FATHER WILLIAM’S EARLY WORK 1960 – 1990 Self Acceptance & The Art of Management By Suzanne Oringer Nash "I can't" said the student. "Replace those words with 'I choose not to'", says the teacher. "I can't," Bill explains, "takes the responsibility of choice and action out of a person's hands. It's an easy way out. Imagine yourself in the following situation," he continues. “You have lunch plans and another friend calls to ask you out. It's easy to say 'I can't.' A little later your boss calls and wants to discuss an important project over lunch. What would you choose to say this time?" Though he lives in Warren, Vermont, Bill Idol is a teacher in corporate America. The concepts he teaches in his management training programs have names such as Natural Depths, Complementary Wholeness, the Growth Wave and Pyramid Planning. They sound like something on a New Age book shelf or the titles for a series of self-help seminars. Yet, for the past 12 years his company, William Idol & Associates, has been working with such clients as Mobil, Aetna, G.E., Corning Glass, Unisys, Statoil and AT&T. And, they hire him repeatedly. Why are major business corporations willing to pay Bill Idol to help people find themselves? "If you can show them something that works, help them do what they need to do better, they don't care what your philosophy is," says Bill. Thelma Pierce, a manager at Aetna, likes working with Bill because "He's willing to adapt his program's direction to reflect the needs of corporate management. We recently adopted a new approach to business issues. Bill looked at the work and was able to effectively correlate it to the Growth Wave program he has been teaching here." Bill teaches the future managers of big business that leadership begins with the art of self acceptance. Understanding one's own uniqueness rather than being threatened by the differences of others allows people to become peak performers. "I am interested in the individual - you. I will continue to insist that the key to developing your management style is by learning to accept yourself," counsels Bill. "The basis of any change 1
FATHER WILLIAM’S EARLY WORK 1960 – 1990 should come from awareness of your Natural Depths and self-acceptance of them. By recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and accepting them, you can more easily seek and use the complementary differences of people." Bill doesn't walk into the room with a know-it-all mentality. His willingness to laugh at himself while sharing his life experiences with his students allows them to do the same with him and each other. People are ready to talk after completing one of Bill's seminars. "I am learning to fit my natural way of being with what's expected of me as a manager." "I have learned how the growing process works in my best interests both in work and in my personal life". "I feel like I have gained real skills and insights in dealing with people which will allow me to become a better supervisor."
Natural Depths Some people come up with ideas, others like to implement them. Psychological preferences such as these are what Bill refers to as Natural Depths. He first learned about the concept when he was directing a drug counselor training center in Berkeley during the early Seventies. Wilson Van Dusen, author of Natural Depths in Man was a consultant to the program. Bill wanted to take this esoteric theory and make it understandable to the individual. So, he combined Van Dusen's theory with a biological model of growth and designed a process which aids individuals in recognizing their own Natural Depths. The resulting profile shows how ALL psychological preferences and abilities have value. It took Bill a while before he began to recognize and use his own natural depths. Part of Bill is Spanish and his mom was straight Southern aristocrat. That probably had something to do with his learning to see the value of diversity in people! As the only son, it was natural to work for his father's trucking business upon graduating from Yale. During his first year he did everything from installing a new accounting system to painting bins and trying new business ventures. He lost $30,000. He hated his job and the one hour commute from Chicago to work
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FATHER WILLIAM’S EARLY WORK 1960 – 1990 drove him crazy. So, he quit and went to teach English at The Francis Parker School in Chicago. Bill taught for 7 years. Finally, he began to realize that he wanted to work more directly with emotion rather than using books to talk about it. He decided to focus on educational leadership and received a Ford Fellowship to do graduate study at the University of Massachusetts in 1969. There was a sense of mission at the School of Education, an energy and excitement which made him feel as if anything could be accomplished. After completing two years there he moved to California. There he studied with leaders on the cutting edge of psychology,(John Enright, George Brown, Larry Bloomberg, Dick Korn, etc.). "If you wanted to learn about psychology in the early Seventies the place to be was California. It was clearly the most important part of my education." During his last year in California, Bill ran a training center for drug counselors. In 1973 he moved on to Evergreen State College in Washington. This college offered an experimental approach to higher education. Bill's job was to help the administration and faculty evaluate the effectiveness of their new programs. A year later he was offered a job as Director of Affective Education in Corning, New York, working jointly for Corning Community College and the Corning Public Schools. There he helped faculties understand the impact of the emotional relationship between teacher and student. Bill enjoyed the bizarre sense of natural competition that arose from the challenge of teaching teachers to do things differently. When Corning retained a new and more conservative president, Bill decided it was time to move on. Having owned land in Vermont previously, Bill returned and joined the Prickly Mountain community in 1976. "When I moved to Vermont I felt like I'd finally come home, but for the first time I couldn't find a regular job. Then, people from Corning Glass called me to teach a class in creativity for them. I had taught a couple of public seminars in Corning which they had attended. "The first time I did it I knew I wanted to continue with it. The people who hired me really had to produce; they were very pragmatic and I liked that. I liked knowing they felt they were get-
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FATHER WILLIAM’S EARLY WORK 1960 – 1990 ting concrete results. From here word-of-mouth-led me into SCM (parent company of SmithCorona, Durkee foods, Glidden paint and others) and Mobil - and my business became established under the name Natural Depths Management. But, I knew I couldn't do it all. My natural instincts were in developing and teaching programs, not in administration and management. I needed to be part of a team so, I found a partner whose strengths complimented my own."
