Anne Giles Clelland

Results of Longitudinal Research Studies

"Somehow, we feel people our age should be...resting on our laurels...not engaging in risk-taking projects, embarking on unmapped adventures, and enduring the awkwardness and vulnerabilities of new mastery."

- Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50

I attended my nephew’s soccer game when he was about five and the parents and coaches on the sideline became apoplectic when, with great earnestness, my nephew’s teammate headed the ball with speedy little legs toward their own goal, and my nephew, with equal earnestness, ran with him to assist.

As the founder of an 18-month old company, I am, by definition, a novice.  My company is new, I’m new to it, so I am, at times, and with great earnestness, vulnerably awkward with techniques and goals.  Plenty of times, I don’t know the rules well enough to realize I’m plain just going the wrong way.

Especially in an age of corporate transparency, a company’s and a company’s founder's actions are subject to scrutiny.  Do I enjoy making errors in public?  Nope.

But compared to my geothermal passion for my company and my idea, an error is a hot rock in the sun.

As Lawrence-Lightfoot notes, I’ve lived long enough to have laurels to rest on, even to be termed a “master” in a field.  The results of longitudinal research, case study of one:  No matter the level of excellence and precision I achieved, to some greater or lesser extent, one occurrence was guaranteed.  I would err.  Humans err.

I’ve been asked, given the risks of the surgery I’ll have on Monday, why I haven’t sought out the top surgeon in the field, nationally, even internationally, to do the job. 

I have political views on health care that certainly have influenced my choice not to do that.  I’ve written often about my awareness that my attempts to control outcomes are almost always power-driven and fear-based.  I do my best to let enlightenment lead my way.

But the essence of my choice is this:  I think expertise can counteract humanity only so much. 

I could spend my family’s fortune, a huge portion of my fellow-insured’s payroll deductions, and fly to, let’s say, a leading research hospital in Paris, meet the esteemed master surgeon and his or her apprentices. 

I would then become a sheep, as are all pre-operation patients: no food or water after midnight, yadda, yadda, and the rather astounding request not to use hair spray in the morning because it’s flammable and we wouldn’t want fire in the operating room, now would we?

And in the morning I would be put under with anesthesia and lie on the operating table, powerless, subject absolutely to the surgeon’s humanity. 

Whether in Blacksburg, Virginia or Paris, France, that’s a human working on a human.  Humans, even masters, err.

As we are told by our grade school science teachers, each of us is unique.  With his impeccable record and reputation - and his own uniqueness - the surgeon who will operate on me on Monday could already be the ideal fit for my anatomy.

There’s no way to know.

Passes aren’t caught, hoops aren’t hit, soccer balls aren't kicked into the right goal.  Start-up company founders get their angel investor video pitches trashed.  With the highest hopes and the best of intentions, humans err.

On the way to Monday, I’m cranking through the grieving process.  I seem to have mostly acceptance going right now.  I feel a little sadness, a touch of fear.

Given the nature of my work, I’ve had the glorious experience of having multiple-year relationships with thousands of people, almost as if I’ve had my own private, longitudinal research study going.

All those joys and sorrows, all those seemingly impossible, even unspeakable, things happening.

I’ve seen one truth prevail.  It comes from depths.  And it wasn’t how much one could control others or outcomes.

The surgeon will have it, the staff will have it, my family, friends and entrepreneurial colleagues will have it, ultimately, no matter what happens.

Courage.

And I’ll have it, too.  No matter what happens.

Did It Just Begin

I wonder if It weighs like Mine--
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long--
Or did it just begin--
I could not tell the Date of Mine--
It feels so old a pain--

- Emily Dickinson, "I Measure Every Grief I Meet," cited in The New Yorker 2/1/10

"Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
- Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face

When I was nine, my family met my fourth grade teacher and her husband at the grocery store. Her husband held out a hand to me, missing everything but a thumb.  I balked, afraid, but he insisted.  I remember the odd shape, the warm skin.

