collaborative narrative

Investing in our aliveness matters

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson June 8, 2023June 8, 2023in Abundance Mindset, Busyness, collaborative narrative, courage, Enough, Strategy, values

“The wheel is turning, the hamster is dead”

I have chosen a quote from 📚 Michael Bungay Stanier‘s fantastic and funny session on ‘how to work with (almost) everyone’, to sum up what I wish to share from my The_Dream business festival attendance: a quick win, a pay attention, a choice and a permission.

1) Less talking, more doing regarding our inner & outer ecology. It’s time to get the hamsters out of those wheels (alternatively we can use Philosopher Bayo Akomolafe’s reference to not be a Kafkan bug). Ie. how we want to work with each other, how we look after ourselves, how we build skills for wholehearted, courageous leadership. This can be a ‘quick win’ – it is known what can be done. Do it.

2) Speaking the truth – our planetary safety needs degrowth, our geopolitical safety needs growth. That means we have to really drill down into this paradox and align on a global scale to work on solutions. This is taken from Olivia Lazard‘s talk – the speaker who to me stood out most with her bravery, courage to look closely and her ability to grasp and look for solutions around energy transition and global situations. This is about paying attention – don’t look away from hard topics, chose where you want to invest your skill sets, your own behaviour.

3) Every time we invest in technology, we have to also invest in being human – our morality, our ethics, our communities. The messages were clear on how fast technology is moving, I took from it once more confirmation that we cannot expect to ‘teach’ technology ethics, morality if we are not investing similarly into these skills for ourselves and ensuring well grounded, alive human beings, relations and communities. To me this is a choice – let us link tech investment to human investments.

4) Do not mistake dreamers for not also being doers. I met the most amazing people – dreamers AND who have created businesses and institutes and art and graduate schools and new ideas. And who bring new ways of being to their leadership, teaching and interactions. Full of hope, curiosity, passion and desires to develop life-centered businesses. To me this is a permission – please dream, be full of aliveness, that is what our communities and work places need.

Back to that quote and stepping out from the busyness of a turning wheel – only with our aliveness can we tackle all these paradox questions around planetary wellbeing, shaping technological developments and doing so out of a deep care for ourselves and others.

Again, a thanks to the organisers and curators at House of Beautiful Business and all dreamers contributing.

Source: This post is reflecting my experience at The_Dream Business Festival, 2-5 June 2023, Sintra Portugal. Full details of the program is here: https://houseofbeautifulbusiness.com/thedream. I am happy to share more – get in touch.

Today’s strategic leaders require space more urgently than a neatly orchestrated strategy process

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson May 1, 2023in collaborative narrative, courage, Strategy

“There are leaders that always have time.
And then there are leaders that never have time.”

Does that ring true to you and your experience? This is what a senior leader recently observed to me and a group of their peers during a recent workshop. Since then, this comment has stuck in my mind. Because all around me I hear of the current busyness in organisations, and not in a ‘this is great there is so much happening’ way but rather in a ‘it’s too much we are all close to burnout’ way.

So what distinguishes those two groups of leaders mentioned above, if of course we all have the same hours in a day and a to-do list, which is never ending?

My hypothesis – we’re back to courage. Courage to make space, take time, be strategic and deliberate in our activities and interactions. Imagine the two groups:

A hustle and busyness culture: You stick with a command and control style of leadership, reactively fighting fires and resisting any change.
A strategic, deliberate culture: You make the space to invest in delegating power, allow for strategic thought and getting collaborative and curious in the face of change.

Does this mean if you lead with daring leadership everything will get real slow? I doubt it, even if I also believe it may not be the worst thing if there was more focus rather than worrying about speed. Anyway, if you look at it closely, removing the busyness may not be a contradiction to enabling speed. In the last years, McKinsey published work showing that speed can be a business advantage (McKinsey, The need for speed in the post-COVID-19 era—and how to achieve it), yet they also published that leaders report a lot of busyness with little effectiveness (McKinsey, If we’re all so busy why isn’t anything getting done? ).

I don’t have their underlying data, yet when McKinsey talks about an advantage for speed, if you dig into their report, you will find that the barriers reported as getting in the way of speed are silos, slow decision-making and lack of strategic clarity. So, this supports my hypothesis about being intentionally focused and calm with a clear strategy, and with a culture that enables employees to take bold business decisions at the right moment and right level, with the right amount of information and with an appropriate amount of risk. This enables the speed we are looking for – as the right activities and decisions get focused on and delivered upon – or as McKinsey says it themselves in an older 2018 article “Slowing down to speed up”.

What also backs this hypothesis up for me regarding busyness actually getting in the way of strategic work is the work by Business Professor Dorie Clark, who has written and spoken about the fact that busyness is often a mask to avoid facing uncertainty. You can go watch her TED Talk on the topic here.

