In the previous episode, I began to share with you what Peoplerise sees as the leadership question and how it takes shape through the symptoms that we observe in organizations and then tell you about in consultancy.
The aim of our dialogue is to promote insight and openness to the new, so that the symptoms change shape and release their transformative potential.
From symptoms to “how can I?”
“I complained about the lack of collaboration between the technical teams and our customers. I thought that some competition between functions would allow me to manage my people more easily without having to expose myself more personally, but this has resulted in a technical growth without a parallel growth in collaboration.
How can I enable authentic collaboration by starting with myself and my direct reports, supporting our teams to strategically and collaboratively tackle complex projects with each other and our clients?”
“I started to work at a very young age, I had to help my father and mother! At half past four in the morning I went to the cowshed to milk the cows, then I took the bus and went to school. I never received a hug from my father, I never did anything more for them, I just did what was necessary and that was it! Today, after 40 years, I still feel like the milker I used to be, even though I’m the head of a company, and if I’m not involved in everything, I don’t feel OK.
How can I feel OK by supporting my people from a distance, only in the operations where I am truly useful, and confidently delegating important parts of the business to them?”
“We are like tightrope walkers between skyscrapers with the head in the clouds, this causes us to have a vague vision of what lies ahead and because of this we always feel alone and unstable.
How can we become a jazz band where freedom of tightrope walking remains but is secure and supported by deep collaboration and information that clears the clouds?”
“We built an organization with gears, not knowing that even gears can fail to cooperate by becoming sticky and slowing down the motion.
How can we escape this mechanistic constraint and embrace a more organic mode where purpose, business model, capability and operational functioning result in a client who is actually amazed and grateful for our efforts?”
It is the “how can I” that represent a stimulus to seek transformation. We give voice to them together, they emerge in the generative dialogue between client and consultant. And because of this, they unite us deeply, they are our true point of connection.
Very different from “how much does it cost, and in what amount of time do you provide my technical teams with the right core competencies to develop collaborative skills?”.
In the “how can I” there is the inner search for the next step, there is the necessary movement to make the new happen.
Photo by Jules Bss on Unsplash
But how is it possible for leaders to address these transformations that are asking to emerge? Here in Peoplerise we work on this transformative question every day. You will find some insights in “In search of the leadership question – part 3”.
See you soon!
