"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett from “Worstward Ho”

In 1969, Laurence J. Peter advanced his theory that "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence” and The Peter Principle has had a great deal of influence on the teaching of management ever since. While, being an optimist, I can’t help but hope that Dr. Peter’s principle is not as universal as he claimed, I admit that I’ve been concerned about reaching my own level of incompetence before retiring from my professional career.

I also sometimes find it hard to value my knowledge and experience, and other abilities or qualities, as much as others do. I tend to hold myself to a pretty high standard, can be my own worst critic, and have had a very real fear of failing before I reached the finish line of my career. Not of simply failing in the way we all do every day. The failing that helps us learn and grow stronger, but a fear of failing utterly. As I look forward to retirement, less than 9 weeks from today, I’m grateful that I seem to have escaped The Peter Principle, and it appears I will be able to finish my career in a way that will allow me to feel proud of what I’ve accomplished.

Dr. Peter points out that in most hierarchical organizations, we base our selection of candidates to advance to more responsible positions on their performance in their current roles, rather than on the knowledge, experience, and abilities they would need for the new role. Where this is true, the selection process rewards past performance but does little to ensure future success. He paints a bleak picture for such an organization where “in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties” and “work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

I’m glad to say that I don’t believe I’ve seen much evidence that this is the situation at our university. While there will always be those who are more and less successful as they assume more responsible roles, I have participated in may recruitment processes that included significant efforts to understand how candidates’ knowledge, abilities, and experience prepare them for success in a new role, and that consider how they would fit with the culture of the organizations they would serve in that role. In that sense, our organization, while hierarchical, doesn’t entirely fit Dr. Peter’s description of one where candidates are selected based primarily on their performance in their current role. We also make a significant effort to support professional development that allows people to develop the new skills and knowledge they will need to be successful.

As I look at my own apparent escape from The Peter Principle, I’m struck by the fact that the only time I advanced in my career at the university through our recruitment process was when I was initially hired in 1989. Every time since then that I have applied for a more responsible position, I’ve been considered seriously, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Every time I advanced to a more responsible position, it was because our leadership believed I had something to offer in that role and asked me to accept greater responsibility. Perhaps my escape is partly due to the fact that the process used to select me for advancement considered the qualities I’d need to succeed as well as my past performance.

I appreciate that the leaders I served saw something in me that lead them to ask me to do more. That they valued my abilities, and character, and challenged me to grow. To my own credit, I had enough confidence in myself to say yes to these opportunities, and my high standards often meant that striving to meet my own expectations lead me to exceed theirs. With only one exception, I served leaders who encouraged me to keep growing and who supported the professional development activities that helped me increase my value to our university.

I also made some choices with regard to my career aspirations that may have helped ensure that I remained working at a level where I was able to make valuable contributions. Earlier in my career, I had considered seeking a position as Chief Information Officer. I believed I had the vision and leadership ability to serve effectively in that role. After careful consideration, I chose not to pursue that goal and, instead, to remain a senior operational IT leader while advocating for our university to hire its first CIO. While it is possible that I would have made a good CIO, I am satisfied with the choice I made. I never did face the challenge of serving at that more responsible level, and will never know for certain if I could have done so successfully.  

The greater challenges and demands of the increasingly responsible roles I’ve played in my career were a factor in my decision, too. The stress and pressure that came with these positions, including the demands of my own high standards and my difficulty in saying no, took a toll on me. My fear of failing professionally, becoming incompetent to do my job well, were joined by a fear that I would fail physically, mentally, or emotionally before I’d reached a point where I could retire with confidence that my family would be financially secure. A stress-related illness three years ago also helped me decide to retire a bit earlier than I’d originally planned. I’m so very grateful to my wonderful wife, and all our loved ones, for their support as I’ve recovered, and as we’ve made a plan for retirement that allows me to end my career on a high note.