So this busyness is asking us to have the courage to lean heavily into the discomfort of slowing down. That is making space. Space..

… for strategic, deliberate thinking, ideas and reflection, versus rushed firefighting and action bias.
… to take the time to align accountability and responsibilities for activities, versus blame and shaming over unclear responsibilities and deliverables.
… to allow for providing guidance on work that has been delegated with power to and power with models, versus a quicker ‘power over’ decision or solution,
… to respond with empathy to a situation going on with a colleague, versus brushing over it with a sympathetic gesture,
… to breath when you notice an emotional hook and get curious, versus letting our eager minds make up a false story.

And for many more examples of showing up with daring leadership behaviours.

As all of you reading this know, leaning into daring leadership is a tough choice, requiring persistence and practice. And yet we can build our courage skills to handle the vulnerability of making that space.

And this is where my activities tie to this work and you are welcome to get in touch with me about:

Providing consulting and facilitation services to build those courage skills within your organisation that enable your leadership team to make and hold space
As an open mindset facilitator certified by OMind support organisations in developing the mindset regarding collaboration
Bringing the dialogue method to you and/or your organisation to create a wide space for strategic thinking and curiosity outside of structured processes and frameworks

I’d love to hear what you do to create and hold space as a leader so we can share and learn from each other around this.

Image credit: Picture by Adam Thomas on Unsplash

Rethinking strategy or sometimes you have to look backward to move forward

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson December 21, 2022in collaborative narrative, Strategy

Wrapping up the year 2022, I want to end with a piece of work that is unfinished and at the same time only just beginning. The question whether it is time to rethink the principles underlying business strategy. Does strategy even need a new name?

There are three pillars at the center of my thought-leadership work: leadership, culture and strategy. For me these represent the symbol of integration, that 3-legged stool often used within different concepts – think (strategy), feel (culture), do (leadership). I see the future of these being grounded in daring leadership, an abundance mindset and collaborative narratives.

There is significant awareness how organisational culture is the engine driving success, there is awareness that the main lever shaping the culture is leadership behavior and also which behaviors foster a courageous culture enabling innovation, change and creativity. Yet, strategy – well I see yet little work digging back to the roots of strategy and questioning the engrained concept of strategy being grounded in competition, beating others and winning.

If you go back to the roots of the well-known strategy consultancy, where I had a great experience starting my path into corporate strategy work – the Boston Consulting Group – you will find the classic text by Bruce Henderson on “The origin of strategy”. He was fascinated by the work of Darwin regarding evolution, competitive advantage and survival of the fittest. Bruce Henderson developed a theory to compare natural selection with business, which was grounded in assumptions around having to compete for limited resources. And he saw businesses having the human advantage of adding strategy to the moves they make, “primates possess imagination and the ability to reason logically“. For him using strategy could be revolutionary and faster, versus the slower natural selection of evolution. So far quite interesting..

Yet, this is what I see as complications. Bruce Henderson grounded a lot of his theory into the similarities regarding limited resources. When looking at this for business he talks around the following resources: “The characteristic fundamental resource segments for business are sources of: money, either in capital or in ongoing revenue; suitable skills, abilities and individuals on an ongoing basis; materials, supplies, energy, components not contained within the organization; and knowledge and communication capability with respect to all external resources and factors affecting their availability.“

There is no consideration here for planetary limits that all businesses (and species) are bound to. Although he touches upon boundaries at other points in his writing, it is not further considered regarding the competition situation. Is that what may have led us to the situation we are in today?

Bruce Henderson himself adds the following about the observations of natural competition: “Except for the most elementary forms of life, the required resources are other forms of life or activity. This establishes a form of vertical equilibrium. The higher levels prey on the lower levels but cannot live without them. Excessive success is self-defeating.“

Excessive success is self-defeating. Yes – so potentially the excessive success of the business principles of the last 30 years have been exactly that: self-defeating, to the point that we are at risk of destroying the basic resources required for all species, including us humans.

Is there an alternative? Can we again look to nature? As clearly despite the ongoing natural competition our planet has been able to be regenerative over a long period of time before humans came along with their ability for strategy.

Yes, I believe we can. If you consider natural selection I can see two differences to think about:

The species are geared towards survival, they are not geared towards ‘winning’ or ‘beating’ other species. That is about mindset, if you like.
Nature often moves to a state of cooperation, which allows the most benefit outcome for the different species and organisations in an ecosystem. Elisabet Sahtouris has written extensively about this and I will be coming back to her work.

So when you are next looking for input on your strategy, looking at the websites of leading business schools on their strategy principles and executive education – pay attention to the language used. Ask yourself is the goal truly to win and beat other companies, organisations and markets? Or is it time to shift up a maturity level also with our strategy principles and re-consider what real success on a people, planetary and profit basis can look like.

