The Settle
April 18, 2010 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
My business is change facilitation and my sport is rowing. I’ve learned a lot about both from cox’ns who provide the inspiration for this 4th in a series of four posts about change leadership using social business initiatives as an example.
The first 3 posts were about:
- Shifting the vantage point through willingness, not willfulness.
- Releasing the fairy tale and attendant story-lines identified with what’s non-integral and non-sustainable.
- Creating the conditions in which innovation and productive friction can take place by embracing different perspectives and individual lenses on the new direction.
This post is about execution and action which require one of the most important parts of a race or practice that the cox calls: the settle. A lot of business leaders get this wrong. They launch a new project with a racing start and push everyone to hold that pace indefinitely. But its the settle that results in purposeful attention, high quality and finding the optimal rhythm together. Just like in the racing shell.
Like cox’ns, business leaders facilitate the shift from urgent desire to unity and trust, through giving the right feedback at the right time. Doing so requires a multi-dimensional awareness, what you and your team sense, feel, believe and embody..not just what you know or want.
The settle can’t be confused with settling for less because its a moment by moment refusal to be less, especially when it hurts. It must be understood as the collective action that creates shared responsibility for aligning with the desired results. In social business, those desired results are some form of creating natural influence in your communities and networks and with your audience.
If you lead like a cox’n, that natural influence could show up as gold.
Facilitating Brainstorming
November 24, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
One of the challenges for the brain-storming session facilitator is finding the balance between giving everyone an opportunity to participate while directing the flow and the process.
People with problems, who feel passionate about their unmet needs, may not be ready to articulate an idea or solution but have a strong desire to be heard. So they tell their story in detail and understandably, resent being interrupted. However, most detail and back-story falls outside the session’s purpose and can result in resentment from the group if too much time gets used up in the telling.
Facilitators can handle this typical scenario by making a brief, simple and friendly upfront agreement with the group, requesting that people:
- present an idea or solution to a problem, or…
- present a problem and ask the group for solutions or ideas
Asking for a show of hands as agreement to the process works great. At the closing, thanking the group for their behavioral change provides acknowledgment and reinforcement.
Its unlikely that everyone will change. Some people may fall back into their habit of providing more data and detail than is needed or desired. In those cases, its probably better for the overall dynamic to let it go because anything more than a gentle and friendly reminder could have a negative impact on the individual and on the energy in the room.
Notice your own feelings. If there’s frustration in you, remind yourself that perfectionism and over-reliance on process are creativity and spontaneity killers. You can improvise and make adjustments to the content and the schedule on the fly. Those are small trade-offs for creating an atmosphere of inclusiveness, trust and respect.
Compared to What?
June 3, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Someone I’m close to who’d been upset about her 401k losses, said she’s now feeling a lot better about it. The reason: everyone else has lost the same percentage, so its relative.
Its an interesting exercise to notice how much of our thinking is relative. By relative I mean judging and responding to the events in our personal and business lives in comparison to others’ lives, or in comparison to our own lives, as we remember or anticipate them. This occurs so frequently that its considered natural. But when you challenge it in yourself, and in your organization and culture, you become aware of the negative results that follow:
- scarcity – more for you means less for me
- exclusiveness – keeping you / them out
- superiority / inferiority
- withholding / protectiveness
Transformational change takes place at least partially in the absolute, where no boundaries exist between or among us. Social business models and tools provide a great staging area for personal and organizational transformation but only if there’s willingness to be conscious of, and to act upon what’s true for and in us all.
The Prequel to Your Show
April 26, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I’m a big Battlestar Galactica fan. I’ve watched most episodes several times to understand the story’s complex arcs, but always had some unanswered questions. The producers and writers clearly wanted to challenge the audience, and succeeded.
Despite my passion for BSG, my expectation for the recent first episode of the prequel, Caprica, was fairly low. The initial reviews were lukewarm so I figured it wouldn’t live up to the BSG series and might confuse me. I was wrong. It was great.
Since watching it, I’ve been thinking about the value of the backstory to bloggers, speakers and solo professional and creative practitioners.
You know how the prequel is usually done in business. The writer or speaker either begins with, or interjects some version of “now let me tell you a little bit about myself”. Its a literal and linear approach, although sometimes effectively interjecting anecdote and humor as it explains. The Ron Moore (BSG and Caprica Executive Producer) approach is much more interesting. It doesn’t explain, it unfolds. The audience has to be more attentive in order to connect the slender threads between past and present. So its a compelling and inclusive user experience and not a boring account.
Your backstory can be woven through your content. Its your personal myth: defining moments, experiences, insights, synchronicity, dreams, joy, metaphor, suffering and learning that you made happen or let happen and that changed you. Your readers, viewers and listeners won’t be bored, and they won’t be confused about what they really most want to know: who are you?
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The RedShift Web Site Pages and the corresponding Blog: Creating Natural Influence, do not enable comments. I'm more comfortable getting feedback on social sites than here, where the work is so close to who I am, where I've been and where I'm going. If you have a comment or question, or would like to suggest a topic for an upcoming blog article, please contact me. Thank you.