I am relieved to see the finish line so near now! I’m glad that the university hired its first CIO in time for me to help with the transition to that new model for our IT organization. I’m grateful to our CIO and all our colleagues for the way they have allowed me to participate in that process as Executive Director. I’m proud of the teams I have been leading over these past 16 months in my interim role as Director of Client Services, and grateful to the stakeholders whose colleges, schools, and divisions we serve for being such wonderful colleagues as I’ve played one more new role before I say farewell.  

I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, with the help of so many others, in my nearly 28 years working in IT at our university, and the 10 years before that in county government and the savings and loan industry. I would never have been able to predict that my professional life would take this course when I graduated from U.C. Davis all those years ago. Who could have guessed that a psychology major who had never taken a single class in IT or computer science would make his living this way? It now seems clear I will have the pleasure of crossing the finish line of my career with my head held high. I feel such gratitude for all my wonderful colleagues, mentors, and friends in this work over the years. My heart is filled to overflowing with love for my family, friends and loved ones, and especially for my precious partner on this journey, my Sue.    

"You know the sound of two hands clapping; tell me, what is the sound of one hand?" - Hakuin Ekaku.

Ten weeks from today, I will be retired from my full-time career in IT. As I look forward to that day, I find myself increasingly aware of the passing time, and I know that day will be here before I know it. I realized this week that I first began working in IT while I was a student at UC, Davis more than 40 years ago. I worked at the Shields Library doing various tasks that included helping with the work to implement their first computerized library management system from CLSI.

After working for ten years supporting IT for county government and then in a data center supporting savings and loans clients from Connecticut to Hawaii, I’m glad that I returned to working at a university for most of my career. I am also grateful that my work volunteering with SHARE continued when I moved from the private sector to education, and that I had the opportunity to do some of my most satisfying work, and find some of my dearest friends, there. I will retire with just over 28 years of service credit and I know I made the right choice to spend these years serving our students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

I’ve had opportunities over the years to leave the university to work in other enterprises, and I would probably have made more money if I’d taken one of those. I’m glad I chose to stay. It’s been clear to me for many years that there are things much more important than money, and that the most important things aren’t things at all. They are the relationships we share with one another, and ourselves, and the values that form the foundations of these relationships.

I am so very grateful to have spent most of my working life doing work that serves young, and not so young, people as they seek knowledge and experiences to prepare themselves to make a difference in the world we share. I’m glad to have formed strong relationships with my colleagues as we share this work, and endlessly grateful for the deep and lasting friendships that I’ve formed thanks to my career bringing me together with some very wonderful, and special, people. Most of all I am grateful that this work has allowed me to provide for my family while doing work that has made a difference.

In recent years, my days have often been filled with meetings, and I’ve had to learn that this was a significant part of the work I do. To remind myself that, rather than preventing me from doing important work, the meetings were one of the ways we do the important work of sharing our insights with one another and building the relationships that help us do what is right together.

In recent weeks, I find the meetings taking on a new character. I have already had my last meetings with some of the people and groups I work with, and many of the meetings in these next ten weeks will offer me those last opportunities to share in the work we do together. I find myself looking ahead and helping to find the best ways to pass the torch so that the work goes ahead well without me. I also find myself feeling and expressing my gratitude and appreciation.

I have been so fortunate in the people I have had the honor, and pleasure, to work with. In all these years at our university, there have been only a handful of people who I struggled to get along with, or whose motives did not seem to me to serve the best interests of our students and the institution. The number of these people is vanishingly small when compared with the vast, generous, majority who met each day with a genuine desire to make a difference, and to do what is right, for the students we have the privilege of serving. I have served among people of good character, who meet opportunity with energy and creativity, adversity with courage and determination, and each other with compassion and goodwill.

