Reunited after 7 years - An immigrant story

Here's a 'fairy-tale' ending to a refugee story my daughter Bethany has been involved with for over 2 years. It's what personal connection, prayer, persistence and the Christian community can accomplish in the lives of a New Canadian. These are her words to the many believers she had involved in this family's journey...

In September 2011 I sent out a call asking for help for my friend Shukri. It’s been a long journey for Shukri since she left her home in Somalia over 10 years ago with her five kids. After living as an alien in Syria for 4 years, Shukri was accepted for permanent residence in Canada under humanitarian grounds. While in Syria, Shukri’s husband, Ahmed, continued to travel to take day jobs here and there and send additional support to his family. Unfortunately, Ahmed was not present for Shukri and her kids’ transfer to Canada. Since February 2010 Shukri has been working hard as a single mother to support her family in their new safe and free life in Canada.

Through the One Year Window program, government assisted refugees in Canada can apply to sponsor their family members to reunite with them in Canada. Although Shukri applied under this category for her husband, she has faced a multitude of barriers that have devastated the usual process. Ahmed had taken asylum in a country not catered to refugee claimants, with little-to-no rights for those waiting. In addition, Shukri and her husband did not take any physical proof of their marriage with them as they fled Somalia – this put the case on the back burner until any proof could be given.

In August 2011 Shukri received a letter from the Embassy in Dubai advising that she and her children take a DNA test as proof that Ahmed is the father of her children or else the case would be dropped. In order to have this test done and sent to Dubai, Shukri would have to pay over $1,000. This is just under two months income for the single mother on income support. After getting over the initial shock of being questioned and having to explain this situation to her children, Shukri started saving. With her current debt of $7,000 for her family’s flights from Syria, and the time frame it would take for her to gather this amount of money, (in addition to a CRA mix up at this exact time which held back her child tax benefits) I sent out a call for prayer and financial support. I received an overwhelming response of words of encouragement and over $3,700. With this help, we were able to begin the process of gathering the last shred of proof the Immigration Officers needed, with the additional financial support going to pay off Shukri’s travel loan.
   
The DNA tests came back 99.9% positive that Ahmed was the father of Shukri’s children. And with the final proof sent to the Embassy we waited... and waited... and waited...   In the meantime Shukri would call me almost every week asking for help to get an update on her husband’s situation. She would go to the Harry Hay’s building and wait in line ups only to be sent away. We called immigration offices in Canada, the US, and Dubai, all with no response. Although Shukri often became discouraged, seeing the husbands and family members of her friends who had arrived in Canada after her reunite with her family – she never lost hope.
   
A week ago I received a call from Shukri. She was very excited that she had just passed her learners exam, meaning she was on her way to independence from hitching rides from other people. She’s looking for a reliable van that can fit her family – oh and her husband is coming to Canada!!!!  All the papers have been finalized and Ahmed has been accepted as a permanent resident and given a plane ticket to meet his family (for the first time in over 7 years). He arrives tonight (he arrived July 10th!) and I cannot explain how excited and nervous I am. Thank you for taking Shukri’s story to heart and supporting her in this process. Although you may not have met her, you have made a world of difference for her and her five children. Please continue to pray as Shukri’s family is reunited this week. Although the hardest part is by far over, this family has to now redefine its dynamic and will no doubt go through rough patches as they continue to get on their feet in Canada. But now, with your help, they can do this together!
 - Thank you!!

Machine Gun Mission

I watched ‘Machine Gun Preacher’ the other night.  Gerard Butler was outstanding in the movie.

It’s the story of Sam Childers, the real-life machine gun preacher who still works in the Sudan.  This guy had a rough background to say the least.  After getting out of prison he ‘found Jesus ‘and then started a church for outcasts (like he was) in Pennsylvania.  At one point he was moved to help on a ‘missions trip’ to Africa and there became exposed to the unspeakable violence of child-soldiers & Joseph Kony’s Lords’ Resistance Army.  That was a tipping point that led him to a single-minded campaign to build an orphanage and further to defend that orphanage from Kony’s LRA soldiers by use of force and by leading armed rescue missions directly into LRA territory (his own ‘get it done with a gun’ history still influences him).

