Why I love my Big Ears (a pi-spective)

Have you yet reached that day when you look in the mirror, and what looks back is not you, but your mom or dad? It’s quite unsettling.

In reality I’m not the spitting image of either my mom or my dad, but I seem to be growing my mother’s ears. And apparently it’s true —

ears never stop growing.

I was in denial — but yep, no doubt about it. Rita’s ears.

I love that I am learning to listen — really listen. It takes practice, and dedication. It really is a skill. I think I’m getting better at it. I don’t get distracted as much as I used to. I’ve practiced listening with my eyes open and my eyes shut…

There are myriad tips for how to listen better, to focus, to read body language. It depends on what you are listening for: Is it in the service of understanding? Creation? Empathy or compassion? In the service of me? Of you?

A friend of mine recently told the story of an experiment he and a few friends did setting up a ‘listening stand’ at an event. The invitation was for anyone to tell their story to an unbiased, non-judgemental person — to get it out. Hardly anyone took it up. My friend thought it was in service to the person that needed to ‘get it off their chest’.

In retrospect, he realized that in fact it wasn’t about creating the space for individuals to get their story out. It was actually about him, hungering to hear their stories.

The next iteration of the experiment will be “I want to hear you”, not “you need to tell me”.

That’s how I learned to love my big, every growing, somewhat knobbly ears.

I want to hear you.

Emerging into Teal through Working out Loud - Part 3: Evolutionary Purpose

A few weeks ago, at a TealNZ Meetup, my friend Anake shared this poweful quote that shifted my lens on purpose:

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”

― Rumi

In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes the idea that just as our individual purpose evolves, so does the organization’s purpose.

Evolutionary purpose was a tricky concept to get my head around. Some people believe that our purpose stays consistent throughout our lifetime — but that hasn’t been true for me. Absolutely everything has evolved — the words, intent, context. Here is my purpose as at March 2016:

I believe that through cultivating, curating, catalyzing and convening, I will serve people who are interested by identifying opportunities to play and experiment with new ways of working and being.

Sarah Rozenthuler’s 3 Adventures of Purpose-Led Leadership challenges us to find a place or an opportunity from where to stand and deliver. For me this must be in the context of big epiphany:

“I don’t want to do this on my own.”

Epiphany arrives; you must wander off piste, and make your own tracks.

I acknowledged the fact that there aren’t many companies out there yet that intrinsically or instinctively match my purpose.

I don’t want to be lead by dogma or shrink-wrapped products — so that narrows the opportunities even further! I want to self-manage into the roles where I can be my whole self, and that which best represent my purpose. I know I need to ‘work out loud’ to test and verify and challenge and question and support. Thankfully I have my intention circles of randoms, but it’s still uncharted waters.

My thoughts turned to this co-operative band of ventures in Wellington, called Enspiral. Enspiral is a bold experiment to create a collaborative network that helps people do meaningful work. Enspiral’s purpose is ‘more people working on stuff that matters’

How does this connect to Working out Loud?

One part of the Working Out Loud framework focuses on building relationships with people or organizations that interest you — that you sense will be important to you in some way (and that could be anything). We do this by honestly understanding the value of the relationship when we start — over the weeks, through the sharing of universal gifts, increase our intimacy level with the individual or organisation increases.

I went exploring, intentionally building a relationship with Enspiral, and I found a place to stand. It feels great to say this:

I am aligned with and contributing to Enspiral. The collective provide me with support, challenge, and a framework for my purpose — the work I am here to do.

********************************************************************************************************

How does Working out Loud help both ourselves and our organizations express this idea of evolutionary purpose? It took me a while to come to my own understanding of evolutionary purpose.

Several metaphors have helped me, the first starts by thinking about how a forest or garden comes into being.

When the first seedling sprouts from the soil, no one has any idea what it’s going to be or look like in a year, 5 years, 100 years, 10,000 years.

Going right back to how the seed got into that little bit of soil — perhaps a bird pooped it out from a meal taken a few days and many kilometers flight away…

What happens next is anybody’s guess, and dependent and interdependent on who and what touches it. What is the weather like that year? What has the wind blown in? What other animals or people have tracked through with paws or shoe? That garden becomes what it becomes from both its individuated beginning and everything that touches it over the course of its existence. I think a company is the same.

Another metaphor is a ship…

The ship sets sail on a sea that is in perpetual motion, within an atmosphere in which winds are in perpetual motion. You can see it in your mind’s eye — the old wooden ship with the big wheel and a rudder and sails and the crow’s nest. The crew should know every job, how the moving parts work, and the effect they have.

