Perspective:

Take up the reins in your life

Please allow me just a little conjecture. The man with a fancy hairdo, leading the horse proudly gestures towards something, perhaps their destination. His less distinct companion (who doesn’t even have legs) sits on the horse. I suppose this left me wondering what was being portrayed and whether the rider was a willing participant in what was going to happen next. Perhaps the picture has been created by the companion to honour the brave, successful, virile man. Who knows? I found the photo as I was looking for different views of people on horses to illustrate the idea of what happens when you take the reins in your own hands to choose your own path.

The  photo was taken by Randy Langstraat and displayed on his Rock Art Photo Blog.  I have asked for his permission to use this and will take it off if it is a problem.

It is possible to make a complete hash of life. There is every possibility that without intent, perseverance and courage you may reach the end of your life with nothing but empty dreams. If you have not been managing your life well you may be aware of important and painful ways in which your life is short of what it should be. Poor life strategies can lead to ongoing set-backs and disappointments that can eventually break your spirit. Or they can end in a single powerful blow from which you don’t recover. Perhaps things you value have been taken away. Perhaps you have lost someone who is important to you. More insidiously, you may not be creating those things which only you, with your unique gifts, can bring into being. Success is not a forgone conclusion. There is work to be done. There are framework decisions to be made. If you are not working a well defined plan, you will be a stepping stone for those who are.

If your life was a business. And you employed a manager to keep it successful.   How earnestly would you contract and manage this person?  Just as you are your own scientist, you are also your own life-manager, monitoring, measuring and controlling and making decisions about how to play the next event.

As manager of your life, how important do you believe your client to be? How well are you doing at this job? Are you ensuring that adequate deposits are being made in the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual accounts of your key client?

Engage your life manager. Now is the time to start. Dump whatever is eating away at your time. Just stop doing it! Resolve to leave it alone. Now is the time to demand more of yourself. Focus on your purpose. Get stuck into your life work. Pick up the next task towards implementing your plan. Start grappling with the details to achieve what you have to do. Wrestle with the work. Resolve not to be turned aside by distractions. Deliver the goods.

Some commitments

A good life manager may require commitments from their client and ACTION!  Some suggestions  have been documented in the blog posting.

How do you measure up?

If people around you cannot observe the difference, you are falling short. Where does your behaviour fall below the bar or excellence? Where do you need to apply some resilience? Do it today. Do it to make yourself a better person.

You can read the full article here.

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Technique

Team Launch

In 1924 Wernher von Braun strapped six rockets to a small wagon and watched in delight as the wagon roared around his street and then exploded.  The local constabulary were less impressed however, and took the twelve year old boy into custody.  And so began an incredible story leading up to July 16, 1969.  On that day the Saturn V rocket designed by von Braun launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39A to begin the historic mission that would land the first men on the moon.

Wernher von Braun, from the NASA website.

The launch of a space mission must be a hard-to-beat experience.  The launch is the pivot around which a space mission unfolds.  It is the moment of truth where the design, planning and preparation come together.  And it is the start of the chain of events that make up the mission, until the crew is safely back on Earth.  Here is a photo from Wikipedia of the Space Shuttle Columbia being launched.  (This was just more exciting than any of the Saturn V photos I could find).

And so it is with teams. In setting up teams, leaders have two important responsibilities: first to design and prepare the best possible team structure, and second, to help members take possession of the structure, and competently launch themselves onto a course they make their own.
The design and preparation phase should deliver a structure, including:

• Team design.
• Team boundaries.
• A team task.
• Roles and responsibilities.
• Agreed norms.
• Agreed processes and infrastructure.

In the second phase, the leader of the team breathes life into the structure during a team launch session.  The first meeting of any team provides a unique opportunity for a leader to have an enduring impact on the way the team works together.  A well executed interaction builds motivation and allows the team to invest themselves in the work to be done.

Project initiation workshops provide the most effective structure for launching teams.  There is a slot at the beginning of each workshop where the leader can deliver a motivating address.

There is an alchemy in launching teams.  A list of names goes out on e-mail and a group gathers.  If the launch is successful, the group becomes a real, bounded social system; a team.

You can read the article here.

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A small adventure

A good start to the year

There is something about finishing well and making a good start. We saw the new year in down at the beach in Betties Bay. Apart from this, the last thing I did in 2011 was to sit on the roof of my bakkie and paint the view at Bass Lake. And the next day I sat on the tailgate, protected from the wind and painted the same scene.

And what is more, I photographed the painting and posted it on my watercolour blog using my android phone which was another early milestone in the year.

You can read the blog posting here.

BY STEPHEN QUIRKE, ON JANUARY 31 2012

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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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© 2012 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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