The Zen master Hakuin Ekaku, who created the koan I quote at the beginning of this essay, believed his question was effective in generating the great doubt necessary to those seeking enlightenment. For me, questions like this one have served for many years to help inspire the doubt that I have arrived at a final answer. To keep my mind, and heart, open to new insights from myself and others. Recently, I have found my own answer to this inherently unanswerable question. It is an answer, and not the answer, and I remain open to the great doubt and to new awareness.

The answer I have found reminds me that our separateness is an illusion. That the positions we take, and argue for, can appear to separate us while an open, and shared, exploration of the questions behind these positions can actually serve to bring us more clearly together in service of a stronger common understanding. That when we appear to be at odds with one another, we are facing an opportunity to grow in our understanding of each other and how we can best engage in the work ahead of us.

As I look forward to retirement, I know that it is people and our relationships that I will miss the most. I know that I will look back on what we have shared with a fond respect and admiration for my colleagues. That I will take steps to help find the next form of these relationships as my own journey continues in a new way. That I will rededicate myself to giving openly and fully in my relationships with my loved ones. I will be reminding myself that our separateness is an illusion and that the moments we share continue to enrich our lives always.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

“I’m not a basketball player. I am a man who plays basketball.” - William Felton Russell

Today, I find myself thinking about a conversation I had with one of our Dean’s a few weeks ago. Maybe this is because I’ve been thinking about basketball this morning! You see, one of my best friends spent this weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia enjoying the U Sports Men's Basketball Final 8 Championship games there. When I start thinking about basketball, it’s not long before I think of Bill Russell. I remember watching him play on television when I was a boy and he’s long been a role model for me of the relationship between what we do, and who we are.

During that conversation with the Dean, who has been a wonderful colleague and friend of mine for years, I had another opportunity to mention this wonderful man and what I learned from his example. For the rest of my life, when I hear the phrase, "the role of the academic" I know I will find myself thinking of that conversation. The Dean was congratulating me on my planned retirement and commented that she can't imagine retiring as she is so passionately engaged not only in scholarship in the social sciences, but especially in speaking and working in our local community. I know from my own experience with her that she is simply sharing her genuine love for her field, and the people of the Central Valley, when she says this.

She embodies the passionate desire to know, and to share, that justifies the hard work and sacrifice required to engage in scholarship in the most meaningful way. I am glad that I have seen this kind of passionate engagement many times before. When I think of “the role of the academic”, I think of many colleagues, and many of my own teachers, who provide wonderful examples of what it means to be a scholar in the best sense of that word. I always think of my father-in-law, with great respect and gratitude, who, by sharing his passion and enthusiasm for his field, helped fan the spark of curiosity for so many students into a fire that has lit and warmed their lives and the world around them.

As the Dean and I talked about retirement, I contrasted her relationship to her work with mine. My passion has been to provide for my family while doing something useful that made a difference. Ultimately, I have tried to do what is right, with love. Still, my passion is not for the work itself. I shared with her the story of Bill Russell who, when asked "Are you a basketball player?" says, "That’s what I do, that’s not what I am. I'm not a basketball player. I am a man who plays basketball." It was a new story to her, and, as soon as she heard me tell it, she seemed to relax and to understand that I would be just fine in retirement.

With her own deep satisfaction in the work she is engaged in, she had been a bit concerned that I might find life less satisfying in retirement. As we talked, she asked about what I planned to do and became even more relaxed, and animated, as I described the many interests I am looking forward to pursuing more richly once I am retired. She smiled and said, “I think you’ll be just fine!”

As we talked, I found myself thinking that how we describe and define ourselves, especially to ourselves, is very important. Whether we actively work to explore and choose these definitions, or find that they seem self-evident for us, the stories we tell about our purpose and priorities play a vital role in defining who we are. The stories of the Dean’s inspiring journey to become herself, and of my own more modest journey of self discovery, are central to our senses of self and inform the choices we make about how we spend our time and energy in life.

