ClickCease
Matt Rusten
Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company

Is joy an underrated asset in your leadership? In our latest article, Matt Rusten explores why joy, much like humor, plays a vital role in building a thriving company culture. From increasing team engagement to fostering resilience, joy can transform workplace dynamics and inspire purpose-driven work. Discover three key ways to cultivate joy in your organization and why it’s essential for leaders who seek both results and fulfillment.

Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company
Business, Faith, Faith at Work
Convene
Do Not Worry

‘Do not worry.’ We’ve read Matthew 6:25-34 in the Sermon on the Mount, but what does that look like on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis? God knows our every worry, fear, and concern – and He can handle it. Many thanks to Darrell Passwater, Convene Forum Team leader, for his encouragement to think about how our lives might be different by truly living out this scriptural principle.

Do Not Worry
Greg Leith
Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the ...

Got a quick minute to chat? I’ve been wanting to share something with you as you lead in the midst of the election cycle in the USA or when your political election takes place in your country. When the dust settles on the election and the new country leader is declared, one thing will still be as true as it is right now. You’ll still be the one leading your firm the day after the election. Your team members will still come to work the day after the winner is declared. They’ll still be looking to you for leadership, for a paycheck, for a sense of community at their workplace.

What do they want most that only you can deliver? It’s meaning. That meaning they’re looking for begins with you and your leadership. To be sure, what Washington DC does actually can impact your business significantly, however, the president of the United States or the leader of any country does not lead your firm. You do. It’s an enterprise entrusted to you to lead as a steward. It’s a place where people look to you for answers, where people want to be part of a team that cares about them and where people want to be valued, appreciated, and loved. The next president of the country will not show up this week at your office to encourage your team, fix a broken piece of equipment, hire the next team member, sell a big account, or cast a bold vision about how your team will reach your goals and impact the culture.

Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the Election?
Chip Neidigh
A Safe Place To Fall
A Safe Place To Fall
Dave Ulrich
3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

As we find ourselves mid-October and a blink away from a new calendar year, it is an opportunity to prepare for how we view transitions. Transitions allow for reflection and renewal, for letting go and beginning anew, and for learning from the past and creating the future. Instead of laying out trends for the next year, I would like to comment on a fundamental enabler of any transition: hope. Leaders who want to improve, CEO’s who work toward excellence, HR professionals who aspire to deliver more value, and employees who seek well-being all achieve their transitions by realizing hope.

Hope integrates many of the positive traits that shape transitions for others and matter to me personally: learning, patience, service, faith, humility, optimism, gratitude, and so forth. I send hundreds of formal and informal e-mails every month to invite people to programs, to thank people for attending programs, to check in on those I mentor, and to stay connected to those I care about. I begin almost every one of these notes with “Hope you are well.” Hope is one of my personal desires, tag lines, and biases and an enabler of any transition.

If I could implant one trait in my family, friends, and colleagues who are undergoing continual transition, it would be hope. 

3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

forcasting

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You’ve Survived, Now What? (Part 2)

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Continued from You've Survived, Now What? (Part 1) Visual Analysis to Enhance Insight

Insight occurs when there is the conscience recognition of relationships with or associations among objects, previously deemed unrelated, that help solve problems or provide new perspectives on problems. Sanders believes that the creation of visual images activates deeper levels of awareness which helps develop insight. Both Sanders and Canton recommend techniques for drawing on the qualities and capabilities of the creative right brain hemisphere. These techniques are very reminiscent of a mind map, a long-used technique for graphically displaying concepts and relationships. The use of these graphic techniques has several benefits. First, it provides a vehicle for getting many concepts, some complementary, some contradictory and some seemingly unrelated in the same visual space, which is difficult to do with numerical analysis. Secondly, it provides a vehicle for the identification and understanding of issues, and encourages participation by non-quantitative leaders and followers, whose contributions may be limited, or even excluded, from a more quantitative approach. Lastly, it provides a simple tool to engage all members of the organization into the process of understanding issues, obstacles and opportunities, and provides insight that might otherwise be missed.

 

From Forecast to Foresight

Forecasting is one result of strategic quantitative analysis. A forecast of the anticipated environment in which an organization will operate is based on analysis of existing conditions and trends, i.e., what is known. As previously discussed, forecasting a chaotic and ever changing future environment via extrapolation from current data, regardless of how sophisticated the forecasting tool, can produce seriously inaccurate results that can lead to faulty and even fatal organizational decisions. According to Sanders, foresight is the ability to see what concepts, trends and issues may be emerging today that may significantly impact the future. She believes that foresight helps leaders understand the dynamics of change in a larger context and, significantly, to recognize new conditions in development. Importantly, Sanders emphasizes that with foresight leaders have the ability to help create the future by influencing these newly developing conditions. This is where truly significant strategic opportunities arise, and where strategic disasters are avoided. To quote Sanders: “The present is the future in its most creative state.”

Scan to Develop Foresight

The type of visual mapping devises recommended by both Sanders and Canton also provides a vehicle to facilitate the development of foresight. The development of foresight has two basic requirements. The first is a comprehensive, whole-system scan of the environment in which each organization operates. In today’s complex global system, opportunities and threats can be introduced at any point and at any time. To neglect the whole-system perspective leaves leaders at risk of missing a significant, developing condition. The first step, therefore, is observing your organization’s issues from a global perspective and mapping the findings and observations, and then looking for heretofore unseen relationships.

The second requirement according to Sanders for developing foresight is searching for “perking” information. Perking information is new or emerging conditions that may be insignificant now, but could at some point have significant impact on some aspect of the global system, or at a minimum, the immediate environment of your organization. These are new conditions which may be taking shape below the surface of normal activity that only well developed insight or foresight can identify. Examples of perking information are the early imports of low-end Japanese cars in the mid-1970’s; the early foreclosures related to subprime mortgages in 2003; the creation of Napster; and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Recognition of these “perking” conditions would have provided a glimpse of the future.

Engage the Whole Team

Even the simplest and smallest organizations exist in a global, chaotic, complex and rapidly-changing environment. In larger organizations, growing complexity only increases the potential risk of not implementing strategic thinking. The magnitude of the risk of not implementing systems to develop strategic insight of the current environment and foresight of the future is evidenced by the failures of major organizations over the last couple of years. However, the task of developing insight and foresight cannot adequately be accomplished solely by leadership teams, regardless of their experience and education. Sanders recommends that engaging all leaders and followers for this purpose is essential. Those employees closest to the environment are those that can identify relationships with products, customers, vendors and other stakeholders to which leaders do not typically have access. Similarly, perking data may best be identified by those in the business environment that will experience changing conditions in the earliest stages. The engagement of all members of organizations will help leaders identify the future today.

Create the Future.

The leadership challenge in this chaotic, complex and rapidly changing world cannot be overstated. Classic tools have proven to be inadequate or of limited value in many cases. Successful leaders of tomorrow will elevate the strategic management process to include enhanced strategic thinking. This will include the development of insight and foresight through the use of visually enhanced thinking. It will also involve the participation of both right-brain creative and left-brain analytical leaders. Finally, all members of the organization must be included in the process, particularly those closest to the action to help identify critical “perking” information. Leaders that fail to engage in strategic thinking risk strategic failure; those that do will create their future.

Michael Petty is the managing partner of North Star Partners. North Star Partners assists companies in the areas of leadership development, strategic thought and application, and financial stewardship. He is also a doctoral candidate in the Strategic Leadership Program at Regent University, in Virginia Beach, VA, USA. Mike can be contacted at: mike.petty@north-star-partners.com