"If you're in a bad situation, don't worry, it'll change. If you're in a good situation, don't worry, it'll change."
-- John A. Simone Jr.
Sustainable Performance Reviews
On the thread of performance reviews, it occurred to me that one key area in which sustainability is often not embedded in the organization is in the performance review.
Think about it, if your performance review is the demotivating debacle described in my previous post, in terms of valuing and respecting resources it is a barrier to building a sustainable organization. The workforce and even the executives are trapped in a Dilbert like world of double entendre, undiscussable issues and tragicomedy. This is the waste generating opposite of generating value, developing capacity for innovation & implementation and building resilience & responsiveness-let alone holding a space for people to be whole and develop presence.
So…what would sustainable performance reviews look like? In my thinking they would:
- Inquire into the health of the employee. How are you doing in this organization? How is your manager / the organization doing for you? What do you do to take care of your self? How could your manager / the organization take better care of you?
- Have a clearly designed, defined and operable approach to sustainability. This should be done in a way that engages “the whole system” of internal and external stakeholders to help the organization and leaders see what needs to be done, who needs to do it and what competencies and capacities are necessary to make it happen at all levels of the organization.
- Make the employee a partner in sustaining the organization. What are you doing to sustain and grow this organization? How well is this organization helping you sustain your self and your family? What would it take for you and us to flourish?
- Set targets and goals that blend the following:
- The corporate bottom line and the necessary efficiency and effectiveness to support it.
- The employees needs and the necessary work/support, achievement, recognition & development to achieve it.
- The values and principles that will allow both bottom lines to co-exist and grow.
- The needs of other internal and external stakeholders that either affect the above or are affected by the above.
- Make goal/target setting and performance reviews something to look forward to. What would an engaging, appreciative, empowering and uplifting review look and feel like? Ask your self. Ask your friends. Ask your team. Ask your subordinates. Ask your mentors and leaders.
- Be the change you all want to see.
Tags: be the change, capacity, Dilbert, generate value, goal setting, implementation, innovation, performance review, presence, resilience, responsiveness, sustainability, sustainable leadership
Sustainable Leadership: Resilience and Responsiveness
「勝って兜の緒を締めよ」(katte kabuto no o wo shime yo)
When you win, it’s time to tighten your helmet straps. So goes a proverb from the samurai. It relates to the practice of 残心 (zanshin), lingering awareness. After overcoming an opponent, one still remains alert, attuned and ready for more. It is the embodiment of Presence in the midst of the din and confusion of uncertainty, stress and struggle.
The principles of Resilience & Responsiveness mean, essentially the same thing. In Engaging the Core I wrote:
“Stewardship, support, service, maintenance & improvement. Building and maintaining flexibility. Everything changes. At the core of eco-centric, sustainable action is the heart of flexibility and the perceptive wisdom to respond with change.”
In the automotive industry Toyota has exemplified this practice, relentlessly expanding their market share, celebrating milestones and remaining alert, attuned and focused on maintaining, improving and exceeding the excellence already achieved.
In politics Obama took little time to celebrate or rest from his victory. He and his team are vigorously responding with the changes that are taking place on a weekly and, sometimes daily, basis.
What are we doing?
Whether we’re celebrating Obama’s victory or disheartened by it are we remaining alert and attuned to the promise of opportunity in hard times or are we distracted by our feelings of elation and despair?
Are we stuck in our industrial age mindsets or are we building the capacity for flexibility, responsiveness with change and sustainable work and life styles?
Are we waiting for someone else to do something for us or do we have the desire, commitment and accountability to do for our selves and others in the spirit of sustainable stewardship, support and service?
The times they are a changing, my friends. They’re going to continue to change. Get used to it.
Reacting or resistance to change puts us consistently a day late and a dollar short. Ever tried to fight a wave? Just ask the American auto industry.
We win some. We lose some. Do we have the capacity to respond with loss and victory, to tighten up those helmet straps? Are we building the capacity for Presence, opening our selves to possibility, flexibility and opportunity, remaining alert and attuned to what’s next? Can we place our selves in a way to influence what’s next?
Can we be what’s next?
Tags: obama, resilience, responsiveness, sustainable leadership, Toyota, zanshin
Sustainable Leadership: Innovate & Implement
Innovation & Implementation is where the rubber hits the road. This is where your desire, commitment, accountability and discipline are put to the test. Innovation & Implementation is all about getting others to become interested in and, in some way, buy what it is you’re selling.