Taking one more quote from Bruce Henderson – maybe it is time to go back to his starting point on what makes strategy possible and pay attention the effects of alternative actions.

“For strategy to be possible, it is necessary to be able to imagine and evaluate the possible consequences of alternate courses of action. But imagination and reasoning power are not sufficient. There also must be knowledge of competition and the characteristic higher order effects of alternative actions.“

Let us be courageous, start changing our mindset, allow for different language in our strategy workshops and consider new definitions of successful outcomes.

Look out for more on this topic in the new year. Share your thoughts with me. And look after yourself – also on an individual level it may be time to let go of having to be more extra-ordinary than the next person. Be you. You are enough. And thanks for your time to read this.

Sources for all quotes in italics are taken from Bruce Henderson and the following two publications:

Bruce Henderson, The Origin of Strategy, Harvard Business Review, 1981

Bruce Henderson, The Concept of Strategy, BCG Publications, 1981

What a Red Queen and a White Queen might tell us about about business

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson August 25, 2022in Busyness, collaborative narrative, competition, courage, Daring Leadership, Strategy

Are you creating the space in your organisation for creativity and anticipation of the future – imagining as many possible scenarios as you can to build a bold new future? Listening to those idealists, visionaries, dreamers, thinkers who share how trends are developing?

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Red Queen, Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll 1871

I remember in my molecular genetics in biotechnology degree many years ago learning about the “Red Queen Hypothesis”. This is used in evolutionary biology to describe how organisms interact in a continuous “arms race” of defence and counter-defence mechanisms. It was called “Red Queen” based on the above quote from the red queen in Lewis Carroll’s book. Now that I have spent 15+ years in business after leaving academic science both on the management consulting side and in the industry – it is very much how business likes to behave. Constant competition both within the organisation (employees, projects, business units, etc) and also outside against other companies (competitors, substitutes, supplier, customers, etc). A lot of running fast to get more efficient and performing in what they already do well, that is known ways of doing business.

Here is the thing though. Today more than ever, we have a good understanding that all this competition against each other is not really going to solve the problems we jointly share – around inequality, climate change, human and planetary wellbeing. Those Dennis Meadows named “Difficult, global problems”. Similarly it leads to a very narrow perspective – the busyness of running to keep still is distracting from real disruptive change. So is it time to shift away from running fast only to keep in the same place?

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”
White Queen, Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll 1871

Inspired by the proposition from Eric Muraille in his paper “Diversity Generator Mechanisms Are Essential Components of Biological Systems: The Two Queen Hypothesis” (2018) I would like to extend his thinking around the other queen, the White Queen, towards businesses as a concept.

My reasons for this?

We have difficult, global problems to solve – it requires bold (impossible) thinking
It is time to anticipate how our future can look – have the courage to imagine outside of what we already do
The White Queen is described as child-like – it will require playfulness, curiosity, the right brain

We jointly have one planet. Let us anticipate (at least) six impossible futures that involve courageous, compassionate and collaborative ways of doing business and living.

How to start? Stop running like a Red Queen – make space for long-term thinking, playing, curiosity and reimagining. It might be a little scary to stop running – as there are multiple factors why we tend to stay on that treadmill as I wrote about here – yet there are skills you can learn so you land softly when you bounce of that treadmill and into being.

Sources:

Muraille E (2018) Diversity Generator Mechanisms Are Essential Components of Biological Systems: The Two Queen Hypothesis. Front. Microbiol. 9:223. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.00223
Escaping the Red Queen Effect in Competitive Strategy: Sense-testing Business Models. European Management Journal Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 37–49, February 2005

Is it getting busier in here? Busyness, uncertainty and the courage to slow down

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson July 20, 2022July 20, 2022in Abundance Mindset, Busyness, courage, Culture, Daring Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized

Is it getting busier in here? Busyness, uncertainty and the courage to slow down

Busy. The next meeting – online, offline, over coffee, with lunch, after dinner. Presentations, evaluations, process optimisations, digitalisation, implementations and reorganisations. Emails, instant messages, video calls, meetings.

You may feel frazzled but isn’t fast a great advantage? In a recent survey McKinsey¹ found that speed was associated with better outcomes – the positive effect was seen across all business dimensions, yet particularly in regards to operational resilience and innovation. Yet – here’s the thing – as separately reported McKinsey² senior business leaders reported feeling busy and overwhelmed whilst getting nothing done and the quality of interactions decreasing. I remember that feeling well from corporate settings – a constant stream of meetings, project revisions, KPI reporting – being busy with no tangible outcome for the business.

What is it about the connection here with speed versus busyness with little value added.

