Staying Liquid
I already blogged once about the newest episode (S6.E16) of S.W.A.T. this morning in Context Matters. Another thought provoking moment was when Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson (Shemar Moore), a Los Angeles S.W.A.T. lieutenant, said, “Let’s fill the gaps.” The rest of the team immediately said, “Stay liquid.” A pretty amazing team/leadership mantra. I love this, because on great teams there are clearly defined roles and responsibilities, but there are always gaps that arise. When every person knows their role, they are better able to become flexible, or liquid, to fill those caps. Also, when every team member has the proper technical training they are able to become fluid and fill in the gaps. This allows for situational and adaptive leadership at all levels.
Make no mistake, however, staying liquid is not possible without a culture of innovation and experimentation. Also, those clear roles and responsibilities I mentioned earlier enable having processes in place that allow for quick decision-making and rapid response to changing circumstances. Finally, having the necessary and appropriate resources and information in real-time can enable individuals, teams, and any organization to make informed decisions and fill the gaps quickly when necessary.
Context Matters
Having contextual information can help build trust and rapport between individuals, as they feel heard, understood, and validated in their experiences.When we have context, we can accurately assess challenges and opportunities to come up with potential solutions that will better address the underlying nuances and issues at play. Last night while watching a new episode (S6.E16) of S.W.A.T. I was reminded how important digging for context was. Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson (Shemar Moore), a Los Angeles S.W.A.T. lieutenant, reminded his Commander, Robert Hicks (Patrick St. Esprit) that, “I’m just reminding you. You don’t have all the context.” when Hicks was being hard on the son of a former colleague. Once the context was shared between the two, the relationship was shored up.
Then Hondo experienced his own context gathering situation. He had cleaned out his house for the arrival of his new baby girl. His father became very upset and Hondo could not understand why. He then realized he had given away a doll house that his father had built for Hondo’s sister and was planning to remodel for Hondo’s daughter. What Hondo thought was junk meant a lot to his father and he was looking forward to passing the doll house down to his granddaughter. Once Hondo figured it out, it was too late and the doll house couldn’t be found. In the end Hondo and his father decided to build a new one together. Taking the time to establish and consider context is an essential aspect of problem-solving and effective communication. In the absence of context, misunderstandings can arise, and solutions may be less effective or even counterproductive. Context matters!
To Learn Without Being Taught
Yesterday I made a comment in a meeting that I make quite often: “I am pretty sure none of our students took a TikTok course in their school.” So, how have they learned to be so proficient with this controversial social media? Easy. The kids were excited to learn it, so they learned without being taught. I actually did a post on this last year entitled, “The Real-World Inspires.” Today I want to go a little further and talk about the idea of to learn without being taught. We all do it. As a founder of a business I have had to learn all kinds of things without being taught in the traditional sense. Yesterday, what prompted the whole conversation was that a person apologized for being self taught on some communication strategies and workflows we were discussing. I asked, “Why are you apologizing? Clearly you are passionate about this and see the need and relevance for your organization.” Some of the most impactful learning involves learning through trial and error, exploration, experimentation, and through exposure to new situations or environments. We all develop new skills, ideas or perspectives by engaging in activities.
Also, think about all that children learn without formal lessons or instructions. We all learned how to walk, talk and interact with others through their own curious exploration and observation of the world around us. We need to create environments for our children, ourselves, and within our organizations for the curious exploration and learning to occur. And, I think you’ll agree that kind of learning is very fulfilling and rewarding; not to mention lasting.
Just 10 Minutes Of Your Time
This morning I am reflecting on another topic brought up in Rachel Pedersen’s great book, Unfiltered: Proven Strategies To Start And Grow Your Business By Not Following The Rules: Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that as “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, work expands to fill the time available for its completion. If you give yourself a week to complete a task, it will take a week, but if you give yourself a day, you will be able to complete it in a day. Rachel emphasized the importance of setting realistic, but aggressive deadlines up front. She also discussed limiting the amount of time spent on tasks to increase productivity and efficiency. I have been paying attention to this lately. In fact this week I had a client schedule a 15 minute meeting with me. Guess what? It took 13 minutes. So, another client asked for an hour. I suggested a 30 minute gap between other meetings. You guessed it; the meeting took 26 minutes. So, one of my big takeaways is to get away from the default time periods for meetings – 30 minutes or one hour. I’m even trying some 10 minute calls. Calendly really helps me with that kind of scheduling.