When ancestors of the Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa left Hawaiki (Taiwan?), I’m pretty sure they didn’t know exactly where they were going. They knew they were going somewhere, and that there purpose was to find that ‘somewhere’. And it’s easy to imagine that purpose evolving over time.

On a ship, as a crew, you have to work out loud in the moment, and evolve together as your course evolves.

Like a ship on the ocean, our lives are not straight lines — even if we want them to be.

Some of the richest examples manifest by way of individuals Working Out Loud in organizations is to help both identify and strategize how one might change role or location or trajectory, and by extension an evolving purpose.

My friend Mara is a great example — a New Zealander, she worked in London for many years. When she (with intention) joined a circle, her goal was to figure out a way to keep her same job and move back to NZ. This may sound easy, but if you consider her role and the organization, it was anything but. Working out Loud helped her do this!

Was moving back to NZ and keeping her same job Mara’s purpose when she arrived in the UK? Probably not. But, with children, her purpose changed — priorities changed, what she and her husband saw for their future changed. Her personal purpose evolved.

I am another good example of how Working out Loud helped me to articulate my personal purpose — I didn’t have the words just yet, but working with my circle over the months, I came to understand my gifts better, because I was able to express them wholly, without fear of retribution or getting fired or looking like an ass.

I can’t explain why that happens in a circle, but it does. And that freedom, coupled with the sense of possibility that comes from feeling safe, allowed me to ‘figure it out’ and maybe that’s the key to this whole thing.

My Working out Loud circle gave me support and stopped me floundering around — focused my intentions and me

The circle itself has an evolutionary purpose that serves as microcosm of what is possible. If we believe that — everything that describes the magic of the circle is truly the intersection of personal and organizational purpose into this evolving organization of 3 or 4 or 6 individuals. Some circles end precisely on 12 weeks, some splutter and die before they get going, and some may last a season or a lifetime.

The lessons from a circle practice abide. Add a dimension to the compost or soup that will at once form and inform your evolutionary purpose.

Here’s another example — when I started thinking about writing a series about the possibilities when Reinventing Organizations and Working Out Loud intersect, I thought there would be four parts. But as I got into it, as I started doing the work, things changed, and I am ending this series here.

Join a circle. Work Out Loud. Reinvent. Play. Experiment.

Emerging into Teal through Working out Loud - Part 2: Wholeness

Last week, we explored Self-management and Working Out Loud as portals into the emergence of a different way of working and being with our work.

What is possible when our personal purpose and the organization’s purpose intersect? Can we access that possibility if we aren’t able to connect with our personal purpose in a way that represents our whole self?

Most people (myself included) are rarely challenged to consider the how or why or ‘what am I here for’ intersects with that of the organization.

I appreciate the perspective Sarah Rozenthuler brings forth in ‘The 3 Adventures of Purpose-led leaders”, which offers an invitation “to find the work that we need to do”. That is our purpose. She says “When we work for an organization whose mission aligns with our own, we bring our whole selves to our work — our caring, daring selves as well as our professional skillset”.

Masks and small squares

A more accessible discussion of wholeness may be described as an acknowledgement of those parts of yourself that you either put a mask over or divvy up to share in different aspects of your life. What would you look like if everything you did reflected or included each of those aspects of you — your whole self. How different would that look in comparison to what you bring to work today?

suggested by Alanna Krause — seeing all sides of yourself at once

I can identify times throughout my journey, almost to the day, when I chose to put a mask over a particular part, or decided to ignore that part. Eventually, all I was left with was the ‘masculine rational’* component that was valued in the multi-national. Faced with continual reinforcement of that as the only appropriate posture — in a board meeting, or a project meeting, or a sales meeting — we almost can’t stop it from becoming the default. It just becomes easier to leave the masks on. And we forget we are even wearing them.

* I find this terminology challenging and a little cringy from my gender as a social construct lens; it’s Laloux’s language. What it looked like for me was a hard-assed, meritocratic logician.

Showing your work isn’t the same as Showing your Whole Self

How can Working Out Loud help us to have the confidence to be more whole at work? As with self-management, it’s a choice to be vulnerable enough to put your work into the public domain. To show work in progress and actively seek out feedback.

It’s a two-part process — don’t take the short cut! Showing your work as a reflection of your work self as opposed to your whole self, (i.e artifacts of what you are producing) may be a little less scary, but it’s missing the point.

