THE POWER OF VULNERABILITY

"The Power of Vulnerability" is our featured video above is a presentation by vulnerability researcher Brene Brown.  Brown is also the author of Daring Greatly, The Gifts of Imperfection and  I Thought It Was Just Me - but it isn't  This presentation rocked my world.  I'm still downloading, reflecting and considering the power of vulnerability, the importance of worthiness and the effects of shame in my own life.  Brown's research and insight have propelled me to a greater understanding of the dichotomy between my identity and personality.  In my opinion this is a life altering presentation that everyone should consider, especially leaders.

Don't believe the hype that leadership is about bossing people around.  Leadership is about change and true leaders use various tools and contigency based models to facilitate change through a servant transformational approach.  The first fundamental step for any leader is knowing thyself.  The value of self knowledge and an understanding of self is incredible.  Learning about yourself gives you insight into your strengths, weaknesses and ways you respond to situations and more importantly reasons your respond the way you do.  This awareness to move us closer to our identity, who we really are and away from our personality, who we've become as a result of external influences like parenting, media and ego.  This awareness also helps us to become mindful of how our behaviour influences others.  This awareness leads to empathy, a tool and skill no true leader can function without.  Brown's research should an essential chapter in every leaders journey.

I have already received incredibly insightful feedback about this presenation from friends and colleagues.  I would love to hear from other movers.

Enjoy!

Move!

CULTURE MATTERS

This article by Bill Barnett resonates with me.  Until recently I was naive enough to believe that "the job" or "the organization" were most important when building your career.  Barnett suggests that opportunities for greatness with an organization can be compromised by your fit with the culture.  Read on and tell me if you agree.

Some organizations will excite you. They'll stimulate your success and growth. Others will be stressful. They may lead you to quit before you've accomplished much or learned what you hoped to. With the pressure (or excitement) of finding a new job, it's all too easy to pursue a job opportunity or to accept an offer with only a hazy view of how the institution really operates. The path to an institution you'll like is to investigate the culture you're thinking of joining before you accept the position.

Sean (name has been changed) is a master at this. He pursued a job offer at a Fortune 500 company to be the first Chief Administrative Officer (CAO). He was well-qualified, presented himself well, and got the offer. He'd been competing with capable people. He was proud he'd "won the contest."

The next step was a return visit, after which he'd decide to accept the offer. Sean had already learned a lot about the company's businesses and some things about the organization. His priority now was culture and how the new position might fit: "I asked people, 'What are you excited about? What are you proud of? Who are your close friends in the company? How does the group function together?'" Sean learned things like who the heroes were, what made them successful, and what his biggest challenges and opportunities would be in the job. The different people he met with were learning from his questions. It was almost like he already worked there, and they were jointly determining how to make the new role successful.

Surprisingly, Sean turned down the offer. The new role was a misfit in the company's culture.

As he learned more about the company, Sean questioned how he'd be viewed as the first CAO in a company where everyone else focused on bottom-line results. It was a highly performance-driven environment with lots of business units. Corporate staffs were secondary.

"I asked how they'd keep score on me, how they'd really know I was making a difference," he said. "We never got to satisfactory answers to that question. They weren't hiding anything. This CAO position was a new one, and they didn't really know."

Sean was concerned that this new position wouldn't fit in the company's culture, that he wouldn't really be accepted, and that it wouldn't be a springboard to the line job that he really wanted after two or three years as CAO. He might have made it work, but why take the risk?

It's not uncommon for job seekers to enter organizations without understanding the culture and come away disappointed. When considering a new job, be sure to investigate the institution's culture. Consider these questions to guide you:

1. What should I learn? Understand the organization's purpose — not just what they say they're doing, but also how their purpose leads to decisions and what makes them proud. Learn how the organization operates. For example, consider the importance of performance, how the organization gets things done, the level of teamwork, the quality of the people, how people communicate, and any ethical issues.

Except for ethical issues, there's no absolute standard of what's best in organizational culture. Different purposes and different organizational features can be more or less appealing to different people. When you understand how the potential employer operates, you'll need to consider how well that matches your goals. Your target organizational culture is an important part of your aspirations.

2. How should I learn? Read everything you can find about the institution, but read with a critical eye. Institutions have formal vision statements, and they often mention cultural topics in other public reports, but these documents are written with a purpose in mind. Independent writers take an independent perspective. They can be more critical, but they can miss details and get things wrong.