Making a connecting commuter flight in Charlotte in one of their sunny, glass terminals, I saw a face slick with burn, melted skin pulled red and mottled tight around his eyes, the hole of his mouth, bits of what had been his ears.  I felt shock, then such sorrow.  He sat alone, waiting for his flight, a young man by his energy and dress, not making eye contact, not speaking, not watching the children whose arms were jerked by their parents when they stopped to stare, not requiring that others shake hands with what had become of him.  To and from the restrooms and snack bar, I passed him several times.  On the last pass, I heard him sigh.

In business, scenarios are played out as worst case, best case, and realistic case. 

In therapy, it's The Worse Case Scenario and The Miracle Question.

In a version of The Worst Case Scenario, the client is asked of something he or she fears, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” To the client’s answer, the therapist asks, “What’s the worst thing that could happen because of that?” With support and only as the client is able, the therapist questions each answer, taking the client down, down to the deepest fear.  Often the answer involves death with a twist of powerlessness and a dash of presence - no one, too many, the wrong one.  In the unknown dark, the fear lurks.  Brought to the light, it threatens less.

A troubled client is asked a version of The Miracle Question:  “If you went to sleep tonight and woke up in the morning and all was well, what would have happened?”  In describing the details, awareness of possibility emerges.

As I contemplate surgery next Monday, out-patient, almost-routine except for that side bit about the facial paralysis, The Worst Case Scenario for me isn’t death.  I have plans for my life and would be sorry to lose those and I would be deeply sorry for the sadness of my friends and family, but I won’t feel that because I’ll be gone.

The worse case scenario for me would be answering the question, "How brave will I need to be?"

The worst case scenario for me would be the sigh. 

Were I to regain consciousness from the surgery and a miracle had occurred, it wouldn't be what’s resulted from the surgery.  I’ve learned that what comes from wishing for outcomes, or for wishing things were different, is irremediable suffering.  “All is well” for me would be that, whatever has happened, I am handling it.

Scar

"...destroy all of my beautiful wickedness? I'm gone! I'm gone!"
- The Wicked Witch of the West, The Wizard of Oz, 1939 film

"When I was young  I longed for scars
like my father's   They were the best
scars on the block...
'It's the ones you can't see that kill you'..."
"Scars," Peter Meinke

LBJ taught me the wonder of scars.

I got a few in the 70s, which, following LBJ's lead, I shared in mutual fascination with the fellow scarred, my mother protesting because their location required me to unzip my jeans.  It was the 70s.

Looks like in the 10s I'll be getting a new one for all to see.

I asked Dr. Aaron Prussin, "If it were your wife?"

"It would come out," he answered.

I'll have a parotidectomy on February 15, 2010 for this.  Since the facial nerve runs through the parotid, or salivary gland, in addition to some other possibilities, the major risk of the
two-and-a-half hour surgery is that my face will sag like a Dali clock.

Here's a detailed text description of the surgery and here, on YouTube, is how Dr. Soh does it in Singapore. (Spoiler alert: The needles come out at 4:46 and the knife at 5:18, which is when I stopped watching.)

Feel free not to click on the links here:  I'm going to look like this at first except mine's on the right side.  Hopefully, I'll look as good as Andy does eventually.  You can sit on my left when we're out to dinner if I develop Frey's syndrome.  Apparently, I'll have a nice dent in my neck, too.  A dent in the neck is better than a hole in the head.

The bottom line for this CEO is that I'm probably just not going to be too good lookin'. Ah, well. 

For my cool speaking gig on April 7, I'll bring props.

The procedure will be done out-patient at Montgomery Regional Hospital (which is amazing because they cut OPEN a guy's head in the ghastly video - okay, I looked) and I'll call on Friday, 2/12 to find out when the surgery is scheduled for Monday.  Dr. Prussin suggested I schedule no meetings for a week afterward.  I think that's to protect everyone from the Dali face thing.

He says for sure, long-term, I won't be able to feel my right ear lobe.  Maybe that's the time to finally get my ears pierced.