I admire her passion for her work and I am comfortable to do my own work out of a passion for my family, and a desire to make some meaningful difference. I think there may be some middle ground, especially here in our world of academics, between a person like her who works in her passion, and one like me who has little passion for the work itself, and yet finds satisfaction in the contributions he can make to the mission of the university. A place where we see one another in the light of our shared purpose.

A place where academics could both be warmed by the fire of their desire to know, and warm others by sharing what they have learned in a welcoming way that breaks down the illusion of an elite. Where non-academics can bring their best to advancing our shared mission of teaching, learning, scholarship, and community engagement in way that demonstrates their genuine desire to be full partners in this work. Perhaps she and I have begun to share that middle ground already.

We all make choices, and compromises, as we define ourselves and pursue our lives. Where our choices are aligned with our values and beliefs, with our mission and purpose, we are most likely to feel harmony between our actions and our sense of self. Even the most difficult choices, the most challenging obstacles, and the most demanding tasks can be deeply rewarding. We can stretch to work far beyond our comfort zones while remaining true to who we are. We can take our rest, and recover from our labor, satisfied that we have acted in good conscience to do what is right. I have experienced this in my own life and I know that being conscious that who I am is not defined by what I do has been critically important to my ability to make good choices.

This is the third time I’ve used this story about Bill Russell in these essays. I know I’ll tell his story many more times in my life, when I want to help make the point about the difference between who we are and what we do, and I’ll always be grateful to him for his shining example of how understanding this distinction can help us add meaning to our lives. In February 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Bill Russell the Presidential Medal of Freedom and cited him as "someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men". I think his own understanding of what it means to be a man with dignity, and love, will always be an inspiration to me.

Now, I find myself looking forward to retirement and thinking of my best friend sharing his joy in retirement with the family and friends he loves, and often immersed in the world of Canadian university basketball that he finds so satisfying. I’ve known this good man for many years, watching with admiration as he pursued his work with integrity and energy, seeing him face adversity with courage, and feeling my heart fill with gladness as he met the best of times with grace and gratitude. I’m glad I had the good fortune to work alongside him in our days at SHARE and happy we continue to share the friendship that grew there.

I watch him enjoying the new adventure of his retirement in the same way. True to his values and to who he is. Giving to his family and community. Finding joy in those things that mean the most to him. If I am fortunate enough to leave the world of work in a way that earns me the good will of my colleagues, and adventure on into retirement as my dear friend has, sharing the love of my family and friends, giving back to my community, and exploring those things that bring me joy, I will be satisfied indeed.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.” - Anais Nin

Today, I find myself thinking about dreams and realities. I have often been described as a dreamer, and there is a great deal of truth in that description. I am an optimist. I can be unrealistic, and I work to temper my dreams with some realistic pragmatism. While my dreams of what could be remain one of the driving forces in my life, I have also learned to take real joy in the sweet, satisfying, and sometimes surprising, reality I am fortunate to live. This dance between dreams and reality continues to chart my course into the future.

Like many other boys of my generation, I dreamt of being an astronaut, or a rock star. I also dreamt of becoming a naturalist, or a botanist like Luther Burbank. I spent my time singing, and writing songs. Watching launches and broadcasts from outerspace. Exploring the backyards of the neighborhoods we lived in, and the nearby streams and fields. I loved going to the museums in Chicago, and especially reading. I read science, and science fiction, biography, history, classics, animal stories, juvenile fiction, and amazing books like “The Lord of the Rings”. I read and wrote poetry.

My mother used to say that as a boy I seemed to have a new idea of what I wanted to be every week. I was interested in almost everything and kept trying on new dreams for my future. While I always wanted to marry and have a family, most of the things that attracted me as a boy were more individual or solitary in nature. I was one of those kids whose parents had to get him to put down his book and shoo him out of the house! Never much for team sports, I was happiest alone or with a few close friends. We also moved a lot and I think now that I found dreams of my own something that I could carry with me wherever I went.

