For the love of connection!
Or the Francesca Principle
We stood facing the stone carvings on the northern façade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. “Look at the elegance of those strawberry leaves,” Francesca said.
She had been my college art history professor, and I was visiting her many years after I had finished my studies.
“Little details of daily life mixed in with Gothic majesty,” she continued. Before long, she had connected her observations to the ancient Greek philosophers and the paintings of Mark Rothko by way of Japanese Zen pottery. I listened with a big smile on my face. How I had missed her expansive enthusiasm!
Throughout her career, Francesca pursued a single mission: to awaken her students to the vital importance of art. I remember impassioned sermons in freezing-cold churches, marathon sessions in dusty museums, and lectures delivered on a bus crisscrossing Tuscany. Legend had it that in her youth, Francesca made her students bicycle the 60 miles from Paris to Chartres to experience the approach to the cathedral from a pilgrim’s point of view. I believe it. I remember classroom lectures packed with so much information that if you dropped your pen and bent down to pick it up, you’d fall behind a century or three by the time you sat back up.
We were in awe of her energy and grateful for the experiences she foisted on us. But it must be said that Francesca could be . . . relentless. As one former student put it, “At least she didn’t make us crawl to the cathedral, on hands and knees through the mud.”
On that day in front of Notre Dame, Francesca was light and warm, giddy with joy. She had retired some years before, and in an attempt to show my gratitude for her influence in my life, I made what I thought was a loving remark: “I don’t think you could quit teaching if you tried.”
Francesca shot me a look. “I’m not teaching,” she retorted in a way I was familiar with. “I’m sharing.”
She was right. There was no relentlessness. She was no longer worried about getting through to me or revolutionizing my life. She was simply sharing something she valued with someone she cared about. Although her caring had always been present in the past, it had often been obscured by all the stresses that went along with the responsibility of teaching.
It took me some time to really grasp Francesca’s distinction between teaching and sharing. I became a teacher myself, and over the years I noticed that whenever I fell into “teaching” mode I would tense up, become self-conscious, and try too hard, inadvertently creating obstacles to learning. But if I let go of what I conceived of as my teacher’s responsibilities, I’d relax and connect with my students or clients on a human level. Teaching risks being a rigid one-directional experience, from the teacher to the students. But sharing is fluid, dynamic, and—above all—mutually enriching. Not teaching has made me a better teacher!
In the same vein, not leading can make for better leaders. Under the weight of responsibility, we can become tense — and intense — about our leadership. Like Francesca, we armor up, go into performance mode, and machine-gun fire our wisdom at the listener: “Rat-a-tat-tat!”
While there are certainly times when leading is appropriate and necessary, more often that not it really serves us more than it does our purpose or our people. It may be reassuring to know we’re doing our utmost, but that style of leadership doesn’t always create meaningful connections. Pressuring others into compliance is not the same as creating engagement. Talking at people is not nearly as effective as talking with them, listening and paying attention to what they are thinking and feeling.
Francesca often talked at us. She was also entertaining, and she exuded an infectious love of her subject. It was impossible to stay frustrated with her for long. She remains one of my favorite people ever. I’m glad I received her teaching. And I am even gladder that I received her sharing.