Silence - The Greatest Metric?

Silence.

This is the most significant metric by which to measure the degree of my inner work and personal/professional transformation underway.

True, I’ve not been completely silent in this forum. However, those of you who have interacted with me online for a while know that compared to previous years - particularly in recent months - I have been exceptionally quiet by comparison.

Why?

I have been mentally processing and absorbing to synthesise the insights I’ve gained into my life and career path. When I coach others I encourage them to create the space they need to better understand themselves and what they want from the life they want to create at their own pace and in their own way.I have been following this approach I espouse to make sense of and calibrate my own journey.

2 events I attended were the triggers for this introspection in a hugely positive way.First was me speaking at the Agile Lietuva conference for the first time in-person. I’d presented the Metrix & Chill approach I created the previous year for this conference online. However, to meet so many of my agile contemporaries - many of whom I had only ever interacted with online - was a deeply profound experience for me.

The last time I felt this way about attending an event and ‘sensing my tribe’ since years ago - when I still worked full-time in education - and I self-funded myself to travel to the USA to speak at and attend a Family Learning conference. I remember walking into that huge convention hall, surrounded by around 1000 people I’d never met before, who clearly were as passionate about Family Learning before.

I remember the buzz, the animated faces and all the delegates speaking in the same language of inclusion and lifelong learning. I remember standing in that hall, looking up at the ceiling, feeling the noise through my body and thinking to myself “I have found my people. They get me.”I felt the same walking into the speakers’ dinner at Agile Lithuania on the evening I arrived in Vilnius and again got the same feeling on the first day I arrived at conference. But the ‘flavour’ of the buzz and the conversations were around agility instead of Family Learning.

The team of volunteers who organise this incredible Agile Lithuania conference are phenomenal people and it was especially wonderful to meet and spend time with Inga Kerailyte and Diana Borovik who have also - right from our very first moment of interaction virtually - shown me such support and kindness. Their generous hospitality translated into such a warm welcome at the in-person event too and for that I feel so thankful.

I’ve spoken at many conferences - including many keynote speeches - internationally and yet this event was way up there in my favourites! Profoundly impactful for my own learning - about myself and other’s perspectives - on agile and life. Speaking on congruent coaching - bringing that as an underutilised dimension of the professional coaching element of agile coaching - was a moment of innovation in the dialogue with my agile peers which felt epic and a huge privilege to spend time with other agilists there who chose to go on the journey with me!

A few weeks later I attended - by kind invitation of the fabulous REx (Recognized Expert) network - led by Dorie Clark - the world-renowned Thinkers 50 summit in London.

The Thinkers50 website states:

“Thinkers50 is the world’s most reliable resource for identifying, ranking, and sharing the leading management ideas of our age.”The occasion certainly lived up to this description! An unbelievable array of thought leaders and experts of leadership and management from around the globe. It was a special moment experiencing that forum for the first time.

The theme was AI and the presentations and conversations with other thought leaders at the event really did culminate in me questioning life, the universe and everything. No understatement. With a particular interest in how we leverage virtual interactions to activate and empower teams and the individuals in them to excel and create change for the greater good I was particularly struck by how challenging it will be for us as a society to find an appropriate equilibrium of embracing potential through technologies along with the need for human connection. Some exciting stuff. Some worrying stuff.I’ll share my thoughts on this another time.

I’d like to reiterate thanks to the organisers of both events; Marie Incontrera for her generosity linking me in with this event (infinite gratitude to you, Marie); Dorie Clark for your incredibly thought-provoking talk about the impact of AI of our brand in the future and the amazing momentum you sustain in the REx network you created; the immense speakers and delegates who have helped shape my thinking and approach to work and who in turn have also been open to learning from my experiences and Weltanschauung.

A surprise discovery from both events was not only learning about things that are important to me as I craft my life and work but also realising what I thought I wanted and now realise I don’t want. Leaning into recognising - and rejecting - the things we don’t want as part of our story is difficult sometimes - and invariably surprising to yourself and others. However, it’s an important skill to have - within what you have available to work with - to focus on the spaces in life and career you feel best placed to help turn the dial for positive change.

These events have helped me psychologically surface and crystallise these in a way that has already started to propel me for growth in the areas I feel my voice can be most impactful and helpful to others.

More to come of that.