Author: Shaun Coffey

Shaun Coffey is interested in future making and institutional building. He is an agricultural scientist who tries to integrate fragmented and sector-specific technical and scientific knowledge to address the wicked problems that characterise the real world.
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A note for the CEO: You communicate even when you are not communicating!

Here is a little story from one of my favourite leadership practitioners, Max De Pree, that reminds us that what a leader does is important. 

I often found  the CEO job a rather lonely life where every move is under someone’s observation.  But rather than letting this develop into a sense of strain or tension, it is important to remember that if your actions reflect your words (or intentions) then you are being authentic and effective.

Esther, my wife, and I have a grand-daughter named Zoe, the Greek word for “life”.  She was born prematurely and weighed one pound, seven ounces, so small that my wedding ring could slide up her arm to her shoulders.  The neonatologist who first examined her told us that she had a 5 to 10 percent chance of living three days.  When Esther and I scrubbed up for our first visit and saw Zoe in her isolette in the neonatal intensive care unit, she had two IVs in her navel, one in her foot, a monitor on each side of her chest, and a respirator tube and a feeding tube in her mouth.

To complicate matters, Zoe’s biological father had jumped ship the month before Zoe was born.  Realising this, a wise and caring nurse named Ruth gave me my instructions.  “For the next several months, at least, you’re the surrogate father.  I want you to come to the hospital every day to visit Zoe, and when you come, I would like you to rub her body and her legs and arms with the tip of your finger.  While you’re caressing her, you should tell her over and over how much you love her, because she has to be able to connect your voice to your touch.”

Ruth was doing exactly the right thing on Zoe’s behalf (and, of course, on my behalf as well), and without realising it she was giving me one of the best possible descriptions of the work of a leader.  At the core of becoming a leader is the need always to connect one’s voice with one’s touch. (my emphasis)

Reference:  De Pree M O (1991)  Leadership Jazz.  Melbourne: Australian Business Library, Information Australia. pp.1-3

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Thoughts of Thursday: Want to be successful at innovation? Be a good story teller

At its heart, innovation is a profoundly social phenomenon. More often than not, it is the story that makes the innovation, rather than the other way around.

Story Telling is a forceful tool.  Enjoy these quotes from Bill Fisher – Every Innovation Needs a Story 

My experience is that it is easier than most think, and that you can tell your innovation story in three parts: Why? What? How?

In order to rally the troops around your idea, there needs to be a shared awareness and agreement that doing something different is a good idea. Otherwise, we all find inertia to be a powerful force opposing innovation.

Repeat after me: it makes no sense at all to consider a changing business environment (why?), and a different way of going to market (our innovation; what?), without acknowledging that we may have to change the way we work, as well. Once you pitch the “what”, the evaluative portion of your audience will immediately be thinking “how are we going to make this work?”

‘A story has to be something that is unexpected. What is predictable is never material for a story. “ (this is often about the “why?”)

“Stories are all about discovering the mundane in the exotic and the unusual when all of it is predictable.” (this is typically about the “what?”)

“Storytelling must be about the audience. Stories have to leave some role for the audience. They persuade the audience to suspend their disbelief.” They also speak to the audience’s principle concerns or hopes. (this often speaks directly to the “how?”)

Edison realized the importance of story-telling to the innovation process, when he indicated by the observation “Inventors must be poets so that they may have imagination.”

Let us all be poets in our roles as innovators.

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Is your self-talk holding you back? Reset your mindset

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Carol Dweck

Do you have a “Fixed” or “Growth” mindset?

  • Iacocca  
    • Surround yourself with worshipers, exile the critics, loose touch with reality.  My way or the highway!
  • Welch  
    • Regularly tore up the agenda in the face of new circumstances. Flexible and adaptive.
  • Dunlap
    • Short-term gain leads to long term collapse.  Simple fixes.  Trash the people. One size fits all.
  • Gertsner
    • Overhauled the culture: called a failure: short-term pain to put company back in the lead. Do it different.

See Carol S Dweck (2006) Mindset: the new Psychology of Success

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What happens when we remain silent?

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Are you having difficulty getting heard?  Being drowned out?  Facing criticism? As much as your critics count you may have more to fear from silent friends, or rather the silence of friends in important public debates.

It’s frustrating when you feel that your voice has not been heard. It is even more frustrating when your arguments are misrepresented, or even dismissed, by antagonists to take and entrenched position, all are unprepared to accept the possibility that they might be wrong. The people who only want to hear views that are similar to their own. You can’t even have an informed discussion. Blocked so you cannot be heard.

But where are your friends? Your supporters in the debate?

Think of it in another way. Have you ever seen somebody in difficulty trying to make a point or express a view or argue a case in the face of unreasonable and at times uncharitable attacks? What have you done? Have you joined the fray? Or do you remain silent?

What happens when we remain silent? When we remain silent we encourage continued isolation from the facts.

Continue reading “What happens when we remain silent?”