Be Who You Are

As we move further and further into a post pandemic world where fundamental shifts continue to impact how we work and live, I believe we encounter a unique choice. We can seek to re-create the world as we knew it before the pandemic, or we can move forward into this unknown period and create a new way of living and working. The difficulty is that if we choose to move forward, we have to confront our fear of the unknown, and our fear of the dynamic and on-going changes that come with it. 

One of our first steps when confronting our fear of the unknown is to be kind to ourself, and to choose to be who we are even if we know we are imperfect and flawed. Life comes with great joys and great suffering. All of us, on any given day, are doing the best we can with the resources and tools that we have. Some days this is incredible and some days we struggle mightily. But which ever day it ends up being, being kind and respectful is a good choice. 

Next, when we choose to the hold the quiet, and to build connections with others on multiple levels, the outcome is powerful, namely a sense of belonging. As Brene’ Brown in her book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (Random House, 2021), reminds us: “True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belong doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”

And in the end, that is the challenge for all of us who choose the path of regenerative leadership in a post pandemic world. We do not need to change who we are to fit in. Instead, we need to embrace who we are. We need to be who we are so we can connect and belong to ourself and others. We need to create “life-affirming conditions.” We also need to lead, and we need to maintain our integrity in the process. For when we do this in conjunction with others, we create work that matters, and a life that matters. In short, we create opportunities for everyone to work with us in meaningful and healthy ways so we all can move forward together. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Welcome The Stranger

Many years ago, I was walking through the pedestrian mall in downtown Iowa City, Iowa when my sixth sense registered that I was being followed. It had been a busy fall of travel, teaching, consulting, and coaching. I had been in big cities and small towns. I had spoken at conferences, corporate meetings, and even a few high schools. On this particular day, I had finished meeting with a client and their team, and was heading off to run a quick errand before going to the parking ramp to get my car. 

Realizing that I was being followed, I stopped in front of a big glass window and looked at the reflection of the person who was following me. They were dressed in black clothes, spiked hair, baggy pants and a heavy looking coat. I was very uncomfortable if not afraid. I thought I was about to be mugged. 

So, I took about 10 fast steps and then whirled around to confront the person who was following me. “Now, what are we doing here?”, I said in a loud and very assertive tone of voice.

The young man was slightly startled by my actions and replied, “It’s you. I thought it was you, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Yes, it’s me,” I stated.

“You’re Geery Howe.”

“Yes, I am.”, I replied with a softer tone. 

“Wow,” he said. “I heard you speak at my high school a while back. I just wanted to thank-you in person for what you said. I liked it. Very cool.”

“Thanks.”

“Have a good day, Geery,” he said as he started to walk away. “And keep up the good work.”

“Thanks. I will,” I replied. 

I just stood there for a couple of moments and let what just happened sink in. Here was someone who showed me elegant kindness and appreciation in the midst of my rushed and busy day. Here was someone who choose to reach out and make a connection. Here was someone whose actions humbled me and encouraged me to keep moving forward. Here was someone who cared enough to say thank-you. And as a result, my life was better because they had done this small act of generosity. 

When we seek to build a shared and adaptive mindset across an organization, I believe we need to create time and space, i.e. structured unstructured time, to share our stories and our experiences. Instead of focusing on our polarizing arguments and our reasons for why the other person is wrong, we need to welcome each other into this shared space. Then, we need to learn from each other and hear each other’s stories. And as a result over time, we will discover where we have common ground and where we can build bridges and met in the middle. But the first step in the journey is to welcome the stranger and to be present to what they say. As I learned one fall day on the pedestrian mall in Iowa City, Iowa, what they have to share can be humbling, transformative, and life changing. 

FYI: To be continued on Thursday. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Communicate Intent

“As a leader you must take actions to build a plan,” writes Admiral William H. McRaven (U.S. Navy Retired), “communicate its intent, inspect its progress, hold people (and yourself) accountable. Together, qualities and actions are the building blocks of great leaders.”

For this to happen, we, as leaders, must be humble, respectful, and do the right things for all involved. We need to plan our work, and then to work our plan. However, the challenge is to communicate its intent in such a manner that all understand it. 

Jim Mattis, retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general and former U.S. secretary of defense (2017-2019) and Bing West in their book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning To Lead (Random House, 2019), write, “I was taught to use the concept of “command and feedback.” You don’t control your subordinate commanders’ every move; you clearly state your intent and unleash their initiative.” Mattis taught his direct reports to say, “Sir, here’s the issue. What’s your intent?” And then, he could state his intent or the plan’s intent so that all involved could move forward accordingly. 