One thing I have learned is that setting a clear deadline, breaking the task down into smaller chunks, and limiting the time spent, I can accomplish more in less time and feel more satisfied with the progress. Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA, advocated for splitting our days into 10 minute increments. Then, trying to waste as few of those 10 minutes as possible. I tried it – I was amazed at how few I wasted. And…I didn’t get bored with any one thing. Now, will that work for everything? Nope, but one more tool in the toolbox. I love having tools in the toolbox. Instead of letting projects take on a life of their own, we need to design the scope up front, because otherwise those projects will take on a life if their own and take as long as we let them.
Happy Birthday Question
I got a great birthday wish last week from the awesome leader and author, Bob Tiede. Here is the message he sent me: “Happy Birthday Byron! When you reflect on your past year what might be the one thing you are most grateful for?” Bob is all about leading with questions. That’s what I love about him and why he is one of my role models from afar. Here was my answer: “Thank you for the birthday wishes, Bob. Also, I love the question. Here are my thoughts: I am grateful for loving relationships and the opportunities that have come my way. Reflecting on the positives always helps me have a mindset of gratitude and contentment.” It was hard to stop thinking about the question, though. Questions are so powerful.
Many of those relationships I was referring to in my answer to Bob’s question were related to those new relationships I have made and old relationships that have been strengthened in the first two years of founding my own company. As I reflect on the past year, I am struck by how lucky I am to have such fantastic clients that really are more like partners. Their feedback and encouragement have kept me motivated and inspired, and I am deeply grateful for their continued patronage. I am also grateful for the lessons learned through challenging experiences. Wow! All this reflection from Bob’s question. There is so much power in the question. What are you grateful for?
Passion Bubbles
This morning I am contemplating a few things out of recently read books. One out of the great book I finished a couple of weeks ago, Red Dress In Black and White by Elliot Ackerman where it was said, “Family should be at the center of who you are, not the circumference.” The others were by Mark Twain in Volume 3 of his autobiography. Twain spoke of “The things that take up the spare room in my heart.” He also said, “I refuse to take part in things where my heart is indifferent.” This made me think about all the, what I call my “passion bubbles,” I have. These would really be those things that take up the spare room in my heart. This, in turn, got me to thinking about our hearts capacity. Just how much room is in our hearts?
Twain had decided not to take part in things where his heart was indifferent. I consider this a pretty good rule of thumb. It’s usually easy to tell when I am indifferent; I’m not going to comment or not going to get heavily involved. This idea that Elliot Ackerman put in his book of family at the center and not at the circumference is a really good metaphor of how I want to arrange my passion bubbles. Our family should be at the core of what is given prime space in our hearts along with those other prime time passions we have. Then we can fill in the spare space. Interestingly, we also consider the heart being limitless in its ability to love, but we need to realize our limits on the number of passion bubbles we can support.
Each of us has a unique drive to make a contribution and fulfill a purpose. When we combine our passions with our strengths, we can achieve things never even imagined. But, it would probably do us well to consider Twain’s rule of not wasting too much of our heart’s spare room with those things we are indifferent to. This will also give us the room for keeping our family at the center. It’s about having an uncluttered heart.
Assumptions Are Dangerous
I love the television show FBI International. It’s even better when it’s a new episode and I am able to be home to watch it. Carter Redwood plays Special Agent Andre Raines who in the episode I was watching was comforting the son of a kidnapping victim. Raines told the son, who was jumping to the conclusion that his father was dead that, “Assumptions are dangerous. They are made without evidence.” A good reminder that we are just assuming if we don’t have any evidence. Making assumptions is dangerous. We need to look for the evidence. But when we make assumptions it makes it hard to change our minds, even with evidence.
Unfortunately, assumptions underlie many of our biases as humans. Our minds naturally jump to conclusions and make meaning. The great leaders, as Special Agent Raines reminded us, look to the evidence to tell the story. Assumptions lead to ineffective behavior, unnecessary worry, or reactionary responses. These behaviors can lead to cycles of assumption to reaction to assumption. A good way to fight our urge to jump to assumptions is to take an attitude of inquiry. Instead of guessing, ask. Instead of assuming, look for and find the evidence. Oh, by the way, the boys father was found and was alive.
