly indicated that this wasn’t going to be a traditional executive program.

And then there was the telephone interview. Out of the blue, a stranger—the workshop leader—called to ask even more questions, equally personal (or worse!). He asked what complaints the spouse had about the prospective participant, for example. And what kind of things made the participant angry, sad, frustrated. He even asked questions about wild fantasies. Whose business was that? they wondered. What did any of that have to do with becoming more effective as a leader? Strangely enough, though, when asked at the end of that phone call if they still wanted a place in the program, everyone in attendance at the cocktail party had given an affirmative response.

After the cocktail party, there was a short introduction describing the daily workshop schedule, followed by a tour of the campus and a nice dinner. As the participants chatted politely during the meal, they sensed that they were enjoying the calm before the storm.

The Workshop Proper

The next day the seminar started in earnest. At the announced opening time the anxiety ran high; people appeared quite apprehensive, and they looked expectantly at the workshop leader for reassurance. He gave a short lecture on emotional intelligence and irrational behavior in organizations and then reiterated the basic premise of the workshop: that it was fueled by the “life” case study (meaning that case presentations from participants would be the main learning tool). He mentioned that each life case study would offer a unique situation that would contribute to the learning process and cautioned that there could be “no interpretation without association.” (In other words, each participant would get as much out of the workshop as he or she put into it.) He reminded the group that he had spoken to all the participants beforehand and that all had accepted the ground rules and had committed to work on a number of significant problems that needed resolution. He also stressed the need for confidentiality regarding what happened in the classroom.

From then on the workshop was on its way. How the various participants would handle the emerging anxiety would depend on their personality structure, their historic defense mechanisms, and the specific dynamics that evolved in the group. The immediate behavioral data that would emerge in the group would be used as clues in the exploration of conscious and unconscious material, and of defensive operations.

THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS

Though, as I noted earlier, I had an epiphany about the need to involve all aspects of the mental health triangle in any change effort, it took me years of struggling and experimentation to settle on the format for “The Challenge of Leadership.” The end result truly does foster the change process—but why? To understand how and why it works, let’s look at some of the “science” of personal change.

Developmental psychologists have estimated that at the age of thirty, two-thirds to three-fifths of an individual’s personality is formed ⁶. But the fact that people have a greater plasticity early in life doesn’t rule out their ability to change at a later life stage, if they know how to go about it. To jumpstart a change effort, certain conditions need to be met; specific steps have to be taken. Does this mean undergoing lengthy therapeutic procedures? Rarely.

As a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist (roles for which I’ve been formally trained, just as I’ve been trained in business and economics), I’m steeped in traditional methods of creating personality change. More traditional psychoanalytic thinking dictates that the main route to insight and lasting change occurs through a lengthy treatment procedure involving anywhere from two to five sessions a week. Needless to say, the prospect of such a monumental undertaking isn’t very attractive to senior executives who have neither the time nor the patience for such an activity. Furthermore, executives tend to think they’re the center of the universe. That meant I had to find a more time-effective way of reaching them. I needed to find a procedure to get the attention of a group of highly self-centered people, and to get that attention fast.

My task, then, was to develop a method of intervention that would accelerate and condense the more traditional therapeutic process while remaining true to basic clinical principles. I had to find a less traditional way to overcome resistances to change and to confront problems that were often out of awareness—problems of a preconscious and unconscious nature. I had to mobilize in an effective way unconscious mental processes to achieve therapeutic results. In addition, I had to make sure that any changes in behavior patterns that resulted wouldn’t turn out to be “flights into health”—transient “highs”—as is so often the case with the miraculous “cures” offered by psychological snake-oil salesmen.

As I weighed my options, I saw considerable promise for accelerating the process of change in short-term dynamic psychotherapy ⁷,⁸,⁹,¹⁰,¹¹,¹²,¹³,¹⁴,¹⁵,¹⁶,¹⁷,¹⁸,¹⁹,²⁰,²¹,²²,²³,²⁴,²⁵-²⁶. This therapeutic approach offered a different avenue than long-term psychotherapy to help people acquire insight into the life events and ongoing experiences that contributed to their problems. Therapists using this approach discovered that focused interventions of a more direct nature, combined with a solid dose of empathy and psychological support, frequently resulted in remarkable improvement. They also found that clarification of defensive reactions, which allowed the presenting problem to be brought into sharper focus, appeared to contribute to behavior change. These techniques made the client’s problem more explicit and gave the client a greater awareness of the psychological forces affecting his or her behavior.