Open your work to feedback, and ask to provide feedback

When you open it up to feedback that you get the opportunity to show more of yourself. Through giving feedback, you approach someone else’s work or goal from a number of different lenses. Each time you approach feedback from a different lens, you are engaging the different aspects of yourself.

When I explain what I think wholeness means and why it’s important, it usually involves something like this “I feel cheated that you only bring 1/16th of who you are to work — I want to know and see all your facets — the creative part of you, the sensitive part, the funny part, the expressive part or your intuition.” I feel cheated because that part that you are not showing (consciously or unconsciously) is potentially diminishing my experience of the interaction.

Working Out Loud as a cure for the scourge of scarcity?

Scarcity (whether actual or a mindset) reigns in many companies — scarcity of resource especially. There either aren’t enough hours or enough people to get the work done as quickly and fully and efficiently as we could.

Imagine if (especially in organizations that value problem solving and innovation) scarcity could be mitigated not by simply ‘throwing more money’ or ‘throwing more people’ at a problem? What if it could be as simple as encouraging everyone to come with their ‘whole selves’ as opposed to that tiny rational/masculine window — what if I got 6 aspects of Maria, where I used to get just one? Or 5 aspects of Tom? Mightn’t that give us that creative edge that would move our relationships, or our business, or our world forward apace?

That’s in the Meta context. In the context of Working out Loud peer circles, one of the reasons it ‘works’ is that with a tight, interdependent circle, those shy parts of us are encouraged to come out and play.

Creating and holding Safe Space

When ‘safe space’ is created and held, we can use that space as a playpen to start trying things — experimenting, bringing forth parts of ourselves out from behind the mask, to play, and live.

I’m currently working with a distributed organization who are intentionally on the Teal path. One of the first invitations was that they self organize into peer circles (in this context, peers include everyone up to the CEO) of individuals they don’t normally work with. I asked them to write an open letter reflective of their personal purpose and how and where it intersects with the organization’s evolutionary purpose.

Within hours, there was express validation of the power of circles — the space to Work Out Loud and feel safe to express very profoundly deep ideas about oneself — because what could be more personal than ones sense of purpose. For most people, and in most companies, would never even be considered to think about let alone talk about. Much less practice.

I am not a fan of work-life balance. It’s all life.

If your work is so unpleasant that you have to balance it with something else, I might suggest that it’s because you are trying too hard to do it with just one facet of your whole self. If you were able, somehow, to bring your playful self, or your creative self to work, I wonder if you would feel so ‘unbalanced’? It’s not about being wacky, although that could be part of it. Though it is about feeling comfortable with feeling different.

Even though most of us don’t wear uniforms to work (and even less so now — when I was ‘coming up’ in corporate there certainly was a uniform as such, even suits for women) there is still that whole thing about fitting in. Don’t stand out, lest you be called the weird one. Some people have always been OK with that and enjoy being different, sometimes just for the sake of it. I think that time has shown us that the way we dress and wear our hair just isn’t that important.

Leaving our lives in the locker (the hot clean desk)

A trend seems to be waning in some quarters is clean desks devoid of any personality whatsoever. The idea was about flexibility and tech companies trying to prove a point to themselves that one could work anywhere, easily. In many offices, everyone had a little locker where they leave their ‘outside selves’ before scrambling for their favorite desk or pod. And yes, some people enjoy working that way — different every day, different view and different pod mates. I’m just not convinced that all it did was suck some more soul out of the organization. It might even actually promote hierarchy and be bad for your health.

Wholeness is the way we choose to be present.

And Working Out Loud is a way to be present in some of those dimensions- some way out in the open, as with artifacts and shipping, some within the circle, as a practice and a way to learn as a group to create and hold that safe space.

How might you start to practice? How can we find the courage to bring all of who we are to everything we do?

In two weeks** we’ll explore Evolutionary Purpose, and how Working out Loud and Sensing out Loud helps to illuminate and amplify.

If you are interested in learning more, or joining a circle, email me or visit our emergent circle randoms matching site:http://www.powercrowds.com/sign

**I’m taking next week off to attend a working retreat (as a distributed contributor I appreciate the retreat format) to live be and work out loud.

Photograph ©Matt Hill — visit Matt and his remarkable work atwww.MattHillArt.com

Emerging into Teal through Working Out Loud

Part 1: Self Management

I co-convene TealNZ, a meetup community of over 180 kiwis who are exploring the work of Reinventing Organizations and what it means to be ‘teal’.

It’s easy to get enthusiastic about new ways of working — stories and examples of companies who are self-managing, encourage everyone to bring all of who they are to work, and acknowledge their purpose as evolutionary are inspiring and compelling.