The movie affected me emotionally like only one other movie in my life – Kramer vs. Kramer (waaaay back in the late 70’s!).  I was newly married when I watched Kramer vs. Kramer and it made me angry how couples could choose to marry, choose to have kids and then so irresponsibly and acrimoniously tear it all apart.

Machine Gun Preacher did the same emotional number on me but with obviously different issues at play:

·         It makes me angry that Joseph Kony and so many other characters like him get away with the ego-centered violence that they do.  It’s such a messed up world out there.

·         It makes me angry that we in the world so easily keep our distance from getting engaged in the messiness of evil.  Assad and Syria is a current example of the world (READ: the UN) pontificating a moral stand but basically doing nothing of true import to end the conflict.

·         It makes me angry and sad that I am also guilty of seeing what is wrong out there, articulating a moral opinion about what is awry, and then hope someone else will take action while I go on my way, untouched and untouching.

Got me thinking about being a leader who considers the benefits of Sam’s ‘Machine Gun Mission’ approach for what I lead and who I lead.

Sam Childers (born 1962) is a former gang biker who now dedicates his life and resources to rescue children in the war zone of South Sudan. Childers and his wife Lynn founded and operate Angels of East Africa, the Children's Village Orphanage in Nimule, South Sudan, where they currently have more than 300 children in their care. (Wikipedia)

Sam would be chided for his approach by most international development professionals.  I am among those who say his approach was very ego-centric.  However I am not here to argue for or against his developmental philosophy or his use of guns, but to draw some lessons from his actions; because he at least accomplished something versus doing nothing.  Here are those thoughts:

1.       His approach was radical, but he DID something.  How many times do we seek the magic bullet, the perfect approach, the comprehensive ‘game-changer ‘plan?  I find the more we do that, the greater the likelihood we rationalize, analyze and even spiritualize our way out of action.  This world, our cities and neighbourhoods, are highways littered with the remains of good intentions.

2.       He did not change a system to save everyone, but he did save some.  Forget about your grand plans to change the world.  You can’t.  But you can impact someone, something, somewhere.  Bishop Oscar Romero was martyred because of his tireless advocacy for the poor in El Salvador; cut down before he could accomplish all he wanted.  In his eulogy, Bishop Ken Untener said: 

It helps, now and then; to step back and take the long view....we accomplish in a lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.  We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing this.  This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.  It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lords grace to enter and do the rest.  We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker.  We are workers, not Master Builders; ministers, not messiahs.  We are prophets of a future not our own.” 

3.       His work wasn’t perfect – but it worked.  Just because our work may not fit a known system or model of good development, or be part of the latest trend does not mean it isn’t worthwhile.  I want to remind us that our models are not the mission.  Professional associations, academic institutions, businesses, relief and development agencies, churches etc. have to protect themselves from becoming so invested in a model that they lose sight of the desired outcome.  If your model isn’t producing what’s at the heart of your mission, it seems obvious to me that you need to re-examine what you are doing!  Dr Phil’s question is a great one to apply to our particular mission strategies: “How’s that working for you”?

4.      WARNING: His ego almost became his mission.  Sam’s initial motivation was pure, innocent, and yes, ill-informed.  But overall it was a good mission.  However, his mission ran into trouble when when his ego and identity became so wrapped up in the cause that he lost sight of the purpose.  IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU – IT’S ABOUT THE MISSION.  Sam foolishly risked his finances and ran roughshod over his closest relationships – signs he was losing mission-focus.  How much ego vs. mission (to benefit the investor) has been involved in Wall Street financial deals that have melted down in the past few years?  How many ministries have focused on the leader and not the people?  How many non-profits have been started which now serve the leadership and the donors but not the poor? This is a good reason to never go it alone on any mission.  Who is your team and how are they speaking into not only the process, but into YOU as the leader?

Could it be that the approach you are taking right now is no longer prospering you or your mission?  Could it be you need a more simple yet radical, machine-gun mission approach?

