A Book That Spoke to Me on Many Levels: "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

One of the finest memoirs I have ever read.  And already reputed to be the #1 bestseller of all memoirs ever.

I relished it for its candor, intimacy and plain-spokenness.

It is the kind of memoir my wife, Francie, would write if she brings the time to it.

In many ways, it reminds me of Francie.

Here are a few of the insights Michelle offered which I found moving.

Referring to her mother she writes “she loved us consistently but we were not over-managed.  Her goal was to push us into the world.  ‘I’m not raising babies, I’m raising adults.’  She and my dad offered guidelines rather than rules.  It meant that as teenagers we would never have a curfew.”  

Just like Francie with our children.

There is this luminous description of the challenges minority students face.  “Minority and under-privileged students rise to the challenge all the time but it takes energy.  It takes energy to be the only black person in a lecture hall or one of the few non-white people trying out for a play or joining an intramural team.  It requires effort, an extra level of confidence, to speak in those settings and own your presence in the room.”  This is why, Michelle writes, that she and other black young people relish the opportunity to be with other black people.  They felt comfortable, safe.

I admire the openness with which Michelle reveals her relationship and marriage to Barack.

At one point she wrote in her journal “I am so angry at Barack.  I don’t think we have anything in common.”  

She writes that they had to pursue marriage counseling, and it helped!  “Like any newish couple, we were learning how to fight.  We didn’t fight often, and when we did, it was typically over petty things..but we did fight.  And for better or worse, I tend to yell when I’m angry.”

I guess every couple has its "fights". It's our underlying love and respect which keep us together. 

Like Francie, Michelle was very confident, conscious of the stereotyped role of being a “wife.”  She writes, “wife” can feel like a loaded word.  It carries a history.  If you grew up in the 60s and the 70s, as I did, wives seemed to be a genus of white women who lived inside television sitcoms—cheery, coiffed, corseted.  They stayed at home, fussed over the children, and had dinner ready on the stove.”

Michelle pushed back against that. She did so much good in so many career undertakings.

Michelle is honest in saying how as a Senator’s wife she began to feel sublimated “at the heart of my confusion (in Washington) was a kind of fear, because as much as I hadn’t chosen to be involved, I was getting sucked in.  I had been Mrs. Obama for the last 12 years, but it was starting to mean something different.  At least in some spheres, I was now Mrs. Obama in a way that could feel diminishing, a Mrs. defined by her Mr." 

That sounds very familiar. 

Michelle had a revealing and in many ways chilling experience during the campaign when she was asked to look at the talks she was giving without any sound, just the visual.  What she saw was that she was “too serious, too severe.”  She needed to lighten up.  Examining how we look without the sound can be very instructive. I found that to be true as I looked at myself giving talks. 

As First Lady, Michelle knew she would be measured by a different yardstick.  She found herself as she had before “suddenly tripped by doubt.  Confidence, I learned then, sometimes needs to be called from within.  I have said the same words to myself many times now, through many climbs.  Am I good enough?  Yes I am.”

Toward the end of her memoir, Michelle writes in a way that articulates my own experience:  “The important parts of my story lay less in the surface value of my accomplishments and more in what undergirded them—the many small ways I had been buttressed over the years, and the people who helped build my confidence over time.  I remembered them all, every person who had ever waved me forward.”  

For me, there have been so many.  I recorded many of them in my paper, “If It Weren’t For Them,” and there are many more I have met since writing that paper. I have been lifted by the confidence of others, above all Francie. 

Michelle goes on:  “My early successes in life were, I knew, a product of the consistent love and high expectations with which I was surrounded as a child, both at home and at school.  I had been lucky to have parents, teachers and mentors, who had fed me with a consistent simple message:  you matter.”

Magic words--as my daughter punctuated them for me--"YOU MATTER". 

Why Has the Study of History Mattered to Me?

(Drawn  from my Conversation with History Honors Majors at Yale University – November 2004)

·     More specifically, why has the learning and acquiring of some sense of history – its events, its life stories, and its illumination of the role of the contingent and unforeseeable versus the predictable – why has this mattered to me?

·     Why has reading – or more to the point, experiencing – the work of great historians mattered to me?

·     And finally, why has the act of personally researching and elucidating certain lessons of history been something I have found useful in my life and, beyond that, extraordinarily enjoyable in its own right?

And perhaps more important than any of these questions, how do I talk about them with you – young men and women whom I don’t know personally, each on your own exciting path of learning – how do I talk about them in a way that offers some possibility of providing an insight of interest and value to you -- and not be just a trip down memory lane for me?  All I can say is:  I will try.

