mindset

Green Flags

Recently, the number of red flag articles I have encountered is trending. Six red flags that your airline seat mate will be annoying. Three red flags that the restaurant is understaffed. Nine red flags that your hotel room is not clean.

It made me wonder why I do not encounter more green flag articles. Why are there so few pieces titles, four green flags that your next adventure will be awesome.

Red flags get attention. Red flags require management decisions. Green flags confirm our hopes (and maybe our expectations). They mean we can divert our attention to other issues.

What are the the green flags attributes of an organization you joined? Why were you excited to lend your talents and how did the cause meet your expectations? Why not invest a little time discussing those characteristics before listing all of the barriers to entry?

Celebrate

How often do we start or finish our conversation (and meetings) with a point of celebration? Even our problems can be high quality challenges that 99% of peer organizations in our sector would be desperate to contemplate solving. Mindset matters and our attention and work follows. Celebrate, even if it is a rainy, cold, headwind. It might make you stronger and certainly provides the foundation for a remarkable story.

Designed and Adopted

When did current design become the adopted expectation? How much resistance must we overcome to achieve the next iteration? How much external force act as a catalyst? Does disruption accelerate new ways of thinking?

If you are an airport or airlines, the ability to make significant changes occurs on a large scale and requires numerous resources. Often, we are still in start-up mode and nimble enough to adjust quickly but we assume the mindset of working on a global scale.

It Can Wait Until the Meeting

What discussion and opportunities have you missed because they were postponed until the next meeting or there was not time on the agenda? What might have happened if the moment of creativity and insight was allowed to take flight in real-time? If all our actions are captured on a schedule, then when does ‘be remarkable’ appear in writing on our calendar? Perhaps we have the inspiration, strength, endurance, or ideal conditions to tackle the crux move today. What if we embraced the dynamic, now?

Thanks for the reminder Seth Godin.

Location

Most Saguaros cactus do not have golf balls embedded in their arms. However, those that reside within a golf course are inclined to collect a few errant shots. I have been in many conversations where a social sector cause wishes to attract a sensational feature or benefit, perhaps a billionaire philanthropist who takes interest in supporting the enterprise with untold generosity. However, if we are not in a billionaire’s mindset, then perhaps we are like a cactus in the wild trying to catch golf balls. Embrace our respective geographies, we are remarkable for existing within the landscape we occupy.

Fence Lines

‘Good fences make good neighbors,’ penned Robert Frost in his poem the Mending Wall. Fences are visible demarcations of boundaries. Either to keep things in or keep things out, depending on our perspective. The lifecycle of a fence is fascinating. Newly constructed fences with upturned soil where fresh posts were recently driven, creating unnatural scars across the landscape, until the new boundary becomes part of our unconscious memory of the landscape. There are untended fences with missing pieces, abandoned fences with silhouettes of their former connections, mended fences with visible repairs and temporary structural scaffolding, and temporary fences, constructed for real-time assistance and deconstructed overnight.

I encountered a line of fence this winter where the fence posts remain, a 4-wheel track on one side and a single track on the other side. The abandoned and loose barb wire had been collected, coiled, and piled safely away from the trails. Yet, the pattern of travel remained, out of habit we dared not cross between the two paths midway down the fence line. A reminder that even after we remove the obstacles tha prevented different ways of travel, mindsets and behaviors will endure.

Just because the fence no longer exists, it may take a new generation of users to blaze a fresh path.

Confrontations vs Conversations

If we call out an obscenity (expletive delete) at somebody, we are seeking a confrontation. It takes little effort to shout out a demeaning term and leaves few viable response options. If we say, ‘I do not agree with your choice,’ we open a dialogue. The other party might respond with a questions and we can clarify what actions are not agreeable.

Are we trying to start confrontations or conversations? Shouting obscenities might feel good in the moment but they are a lazy form of communication. Acknowledging that something does not resonate but leaving room for interpretation requires a different mindset.

If we want a fight, slander away. If we want to engage and learn, be curious about different perspectives.