Whether you want people’s money, time, effort, simple acceptance or fervent support they must find a way-in their own way-to connect with the quality of your work. The quality of what you and your people come up with here is closely interwoven with:
- The quality of your individual collective Presence
- Your ability to integrate Pattern & Practice
- How you choose to Generate Value
- The degree to which you can generate No Waste
Tags: innovation, leadership, sustainability, sustainable leadership
Sustainable Leadership: No Waste
In the overview of Sustainable Leadership: Evolving Sustainable Leadership: Engaging the Core I wrote:
No Waste: No Waste means what it says and says what it does. On a tangible level it could mean looking for and implementing lifecycle oriented solutions that incorporate technology into the eco-systems into which it will be introduced. Intangibly it is about integrity: matching action with words and espoused values: being the change we want to see in the world.
As we watch our financial system unravel, our savings evaporate, banks implode, credit freeze and earnings contract, we should keep this principle in mind. Fundamentally, no waste means living fully in the here and now, living closely with that which sustains us. Flourishing while living simply.
Where can you simplify?
The further we venture from common sense, basic principles of economic exchange and move into sophisticated schemes involving trading the idea of the ideas of money chopped up like toxic sausage and served piping hot as investment vehicles, the further we move into the realm of waste: time, money, energy and resources wasted in the pursuit of the fallacy of unlimited growth.
How much time and energy are you wasting worrying right now?
No waste asks us to know our home (however big it might be), the names of our co-habitants and to create and trade with them in the most effective and efficient way possible. If we feel the pull for sophistication then, for example, let us focus on sophisticated (waste free!) technology that harnesses inexpensive, widely available energy from inexhaustible, readily available resources like the sun and wind that frees us from “energy dependence.”
Can you think of a really good reason why we shouldn’t?
We can invest in and work on technologies, products, services, projects and initiatives that will provide for and sustain us, our children and their children. From the ashes of our current economic debacle we can create a new way of doing business, banking and living that is both eco-nomically and eco-logically sustainable.
Are you willing?
Shifting away from excavating energy to capturing it, working with bioregional patterns instead of fighting them, creating the capacity for deep and brilliant green consumerism takes a huge re-orientation of the time, money, energy and resources squandered on our collective trip down financial fantasy lane.
Are you ready to be the change you want to see?
We need to re-group, re-inspire and re-invigorate our selves to begin again. And, we need to do it NOW.
Why wait?
Things are going to get worse and things are going to get better.
Where do you want to live?
We are capable, we can build the capacity to move to a “no waste” way of living, doing business, even banking and investing. It takes vision, desire, courage, commitment & discipline, and accountability for our intentions and actions.
What can you do?
It takes and needs leadership. Sustainable leadership.
As my friend Tony says: “Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?”
Well, are you ready to stop wasting time?
Tags: alternative energy, economic meltdown, green consumerism, no waste, sustainability, sustainable leadership
Sustainable Leadership-Generating Value
In this third post on the practices of Sustainable Leadership, I want to look at the process of Generating Value.
Value is generated when resources are brought together. The quality of the value created depends on the quality of the resources and the quality of the space and dynamics of the combination process. Sustainability depends on what those resources are, how their use affects the systems around them and, simply, on what value is being generated.
Generating value is a key function of leadership. The quality of the value we generate as leaders depends greatly on the quality of our practice. If we are talking about people, we want to attract the RIGHT people to help us be as effective as possible.
Who we attract depends on who we are: our presence, perceptiveness and the power of our vision and conviction.
What we can do depends on who is with us and what we, together, can create. If we are talking about creating green technological innovation we need people who not only have the knowledge, skills and experience but also share a similar sense of mission and belief in what is being created. The “green-ness” of the innovation is related to how deeply we delve into the value generating process.
Quick question: how “green” is innovation when the materials and processes to create it are damaging to the people and eco-systems involved in the creation?
It is no longer enough to be an inspirational, visionary leader. It is no longer enough to simply foster and generate creativity and innovation. It is no longer enough to be wildly profitable. It is no longer enough to simply be successful. It is no longer enough to live comfortably and provide solely for our families.
Sustainable leadership is about quality: the quality of inspiration and vision we create. The quality of creativity and innovation we foster. The quality of our success. The quality of comfort for all that we touch and embrace.
Look around you, what value are you generating and what is the quality of that value? Is it sustainable? How do you know?
Tags: green innovation, green technology, presence, sustainable leadership, value generation
Sustainable Leadership: Pattern Yields Practice
In an earlier post I wrote:
Pattern Yields Practice: From the application of Presence comes an understanding of the patterns or dynamics of a particular field or area of endeavor. The more refined, expansive and deep your Presence, the greater the capacity to perceive pattern.