When McKinsey talks about an advantage for speed, if you dig into their report, you will find that the barriers reported as getting in the way of speed are silos, slow decision-making and lack of strategic clarity. So, I would argue that the advantage of organisations being ‘faster’ is not about doing more, quicker, and spinning madly. I believe it is about being intentionally focused and calm with a clear strategy, and with a culture that enables employees to take bold business decisions at the right moment and right level, with the right amount of information and with an appropriate amount of risk. This enables a felt speed – as the right activities and decisions get focused on and delivered upon.

The importance of strategic clarity as seen as one element required for speed – and increased operational resilience and innovation. The research by Leadership Expert Dorie Clark, who focuses on long-term strategic thinking, showed that business executives recognise the importance for long-term strategic thinking yet at the same time report to not have time to do so³. She took her research further to explore why they don’t have time, what is it with the busyness. Here’s the thing, as you will see in her concise Ted Talk⁴ the perceived busyness is often not about how much you have to do, but is associated with status, uncertainty and numbing (ie avoiding feeling our emotions). That means this busyness achieves the opposite to what would be desired, business leaders are staying busy to avoid decisions, or feeling discomfort and ambiguity.

So if you want leaders and a corporate culture, where leaders are calm and focused, whilst making courageous decisions based on strategic clarity and collaborating across silos – you want to build the ability to handle discomfort, ambiguity, paradox challenges whilst staying true to agreed upon values and being accountable for mistakes. You want leaders who are able to feel comfortable slowing down in able to speed up.

There are three areas to focus on:

1) At the individual level: Train for skills in courage and handling uncertainty. Start right at the top of the organisation with this. You have to slow down to make space, learn about vulnerability, values, trust and resilience. Become brave and kind leaders who pay attention.

2) At the corporate culture level: Create a corporate culture where it is safe for courageous decision-making. And remember, clear is kind. Culture is defined by a collection of norms, beliefs, values or artifacts. Take a close look at what you are rewarding and what people are held accountable for.

3) At the corporate strategy level: Really focus the corporate strategy to avoid noise, ensure there is alignment with your purpose and values. Understand your stakeholders.

In 2021, the consulting firm Kienbaum did a study⁵ investigating courage in the workplace – their research led them to define a leader as courageous as being both ‘determined’ and ‘value-driven’ (Entschlossenheit & Werteorientierung). Despite confirming the positive correlation of courage with business performance – they found that only 12% of participants in their study displayed courage as measured by their definition.

The good news is that courage and the ability to handle uncertainty can be developed as leadership skills. I support leaders develop Daring Leadership, Abundance Mindset and Collaborative Narratives as the cornerstone for courageous and innovative organisations.

Sources:

Reflections on 50 years ‘The limits of growth’ – let’s invest in the skill sets and mindset to be ‘Courageous. Enough. Together’

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson June 23, 2022July 24, 2022in Abundance Mindset, collaborative narrative, courage, Daring Leadership, Enough, Uncategorized, values

I am convinced we require courage and caring; we require the ability to recognise what we have versus being driven by external wants; and we have to seek true collaboration based on our common vulnerability and a common goal to build “The Mature Society” – a term coined by Dennis Meadows.

Professor Dennis Meadows is not a name I was familiar with up until very recently. Also his work was not something I was aware of. That is the “Limits of Growth” research and work published now 50 years ago.

That is although I worked in management consulting advising business leaders on structuring their businesses. The job was not to be concerned with a full view and long-term thinking on people, planet, profit. It was a view on competitive advantage, profit and total shareholder return – that is excluding the occasional non-profit engagements. Dominant topics requested by industry to management consultancies were to cut FTE, benchmark and optimise sales numbers, find reasons to raise prices, perfect patient funnels or customer journeys, and outsource to somewhere (still) cheaper (globalised) where possible. More sales at higher prices, cheaper costs of resources, and consistent growth of the financials was the goal.

So back to Dennis Meadows and the original work in 1972. At the time an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study looking at the implications of continued worldwide growth. The findings: The earth’s interlocking resources – the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology. A strong message – that got completely belittled and ignored.

It was the work published by anthropologist James Suzman that brought my attention to this report, as well as how it was received back then. So as my attention on the topic was raised, I grabbed the opportunity on the 7th June 2022, to watch a live transmission of Dennis Meadows presenting to The New Institute Hamburg titled “Reflections on The Limits to Growth at 50 & 80”. ’50’ being the years since his original presentation of The Limits of Growth in 1972 at the Smithsonian Institution and ’80’ being his age in 2022.