I have named this blog the ‘Nomadic Leader’ for a reason.  Leaders in our world and in our organizations need to be ones who do not settle too long in one place, in one strategy, in one way of thinking.  There are times when you have to look around, see that the place you are in is no longer ‘feeding your tribe’ and prepare to move on.

Perhaps it’s time to pull up stakes, roll up the tent and seek a new context or approach so that your mission will make its intended impact. 

If it’s not you, then who?  If not now, then when?

Harv Matchullis

www.visiontracks.ca

Starting Over

What's it like to leave everything you know to start over in another country?  

In response to my blog post "Welcoming the Foreigner"of Oct 2011 (http://nomadicleader.blogspot.ca/2011/10/welcoming-foreigner.html) I received this email from a reader who herself had come to Canada to 'start over'.  I have received her permission - minus her actual name - to share that email.

Walk a minute in her shoes and let it change the way you walk among the newcomer to your neighbourhood, church, workplace or school.

Harvey

Dear Harv,

I hope this e-mail finds you in a very blessed state. My name is CS.  I'm 23 years old. A good friend of mine forwarded to me the "Welcoming the Foreigner" article sometime last October. I read it then and thought "what a great piece of work" and I can't say I thought much about it until recently when I looked it up and decided to read it again.

I came to Canada 2.5 years ago as a refugee from Zimbabwe and honestly I can't say it has been an easy road. Nobody can ever understand the loneliness, depression, the hurt of being separated from your friends and loved ones unless they go through it themselves…heaven knows it's not easy, but I've had no choice but to 'man up' and be strong.

Transitioning into a new society has been one of the bigger challenges I've had to face in my life with no parents by my side (I just have my sisters) - -mom remained back home and dad died a decade ago. As I was reading through your article, I felt so much longing for someone to talk to, someone to ask me about home, what I miss, my upbringing, my fond memories of home…oh how I longed for that one somebody.  Yes I have my sisters  but they already know what I miss :).  I decided to take myself to school and I just finished my first year at the University of Calgary…with the thousands of students at the university, I find myself all alone having lunch by myself…feeling 'uncool' and inadequate, everyone seems to have their life going great for them, no worries about anything (I know that's not entirely true for everyone).  The few times I get to be around people, everyone is talking about everything I don't have and I find no reason to say anything since I don't have any of those things…makes me have this low esteem, thinking that everyone is better than me.  All I'll be thinking about will be, “I don't have rent money and my tuition fees are only half paid”, whereas those around me all are talking about the comforts of their homes and parents etc.

I hate thinking like that.  I know I'm a child of God and I'm just as worthy, but sometimes if you don't feel appreciated, or even noticed enough to be asked how your day was, you tend to feel rather unimportant right?  I miss home badly. All I do is study in my room, watch things online, sometimes I realize that the weekend is over and I did not even open the door for some fresh air. Pardon me if I'm coming out as though I'm just feeling sorry for myself, that's not my intention, I know I'm not the 1st one in a situation like this and certainly won't be the last one…I just wanted to let it out of my chest.

I must say though that the article challenged me to be a better person myself and be of service to other immigrants who need help especially with the fact that I know what it feels like to be in a new society trying to start a new life, surrounded by new things and so on. I volunteered at the Calgary Immigrant Women's Association when I 1st got here and working with other immigrants was rewarding, it taught me a lot of things especially Humility and Love…your article has challenged me exercise that humility and love every minute of my life. So for that I thank you.

Sincerely,

CS

Leadership for Sustained Change-Management

Inspiring change is easier than sustaining it.  All you have to do it is move people with a vision or paint pictures of what could be and you are on the road to moving people to consider and even adopt a change for which you are advocating. That's a step toward change but it IS NOT CHANGE.   The goal of any change process must not only be to initiate change, but sustain it.  The required leadership skills for initiating and then sustaining change are complementary and yet different.  Like the popular t-shirt saying goes in SE Asia:  "same same but different". 

Most non-profits do very well at inspiration-driven change.  In fact, since they tend to rely more on a committed volunteer vs. motivated-for pay personnel base, this is a necessary leadership skill set.   However, inspiration-driven change that is sustainable is rare. Most change requires the sustained effort of committed leaders.

