Evolutionary Provocateur

Perception - Perception: Take off the lens cap!

Over at www.management-issues.com blog section there are a ton of references to websites set up to complain, winge, whine or air out legitimate complaints about employers or the companies. Some actually provide insight into how corporations are killling the initiative of their employees; others reveal more about the individual. The lens you see the world through is the lens that creates the perception. See the world as a victim and no matter what you do someone will have you labelled as a bully without anything being based in reality at all. The flip side is to be seen with the utmost contempt....that goes with someone whose reference point wobbles between higher than thou and zero to minimal self-esteem. Either way, the capacity to flipflop creates an untenable working relationship.

Business research demonstrates that employee performance and engagement is driven by passion and high values around social responsibility. No doubt as research continues the rest of what is obvious will be established until notice is taken. But unless the individual's are ready to take charge of creating a reality that is far more expansive, no matter what opportunities are placed in front, they will be missed.

There is a dynamic distinction between how you see yourself and how you see reality. The capacity to contribute and to navigate without being confused is all in the desire to clear the fog off the lens and see clearly.

Employee Sustainability

Over at BNET on Ben Casnocha's Corner Office blog, news of Walmart's employee sustainability has, as usual, generated an interesting response ranging from outright condemnation to complimentary. Walmart appears to act as a lightening rod for value judgments. This must mean that their intentions are suspect no matter what they do. Deserved or not, once painted with the brush of judgment, there is no flexibility to see the situation in a different way.

But, lets set Walmart's intention's aside for a moment and take a look at the initiative itself. The notion of self-directed sustainability is the key to all forms of sustainability. When people are not in victim mode they do not consume nearly as much as those you operate on a feed me, spare change mode. Taking charge of life and directing your personal growth is an evolving affair but it starts by getting introduced to the idea and then spreads to daily action.

Many of my colleagues have also noticed an increase in the numbers of people ready to take charge of their lives, shed the drama and move forward. Most of these will ultimately not put up with corporations killing them softly with limiting notions of their talent or repressive authocratic structures.

Meanwhile, whether you like Walmart or not, introducing employees to methods for strengthening their health and habits can only improve on quality of life while also edging humanity toward creating a future with greater hope. Corporations have the capacity and the resources to take a leadership role. It starts one business at a time.

The Difference Between Employee Engagement and Happiness

When listening to Wayne Turmel's podcast over at www.management-issues.com an interesting distinction has surfaced in research done by Jonathan Austin's company: Best Companies. Measures of happiness include travel, office space; measures of engagement are about leadership, faith in management, personal growth, relationship with your manager, giving something back and well being to name a few. You can have engaged and happy but happy does not mean engaged. This makes sense when you look at it as part of a life dynamic. Happy is one of those tranquil, comfortable emotions that can be made of a number of things quite fluid in nature. Engagement is about focus and contribution.

The whole discussion of what engagement is or is not and how to achieve it has gotten quite of bit of attention. i suspect that the temptation to quantify everything means that the common sense nature of achieving engagement has been overlooked.

At the heart of the matter, people want the same things. Their values, outlook, sense of control may differ and drive capacity to achieve what they seek. In the end, when companies wire what their employees want with what they can achieve collectively all the pieces will fall into place. This is the whole intention behind the program to develop human potential on the sidebar of this site. Visionary thinkers will have no trouble making the link; it is too bad there is a shortage of bold vision mixed with the courage to act.

Expanding Worldview

The whole idea of expanding worldview was touched on recently on www.bnet.com in an article by Charles Ehin entitled 'Executives Beware of the Fossilized Worldview'. It is not the first time the whole need to expand the sight line to take in new data has been mentioned. Doing so requires flexibility in the thinking and security in the self along with a series of more advanced deeply attuned skills such as sensitivity, questioning, and seeing (not visually but with foresight).

For leaders to make the shift requires willingness to learn and tap into more of their own personal talent rather than relying on what they have accessed to get them where they are. If you are totally commited to life-long learning as a fun way to keep your energy, brain cells and growth then it is natural once you know the way. The trick is that the skills you require to expand world view are ones that are not cognitive in nature but embrace 'precognition'. The inspiration to tap into them is driven by personal passion. The mind can then support the work rather than limit possibilities down channels of past experience.

The application to current business is huge not just because expanded thinking lets more possibliities in but also because the workforce, being global and mobil, is not restricted to a dominant world view. It is critical the the culture embrace different ways of seeing the world as a strategic advantage. Group think, while comfortable, is not effective. Only when the diversity of perspective, backstopped by very different worldviews, is embraced will the talent in the culturally diverse workforce have a place to play.

