A Failure of Nerve

Edwin H. Friedman

Description

An invitation and guide for leaders “to cast a courageous and imaginative vision, to lead resiliently, and to be present and steady in times of deep anxiety.”

Ed Friedman’s genius was to see the individual in the family in the larger group, bringing the wisdom of his experience as a therapist and rabbi to the field of organizational leadership.

A timeless bestseller, A Failure of Nerve still astonishes in this new edition with its relevance and continues to transform the lives of leaders everywhere—business, church, family, schools—as it has for more than 20 years:

• Offers prescient guide to leadership in the age of “quick fix.”
• Provides ways to recognize and address organizational dysfunction.
• Emphasizes “strength over pathology” in these anxious times.

“The age that is upon us requires differentiated leadership that is willing to rise above the anxiety of the masses. We need leaders who will have the ‘capacity to understand and deal effectively’ with the hive mind that is us. This is, in Friedman's words, ‘the key to the kingdom.’ I am grateful for this accessible new edition.”
―C. Andrew Doyle, Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Texas

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Santé et bien-être
• Développement personnel
• Gestion et management
• Economics
• Business
• Leadership

Informations

• Publié par: Church Publishing Incorporated
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781596272804
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Failure of Nerve
OTHER BOOKS BY EDWIN H. FRIEDMAN
Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue
Friedman’s Fables
The Myth of the Shiksa and Other Essays
What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? Unpublished Writings and Diaries
EDWIN H. FRIEDMAN