How do I find one of those organizations?

I want to work there!

Reality is, there aren’t many, and we need to create the conditions for them to emerge. This is not going to happen quickly.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t practice what it could be like.

Theory to Practice.

How often have you been challenged to put theory into practice? For individuals with a growth mindset, it happens all the time. We are attracted to new shiny things — especially ideas that seem to magically articulate and coalesce concepts that bump around in our heads.

Last year, two books transformed me. One, a theoretical model — Reinventing Organizations and the other, a handbook for practice, Working Out Loud. I dove headlong into both, not immediately sensing how connected they were.

Eventually, it hit me — Working out Loud is a practice that incorporates each of the teal breakthroughs — Self-Management, Wholeness and Evolutionary Purpose.

Over the next 4 weeks, I will exploring these connections, beginning with Self-Management.

Reinventing Organizations

In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux moots three breakthroughs ofthe historical/evolutionary stage called Teal: Self-Management, Wholeness and Evolutionary Purpose.

The work of Frederic Laloux found me through a random coffee meeting — a prescient chat between two strangers. I got home googled, downloaded, and my life was changed. I wrote about the impact the work had on my life here.

Working Out Loud

Working Out Loud, by John Stepper, is a guidebook that codifies and scaffolds a practice of peer-mentoring. It’s a practice.

For most individuals in Working Out Loud circles today, the opportunity was brought to them by their organization as an HR or Learning and Development initiative. Leading multi-nationals are embracing peer group circles (and Working Out Loud specifically) and mentoring as one of the best ways to encourage trust and support proactive personal development while breaking down silos. Working out Loud circles in firms become the Hx (Human interface) of the ESN (Enterprise Social Network).

In my transition from senior leadership in multi-nationals to freelancer, I encountered many things I didn’t anticipate. The most glaring and difficult for me was not having a team around me. (more context here) I sought a group of like-minded randoms who could hold me to account.

These three little islands in the South Pacific

I live in New Zealand. I can see half of you reading this brighten — “oh New Zealand! Sooooo beautiful — how lucky is she!” and the other half “New Zealand? oh that crazy place John Oliver is always making fun of!”

I stumbled upon the John Stepper’s blog during an ordinary internet adventure, and ordered the book. Lo and behold, one of the case studies was about a woman named Mara, who lives in NZ! I immediately stalked her and we met for coffee.

Mara and I hit it off straight away, and she told me that a couple of others had been in touch with her — randoms — and that there was a possibility of starting the first Working Out Loud circle in New Zealand. Was I in? This was a perfect example of a ‘Hell Yeah’ . We had our first #NZ_WOL circle a few weeks later.

Intentionally seeking out peer mentors is an act of self-management and a manifestation of working out loud.

So who are we? Mara developed the Collaboration Centre of Excellence for a finance multinational. Nick is head of digital for NZ’s largest real estate company, Nigel is head of Quality, Teaching and Learning at a tertiary institute and runs his own consultancy. And then there is me — corporate escapee trying to make my way in the big bad world of freelancing.

Would we have naturally attracted one another at a party or even in an ordinary workplace? Maybe. But regardless of how we came together, wewere together. From the very start, there was an unspoken bond because we had chosen to come together, to give this thing a go. To respect and trust, to be willing to be vulnerable and ask for help. I’ve written on vulnerability; when you have the opportunity to really experience it, and be held in it, it’s transformative.

Committing your time and attention to a circle is an act ofself-management and a manifestation of working out loud.

There are many versions of Working Out Loud — from Austin Kleon’s ‘Show your Work’ to Harold Jarche and others. It’s one thing to be able to put your work into the world, it’s quite another to know that you have at least 3 other people that are watching and supporting and not judging — simply holding you up to be your best self. The practice is about supporting one another to reach a personal or professional goal. There are comprehensive weekly run sheets to support the practice.

Choosing a specific goal or objective is an act of self-management, and doing it within the circle is a manifestation of working out loud.

Working Out Loud and Self-Management also supports ‘showing your work’ . Scrum boards or a Kanban or other artifacts of transparency are now de rigeur in software development envoronments. I like that phrase: artifact of transparency.

Showing your work is an act of self-management and a manifestation of working out loud.

The beauty is in the trust and connection and the intention. It’s all about intention — the intention to be responsible for your own development, and accountable to yourself and others to create that magical social commitment.

Magical Social Commitment.

Next week will explore how Working Out Loud provides opportunities to express wholeness in the workplace.