Let me begin with a sufficient amount of personal background to make what I have to say intelligible.

I came to Yale already greatly enjoying history, but thinking I would probably be a math or science major.  My freshman year convinced me otherwise.  I must say, Year I Physics played a major role in this. It became pretty clear that engineering would not be my chosen field.  But even more importantly 

than this negative inference, I got lucky.  I signed up for a course that sounded beguiling ... interesting.  Nicknamed “Cowboys and Indians, it 

covered the development of the West:  History 37 A & B.  The subject matter was fascinating – westward expansion; manifest destiny; diplomatic battles with nations over territories; tension between ranchers and farmers; economic issues intertwining with the political – and yes, lots of detail on cowboys and Indians.  But even more important than the exciting subject matter was that it introduced me to Howard Roberts Lamar, a wonderful professor who eventually became acting president of Yale.  I got to know him.  He inspired me.  I have maintained contact with him ever since.

In my junior year, I encountered the other professor who had the greatest impact on me while I attended Yale:  David Potter.  He was my senior advisor.  Above all, he introduced me to the excitement and the discipline of historical analysis.  Forty-five years after I completed my senior essay, in February 1960, I still hold it as one of my proudest accomplishments.

To complete the biography quickly, the decision for me what to do following Yale was a no-brainer:  three years in the Navy, an obligation undertaken in return for the scholarship I received at Yale.  Those three years made a transformational difference in my life. After the Navy, I had planned to go to law school.  I was accepted at Harvard.  I ended up feeling I’d take one more year off, with something other than studying.  And I turned to Procter & Gamble, a company I had learned about when I was soliciting ads for the Yale Daily News.  I thought I’d go in there for a year and run a business.  And I stayed for a career.  

My 40-year career led eventually to my becoming CEO and Chairman of Procter & Gamble.  I had the privilege of helping lead the Company into China and Southeast Asia, and Eastern and Central Europe.  I had the opportunity to work hard to take diversity to a new level, recognizing what Provost Dick Brodhead once said:

         I have always regarded the intellectual cost of separationism to be as great in its way as its social cost.  In this country, those who have stopped thinking are typically those who have stopped interacting with people who might make them think – people, namely, who do not already think more or less the same as they do.

I tried to create a place of honest and tough-minded dialogue, the kind that should exist in any university like Yale, the kind well-described by my classmate Bart Giamatti when he said:

         We must beware of voices that are scornful of complexity, and contemptuous of competitive views and values. These voices can be encouraged because they are said to be “idealistic” or “decisive”.  What they are is precisely not idealistic, but in their simplifying, reductionistic.  It is that civil conversation – tough, open, principled – between and among all members of the institution that must be preserved.  If it is, community is patiently built.  If it is not, the place degenerates.

People have often asked me – indeed I was asked this question by the captain of one of Yale’s varsity sports teams last month – “Can a history major be of any value in business?”  My answer – “I can’t imagine any course of study being more valuable.”

Which brings me back to the three questions I posed at the outset.

Why has the learning and the acquisition of some sense of the lessons of history – its events, its life stories, its contingencies – mattered to me?

Some of the reasons are probably obvious, perhaps some not, and it would take too long to catalog them all.  But the most important are these:

1.         The striking reality that personal leadership makes things happen.  That while there are trends that in some ways are inexorable, the difference that the individual makes in shaping these trends can be and often is decisive.  

2.         The inspiration I have gained for the qualities of great leaders.  The recognition that it takes wisdom, good judgment, courage and persistence to make a change in anything that’s important.  That had everything to do in how I’ve tried to lead and encouraged others to do the same.  

3.         The recognition that there is great goodness in the world, but also evil, and recognizing that if good people don’t stand up courageously and persistently for the good, we are going to be in trouble.

4.         The study of history has also helped me develop a deep respect for different societies and culture, as I learned about their particular contributions and the challenges they have encountered and overcome.  This recognition has fired my determination at Procter & Gamble respected national and regional identities as we operate globally as a company.

5.         The recognition that great achievements and change are never achieved without setbacks and the wisdom to make course corrections in one’s original strategy.  This has been of enormous help to me as I thought about how to pursue some of the biggest challenges in my career including the development of our business in Russia and China.

6.         The recognition that certain values must prevail and must carry any institution forward, and it is up to us to make those values pertinent and relevant to today.

7.         Finally, the realization that, if great institutions are to survive and grow (a matter that is not foreordained), they must achieve that fine balance of preserving certain core values that are fundamental to success, while being prepared to evolve and change everything else.

