Category: Leadership Development

Don’t stop me now!

So is the title of the Queen song. Inspired by the New Zealand movie Love Birds which made me laugh and cry at the same time I’ve had a serious and sudden desire to listen to all things Queen. No, not the head of state but the Freddie Mercury one. Doug, played by Rhys Darby gets dumped by his long-time girlfriend ‘cos he’s too boring. A fanatic of Queen, the movie features lots of Queen and great shots of an Auckland you’d be proud to call home.

Yesterday, I helped a group of Masters students get ready for a presentation today. Everyone is winding them up – the client, themselves, the other groups – and it seemed that their 20 minutes of fame followed by 5 minutes of Q&A was an Everest event. Practicing the words, understanding the jargon, suggestions to drug one of the panelists by their helpful lecturer all combined to raise anxiety. Actually they’re quite confident sounding so I coached them around being themselves, not reading stuff out (we can do that ourselves you know!) and making a stand: What actually are you recommending? (a surprisingly common oversight).

Yesterday at a senior management meeting someone forgot what they wanted to say “well I can’t say it now can I!” or something, he said. Exactly. So what? We laughed and realised our own imperfections. Yes we’ve all forgotten something we really thought we wanted to say, or do. Damn, forgot to make a recommendation on what we were asked!

Can you forget to be yourself? Yes, it seems, and usually by people who aren’t. Advice advice advice about this, that, tactics, long winded rants about what you NEED to do, all by people who are supposedly leading groups to grow.

Actually they’ve probably got no idea about what the motives and preferences of the people being presented to are – just throw out some stuff to them, say lots of technical stuff, get ready to wiz them with technical jargon, make sure you stand tall and confident. Practice the words and get them right.

What a load of shit.  Be yourself, engage from what you know – if someone advising you about a presentation doesn’t have anything insightful to say about the people you’re talking to, find someone else to help you. And if you can’t, who cares, trust yourself. What’s the worst thing that can happen? People will see the real you in all your frailties and with any sort of luck, you’ll forget something you meant to say. And then you’ll have ’em.

Once you’re going then you’re unstoppable.

Don’t stop me now!

Stephen

A military head of state

He or she might technically be just our head of state’s representative, but with a grandson’s wedding, a playboy son and other important affairs of state to worry about in England for our actual head of state, the Governor General is as good as we get.

Without doubt it has to be a leadership role, our head of state. There’s some ceremonies to facilitate, many with a feel-good factor, some to appoint cabinet ministers and patron of a number of charities. I’d like to see someone who inspires us as a nation to grow.

Outside of New Zealand I doubt many people would know who our Governor General is. Can you name the Governor General of  Australia? Or Canada? How about Fiji? Do they have one still?

Managing the Army and later the Defence Force is a big job and our next GG appears to have run operations pretty satisfactorily. When we saw him under pressure like the appointment of Stephen Wilce, he had it investigated thoroughly and  promptly assigned the blame to those officers who had stuffed up. Not a good look to have someone associated with the Defence with a fake CV, but it wasn’t his fault. Did the handling of it feel political to you? It did to me and that’s a little uncomfortable, for an apolitical appointee.

Leadership is all about context. A few signals, a strategic view given. What will it look like outside New Zealand to anyone that cares to ask: Soldier as head of state?

Not sure at all.

Underwhelmed. But winter’s coming. Makes me dream of a holiday in Fiji.

Stephen

Consumed by a role

If you work in a large organisation as I do you might experience from time to time, this thing, sometimes referred to as bureaucracy. I quite like the word bureau, sounds like a solid agency, slightly upmarket who know what they do. Add a misspelt crazy on the end of it and you have a range of behaviours and stories that can form the basis of leadership stories for workshops from here to infinity!

We all get consumed in our own little worlds from time to time, especially when the pressure comes on from the crazy bureau.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of motorway driving lately (aka freeway – see I’m not consumed only in my little world!) and noticed lots of drivers who, especially during mid to late morning when you can briefly drive at the speed limit, enter the motorway and as quickly as they can, but driving quite slowly, more over to the ‘fast’ lane, and stubbornly proceed without any regard to others. What can you do? Flash the lights? Tailgate? Pass on the inside? Breath out and relax? Yes, all of those things. But I’ve started the great role modelling experiment: When I can, no matter whether there’s anyone behind me or not, I move over. That probably sounds obvious if you’re in  Australia or US reading this, but it’s not here in NZ. And I’ve monitored the behaviour of other vehicles, compared to the other techniques. I reckon one in three react to the traditional methods. Two out of three mimic my driving, if I deliberately pull over when I don’t need to.

It’s very easy in the crazy bureau to be consumed by your role and you’ll see it in the language:  “We need to know this for our records” or “You’ll have to fill in this form – we can’t process the claim without that particular form filled in”. I don’t mind admitting I don’t react well to such nonsense. Maybe I’m not suited to the crazy bureau.

But I do know that if we all role model the behaviours we expect of others, it might not always work or have immediate effect, but like the motorway, it’s a start.

Consumed by your role, or a role model?

Stephen

What’s your story?

We have a story telling session this week which has kind of grabbed my attention in unexpected ways. Part of me thinks there’s lot to give out, and part of me thinks, it’s well, just what we do.

When I was out running this evening we talked about the Life in a Day movie project released at the Sundance Film Festival last month. One of our group wants to photograph some

Where does your story start?

of the hills we run on in the Waitakeres: “tell her about your video with Frosty on Scenic Drive” and so the brief story of a foggy but mild Saturday run last July where I filmed part of my contribution to Life in a Day began. and kept us going for a part of our run.

If you’re a regular reader here (remember to subscribe for free to this blog by next Tuesday 1 March and go into the draw to win a book of my choosing!), and even if you’re not, you’ll know that some of the important things we notice in our leaders are authenticity, telling the truth, being vulnerable, mindfulness, being present and vision.

I’ve been doing some reading about story telling (is that one word or two?) and I initially thought that we could use story telling as a valuable part of the leader’s toolbox. But then as I kept reading, deeper insights developed.

Filmmaker Peter Guber (Rain Man, Batman, The Color Purple, Midnight Express) describes four truths of the Story teller:

  • Truth to the teller – authenticity and vulnerablity of the story teller is a critical component of the story.
  • Truth to the audience – once aroused, the audience’s expectations must be fulfilled.
  • Truth to the moment – no story is told the same, the storyteller responds to the context at that moment.
  • Truth to the mission – the story teller is committed to a vision beyond themselves.

So is it a good idea to learn some story telling techniques as a leader? Maybe it is. But I reckon we’ll find out at our story telling session that we’ll go deeper than learning about story telling. We’ll start with our own autheniticity and vulnerability to grow to yet another level. And those around us will say we’re great leaders. They’ll notice we are authentic and vulnerable and have a vision – they’ll hear it in the story.  And no wonder I love the movies. We all have a story. What’s yours?

Stephen