If you're not into scars like LBJ, or not into the CEO of the company that provides you service or with whom you partner being out of commission for awhile, I can understand that. If you wanted me the way I was, that makes complete sense to me.  For the change to come, small or large, the concern it may cause you, and the time it may take away from you, I am profoundly sorry. 

Dr. Prussin thought I might want to restyle my hair towards my face, rather than away from it, to hide the scar.

It would just get blown back.  I'm face forward, going fast.

Nudity is the New Transparency

Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough...
- Losing My Religion, R.E.M.

See me, feel me
Touch me, heal me.
- Go to the Mirror!, Tommy, The Who

"What you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly. You are what you Tweet!"
- Twitter Terms of Service

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
- Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, in The Huffington Post

"Corporate transparency is touted as being good for a corporation's image, and is a key ingredient in compliance and governance. Transparent companies inspire more trust...But is such corporate transparency really such a good thing?...Still, opacity (or intransparency) is an even bigger risk. Not showing what you're doing is simply not accepted anymore."
- Frank Buytendijk, Vice President and Fellow, Enterprise Performance Management, Oracle, on his blog

"...there's no use trying to resist. You're already naked."
- Clive Thompson, The See-Through CEO, Wired

"Six drops of essence of terror, five drops of sinister sauce...and now for the tincture of tenderness..."
- Professor Weirdo creating Milton the Monster

"You're only as sick as your secrets."
- Saying known in therapy and recovery circles, probably most famously uttered by Carrie Fisher

As a CEO, how transparent do I have to be? On my corporate bio page, next to the standard shot in the biz suit, will I need a tasteful nude pose like the Ladies of Rylstone?

While “transparency” as a business term became common after corporate financial and ethical violations, corporate leaders themselves have been asked to adopt personal transparency as they blog and tweet.

What is the purpose of personal CEO transparency?

In the business-to-business realm, if people do business with people, and people do business with people they know because they believe they can trust them more than with people they don’t know, and trust is perceived as decreasing risk, whereas not knowing people with whom they might deal is perceived as increasing risk, how much do people need to know about people to do business with them?

If people know not only a company’s mission, products, services, and financials, but its founder and leader - what he or she thinks, feels and does - are they more likely to do business with the company?

If the CEO presents himself or herself beyond “what you see is what you get” to transparency – being able to see through surface appearances – will that engender that "It's who you know" trust that increases the likelihood of business?

If the answer to "Will people do more business with my company if I am a transparent CEO?" is probably "Yes," then it might be time to find a discreet photographer.

If you’re familiar with triathlon togs - trisuits - then you know I’ve already pretty much been nude in public, especially when emerging from the swim, especially when I forgot to lock the porta-potty door in front of lines of hundreds of waiting triathletes.  I’m desensitized.  No big deal.

What I hear fellow CEOs struggle with is nudity of the heart, mind and spirit. I hear their concerns about the consequences of dismantling privacy fences, of secrets revealed, of that deepest fear - of not being accepted for who we truly are.

For me, I’ve had my dark nights of the soul.  I’ll have more.  I’ve had what Schmidt describes as “something that you don’t want anyone to know” and realized I didn’t want to know it, either.  Like the cartoon character Milton the Monster, though, I’m comprised of both the sinister and the tender. Like R.E.M., I’m torn that I’ve said too much and not enough at the same time.  And I’ve experienced, and witnessed, the risk and terrible cost of Buytendijk’s “intransparency,” of the sickness of secrets, almost unto death.

I think a secretive path, corporate or personal, is fraught with peril.

As a CEO, I have chosen a great deal of personal transparency.  Will it result in more business for my company?

Maybe not more.  But I bet my company, and companies with whom we can do good business, will recognize each other. I’m not a fan of attempting to control what others think and feel, of attempting to "make" people accept a "projection of a corporate image," regardless of the reality of the corporation.

From my company, what you see is what you get, and then some, down to the skin if need be.