In reality, what does this mean and how does it work?
The process comes from Permaculture. It is one of the Key Success Factors for creating a self-sustaining, ecologically coherent and high yield agricultural system. The concept is simple: the better we understand the ecological system we are disturbing with our practice, the better we can align our practice with that system. The greater the alignment and coherence with the system, the lower our material, labor and energy costs and the more sustainable our yield.
If we move in the opposite direction of misalignment and incoherence we get higher material, labor and energy costs coupled with potentially higher (but unsustainable) yields. If we look at current large-scale agricultural practices they clearly tend toward misalignment and incoherence. The language and practice of large-scale agriculture is that of war and escalation of conflict with the very eco-systems that support us. Diminishing returns are a self-evident result of these practices.
Large-scale energy harvesting and the exergy generation (combustion, electricity generation) have followed a similar path of misalignment and incoherence. In order to live we are destroying, dirtying and damaging the eco-systems that have supported us for tens of thousands of years. Simply, as these eco-systems unravel, we are presented with patterns (global warming) that touch us and (temporarily) move us to change our practice. The key is that we are reacting in fear to patterns after they emerge as opposed to proactively seeking out and observing patterns as they emerge or as they have been emerging and subsiding for thousands of years.
Applying Pattern Yields Practice to business means fundamentally altering the way we perceive our organizations, our selves as constituents of these organizations, and the way we and our organizations choose to behave in the market, in the communities we inhabit and in the web of life that allows us to flourish. Simply it means, expanding our circles of stakeholders to include not just people but the eco-systems in which we do business and in which we, as people, live.
The benefits? Less material, labor and energy costs, less fear and anger, less unhealthy, unhappy employees, and a more stable, strong, flexible and sustainable business model.
Applying Pattern Yields to your Self as community member and leader means creating the space and time to:
- Observe and reflect upon the way you see the world around you.
- What habits of thinking and perception do you have?
- What patterns of behavior do you have?
- Observe and reflect on the world around you, specifically:
- What patterns do you see (for example: rain, diversity of people, plants & animals, water flow)
- What patterns do these patterns link to?
- What larger patterns are these patterns a part of?
- How are you related to and affected by these patterns?
- How do you and other members of your community affect these patterns?
- What meaning is to be made from these interactions?
- To live in a more eco-systemically coherent manner (saving money, energy & time) what needs to change?
- How will these changes affect you and the patterns you’ve observed?
- What are you going to change–starting NOW?
Easy? Absolutely not.
Essential? I suppose that depends on whether you want to be part of the solution or continue being part of the problem.
Tags: global warming, leadership, permaculture, sustainability, sustainable leadership
Evolving Sustainable Leadership-Engaging the Core
In my previous post on Evolving Sustainable Leadership we looked at some of the technologies through which leaders can deepen their practice to become more fully engaged with their selves and the people and world around them.
The question I frequently get, though, is what can we do deepen our practice on a daily basis?
The following process I consider to be the core means through which leaders can sharpen, deepen and expand their capacity to live, work and lead sustainably:
Presence: Presence in the form of awareness and perspective forms the foundation for action. The greater your presence, the deeper your capacity for action.
Pattern Yields Practice: From the application of Presence comes an understanding of the patterns or dynamics of a particular field or area of endeavor. The more refined, expansive and deep your Presence, the greater the capacity to perceive pattern. From the understanding of pattern action arises to fit coherently with systemic needs.
Generate Value: Generation of Value is the gathering together of necessary elements and resources for a particular project or endeavor. The “shopping list” is generated from the Key Success Factors for a particular practice in a particular field. Resources take many forms including tangibles like materials for technology creation to intangibles like know-how, networks & relationships.
No Waste: No Waste means what it says and says what it does. On a tangible level it could mean looking for and implementing lifecycle oriented solutions that incorporate technology into the eco-systems into which it will be introduced. Intangibly it is about integrity: matching action with words and espoused values: being the change we want to see in the world.
Innovate & Implement: Implementation of plan. Marketing of concept, service, product. Do-ing, execution. Walking the talk. Digging into the earth, planting seeds, getting technology to market in sustainably, eco-centric ways.
Resilience & Responsiveness: Stewardship, support, service, maintenance & improvement. Building and maintaining flexibility. Everything changes. At the core of eco-centric, sustainable action is the heart of flexibility and the perceptive wisdom to respond with change.