I took away three key messages and learnings shared by Dennis Meadows to reflect on:

Ignore your doubts and be persistent with your contributions
The findings of the model were accurate, yet were not addressed as they are “difficult, global problems”
Create a positive alternative and a goal to drive hope

1. Ignore your doubts and be persistent with your contributions. Dennis Meadows shared one of his main thoughts before going on stage back then in 1972. And it was this: “This is completely obvious“. His research and finding seemed to him to be obvious, and that it was not worth him telling the collected group of scientists and journalists. And yet it was not obvious. It was ignored. Did that make him give up on the work? No, he continued and 50 years later is still hopeful for our ability to take action.

2. The findings of the model were accurate, yet were not addressed. Dennis Meadows shared how simple the model was focusing on just five aspects: population increase, agricultural production, nonrenewable resource depletion, industrial output, and pollution generation. Yet from the scenarios the ‘standard run’ represents real-life happenings leading to where we are today 50 years later. He reflects openly on failure “We completely failed to achieve our purpose“. He then linked this failure to our (politics, business, societies) lack of ability to tackle “difficult, global problems” – that is problems, which generate returns in the long-term (vs. short-term) (that is ‘difficult’) and which require global solutions, so cannot be solved with local actions (that is ‘global’).

3. Create a positive alternative and a goal to drive hope. Finally, he talked about what is required for us to work together and find solutions, rather than moving in the direction of “less liberty, in exchange for less chaos” – based on the basic social law. In his perspective it links to first what is required for hope: “It requires a sense of humanity (collective ethics and values) plus tools to give hope“. And second Dennis Meadow explained what he would change “If I were to go back.. we need to offer a positive alternative“. His finish is a proposal for that alternative scenario to stimulate discussion and activity around this: “The mature society”.

I attended a further event on the “50 Years of The Limits of Growth” hosted by the Club of Rome on the 14th June 2022. Prof. Dennis Meadows shared the above learnings once more in his keynote and a panel discussion took place moderated by Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of the Club of Rome. I noted in particular following thoughts to pursue (I attempt to attribute these to the panel speakers, wording may not be accurate):

People are currently affected by the 3 Cs – Covid. Climate. Conflict. (Sandrine Dixson-Declève)
GDP is not measuring what is worthwhile measuring. (Tim Jackson)
A new business school is required. (Tim Jackson / Sandrine Dixson-Declève)
Care for place. Care for community. (Kate Raworth)
Have courage of our convictions. (Sandrine Dixson-Declève)
Look at positions of power: those who it suits well and do well in it will not change it. (?)

With Sandrine Dixson-Declève wrapping the overall discussion up well – saying let’s make Jane Goodall proud and use our intellect wisely.

Jane Goodall in a book written with Douglas Abrams lays out her reasons for hope: the amazing human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of young people, the indomitable human spirit. “Let us use the gift of our lives to make this a better world.”

Hope itself is not an emotion – it is a way of thinking and is based on having three things: realistic goals, pathways to get there (not one but multiple) and agency – we believe in ourselves. “Hope is a function of struggle – we develop hope not during the easy or comfortable times, but through adversity and discomfort”.

How can the work on reimaging systems and culture towards the concepts of Daring Leadership, Abundance Mindset and Collaborative Narratives play a part in creating this “The Mature Society”?

These are the opportunities and contributions I see and will continue to work on:

Daring Leadership: Courageous leaders can handle their vulnerability, can lead from the head and heart. They can stay curious and generous, stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, and listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard. These are skills to be teaching at school, in business schools and the further development of current leaders.

Abundance Mindset: To slow down our consumption and increase our well-being, we have to move from scarcity-fuelled fears and externally-created wants to recognising what we have (and yes this may not be material wealth and rather go back to the roots of our mental, spiritual, physical wellbeing) as well as understand that we have enough to make a change, that is to give us that sense of agency.

Collaborative Narratives: It is imperative to move from competitive to collaborative thinking to address current challenges and particularly to address the ‘global problems’ described by Dennis Meadow. No one can ‘win’ alone, as then we all lose. An aspect of this is the ability to address paradox challenges and recognise the vulnerability we all have in common with each other and the planet.

In short it is about being Courageous. Enough. Together.

Sources:
Professor Dennis Meadows, Online Presentation, hosted by: The New Institute, date: Hamburg 7th June 2022.
Professor Dennis Meadows, Online Presentation, hosted by: The Club of Rome, date: 14th June 2022.
Book: The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams, with Gail Hudson
Book: Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown, 2022
Book: Dare to Lead, Brené Brown, 2019.

Trust – it has a business value, yet is volatile. Can a new ‘Trust Index’ be the answer for leaders to navigate the topic?

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson May 22, 2022July 20, 2022in courage, Culture, Daring Leadership, Strategy, trust, Uncategorized, values, vulnerability

BCG, the strategy consulting firm, is going deep into the topic of Trust at this year’s WEF in Davos and have published a new report, in which they present a newly developed trust index. You can find the full report here.

