Cossie's Food for Thought

Will people come?

I spent time with a friend this week who was experiencing some of the loneliness of leadership.  He has reached the stage with his business  where he has put it all 'on the table' - and the cards aren't looking good.  Sooner or later - in leadership as in life - we have to make the 'go - no go' call - where we choose to go 'all-in' - or not.  Not all the chips represent money.  Many of them represent dreams - and none of us want to give up on our dreams.  

Most, if not all, small business owners have to face this challenge on their quest for success.  Do I stay or do I go?  Do I push or do I stop?  Do I hold or do I fold?  Unless we have faced this tyrant ourselves - we can only imagine the turmoil being experienced.  Yet - this is the part of the game where we have to pay to play - and it's not simply a case of 'go hard or go home'.  Not every hand is a winner is it?

Do you remember this scene from the Field of Dreams?

People Will Come
Field of Dreams at MOVIECLIPS.com

 

 "People will come Ray".  

In his case they did - after he made the decision to stay the course.  Courageous or crazy - you have to admire people who believe in what they are doing - but that is a movie and not real life.  Sometimes the people don't come - not because they are not there - but because we haven't discovered what we need to do to make it possible for them to come!  We experience resistance as something to be overcome but it is often not what it seems.  Often it is simply valuable feedback that we have failed to recognise - like a clue being hidden in plain sight - that would set us on the right course if could just see it.  Self-deception has many faces.  Pushing forward for it's own sake is senseless.  Pushing forward, with awareness of the impact we are having with finely tuned sensitivity to how the world is responding to us, and having the necessary mobility to keep adjusting our approach until we find what works - that can be a recipe for success.

If we build it - will they come?  

I think the answer is yes!  People will come - when we find what they are looking for, we deliver it in the way that they want it, and we have the courage, mobility and awareness to push on in pursuit of that dream.  We just have to decide whether this is the hand to go 'all-in' on.  What do you think?

Food for thought .....

Are we pushing when we should be pulling?

I was giving a presentation on dealing with difficult relationships to a group of business leaders last week, using the Arbinger Leadership Pyramid as a framework, when we got into a discussion on the cause and cost of conflict.   What impact does it have on our productivity and profitability when we find ourselves spending more and more time lighting and fighting fires - stuck in the thick of thin things - dealing with things that are going wrong?

The main problem we face when we focus on directing and correcting others is that, in doing so, we simply 'feed the fires' of friction in the workplace.  We find ourselves having to use more and more energy - pushing harder and harder - against the door marked 'pull'.  

Let me illustrate.  I remember a time when I was struggling with one of my teenage daughters.  She was hanging out with the 'wrong crowd' and I wanted her to stop.  It didn't take her long to teach me that my power over her was an illusion that she didn't share and the more I tried to use it - the worse her behaviour got.  I was a leader without a follower.  Shouting louder just didn't work any more.  There came a point where I realised I needed to apply Arbinger's Leadership Pyramid - but was frustrated that even when I did the behaviours associated with 'helping things go right' - I was still stuck.  It wasn't until I examined the deep foundations of my relationship with her that I found the problem.  They were shallow and rotten.  I was in the box.  I wasn't seeing her as a person.  I was seeing her as a problem that needed to be fixed.  I believed the change that would fix things was for her to recognise that I was right and she was wrong - but it wasn't.  The change that made change possible was for me to realise that to have any influence - I needed to be 'right' with her - to see her as a person who counts the same as me.  Funnily enough - when I made that shift in my 'way of being' her behaviour that was bugging me changed almost immediately.  It was as if I had been pushing with everything I had on a door marked pull.  It makes me wonder.  What if I do this in every conflict I experience?   How much energy am I wasting?

After I told this story to the group we began to explore the cost of conflict.  How much does it cost when people get sidetracked and stuck - when their minds are filled with planning the next skirmish instead of delivering results?  One of the participants, an architect, shared an amazing insight.  He likened the problem to fixing a leaky home.  He said that, as a rule of thumb, fixing a building with structural problems costs 11 times the amount it would have taken to get it right in the first place.  Imagine that!  11 times the original cost simply wasted because we didn't get it right.  

What if that same number applies to organisations?  Aren't they just another form of structure - built out of people held together by relationships?  What impact does our 'way of being' have on the bottom line?  How do I recognise when I am the problem?  Food for thought ....

p.s. check this out.  A 3 minute clip that might challenge the foundations of one of our oldest skills - tying our shoes :-)