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Incoherence and bullying

November 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Signposts pointing in all different directionsStrategic coherence: Some organizations have it, others not so much. In those that do, it’s easier to get things done across functions, across the ubiquitous silos, because everyone’s already pointing in something like the same direction.

Where there’s incoherence—different parts being pointed in different directions—it’s much harder to lead across functions when the job requires it. Managers run out of the skills and authority they need to get what they need done, done, and resort to bullying behavior.

Some organizations leave their senior people to “sort it out amongst themselves.” In a competitive culture, that rarely happens and so things get incoherent down the line.

Does that lead to bullying?

What do you think?

Watch the incoherence is the takeaway, I reckon.

Filed Under: Leadership, Organizations, Relationship Skills Tagged With: , , ,

If your organization was an orchestra, how would it sound?

November 9, 2012 By 6 Comments

Conductor and orchestraIs everyone playing the same piece? Are they even in the same hall? Assuming, yes, then how unified is the performance?

Ok, the comparison is not entirely valid, because an organization needs to evolve, so some players need to be trying out new things, and new additions to the team need to be practising and tuning up in another room.

But still, as its conductor, are you satisfied with what you hear?

If you yourself were an orchestra, how would you sound?

Filed Under: Collaboration, Leadership, Organizations, Wisdom Tagged With: , ,

Change for leaders – Does it start out there or in here?

April 25, 2012 By 2 Comments

Jar in front of a mirrorMessing about with key phrases on Google such as “change for leaders”, it’s very striking that most of what comes up is about doing change to other people—organizations, employees and so forth, usually by or on behalf of various corporate bodies or consultancies.

It’s all about making change happen out there—the assumption being that there is no need for change within the leaders themselves. They are the leaders after all.

Now I’m just looking at the listed search results and maybe when you click through it’s obvious that the various organizations and individuals realize that in order for us to lead change in other people, we must first change ourselves.

Or maybe not.

But that’s the thing. Change done to other people doesn’t stick, if it works at all in the first place.

Change begins “in here,” and then it happens “out there.”

Try it and see.

Filed Under: Change, Leadership, Learning, Organizational Learning, Personal Mastery, Wisdom Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Who to talk to – those like us or those unlike us?

December 5, 2011 By 1 Comment

People networkingFrank isn’t interested in speaking to the man on my right. He’s not Frank’s type. He doesn’t seem relevant; he has a very different life. It doesn’t seem like he has anything that Frank needs; and Frank’s resources may not be relevant to him either.

Don’t we so often make this choice?

We speak instead to the people like us – the ones we know are fellow travelers; the ones who can obviously help us develop our ideas, and are clearly receptive to what we have to say. It’s what feels comfortable.

And yet…

If we hope to encourage growth in a group of people, it may be those most different from us that we’ll influence the most, if for no other reason than the gap between us is greatest. And maybe we’ll learn the most from them too. Comfortable it may not be, and we may not know we’ve achieved anything. They may even cause us to question our assumptions!

Now, it’s good to build momentum with like-minded people; to invest our energies in those that are already on the journey. Such is the conventional wisdom for change in organizations – work with the supporters and the undecided as their momentum will carry the remaining unco-operative ones. And if it doesn’t, we’ll remove them from the scene.

Trouble is…

In many situations, we don’t have the power, so we do need to tackle the “difficult” cases.

And maybe the “difficult” ones have the most to teach us, if we are open to what they have to offer.

In on-line networks, it’s tempting to ignore those that speak to the exclusion of listening; to ignore those that post endless (probably ineffective) commercial content on-line, on Twitter for example, without ever engaging with people.

But here’s the thing…

For large scale change, those may be the very people we need to influence.

Next time you’re tempted to choose the like-minded person to talk to, try engaging the individual that’s different instead. Maybe you’ll gain more.

Who do you habitually talk to – the like-minded or the unlike-minded?

Filed Under: Learning, Personal Mastery, Relationship Skills Tagged With: , , , , ,

Relief from information overload

November 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

Exhausted computer userThe email Inbox just gets bigger. The paper in-tray still stacks up dauntingly too. And that’s not to mention all the other channels: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Skype text chat, SMS messages on mobile/cell phones, and StumbleUpon to mention only some. Oh I nearly forgot Google+. And then there’s Facebook’s LinkedIn “me too”, otherwise known as Branchout. Ever feel you’re caught in the middle of a communication arms race?

So what’s to do?

The net effect of all this communication could be the well-known phrase “information overload,” but does that description really help us? After all, the information exists whether we chose to look at it or not. How much attention do we pay to a piece of low value information that happens to be on our computer screen versus a piece of high value information that isn’t in front of us at all?

Perhaps we need to take charge of our attention and decide where to direct our interest.

Of course…

We can learn various practical techniques for processing information quickly, and they’re very valuable too. Will we ever outrun the flood though?

There’s another way…

Information flow is a manifestation of a relationship of some kind. Take that relationship to a deeper, more trusting, more profound level and we won’t need to handle so much data. The details become unimportant and fall into place much more easily – or can be set aside altogether. Head in the opposite direction away from trust, and you’ll need every information-handling trick you can find.

How to take a relationship deeper to a more profound level?

Find out what truly matters to the other person or organization and cherish that sincerely.

Too simple? Maybe not.

Filed Under: Leadership, Organizations, Personal Mastery, Relationship Skills Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,