Coming from the church world, I know a lot of them right now are in their budget and ministry planning process.  Voices abound expounding visions for change and rationales for financing those changes.  Personally I am launching a project right now that I believe will effect change.  I am inspired by it and a few others are 'catching the vision'.  But I know that I will need to create a framework and add personal commitment to sustaining the vision over the long haul.  If I don't commit to that, I am a passing fad, a whiff of wind that was refreshing for a moment.

Reminds me of the movie Braveheart.  At one point William Wallace waxes eloquent to his followers about his vision & aspirations.  To which one of his key guys responds:

 

"Great speech.  

Now what do we do?"

Once you have cast the vision, how will you make that a reality over the long haul?

The following critical success factors in sustained change management are adapted from “Best Practices in Planning and Performance Management” (Second Edition; 2007; David Axson; John Wiley & Sons).

11 Critical Success Factors for Sustained Change

1. Don't count on a silver bullet. 

·         Usually a combination of approaches and skills is needed.

2. Stage the process. 

·         Extend it if necessary to ensure success.  Each stage must have clear outcomes.  Staging the process also allows for organizational learning along the way, and opportunities for adaptation of the process to enhance its success.

3. Plan comprehensively. 

·         Breadth is more important than depth in planning.  Identify all the component parts first. Planning the detail is not absolutely necessary up front because good planning is an ongoing activity to 'fill out' the component parts.

4.   Dedicate the resources.

·         Assign the best people and funding to the project.  The calibre of resources influences not only the optics, but also the outcomes.

5.   Build commitment through involvement.

·         The PRIMARY key here is that the organizations' leaders themselves must believe in the change and be seen as embracing the changes that the process seeks to implement.

·         There are 7 elements of securing commitment:

i)        Commitment is earned; it is not an entitlement, even in hierarchical organizations.

ii)      In the early stages, find the people who 'get it'.  They are your 'evangelists'.  Get them resourced with information and other supports.

iii)    Once earned, sustain the commitment.  The tendency is to expend the energy and vision in the creative process and then let it dissipate in the execution.  This is extremely damaging to any change process. Cynicism sets in.  Volunteers and finances begin to depart.

iv)    No single method to secure commitment works in isolation.  Match the message and the medium to the recipient(s).  Take into account their motivation, personal style etc.

v)      Security is top of mind with people.  People generally fear uncertainty more than the change itself.  Therefore consistent and redundant communication is crucial. Use common 'talking points'; create communication schedules across various media; provide easy access to information through vehicles such as websites.

 vi)    Communication by itself won't secure commitment.  You must also

·         provide 2-way processes

·         use pilot programs

·         develop templates/prototypes

·         conduct workshops

·         involve a wide spectrum of people and provide feedback loops

vii)  Know you won't convert everyone.  Plan for how you will deal with resistors.  You must deal with them because if left ignored, they will negatively affect the project. (see point # 11)

6. Gain momentum quickly. 

·         No false starts.  Momentum is a function of activity and delivery.  Produce something visible every 3 months.

7. Make the investment of time, money and personal focus.

·         It means you must reduce your commitments in other areas to make this work.

8. Work the organizational politics. 

·         Success is the best offence, so create it early; tell the story and repeat it often

9. Be flexible but don't compromise the end objective.

·         You will never define all the steps ideally or anticipate all the events along the way, but don't lose sight of the objective

10. Keep Boards informed and focused on the goals with regular updates.

11. Don't let naysayers get you down.

·         A small number will never sign on.  The greater number of naysayers are those who, at the first sign of trouble start to question the viability of the change.  Addressing this starts with the leader and his/her change implementation team. 

Is your vision worth more than the inspirational story you are telling?  If it is, my challenge to you (as I am making it to myself), get in for the long haul and roll up your sleeves to create some sustained change.

Harv

harvey@visiontracks.ca
www.visiontracks.ca

1-403-970-4148

Skype: visiontracks05

Leading Beyond the Bottom Line

Every for-profit or non-profit leader has a bottom line.  It’s why you were hired. What is your bottom line? 

