Migrating Leadership

If ever the concept of leadership was in flux, it is now.  

Leadership is migrating from institution-centric to the perimeter. 

Some say the driver is the merger of the Gen Y/Millennials coming of age, globalization and social networks, combining to fuel this leadership revolution. Those are significant drivers but I would also add leadership is migrating because of the frustration with the distance between institutional leadership and ground level reality.  And it really doesn’t matter whether that’s in the political, business or even religious institution realm.  No longer can any leader hope for a safe distance from grassroots issues to allow them to cocoon for extended periods of  status quo management.  Contemporary ubiquitous access to knowledge, high values of justice and activism, impatience for geological-time administrative processes and increasing access to funding sources to create change outside of institutions means people will go around you!

Leadership is not synonymous with authority.  Many of the grassroots leaders in the social movements we have observed over the past 2 years did not have formal positions of authority but they pursued organizational changes that challenged the status quo of their institutions.  Not all were successful.  But just wait – many have tasted and seen the potential for change.  They won’t shrink back for long.

I have been part of institutional leadership internationally and nationally.  Funny thing is that before I entered an international position, I remember thinking about my leaders that it seemed after 5 years they should get out for a while because it seemed after that period of time they started to lose touch with the ground.  After being on the “inside” I now see that it’s not the 5 years which is the issue; it’s the distance you can create between yourself and the very reason for which your institution exists. 

How can we avoid that as leaders?

Acknowledge that leadership exists throughout your organization.  They exist among those who are employed and those who volunteer.  How will you identify them?

Engage them.  Leadership input ought not to be restricted to your hired team.  Gather the people who are not in positions of authority and engage them in developing/examining the core purposes and practice of your organization.

Recycle yourself and your leaders out to the ‘field ‘.  Not just some ‘site visit’ scenario, but a significant portion of time where they invest working energy in the places you work and products you produce.

Loosen the reigns. I have often advocated for organizational leaders to “centralize the questions and decentralize the answers”.  In other words the leadership task is not to declare your vision and create appropriate structures where everyone can achieve your dream.  Instead, gather the formal and the grassroots to develop the core questions & values.  From there, release your people to innovate on the answers.  

Float through your organization– remind, recognize and reward the efforts made in accordance with agreed upon core questions and values.  We have heard it many times, but redundant communication is critical – but in this case you are reminding them of the outcome of their collaboration, not what you declared in your ‘grand plan’.

Bring them back – like Pulsars (rotating Neutron stars) which emit pulses of light in short, regular intervals, create the same regular impulse of expansion (releasing them to act) and contraction (bringing them in to reflect and recalibrate where needed).  This keeps your leadership knowledge current and their input valued.

Bottom line:  If you don’t acknowledge the migration of leadership thinking and power to the grassroots and engage it accordingly, those leaders will simply migrate to a new location. 

The Nomadic Leader!

That Messy Middle

 How long will you give it before you give up and throw out the F-Bomb (Failure-bomb)?

This is the quintessential question for anyone involved in some sort of start-up venture or project.  Whether it’s a business, non profit or a personal project, the difference between seeing the light at the end of the tunnel or the oncoming headlights of failure is your willingness to persevere.

The most dangerous and vulnerable stage of any vision is the middle.

At the beginning it’s all about the energy of the vision.  One reason for that energy is because ideas are free; free of commitment, cost, and sacrifice.  That’s why the initial stage of launching a vision is so invigorating!  Everything is possible and all obstacles are surmountable in that fluffy, untested world of the future vision. 

Once you get near the end you may be tired from the journey but you can now see the tangible outcomes emerging.  That sight-line renews your energy to complete the climb.

The problem is the messy or miserable middle.  It’s where:

·         Team members or initial proponents begin to leave

·         Criticism over ‘production’ starts to surface

·         The initial ‘master plan’ is facing regular re-think moments in order to adjust to realities

·         You doubt yourself

 

Do you stick with it or abandon ship and walk away with your degree from the School of Disappointment? 