If you are interested in learning more, or joining a circle, email me or visit our emergent circle randoms matching site: www.wolworld.com

An Extroverted thinker in an (distributed) Introvert’s world.

Over the past few years many people have written about “empathy for introverts”. I love the fact that we are starting talk more about personal preference as a way to understand each other better.

Whether or not you see Myers Briggs as a helpful tool or a horoscope, one element I have found most useful is the theory behind introverted and extroverted thinkers.

It’s not about whether one is shy or brash, but rather how we get our energy and inform our decision making

Do we do it through thinking/talking aloud with others, or do we do it in our own heads (with the others living in there?)

One of the best tips I ever learned for helping everyone feel comfortable and even confident in meetings is to ensure that when seeking contribution, extroverted thinkers are encouraged to contribute first, allowing time for the introverted thinkers to cogitate and internally rehearse. It’s an important practice — as Katie Shelly reminds us, “Leave no one Behind”.

In one team, we even had a specific order for input, and believe it or not it worked great — because we had a common language (we’d all done Myers Briggs and understood one another in that context) and expectation of one another.

The past year and a half for me has been replete with reflection and internal re-work, done mostly at home and on my own. About a year into the process, I had the opportunity to be part of Seth Godin’s altMBA. In the run up to that month, I had been slowly building intentional relationships with online communities such as responsive.org mainly utilizing traditional asynchronous communications such as Facebook or Google+. The altMBA introduced me to (amongst other things) Slack and Zoom.

Zoom especially changed the game for me — a robust, high quality video experience for multiple participants to hold equal space.

As altMBA progressed (it requires a lot of group work, which is self-organized and self-facilitated via these digital tools) it became clear to me that this was the missing link — that I didn’t want to and didn’t have to work on my own, but moreover, it helped me to understand what was missing — synchronous dialogue, engagement and problem solving — face to face.

Digital, distributed team working and communication (I think) are an introverts delight — especially the use of asynchronous tools such as slack, Facebook and even email.

No one is watching, you can say whatever you want and not be expected to reply straight away, no pressure to perform

Leaving aside intellectually performance based writing, (which of course, extroverts indulge in as well!) one can take time, relax into it, delete, perfect.

And that’s not to say I don’t enjoy that mode of communication, I love the banter, the ability to take your time so as to be witty (!) and clever (!) however…..

I like to do a lot of things out loud — not metaphorically, but literally. That means talking! What a novel concept, aye? I hear a lot of talk about how the use of asynchronous tools can promote spontaneity, and I’m not so sure. I guess so, in a passive way, but not the spontaneity you get from live conversation — looking someone in the eye and bantering. The most powerful insight from my year of reflection was my “I don’t want to do this alone” epiphany.

Isn’t it ironic that “orange organizations” — (traditional, centralized hierarchies) cater better for conversation?

Extroverted thinkers get energy from talking things through, and I really believe that is best done in person. However, I sometimes lately have been able to catch that same buzz via Zoom, especially in longer conversations that are allowed to go wherever they need to go, without the strictness of a time box. I have to admit though, that even scheduled calls with a specific purpose, as long as they are one on one can work really well.

In my work, I do at least 5 or 6 sessions a week that are truly global, and they are normally around 4 to 6 people. I get a lot of thanks and feedback for my ability to facilitate and participate at the same time in those meetings. For me, they are only truly helpful and effective using Zoom — sorry you other platforms and those who love them — but the quality and ability for everyone to be the same size just outweighs the benefits of any other platform — simple, but effective — I can watch and see just as if we were at the same table, and that helps me read body language and invite participation. Could turn into a blog gig for Zoom? Who knows! Back to the crux here — which is:

How do we extroverted thinkers get the depth of connection in working through critical thinking with others in a distributed environment?

For me, the answer is not random coffee dates. It needs to be real, and intense. It needs to happen regularly, with a predictable cadence.

Distributed organizations like Enspiral and Buffer use the retreat cadence to get the whole team together a few times a year to make space for real-life conversation and bonding.

I get a huge buzz from that, but again, compressing a time and trying to get it all in over 3 or 4 days is equally exhausting, because I am desperately trying to have all the conversations I need to have — whilst being respectful of my introverted thinking colleagues (often seeing a mix of gritted teeth and terror on their faces) for the intense challenge for them of having to bepresent and prepared for those 3 or 4 days.

Nothing kills an extroverts spirit and creativity faster than locking them away.