A FAILURE
OF
NERVE
Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
10TH ANNIVERSARY REVISED EDITION
Editors
Margaret M. Treadwell Edward W. Beal
© 1999, 2007, 2017 The Edwin Friedman Trust
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Church Publishing
19 East 34th Street
New York, NY 10016
www.churchpublishing.org
Original cover design by Stefan Killen; revised by Jennifer Kopec, 2Pug Design Typeset by Beth Oberholtzer
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Friedman, Edwin H., author. | Treadwell, Margaret M., editor. | Beal, Edward W., editor.
Title: A failure of nerve : leadership in the age of the quick fix / Edwin H. Friedman; editors, Margaret M. Treadwell, Edward W. Beal.
Description: 10th anniversary revised edition. | New York : Church Publishing, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016057024 (print) | LCCN 2017000336 (ebook) | ISBN 9781596272798 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781596272804 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Leadership.
Classification: LCC BF637.L4 F75 2017 (print) | LCC BF637.L4 (ebook) | DDC 158/.4—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016057024
CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Editors’ Preface
A Note About the 2017 Edition
Introduction: The Problem with Leadership
1. Imaginative Gridlock and the Spirit of Adventure
2. A Society in Regression
3. Data Junkyards and Data Junkies: The Fallacy of Expertise
4. Survival in a Hostile Environment: The Fallacy of Empathy
5. Autocracy Versus Integrity: The Fallacies of Self
6. Take Five
7. Emotional Triangles
8. Crisis and Sabotage: The Keys to the Kingdom
Epilogue: The Presence of the Past
FOREWORD
A nxiety and the search for rapid solutions always result in a failure of nerve. Needing to be right, certain, and pain free, we narrow our thinking and put our courage on pause. Operating from a quick-fix mentality is a non-growth position. Instead, Edwin Friedman proposes that challenge is necessary for mature functioning.
I know this from personal experience. I remember the day vividly. I was stunned. The audiologist told me that I had “sudden hearing loss,” something brought on by bronchitis, a severe cold, or an upper respiratory disorder. It started one afternoon while I was talking to a friend who suddenly sounded like Donald Duck. For the next few days, I thought the clogging of my left ear was a temporary state. But when it persisted, I arranged for a visit with the specialist, who delivered the news. So there I was, two weeks before Christmas, sitting in my home breathing in a substance from a tank every twenty minutes, the crude but only known treatment. I was told that there was little chance I would regain hearing in that ear. I was depressed. My two daughters were home from college for Christmas break and tried to be “the comforters of Job” on my behalf, assuring me. They noted that my right ear was performing well, that I could overcome this adversity, and that a new remedy might appear soon.
The following month I went to Bethesda, Maryland, for the second of three training events with Dr. Friedman, which he called the Post Graduate Seminar in Family Emotional Functioning. In order to hear well, I arrived early and took a front seat. Dr. Friedman was busy setting up the room for the 2 o’clock start. I told him about my hearing loss and my daughters’ efforts to console me. “I can’t even suffer in my own family,” I lamented. Dr. Friedman continued with the set-up, but then came to me and said, “Looks like you helped to form this system. What are you going to do about it?” As you can imagine, I did not expect a question about my own functioning. But as Friedman often noted, “questions subvert mindsets.” I was not a victim, incompetent, or a helpless person. If anything, I had been a “co-conspirator” in my own family process of dousing pain.
The following day, Rabbi Friedman introduced the class to his formula in the structure of a fraction:
HE —— RO
HE represented the number and strengths of the stressors, while RO stood for the response of the organism. My RO, I realized, was more important than the condition of hearing loss. As the denominator, my “response” could undo or topple the “hostility of the environment.” It is no wonder that I stayed in the training for another seven years.
Friedman’s legacy is secure; A Failure of Nerve is sound proof of that. Countless individuals and groups have been challenged to increase their RO and to have the courage to deal with their bruises and burdens, relationship tensions, and a host of hostile forces. I have played a small part in the legacy, training clergy in Bowen Family Systems Theory (which Friedman used to clarify his own thinking), intervening in hundreds of conflicted systems, both large and small, and attending to my own functioning. This tenth anniversary edition of A Failure of Nerve extends the legacy for many more individuals and systems.
Trained as a rabbi, Friedman was at ease with metaphors, images, aphorisms, and narratives, since Midrash was an essential element in rabbinical interpretation. He enriched his writing by plumbing the depths of our lives, not attainable by data alone. As the renowned psychologist (and son of a rabbi) Daniel Kahneman astutely observed, “No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”
Friedman engaged with wit, humor, and one-liners like “You must give people the freedom not to learn from their own experience.” He gave me that freedom. Nonetheless, he would want all of us to know that our RO will be known by a focus on strength not pathology, stamina not instant solutions, and responsibility not empathy.
Perhaps more than ever, we need to prepare ourselves for increasing our maturity, which means taking responsibility for our own emotional functioning. As Friedman’s mentor Murray Bowen succinctly reminded us, “If you lower anxiety one notch, it’s a better world.” We all owe thanks to Edwin Friedman for helping us in this process.
PETER L. STEINKE, Ph.D., D.Litt.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
C olleagues and friends often asked my father how he found time to be so prolific. Resting his mouth left of center while the corners flirted with a smile, he’d say in his best Murray Bowen Tennessee accent, “Because I have to.” Like a shark that must keep moving to survive, this is how my father saw writing.
My father considered A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix the summation of all his ideas. His untimely death threatened to prevent its completion. My mother, Carlyn Friedman, refused to let his legacy die with him. With the help of Ted Beal, Peggy Treadwell, my brother Ari Friedman, and the faculty members at the Center for Family Process, my mother brought my father’s manuscript to the public in what she deemed a labor of love.
Edward M. (Ted) Beal’s leadership, professional knowledge, editing judgment, and connections were crucial to my father’s original manuscript and to this current edition. Of equal importance were his friendship, spirit, and perfectly anointed humor.
Margaret (Peggy) Treadwell’s special interest in the connection between emotional process and spirituality bridged my father’s coupling of the religious sector with family therapy in both editions. Her introduction of A Failure of Nerve to Cynthia Shattuck made this new revised edition of the 1999 private publication possible. Their close collaboration and boundless optimism also kept the project thriving.
Susan Luff, Myrna Carpenter, Mickie Crimone, and Gary Emanuel at the Center for Family Process were and continue to be integral in spreading “the word of Ed,” as my mother affectionately called it. Their judicious consultation and unwavering dedication have allowed my father’s ideas to proliferate a decade later.
I would especially like to thank Cynthia Shattuck for her vision, enthusiasm, and clear grasp of my father’s work. Her brilliant editing, creativity, and playfulness brought new vitality and excitement to this edition.
Special thanks are due also to Susan Kanaan, Jubran Kanaan, Elizabeth Geitz, and Susan Kilborn.
A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix could not exist without my mother’s commitment and unique insight into my father’s thinking. It is to her memory this book is dedicated.
SHIRA FRIEDMAN BOGART
These Acknowledgments were prepared for the 2007 edition of A Failure of Nerve
EDITORS’ PREFACE
T he premature death of our colleague and friend Edwin H. Friedman on October 31, 1996, illustrates the moral of his fable The Bridge: “ When things start going really well, watch out.” Internationally known as a lecturer and author, Ed’s sense of paradox, humor, and particular brand of storytelling were the trademark of his teaching style:
“Playfulness can get you out of a rut more successfully than seriousness.”
“Triangles are the plaque in the arteries of communication and stress is the effect of our position in the triangle of our families.”
“If you are a leader, expect sabotage.”
“The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. If you want your child, spouse, client, or boss to shape up, stay connected while changing yourself rather than trying to fix them.”
Ed’s immediate draw was his paradoxical wit and playfulness, which he always attributed to his mother—“the quickest one-liner I ever met.” His ability to capture ambiguities and paradox with a turn of phrase energized and delighted audiences. Those of us wh