Leadership A Social Conversation: Pam Hoelzle, Umair Haque, Diane Wagner, Ethan Yarbrough & Adam Olsen February 15, 2010
i apologize the audio connection between the radio studio located in Bellevue WA and Umair who was in london was less than ideal. I am working to orchestrate another opportunity for an interview, perhaps we can talk Umair into sharing his thoughts on leadership March 10 when we USTREAM and twitter moderate the next leadership social conversation.
Thanks to all of you for engaging- here's to doing some good...building, creating, innovating and ultimately using our lives to CREATE value; good for others.
Umair writes for Harvard Business Review, is Director of the Havas Media Lab and founded
Bubblegeneration, an agenda-setting advisory boutique that shaped
strategies across media and consumer industries.
I found Umair on twitter and ever since I've developed an affinity for his thinking. Talk about outside of the box; no matter what side of the tracks you lean toward Umair will have you asking new questions and considering revolutionary thoughts. I especially like his commitment to GOOD. I believe that every leader should be following him and listening to him and make sure and read his ideas on moving from great to GOOD!
Diane Wagner.
Diane is a director at Microsoft and was awarded The Outstanding Manager For Women Award in 2007. She earned the award for being a dynamic leader,
inspiring her team, running the massive international content business for
Office in an efficient, innovative, and collaborative way.
What's your definition of leadership? The hardest part for you? Your best advice- put your comments here- - I'll share the results with everyone who participates
Quality, experience is a moment by moment thing. Chunk down when things seem too large, overwhelming or complex. Get in the still, small second. Bit, by bit progress is made. One step at a time.
(I'd love your input on leadership. Click here to answer a few questions AND if you participate you can share in the results)
I've led teams as large as 500 serving 20-30K people a week and I've led teams as small as me, myself and I.
Yes, leading me, or should I say, we; is often more challenging than leading a tribe of strangers...
When I was younger and less conscious (I need some excuse) I did crazy things like try to get my employees to quit versus having the liberating conversation about why they were so unhappy and what they wanted to do about it...
I bought into a plethora of leadership lies. Then one day, I think it was the day after my mother died I suddenly got real. I woke up to the reality that the game doesn't go on, forever. Regardless of what you believe about what comes after planet earth, there is 100% probability you and I will die. So if we are all dying, then clearly none of us is God. If I'm not God and you aren't God, perhaps were all divinely equal and this whole leadership thing is more about cooperation and community than power, authority and manipulation? ( I call it the burp, fart and die rule; if you burp or fart then most likely you are just like the rest of us so relax and get over yourself.)
On Monday February 15th I will be kicking off a month long commitment to raising awareness about leadership.
Monday February 15th at 8 am PST join me, stream the conversation and get on line at twitter #leadchange and engage in the conversation between 8-9 am PST titled; The Leadership Gap.
Check back here for resources and musings over the next few weeks as I share; 20 leadership lies that will kill any team or dream, Leaders I'd die for, Leadership Questions, Leadership molehills...and more as I prepare to moderate a leadership social conversation you are invited to on March 3rd 6:30-8:30 PM PST. All the details will be posted here, on my blog Monday February 15; the conversation will be an event in real life and streamed and moderated on line. So wherever you are - you can be a part of the action.
How often do you find yourself asking what first? What now? What do I say no to? What do I say yes to? Only hours later to find yourself knee deep in urgent matters that aren't necessarily important, at all?
In my life working side by side with leaders and creators I am continually reminded of the importance of being able to separate the urgent from the important, the ability to filter through a plethora of options to invest one's time, talent and energy into that which most matters.
In a business the future may very well hinge on how much time and resources are committed to developing innovative solutions for tomorrow, but what if the culture does not allow for anything other than immediate, urgent, short term results?
In our lives over commitment to the urgent needs of others; bosses, partners, kids and community members may undermine our own health and severely impact our ability to show up at all in the future...
Priorities matter. For this very reason I coined the word mattergaps.
Mattergaps are the gaps between where you are and where you want to be in areas of importance to you, or your venture. Mattergaps differ person to person, venture to venture.
They are the high priority gaps that deserve our time, talents, passion and energy. They are the priorities as we see it in business, community work and our personal lives...
So how do you remain clear about what matters to you and how do you prioritize the various demands for your time and attention?
Tired of the results you're getting? Want to change?
Feel like you, your business, team, is stuck in an endless loop of reactive, hardwired, knee jerk, automatic, unconscious actions and behaviors?
Human beings and things humans make (companies, institutions, ventures, communities) become whatever they 'repeatedly' do.