Five immediate reflections below to the report, as I find there are interesting details hidden in this big scale research and at the same time it raises questions:

1. Good news for those of us who believe trust is important. They find a strong correlation of their way to assess trust with above-average total shareholder return, better post-crisis performance and higher ESGC scores – so investors will also be paying attention. But oops – a “significant portion of the largest companies received consistently low-trust scores” – plenty to do then!

2. The overall finding confirms how fickle trust is – slow to build, quick to destroy. It is very variable which firms were in the top 100 list over a time span of 4 years. But those who do stay show strength in looking after their people, good governance, strength in collaboration and innovation. And unsurprisingly they deliver on their products and promises. I’d love to see the list of these 20 companies and look closer at how their leadership team looked within that time span.

3. A whole report on trust without talking about care, integrity, values. These topics are hidden to a certain degree within BCG’s indicator of ‘Fairness’. Yet is still surprising given how these are weighted in other trust frameworks to not see them get more coverage. I disagree with this being purely ‘systemic trust’. Personally, I believe there needs to be more courage to include these more ambiguous and hard to measure aspects of trust and leadership.

4. Measuring topics has pro’s and con’s. The BRAVING Trust framework from Dare to Lead^TM also comes with an assessment. So yes a Trust Index will draw attention to strengths/weaknesses and allow a degree of comparison. Yet if it is handled as primarily a KPI on a dashboard to ‘perform’ against, rather than truly integrate it into leadership behaviour, it may turn into exactly that – a performance. And I would not be surprised if that could send your trust-index score shooting right down..

5. Finally – did I miss it? What about looking a little closer at governance and the leaders. Did those with high scores have a stable consistent leadership team, that built and maintained trust by operating with clear values and integrity? How does it match with BCGs diversity score or their innovation rankings?

My work on the topic of ‘Trust’ is based on the research findings by Dr. Brené Brown and the work by Charles Feltman, and I continually integrate additional research and findings. For sure I will be following this ongoing work by BCG closely.

Most importantly – this research confirms the significance and value of investing in trust. Trust is a skill that can be learnt. It has to be maintained with continuous attention to the elements that define trust and addressing what gets in the way of trust in a safe manner. Trust will only be meaningful if leadership from the top truly stands behind their purpose, lives their values with empathy and with humility holds a true stakeholder focus which goes beyond ego, profit and financial returns.

My conclusion? Before adding a new KPI to the dashboard, I would take the money to invest in leadership skills such as those for Daring Leadership, ensure values have clear behaviours to operate by, and have the courage to move from a narrow profit-/performance-based dashboard to a wider collaborative, stakeholder and long-term perspective of success.

Source: What AI Reveals About Trust in the World’s Largest Companies, May 2022, BCG

Mutig voran – die Unternehmerin Antje von Dewitz zeigt auf, wie wir uns mit einer Vision und Vertrauen den Herausforderungen stellen können

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson May 19, 2022July 20, 2022in courage, Culture, Daring Leadership, Strategy, trust, Uncategorized, values

In meinem Ansatz geht es um ein Führungsverständnis und eine Kultur, welche auf Mut, Empathie, Werten und Vertrauen basiert (Daring Leadership); mit einer Haltung, das wir genug haben, um die Offenheit für Innovation zu ermöglichen (Abundance Mindset); sowie über die Notwendigkeit von echter Kollaboration, um gemeinsam Lösungen zu ermöglichen (Collaborative Narratives).

Doch gibt es Beispiele, das es möglich ist in einem Unternehmen folgendes zu erreichen: Vertrauensorganisation als Kultur leben, Infrastruktur bereitstellen um Diversität zu fördern, Nachhaltigkeit im gesamten Unternehmen verankern trotz Widerstände, und langfristig zu wirtschaften anstatt kurzfristige Gewinne vorzuziehen? Ja! Und ich kann folgendes Buch sehr empfehlen: “Mut steht uns gut!” von Antje von Dewitz. Bei der Übernahme des Familienunternehmens hat sie nicht auf Trends und externen Druck gewartet, sondern ist als Unternehmerin und Mensch mutig ihrer Vision gefolgt und hat diese umgesetzt.

Ich folge dem gesunden Menschenverstand. Wir haben ein positives Menschenbild. Wir glauben daran, dass die Menschen, die hier arbeiten, gerne hier arbeiten und ihr Bestes einbringen wollen.
Antje von Dewitz, Interview im Manager Magazin 20.10.2020 hier

Bereits in den letzten Jahren wurde ich durch Artikel und Podcasts auf die Arbeit von Antje von Dewitz als Geschäftsführerin des Familienunternehmens Vaude aufmerksam. Doch erst jetzt kam ich dazu ihr Buch zu lesen. Es hat mich tiefst beeindruckt.

