Tag Archives: thoughts

Pieces of Perfection

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Christmas Tree

I have a collection of porcelain Christmas ornaments that I have had for a number of years. They were all gifts that highlighted important moments in my life. Each year, I would carefully place them on our tree, making sure they were secure on the branch. And then one year, one of them fell, bouncing from branch to branch in a seemingly slow motion journey to the floor. After the initial pain of seeing something I held dear in pieces on the floor, I had a decision to make. Throw away the broken ornament and maybe look for a replacement, or try to glue the figurine back together as best I could, knowing it would never be the same?

As I pulled the scarred ornament out of its box this year, and positioned it on the tree so the unrepairable hole in the back was less obvious, I recognized that while it was less perfect than the other ornaments in the collection, it never fails to make me smile. As leaders, in our quest to have everything run perfectly, we can lose sight of the fact that sometimes the most imperfect part of our work can actually have the most meaning. That is where our effort can have the biggest impact.

Maybe your challenge isn’t gluing together broken pieces. It could be deciding whether to replace a fading ornament with something new, or taking a big risk to totally turn the tree upside down without knowing for sure how it will turn out. Too often, we unnecessarily set ourselves up to fail by making perfection the goal . . . in all things . . . at all times. Perhaps the best way to find fulfillment as a leader is to instead look for pieces of perfection . . . which may, in fact, be quite different than what you originally envisioned. It could be

. . . Improvising with Plan B when Plan A fell apart, and having it surpass all expectations

. . .Thinking you could never replace a key player who walked away, only to have an even better fit step to the table.

. . . Falling short on the original goals of a project, but making a connection that led to even bigger opportunities.

Pieces of perfection come into view when we let go of some preordained picture of what success is supposed to look like. Not to lower the bar on the impact you are trying to have, simply to recognize that there may be any number of ways to get there.

My Christmas tree is filled with mismatched ornaments, tarnished ones, and aging grade school creations that make my sons cringe . . . all hanging along side shiny new additions, and of course my porcelain figurines. I’m certain a designer would not call it a perfect tree. I’m equally sure that it is filled with meaning . . . and pieces of perfection.

 

Big Yellow Hats

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bigstock-Yellow-Rain-Hat-815670.jpg

When my (now 31-year-old) nephew was young, he loved Curious George. If you know the story, through the many circumstances in which “George was curious,” the man with the big yellow hat encouraged him to explore, but was always there to keep him from going too far afield. George learned a great deal because the man with the big yellow hat allowed him the freedom to try new things.

Are you a “big yellow hat” leader? Do you encourage your staff to ask why, experiment, test theories and take risks, even when you know that sometimes they will stub their toes? According to a new report from The Bridgespan Group two of the core components in building a capacity for innovation within your organization are a curious culture, and catalytic leadership.

George was allowed to live in a curious culture. He took risks, and when he “failed” it became a lesson-filled learning opportunity. For the skeptics out there who are thinking your organization isn’t a cartoon and you can’t afford to have your staff play around, I would respond that, yes, there are risks that come with innovating. There are also costs associated with always coloring within the lines drawn by others. Just recognize that if you want your staff to identify creative approaches to the challenges before them, you have to let them explore a bit and ask “what if.” You have to let them be curious.

And what, exactly, is catalytic leadership? Merriam-Webster defines a catalyst as “an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action. Catalytic leadership provides the push needed to get the ball rolling in a specific, focused direction. The man in the big yellow hat always identified where they were going or what they were going to do, he simply allowed George the freedom to be curious along the way. Catalytic leadership isn’t about letting staff focus their energies in twelve different directions. It is about articulating a vision and priorities, and then letting your people grapple and experiment with the best way to get there. It is about mentoring and encouraging collaboration and hands-on learning. It is about allowing your staff to find a path forward.

Being a big yellow hat leader takes patience and the ability to embrace ambiguity. It requires a recognition that progress rarely happens in straight lines or amid a tangle of rules, and that one rarely knows the route to the end of the journey when standing at the beginning of it. It requires a clear vision of the destination and the ability to inspire others and serve as a role-model for embracing possibilities.

How exactly does one become a big yellow hat leader? The first step . . . is to be curious.

Can You Hear Me Now?

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can-you-hear-me-now

One of the real challenges of leading, especially in today’s fast-paced 24/7 environment, is taking the time to “hear yourself think.” We listen to others, we read up on the latest trends, we review the numbers . . . we take in all kinds of data every day. And while understanding the data is important, it’s not enough. It is the layering of that information among and through our experience and context and perspective that yields the transformative ideas or innovative solutions. And to do that, you have to turn down the volume on everything else.

The trouble is, our picture of an effective leader rarely involves turning down the volume. It’s being available, and responding, and tackling the to do list … being productive! It’s similar to how some people can’t relax at home because they always see three more things that need to be done. To really relax, they have to be somewhere else. For me, to “turn down the volume,” I have to leave the office. Luckily (?) for me, our organization is located on the far edge of the state, so any statewide meetings I attend usually requires hours of travel time. No stacks to tend to, no interruptions, no meetings, usually not even a radio … Just me and the symphony of thoughts and ideas going on in my head.

Granted, a peaceful walk in the woods or relaxing next to a cracking fire might be a preferable way to listen to and sort through my thoughts, but hey, you take the breathing room wherever you can get it! Trust me, it’s worth the effort when the synapses start firing. Taking the time to sort through the tangle of “what ifs” in your head can reveal promising solutions that were sitting there all along, just waiting for you to come visit. But the ideas aren’t going to shout above the urgent crises of the day, and you can’t simply schedule 15 minutes for deep thinking (at least that’s never worked for me!) Nope, you have to intentionally carve out chunks of time … whether that’s on planes, trains and automobiles or, for the more disciplined among us, in a creative environment of your choosing.

The great ideas are in there, and if you slow down long enough to listen, you can almost hear them shouting, “Can you hear me now?” Maybe it’s time to listen up.