Through all my changes in aspirations, places and people, the dream that kept calling was of a life in music. I imagined myself making a life, and a living, signing for and with people, and making a difference by playing benefits and championing causes as some of my musical heroes did. I enjoyed singing in various choirs from grade school through high school, and particularly enjoyed my days singing in the madrigal group at my high school. I took a few guitar lessons as a 12-year-old and that began a wonderful lifelong enjoyment of playing and singing with and for friends and family.

I seriously considered a life in music, but ultimately chose to make music a joyful avocation and to take the time-honored advice “Don’t quit your day job!” I chose to follow a dream that called to my heart even more than music did by looking for a life partner, falling in love, and having a family. I’ve never regretted that choice and my life has be rich, and filled with love thanks to my lovely wife and our two wonderful sons. They make my heart sing.

My pursuit of dreams has also been one of the major sources of worry for me. I can feel a great responsibility to make the dreams I’ve shared with my loved ones come true. I have worked hard to give them what it felt I had promised, and most of my worries have focused on the possibility of letting them down. I am realizing as I continue to grow that some of those things I promised have been dreams of mine that they never asked me to make real for them. I am working to hold myself responsible in a new way for whether I choose to make these dreams real or not. I am remembering that these are my dreams and being careful not to feel it is my loved ones I have failed should I not realize the dream, and maybe not even myself.

One of the most amazing surprises in my life is all I gained by not having certain of my dreams come true. By not having some heartfelt wish granted. I never became a rock star, or a full-time musician. I never worked in the field I studied for at university. My first marriage failed and I only really found my way home to my dream of love and family the second time around. If my earlier dreams had come true, I would not have found my way to the love that changed my life. If I had not taken a job in IT as a better way to pay the bills, I would have missed the opportunity to work with wonderful colleagues at SHARE and at my university. If not for this career choice, and the support of my wonderful Sue, I would not have served on the SHARE Board of Directors and found some of our very dearest friends. In my head, I can hear Garth Brooks singing “Unanswered Prayers” as I write these words, and the song rings true for me.

I’ve even learned my own answer to Kahlil Gibran’s challenge that tells us that, if we cannot work in our passion, we’d as well take alms from those who do. I’ve learned that, for me, the work itself need not be my passion when those I am truly working for, these special ones I love, are my greatest passion of all. While I have worked hard and dealt with long hours and stressful times, my work has allowed us to share our lives together. It has been worth every effort. I’ve learned that hard work in service of love is deeply rewarding. Even occasionally working at some unpleasant tasks, and with some few pretty unpleasant people, has been worth the opportunity to live this wonderful life. Gibran wrote that “work is love made visible” and I know this is true.

As it turns out, even as my great dream of love and family came true, I’ve still had a life in music. It has been a wonderful avocation for me and has enriched the life I share with my loved ones. I have played in bands and for benefits, sung with and for people, made music, and made a difference, just as I dreamed I would, on a somewhat smaller scale. As I write and sing songs of my own, I share what is in my heart. My writing comes from a place informed by lessons I would not have learned had my first, apparently simple, dreams come true. I probably would have had to learn hard lessons even if they had… not all bands get along as I know from my early experience!

My dreams of a life close to science and literature have come true as well. I married a botanist’s daughter and we have had so many wonderful adventures chasing wildflowers up the mountains here at home, and visiting botanical gardens together and with friends. I have spent most of my career working with and around academics and their students. Serving them and becoming true colleagues, and friends, with many at the university has been deeply satisfying. My lifelong passion for reading continues, and I am enjoying sharing books with friends and loved ones. Thanks to all my dear ones, friends, and colleagues, I have continuing opportunities to learn and grown.

I will always be a dreamer and I hope that many of my dreams for retirement come true. I also hope that I will have the grace and patience to learn the lessons waiting for me when my wishes are not granted, or come true differently than I’d imagined. As I look forward to retirement, I am prepared to learn, grow and dream as I share this next real adventure with those I love.

© 2017 James Michael. The text of this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0