Mike Jay, in LO14641,
(Gosh, I remember when we passed 10,000! Whoa, Dude. Good List Rick!)
said:
>The sentence by Conrad ("It is no small task to create the conditions
>that would reignite the innate fires of self-direction in people.")
>kind of grabbed me. There are implications here for leadership which
>are becoming different as we begin to embrace complexity.
and
>I am reminded of the quote by Ben Gaye III that states: "No amount of
>travel down the wrong road will lead to our destination." Within the
>constructs of this statement, we begin to see that leadership and
>learning are a lot more than "taking charge."
Yep. One of the key themes in my approach for the past decade has been
capitalizing on personal resources. It was the prod that got me to sit in
on a whole bunch of NLP training sessions and get involved with some
aspects of the New Age (whooops!) and personal growth movements.
My booklet on Personal Growth and Development, which was stimulated by the
acceptance of a proposal to present on the this at ASTD a couple of years
ago (with 660 people in the room all sharing their personal Squar Wheels,
led me to these concepts:
-- Many of us are holding a Round Wheel while we see ourselves in the
mirror of life as holding Square ones. (Actually, we hold LOTS of round
wheels but I didn't want the metaphor to be overbearing! Lets deal with
one wheel at a time.)
This is because we get so much "constructive criticism" from those around
us, generally focused on weaknesses and difficulties rather than strengths
and possibilities. Combined with negative self-talk, it's tough to make
personal transitions unless we step back from our "engaged, associated
viewpoint" and get some perspective.
"Don't Just DO Something, Stand There."
-- And we're all on personal journeys. The difficulty is that we act like
we're trail blazers, hacking our way through the jungle of life. In
actuality, we're on a road much traveled, with other travelers up ahead
who have already learned many of life lessons. This is the basic
underpinning of mentoring and coaching, I would hope. Modeling. Support.
And it is why many performance appraisals don't work.
Managers, pressed for time, pressed by Personnel to get this appraisal
TASK completed on time, don't take the time or don't have the skills (or
choose not to use them). The quality of feedback is not good.
AND managers are sometimes / often pressed to "normalize" the curve give
that constructive criticism and justify NOT giving raises through the
process.
(Isn't constructive criticism a most wonderful oxymoron?)
So, I think it is useful to "wagon train" and pull and push ahead together
rather than "circle the wagons" and defend a small bit of turf from the
outsiders ("Them" in reference to Top Management).
Leadership and Learning are about engaging and enlisting the support of
the team in the journey forward. This involves open and sincere
communication with a focus on the future rather than a defense of the
past.
So, gang, thanks for the continued dialog -- it's been most interesting,
-- For the FUN of It!Scott Simmerman Performance Management Company 3 Old Oak Drive, Taylors, SC 29687 (USA) 864-292-8700 fax 292-6222 SquareWheels@compuserve.com
visit The Lost Dutchman at http://www.clicknow.com/stagedright/dutchman/
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>