How Should I Travel?
I think the answer to the question, How should I travel?, is pretty straight forward. We need to travel thoughtfully, carefully, and mindfully. The difficulty is that what seems so simple and straight forward is actually quite hard to do. It requires us to work on two different levels, namely our mindset and our behavioral choices. And we rarely stop and examine both components in our lives.
The movement from an operational and reactionary crisis manager to a strategic leader means that we have to shift our way of thinking. One normal outcome of this shift is that we may need to question some of our fundamental assumptions about people, and the world of organizational change. We also may need to change our priorities, and habits, too.
For example, many people who travel to the edge and seek to be a better strategic leaders often talk with me about the importance of strategic planning and strategic plans. And this is one critical level of work that strategic leaders do. However, many leaders try to create a strategic plan that no one can successfully criticize or undermine. They start from a defensive position during the planning process. They want a document that keeps things under control, orderly, and predictable. This works if we are maintaining status quo.
Nevertheless, there is another pathway based on a different mindset. These kinds of strategic leaders focus on questions more than definitive answers. They try to discover a few strategic questions that no one has thought to ask. Then, upon asking them, they focus on discovering truly original answers to these important questions. The goal is not to create control as much as thoughtful action, careful collaboration, and mindful ownership of the plan and the planning process.
But, in the beginning, this starts with an understanding that “we only increase self-knowledge in the process of making changes,” writes Hermina Ibarra in her book, Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015). As Richard Pascale further explains, “Adults are more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.” Ibarra builds on this perspective noting, “When challenged to think beyond their functional speciality and to concern themselves with strategic issues to support the overall business, many managers do not immediately grasp that these are also relational - not just analytical - tasks.”
So, when we travel to the edge and seek to learn along the way, we need to understand that we will be changing the way we think about our work, the way we actually do our work, and expanding our network of relationships to actually do the work. Thus, the choice to travel thoughtfully, carefully, and mindfully is an elegant and challenging choice, all at the same time.
The Center And The Edge Are Connected
Having spent a career visiting with numerous leaders who have packed their bags and gone to the edge of their understanding, I have learned one important thing, namely that the center and the edge are connected. This is because at the center of successful company is the mission, vision and core values, which offers stability and continuity to the progress and continual innovation that is taking place at the edge. Each, the center and the edge, need the other to be successful. Without stewardship of the center, or as some like to call it the core, the capacity to innovate is diminished by lack of clarity about what should not change and what can be changed. Innovation without stewardship also has the danger of resulting in strategic and operational misalignments at the cultural or systems levels.
Furthermore, leaders who move to the edge in order to become more strategic need to recognize that endings and new beginnings are interconnected. The best leaders understand that every new beginning, i.e. innovation, starts with an ending. As William Bridges in his book, Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, (Perseuss Books, 1991), wrote, “Transition is different. The starting point for transition is not the outcome but the ending that you will have to make to leave the old situation behind….”. When we focus on endings, which often included letting go of old ways of working, identity and role clarity plus the subsequents losses and grief that comes with this, it is always good to know what is and what is not changing. This will help us as leaders to show how the endings ensure there is continuity of what really matters, and help all involved remember the importance of the original mission of the company.
The center and the edge need to be connected and in successful companies, they are connected. Through sharing of information, involvement, and, at times, intervention to correct misalignments, we generate the capacity of more people to utilize their strengths and talents, plus imagination and innovation, to better serve the customer. In short, by having a holistic understanding of this critical idea, an individual can move from a reactionary, crisis oriented form of operational leadership, and, slowly over time, become a better strategic and operational leader.
Be Open To Transformation
As we wrapped up our dinner together and finished off the bottle of very nice wine, I paused and said to him, “If you pack your bag and go to the edge to learn and understand more things about the company, strategy, and your self, you need to be open to being transformed.”
He looked and me and replied, “Really?”
“Yes. Transformation is critical to your success. Let me explain. The word transformation is an interesting word. The word is made up of three words - trans-form-ation. The last part references “action". The first part references “going beyond”. And there in the middle is the word form. So, in essence, transformation is the action of going beyond the present form.
And when we create a new form, we have endings and new beginnings all taking place at the same time. We are caught between what was, the old form, and what will be, the new form. However, when we go beyond the current form, we can carry certain things with us that are essential and truthful. The key is to find them, steward them, and recognize that they are the seeds, for lack of a better metaphor, for this new beginning, this transformation.
So, the journey of transformation is big work. You will be doing it, hour by hour, and day by day. As Father Richard Rohr reminds us, “Transformed people transform people.” And that is all part of the journey when we pack our bag and go to the edge.”
He smiled, and nodded his head. We paid the bill and headed toward the parking lot. He stopped once we were outside, and then turned and hugged me. “Thanks. I needed that, Geery. I needed to see more clearly the path before me.”
I smiled and replied, “That’s why we visit.”
As he turned toward his car, I heard him say to himself, “Transformation. Really? That’s ought be interesting.”
I smiled, nodded my head, and said, “It will be an amazing adventure. Happy packing!”
He gave me a thumbs up as he got in his car and headed out.
And as I got in my car, I thought to myself, “Exploring the edge of our faith and our understanding is always a transformational experience.”
© Geery Howe 2024
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