Simon Sinek reminds us that personal human interactions are critical to forming trust. How do our in-person actions enhance our relationships?
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Why We Exist
It is easy to get myopic when most attention and money seem to flow to/from our peripheral enterprises. Our organization was founded to engage, start conversations, and inspire. We wanted to make an aspect of life better. So we made a brave decision to place ourselves into our respective communities. We required fuel to reach our destination and connected with sources of funding. But the funding was not the reason we started the journey and it is not the destination. Most of our tribe joined because the vision was compelling and the adventure worthy of their time. Does our enterprise today reflect the journey we started at inception or is the new destination driven by the location of refueling stations?
Adventure Starts at the Detour Sign
Our commitment to reaching a destination is tested when we encounter detours and closures. If we are prepared to alter course we are far more agile than when the route outweighs the destination. Too often we forget to survey the landscape from the summit to find alternate routes.
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.”
Moving On
Base camps are a way great to support expeditions. If we wish to ascend an alpine peak we rarely need to haul all the equipment and supplies to the summit. Therefore, a well provisioned base camp is an ideal mechanism to serve a mountaineering team. At some point, the village in miniature is disassembled and moved to a new location for another adventure. However, base camps can become permanent when the team leaders do not trust that the rest of the expedition members will readily move on to another quest. A small group starts making longer journeys to climb peaks in other ranges and returns with magnificent stories to entertain the assembled crowd who remain at the original base camp. The base camp no longer serves the needs of those climbing and becomes a venue for entertaining the non-climbers.
The question for the team leader is to decide what is the purpose of base camp? Is it to support the expedition? Then it requires frequent relocation. If the purpose is to entertain those looking for good stories but who have no interest in climbing then the base camp stays but future expeditions suffer.
Many enterprises get into the debate between moving on to the next adventure at the risk losing members from their expedition. Changing locations serves as a quick mechanism to sort out those who are interested in climbing and building from those who are only seeking entertainment.
Happy 4th of July
What is your edge?
Seth Godin posted about the concept of edgecraft a few weeks ago which offered a compelling insight into embracing that which makes us different. Along Seth’s philosophy, Jo DeBolt from La Piana Consulting asked an intriguing question today at the ED Sessions 2.0 in Boise, Idaho.
What is your edge? How are you remarkably excellent?
Defining our edge clearly underscores how well we understand ourselves and the space we occupy. Trying to be remarkable in a crowd is much like trying to identify stars in the night sky. A few are remarkable because we understand their place in relationship to other night but they also dominate their location.
What is your edge?
Context
I found this pamphlet laying on some steps in Rome, Italy. It had no value for my day of adventures in Rome and it was being stepped on as discarded trash. Sometimes what we have to offer lacks its maximum potential when the location does not match the content. Being handed a pamphlet on making a bequest to an art gallery when you are seeking just a map creates disconnect. Getting the same document when you are planning your estate would increase its value dramatically. Amazing content is half of the journey. Placing it at the right trail head makes it remarkable.
Ideas that are stuck
I was running in Rome along the Fiume Tevere (the river dividing the city) and spied a rapid in the river’s channel. Looking closer the wave was recirculating logs, enough plastic balls to start an amusement park, and a few assorted urban items. The trapped pieces would be driven down underwater by the force of the rapid and then pop back-up downstream only to be drawn upstream by the hydrological force. The cycle repeated relentlessly.
How many ideas containing little value within our enterprises circulate too often? Discussions that find their way onto each agenda or become repeated off-topic discussion at meetings? As long as the forces remains constant the recirculation continues. Only if the river reaches flood stage, reduces it flow, or the channel is altered will the hydrological forces change. Mixing up the pace and location of our deliberations leads to new ideas. Otherwise a static tempo ensures a continuation of the same.
The Power of Demonstration
On a recent trip to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, my son and I stumbled across an app entitled, “Touch Van Gogh.” It was an easy to use tablet application that demonstrates the impact time and light on Van Gogh’s most famous paintings. Iconic images we see in our mind’s eye are many shades from their parental color DNA at the time of inception. Blues were purples, yellows were heavier, stars shown differently, and even the brown of the floor had richer hues. Sliding the bar across the images, the before and after transformation of aging on each painting was remarkable. The experience was such a vivid and palpable reminder of the power of demonstration. The app oriented us to the images that were directly in front of us and provided a paradigm shift. No words or explanations were needed. The results were evident and I was hooked on the story and the impact of the museum’s curating and restoration consideration. The power of a hands-on experience manifested itself by letting me join the narrative..
The Benefit of Sharing
A whole bunch of books is not remarkable in itself. However, when the collection represents the lifetime assemblage of art history texts, as is pictured above from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, it serves as a beacon for those who share a passion for the arts. There is a fine line between hording and assembling. Hording is for our own benefit, cataloging is for the benefit of others.
What-if-concepts 