I believe the difficulty of the post global pandemic period is that we have plans in place and we are creating new plans. We also are inspect our progress and are holding people accountable for getting things done. But, I do not think people are clear on intent. I think people just have hope that it will all work out. 

Nevertheless, as the late football coach Vince Lombardi noted: “Hope is not a strategy.” It also is not an intent. Clarity and action are interrelated. When we understand intent, we grasp at a deeper level something that Taylor Swift said: “Just because you made a good plan does not mean that’s what’s gonna happen.” With clarity of intent, we can overcome normal obstacles and difficulties, especially when we find ourself in the trough of chaos. We can be prepared and plan accordingly as long as we can clearly communicate our intent. And when this happens, others will notice and choose to partner with us through thick and thin. 

FYI: To be continued on Wednesday. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Focus On The Essential

One of the problems we are encountering as leaders at this time period is that the global pandemic has shifted homeostasis within the work world and the communities within which we serve. For example, before the pandemic, the notion of virtual meetings and 100% remote work was rarely considered a viable way of doing business. During the pandemic, these were functional solutions and considered acceptable business practice. Before the pandemic, we routinely traveled for business and considered face to face meetings to be the only way to conduct serious negotiations. During and after the pandemic, business travel has declined in order to save money and time. A virtual meeting is now seen as acceptable. In short, normal, pre-pandemic ways of working are being questioned on a regular basis. Homeostasis has shifted at work and at home. 

In the body, homeostasis is a state of balance between systems that allows the body to survive and function correctly. For example, our body temperature hovers around 98.6 degrees. This is maintained by a series of control mechanisms functioning at the organ, tissue, and cellular level. The result of homeostasis is that it creates optimal conditions for cellular function. In simple terms, homeostasis creates a relatively stable equilibrium. 

In the pre-pandemic world of work, most systems and processes in place created a relatively stable equilibrium, too. Through regular inputs, these systems and processes generated consistent outcomes that could be measured and quantified. However, during the pandemic, this level of stability shifted in a dramatic fashion. 

Ron Heifetz, Alexander Glasgow, and Marty Linsky in their article called “Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis” from the July-August 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review write that during a crisis there are two distinct phases, namely the emergency phase and the adaptive phase. The former focuses on staying operational while in the later a leader “must adapt what and how things get done in order to thrive in tomorrow’s world.” As Heifetz, Glasgow and Linsky note, “As you consider eliminating practices that seem ill suited to a changing environment, you must distinguish the essential from the expendable. What is so precious and central to an organization’s identity and capacity that it must be preserved?” The goal during the pandemic was to tackle the current crisis and, at the exact same time, to build adaptability and thrive in tomorrow’s world. 

Now that we are in a post pandemic period, i.e tomorrow’s world, we must continue to focus on adaptability. However, this time we don’t need to approach it as a crisis and focus on fast and functional solutions. Instead, we need to focus on building a shared mind set and an agreed to set of essential behaviors. Jon Katzenbach, Ilona Steffen and Caroline Kronley in their article called “Cultural Change That Sticks” in the August 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review present a fascinating set of questions: “If we had the kind of culture we aspired to, in pursuit of the strategy we have chosen, what kind of new behaviors would be common? And what ingrained behaviors would be gone?” I would modify these two questions for this post pandemic in the following manner: If we had the kind of shared adaptive mindset we aspired to, in pursuit of the strategy we have chosen, what kind of new thinking and behaviors would be common? And what ingrained thinking and behaviors would be gone? These two sets of questions, the former and my modified version, would also be wonderful to explore during some structured unstructured time periods with a team. 

As we examine this change in homeostasis, I think we need to remember that micro-shifts in thinking and behaving are the pathway to improved outcomes over time. While rapid innovation or change is possible, it often does not have the infrastructure to support it. When challenged, status quo and/or equilibrium will always be assertive and the default within any group or organization. Nevertheless, the best leaders play the long game of change and focus on essential micro-shifts and steady progress, recognizing that as they do this they are building on the strengths of all involved as well as generating a new way of working and thinking. Progress over perfection always makes a difference in times of dynamic change and when homeostasis has shifted. 

FYI: To be continued on Tuesday. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Value Structured Unstructured Time

The faster we go and the busier things get the more we need to slow down. Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao in their book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting To More Without Settling For Less (Crown Business, 2014), write “Slow down to scale faster - and better - down the road.” On one level, this makes total sense. On the other hand, most leaders haven’t a clue about how to do this. Their addiction to speed and acceleration has overwhelmed their capacity to slow down. Thus, they believe the only solution is to go faster. The problem is that going faster only makes things worse over time. 

