Nailing Jelly to the Wall...?
I have recently enjoyed a truly energising morning exploring current thinking and sharing experiences and ideas around leadership, with a group of North West based senior leaders from a range of organisational specialisms and sizes.
All came with a curiosity around what they would experience, together with an openness to new ways of looking at things and a commitment to sharing, within a collaborative environment of high support coupled with high challenge. It was interesting to notice how quickly trust was established in the room, which enabled participants to be okay in authentically sharing personal and organisational stories.
Our focus for this session was on deepening our understanding of why we do the work we do – our ‘Purpose’ - and we used Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle as a frame through which to achieve this focus.
We also created time, space and a Thinking Environment (from Nancy Kline’s Time to Think) for participants to explore some key questions around their own organisation’s ‘why’.
So why the ‘Jelly’ headline? Well this was prompted by a participant using this metaphor in the context of leading an organisation in a climate of uncertainty – I’m pretty sure we could extend this to all aspects of the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) acronym. I suggested this might be a good title for a blog..... There may well have been some ‘plate-spinning’ references during the session too.
As an aside, we pondered briefly whether anyone has actually tried nailing said jelly to wall – a quick google search this morning suggests the answer is ‘Yes’, however it’s not something that's going to make it onto my ‘to do’ list just yet. That said, as the photo above suggests, I've now got the essential ingredients......
Some random threads perhaps, however there is something I’ve drawn from all of this that I believe to be important and it’s this - whenever we are in a ‘nails, hammer and jelly’ moment, or perhaps jumping from side to side to apply another spin to one of the five plates we are balancing, it may just be the most helpful thing to create a moment of time and space to check in around our Purpose – why we are doing what we are doing and how the World will be a better place for our doing it!
How often do we create for ourselves that time and space?
Chris Malings
Coach – Facilitator – Organisation Development Consultant
Malings Change Associates
The Delve Talent Tool - a simple, effective and inclusive approach to talent management, one conversation at a time
6 年Great article Chris. Get the WHY right and everything else falls into place
Action Learning Facilitator | Leadership Development, Coaching | Developing Your People & Organisation | Question Bank Creator
6 年Totally get this Chris. It’s what I see a lot when facilitating Action Learning Sets; a disconnection that when people take time to reconnect and rediscover their purpose they get back on track.
Thanks Nicki. There could be something here around 'Slowing down to speed up' or maybe it's more about slowing down to make sure the ladder is up against the right wall... before we nail the jelly to it :)
Project Consultant and Certified Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy)
6 年What a great blog Chris, thank you for sharing this reminder that pausing is often such a useful thing to do.