After experimenting with short-term dynamic psychotherapy in one-on-one encounters with executives who came to me wanting to increase their effectiveness at work, I realized that, though in most cases we achieved progress, more was needed to create lasting change in their behavior patterns. Simple one-on-one coaching, valuable as it was, generally had only limited results ²⁷. Given the limited time available, I needed to increase the discomfort zone of the participants. I discovered that if I could create a situation of high intensity and total involvement through the creation of a learning community—whereby each member had a stake in creating a “corrective emotional experience” for others—there was the possibility that the change process could be further accelerated ²⁸.

After a great deal of trial and error, I conceived that I could create an intense learning community by combining some of the methods used in short-term dynamic psychotherapy with the interventions derived from group dynamics while adding concepts taken from organizational and leadership theory ²⁹,³⁰,³¹,³²,³³,³⁴,³⁵,³⁶-³⁷. In using the most effective principles of the first two I was able to set the stage for a more intensified change effort.

Because minds are like umbrellas, in that they function only when they’re open, I had to prepare the executives I was dealing with to be willing to open up. That meant I needed to create a transitional space—that is, a space in which participants, protected from the reality of the outside world, could safely experiment with new forms of interacting ³⁸;³⁹-⁴⁰. This is a crucial element in any developmental or change process.

The pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, whose emphasis was children’s play and learning, described how so-called transitional objects help children develop self-reliance, independence, and the ability to separate themselves from their caregivers so that they can differentiate themselves from the world around them ³⁹-⁴⁰. His writings talk of an everyday world, with all its demands, and an intrapsychic world—a world of inner reality where drives, wishes, needs, and fantasies thrive. In addition, however, he speaks of a third world, an illusionary place between reality and fantasy where connections are drawn between the inner and outer worlds. This world is occupied by “transitional objects.” A child who is initially totally dependent on the mother or father (or other caregiver) uses these transitional objects, such as a teddy-bear or a blanket, as a surrogate protective figure when the mother or father isn’t readily available for help or support. Thus transitional objects help the child overcome the anxiety of becoming independent and self-relying; these objects serve as enablers of intellectual and emotional development through a guided “letting go” of a former, more dependent relationship.

In its original form, this transitional world, with its transitional objects, is part of the process of resolving the developmental challenges of childhood to arrive at adulthood and maturity. A place of play and imagination, transitional space is an incubator for creative thought. This is the place where such processes as symbolization, make-believe, illusion, daydreaming, playfulness, curiosity, imagination, and wonder start. Though transitional space is essential to healthy development in childhood, there’s no such a thing as definitive closure. At maturity, people don’t give up their transitional world. They continue to reenter it regularly when they need to find unorthodox ideas and solutions.

Thus providing transitional space in the workplace, in the psychologist’s office, or in the context of “The Challenge of Leadership” is a productive way to encourage innovation, experimentation, and learning. This space can’t be forced into existing forms and structures, because it needs to be fluid, able to change form in response to the interests, desires, wishes, and memories of the people involved. The main requirement is that it simultaneously provide the assurance of safety and the degree of frustration needed to foster new learning.

Because “The Challenge of Leadership” offers transitional space, it becomes an “identity laboratory,” a forum in which people can tolerate feedback (even when it’s negative) and are willing to experiment with new ways of doing things ⁴¹. The transitional space offered by the workshop is a place where people can let go of their resistances and enjoy the freedom to create and enjoy illusions. It’s a place where they can discover and rediscover aspects of themselves, where missing experiences come back into mental consciousness. It’s a place where they can abandon their false selves and experiment with living according who and what they are, not according to what others ask them to be. It’s a place where people are encouraged to do new things rather than merely repeat what they’ve done in the past.

Playing in a transitional space—being part of such an “identity laboratory”—encourages workshop participants to break out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. It enables them to take a hard look at their propensity toward self-deception. It helps them deepen their intimate relationships. It helps them connect the unconnected. It encourages them to explore feelings they thought they had forgotten and to enjoy moments of wonder. Most of all, it fosters the creative process. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination.”

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