In dem Buch teilt Antje von Dewitz was sie als Unternehmerin bzgl. Vision, Vertrauen, Diversität und Nachhaltigkeit bei der Übernahme des von ihrem Vater gegründeten Unternehmen Vaude gemacht hat. Das wichtige dabei – sie hat es gemacht. Sie ist mit ihrem Team und den Mitarbeitern durch die Höhen und Tiefen der Umsetzung einer Vision und neuen Unternehmenskultur gegangen, um wirklich durchgehend nachhaltig zu werden. Im Buch teilt sie was sie auf diesem Weg gelernt hat und warum es sich rentiert. Rollenmodelle wie diese brauchen wir, um Mut und Hoffnung zu schöpfen für andere Unternehmen und die Zukunft.

Als Antje von Dewitz 2009 das Familienunternehmen übernommen hat, hatte sie eine klare Vision – mit Bezug auf starken Produkten, einer Werteorientierung und konsequenter Rücksicht auf Mensch und Natur. Sie hatte sich bereits vor der Übernahme in ihrer Forschung mit der Rolle von Vertrauen und der Motivation von Mitarbeitern auseinandergesetzt. Für mich beschreibt der folgende Auszug ihre Elementare Erkenntnis, die hinter allem steht, um ihre Vision zu erreichen.

Unser nachhaltiger Weg stellt uns (Vaude) immer wieder vor scheinbar unüberwindbare Hindernisse［…］Als Pioniere müssen wir immer wieder kreativ werden und miteinander eine machbare Lösung finden.
Diesen Einsatz, der viel Kraft und Erfindungsgeist erfordert und schwer messbar ist, kann ich nicht von Mitarbeitenden erwarten, die sich fremdbestimmt fühlen und ihr eigenes Leben dem Unternehmen unterordnen müssen. Für diesen Weg brauchen wir den ganzen Menschen mit Herz, Seele und Verstand und seiner ganzen Energie.
Antje von Dewitz, Mut steht uns gut!, 2020 Benevento Verlag

Ich teile diese Einsicht, und bin überzeugt, dass wir mit Blick auf den aktuellen Herausforderungen dringend an der Unternehmenskultur, Werten und Haltung arbeiten müssen, um Kreativität zu ermöglichen und mit kollaborativen Ansätzen Lösungen zu finden.

Antje von Dewitz hatte also eine Vision und wusste auch. “Unser Führungsverständnis und Unternehmenskultur sollte sehr bewusst und durchgängig auf Vertrauen und Wertschätzung aufbauen”. Später hat sie auch die Notwendigkeit, die Werte schriftlich festzuhalten, gesehen um damit die Position des Unternehmens klarzumachen. Für demokratische Werte einstehen, dabei auch die Stimme zu erheben und Haltung zu zeigen.

Sie hat viel investiert, um dieses Führungsverständnis und die Unternehmenskultur über viele Jahre gemeinsam mit den Führungskräften und Mitarbeitern aufzubauen. Das Buch beschreibt gut, nach welchen Ansätzen sie mit externer Unterstützung vorgeht und besonders wichtig, dass es eine Investition ist, welche kontinuierliche Weiterentwicklung und Zeit braucht. Nicht jede Führungsperson konnte/wollte sich mit entwickeln, so gab es auch Abgänge. Es gab zudem natürlich Rückschläge, kritische Meinungen, negative Erfahrungen.

［…］Genau das unvermeidliche Ringen mit Zielkonflikten, Authenzität und eine klare Wertehaltung eine Strahlkraft entwickeln, die anzieht, Hoffnung erzeugt und nicht zuletzt Vertrauen schafft.
Antje von Dewitz, Mut steht uns gut!, 2020 Benevento Verlag

Ein paar Beispiele zu den Änderungen, welche im Buch genannt sind: “Führungskräfte von Richtungsweiser und Entscheider… hinzu Rahmengeber, Vermittler und Begleiter”; “Leistung wird nicht nach Anwesenheit, sondern nach den Ergebnissen gemessen”; “Keine Besprechungen nach siebzehn Uhr angesetzt werden”; “weniger Belastung durch Überstunden” , “Schlichte Erkenntnis, dass wir mit möglichst gemischten Teams am Besten aufgestellt sind für die Zukunft”, “Verschiedene Hintergründe, Erfahrungen, desto unterschiedlichere Blickwinkel und nachhaltigere Lösungsansätze und Strategien”.