Tags: capacity building, sustainability, sustainable leadership
Sustainable Leadership: We do as we do
I hear many leaders (from CEO’s to team leaders) talking about driving change, driving the business, driving results.
The question that continually comes to mind when I hear these phrases is: Where?
Clear targets exist, clear goals have been set. This I get.
What I want to know and, what I believe, we should all be asking is, where is all of this effort, energy and passion taking us? There’s no doubt we’re driving, we’re firing on all cylinders, pedal to the metal, red-lining and leading the pack. But where are we going?
As we continue to drive and thrive on our short term gains take the time as CEO, Senior Director, Manager or Team Leader to ask your people: Where are we going? How do you know? Do they know?
As you continue to ponder, expand your scope: Where are you taking the rest of us? As you, your team, function, business unit, organization speed on ahead,
Where are you taking the communities in which you work and live?
Where are you taking the fish, birds toads and bears?
Where are you taking your children?
We do as we do. We go where we are going.
Tags: strategic planning, sustainability, sustainable leadership
Evolving Sustainable Leadership
In my previous post on the evolution of sustainable leadership I wrote:
The evolution of sustainable leadership is commitment to a process of self development that begins with “me” but necessarily expands to include and transcend “me.” The deeper we dive, the broader we roam, the richer our understanding of our place and purpose.
So how does this process work? The short answer is it must necessarily work in different ways for different people. Though the aim may be the same, we start from different places, different life spaces and conditions. Yet there some constants. One of those is capacity.
To deepen our capacity means to target our capability to perceive and act from what we are learning. At Interkannections we view this as the journey of capacity evolution where G, I and T-shaped leaders become H, A and U-shaped leaders. Here, again, there are many paths up the mountain. However, it would be foolish to ignore some well-worn trails:
In “integral” speak this means being able to leverage what is called a 4Q perspective: deepening and balancing insight gained from perspectives on the self, the self and others, the world and our actions in it, and the systems and processes we create and in which we are embedded.
Peter Senge has popularized systems thinking as a way to access the meaning to be made from inter-relationship.
Otto Scharmer uses “Theory U” and presencing to take individuals and groups on learning journeys that allow them to access and leverage intuitive inter-connection and insight.
At Interkannections we employ all of the above-when necessary-to help our clients make the shift from their current patterns of thinking and behavior to a more sustainable, life giving, value generating way of living and engaging with the world.
The key in evolving your approach to leadership and your life, in general, to a more sustainable one, in the end, is, of course: YOU. You have to want to take on the challenge, have the will, discipline and commitment to evolve. You must have the courage, wisdom and humility to learn and seek out experiences and teachers to help you evolve.
And, most importantly, YOU can start, NOW.
Tags: capacity evolution, Otto Scharmer, Peter Senge, presencing, sustainability, sustainable leadership, systems thinking, Theory U
The Evolution of Sustainable Leadership
Sustainable leadership arises from being able to see the world as it is: in its infinite complexity and subtle simplicity. It requires deep capacity to know and reflect on yourself and the multiple implications of your actions. It also requires that you extend your concept of “self” to include much more than “me” and home to be much more than “my house.” As the poet Gary Snyder has written “home is as big as you make it.”
Leadership is a practice. One CEO I recently spoke with said that leadership is a performance. Indeed it is both. Leadership is the enactment and realization of our capacity as humans to engage others and the world around us and inspire thinking, reflection and action. At its best, leadership is transformative. Great leaders transform themselves and with the depth of their perception, the strength of their conviction and the beauty of their vision they help others transform as well. Often these transformations can be “spiritual” in their quality. Spirit being that which connects you to your self, your self to others, that self to the world, the divine and those mysterious, powerful insights that arise from these relationships.
Sustainable leadership is the practice, performance and enactment of a perception, conviction and vision that respects, nurtures and supports that which sustains us and, importantly, that which sustains that which sustains us.
The evolution of sustainable leadership is commitment to a process of self development that begins with “me” but necessarily expands to include and transcend “me.” The deeper we dive, the broader we roam, the richer our understanding of our place and purpose. From this process our practice: our words and actions arise. The greater the depth of our perception, the greater potential we bring for transformation, the greater our capacity to create sustainable approaches to living, community, innovation and business.
Sustainable leadership may, sometimes, be in response to something, however, at its best it is an inspiration and invitation for something. It comes from the inside. It is radiant and compellingly transparent. It is not easy and it is not what you think it is, right now.
This is just the beginning. More to follow soon…