mindset

Depth, Dimension, and Distraction

Do the details add depth, dimension, or distraction to your journey? Do the activities engage you in a slalom, a barrier, or a brute force exercise? Do you see the individuals within the cluster, or are their commonalities so blended that they all appear the same?

We must make snap judgments and assumptions to navigate our daily wanderings. What is worthy of further evaluation, and what do we navigate in subconscious mode? One of the benefits of encountering a place from multiple directions is we might find a perspective that benefits from further investigation and comprehension.

Uniting A Group

Why run a Turkey Trot 5K? My daughter and I ran more than 5Ks getting to the race and home, so it was not the about the distance. It was the chance to participate with a group of people. To join a variety of participants, from competitors in elaborate costumes, to dogs, dogs and infants in baby joggers, to the fastest competitors. It was an assembling of individuals with a shared goal of navigating a course and coming together as a community. A shared vision of celebrating a holiday that unites instead of divides.

What gatherings do we convene that unite? What moments do we curate that create unique bonds and strong ties? It is easy to divide individuals. It is much harder to unite a group with diverse beliefs.

A Limited Number of Photos

If you had just ten photos to take during a week-long trip, how would you decide when to snap one of these precious images? In the age of digital photos, we take multiple shots without consequence unless our storage capacity is limited or our battery life is at 1%. But our mindset changes when a natural or artificial limit governs our activity. Looking at a recent adventure, I have deleted at least seventy-five repetitive photos, poorly framed, out of focus, or unintentional. It cost me little but some editing time. However, I am hard-pressed to select my ten favorites from the trip, a challenge to cover the highlights and iconic moments.

A powerful outcome of design thinking is generating numerous ideas. Creativity and multiple mindsets allow for expanded horizons and innumerable pathways. There is a moment when we must select a limited course of action. A portion of strategic planning includes this moment of refinement. I refer to it as an ‘energy management plan’ since we only have so much capacity to focus our resources. If you had to select three areas of focus, what are they? If your three areas are raising more money and funds, I suggest those are the results of focusing on the work that matters.

I am handing you a virtual Polaroid camera. What images are you hoping to capture if given three photos to take of your organization’s strategic future? Do they capture the superpower of the organization where you are uniquely positioned to act or are they a wishlist of certainty (endowment, waitlist of potential board members, and everyone in the community is a member of the organization)?

May I Introduce You…

The direction and mindset from which we encounter an idea matters. If we are doing relevant work but those who would benefit from our superpower intersect with us without context, we might not resonate. A personal introduction is powerful because it orients two individuals with guidance from a third so that the two individuals meeting are facing each other and provided with a sketch of what makes them remarkable.

How can we be a force for good and help set up individuals and ideas that benefit from finding a point of confluence?

Play

How do we make time for play within our work, travels, and life? Based on research, it may represent the highest form of humanity and is essential to our evolutionary process. Animals find unstructured moments to play while balancing other vital responsibilities. However, we tend to schedule everything but play into our work plans. What if we asked how might we find more time to play? How might that change our priorities and our perception of our priorities?

Power

Energy comes from numerous of sources. It is easy to take it as an absolute, there will be power when needed. It is omnipresent. However, how we channel it becomes the question. It can propel us across the sky, turn on our lights, move us across open ground, or focus our attention. How might we direct our energy sources to have the greatest impact?

I have re-framing the act of strategic planning as an energy management plan. There is much we can work on, but where we direct our output is a critical decision.