Complementary Wholeness Although Bill and his partner Cynthia Crutchfield do not always see eye to eye, their 'complementary wholeness' is the essential foundation for their business. A former associate at the University of Massachusetts, she is the business negotiator, running the show mostly behind the scenes so Bill can enjoy the role of teacher. In 1983 Bill changed the name of his company to the more generic William Idol & Associates because he has continued to add to and evolve the concepts he teaches with. Today, the team is composed of Bill, Cynthia, two additional trainers, and an office manager in Vermont. "The concept of Complementary Wholeness means valuing each aspect of the whole for what it has to offer. People must be able to work in diversity without antagonism. Instead of seeing opposites, see complements. It's more positive and 'empowering'. Simply, it means substituting the words BOTH/AND for EITHER/OR. EITHER/OR thinking means valuing this as better than that. BOTH/AND thinking sees the value in everything - and then maximizes it," says Bill. Good management is the blending of diverse Natural Depths and recognizing of the complementary wholeness of people. Each business area - sales, finance, research and development , marketing and production must rely on the knowledge and skills of the others. What often happens is that each department works independently in the direction IT sees as most important. Production might say 'Those flakes at research and development! Why can't they let us produce what's working?" R & D complains about those stodgy people in production. Sales people say 'what? Another form to fill out?' while finance mutters about the stupid people in sales who can't complete a simple form.
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FATHER WILLIAM’S EARLY WORK 1960 – 1990 "Bill was very effective in creating an atmosphere that opened my mind and allowed me to set aside my prejudices and not pre-judge,' says one student from Mobil.
The Growth Wave In 1977 Bill was introduced to General Systems Theory and George Land's and Derald Langham's work on cycles of growth in living systems. Every living system from a tiny cell to an entire nation goes through cycles of growth that can be defined and evaluated. Bill translated these cycles into The Growth Wave for his seminars. The Growth Wave correlates the four phases of individual growth - Unforming - Transforming - Reforming - Performing - to the same phases in the growth of business. Following World War II America thought itself as 'the best'. When Sputnik went up in 1957 the United States had to go through a Growth Wave. From the late fifties to 1960 there was a period of high anxiety- of UNFORMING. In 1960, JFK transformed that anxiety into the energy of new purpose - "to send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth". The early 60's were a period of REFORMING as the structures and processes that would make NASA effective were put into place. The later 60's saw America PERFORMING as goal after goal was achieved until Neil Armstrong took "one giant step for mankind." Since he began teaching, Bill's courses have continued to evolve because he is constantly on a quest to clarify and improve his his own life. A division of Mobil does a week long Strategies of Management program which Bill designs specifically to meet the continually changing needs of Mobil management. He teaches part of an Advanced Management Course for Aetna using the Growth Wave to give a sense of focus for the future. AT&T's program is focused on building a commitment to quality; at G.E. Bill leads the final days of a course for beginning managers. Most teachers come with knowledge to impart. Bill Idol does not. He helps his students find the knowledge they seek by looking into themselves. Change is not easy for anyone. "It's the first time I've ever admitted to myself that there are attitudes I portray that need to change. Now I am better able to reflect my inner self in my actions," says one former Aetna student.
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FATHER WILLIAM’S EARLY WORK 1960 – 1990 Bill says "my business is to create an emotional experience that is powerful but nonthreatening enough to learn from. My work IS NOT the message. Each person must create his own sense of purpose to understand the connection between what they are doing and the end result. My goal is to help leaders recognize, develop and use their wisdom." American big business is in crisis and must find ways to maximize the potential of every employee. Bill knows that when people are comfortable with themselves they respect the differences of others. This creates a workplace that enhances the contribution of every employee. "I salute Mobil for sponsoring a course that centers on self-examination. This tells me the company believes its most important resource is people," says a participant. Apparently, the companies who employ Bill agree and believe this attitude will reflect itself in greater productivity and improved services. "He leaves his class with a sense of hope, a feeling that THEY CAN make a difference," says Thelma Pierce.
© Suzanne Oringer Nash, October 3, 1989
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