"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an action but a habit." Aristotle
Learning and memory according to Hebb's law is nothing more than the formation of new synaptic connections between neurons. Whatever we think about we create feelings around. As we think the same thoughts (fire the same neurons) we wire the same feelings. Over time behavior results and voila we are thinking and acting inside the same box; over and over again, we have become 'us.'
To change we must think new. We must use our brains to create a new mind.
A new mind is change. When we think outside the box, we literally create a new mind (the brain in action) by thinking unlike we are accustomed to we rearrange brain circuitry. When we fire new neurons we wire new feelings. New thoughts and new feelings create new programming.
Repetitive thoughts and repetitive feelings create 'the box' the frame of mind, the personality.
To change, we practice thinking in ways that are not comfortable, known to us. We break with our usual environments and the memories of the past. Our goal is to force our brain to fire synaptic patterns in different ways, order and arrangements; this is the making of a new 'frame' of mind. A new mind is one that does not keep time with the reinforced ways of our past. It's a mind that is 'outside the box' creating a new neural footprint, changing, growing, innovating and creating.
Einstein reminds us that, "no problem can be solved by the same level of consciousness that created it."
Here's an exercise I use with entrepreneurs and leaders to help them practice thinking outside the box about marketplace opportunities. I share it with you as a way of illustrating how questions can be used to get outside the box...
Opportunision: The ability to see opportunities others don't. ( THINK DIFFERENTLY!)
Phase 1:Define the industry( circumstance) as is:
Existing Product or service (job/career): ________________________________________________
Industry: __________________________________________________________________ The current industry focus: _______________________________________________ Price Focus: __________________________________________________________ High Tech/ High Touch: __________________________________________________ Alternative solutions: ____________________________________________________ Complementary products/services/solutions: _________________________________
Phase 2: We become an INNOVALUADTOR ( another new word to help us get outside the box)
A person that creates innovative solutions that add value to life Innovaluadtor
Thinking Outside The Box ?
( questions below are for business people looking to identify and think differently about their business...you can change the questions to apply to your personal life, a non profit, institution or organization- go ahead think outside the box, use this as a framework!)
What’s happening in other industries? ( lives, organizations, businesses?)
What’s happening across the chain of buyers?
What’s happening across pricing groups?
What’s happening across distribution models/channels from high touch to high tech?
What’s happening with complementary products and services?
What’s happening with alternative products and services?
What trends are informing opportunities and changing the marketplace/competitive landscape?
So what might you want to attend to, contemplate, ruminate on and ponder to begin to get outside the box- and create change?
"Silence is as deep as eternity, speech as shallow as time." Carlyle
My son is the one I have to thank for teaching me the meaning of this quote.
And no, it wasn't his decimal shattering Immortal Technique tunes that drove me to silence. Rather his involuntary 58 day wilderness trip. Funny, how we learn the most unlikely lessons from the most unlikely people, isn't it?
Last year my son was addicted to drugs and failing school. Desperate, my ex- husband and I sent him to a boarding school. After flunking out of boarding school we decided Zach wanted a new opportunity. So against his will we had 2 guardians show up late one night and escort him to the desert.
Heartbreaking.
Zach lived off of the land, in the desert with a group of peers and counselors with not much more than a tarp and a set of clothes for 58 days. He was there with other teens who were 'tuning out' with substances.On two occasions during his wilderness therapy Zach completed overnight hikes of 20+ miles.
Solo weekends were developed so that each teenager could go it alone against the elements on a night hike and then after their completion of the hike immediately depart for a solo 48-72 hour camping experience.
It was Zach's solo hikes and trips that inspired me to retreat into silence. In support of him and seeking my own healing I sequestered myself in my house, alone with out any distractions of the human or technology kind each time he made a 'solo' trip in the wilderness. ( Yes, he's home and just passed his first semester of school in a year and a half...he's quite incredible...that kid!):)
This past weekend I spent 3 nights and 2 and half days in silence. ( My kids always ask, yeah but do you talk to yourself? I did create some flip videos as you see here...)
Mostly what I find when I take the time to silent the voices inside and outside is that Leroy Browlow's words are true,
"There are times when silence has the loudest voice."
Here are a few of my thoughts on silence...
Noise/Turbulence/Chaos
Is it me or is the world growing ever louder? Noise. Life is noisy. Inside my head is noisy. Shutting it all off for even a few minutes and extending the peace an hour, two, a day, or more allows me to move away from the cares of the outside world, to detach from the external to reconnect with the internal, myself, spirit, Creator and creation.
Being Silent doesn't always mean still
For me silence is not necessarily still. I mean that would be miraculous; me, silent and still?
Don't get me wrong I spend plenty of time still, during my silent retreats but I'm not about a bunch of rules and regulations. (NO?!)