Sure, we can find diversions and pastimes, but I only really light up when in dialogue — the deeper the better. Myers Briggs doesn’t consider the depth of conversation, which for me is essential — nothing exhausts me more than small talk (which may seem antithetical until you consider what the E is really doing, and that’s honest and truly thinking out loud). Small talk doesn’t really require any thinking. And moreover, for an ENTP at least, I want the dialogue to include problems and opinions and now ideas and more information and questions and considerations and and and. Sure I can get them reading and listening. But they only make sense when I can, in real, synchronous time, do all of those aforementioned actions right back! Live messaging can do that to a degree, but without the inflection and eye contact and potential for touch (even if it’s not real) and all the rah de rah body language that we know holds the key, it’s a poor facsimile.

This is a personal observation, (a warning?) based on what I see in myself and see and hear from my Extrovert compatriots. Not that I wouldn’t be happy for introverts to rule the world, but I’d still like to talk about it!

Flow. The Tiny Dancer.

Almost Famous is in my all time top 5.  The joy that film evokes for me goes beyond the wonder of ‘Tiny Dancer’ on the bus

to a whole other realm of sensory memory and yes, nostalgia.  Although it pains me to think that anyone reading this has not seen the film, it’s a coming of age story with the backdrop of 1970’s rock music – at time when the genre is changing (albeit a change that seems rather incidental considering what’s happened since).  Cameron Crowe wrote the film as a love letter to his youth, and to the music that forged him.  Although my own experience happened a few years later, when according to Lester Bangs music had well and truly died, the impact it had made me me. 

Music was me.  Alone in my bedroom, or in the car. 

But it came most alive in the presence of others. 

In clubs and arenas and huge outdoor stadia – hundreds or thousands of souls, in unison, vibrating with the overwhelming resonance of guitar bass and drums, and as that collective catalyst through which the vibrations passed, something else is created, something big and different and unique to the time and space.  A movement and construct that could only be in that time, bending in that space, and through that air, with our hearts and flesh and breath, creating an exteriorized organism called flow. 

Flow is very much in the zeitgeist these days  - a state that can provoke creativity, mindful and mindless practice, and a purity of output that requires this fine balance between skill and challenge and ease and purpose.  

In the case of a rock show, the skill and challenge role is played by the musicians and the lighting and sound crew, who push the limits of art; the crowd eases into it’s presence, serving the role of catalyst through which art flows, and is expressed in movement or singing aloud or meditation into the sonic meld.  Time evaporates. 

Present is all.  Collective unconscious or conscious; anything is possible.

The first time I recognized flow in my being was running – I lost time.  I literally felt like I came back to consciousness, and had no recollection of the past ten minutes – the signposts, the landmarks never happened.  I was there.  Now I was here.    That one time, I really noticed it, and it scared me a little.  But, once I had noticed it, I started to notice it, or at least be able to name it, more and more.  Carving a track on my snowboard, or a berm on the mountain bike – challenge and ease, challenge and ease = flow.  Limitlessness.

Next came abstract painting.  I always loved modern and contemporary abstract art; I thought I’d try it!  I registered for a night class at the local Art College, and voila.  From the very first night, flow was achieved completely effortlessly.  From the pallet to the brush to the canvas, I had no idea what I was doing or what was going to happen – all I knew was that 90 minutes had evaporated and it was time to wash up.  And what did happen on the canvas was of no consequence – what I was after, what I craved, what refreshed and enlivened and invigorated me was the flow state. 

Sometimes, if I’m really lucky, I can get it through writing, but it’s not a guaranteed outcome like it is with painting, or going to see my favourite band.

It’s the most connected, human place I can be. 

And I can find it, if I pay attention, in the most unlikely spots – during a collaboration session, or debate, or even a simple conversation, where there is that sweet spot of intense concentration and absolute grace. 

Sometimes I get scared that it’s like a shy spirit – that if you notice it and name it it will evaporate.  But I don’t think so.  Let’s name it, and intentionally seek her out.  The Tiny Dancer.

Transparency + Empathy = Vulnerability squared? or T≠E?

I once worked for a very talented entrepreneur who wore his heart on his sleeve. To the extent that he would bring his frustration, pain, and joy in equal measures to the office. It was great, I thought, that he was comfortable enough to be so open — so transparent about his emotions and fears. Clearly, and happily, the environment was safe enough for that. And that’s wonderful. To be able to be that authentic, trusting.

From my perspective, however, it wasn’t always comfortable. Or fair. (Did it need to be?) I didn’t own the company, I didn’t have either the pressure or the rewards (the business was quite successful) but I did have a stake — an emotional and financial stake; the gig was paying the bills, and I really enjoyed the work.