Here are 12 guidelines for deciding when to quit and when to persevere, as posted by Rosabeth Moss Kanters’ blog in the Harvard Business Review of Oct 23, 2012:

1. Are the initial reasons for the effort still valid, with no consequential external changes?
2. Do the needs for which this a solution remain unmet, or are competing solutions still unproven or inadequate?
3. Would the situation get worse if this effort stopped?
4. Is it more cost-effective to continue than to pay the costs of restarting?
5. Is the vision attracting more adherents?
6. Are leaders still enthusiastic, committed, and focused on the effort?
7. Are resources available for continuing investment and adjustments?
8. Is skepticism and resistance declining?
9. Is the working team motivated to keep going?
10. Have critical deadlines and key milestones been met?
11. Are there signs of progress, in that some problems have been solved, new activities are underway, and trends are positive?
12. Is there a concrete achievement — a successful demonstration, prototype, or proof of concept?

If your answers are mostly yes, then press on!  If not, then it may be the right thing to fold up and move on.  Better to give up on something that cannot work rather than something that could have worked.

Just because the middle is messy, it’s not a good reason to give up.  Press on!

Harv Matchullis

harvey@visiontracks.ca

www.visiontracks.ca

When Are You Ready?

A challenge lies ahead.  An opportunity emerges.  A prompting to act pokes at your soul.

How long do you wait?   When are you ready to act?

In this blog I want to reflect on a Biblical example with both spiritual and leadership implications.  It is a classic scenario faced by nomadic leaders: 

Moving ahead without knowing all the facts or outcomes

The story is from the book of Acts chapter 10 & 11 and describes the Apostle Peter about to face a sea-change in his views.  He’s a good, solid Jewish boy who now follows the way of Jesus.  But Peter still held on to a deep-seated view of the separation of Jews from other peoples (‘the Gentiles’).  That was about to be challenged.

Through a pretty disturbing (to a Jew) vision, Peter was challenged by the God of all nationalities to start opening up his attitudes and relationship to non-Jews.  This sea-change in his views probably made him a little sea-sick!   Like many of us I am sure Peter would have preferred some time to retreat & study this ‘proposal’.  Then he could create a strategic plan and think about further preparation.

He did not have that luxury – and that isn’t a bad thing.

2 phrases in the Bible from Acts 10 reveal how at times it’s better to start acting without all the plans, strategies and understanding in place:

“While Peter was still wondering about the vision...”, one piece of the puzzle stood in front of him.  Representatives came from a non-Jew of significant standing to invite Peter to come for a visit. It was like a bridge to somewhere was opening up.  But a bridge to where, exactly?

“While he was still thinking about the vision...”, an internal confirmation/conviction came from God which convinced him to take action and go to meet this non-Jewish person.  He went still not sure of the result and perhaps a bit skeptical.

Still wondering, still thinking, still unsure, but convinced something important was in play he acted.  Once he met with this man, it became quite clear to Peter that his long standing convictions about the separation of peoples and cultures was no longer valid.  Furthermore now that we can look back in history, this discovery had global implications!

What have you missed by waiting for everything to make sense based on your current knowledge?

I am not advocating the reckless pursuit of whims, but a re-tuning of ourselves to the dynamic that many times we will not know more unless and until we choose to move with the little we know.

In this story it was only as Peter got up and went, based on the little information at hand and his growing conviction, that further knowledge became available to him.  Getting up and getting moving brought more clarity than further thinking.

In spiritual terms – it is often better to obey than to wait for all of your understanding, theologizing and planning to align. 

In leadership terms, it is not always possible or desirable to have every step planned out ahead of time.  Stepping forward without full knowledge but with the courage of your convictions, is the supreme act of leadership.

Sometimes you just won’t KNOW until you GO.

Harv Matchullis

 

Transformed Leadership Thinking

The nomadic leadership journey is one of adaptation, adjustment & awareness of 2 worlds:  the internal world of our thinking and the external world where that thinking interacts with people and the environment.

Here’s an example.  I am a part of a few cross-cultural partnerships.  In one recent meeting we had a great outcome, but our process revealed some deeply-set thinking.   This is typical of most meetings and with all people, but as I tried to discern whether in this case it was cultural or personality-based it occurred to me that behind both is a common denominator...the BRAIN.