Discuss culture with people in the organization. You'll talk to people in the interviewing process, of course. But you may learn different things if you meet others there who aren't involved in your recruiting process. Also talk to people outside the organization who know it — customers, suppliers, partners, and ex-employees. Their different experiences with the institution will affect their views, so ask about situations where they've seen the culture in action.

3. When should I learn? It's hard to learn about culture at an early stage in your search. But your impressions can guide you to target some institutions and avoid others.

Culture may come up in job interviews, although it may be complicated to do much investigation when you're trying to sell yourself. People sometimes worry that discussing culture might make people uncomfortable and put a job offer at risk. The culture topic is certainly not off-base, and it is necessary to know for future growth in the company. Hiring managers should expect it. Whether it's in interviews or after you have an offer, you'll do best if your questions show you're learning rapidly about the organization, taking the employer's perspective, and beginning to figure out how to succeed there. Culture questions can cast you in a positive light. Sean's line of questioning confirmed the CEO's judgment to hire him, even if Sean didn't like the answers.

What's your view of how culture affects the job search? Has culture played a part in how you choose your future employer?

CHOOSING BETWEEN MAKING MONEY AND DOING WHAT YOU LOVE

Here is a great article from the Harvard Business Review about following your passion instead of the the dollar signs.  I've always believed that your passion will facilitate fulfillment in all ways that are important to you.  Read on.

"If you're really passionate about what you do, but it's not going to make you a lot of money, should you still do it?"

What a great question! It seems like just about everyone who has ever addressed a graduating class of high school or college seniors has said "Do what you love, the money will follow."
Inspiring. But it is true? Couldn't you do what you truly care about and very well go broke, as the question above (recently sent from one of our readers) implies?

Based on the research we did for our book, we're convinced that when you're heading into the unknown, desire is all-important. You simply want to be doing something that you love, or something that is logically going to lead to something you love, in order to do your best work. That desire will make you more creative and more resourceful, and will help you get further faster.

And, it will help you persist. When you're trying something that's never been attempted before — beginning an unusual project at work, or trying to get a new business off the ground — you're going to face a lot of obstacles. You don't want to be giving up the first time you encounter one.
But, let's be real. None of this guarantees wealth, or even financial success.

A friend of ours was hanging out at a bar with a few fellow professional musicians after a recording session, talking admiringly about another musician they all know. One of them commented on how fortunate it was for this musician that his music was commercial. In those four words, you will find an enormous truth. We all have our music and there is no guarantee that anyone will buy it. Absolutely none. These are two entirely separate things.

So this reader question attacks us straight on and says, in essence, "I have the desire, but I am pretty certain it's not going to lead anywhere that's monetarily profitable. Now what? Should I still go ahead?"
Of course you should.

Now let's qualify the answer a bit:  If you can't afford to do the thing you're passionate about — for example, if you do it, you won't be able to feed your family, or it would keep you from graduating college (which is something you think is more important than whatever you're passionate about) — then no, you'd better not bet your economic life on it. A basic principle concerning how you should deal with an unknown future is that every small smart step you take should leave you alive to take the next step. So, make sure you attend to your lower order Maslow needs of food and shelter and the like.

But even this doesn't mean you can't work on your passion a little — even if it's just for 15 minutes a day.
And you should!

Why?  Research (such as The Power of Small Wins that ran in Harvard Business Review May, 2011) shows that people who make progress every day toward something they care about report being satisfied and fulfilled.

We're in favor of people being happy. And we're also in favor of provoking people into pursuing happiness. The nice thing about this reader's question is that it might get people who have — by any objective standard — more than enough money to reconsider whether they want to continue to do things that are not making them happy, just because it'll make them more money. More often than not, these people say, "Once I get enough money, I'll do what I really want to do. I won't worry about the money." But somehow, they never get to that point. Time is finite. The question might be enough to get you to reconsider how you're spending it.

And of course, the assumption embedded in the question could be wrong. You might, indeed, end up making money if you engage in your passion, even though you currently think you won't. Remember, the future is unknown. Who knows what people will buy, or what you might invent after your very next act. At any moment in time, you are only one thought away from an insight — an insight that can change everything.