Social change – shareholder value – product innovation – spiritual transformation – profit...

Before you read on, name your organizations' bottom line here:_________

I suggest you add a bottom-line measure to your leadership:  the personal development of the people you lead.  In the long run it isn’t about what you leave behind for your organization ~ it’s about who you leave behind. 

Although our world places great value on leaders who accomplish great things, it’s the leaders who ‘accomplish’ inspiration in the lives of others who endure in our collective memories AND have left a legacy of change in thinking and behaviour that continues to serve the world.

Look at these pictures (or insert the image of a leader you admire) and describe for yourself the legacies of each leader:

• What was distinctive in their life? 
• How did they inspire you?
• To what extent has their leadership endured beyond their organizational ‘bottom line’?

  

Now, here’s a counter-intuitive point:  the clearest path to influencing the character and personal development of others is to pay attention to your own growth!  Developing others isn’t so much about being an inspiring motivator, providing leadership coaches, or implementing a team-development plan (as helpful as they are).  It’s really based in YOU, in the “quality of you” as their leader.  You best lead others by consciously leading yourself.

A leaders’ self-awareness is the basic building block of effective leadership.  

Leaders who lead themselves acknowledge that there are typical stages and phases of development through which all people travel.  Throughout life we will cycle through these phases.  At times they are painful and uncomfortable.  Effective leaders don’t avoid these stages, but rather normalize them as natural building blocks of their inner life and character.  It’s from that inner life that they lead in the most profound ways ‘beyond the bottom line’.

Here’s my broad description of the phases of:  

Questioning/Clearing/Crucible/Clarity

Questioning

At various points throughout life a sense of ‘dis-ease’ with our context settles over us.  I have often observed this in the lives of leaders when I hear them express: “Is this all”?  After a period of years in their role, after the initial building phases of projects, visions or teams and after the job has settled into some kind of pattern, a dis-ease with life and leadership enters their thinking.

This does not mean something is wrong.  It does mean something in you is stirring.  Something is calling you to self-examination and possibly to re-calibration of your place in life, in relationships, in leadership.  This is a good and healthy place – so don’t shake it off by ramping up your work life or hastily exiting your role.

It’s just good to sit in the place of questioning for a while.

Clearing

Our life/heart/soul longs for something deeper to connect with than the typical bottom-line of a leadership role.  We are inherently connected to something more than money, honour, status or achievement.  It’s a sense of destiny or legacy – the deep knowledge that we are on this earth for a purpose and that when our role is done and our life is finished, we have meant something to someone in this world.  I believe it’s the God who created you that put that stirring there.  Whether you believe that or simply that we as humans are meant to contribute something for the benefit of this world, we find our greatest meaning & contribution outside of ourselves.

Yet through our lives we encounter things that get in the way of living a legacy-producing life.  The fog of deadlines, demands & distractions enshroud our life and we are in desperate need of emerging into a clearing.  That is why “The Questioning” is such a critical phase!  It starts a process where you hear the deepest longing of your soul speak back to you.

“The Clearing” is a place (and a process) where you come face to face with yourself.  In this place the most powerful thing you can do is to give a name(s) to the deficits you are discerning:

-in your personal character

-around your unfulfilled aspirations

-about what you lack to be a ‘legacy’ leader 

I urge you to a ruthless honesty about yourself.  It’s not only critical for you, but for the world!   WHY? Our for-profit and non profit leadership positions need character-leaders who see beyond the hard facts of most bottom-lines.  They see impact on people, on the environment, on communities, on culture, on well-being.  This is ‘another way’ of leadership needed by our world.  This way of leadership isn’t acquired through an MBA program.  It comes through honest reflection on the very nature of who you are as a leader. 

Crucible

Chinese symbols for 'Crisis'

Articulating your deficits and aspirations is one thing.  Owning them to the point of making a choice to act is something else.  Crucible creates personal crisis.  Here we come face to face with the limitations of our current self and realize that without change, we will never become who we aspire to be.  The choice is stark:  remain in status quo, coast for the rest of your life and surely wither on the vine, OR get off of your chair and make some commitments to move your life forward.