If we seek to build an adaptive and shared mindset, then we must recognize the value of structured unstructured time. Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen in their article called, “The Secrets of Great Teamwork” in the June 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review, write “… promote shared understanding through a practice called “structured unstructured time” - that is, time blocked off in the schedule to talk about matters not directly related to the task at hand.”

Many leaders I have worked with over the years have shared with me privately that they do not know what to do with themselves and others during structured unstructured time. It makes them feel uncomfortable. They also feel it is a great waste of company time.

When I encounter this line of thinking, I remind these leaders and executives that successful organizational change is the sum of two things, namely personal change and the change of relationships within the company. When people change their perspective and understanding, it is the result of a great deal of thinking, reflection, and the development of new perspectives and understandings.  Furthermore, when they change the health and dynamics of their relationships with others, this also takes time, energy, and space. Thus, structured unstructured time is a force multiplier, i.e. it gives us the capacity to create better outcomes with our limited resources of time and energy. And that is a powerful choice during this post pandemic time period.  

Recognizing this insight, many leaders and executives will share privately: “I get this. That makes sense. But what do I actually do if I were to give myself permission to slow down? And what would I do with my team? The idea of taking time for reflection seems so nebulous? It just feels like navel gazing, and I am an action oriented person.”

“First, we need to realize that creating time and space is not inaction,” I respond. I then point to the writing of John Paul Lederach in his book, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul Of Building Peace (Oxford University Press, 2005). As Lederach writes, “The paradox is this: Stillness is not inactivity. It is the presence of disciplined activity without movement….It is that platform that generates authenticity of engagement, for it is the stage that makes true listening and seeing possible.” 

Second, I explain that choosing to pause and reflects is powerful. Admiral William McRaven (U.S. Navy Retired and former Commander of all U.S. Special Operations Forces) in his book, The Wisdom Of The Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy) (Grand Central, 2023), explains that those who dare win, but that this needs to be backed up by those who are willing to plan and prepare. As he writes, “It was only through extensive planning and preparation that the special operations leaders were able to identify the major risk factors and develop options for addressing them. To those on the outside looking in, the risks appeared great. However, to those on the inside, the risks were manageable.” And the first step to extensive planning and preparation is to create time and space to reflect, think, and share at both the individual and group levels. 

For those who struggle about what to do with their team during structured unstructured time, I often recommend that they explore the following six critical questions proposed by Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business (Jossey-Bass, 2012). They are the following: “Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How will we succeed? What is most important, right now? Who must do what?” It is always good to review questions of this nature because it helps us all get on the same page about what we are doing and what is most important as we do it.

I would also add one of my own favorite questions to this mix, namely” What should not change as the company changes?”. Having led many company retreats over the course of 35+ years, this question has generate amazing discussions, great sharing, and important levels of clarity. Because when we commitment to creating and then give ourselves permission to participate in structured unstructured time, we are building relationships and clarity, which is at the heart of a shared adaptive mindset. 

FYI: To be continued on Monday. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Build Line of Sight

All of the senior and middle level managers were gathered together for a day long training on the subject of leadership and organizational change. After a productive morning of learning and sharing in large and small groups, I talked with the group about how operational priorities need to be in alignment with strategic goals. People looked puzzled by this idea and were struggling to comprehend it. So, I choose a person in the front row and asked them to tell me what their top 3 goals and/or priorities were for the next six months. 

The person paused for a moment and then shared them in a concise and straight forward manner. I then asked them who their supervisor was. They pointed to another person across the room.  

Next, I asked this new person what were their top 3 goals and/or priorities were for the next six months. Again, this individual gave me their answer. And when I asked who their supervisor was, they pointed to another person in the room. I repeated this line of inquiry one more time and when that individual was asked who their supervisor was, they pointed to the CEO. 

When I turned to the CEO, he was deep in thought. I did not ask my question, and the room was silent for a bit. Then, he stood up and stated his top 3 goals and/or priorities for the next six months, and explained how each one was directly connected to the company’s current three year strategic plan. 

Everyone listened attentively as he paused one more time. Then, he spoke again, saying, “I have realized something. The goals of the first person to speak are not at all connected to the goals of their supervisor. And this has continued all the way up to my direct report who shared just a moment ago. We are not in alignment. That explains why so many things are happening right now.”

I smiled and nodded in agreement. “Your key middle managers who are gathered here together with your senior team do not have line of sight from their goals and priorities to your current strategic plan,” I explained. “For example, the first goal you shared with the group was about quality. You explained to us that given current events and the attention being paid to this subject by the funders of your non-profit services, low quality would cause there to be a reduction of referrals for service, and this could result, over time, in a downward spiral when it comes to fiscal management. However, not one person who shared their goals with the group talked about quality or its importance. 

