Perspective – You create your own experience

Here is some thai wisdom from my Facebook friend, ข้าพเจ้าทองพูน บ้านบางหวาย:

“ถ้าพ่อเล่นบล็อก เย็นนี้กินเกลือ”

“If the father to play blog. This evening to eat salt.”

Internet has given us so much. But there are many distractions. It is quite possible to see a whole (real) life drain down the online plug-hole. I remember catching a fragment of a wife speaking with Dr Phil about her husband who spent his days playing World of Warcraft. The husband explained how the game worked, how you participate in attacks on targets to get weapons and treasure. So Dr Phil asked him to show the audience some of these weapons. Everyone cringed. This family was on the brink of losing everything because he was not working. He was oblivious to their plight.

In his book “Life Strategies” Dr Phil develops this idea.

Accountability may be called in, in one fell swoop. An unguarded word, an act of rage, a judge’s verdict. The future is changed forever as relationships shatter, doors close and our course is taken from our hands. But there is another slower, process in which the coils of accountability quietly constrict as we focus on those compelling distractions.

We create our own experience through choice. With every choice we make comes a consequence. When you choose the behaviour you choose the consequence.  Focus on those things that will truly change your life. Stop blaming those who aren’t responsible for your results.
You are accountable for your life.  NOW! You have always been. You always will be.  This is not a theory, or an offer.  This is a statement of reality.
You can read the full article here.

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Technique – Effective leaders have four qualities

In “Three Rivers of the Amazon”, adventurer Tim Biggs describes a run in with the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas on the Apurimac River in Peru.

Camping on the Apurimac

The kayakers had slipped past the guerrillas unnoticed. But the leader of the rafting team decided to surrender. The kayak team watched as the raft team were led into the forest. The leader of the expedition, Dr François Odendaal, did something heroic. He paddled back up the river to negotiate with the guerrillas. In doing so he illustrated four qualities of leadership. These qualities are proposed by Prof. J Richard Hackman of Harvard University. They are:

  • Know some things
  • Know how to do some things
  • Emotional maturity
  • Courage

Know some things

Some people just know how to get the most from a team. It just comes naturally. Fortunately for the rest of us, we can learn from books and courses. We can learn the importance of a clear, consequential, engaging direction. A team leader can learn what it takes to promote team effectiveness.  François was reasonably fluent in Spanish and had experience of liberation organisations, both of which turned the tide in the negotiation.

Know how to do some things

Knowing the theory is a good start, but not enough.  Leaders must know how to create and maintain the conditions described in the theory.  Specifically leaders must have diagnostic skills and execution skills. They need to see through the noise to pinpoint where to focus their resources and then they need to be able generate action.

Leaders can also develop these skills. But it is a challenge. These skills are developed to a large part through experience. François was able to connect, intensely with the guerrillas, to secure the release of the team.

Emotional maturity

Dealing with a team is emotionally demanding. The leader must deal with the team as well as their own anxieties. The emotionally mature leader is able to inhibit the impulse to assist a team when the struggle will give them learning experience. Leaders may also take actions to temporarily raise anxieties to create opportunities for team learning.

The leader of the rafting team had been undermining his leadership throughout the expedition but François was able to put this aside to focus on the matter at hand which was literally about life and death. During the negotiation François kept his head even as the leader of the rafting team continued to blunder into sensitive subjects which riled the soldiers.

Courage

Leaders have to step up. Leadership involves taking a team from where it is to some other, better situation. Leaders often operate at the margins of what people presently like or want rather than at the centre of the collective consensus. A leader may challenge accepted norms and disrupt established routines, rocking the organisational boat and risking losing the esteem of their peers. Indeed a leader may engender a level of resistance so intense that they place their job at risk.

This takes courage.

There are no courses to teach courage. Everyone on the expedition team knew of other incidents where tourists had been murdered by the guerrillas. François must have known the odds as he paddled back to the captured team.

So what are you doing to develop your leadership qualities?

You can read the article here.

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A small adventure – The tap at Caves Beach in Kogelbaai

Seeing as the technique introduced Tim Biggs, I thought it would be appropriate to share a common experience. Tim is an accomplished artist. A year ago we spent a very pleasant afternoon painting at Kogelbaai.  Here is the work I produced:

This is 280x380mm on Arches 300gm Cold Pressed and you can read about the day here.

BY STEPHEN QUIRKE, ON DECEMBER 12, 2011

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At StrategyWorks we assist leaders and their teams, with those crucial conversations for clarity, decisions, action and outcomes.  These conversations can be frustrating when people are not heard, the team cannot make decisions or the way forward remains vague.  Leaders contact us at StrategyWorks when they are ready to do something different.  In the process those involved in the conversations feel understood and challenged.  At the end of the intervention, the leaders and their teams feel focused and released around a clear plan of action.

Find out more from our website at:www.strategyworks.co.za or better still contact us at the email address: stephen@strategyworks.co.za to arrange a meeting with Stephen.

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© 2011 Stephen Quirke, All rights reserved.  You are free to use material from this Conversaction newsletter in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear.  The attribution should read:  ”By Stephen Quirke of StrategyWorks.  Please visit Stephen’s web site at https://www.strategyworks.co.za/ for more resources on how to hold effective conversations in your organisation.” (Please make sure the link is live if placed in an eZine or in a web site.)

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