When you are facing the unknown, they only way to know anything for sure is to act. When you are dealing with uncertainty — and whether you are going to make any money from your passion at this point is definitely an uncertainty — you act. You don't think about what might happen, or try to predict the outcome, or plan for every contingency. You take a small step toward making it a reality, and you see what happens.

Who knows? Even the smallest step can change everything.  So take those small steps. You might discover that your passion does, in fact, make you money. After all, who knew you could make huge amounts of money figuring out a way to connect all your friends (Facebook) or make a better map (pick your favorite GPS tool).

Even if you don't, you want to spend part of your day doing at least one thing that's making you happy. Otherwise, something is terribly wrong.

START NOW, NO FUNDING NEEDED

Derek Sivers inspires me with this short video clip suggesting that we get out of our own way if we want to grow and pursue our dreams.

We are often the greatest obstacles of our own success.  Your ideas do not require third party approval or backing. They need only be of value to someone to grow from idea to reality.

Sivers goes on to offer some helpful suggestions to drive your ideas and passions and avoid the traps that ego present.

MOVE!

WHY YOU NEED TO FAIL

Take a moment to watch this innovative, fun, engaging video.

Sivers leaves you with the following insights.

IF YOU'RE NOT FAILING  YOU'RE NOT GROWING
To learn effectively you must make mistakes.  Mistakes make better preparation than practicing doing what you know is fun, but don't improve you.

FAILURE KEEPS YOU IN A GROWTH MINDSET VERSUS A FIXED MINDSET
Fixed mindset implies that talent is innate and that you either have it or you don't.  A growth mindset is that talent is derived from work, thus anyone can master a talent.

FAILURE REMINDS YOU THAT EVERYTHING IS AN EXPERIMENT
Trying things you would never try gives you new perspective.  Everything we do is just an option.  It is an experiment of different ways to do things until we find the way we want to pursue.  There is no such thing as failure when everything is an experiment.

IF YOU'RE NOT FAILING YOU'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH!

LIVING ETHICALLY

At my sons karate class this morning I was sitting with another parent who is also a neighbour. We were chatting and suddenly my phone vibrates twice to let me know that I have a text message. I'm not going to tell you what I did, but the situation got me thinking of vice or virtue. In today's society is it a vice for me to peek at my phone to check the message? Is it virtue for me to demonstrate respect and consideration for our conversation by ignoring the text and practicing active listening? What role has technology played in ethical complexity?

After karate we went to pick up some groceries. Is it vice for people to leave their shopping carts diagonally in the middle of the aisle where it blocks others from getting by? Is it virtue to park your grocery cart on one side of the aisle to allow your fellow shoppers to pass while you are reading the labels?

The discussion of write and wrong is relevant in so much we do and as I am discovering in any interaction with others whether active or passive. While there are no real rules about my experience in the dojo, I believe the right thing is to ignore my phone until there is a break in the conversation and then excuse myself politely in order to check to see if I have an important message. However, I've seen others sabatoge a conversation because of a meaningless text message or phone call. While there is nothing written on any signs at the grocery store it only seems ethical to keep your cart to one side to consider others who may want to pass and enjoy their shopping experience.

Not sure how much I believe in an absolute right and absolute wrong, but awareness of how our behaviour affects others in critical for leadership and building better relationships. Bass (1999) suggests that ethics plays a huge part authentic transformational leadership.

What's the big deal?  Ethics are part of the invisible network of systems that connect humans to one another.  With Ethics comes an understanding of how ones behaviour impacts others and society.  Bad in, bad out.  Good in, good out.

THE ANSWER IS...IT DEPENDS!

What is the best leadership approach or style? It depends. Yes, that’s really the answer.

Contingency Theories of leadership suggest that the style or leadership approach should be based on the needs of the environment or situation and the needs of the participants or followers. Variables like time, working conditions and work agreements should come into play when considering a transformational or transactional approach. The level of motivation or skill of the participants should influence the leaders choices on a continuum of Highly Directive or Laissez Faire, or High or Low supportive.

With situations and people being so complex there is never one style or approach that is best. When we chose to be monocrematic in our leadership approach we are either not aware of the contingency variables or refusing to consider the complexities that situations and people bring. Transformational leadership cannot occur without considering the needs of the participants or followers.

The llabb is a wherever our conversations with thinkers occur.  I'm borrowing the lexicon from Sefu Bernard.  Conversations in the llabb have raised the premise of the opposable mind of the leader. It is suggested that successful leaders are integrated thinkers who integrate opposing ideas to create the best solutions (Martin, 2007). So instead of one leadership approach or another, successful leaders will take the best of different approaches and integrate them to best serve followers and navigate the situation.

