Twenty Seven client or programme projects on my plate at the Centre for Innovative Leadership. Number 28, Strategic Thinking for Leaders finished yesterday with some great work around some significant strategic issues on participant organisations.
Of course they were significant. Otherwise they wouldn’t be strategic would they?
Realising the 27 helped me last night understand the dull tiredness around my eyes and accept that there Continue reading “Strategic thinking for small things”
A simple concept, often used in troubling ways. I’ve just come back from the movie Fair Game, based on actual events which gave rise to the American invasion and war in Iraq. A simple phrase used by President George W Bush described as a fact that the Iraqis had purchased uranium from Niger. This was to support the proposition, now discredited, that the Iraqis were building a nuclear bomb. Joe Wilson, a former Ambassador played by Sean Penn knew this to be a lie – not just something that wasn’t supported – but something that enquires had established didn’t happen. So what do to?
Amy Gallo in her ‘When you think the strategy is wrong’ lists three things to do before disagreeing:
These events are tragic. Countless dead and I doubt the world is any safer now than it was 10 years ago. It seems trivial to say that getting as close to the truth as you can before starting a war, might be a good idea. And if you know that one has or is about to be started based on a lie, how far do you go? Especially if those you need to confront include some of the most powerful men on the planet.
Earlier this week as I was driving into my local cafe (well the carpark) a van being driven enthusiastically with some urgency drove out: Chinese Christian Truth Church read the signage on the side.
In a leadership role dealing with the complexities of human behaviour, change and differing mental models makes dealing with the truth, well, not really the point.
How a team is put together, performs, strategises, implements, deals with adversity are not simple right-wrong propositions. But if there is a truth: something indisputable, the results, the findings, especially if it’s simply communicated, it can be really important for leaders to express it. And that might mean expressing both up and down something quite unpalatable.
I feel a twinge of fundamentalism when I hear someone express their views as the truth. Occasionally it has a more Monty Pythonesque feel about it, like the van, but we need to take some care. Honest we must be, but pushing forward that your honesty is in fact the truth should be saved for mission critical moments.
Strange thought really: be honest, but spare the truth talks. Like Joe Wilson did, when it mattered. John Lennon’s Imagine played soothingly on the drive home. Beautiful song. Now that is the truth!
During a workshop we hosted for the EMA last week two people from my on-line world approached me: “you’re active on LinkedIn” and “I like your blogs”. That’s nice I thought and I recognised them too, from their on-line profiles. It can be a strange thing sometimes when you interact face-to-face with people you’ve only dealt with on-line. I have a friend who refuses to do anything communication on-line – even texts are pushing the boundaries: “If I want to communicate I’ll speak to you thanks”.
I’ve come to quite like the on-line world. There is no doubt at all that we can connect with more people
(if that’s what you want of course), but significantly, a range of different people with insights and knowledge that you wouldn’t ordinarily have easy access to. So you’ll find me on Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, the Blog, LinkedIn, email, the CIL Website, my personal blog, Skype and I’m sure there’s more to come.
But I do challenge myself: is there an on-line person and a face-to-face person? Or are they one and the same. I hope you’d find me the same although there’s no proof-reading when you’re talking face-to-face so anything might come out, and often does!
And there’s a business reason for doing it. At the Leadership Centre I look after we need customers and so I need to keep communication as easy as I can. I do try to keep the communication honest and authentic which sometimes means asking for business. If we didn’t, I’ll soon be looking for something else to pay the bills, which reflects what I heard Jonathan Ling, the CEO of Fletchers say once: I need managers that firstly, can make a profit. David Silverman in his “4 tips for writing better email” says you should:
I think that these tips can be applied to more than just email, but can form a wider strategy of on-line engagement. I’m sure, if you’re a regular reader here you know that I’m doing plenty in the last category, but I intend to challenge myself about the first one. That’s authentic. We all need to prosper to be able to grow. So like my friend, I’ll speak, but in many different ways that will hopefully work for all of us.
Stephen
At 34 kilometres I stopped at Okahu Bay for three drinks and my last carbo squeezie. The ‘Why?’ question. It always comes up at some point on a marathon, and this time, having been prescribed steroids to get me through a throat infection and the run, it was later than I thought. People refer to it as the wall. It’s real and it hurts. But 34 soon becomes 37 and suddenly it’s 40 and I’m smok’n to the finish line. I remembered to tell a few people “Marathons hurt”. To be honest, I’ve kinda forgotten already.
We’ve got our 4th Authentic Leadership Course coming up and we’re near the finish line – or is that the starting line? Feels a bit like the finish line as the intensive marketing comes to a close and we can get ready for the really good stuff. It will have been a year almost to the day since our first course and each one is special. They are big weeks and the start of a journey for the participants.
I enjoy marketing strategy – aligning the products, the pricing, the promotion, our processes and so on with our authenticity. Selling I’m not so keen on, I prefer buying! Well someone buying anyway. I really enjoy meeting our clients on the way – I consider myself fortunate to get the rich texture of life from so many really neat people up and down the country. But sometimes promoting a course is hard.
Just like 34 ks on the Auckland Marathon. Next year I’ll have my permanent unique number for having completed five Auckland marathons. I’ll have it for life. Not sure how many punters sign up for the first one thinking “now that’s one hell of a good incentive to start!”. Just like I’m not sure that all our clients start off on the Authentic Leadership Course thinking that a year down the track they will be noticing the impact. But they have and they do. We’ll have participants from the previous courses check in on this anniversary course and we’ll find out how their journey in authenticity is going.
Bet they’ve hit the wall occasionally, some even on the course. But they’ll have their permanent unique number.
Like we all do. Can’t be copied. You’ve got it for life. But you need to find it, your authenticiy. And that can take work. Will you ask why? Maybe, but once you’re up and running again, you’ll never look back. Any hurt will be subsumed by delight.
Can you market that do you reckon?
Stephen
ps check out one of my photos on the promotional banner for our course on www.aut.ac.nz
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