Ambivalence at this stage is natural, because change is hard.  We become accustomed to our current state of being and so will ask ourselves: “Do I really want to go through the effort of becoming a different/better person”?

This push-pull between our knowledge of a need for change and our disinterest in the energy required to change creates an internal tempest.  What you choose in that storm of self-analysis forms your character development going forward.

Clarity

“Clarity” is defined as ‘the quality of being clearly expressed’.  It comes only to those who act on (express) their choice for change.  Notice I said it comes to those who act.  Clarity is profound when it first comes to your awareness.  But that’s not true clarity.  It’s just awareness.  True clarity is when your choice is ‘expressed’ not only in words, but action.  You need commitment and discipline to act until what you have chosen becomes a regular part of your life and/or thinking.

You have been there before.  Remember those meetings when the team had ‘clarity’ on a direction?  Everyone left the meeting inspired & hopeful.  But there was no commitment to regular and sustained action.  The ‘clarity’ you thought you had died because of lack of expression beyond the words.

It’s simple, but curiously get’s missed too often:   

MAKE A PLAN + EXECUTE A PLAN = ACCOMPLISH REAL CHANGE.

In summary:

...Let the questions come & sit with them for a while.

...When face to face with yourself, be honest about what you are and what you aspire to yet become.

...As hard as it may be, own who you are, and the changes you need to make.

...Express your aspirations by making a plan and executing it.

There is a greater metric than the economic or social ‘bottom-line’.  You run your business or non-profit by it’s’ bottom line, but don’t run your life that way.

Your life will be judged.  What will it say to the world?

Harv Matchullis

harvey@visiontracks.ca

www.visiontracks.ca 

If you or your team desire support to turn your aspirations into action, contact me for an initial discussion and sample session on how coaching can ensure you enact the change you know you need

Track Your Organizations' Impulses

 

If you like where you are; if your organization is all about itself and maintaining stability & control at the centre, don’t read any further.  I won’t convince you to change.  You are the person who tunes the radio to their favorite station and then pulls the dial off the radio so it can never be changed. 

Enjoy your music.

But if there is even a hint of impulse toward serving someone or some purpose outside the space your building and people occupy, keep reading. 

Businesses often state they are about innovation for the ‘marketplace’.  Churches say they are about the ‘mission’.  Retailers focus on the ‘customer’.  Non-profits express their existence is for the ‘client’ or a broader social purpose.  Most state their organizational impulse is for a purpose or people beyond themselves.  Wonderful. 

However, if your impulse is truly beyond yourself, do your current organizational structures and processes reinforce & support  that?

Within our North American culture we pride ourselves on our ability to change with the times.  We believe we are innovative and flexible enough to adjust to the needs of our customer or target audience. Yet in the business world the field is littered with once-great, well known companies who have talked the talk but could not take the walk.  Blockbuster, Eastman Kodak, Sears and Yahoo are but a few of the big-name examples of companies with commitments to change but who did not adapt well.  I can identify a few non-profits who started with the most altruistic and noble of impulses, but as they grew in size they grew in complexity and along with it found they became bloated or myopic, and inevitably off course.

Much of the reason for this is that with time and success, people in groups, whether as businesses or non-profits, think less and less about the further development of ways to serve their original ‘outward’ impulses, and more about how to preserve what they have.  (By the way, that’s a natural tendency of all human beings).  They will walk and talk right up to the edges of change, but taking the step over into real change is rare.  Leadership talks about innovation in order to keep serving the needs of the person or customer, but leaderships' walk usually reinforces it’s about keeping the business or the organizations' status quo.  When you see a company driven by stock price over principle, or a non-profit influenced more by its donor-base than the needs of the people it serves, you have an indication of what I mean.  No one likes hearing this because we all live in the illusion that we are change-agents.  Our culture regularly streams out the message of change, but our collective rhetoric proves we no longer get the point.  Talk about change has become a cheap and easy way to maintain leadership currency.

But true leadership is about identifying and declaring current reality in light of where you want to go and then being bold enough to address the gap.