For the past 5 years I have integrated a servant transformational and transactional approach when coaching athletes. During that time I have practiced a low directive, high supportive approach. The rational was that we wanted to develop thinkers on the basketball court. We facilitate emergent leadership, equip our athletes with info and empowering players to make the decision on the court. I always receive rave reviews for this coaching style. Most of our athletes thrive in this environment, but there are some who don't. Contingency theory has helped me to understand that the needs of the situation and participants must be priority one and that successful leaders today will adapt style and approach to meet those needs. How we want to lead is less important than modifying and specializing to suit the uniqueness of each of our athletes.

I’ll let you know later in the season how it goes.

EMERGENT LEADERSHIP

Marion & Uhl-Bien (2001) suggest an alternative focus on leadership where leaders enable rather than control, where power derives from the leaders' ability "to allow" rather than to direct (Regine & Lewin, 2000), and where people in the organization remain engaged and connected (Knowles, 2001).

In Teachers are Like Gardeners, Sir Ken Robinson suggests that gardeners do not make plants grow. The plant grows itself, however great teachers create the conditions for plants to grow.  This same concept applies to leadership.  Great leaders create the conditions to enable leadership to emerge.

Leaders as enablers, use the following mechanisms: disrupting existing patterns, encouraging novelty and making sense of the unfolding events for others (D.A. Plowman et al., 2007)

IGNORE EVERYONE

IGNORE EVERYONE - And 39 other keys to creativity is about developing creativity.  However chapter two (below) possesses a great leadership lesson that needs to be shared.  The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours. 

We’ve all spend a lot of time being impressed by folks we’ve never met.  Somebody featured in the media who’s got a big company, a big product, a big movie, a big bestseller.  Whatever.

And we spend even more time trying unsuccessfully to keep up with them.  Trying to start up our own companies, our own products, our own film projects, books, and whatnot.

I’m as guilty as anyone.  I tried lots of different things over the years, trying desperately to pry my career out of the jaws of mediocrity.  Some to do with business, some to do with art, etc.

One evening, after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sitting at a bar, feeling a bit burned out by work and by life in general, I just started drawing on the backs of business cards for no reason. I really didn't need a reason.  I just did it because it was there, because it amused me in a kind of random, arbitrary way.

Of course it was stupid.  Of course it was not commercial.  Of course it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Of and utter waste of time.  But in restrospect, it was this built-in futility that gave it its edge.  Because it was the exact opposite of all the “Big Plans” my peers and I were used to making.  It was so liberating not to have to think about all that, for a change.

It was so liberating to be doing something that didn't have to have some sort of commercial angle, for a change.

It was so liberating to be doing something that didn't have to impress anybody, for a change.

It was so liberating to be free of ambition, for a change.

It was so liberating to be doing something that wasn't a career move, for a change.

It was so liberating to be doing something that belonged just to me and no one else, for a change.

It was so liberating to feel complete sovereignty, for a change.  To feel complete freedom, for a change.  To have something that didn’t require somebody else’s money, or somebody else’s approval, for a change.

And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world started paying attention.

The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.  

How your own sovereignty inspires other people to find their own sovereignty, their own sense of freedom and possibility, will give the work far more power than the work’s objective merits ever will.

Your idea doesn’t have to be big.  It just has to be yours alone.  The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing.

The more amazing, the more people will click with your idea.  The more people click with your idea, the more this little thing of yours will snowball into a big thing.

That’s what doodling on the backs of business cards taught me.

Pick up IGNORE EVERYONE - And 39 other keys to creativity is about developing creativity, by Hugh MacLeod.

FAIL HARDER II

One of the most read blog posts at ttheMOVEMENT in the past 12 months has been "FAIL HARDER", an article that speaks to the culture at FACEBOOK and the value of failure.  Seth Godin contributes to this discussion in a recent blog post. 

My question for readers is, when was the last time you committed to an initiative as much for the value of the journey and not only the achievement of a goal?

A failure is a project that doesn't work, an initiative that teaches you something at the same time the outcome doesn't move you directly closer to your goal.