The transparency became a source of incredible stress for my colleagues and myself. Never knowing what ‘mood’ was going to walk in in the morning — was the sky falling? Or was sun shining just for us?

We balanced our frustration with empathy for the man. We were in transition; the investment and payoff cycle was unclear. But the work was purposeful, we all knew our part, and felt positive.

What we didn’t feel though, was empathy FROM the man. There was no balance between the transparency and sense of empathy. Had he no idea of how hard it was to hear his pain? And from a selfish place, when threats were made that he was going to ‘throw it all in’ or ‘shut it down’ how it made us feel? I don’t know, maybe he thought it would be easy enough for us to find other work. Or that he was so in his own head, held his responsibility so completely that it never occurred to him how we might feel or be impacted.

That’s not to say we were passive in all this — we tried to support, challenge, offer help. But he was too much in his own head. Not able to share the burden. Not able to really ask for help or be willing to co-create an alternative. And to be fair, it was his business, but what was being expressed with neither vulnerability nor empathy. I think he craved sympathy. But it’s not the same thing.

We wanted to help. Ironically, the transparency shut us out.

Collaboration to Interdependence

In the first dot-com boom (or was it the second?) in the late 1990’s, I had the pleasure of serving on a team who really paid attention to leveraging strengths. The COO of the organisation was a really inspiring guy who had read philosophy at Oxford and had a Harvard MBA. As a young female leader in the (still) male dominated tech world, it was so wonderful to have a real advocate and mentor with this unique blend. He had the vision to invest in the leadership team because he recognized it as essential for scalable innovation — remember this was at a time when the rate of growth and change that we take for granted today was a new phenomena, so his insight was critical.

We had a full-time organizational psychologist. We had a leadership development program that leveraged best in class diagnostics and psychometric instruments. They helped each of us gain insight into our preferences and strengths, and further develop as a team. Despite the pre-requisite awkwardness and skepticism, we all committed, and practiced rigorously.

Today it’s de rigueur to criticize these tools, especially Myers Briggs, which some claim is no more reliable or accurate than a trumped up horoscope. Regardless of how you hold it, this work gave me such a sense of liberation — that although of course, as an alpha-woman, I could do everything, I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to be great at the detailed creation of P&L’s and spreadsheets, because Mark was really good at that — and I could take that spreadsheet and in it see and interpret trends more naturally than he. Not only did it give me the confidence to focus on what I was good at, what I enjoyed, but more than anything, it gave me insights and practices to improve my communication with others.

Myers-Briggs wasn’t the only tool — there was Belbin and FIRO-B and something called the KAI adaptation/innovation diagnostic. Taken separately, each were interesting, but taken together, they gave us a collective language able to start to think about how to complete the circle, akin to the Full-Circle Leadership model Alanna Krause proposes.

I pause for thought when I recognize that what I’m describing happened nearly 20 years ago, and I pause again reflecting how grateful I am to have had that experience at a time in my life and career where it had the greatest impact.

For many reasons, the work I’ve done in the intervening years hasn’t afforded me the opportunity to work with a team so dedicated to supporting one another in our roles in the circle. There have been little glimmers of it, but never since on a leadership level; albeit until recently that would have looked like leadership that is ‘given as a role’, and distinctly hierarchical.

In the ‘bossless environment’, where leadership is created by momentum, I sense that the possibility and necessity to be intentional around this development work is intrinsic. The main arbiter is intention. What do we need to do to come together with the intention of spending the time and the energy to actually understand the gifts and archetypes that we as individuals embody, and actually work collectively to nurture the cycle.

Some questions that are consistent across many models of strengths based leadership is ‘what happens if all of the facets aren’t represented’? Which are the most important? How many can we do without? Is it possible to flex between archetypes or does that defeat the object? Should self-organizing teams ‘recruit’ for these missing skills and lenses?

Having thought about this deeply for a time, the unfolding for me is thatwhat is proposed here moves us past and through collaboration to inter-dependence. Like a flourishing forest, diversity ensures sustainability through resilience, which is held by inter-dependence.