Let me now address the second question.  Why has the reading, or more precisely the experiencing of the writings of great historians mattered to me?

Partly, it is the content.  For example, the bringing to life of the characteristics of great leaders.  Or the understanding of the religious, ethnic and political realities that have made the achievement of peace in the Middle 

East so difficult or the knowledge of the historical origins of countries like Iraq which becomes a foundation for assessing what future policy should be.

However, as I reflect on it, just as important as the content has been the learning I’ve drawn from experiencing the intellectual integrityand imaginationof great historians as conveyed by their writing.  Reading such history has served as an example to emulate in my own thought process and expression of thought.

I refer here to the fresh, penetrating, multi-faceted analysis of factors – economic, political, social and individual – that have helped lead to create major events or trends.  I refer to the ability to identify previously un-discerned or at least un-described discriminating details which become related to a broad theme, enable one to see the subject in a new light.  I refer to the expression of all this in writing that has impacted me with such force that I react with thoughts like:

-         I wish I could have expressed it that clearly

-         I can see the applicability of the dynamics described here to my own organization

My appreciation of why experiencing the work of a great historian matters was brought home to me again recently as I read the final work of David Potter, a wonderful book called “The Impending Crisis”.  It deals with the sharpening sectional tensions between 1845 and 1860 that led to the Civil War.  I’m on page 320 of this book, and I don’t think I have encountered a 

page without a sense of admiration and sometimes awe at the substance and the way it’s expressed.  I’m in the hands of a master.  It lifts me intellectually.  It prompts me to try harder to emulate the sensitivity, the precision and the intellectual integrity of analysis that I see here as well as the clarity of how it’s expressed.

Which brings me to the final question.  Why has the act of personally researching, exploring and trying to illuminate lessons of history been something that I have found helpful?

In one way, the usefulness has been situational, highly coincidental, illustrating that you don’t know where your study might lead sometime in the future.  The subject of my senior thesis was “The Influence of the Institution of Slavery on the Diplomacy of the Republic of Texas”.  I worked for two years on it, I’m sure memory pushes aside some of the tougher moments, the countless re-writes.  But it really was a thrill.  It even won a prize.  What did it lead to?

Totally unpredictably, my interest in the issue of slavery and this period of American history was one of the reasons that my interest was immediately piqued when I was asked 10 years ago to lead the development of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.  This institution is committed to bring to life lessons of history – as people have fought for their own freedom and helped others achieve it – as a catalyst for dialogue and discussion, on how we can live and work together better today.  

There were many reasons I agreed to undertake this role – the most important being that I had come to see firsthand the power that comes from people of different backgrounds and experience working together (and the ease with which stereotypes can separate us).  But my interest and I believe my effectiveness in leading this project was clearly enhanced by my deep-rooted knowledge and attachment to this subject. And it has benefited enormously from re-connecting with professors expert in this subject including Yale’s David Brion Davis and David Blight.

But as I say, this is a situational connection.  You may find one; you may not.

But whether such a specific connection develops or not, of this I am sure.  The act of researching, analyzing and writing about this subject brought with it an appreciation of the challenge and, yes, the satisfaction of doing deep analysis that can lead to fresh perspectives as well as an appreciation of the value of clear expression.  This has been of extraordinary value to me.  Indeed, I am certain that these were among the most important qualities which led to the success of my career at Procter & Gamble.

But more fundamentally than that, they fired a love of learning, of curiosity to understand cause and effect, to distinguish between the general and the specific, to understand the difference an individual can make. And this and more has driven me – happily – to keep learning as the years have gone by.

Over the course of my life, I’ve been struck by the difference I see in people’s continued rate of learning:  Their openness to new ideas; their willingness to reach out to try new things; to bring fresh perspectives.  What accounts for these differences?  I know of no simple answer.  Many factors come into play.  But the three factors I have observed most often are:

1.         The extent to which people engage in new experiences -- often challenging, even at first glance, frightening experiences.

2.         The extent to which people build relationships with people who are different than they are, and

3.         Finally, by how much they read – about life experiences, about trends.  History is a key part of this.

So what do you take away from these comments?  I hope at least three things.

1.         Never give up the life of the mind that you are experiencing today.

2.         Develop a relationship with and maintain contact with one or two professors over time.  Professors who have galvanized your love of learning, of analysis, of the art and power of fine expression, and

3.         Save your history term paper!

The Role Teachers Play in Building Our Expectations and Helping Us Become Who We Are

Almost thirty years ago, in May, 1989, I addressed a group of award winning K-12 teachers. 