A mistake is either a failure repeated, doing something for the second time when you should have known better, or a misguided attempt (because of carelessness, selfishness or hubris) that hindsight reminds you is worth avoiding.

We need a lot more failures, I think. Failures that don't kill us make us bolder, and teach us one more way that won't work, while opening the door to things that might.

School confuses us, so do bosses and families. Go ahead, fail. Try to avoid mistakes, though.

PURSUITOLOGY

Mike Wyatt speaks to the one leadership quality that will make you or break you.  You can follow him on Twitter @mikemyatt. 

One of the most often overlooked aspects of leadership is the need for pursuit. Great leaders are never satisfied with traditional practice, static thinking, conventional wisdom, or common performance. In fact, the best leaders are simply uncomfortable with anything that embraces the status quo. Leadership is pursuit – pursuit of excellence, of elegance, of truth, of what’s next, of what if, of change, of value, of results, of relationships, of service, of knowledge, and of something bigger than themselves. In the text that follows I’ll examine the value of being a pursuer…

Here’s the thing – pursuit leads to attainment. What you pursue will determine the paths you travel, the people you associate with, the character you develop, and ultimately, what you do or don’t achieve. Having a mindset focused on pursuit is so critical to leadership that lacking this one quality can sentence you to mediocrity or even obsolescence. The manner, method, and motivation behind any pursuit is what sets truly great leaders apart from the masses. If you want to become a great leader, become a great pursuer.
A failure to embrace pursuit is to cede opportunity to others. A leader’s failure to pursue clarity leaves them amidst the fog. Their failure to pursue creativity relegates them to the routine and mundane. Their failure to pursue talent sentences them to a world of isolation.  Their failure to pursue change approves apathy. Their failure to pursue wisdom and discernment subjects them to distraction and folly. Their failure to pursue character leaves a question mark on their integrity. Let me put this as simply as I can – you cannot attain what you do not pursue.

Smart leaders understand it’s not just enough to pursue, but pursuit must be intentional, focused, consistent, aggressive, and unyielding. You must pursue the right things, for the right reasons, and at the right times. Perhaps most of all, the best forms of pursuit enlist others in the chase. Pursuit in its purest form is highly collaborative, very inclusive and easily transferable. Pursuit operates at greatest strength when it leverages velocity and scale.

I also want to caution you against trivial pursuits – don’t confuse pursuit with simple goal setting. Outcomes are clearly important, but as a leader, it’s what happens after the outcome that you need to be in pursuit of. Pursue discovery, seek dissenting opinions, develop your ability unlearn by embracing how much you don’t know, and find the kind of vision that truly does see around corners. Don’t use your pursuits to shift paradigms, pursue breaking them. Knowing what not to pursue is just as important as knowing what to pursue.

It’s important to keep in mind that nothing tells the world more about a leader than what or who they pursue – that which you pursue is that which you value. If you message to your organization you value talent, but don’t treat people well and don’t spend time developing the talent around you, then I would suggest you value rhetoric more than talent. Put simply, you can wax eloquent all you like, but your actions will ultimately reveal what you truly value.

Lastly, the best leaders pursue being better leaders. They know to fail in this pursuit is nothing short of a guarantee they’ll be replaced by those who don’t. All leaders would be well served to go back to school on what I refer to as the science of pursuitology.

What’s been the best thing you’ve pursued? What pursuit has led you astray. Thoughts?

FEEDBACK

Leadership means communicating with others in such a way that they are influenced and motivated to perform actions that further common goals and lead toward desired outcomes.  Communication is a process by which information and understanding are transferred between a sender and receiver, such as between a leader and an employee, an instructor and a student, or a coach and a football player.


Feedback is the element of the communication process that enables someone to determine whether the receiver correctly interpreted the message.  Feedback occurs when a receiver responds to a leader's communication with a return message.  Without feedback, the communication cycle is incomplete.  Effective communication involves both the transference and mutual understanding of information.  The nature of effective communication is cyclical, in that a sender and receiver may exchange messages several times to achieve a mutual understanding.  The ongoing process of sending, receiving and feedback to test understanding underlies both management and leadership communication.

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

The overriding function of management is to provide order and consistency to organizations, whereas the primary function of leadership is to produce change and movement. (Kotter, 1990)

Management is about seeking order and stability; leadership is about seeking adaptive and constructive change. (Kotter, 1990)

Although they are different in scope, Kotter (1990) contended that both management and leadership are essential if an organization is to prosper.  For example, if an organization has strong management without leadership, the outcome can be stifling and bureaucratic.  Conversely, if an organization has strong leadership without management, the outcome can be meaningless or misdirected change for change's sake. To be effective, organizations need to nourish both competent management and skilled leadership.

