May 18, 2013

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If you want to understand organizations (and the world)…

November 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Earth from spaceSomebody said—I can’t remember who—if you want to understand organizations, try changing them. That’s a good insight, in my opinion. Certainly it’s my experience that making changes to organizations reveals all the mechanisms by which they really work.

We can go a little further with this…

If you want to understand how some wider entity works—let’s say the world—try changing it too. That’ll reveal to you how things really happen round here, or not, as the case may be.

That’s what I’ve found. And you?

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Systems Tagged With: , , , ,

The making of Gold Medal leadership

August 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Jessica EnnisWatching interviews with Gold Medal winners and other Olympic high performers, it’s striking how most of them seem thoroughly pleasant and even ordinary people – very far from the sometime stereotype of winner as warrior. In short, they are profoundly human.

Sure, in the background, there may well be a coach demanding ever higher effort. And it seems that bringing a little more aggression into his game has made a difference for Andy Murray, for example.

Older hands talk about experience bringing the presence of mind to deliver absolute performance as well as winning medals. Younger heads instead sometimes stopping at “merely” beating their rivals.

What this got to do with leadership and change?

Are top athletes leaders? In the sense of influencing others, and so stimulating change, they clearly are.

So here’s the thing…

The most inspirational Gold Medal winners combine both power and humanity. Neither is enough on its own, for them or for us.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Personal Mastery, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How much does it take to “be there” for someone?

July 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Pensive manWe appreciate the value of knowing we can contact someone when things are difficult; knowing that that person will “be there” for us.

What does it really take to do this?

We might imagine it involves sharing the burden of the problem, and so shy away from the load. In fact, it doesn’t mean that at all. It’s not a question of rescuing them. Often, that’s not even possible, at least not from the literal situation.

Being there for someone means being contactable, sure, but above all, it means being a steadying presence with a consistent and honest and realistic response, reassuring them they are not alone as they go through whatever they have to go through, and that our energy is with them. The more grounded we are by the clarity of our own direction and purpose, and the deeper the place we come from, the better we will be able to do that.

It doesn’t cost so much. And the value is much greater than the cost, and not just to the other person.

What’s your experience of “being there” for someone, or of someone being there for you?

Filed Under: Leadership, Personal Mastery, Wisdom Tagged With: , , ,

How much needs to be right for results to flow?

June 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Team applaudingTake a computer program: Essentially every single byte (or character in the source code) has to be right for the software to function correctly. Or think of a product development project: Pretty much all the pieces have to be correctly executed before the new product will succeed in the market. That’s not just all the technical tasks, but all the marketing, sales and logistics ones too. It’s a lot—remarkable anything ever works really.

So it is with people things: A whole lot of layers need to be appropriately attended to before the outcome we want will happen. Here’s some that might apply…

  • An understanding of the systemic nature of things
  • Leadership
  • Connection with the market or the audience
  • Compelling writing
  • Good design
  • Interpersonal relationships
  • Financial compensation for contributors
  • Effective communication and dialogue
  • Shared vision
  • Common understanding
  • A sense of timing
  • Self-responsibility
  • Hope
  • Care

 

Chances are, your answer contributes to one or more of these, but not all of them.

What’s your approach to integrating all the parts you need? How do you tell where your contribution hands off to one from someone else? When should you be in the front seat and when in the back?

Making good calls about this is key to your success.

Filed Under: Leadership, Learning, Personal Mastery, Systems, Wisdom Tagged With: , ,

How come we can be so reluctant to learn?

May 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Man reflecting

We tend to assume everyone is up for learning, but they might well not be. Why is that exactly?

Learning is part and parcel of change so it matters if we are closed to learning. That’ll be an obstacle to progress, especially in a leader. Our unwillingness to open ourselves up will have a debilitating effect.

So why the reluctance then?

Well, like many things, it comes down to our ego. Our ego’s purpose is to preserve our separateness; our sense of being an individual. Accepting learning means taking something in from someone else, allowing them to come into our space, in effect, and accepting that we maybe aren’t so separate after all. This may not be so easy to do, unless we’re in the habit of accepting a better future lies beyond new awareness brought into our everyday life.

The benefits of learning outweigh the downsides of accepting some “loss of face” in admitting we don’t know, if it really is a loss of face. Maybe the difficult admission we need to make is to ourselves. And perhaps there’s kudos with others in being mature enough to be real with our not-knowing.

What about you? Are you ever reluctant to learn?

Filed Under: Learning Tagged With: , , , , , ,