So, what we have here is a line of sight problem. Your middle managers can not connect what they are doing on a day to day basis to the current strategic plan.   However, everything you are focused on has a direct connection to the plan. When there is no line of sight from operations to strategy, alignment issues always follow.”

He listened carefully to what I said and nodded once. Then, he turned to the group and spoke. “I get it. We have some work to do this afternoon and during the coming weeks. First, we are going to hold a 45 minute senior management team meeting right here and right now. I want to review with all of you on the senior team your goals as individuals and our goals as a team for the next 6 months to a year. I need all middle managers to hear this conversation and to understand what are those goals and why they are our goals. Then in the next 48 hours after this training, I want all senior managers to gather with their direct reports and hold a similar meeting to make sure there is clarity and line of sight from their goals and priorities to the strategic plan. This action will be repeated with all teams down to the front line people so that within one week to 10 days, everyone in the company knows about line of sight and what is most important. Are you OK with this happening right here and right now, Geery?”

I smiled and said, “Yes. When lighting strikes and clarity happens, there is nothing better than translating it into action. Go for it!”

The next hour was highly productive and very important. In subsequent years, this discussion about alignment and line of sight was referenced as a major turning point in the history of the company. People got it and made sure it was not a one time event, but, instead, a routine exercise. 

A year later, in a follow up training, I repeated this same exercise with different people. The new answers were spot on. There was line of sight at every level. And when it came to the subject of quality, the key performance indicators showed an improving trend line. Even referrals by a variety of case managers were on the rise. The CEO smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I nodded in agreement. 

There are many ways to create a shared perspective or mindset across an entire company. The first step is for people to understand how their day to day work contributes to the mission of the company and the strategy of the company. When people realize their work matters and when they feel valued for the work they are doing on a daily basis, then a shared understanding is created. And as a result, people feel empowered to move forward even in the face of daunting circumstances and difficult challenges. 

FYI: To be continued on Friday. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Create Shared Language

As an executive coach, I have visited with people for over 35+ years. I have listened to hard times, complicated times, and complex times. I have listened to many problems and struggles as people think through what is before them. 

The challenge with listening is to be present rather than just to be quiet. We live in a distracted and noisy society. Our phones, tablets, and computers often rule our lives and demand our attention. Yet, in the midst of all of this noise and distraction, there are good people seeking realistic answers to complex questions.

When you listen for a living, you learn that words matter. When I taught the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, a year long course on leadership and organizational change, I would tell my students that speaking was a powerful action. As Krista Tippett wrote in her book, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (Penguin Press, 2016): “I take it as an elemental truth of life that words matter. This is so plain that we can ignore it a thousand times a day. The words we use shape how we understand ourselves, how we interpret the world, how we treat others. From Genesis to the aboriginal songlines of Australia, human beings have forever perceived that naming brings the essence of things into being. The ancient rabbis understood books, texts, the very letters of certain words as living, breathing entities. Words make worlds.”

For me, this is a profound truth. In the world of leadership and organizational change, words do make worlds. And as we move into this time period after a long global pandemic, I think we need to remember that words matter. In particular, they can shape understanding and create clarity, or they can fragment and polarize people. When we take the time to build a shared language, we can create a shared adaptive mindset, which will result in a common perspective and understanding. This is particularly important, because a problem called Shifting Baseline Syndrome is surfacing in more and more workplaces.

Shifting Baseline Syndrome was discovered two decades ago in the fisheries industry, as noted by David Attenborough, in his book, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and A Vision for the Future (Ebury Publishing, 2020). As he explains, over time, knowledge is lost about the state of the natural world, because people don’t perceive changes that are actually taking place within it. This is perpetuated when each new generation perceives the environmental conditions in which they grew up as “normal”. This also describes how people’s standards for acceptable environmental conditions are steadily declining.

When we translate this concept into the business world, we realize that each new generation defines normal by what it experiences while not knowing what normal once was. Furthermore, each new generation perceives the work environment in which they grew up in as “normal.” This also describes how people’s standards for acceptable work conditions are steadily declining or changing over time. With an incremental lowering of standards or a redefining of standards and expectations, each new generation that enters the workforce lacks the knowledge of the history or previous conditions within which people worked. 

For example, a word or concept may mean one thing to one generation in the work force and mean something completely different to a different generation, e.g. think about the differences in perspective about work-life balance between a Baby Boomer and a Gen Z person. By choosing to create a shared language, which results in a shared understanding and thus a resilient company culture, we are preventing a downward shift in the cultural baseline of the company. Instead, we are building a common foundation that transcends time and place. 

FYI: To be continued on Thursday. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257