Bennis and Nanus (1985) maintained that there is a significant difference between the two.  To manage means to accomplish activities and master routines, whereas to lead means to influence others and create visions for change.  "Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing" (Bennis and Nanus, 1985)

Rost (1991) contended that leadership is a multidirectional influence relationship and management is a unidirectional authority relationship.  Whereas leadership is concerned with the process of developing mutual purposes, management is directed toward coordinating activities in order to get the job done.

Zaleznik (1977) argued that managers and leaders are distinctly different types of people.  He contended that managers are reactive and prefer to work with people to solve problems but do so with low emotional involvement.  He suggested that leaders on the other hand, are emotionally active and involved.  They seek to shape ideas instead of responding to them and act to expand the available options to solve long standing problems.  Leaders change the way people think about what is possible.

Which one are you?

Information from Northouse 2010, LEADERSHIP - Theory and Practice, Fifth Edition

DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS

Misleading experiences, misleading prejudgements, inappropriate self-interest and inappropriate attachments are four root causes of errors in thinking that lead to bad decisions.

Do you make good decisions?  What influencers affect your decision making?  What happens in the brain when we make a decision?

Our brains use two processes that enable us to cope with the complexities we face: pattern recognition and emotional tagging.  Both help us to make excellent decisions most of the time, but in certain conditions they can mislead us.

Pattern Recognition helps us to assess inputs we receive.  An integrated function then takes the signals about what matches have been found, makes assumptions about missing bits of information and arrives at a point of view.

If we are faced with unfamiliar inputs - especially if the unfamiliar inputs appear familiar - we can think we recognize something when we don not.  We refer to this as the problem of misleading experiences.  Our brains may contain memories of past experiences that connect with inputs we are receiving.  Unfortunately, the past experiences are not a good match with the current situation and hence mislead us.

Another exception is when our thinking has been primed before we receive the inputs, by, for example, previous judgements or decisions we have made that connect with the current situation.  If these judgements are inappropriate for the current situation, they disrupt our pattern recognition processes, causing us to misjudge the information we are receiving.  We refer to these as misleading prejudgements.

In other words, our pattern recognition process is fallible.

The second process that helps us cope with complexity is emotional tagging.  These tags, when triggered by a pattern recognition match, tell us whether to pay attention to something or ignore it, and they give us an action orientation.  Emotional tags can be a problem for us in four ways.  The first two are about misleading experiences and misleading prejudgements: emotions attached to these experiences or prejudgements can give them more prominence in our thinking than is appropriate.

The third and fourth ways emotional tags can disrupt our thinking are through inappropriate attachments, such as the attachment we might feel to colleagues when considering whether to cut costs, and the much more familiar inappropriate self interest, which lies behind the attention managers give to aligning incentives.

The leader must employ processes to mitigate red flags.  Stay tuned for decision checklist and framework.

THE FACES OF DJ BLACK COFFEE

I love house music!  I was recently put onto DJ Black Coffee and his incredible talents.  A Transformational House DJ like BC takes a crowd of individuals and connects them into a massive inspired the tribal rhythms, drums and soulful vocals. 

However, it's the DJ Black Coffee Foundation that got me excited enough to blog about him. Black Coffee has moved to serve a new group of followers off the dance floor.  BC will serve and inspire disable children in South Africa through the DJ Black Coffee Foundation.  We hope that BCs efforts to serve and transform inspire others in the industry elevate the conditions of the less fortunate.   Black Coffee is creating his own movement of social responsibility in the world of DJing.  

My question to you is, who do you serve?

LEADER: A COMMUNICATION CHAMPION

Leaders need to be a communication champion who enable followers to "live" the vision in their day-to-day activities.

A blind man was brought to the hospital.  He was both depressed and seriously ill.  He shared a room with another man and one day asked, "What is going on outside?"  The man in the other bed explained in some detail about the sunshine, the gusty winds, and the people walking along the sidewalk. 

The next day, the blind man again asked, "Please tell me what is going on outside today."  The roommate responded with a story about the activities in a park across the way, the ducks on the pond and the people feeding them. 

