Category: Thought Leaders

The late Dr. Stephen Covey oft advised us that “the main thing is to keep the Main Thing the MAIN THING.” One of the most impactful of my mentors over the years — Gary Harrell — reminded me regularly to remain focused first and foremost on the things of “eternal significance.” 

Calendars fill. Schedules get busy. Urgent overtakes important. “Now” crowds out the consequential. UNLESS…………………..we discipline ourselves to remain steady, to prioritize that which is important, to fashion our day in ways that keep the MAIN THING at the forefront of….

• Our effort.
• Our planning.
• Our attention.
• Our decisions. 
• Our engagements.
• Our conversations.
• Our hiring (or firing).
• Our allocation of resources.

Perfection…… isn’t. Not possible. Can’t get there. Pipe dream. Pure dereliction.

What we can do is get better. Every day. On purpose. 

That better state, however, is not the result of wishing. It happens only when we think carefully about… 

• WHAT we’re doing,
• WHY we’re doing it, and
• HOW we might do it better (if the doing is worthy).

Almost always, that “think carefully” part is done best in teams.

We can start today.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

The wisest leaders I have observed somehow manage to be in their office minimally. Instead, they continually move about the various work spaces of the organization. It’s almost as if they’re allergic to the office.

There is method to that madness, it seems. Some of the benefits of “the boss” going on relentless walkabouts instead of being caged up in the office is that they…

• Interface with a LOT of their internal customers (and even some of the external ones).
• LEARN a great deal about processes, procedures, workflow, customer service, etc.
• Ask questions of the troops, giving all of them “voice,” and listen carefully to the answers.
• Model what authentic engagement looks like.
• Acknowledge and praise good work, in person.
• Get a firsthand view of the bottlenecks and pain points. 

We often refer to the gaining of support as BUY-IN. Too often that phrase is thought of in the past tense, as if it’s already in the books, a done deal, a ship sailed.

Not so. The work of gaining and maintaining BUY-IN is an ongoing process, not an event.

Masters at the craft of garnering BUY-IN consistently engage in the following behaviors. They…

• Start always with the WHY, before getting into the weeds of the WHAT and HOW.
• Assume all voices matter, and should have opportunity to participate.
• Create an environment of equality, in which rank doesn’t matter as consensus is sought.
• Value, invite, and highlight different perspectives. 
• Gather and engage both data and people.
• Understand that contexts are fluid/dynamic, thus structures/processes/decisions must be also. 
• Calendar “re-visitation” conversations for months/years to come. 

We have limited time, limited energy, limited resources, limited bandwidth, and limited attention.

There are a bazillion things and many people (10s? 100s? 1000s?) that compete for our time, energy, resources, bandwidth, and attention.

We get to decide what’s important. Once we do, it’s the important things that deserve our time, energy, resources, bandwidth, and attention. It’s regarding the important stuff that we’re trying to gain traction.

Everything else is…….DIS-traction.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

Some of the smartest people I know play dumb a lot. They steadily pitch questions at us that make us think. Then those crafty characters glean the collective wisdom that comes out of the responses to their powerful questions.

Here are some things I’ve noticed in the questions these Inquiry Gurus put on the table…

• Their question stems frequently come in invitational formats such as “What should we consider as we … ?” and “How might we … ?” 
• They pitch one question at a time, not bundling or daisy-chaining them.
• They keep each question short and compartmentalized.
• They almost never ask a Yes/No question. 
• They almost always end with this one: “What are we missing?”

The teams I have worked with over the years have likely grown weary of hearing this steady admonition from me: “If we can’t model it, we can’t demand it.”

As I think about that declaration — while looking in my own metaphorical mirror — several dimensions of this assertion seem relevant. I cannot demand of others the following if I cannot model it myself…

• Intentional growth and learning.
• Deep commitment to continuous improvement.
• Stretching to engage with “different” and more folks. 
• Habits that foster physical, emotional, intellectual health.
• Seeking to gain a different perspective of intractable problems. 
• Leaning into discomfort and novelty, rather than avoiding it at all risks. 

We sometimes get so busy being productive that we forget to be present.

There is tremendous power in being present, fully present. Here are some of the things that manifest, and are perceived as, presence:

• Non-distracted eye contact.
• Interest in the person, not just the performance of that person.
• Seeking reasons to compliment others (and mean it).
• Asking good questions. 
• Listening deeply to the answers to those questions.
• Putting down (or away) devices when engaging with others.
• Keeping the phone on silent mode.
• Showing up, on time, with homework done.
• Kind words, and a smile.

None of those things cost money, so we don’t have to budget for them or fill out a purchase requisition. Interestingly, productivity often flows nicely as result of our being present. 

Power to the presence perpetrators!!!

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

The best teachers I know follow this recipe:

• Relentlessly craft lessons that cause students to acquire and retain knowledge relevant to the subject matter. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Persistently present students with skill development activities that require usage and habitual application of that knowledge. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Expose students to, and require them to wrestle with, novel situations in which the students must transfer the acquired knowledge and skills to new contexts/problems. Providing ongoing feedback as the students productively grapple and struggle.

• Relentlessly craft lessons that cause students to acquire and retain knowledge relevant to the subject matter. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Persistently present students with skill development activities that require usage and habitual application of that knowledge. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Expose students to, and require them to wrestle with, novel situations in which the students must transfer the acquired knowledge and skills to new contexts/problems. Providing ongoing feedback as the students productively grapple and struggle.