Conduct a brief audit of your own organization:

·         How do we expend our primary personnel resources?

·         What does our budget indicate to an outsider as our priority areas?

·         Where do most of our activities take place and what does that say about who and how we serve?

·         What gets celebrated in our organization and what does that indicate about what we value?

·         What are the top 3-4 areas where leadership expends their energy?  How does that define the core ‘impulses’ of our organization?

(Would you be bold enough to use these questions as a 360 of your organization?)

If the assessment reveals a significant gap, let me propose a solution:

An ongoing perpetual strategy for maintaining focus on your core impulses is to identify and release the people within your organization who already have the capacity for reflection, ingenuity and innovation.  I can tell you right now that there are people within your organization who are connected to your original impulses and who think about it...a lot.  How are they heard?  Is there a place for them?  They often exist a little ‘in orbit’ around the hairball of your organizational inertia.  Sometimes you might feel they work for you and against you all at the same time.  They ask too many questions.  They might even be complainers.  Their ideas are just a little too off the wall.  “Can’t they ever just put their nose to the grindstone and do the job”??

Yet they are a key to ensuring that you make whatever changes are needed to stay true to your original organizational impulse.  Rarely do the answers to needed change & innovation come from corporate strategy sessions.  Rather, they come from within individuals who are not only set free by the organization to think innovatively, but who carry within themselves the capacities for ingenuity. What you need to do as a leader is find a way to let them be themselves to examine, criticise, dream and innovate.  Come into their space once in a while and hear what they have to say.  Spin them off in orbit on a retreat, or in specialized task groups.  Ground them in the organizations’ core impulse, and then release them to discover how to stay true to that.  Feed them with the freedom of thought and innovation towards a grounded purpose.

 

The Jesuits, of all organizations, have the most to say to all of us about releasing ingenuity.  They were/are one of the most decentralized yet focused organizations on earth.  (You can read in detail about their founding principles and extremely dispersed organizational philosophy in a book by Chris Lowney, a former Jesuit himself who worked in the banking and non-profit industries.  His book is “Heroic Leadership”, 2003, by Loyola Press).  For them, ingenuity is the readiness to ‘cross the world’ at a moments’ notice in pursuit of a good opportunity.  It is the willingness to work without a script and the creative embrace of new ideas.  It is not achieved merely by developing the skills leadership pundits always champion for innovation:  imagination, adaptability, creativity, flexibility etc.  Rather, it is about adopting the demeanour, attitudes and worldview that make creativity and adaptation possible.  What is that stance? It is an “optimistic view of the world thoroughly shot through with (divine) love. Ingenuity blossoms when the personal freedom to pursue opportunities is linked to a profound trust and optimism that the world presents plenty of them.  Imagination, creativity, adaptability and rapid response become the keys for finding and unlocking these opportunities” (pg 128 – Heroic Leadership).

Ingenuity is NOT however the blind pursuit of anything new and creative.  It is in pursuit of a broader purpose or a core impulse that ingenuity takes on meaning.  The Jesuits had a purpose to ‘help souls’ and left it up to the ingenuity of their people to make that happen.  What resulted was a global kaleidoscope of endeavours, but all in pursuit of this purpose.

Your organization may grow to get involved in many things, but do they serve the core impulse of why you exist?  Reject the impulse of inertia.   As the leader, restate your organizations’ core impulse and release the ingenuity of your people to help you regain that ground and innovate your way back (or forward) towards the accomplishment of your primary purpose for existence.

Harv Matchullis

Diversify...Your Dreams

This is a re-post of a blog from the Harvard Business Review on Tuesday Feb 28, 2012, written by Daniel Gulati, who is a tech entrepreneur based in New York. He is a coauthor of the new book Passion & Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders. Follow him on Twitter at @danielgulati.

While Daniel focuses his attention on the under-35 crowd in this blog, my experience is that for many "Nomadic Leaders" this is not exclusive to that age group.  Nomadic Leaders love to 'wander' their world looking for ideas, opportunities and new fields of engagement.   An intriguing question is:  "At what point will you be content to settle in for a while?

Harv Matchullis

Here's Daniels blog post in full...

