Monthly Archives: June 2013

Dreadful, just dreadful!

The Fresh Air Learning Company helps leaders realise game-changing possibilities. We dare them to dream, to lead, to do. Bold, challenging, and sometimes uncomfortable!

Wake up! Do something about your leadership engine rooms!

blog30Why do so many organisations base their reward structures just on a blend of individual and organisational performance? Sometimes departmental or project team performance is also recognised in the mix.

Nothing wrong with this; indeed, it’s a great thing in many respects. It recognises the golden thread between individual effort and organisational success.

Something missing?

How might organisations perform if management and leadership teams were rewarded for their collective performance? I don’t mean reward individuals for their behaviours and contributions in team settings. This is covered by individual appraisals. I mean reward everyone for the team’s collective performance.

Implicit in this notion is the need for clarity around team purpose, the setting of team objectives, investment in training & development, and assessment of team performance. This is emerging as good Board practice, and some organisations invest well at this level.

Dreadful conversations

blog22But how many truly dreadful “teams” have we all been part of at various levels in organisations throughout our careers? How much time has been lost through dreadfully ineffective meetings? How much leadership opportunity has been lost? How much have teams failed their organisations; and vice versa!?

How much training & development did you receive about creating and sustaining quality dialogue? How confident, right now, are you about the difference between debate, discussion, and dialogue? How aware and practiced are you in the skills needed to think together as a team, create new insights, inspire common purpose, and transform performance?

Maybe organisations that don’t recognise and reward team performance don’t understand how teams should perform? A “don’t know we didn’t know” situation! And maybe those that do value teams also value great support to get the best out of their leadership engine rooms.

Dave

Dave Stewart
Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company

The Fresh Air Learning Company helps leaders realise game-changing possibilities. We dare them to dream, to lead, …

Special places – Part 1

The Fresh Air Learning Company creates game-changing leadership journeys for individuals, teams and organisations. We dare them to dream, to lead, to do. Bold, challenging, and sometimes uncomfortable!

Place and social setting have a powerful impact on how people behave and learn. Add expert facilitation and the outcomes can be dramatic.

Here are seven great reasons to work outdoors: clients’ experience, changes in biochemistry, burnout recovery, boundary removal, inspiring metaphors, story creation, and cost effectiveness.

This blog looks at the first three.

1.   Experience…
Very few executives have told us they do their best thinking in their office!

“Looking back it was such an obvious thing to do – to get out into some remote and beautiful countryside, and simply walk and talk.”

2.   Biochemistry…
Our body biochemistry changes as we move through natural landscapes. Blood pressure drops, mood lightens and self-esteem rises. We become more open to fresh ideas.

“It wasn’t long before our initial reticence and anxiety dissipated and a surprising spirit of engaged curiosity and sense of well-being crept upon us!”

3.   Burn out recovery…
We have two systems of attention. One, “directed attention” is used to solve problems. This focused faculty appears to have limited capacity, and without rest can lead to “burn out”.

The second, “involuntary attention”, is used to maintain awareness of our environment and does not seem to deplete. Stimuli-rich natural environments can strongly engage this latter form of attention, so creating an opportunity for our directed attention to rest and recover.

“I arrived tired and rattled, a difficult week with lots of unresolved issues still weighing on my mind. I left refreshed with clear, doable priorities. But more than that I left with a new way of thinking, a richer sense of awareness and curiosity, and with new learning about vitality and sustainability in the context of my leadership style.”

More next time…

Dave
Dave Stewart
Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company

The Fresh Air Learning Company creates game-changing leadership journeys for individuals, teams and organisations. We dare them …

55 Minutes!

The Fresh Air Learning Company develops leaders, teams and organisations. We dare them to dream, to lead, to do. We bring their leadership journey to life. Bold, challenging, and sometimes uncomfortable!

Question 1: “I have this problem. How quickly can you fix it?”

Do you know clients who are very clear about their problems, confidently specify the solution, and just want you to execute the fix as soon as possible?

Maybe they don’t know the solution, yet are pretty clear about the problem.

Maybe you are this confident client. What is the source of your knowing?

If these situations are familiar to you, how do they usually turn out? How enduring and transformative are the outcomes? Do your actions apply a plaster or create something new?

Question 2: “We are noticing a bunch of stuff going on. Help us make sense of this. What are the game changing possibilities that lie beyond these issues?”

This is a totally different kind of question! Competent leaders ask these types of questions. They know there is stuff they don’t know. They know about “55 minutes.”

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” Albert Einstein

These questions require more than an off-the-shelf hole-plugging response. They require more than a project management “scoping discussion”. They require much more than self-limiting, convergent thinking.

Clients who ask this sort of question appreciate the need to invest in exploration and discovery; a process which engages an array of people; which collects a range of “facts”; which pays attention to stories and conversations; which in itself may trigger new questions.”

Courage and curiosity are required; and discomfort can be expected. And this just gets the client to a starting place, a place of sense-making and discovery!

More about journeys and possibilities next time.

Dave
Dave Stewart
Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company

The Fresh Air Learning Company develops leaders, teams and organisations. We dare them to dream, to lead, …