Peter Frost 1939-2004, teacher, friend and my father in law.
My father-in-law passed away early this morning after a battle with melanoma. It’s very hard right now to write about him as I risk getting a shock from the tears falling on my keyboard.
You may have known or heard of him through his professional work and exceptional teaching at the University of British Columbia in the Sauder School of Business. Most recently he had devoted his professional life to the development of the idea of toxin handlers in organizations. He was immensely proud of the book he wrote last year, Toxic Emotions At Work, which was inspired in large part by his experiences dealing with cancer seven years ago, when his melanoma returned for the first time. During his healing he saw how important compassionate acts were in the life of people in pain. He began investigating compassion in organizations and, along with a number of colleagues at CompassionLab, produced some remarkable work.
At that time, surgery removed the cancer from his lymph nodes and we were blessed with seven more years with him, during which he got to know his four grandkids. In August he received test results that confirmed that his cancer had returned, and early this morning, he lost the fight.
We have lost a remarkable man, and such a generous friend, father and grandfather for my kids. I’ll write more about Pete later. Light blogging ahead for now.
“I found my way to you”
Just a few words I want to record here. Probably more to report on that later.
All kinds of gems floating my way this morning. Here’s one from Matt Webb at Interconnected:
“The trick’s to find the middleground. Don’t go with the flow, passively, but garden it. The flow is part of the self. Who was I talking to who told me how fish swim? They use the water around themselves, the vortices and turbulence, they use the properties of the water to propel themselves. They get more than 100% mechanical efficiency because they don’t swim through, they just swim.”
My buddy John Engle had a nice piece written about him in the Hershey Chronicle, his hometown newspaper. It describes his work in Haiti over the years, using Open Space Technology to facilitate transformative learning and leadership. From the article:
“Good leadership is learning how to graciously share power,” Engle said. “We’re practicing different methods in Haiti that help people share power. It could be in a classroom, it could be community leaders. These are grassroots strategies for nurturing habits and practices which will enable democracy to take root. Democracy cannot be imposed from outside. It needs to grow from within.”
See why I love this guy? John has some more great nuggets on leadership from his Haitian colleagues at his blog.
Alabanza. When the war began, from Manhattan and Kabul
two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other,
mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue:
Teach me to dance. We have no music here.
And the other said with a Spanish tongue:
I will teach you. Music is all we have.
two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other,
mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue:
Teach me to dance. We have no music here.
And the other said with a Spanish tongue:
I will teach you. Music is all we have.
— from Alabanza
by Martin Espada
Props to riley dog for the link.