Playing in the Dirt is Good for your Health

While everyone knows ...most everyone... that gardening and playing in the dirt is good for you, now the scientists have come up with a demostration. Go tolhttp://www.livescience.com/health/070411_happy_bacteria.html to read the story.

Listening to Sound

There is a much higher level of skill required to lead in leadership, customer service, consulting or just plain achieving. Sensing the energy behind the words is a part of it. Laura Reid of Arlyn Reid (a HR and recruiting firm located in Vancouver) once asked me if you could teach people to communicate from source - their energy source. The answer is of course yes but you can not start from here to get to there. The journey involves becoming more body aware and energy sensitive. The whole idea of sensing energy as part of the 94% of non-verbal communication might seem flaky but the customer knows the difference when dealing with a sales or customer service agent that is disengaged with what they are doing. Humans naturally have this quality. To illustrate, there is an interesting experiment reported in Discover at http://discovermagazine.com/2007/apr/lingua-franca where a dog's bark, the level of frequency and tone indicate the message. If people can pick that up from a dog's bark it is a given that you can pick up the same signals from a co-worker or supervisor. This is where the person who intentionally sends out a mixed message ...tell them one thing while meaning and doing another, is totally busted. The listener knows. The big question is: Do you as a speaker know what emotional source you are communicating from?

Equine Facilitated Learning

I posted an earlier blog on this topic but Tuesday, when speaking with my dressage instructor the amazing Marcie Doyle, she remembered having seen a documentary on the use of wild horses to rehab prison inmates. A quick google search turned up two exciting sites:

www.wayofthehorse.com ...look under articles/equine-facilitated-learning for insight into how horses help autistic kids heal.

www.cowboyshowcase.com/honorfarm.htm which tells the story of the inmate program.

The more I look at theatre and equine facilitated learning the more I am convinced that unconventional sources of learning are the best ways to get out of your mind and into the deeper level of skills mandatory for self and group leadership. This blasts open the possibilities which is super exciting and even if you have a tiny molecule of curiousity within you.  It is natural and common-sensible to learn through horses and expand leadership competencies by experiencing a whole different level of communication. Cool...way cool...

On Purpose-On destiny

There was a time when you could show up to work, leave your brain somewhere else and go through the motions. There are still some people who are locked into that time. It just does not work anymore. Key to health and happiness is doing work that makes your heart sing or at least hum. It is not a good thing to see senior professionals retire disillusioned about what the incoming generation hold as values with both groups convinced that it is impossible to communicate to the other yet that is the case in many organizations and is especially critical at the leadership level.

Bridging the gap means letting go of the notion that you have to 'suck it up' , 'it' presumably being your desire to do meaningful work. Change you must or get sick trying to fight off the happiness that is yours for the creating. Making the change demands recognizing the impact on your relationship with others, particularly your #1 life partner or mate. It is easy to forget that if you are not happy in what you are doing, unless you are an actor, it will have an impact on your relationship. The conversation starts with your heart's desire and then moves to sharing what is important to quality of life with your significant other. These are tricky times and made less tricky by being true to your self. All hands on deck to support Please!

Handing Off to Incoming Generations

If there is one thing that ties together all sectors it is the need to address the exit of experience and leadership with the entrance of different values, emerging leadership and more of an intuitive inter-connected take on life. This theme as surfaced repeatedly in conversations over the last two weeks and it crosses sectoral boundaries.

Overall there is an opportunity to explore the belief system held by the generations leaving and the belief system operating in the generations coming in. From the senior generation it sounds like: You have to earn respect; You have to pay your dues; you have to gain experience before you can do certain things. From the emerging generation it sounds like: respect is earned not deserved no matter who you are; I can do anything as well as or better than you. In the health care sector, using strictly anectotal observations there is even a difference between new grads and those who graduated 5 years ago. We can ponder why but the real opportunity lies in taking down the walls of difference and seeing what can be learned from a young community who function and communicate using community networks that span the planet. What if organization's were organized around nodes of purpose and intention rather than hierarchy? One thing for sure, the old structure of authority just won't work for emerging leaders or managers. It simply does not fit. 

Sharkwater

Did you know that sharks were here 150 million years before the dinosaurs and have survived 5 major extinctions? Rob Stewart's film 'Sharkwater' explores the plight of a creature whose reputation has been mailgned by bad publicity and population has been decimated through human demand for soup and other stuff. Without shark will there be man?