If you ever want to lie awake at night, go ahead and think about your "one thing" — the one thing you were born to do, the one career you were built to succeed at, and the one person you were destined to spend the rest of your life with. Attempting to solve these impossible optimization riddles is a sure path to emotional turmoil, an unsatisfying professional life, and, well, a pretty bleary-eyed morning.

In writing Passion and Purpose, I learned that smart, well-intentioned individuals have a destructive tendency to oversimplify their passions and dreams, distilling them down to a series of these "one things." I saw a young accountant's elaborate plan to land his dream job of becoming CEO of a professional services firm, else be considered a failure. I witnessed one of my peers who, just days after her wedding, became absolutely angst-ridden about whether she had married her one universal soul mate. Still others float from job to job, from life tragedy to triumph, in the never-ending quest to discover their one purpose.

If you're smart, well-intentioned, and under 35, you're particularly at risk. After analyzing our survey of over 500 business school students, this much is clear: You're a generation of idealists. Free from the traditional shackles of perceived prestige and financial compensation, you rate intellectual challenge as the most important reason for choosing a job. Not content with mere intellectual idealism, you also demand geographical optimization. You travel from country to country (an average of 4.6 times within 10 years of graduation), with 92% of your peers agreeing that more gender, professional, functional, sexual orientation, racial (and you-name-it) diversity is better. You're cross-pollinating industries, with 84% agreeing that it's essential for business leaders to understand the public and nonprofit sectors. And you're aggressive connectors — members of an average of 2.4 social networks. In short, you're feeling the unrelenting pressure to optimize amongst the vast array of choices available to you, and you won't stop debating, traveling, pollinating, and connecting until you hit on your "one thing." You've been told all your life not to compromise, and you're doing what you're told.

But there's a dark side to this behavior that applies to everyone. In the process of trying to hit life's elusive home runs, at least two negative things are happening to you. Firstly, you're focused obsessively on the things you desperately want and probably haven't got. Clinical psychologists have long warned against the dangers of excessive introspection, arguing that when people are already down, ruminating on their problems makes things worse. But more importantly, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. The irony is that by convincing yourself that there's one dream job out there for you and questing for one dream job only, you're jeopardizing your chance of realizing your dream and setting yourself up for deep regret and unhappiness if you eventually fall short.

There is an alternative, and that's to diversify your dreams. You wouldn't invest all of your savings into one stock, because, for a variety of reasons both in and out of your control, that one stock might never generate a return. Why treat your dreams and passions — arguably your most valuable assets — any differently? Let's embrace the entire portfolio of our passions and diversify our dreams, and avoid designing our lives around ever-elusive silver bullets.

The time to diversify is now. With permanently new dynamism in the job market and the elimination of the career ladder, the days of signing up for a 20-year, pre-configured journey to the top are over. Instead, success will be marked by flexibility and agility — how quickly you can adapt to the world around you and how quickly you can seize exciting new opportunities. Having multiple paths and career dreams up your sleeve is a more effective way to navigate this exciting, but riskier, world.

But there's more good news: The information technology revolution just lowered the cost of experimentation. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be a headhunter in Hong Kong, there are more than a million published resources online that can inform your decision. Your social networks are a valuable asset, and your connections are waiting to be tapped. Best of all, this buffet of content and connections can be accessed at any time, at record speed. Technology makes diversifying your dreams more achievable than ever.

So how do you start moving from one dream to many? A practical tip I've seen work well is to develop a "folder of gratitude," a constantly-updated list of all the things in life you're grateful for. Chances are, many of the things on your list correspond neatly with your underlying passions. Then, take your list and amplify these passions with intelligent experiments. Test and invest in your areas of interest, and cultivate the joy of learning from failure. Finally, just like any investor worth their salt, double down on winners. If something strikes a chord, reallocate more time and energy to it. View your dreams as organic and ever-changing, and you're much more likely to be pleased with the outcome.

There's no reason to put all your eggs in one basket and cross your fingers. Your dreams are precious enough to diversify.

This post is part of a series of blog posts by and about the new generation of purpose-driven leaders.