Overcome and see opportunities

We know that when you work with teams, that they are a reflection of what happens in society. If you look at what is happening in life, their lives, you'll see a reflection of that when they work together in a group. You never bring a part of "you" to work, you'll always bring your whole self. We do recognize that most of the time, but let's call it out one more time… and then once more ...

When working with groups of people and helping them to evolve to a more conscious way of working, I am on a journey myself to become present in the moment. I have to recognize that I sometimes lose myself in the distractions and noise around me. This week taught me some valuable lessons and during that week I had the opportunity to meet a couple good people. I always say that we should invest in coffee as a play on words for making more connections and really make time to actually listen.??Sitting together and listening to each other's stories helps to ground and works best for me to connect the dots.?

A conversation with one of my friends triggered some thinking around behaviors shown in an organization. Let me briefly introduce you to my friend: Mauro De Bonis, a specialist in HR and Transformations, the person that puts the H in HR again and evolution in transformation, yet above all, he is so much more than that and you'll know immediately when you get a chance to know him!? In that conversation, he explained the difference between costs-focused? and value-focused. I liked his thinking and I have done some further thinking on that. It seems like typically with a focus on costs, you'll get processes, efficiency, resource management and all the behavior that is neglecting the people. With a focus on value you'll get quality and effectiveness, and a recognition that people are not a resource, but the creators of that value. It made me revisit the red list - green list part of the way to overcome resistance in a transformation.?

" If all you do is push, you might only get what you've pushed for,?best case scenario! Try collaboration and co-creation.?Try empowering You'll be able to swing for the fences."

Let's recognize the fact that organizations struggle with this today. It simply isn't that easy to get out of something like a way of thinking to get results which we've ingrained since the industrialization over 200 years ago. We love to measure and measurements are used to define everything. It's only been a couple of years that CEO's of nearly 200 companies said shareholder value is no longer their main objective. They've issued a statement with a new definition of the “purpose of a corporation”: The reimagined idea of a corporation drops the age-old notion that they function first and foremost to serve their shareholders and maximize profits. Investing in employees, delivering value to customers, dealing ethically with suppliers and supporting outside communities are now at the forefront of American business goals.

We're just getting started and this means leaders need evolved ways of thinking as well. One of those leaders is Sébastien Bellin. I would like to recognize him for bringing focus back on the essence of high-performing. He overcame a life threatening challenge and embraced learning in every challenge he encountered ever since. I loved it when he told his audience that "life is getting better everyday".? I've tried to understand his "4 pillars for life" and see how this could impact teams in a business context:

1. Team
2. Fearless
3. Focus
4. Serving quality over quantity

Those 4 pillars speak, right? Those pillars are Sébastien's 4 pillars for life, but if you think about it for a moment, how can they help your team to evolve to a more mature, evolved way of thinking about performance? No more fear and seeing opportunities means: dare to experiment more, fail forwards, learn, grow, .... Focus means getting things done and just doing the things that need to be done to get the result and value. Team, work together better and support each other when there is no more judgment and ego in the way. Deliver what is valuable and focus on quality and experience for our customers. If you focus on your needs (the quality), your wants (the quantity) will be met automatically.

What we do in our teams, is a fractal of the world we live in. So how can we do it better? How can we unlock the potential of individuals, teams and organizations by adopting a different way of thinking which unites rather than divides. Afterall, "united we stand and divided we fall".