Ethical Presence TM

Ethical Presence TM Copyright 2018 Richard Thomas Richard Thomas 1000 E. 53rd St. Unit 405 Chicago, Illinois 60615 Phone: 312-285-5415 1 Email: [email protected] It is not enough to understand mere rules of professional conduct. It is necessary to have the life skills to comply with them. I worked as a litigator at the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. When I was there, I noticed that many lawyers didn’t need to be disciplined. They needed to be educated about the vast potential of their own humanity. I subsequently saw that was true for lawyers was true for business professionals and academics --- and any other person who works in a professional setting. Creativity, empathy, self-expression, critical thinking, conscience and other qualities falsely identified with talent are simply aspects of being human. They require no special talent. They can be accessed. They can be developed to greater depths. They can be practiced in order to strengthen facility in their application to the events and purposes of work and life. The Rules of Professional Responsibility for Attorneys, and any formal or informal code of conduct for any profession, address these fundamental aspects of personal character: • Competence • Diligence • Communication • Honesty (Don’t lie) • Honesty (Don’t steal) • Civility These aspects of character are also necessities of creativity. Picasso became more than competent at drafting and naturalistic painting before he innovated new forms. Anyone who has ever seriously practiced writing, music, acting or any other creative art knows how important diligent and sustained work is to achieving creative excellence. Art IS communication in a variety of forms. A good writer, visual artist, comedian --- you can fill in the form --- is honest --- attentive to detail, and willing to face hard truths. Artists who collaborate need the virtue of civility --- the emotional intelligence to be able to understand their own emotions and unconscious fears and desires, and the emotions and unconscious fears and desires of other people. There is a unity in action that leads to ethical and creative behavior, and professional effectiveness and excellence. That unity is what Ethical Presence TM is all about. Ethical Presence TM is found where art and ethics meet. Note that Ethical Presence TM is not the study of art per se. It is the practice of making art, a very practical art which tends to the material needs of the world and the souls of all involved. My personal experience showed me that my background as an improvisational actor and writer informed my practice of law and informs my teaching; and that my background as a lawyer and teacher in a business school informs my writing and improvisational acting. Life, work and art are different perspectives regarding the same action. Ethical Presence TM cannot be learned in the abstract. It can only be learned experientially. The values of Ethical Presence are universal, but each individual and each situation require that they be applied in specific and unique ways. 2 This book, and its companion course, are created to help foster the skills of Ethical Presence TM. Ethical Presence TM, when competently and diligently practiced, helps the individual care for her material needs, be of service to others, and meet the soul’s requirements for personal peace, happiness and satisfaction. Those may sound like big claims, but they are not. All that a book and course can do is orient your thinking. You have to do the hard work. I look forward to seeing that work in our class, and hearing about the service, success and personal satisfaction that you will create in your own special way through your work in the turmoil of the world. The artist is someone who is unable to do things as others do them. Robert Bresson I was teaching a group of college professors a class entitled "Finding and Exploring Your Teacher Voice." The class considered what this book considered --- consciously asserting one's humanity in a professional role --- to the benefit of oneself and others. I'm an actor (among many other things as you will see) and I made an illustrative example involving me, a white man, playing an elderly African-American woman. Many in the class were shocked. "How could you ever do such a thing!" "Why not? The theater has had non-traditional casting for years. Cate Blanchett played Bob Dylan in a film a few years ago. Denzel Washington and Judy Dench have played the young Danish prince Hamlet when neither were young or Danish...there are countless examples here... many, too many to mention." We all have our professional roles too. I have life experience which might give a little more insight on than many other people. I am or have been an actor, a comedian, an improviser, a teacher (of several subjects) a marketing executive, a writer, a college professor and a trial lawyer. At first I took on different roles because I was searching. Now I realize they are all the same things. The common denominator in all of the careers is that I showed up for work as a human being and so did all of my peers. The pillars of professionalism are the same for everyone in every job; be competent at your task and in your field; be diligent and complete promised work; communicate; don't lie; don't steal and be civil. There is an enormous diversity of types of people and work. There is also a common humanity to every type of person and job. Please read this book from the perspective of that common humanity. I write many of the sections of this book from the perspective of one of the professions I've worked in. Please read the book from your perspective as a human being and apply any insights you like to yourself and what you do. 3 What is true for the lawyer is true for the actor is true for the teacher is true for what you do. Introduction to Ethical Presence Many professionals (defined as teachers and other academics, lawyers and other legal professionals, doctors and other medical professionals, creative and other arts professionals, and business, government and non-profit professionals of all stripes) are unaware of the relative ineffectiveness of their presentation, leadership, and group and one-on-one communication skills. Many other professionals are aware of their deficiencies but lack confidence and are intimidated by the prospect of improving these skills. This book asserts that being authentic in the working flow of your vocation can be approached as an art form. It can be learned and developed experientially through the process of personally creating your unique method of presentational and interactive communication. Creating professional authenticity is a democratic artistic process. It is not only a realistic process for those who are perceived as “talented.” No two professionals communicate in the same way. This book aspires to share some of my thoughts, methods, attitudes and values in an effort to help professionals discover and explore their personal confidence, conscious authenticity and creativity in their own way. Work on one’s voice requires a commitment to hard work and deep and considered reflection. If one approaches this work “for fun” or as a hobby, they will get the equivalent results to the lack of demand that they put on themselves. A major interest of mine is the experiential interrelationship between logic, critical thinking, substantive knowledge AND creativity, self-assurance, awareness and communication. My background as an attorney and in the improvisational theater has taught me how rationality and structure, and spontaneity and emotion, are complimentary and equally necessary to the development of a strong professional presence. Artists learn and then (or contemporaneously) feel compelled to share what they learn with others. The artists are then affected by the others’ response to what the artists have offered and transform (learn) again. The process repeats itself ad infinitum with greater depth and in some cases, breadth. By this definition this book is very much a work of art. Artists such as myself have much to teach professionals when the professionals reflect on the artists’ work through the lens of their own experience as professional artists (whether or not that they acknowledge their own artistic status.) Many professionals explore art classes (improvisational acting, creative writing etc.) in an effort to improve their authenticity and presence. Taking such classes is a positive step. This initiative would be more effective because it links the art education to actual work experience and development. It connects personal enrichment with pragmatic professional development. 4 Many workplaces have de facto apprenticeship programs and activities where more experienced professional expose those junior to teaching strategies and plans that have been successful for the more established leaders of the firms. These approaches are useful, but they are more content- driven than the process-driven method that I am proposing here. A professional has to have a mastery of content AND EQUALLY be personally engaged with that content AND, of course, the other stakeholders themselves. There are professional authenticity concerns beyond the obvious necessity of “knowing the material.” The “apprentice” approach doesn’t address these concerns. It might give structures for delivering information. It doesn’t help an individual discover how they personally can “reach” others. This book is a broader and deeper consideration of what it is to be professionally authentic and effective. It bears repeating that substantial artistry and professional development can only be achieved with dedicated, committed and sustained work. It is not enough to understand this topic conceptually. It is not only about approaches that you adopt. It is about something that you yourself become, maintain and expand.

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