The third day and each day thereafter for two weeks, the blind man asked about the world outside and the other man answer, describing a different scene.  The blind man enjoyed these talks, and he grew happier learning about the world seen through the windo.

Then the blind man's roommate was discharged from the hospital.  A new roommate was wheeled in, a tough-minded businessman who felt terrible, but wanted to get work done.  The next morning, the blind man said, "Will you please tell me what is going on outside?" The businessman didn't feel well and de didn't want to be bothered to tell stories to a blind man.  So he responded assertively, "What do you mean? I can't see outside.  There is no window here.  It's only a wall."

The blind man again became depressed and a few days later he took a turn for the worse and was moved to intensive care.

Source:  The Leadership Experience, Richard L. Daft 5e

FAIL HARDER

A colleague informed me that "FAIL HARDER" is one of the motivational motto's at Facebook.  This is an organization that values creativity and understands how to get it. 

Jeffery Gandz shares his opinions on "Leader Breaders" and treating failure as learning in his June 30 Globe and Mail adaptation from the Ivey Business Journal.

Leader breeders hate to fail - but also learn to treat failure as a learning experience.  With greater challenge comes greater risk of failure.  High potentials, setting stretch goals, are going to fail and it is how that failure is addressed that will make a difference in developing leaders.

Where failure is punished or blame is thrown around, little is learned.  People get defensive, avoid setting stretch goals and play in their personal safety zones.

There are, or course, some limits to failure as learning.  Smart people are not expected to make the same mistake twice; fatal errors tend to attract more blame than those that result in less drastic consequences; and failures that identify personally unacceptable behaviours, such as laziness, carelessness, lack of integrity or personally self-serving behaviours, tend to be treated differently.  This is acceptable within a leadership-development culture.

IT'S ALWAYS BEEN DONE THAT WAY

Thank you to Sefu Bernard for sharing this bit of critical inspiration via awesome blog thellabb.

It's about the choice we all have the ability to make.  Do things the right way or do things the way they've always been done.  Organization and people who chose the former are the one driven by strong leadership. 

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it.

Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards to the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result – all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.

The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Likewise, replace a third monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then a fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the new monkey.

After replacing all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana?

Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.

And that, my friends, is how company policy begins.

The most damaging phrase in the language is, “It’s always been done that way.”

(Admiral Grace Hopper, 1906-1992)

Have you ever been in an environment where things are done a certain way only because "...it's always been done that way"...? Or, perhaps, are you leading that environment?

The thought that we coach the way we were coached has been one that I wrestle with quite a bit. And then, recently, a close friend took it a step further when he said to me, "We coach the way we were parented."

Don't just do things because that's the way it was done before you; or, because you had success with that approach 10 years ago. Continually assess and find new ways to engage the people you work with.

LEADING WITH TRIBES: THE MECHANICS OF CHANGE

At ttheMOVEMENT we get excited about anything to do with leadership.  Leadership facilitates organizational, institutional, cultural, personal and global change.  Change on any of those levels create a paradigm shift and a redifining of the status quo.  This is one of the "Raison D'Etre" of ttheMOVEMENT.  If there was a "Best of ttheMOVEMENT" collection of lectures, Seth Godin would certainly be included in that group.

SETH GODIN is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change.  In his TED TALKS lecture on Leading With Tribes (above), Godin presents the history of the process of change and introduces what he feels is the future of facilitating change, LEADING WITH TRIBES.  This concept is very consistent with Simon Sinek's philosophy of connecting at the belief level in his TED TALKS lecture "HOW GREAT LEADERS INSPIRE ACTION" (scroll down to January posts on ttheMOVMENT).  I have summarized Godin's lecture your reference but nothing beats hearing the info directly from the source.  Click on the video clip above and prepare to be inspired. Godin's presentation is an absolute gem.  He is quickly becoming one of my favorite sources inspiration and a mentor for cultural change.

LEADING WITH TRIBES
The process of change starts with a change in the way ideas are created, spread and implemented.  Since the industrial revolution we have seen 3 evolutions of idea creation, communication and implementation.

