Sometimes when having a conversation with a leader you get a nugget of wisdom that changes the way you think. Charlotte Yarkoni did this for me recently.
I asked Charlotte a question that went like this; the last few years have been full of uncertainty, what have you done to create clarity for your team and organization?
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Several years ago I was in Copenhagen Denmark with my wife, and we were going through a Danish furniture museum. The Dutch (and Scandinavian’s) are famous for their timeless furniture designs. There is a decent chance you have some type of furniture in your home right now that was inspired by designs from these Scandinavian designers.
I was particularly curious about how one could be so consistent in a design and have the design resonate with people for decades to come. There was a plaque that I read that contained an idea that has stuck with me ever since I read it.
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Years ago, I worked with a colleague who was brilliant, creative, and helped me become a better leader. It was not until recently that I learned one of his leadership practices alienated me and others.
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Behavior change is hard. This month I read in a book called The Joy of Leadership about a tactic that can help us with the changes we want to make in our lives.
There are moments in each one of our lives where we feel particularly inspired to change something. Several years back, as I have written before my wife and I wanted to have a family motto and incorporated deep meaning for us. That motto became “Nicholls Climb Mountains”. Our kids were quite young at the time, and I wanted this to stick so I created a logo / image / icon to help us all remember our family motto and to act accordingly.
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Last year I shared about our family motto Climb Mountains. Since then, we have worked together to produce family values which are Courage, Faith, and Integrity.
I often get the privilege of speaking with leaders in times of difficulty and I recently witnessed an act of courage that inspired me to stick to my family values.
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It is no surprise that we live in a tumultuous world. Over two years ago COVID-19 changed the world, and ever since then we have been surrounded by a continued deluge of chaos, uncertainty, and complexity.
Consider a few of the world events in the last two years:
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For the last several years I have been running leadership development programs and a core component of those programs has always been a variation on a “learning group”. A group of learners going through a shared experience and learning from each other while they progress.
Historically about 80% of learning groups that I have looked after have been miserable failures. The leaders do not take the time to meet with each other and when they do, they do not have anything meaningful to say to each other so little value is produced.
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There is learning from others and learning from your own experiences. I learned from my own experiences the hard way about recovery and stress recently despite knowing it intellectually.
The months of January and February felt non-stop at work, and this increased all levels of stress in my life. I tried to be proactive and take a 4-day weekend to attempt to properly recover and reset.
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Lately I have been making an extra effort to strengthen my professional relationships. Talking to friends and rekindling relationships has revealed to me a tension I feel.
If I allow someone to see my weakness, then I will not be trusted.
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If you have ever worked at a major corporation, you certainly have dealt with an expense policy for the company. Expense policies are typically designed to protect the firm from financial risk. The firm decides what risk they are willing to tolerate and applies boundary conditions for how company money can be spent.
I have started to take an interest in systems thinking and I have heard the following quote (or something like it) repeated many times.
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I teach and invite people to act. Proud husband, father and amateur pizzaiolo