This was the year of two metrics and it is interesting how it panned out. I’m grateful for the greater focus this year, it helped me to see progress in a way I have not seen as clearly before. Let’s take a moment to reflect back on the metrics I tracked and then some of the things I learned.
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If you have followed my posts for any amount of time you know I’m a visual learner and I like patterns. There is a pattern for growth that I’m working through that has felt durable and I’d love your thoughts and reactions.
The patterns looks like this:
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The leadership flywheel I wrote about recently also can also be converted into a cycle of learning.
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A while back I took my son out camping in the mountains. At the time he was about 5 years old, and we were both excited to have some one on one time. We brought the fixings for s’mores and picked up some firewood on the way in so we could have a proper campfire and treat after dinner.
As a youth I grew up in the scouting program and earned the Eagle Scout award so camping and fire building is not a foreign task. The wood was large logs, but we did not have any kindling. My son and I explored the campsite and surrounding area for twigs, sticks, and anything that we could use to start our fire.
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Ever since reading Good to Great by Jim Collins I have been fascinated by the concept of the flywheel. Working hard on the right things consistently over time and then having your efforts compound for massive impact over time. I have touched on the idea here and here.
Leadership is a difficult topic to create a flywheel around because there is not a shared definition of leadership in the community. The definition I choose to use is:
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This week I had a conversation with a colleague that helped me uncover a blind spot I had. I have been studying and thinking about what I have been calling “purpose driven leadership”.
The concept is this. When you do the hard internal and personal work of why you are here on the planet you have discovered your purpose. This is much larger than just one area of your life. It encompasses all that you must contribute to the world.
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I love to teach and recently had the opportunity to visit and facilitate a college course at Wichita State University. The course was hosted by the Kansas Leadership Center. The curriculum is based on principles of Adaptive Leadership from Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky.
The definition of leadership shared in the course is:
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I can be a nerd when it comes to words. In school I never gravitated towards anything that required writing but in teaching, the semantics of words has fascinated me. Unique insight can be found in the meaning and nuance found in words. There are two words I was pointed to this week that got me thinking.
(more…)This week while reading I was struck by an idea.
(more…)I cannot know something works or witness results until I have tried it first.
I am reading Ray Dalio’s book Principles and came across a quote that struck me.
“Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives in order to pursue even better ones.”
Ray Dalio
I teach and invite people to act. Proud husband, father and amateur pizzaiolo