1. Factory - Cheaper workers & Faster Machines - "We can make it cheaper and faster than anyone else".
2. TV - Push Advertising - Average ideas to appeal to a Mass Market, with plenty of ads.  Hypnotize consumers to buy
3. Leadership - Understanding Tribes (silos of interest); leading and connecting people and ideas.  Find something worth changing then assemble tribes.  It's starts with one, but is necessary to connect with others so that the idea and tribe become bigger than ourselves.  Then it becomes a MOVEMENT.  Creating a MOVEMENT isn't for everyone, it's not a mass thing.  Movement leaders must find the true believers. 

MECHANICS FOR CREATING A MOVEMENT
Find a group that is disconnected, but already has a yearning.  No need to pursuade people to want something they don't yet have.

1. TELL A STORY to people who want to hear it.
2. CONNECT A TRIBE of people who are desperate to be connected to each other.
3. LEAD A MOVEMENT and lead change.

Important to realize that you can't do this by yourself; get others to join your climate ride.

BECOME A HERETOCH
See the status quo and want to change it, instead of seeing rules and wanting to follow. 

THINGS LEADERS HAVE IN COMMON

• Challenge the status quo
• Build new cultures
• Curiosity
• Connect people to one another
• Commit to the course

3 QUESTIONS FOR LEADERS

1. Who are you upsetting? - If you're not upseting anyone then you're not changing anything
2. Who are you connecting?
3. Who are you leading?

HOW GREAT LEADERS INSPIRE ACTION MEETS INCEPTION

I recently tapped into two great sources of leadership inspiration.

HOW GREAT LEADERS INSPIRE ACTION
The first is a lecture called "HOW GREAT LEADERS INSPIRE ACTION" by Simon Sinek.  Sinek blew my mind when he described what he calls "The Golden Circle".  He explains that in our efforts to inspire action we usually communicate on the level of WHAT and HOW.  "This is WHAT we do, and they is HOW we do it."  Sinek explains how the backwardness of this approach and how it doesn't connect with the real reasons people do what they do, or the real things that drive human behaviour.  He claims that communicating at the WHAT and HOW level connects with the outer shell of the brain, the Neocortex.  This is part of the brain drives rational and analytical thought, however it does not drive human behaviour.  Sinek goes on to say that great leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired action by connecting with people from the inside out at a deeper level of the brain at the Limbic System of the brain by communicating WHY.  WHY is the purpose, cause, belief.  Sinek states, "People don't buy WHAT you do but WHY you do it." In addition he claims that "the goal should not be to do business with those who need what you have, but rather to do business with those who believe what you believe."  The Golden Circle starts with inspiration from the inside out.  By connecting with people at the WHY level you connect with the Limbic System which controls things like trust, loyalty, long term memory and human behaviour.  The Limbic System has no capacity for language, but it is responsible for those gut decisions and those times when things seem to make sense at the Neocortex level (rational analytical thought), but "just don't feel right" and as such you don't do it.

Sinek communicates that "WHAT you do serves only as the proof of what you believe".  He uses the example of the 1963 I Have a Dream speech, by Martin Luther King Jr.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. didn't speak of "WHAT needed to change, he spoke of what he BELIEVED".  The WHY was that there are a set of laws created by a higher authority than those created by man.  He believed in those laws created by that higher authority.  Sinek claims that none of the 250,000 people at the famous March on Washington were there to see Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. but rather were there because they BELIEVED in what he BELIEVED. "People don't buy WHAT you do, but WHY you do it."

INCEPTION

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the best there is at extraction: stealing valuable secrets inside the subconscious during the mind’s vulnerable dream state. His skill has made him a coveted player in industrial espionage but also has made him a fugitive and cost him dearly. Now he may get a second chance if he can do the impossible: inception, planting an idea rather than stealing one.

We learn throughout this 2010 Sci-Fi thriller that planting an idea is not as easy as one may think.  We learn that the brain recognizes an idea that does not belong to the host.  The brains defense mechanisms will attack an idea from an exterior source.  Thus successfull INCEPTION is based on planting the idea at a level so deep that the host believes it is their own. 

INCEPTION made me think of the Sinek's Golden Circle.  I'm fortunate to have many leadership and mentorship opportunities in my life.  I am a husband, a father, a friend, a neighnour, a coach, and employer.  Those titles (WHAT) do not facilitate inspiration.  However connecting with people at the level of common belief, purpose or cause does inspire.  WHY, HOW, WHAT work together from the inside out to inspire those around you to "buy-in", in accordance with the Laws of Diffusion of Innovation.

"People don't buy what you do but WHY you do it."