Self-Directed

When it comes to getting better, either as individuals or as organizations, most of us understand that there is an element of learning involved.  

Ideally, it looks something like this:

1. We clarify what we want to accomplish, specify where it is we want to go
2. We reflect on what we know or how we performed
3. We assess whether or not we've met our expectations accordingly
4. We put a plan in place to either improve on the performance or correct underperformance
5. We act on that plan (not put it in a three-ring binder and store it on a shelf)
6. Back to Step 1 - regularly, frequently, habitually, intentionally

One word seems to capture this whole process nicely - LEARNING!

The best learning is self-directed and intrinsically motivated.  Words we often equate with learning, such as "training," "workshops," "classes," "professional development," "in-service," etc. imply that learning is something that others do to us or do for us.  It's almost as if we abdicate the responsibility for our learning to someone else, as if we're at the mercy of others to affect OUR learning.  

Nope! 

Getting better, every day, on purpose, best occurs when WE initiate and engage our learning in a self-directed manner, not waiting for someone else to do it to us or for us.

Learn on!

Forecasting

The best organizational leaders I know are excellent forecasters.  

Just like the best weather forecasters, these wise leaders run models (in their minds, with their teams, across their networks) of the possible outcomes of a particular event/initiative/election/scenario/conversation.

Just like the best weather forecasters, these wise leaders know that, when the dust settles, only ONE of the possible scenarios will have played out (even though hundreds of potentialities might have been considered).

Just like the best weather forecasters, these wise leaders know that shifting conditions can change the outcome potentialities in a matter of minutes, completely undoing and/or negating previous anticipations (and any commensurate contingencies put in place).

Just like the best weather forecasters, these wise leaders know that the ultimate outcomes are NOT within their control.  Mother Nature always bats last.

Just like the best efforts in weather forecasting, these wise leaders know that, at the end of the day, they could be proven wrong.  Or right.  Neither seems to matter that much because the attention of the public/organization shifts quickly to the next storm on the horizon.

Why, then, invest the effort, time, and thinking into anticipating futures?  With weather forecasting, it's a matter of safety, risk management, and saving lives.  In short, stewardship.  Same goes for the motivations behind such forecasting by organizational leaders (though hopefully not so much about saving lives).  

For leaders there is the added element of organizational stability and stewardship.  The wisest leaders invest time in those forecasting and contingency planning activities because it's the right thing to do, for the team.

Messiness

Getting better ain't easy.  It almost always means adjusting our habits (either adopting new ones or abandoning old ones).

Getting better as an individual is hard, really hard.  

Getting better as a small team is harder, really harder.

Getting better as an entire organization is harderer, REALLY harderer.

Why?  With each added person, the complexities of getting better get messier.  It means adjusting personal and organizational habits.  Layered, nested, intertwined, tangled habits.

The high cost of avoiding the messy business of getting better is ... that we DON'T.

PreciousFew

Precious few people we encounter in life seem fully, completely, and exclusively committed to loving their family and friends, unconditionally.

Precious few people we encounter in life seem perfectly happy living their lives "locally," without fanfare, without bombast, without the need to be elsewhere, to do something else, to own what they don't, to hobnob with the someone different.

Precious few people we encounter in life seem better at listening than they are talking, better at observing than they are at being observed, better at laughing than they are at growling, better at serving than they are being served.

Precious few people we encounter in life seem so perfectly comfortable in their skin that they make the rest of us feel a little more comfortable in our own.

Precious few people we encounter in life seem so trustworthy that we would allow them to help raise our own children - teaching them, guiding them, comforting them, feeding them, loving them.

Joan P was all of those.  Our family was and continues to be blessed by her presence in our lives.  

RIP Joan.

UnforgivableSin

NO!  I'm not gonna talk about religion.  However, I am gonna rob a phrase that cropped up in my early days of religious education - "the unforgivable sin" - to make a point.

Let's talk about getting better, every day, on purpose - the process of continuous improvement.

We ALL have flaws, weaknesses, points of vulnerability.  Those weak spots could be in areas of our physical health and wellbeing, they could be in areas of our intellectual/cognitive health and wellbeing, or they could be in areas of our emotional/spiritual health and wellbeing.  Most of us, in fact, have some limitations in all those areas.

And, most of us will go to our grave with weaknesses that still need our attention and remediation.  

So, if we've all got 'em, what's the sin in that?

When we decide that getting better, doing better, learning more is not worth the time or trouble, we have chosen to give up, to not care.  In effect, we've made the choice to begin circling the drain.

Unforgivable.

GrowthRipples

Our personal or organizational growth, real growth, always causes some ripples.  

Just as a pebble (or boulder) is dropped into a body of water causes ripples outward, so does our learning and development (whether as an individual or as a team).  Authentic learning always has derivative impact beyond ourselves. 

Some observations about the rippling effects of learning/growth:

• Ripples are, in effect, disturbances to the calm surface of the water.  So, too, does our new growth disturb the status quo.  If it doesn't, it probably does not qualify as real growth.
• Incremental growth (the pebble) causes small ripples.  
• Significant and consequential growth (the boulder) causes much larger disturbances.
• Learning in and with teams almost always accelerates the growth experience, and thus the ripple effects.  
• Lack of growth/learning preserves the precious calm, a state also known as stagnation.

How's the learning/growing/rippling going with you?  Your team?

PencilWhipping

The phrase "pencil whipping" is old expression often used in discussing fancy footwork when it comes to accounting practices.  It can also apply to a lot of organizational behaviors meant to create falsified or questionable data.  

Fundamentally, it's the egregious practice of the let's-don't-but-say-we-did syndrome.  Huh?  Examples, you ask?  Here goes:

• Keeping sign-in sheets for staff each morning to provide proof that everyone showed up on time.
• Tying commissions to new sales only, thus incentivizing sales staff to chase new customers and disregard old (and faithful) ones.
• Crafting survey questions in such a way that they only provide the data responses that can be portrayed as favorable.
• Posting a sign on the inside of the door of your public restroom to prove it's cleanliness, though any casual observance will clearly reveal otherwise. 
• Developing padded up budgets with innocuous sounding line items to hide expenditure plans.

You get the idea.  The list could go on and on.  Those of us who have worked in organizations of any size could continue to add to this list of absurdities that serve as falsifiers of reality.

To what end?  Such acts and initiatives never serve the organization, or its membership, well.

TRUTH is a fundamental metric of health, whether personal or organizational.  Denial, or outright deceit, are symptoms of deep-seated dysfunction or illness.

Our habits, our behaviors, belie our intentions.  Always.