Leaving the noise behind and detaching from everything and everyone is an act I do of my own free will, I'm not about to turn it into something that is inauthentic, a recipe of sorts.I'm active. I like movement and learning and so I build these into how I do silence. Sure, sometimes I am still, I pray, meditate, read, rest or best yet take a bath... other times I'm climbing a mountain, or riding my mountain bike (quietly of course.
Outdoors
The outdoors are sacred to me. I am just more me; outside.
Clarity comes quickly to me outside, in a place of solitude and quiet. It's as if new life is breathed into me.
Prayer, Listening
I believe in God. If that freaks you out, sorry.
I can't 'not' not believe. In silence I am reminded of Wayne Dyer's words, we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. Listening. I listen when it's silent . I listen to the river, snow, the grass crunching beneath my boots, to the sound of an apple as I bite into it. Silence improves my hearing. In silence I come to know that which I was previously unaware of about myself and my circumstances. I have time to discard and recycle the past, memories and beliefs that no longer serve me, align with my current truth.
Silence reminds me I shouldn't speak unless I can improve on the silence...(my friends are all shouting amen...)
It's known that our frontal lobe, the part of the brain that loves the new and novel is also chief orchestrator in helping create a new mind. Silence is one of the tools I use to forge a new mind, to think and be new, to change.
Intention, clarity and focus result from my times of tuning out, of retreating into silence.
Clarity helps me interrupt patterns of behavior and thinking that are inconsistent with who I want to be. In my time alone I recalibrate my feeling and thinking.
Silence helps me think, see, hear and feel at a deeper level than anything else I've ever experienced. It forces me to be still, to experience the I AM, to know myself in a way I am unable to know myself amidst the hub bub of daily life.
A practice of silence, silent retreats well they are the ultimate tune up for me, a life sojourner who often loses herself in a world of worry, anxiety, turbulence and distraction.
Need a tune up? Perhaps it's time to tune out- so you can tune in ....Love to hear about your experiences with silence...
Are 'principal carriers of meaning,' powerful beyond comprehension. Building blocks. Tools of expression. Significance filters. Words matter. They always have and now amidst a globally connected web community, they matter more; if that's possible.
Culture
A culture is the cumulative beliefs and behaviors, the personality and characteristics of a particular community, social or ethnic group. And to 'culture' something is to grow it, to till, nurture, to cultivate growth and development.
Words create Culture
Words are the most overlooked tool in community building, in nurturing human potential and in the creation of communities, organizations, teams, movements and tribes.
Words. Think about them, listen to them. What do they mean?
What word mattered to Obama?
Change. Now, agree or disagree; the word has meaning and placed at the heart of a movement as the purpose or vision the word develops the soul of the community, it communicates what is significant.
Let's try a few more.
Hitler: One word full of HATE.
Please: A feeling in and of itself.
Nigger: Racism in 6 letters.
You, We: Inclusion
I and Me: Exclusionary
Non-profit: Having no value
Human Resources: People as things.
(of course I don't use the N word; it's not in my vocabulary because it doesn't represent my beliefs, character or feelings and of course I don't believe non profits are valueless - rather the exact opposite is true and because of their incredible value to society they should ditch the term non and come up with a new word that speaks to the heart and soul of their impact; social ventures, social business, social partnerships...And don't even get me started about the words 'human resources.' People are not human capital, resources or any other term that in any way diminishes them, compares them to non-human materials and purports to put task, organization and goals ahead of them...
Businesses, organizations, groups, communities and individuals come to understand what is significant, what each other stand for by the words we use.
Words = Culture
What is significant to you, your business, team,family? What has meaning? What is it, you are trying to develop, cultivate, improve? What are the behaviors, beliefs, the characteristics that define what is important to your team, family, venture?
A few of my favorite....Word and Culture Questions
If I ( my company) was 1 word it would be?
The feeling I want ( or my business intends) to leave others with is____________
If I( or my company, team ) was a verb, it would be ____________
If I ( or my company, team) was a noun it would be__________________________
The words that conflict, oppose my purpose, intention for my life and company are ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The big idea I am ( my team, tribe is) inspired by is_____________________________
The 8-10 words that I am most interested in, ( best describe my company or teams passion) are:
As a leader, parent, friend and writer I find myself in a constant state of awe at the power words have to create, cultivate, kill, harm and destroy. And now we have high powered search engines helping everyone find us, identify the words that have meaning to us and are significant.
Edit.
Edit.
Edit out words that hold no meaning for you. Architect phrases, choose words that best express your authentic self and the true meaning and purpose of your team, community, venture or organization. Review the words you use - do they cultivate the beliefs, the meaning, feeling, significance you represent? Do you have a word map that represents the soul of your culture?
Listen.
And tell me what words best represent you, your company, purpose or passion?
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