Reflecting on that meeting, one realization I came to is that whether something we hold to is defined as a cultural value or a personality characteristic, our behaviour towards each other can change because our brains can change.  We can transform our thinking as leaders.

We create limiting borders for ourselves and others when we make claims such as: "it’s their culture”, or “that is how they are wired”.  While there is truth underlying those declarations, it is a limiting truth. 

For clarity:

Culture is a shared pattern of thinking and behaviour, which is developed and reinforced by a person’s ethnic group.  Geert Hofstede refers to culture as the “collective programming of the mind”

Personality has a genetic component but also is the unique software of the brain developed and nurtured while interacting with the world around us.  Bio-physical influences, social teachers, environmental systems, experiences and more all contribute to defining and then rooting our personality.

Both culture and personality are developed as our brain interacts with our surroundings.  Over time we develop certain patterns which can then be hard to shake.  Think of your brain development in this way:  As an infant, your brains’ neural pathways were like a wide sheet of water on a flat plain.  As you developed & processed information, small streams began to form.  Continual learning and experiences added more streams on the  open landscape of your brain.  Confirmations & affirmations consistent with your thinking then served to deepen those streams into rivers.  Ongoing learning and experience is then framed by, or channeled into these existing rivers, because that’s easier to do than creating new streams of thinking.  That’s why learning new skills or perspectives as we age gets harder (but not impossible).  

Soon, however, those rivers become deeper and form canyons.  Once  deep enough, it’s difficult to see out to a new horizon.  The multiple vistas that were available to us when we were younger now take a lot more energy to see, let alone process.

If you are honest you will notice in yourself that you tend to seek out learning, opinions and people that confirm or align with what you already know & perceive (confirmation bias). Not to excuse it, but this is actually related to a brain physiology issue; it takes less physical energy to process something that can be channeled into one of those existing rivers.   Think of it this way – your brain is like a computer with a hard disk and RAM.  Your RAM, the frontal cortex, is where new learning takes place.  While it is only about 4-7% of your brain, it consumes the most physical energy.  So, where will we default?  Where the pathway takes less energy – the stored learning in the hard disk, not the new learning.

This 'hard wired' analogy played out in my partnership meeting.  A partner was fixed in their thinking and had a hard time looking out and over that canyon.  It was far easier for this person to bring everything into their canyon to interpret it from that perspective.  In my default mode, I do exactly the same thing.

Our cultures, our personality and our training all give us a framework for life.  This is necessary because we all need some lens through which to initially interpret life.  But let’s acknowledge that much of our thinking exists in a few canyons we have dug out over years and years of processing life in a certain way.  Getting out and abandoning those ways entirely is not really possible, BUT it is possible to start a new stream, a new neural pathway.

Speaking to the cross cultural contexts I am in, ethnic culture needs to be both honored and challenged.  While on one hand it provides a leader with community, security and a sense of ‘place’, it also bears limitations.  There is a trans-cultural way of thinking, found in the teachings and ways of Jesus.  Following His ways does not lead a person to abandon culture or personality so much as it leads us to think & act above those ‘canyons’ we have created.

God calls us to be ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds’.  Our Creator wired our brains and knows we can get fixed in destructive or limiting thinking.   So, is the answer to think your way into transformation?  Afraid not!  We all need Divine help because quite simply, our thinking is affected by a universally shared selfishness that defines ‘me’ as the center of reality.  That can’t be fully overcome independently.  Only the presence and the power of the One who crafted your brain can come alongside you and affect true transformation.

I coach people using a brain- based approach.  I help you to think about your thinking so that you can create new neural pathways in order to move forward in some aspect of your life.  I have seen this help people transform their thinking to take a significant new step in their business, pursue a dream, make a career shift.  What I could never do is help you approach life and this world from a trans-cultural, divine perspective.....only following the way of Jesus can accomplish that.  He can transform you by the renewing of your mind. 

For information on a brain-based coaching approach or on the way Jesus can fully transform your mind & life, contact me at:

Harv Matchullis

harvey@visiontracks.ca - www.visiontracks.ca