I concluded my remarks saying that there is only one thing that I wouldn’t dream of leaving here without talking with you.  It is something that I have seen played out in my life and in other peoples’ lives again and again. 

I’m talking about the role of expectations and values…and the incredible role that teachers have played for me and my family in building our expectations and values—and hence our future.

My deep, deep conviction in the role teachers play in creating our future goes back to my earliest years.

While I was blessed with a good home and wonderful parents who were ready to make any sacrifice to help me get a good education—still I know I would not be the person I am today if it were not for a handful of teachers that I can vividly remember to this very day.  They influenced my life in a variety of ways.  The inculcated a love of learning and the thrill of discovering new concepts. And they provided a good dose of plain faith and discipline.

But above all,  they conveyed to me the belief that I could do well.  That was so important.  It is one thing—and a very important thing—to have your mother or father express confidence in you, but it is also an enormously important thing to have that confidence expressed by a teacher, particularly one you respect.

In preparing for this talk, I went back to my report cards which, believe it or not, I still have from high school—1952-56.

Some of them brought tears to my eyes as I more than ever recognized the influence of a particular teacher.  I would just like to read you a couple of excerpts from these report cards. While they may not be totally clear in their meaning, they will give you a sense of what this teacher did for me.

His name was Andrew Jenks. He was my homeroom teacher and my math teacher.  Here was his report after he had known me for about six months in my first year:

“John is a very able and likeable boy.  His overall record is a good one for his first term in the regular session—though I am sure it could be improved and I hope he will strive for such improvement.  Just as he is prone to a certain messiness and disorder about his desk, so I suspect he may often be rather distracting from the full excellence he might achieve.  He is quite quick and his thoughts may often get ahead of his writing with this effect.

Perhaps a little greater care would make the difference.  Both Mathematics and French would probably benefit from a more careful approach.  I trust he will work hard to make good his recent gains in Latin without letting any other subjects suffer.  For surely he is well able to do so.”

I think I’d better stop there. He got a little more critical after that.

That report was the tip of the iceberg.  Andrew Jenks talked to me daily.  He didn’t book any compromise.  He could be gruff. But I knew he respected me, I knew he cared for me and I knew he wanted the best for me.

Some years later in my final report, here’s what he said:  “John has an excellent record which he has built up steadily since he came—nor do I feel he has reached the peak of his performance.  I greatly appreciate his good influence in the school, not to mention his bearing with me even when that may have been trying. Frankly, I take this as a great compliment because John knows how important this was to me.”  Indeed I did.  Thirty-three years ago I did.  Today, I do even more.

This teacher was just one of several who gave me a positive understanding of myself…an understanding of what I might become.  He left me with the conviction that I ought to be a top achiever…indeed that I should settle for no less…that I had that responsibility.

And Andrew Jenks conveyed to me what in my life—in school and in all my years with Procter & Gamble, I have come to regard as the single most important principle of human development.  I call it the self-fulfilling prophesy…or the Pygmalion Theory.  It is something that I believe in so deeply and it is something your profession…the teaching profession influences more than any other.  

What I experienced in school has remained true in business.  Neither I nor anyone I know would be where he or she is at Procter & Gamble today if it were not for the confidence and values that associates or teachers brought to us over the years.

And that I have found comes out of only one thing—relationships…personal relationships of trust, of caring, and of high expectations.

Young people do not assimilate values by learning words or concepts of truth and justice and their definitions.  No—they learn attitudes and habits from intensely personal relationships with their families, their teachers and their close friends.  Young people don’t learn ethical principles so much as they learn to emulate ethical or unethical people.  And they learn from role models.

And teachers like you are often the most important role model for them.

Thank you for all you do.

"Looking Back-Looking Forward: Reflections and Recollections"--Personal Essays

I recently published a series of essays and reflections on personal experiences, beliefs and readings which, in one way or another, have significantly influenced my life.

 

They include essays on my time with the Walt Disney Company and at Yale University; my battle with cancer; the role of religion in my life; and what I describe as a “Personal Model for Living.” 

 

A few of these essays capture blogs which I’ve posted on this site over the past several years. 

 

I’ve tried to capture my view of our responsibility to ourselves and to each other, particularly the young.  I include direct extracts from and reflections on the writings of my favorite authors, as well as our relations with other countries, particularly Russia, with which I have had a long relationship.

 

While the content is diverse and eclectic, I hope readers will find threaded throughout a commitment to service, to respecting and helping others and to the values of integrity, tolerance, justice, courage and simply never giving up.

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The essay collection is available on Amazon and other book-sellers.