Focused Conversations

This summer I returned to school When I was doing the residency for my MA this summer, one of the faculty asked me the question, “What would it take for the real you to show up?“  I was taken aback by this question. The context was a discussion we were having about my realization that my personal values didn’t line up with the corporate values of a client. As time went on I was feeling more and more tension with this client and wanted to make a decision.

Her question has stuck with me.  I find myself asking it over and over again.  In recent years I have spent a lot of time showing up for other people, showing up how I think other people want me to show up and avoiding showing up as me altogether. Some where along the way I got the idea that to say what I want and to focus on who I am was selfish.  I’ve made some big decisions since my residency. I am bringing closure to some areas of my life.  I realize some relationships are not allowing me to flourish.  I need to find a way for the real me to show up.  Is that selfish?  I don’t know.  Is it honest?  Yes.

This year has been about change and transition.  I’ve been blessed with an opportunity to step out of a sub-culture that was suffocating me.  I’ve been able to have a TOOT (time out of time) to really think about who I am and where I am going and how to walk with integrity.  It’s really easy to get caught up in doing things just because you don’t want to let other people down or for them to think less of you.  If I am only showing a part of myself then thinking less of me might be threatening.  If I show up authentically and you think less of me – well, that’s OK.  At least you made the decision on something that was true.

“Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.” – Robert E. Lee

True learning organizations are a space for generative conversations and concerted action which creates a field of alignment that produces tremendous power to invent new realities in conversation and to bring about these new realities in action. – Fred Kofman and Peter Senge “Communities of Commitment” Organizational Dynamics

Here’s one for parents getting report cards this week.  All of my report cards up until about Grade 6 had similar comments to the title of this post.  It was always worse in the spring time and especially if I sat by an open window where the noise outside would draw my attention away from the teacher.

A closer reading reveals that in Grade 1 I was reading at a Grade 4 level and that I loved story time and art.  I had a great imagination and found school quite boring.  I was restless and didn’t like sitting in rows all day long (so I often found ways to get moved to the corner!).

Today I would have probably been diagnosed with ADD.

I am back in school and will be doing a three week residency at Royal Roads University in July.  I wonder if I’ll be easily distracted and daydream too much?  The difference for me now is that I know my strengths and I don’t play to my weaknesses.  I’m not studying math so I don’t have to try and focus on something that holds no interest for me.

When you get your kids report cards focus on their strengths.  Don’t worry so much about the areas where they are just average.  Let them spend the summer being easily distracted and daydreaming.

Going back to school is proving to be a lot of fun and a lot of work.  With so much writing required it is hard to keep up with a blog.  I’m using one of my blogs as a learning journal so this one is being neglected.

I am doing a course on Leadership in Organizational Systems.  It is both just in time and too late depending on which situation I reflect on.  I’m re-reading Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline as part of my reading.  (Updated enough that I had to replace my old copy!)

There is a quote I had to share.  He says it well  and challenges my tendency to be linear in my thinking.  He says:

In mastering systems thinking, we give up the assumption that there is an individual, or individual agent, responsible.  The feedback perspective suggests that everyone shares responsibilities for problems generated by a system. that doesn’t necessarily imply that everyone involved can exert equal leverage in changing the system.

But it does imply that the search for scapegoats – a particularly alluring pastime in individualistc cultures such as ours in the Unites Stated — is a blind alley.

I think we’ve all seen this play out in organizations.  Let’s get a new person to lead us and our problems will be fixed.  How’s that working for you?

” There is a crack in everything that’s how the light gets in.”

I’m not sure who said this originally, the principle has been expressed in many ways over the years.

I’ve been feeling a little cracked lately (yes, I’m confirming your suspicions!). It’s great to know that the cracks might serve a purpose.

Are you looking for purpose in something your experiencing right now? Feeling like something’s broken?

Consider the light might be getting in through this circumstance.