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

Stop Talking. Finish Thinking. Move

It’s been 3 years and 30 posts since I started writing The Nomadic Leader.    

The purpose of this blog lies in this conviction: the ability to impact a family, organization, business or social structure depends on the ability of the leader to not only conceptualize an outcome, but the flexibility to pivot/move when needed.

In my original blog (http://nomadicleader.blogspot.ca/2009/09/nomadic-leader-inaugural-blog-sept-2009.html ) I expanded on the life of the traditional nomad as a base for describing the Nomadic Leader.  Read it for a review, but one thing bears repeating here (Now, of all things I get to quote myself!):

‘For various reasons traditional nomads sought new territory; better grazing, more fertile land, peace, etc.   The “contemporary nomadism” I endorse for leaders is a response to the ever-shifting opportunities and challenges presented by a world that is increasingly defined by the global highways that carry people, ideas, beliefs, traditions and commerce.  Those who lead any type of organization must therefore be somewhat ‘nomadic’ in their thinking; able to view the landscape, respond to multiple cultures, see the potential threats and opportunities, be ready to move when the need arises.  Fixed thinking and strategies, while they provide security for a while, will relegate a leader and his or her organization to the sidelines’.

The Nomadic Leader I envision IS NOT about change for the sake of change. 

In fact I think a lot of ‘change’ today is faked.  What I mean is that it has become so mainstream and trendy that true change is rarely accomplished.  Our nomenclature of ‘trending’, ‘change management’, ‘innovation’, ‘reorganization’  and even ‘boiling the frog’ (the case for incremental change), is often used in order to make a persons’ leadership visibly legitimate.  We change the website but the product/story is the same.  In some ways these elements of change have become the new strategy statements.  The mere act of describing the change we need is often enough to lull others (and ourselves) into thinking true and meaningful change is actually occurring.

The Nomadic Leader I envision IS about connecting personal or organization purpose to their context. 

Nomadic Leaders recognize that PURPOSE drives them to look around and make whatever adjustments & changes are necessary to get to their desired outcome.  Contemporary Nomadic Leaders may not have to move their 'flock' to a new pasture across the country, but they do have to move thinking, assumptions and strategy to new places in order to accomplish their purpose.

I know this is a time when many of you are thinking about 3 things:

Ø  The kind of person you will be as a leader

Ø  What you are going to accomplish

Ø  The strategies you will use to get to your goals.

September (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) has a way of helping us think about starting again.  It’s a hopeful time.  “Maybe this time around we can really get this done”.

My challenge to you is develop a nomadic mindset and orientation. MOVE.  If you are (like I am right now) inspired to make a bold claim of possibility in the face of some status quo you currently inhabit, that implies MOVEMENT. 

Stop talking.  Finish thinking (for now). Move. 

 ‘We reminded ourselves that movement was the law of strategy and we started moving’.

(T.E. Lawrence; Seven Pillars of Wisdom)

I close with this poem – and find it curious and insightful how there is a parallel between nomadic leadership and the immigrant experience. In some ways we are all on the move.

Either you will

go through this door

or you will not go through.

If you go through

there is always the risk

of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly

and you must look back

and let them happen.

If you do not go through

it is possible

to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes

to hold your position

to die bravely.

but much will blind you,

much will evade you,

at what cost who knows?

The door itself

makes no promises.

It is only a door.

Adrienne Rich – “Prospective Immigrants Please Note”

To the nomadic leaders out there – are you moving?  Moving toward your purpose is the first challenge.  The greater challenge is moving again when the context calls for it.  That’s the nature and necessity which characterizes nomadic leaders.

Harv Matchullis

Visiontracks

harvey@visiontracks.ca

www.visiontracks.ca