The thing I absolutely love about this thinking is that it will be different in every collective, the way that is manifests will evolve, like the organism, and that with the intention, we can play and experiment and iterate! So, what archetype does that make me? I think I can flex between these three:

INQUIRE

The leadership of contextualisation 
Persona: the facilitator, Measure: inclusion, Shadow: permission-seeking

PROTOTYPE

The leadership of experimentation
Persona: the hacker, Measure: efficacy, Shadow: obsession

OPTIMISE

The leadership of improvement
Persona: the perfectionist, Measure: commitment, Shadow: meddling

What do you think? In which stage do you personally feel most valuable and valued? Which archetypes resonate with you? Then let’s explore the gaps — and think about what we are missing in our teams, and how we might round the wheel.

Are you root-bound?

Fromwww.lifeonthebalcony.com :

A plant is “root bound” when its roots take up all the space in the pot, or nearly all the space. If left in a root bound state, the plant will eventually suffocate and die.

Symptoms of a Root Bound Plant

1 The plant has stopped growing. This means that no new shoots are forming, even though the plant may produce some new leaves.

2 The leaves wilt a relatively short period after the plant is watered.

3 Regardless of the fact that you are properly watering and fertilizing the plant, an inordinate amount of leaves are dying. No amount of adjustments to the amount of water or fertilizer seems to help.

This isn’t a gardening post. Plants instinctively want to grow — they somehow know they NEED to grow, or die. People on the other hand, have a choice. I’m very clear that I have a growth mindset:

But sometimes, like that root-bound plant, I get stuck. And if you stop growing, you start dying.

I’ve felt like this a few times in my life. After a period of flourishing, a great sprint or the end of a project or the financial year, something happens.

I have a tendency to go hard, especially where there is a specific objective. But with my eye on the outcome, I can become blind to patterns of self-neglect.

It has also manifest from beating my head against a brick wall for a period. You get kinda numb.

Either from intensity or frustration, the ‘leaves’ start getting a little dull. Brown around the edges. The sense of ‘pushing against’ where before there was wiggle room to forge a new path, even if it meant moving around or through some obstacles. Stretching up to catch some sunlight, but never quite getting there. Stuck. Like that root-bound plant. There is nothing else for it but to smash the pot.

5 or 6 years ago, I decided to leave a corporate job (where the aforementioned head and brick action was a feature) for a new adventure. To celebrate, I took myself off to do something I’d always wanted to do, but never got around to:Outward Bound. I thought it would be an awesome re-set, and I was right. I don’t want to give away too much, but maybe the least-held secret of the Outward Bound program is Solo. Following challenge, adventure, team work and discovery with your watchmates, Solo is two nights, alone, in the bush, with a couple of apples, a bag of peanuts, a ground sheet, sleeping bag and a fly. Oh yes, and a bucket. Just you.

It was my favourite part. And maybe you’ll think I’m a little strange. Two days, sitting there, all alone, looking. You aren’t allowed to wander. So I sat, looking. The stiller I was, and the deeper I looked, the more I saw. And suddenly, everything was possible again. The pot was well and truly smashed. The roots started moving again– curving, seeking, growing. I grew an extra millimetre — just enough to reach the sunlight and start the miraculous process of re-generation.  I wrote this:

Squeezed up, mashed up, NO SPACE.  Root-bound, paralyzed.  Push until your strength abates--nowhere left to push.  In this useless place.  

But, in paralysis there is a stillness.  Turn your consciousness outward. Sit. Watch. Look. Pay attention.  Stillness is a SPACE CREATOR.

If you look hard enough, there is always a little opening.  A speck of light.  Or the inexplicable sense that the piece of wall you are staring it is not that thick; knowing that beyond it lies the chasm called potential.  Tap on it. Scratch the surface. Sounds hollow!  Close your eyes, and smash it down.

Now, as long as I pay attention, and notice, I can take preventative steps. Sit still. Be quiet. But every now and again, I still like to crack it wide open — just to see what happens. Growth is a Mindset. Growth is non-negotiable.

Success is a Team Sport

Strength in numbers, what does that mean?

What does that mean for those of us whose resistance tells us we are alone; our ideas are trite and trivial, success is a popularity contest we need to win with our cleverness? It’s up to the individual to try harder, dig deeper, compete. Look at me! Look at me! look at me…..

I believed that narrative. I don’t believe it anymore.

I believe that Success is a Team Sport.

It’s easy to give advice — to ask questions, comment and challenge. It’s an entirely different thing to put yourself in the hands and hearts of your teammates and say “I don’t know what to do” and “I need your help to get over the line”.

The trust required is boundless. But once you’ve found our tribe, you’ve found the place where we become as one, and cross the line like a rugby scrum — not a relay race. Holding each other tight, pushing against the resistance, and crossing the line together.

“A human being is a part of the whole…. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” — Albert Einstein