Problem Versus Challenge
Rachel Pedersen discussed “problem mindset” versus “challenge mindset” in her great book, Unfiltered: Proven Strategies To Start And Grow Your Business By Not Following The Rules. We all know how important our mindset is in everything we do. For me, the challenge mindset is about seeing opportunities. Sort of like when instead of just seeing a gum wrapper, MacGyver sees an opportunity to get out of a life threatening situation. He is seeing the situation as a challenge instead of a problem. In fact, in Owning Up To Our Mistakes, I blogged about an early mentor of mine that taught me to see problems as opportunities. As he would say, “We’ve got an opportunity.” I never heard him say problem, obstacle, or challenge. And, framed as opportunities they always became just that – opportunities for growth and success.
By having a mindset that sees challenges instead of problems we see these opportunities as jumping-off points for growth and for enlargement of our existing abilities. I loved where Rachel went with this by discussing challenges as chances to grow and learn new things. One of the things I love about owning my own business right now is how every new thing I take on has given me to opportunity to learn in new areas I had never dreamed of. It’s exhilarating, really. Just like MacGyver, we need to see challenges not as problems or forces of opposition, but as opportunities. Those opportunities enable us to learn, grow, improve, or adjust in a way that leaves them better off than before the problem existed.
Being Me All The Time
Think about this question posed by Rachel Pedersen in her great book, Unfiltered: Proven Strategies To Start And Grow Your Business By Not Following The Rules: “What if I decided to be me all the time?” Now, really reflect on that question. For example, I usually live by the rule of not wearing a tie on days of the week that end in the letter “y”. That’s every day, by the way. But, there are times that I wear a tie. Why? Because everyone else will have one on. So, Rachel has us questioning why we do that to ourselves. Again, what if we decided to be ourselves all the time? How many times do we do something because of some social norm? There is a lot of imitating that goes on in this world. And, that imitating involves envying others, too. What if we really started being ourselves ALL the time? What if we, as leaders, made space for others to be themselves and show their creative selves all the time?
For the most part I think I’m pretty good at being me, but there are those moments where I find myself conforming. I already mentioned the tie thing. This is where Rachel also taught us that, “professionalism is killing creativity.” So true! I have, no surprise, been told to tone it down before. Just how does one do that? Pretty hard for a guy like me that gets “giddy” over the smallest of things. Rachel even talks in her TED Talk about being given the advice to “dull her sparkle.” I like sparkle!!! She asks the question: “Who decides what is right?” The point here is, what if we were always ourselves? We are all packaged a little differently and we need to make sure we appreciate all those differences. Let’s all try to make a little more space for others to be themselves all the time.
Wabi Sabi Leadership
In our complex world of creativity, innovation, and disruption, imperfection is inevitable. And, last time I checked, nobody’s perfect. That is why I am glad I have an artistic mind and disposition. Art isn’t about being perfect. Art is about influencing others. Last night I was watching an episode of the Lethal Weapon television series and was reminded of the ancient Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi. The basic gist of Wabi-Sabi is for us to find beauty in imperfection. This philosophy can help us accept what is, stay in the present moment, and appreciate the simple, transient stages of life. Perfection really does not exist, but society has defined perfection for us. I read that the 2020 market for anti-aging products was $60 billion. Aging is natural, why do we want to look younger? I’m not sure I know the answer to that, but society teaches us we are not good enough.
“No palm tree is perfectly shaped, yet we marvel at the beauty with which it stands. No sea shell is perfectly drawn, yet we marvel at the beauty with which it curves. Accept and appreciate yourself as you are today, in your natural state, just like you would a tree in the forest, a flower in the garden, or a seashell by the shore. You are the entirety of you. You are whole. And you are beautiful.” ~ Omar Itani
All this does not mean we shouldn’t be striving for excellence. We should be striving for continual improvement, but we need to be defining what those improvements are. Wabi-Sabi brings us independence of thought.
Byron's Babbles 
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