Wir lernten, dass schwarz-weisse Sichtweisen und Lösungen uns nicht voranbringen, sondern wir gemeinsam und abteilungsübergreifend um eine pragmatische Lösung ringen mussten.
Antje von Dewitz, Mut steht uns gut!, 2020 Benevento Verlag

Das Fundament des positiven Menschenbilds, die Vertrauensorganisation in der gelernt wird wie man mit Ungewissheit, unterschiedlichen Meinungen, Hindernissen umgeht, ist für mich ein Beispiel von ‘Daring Leadership’. Das heisst, es geht um Neugierde, Offenheit, Empathie und Abstand nehmen von defensivem Verhalten, also ‘Armored Leadership’. Diese Fähigkeiten zu lernen, stärken und kontinuierlich fortführen kann geübt werden, gelernt werden, und immer wieder mit Vision, Werte und Haltung in den Vordergrund gerufen werden.

“Statt in die Verteidigungshaltung zu gehen, wenn mich meine Führungskraft kritisiert, nachzufragen, was genau gemeint ist, oder statt Inhaltsschlachten zu führen, einfach mal zu fragen, was ist eigentlich los oder das Gegenüber gerade braucht”.
Antje von Dewitz, Mut steht uns gut!, 2020 Benevento Verlag

Was neben dem ‘WIE’ in ihrem Buch beeindruckt, ist ‘WAS’ sie damit konsequent angepackt hat:

die Unternehmenskultur kontinuierlich angepasst und gelebt mit Bezug auf Führungsverständnis, Vertrauensorganisation, Werten, Diversität
die Nachhaltigkeit in Produkten, dem Arbeitsstandort, der Kantine und sogar einem Mobilitätskonzept verankert
das Geschäftsmodell/Strategie und das klassische Wachstum in Frage gestellt, und den Mut gehabt, es neu zu denken, neues zu probieren und neu zu bewerten was Erfolg ist
das Stakeholder Management, so haben sie sich kollaborativ mit unterschiedlichsten Parteien an den Tisch gesetzt um Themen anzugehen, anstatt auf Grund von Wettbewerb defensiv in einem starren ‘Gegeneinander’ zu agieren
das gesellschaftliche Engagement, sie haben sich mit der Einbindung und Integration von Geflüchteten in den Arbeitsmarkt befasst und ermöglicht.

Ich bin überzeugt der ganzheitliche Ansatz bringt den Erfolg bei einer Transformation wie dieser. Und Erfolge haben sie gesehen.

Wir schaffen es, Lösungen zu finden, wo alles nach Scheitern aussieht. Für mich ist diese Haltung ein Schlüssel dafür, dass wir lösungsorientiert, gestaltungsfähig, und innovationsstark sind.
Antje von Dewitz, Mut steht uns gut!, 2020 Benevento Verlag

Und rentiert sich die Mühe der Vision und der Unternehmenskultur nachzugehen? Ein paar konkrete Gründe nennt Antje von Dewitz im Buch, welche erlebt wurden und werden:

Spürbare Leidenschaft, Loyalität und Energie für das Unternehmen und die gemeinsamen Ziele
Niedrige Krankheits- und Fluktuationsquote
Recht hohe interne Weiterentwicklungsmöglichkeiten
Selten Probleme Stellen zu besetzen, trotz der provinziellen Lage
Eine Vielzahl von Initiativbewerbungen, weil sich Menschen mit der Firmenphilosophie identifizieren
Eine selbstbestärkende Kultur: Viele Menschen mit starkem Urvertrauen angestellt, welche mit ihrer positiven und offenen Einstellung die Organisation und Kultur weiter von innen stärken
Nicht in alten Mustern verhaftet, sondern beweglich und kreativ
Begegnen einander unabhängig von Geschlecht oder Nationalität vertrauensvoll und auf Augenhöhe und lernen zunehmend, unsere Verschiedenartigkeit als Stärke zu schätzen.
Immer wieder in der Lage, gemeinsam zukunftsfähige Lösungen zu erarbeiten, und das macht viel spass

Mein Fazit: Es geht. Es lohnt sich. Es macht spass. Mit Mut, Vertrauen und Kollaboration gemeinsam die Hindernisse unserer Zeit anzugehen.

Für mich sind ‘Daring Leadership, Abundance Mindset und Collaborative Narratives’ der Schritt dahin. Ein Familienunternehmen hat die Unabhängigkeit langfristig einer Vision zu folgen, doch müssen wir dies auch in den grossen börsennotierten Unternehmen ermöglichen und als Investoren, Startups als Erfolg anerkennen.

Zum Schluss von Antje von Dewitz der Aufruf deiner Vision zu folgen:

Wenn viele Menschen am richtigen Platz sind, dann kann das die Welt ein Stück besser machen.
Dann lohnt es sich in meinen Augen erst recht, den Mut zu haben, sich einfach trotzdem auf den Weg zu machen, einfach mal einen ersten kleinen Schritt zu wagen. ［…］Den Blick nicht auf die Hindernisse, sondern auf das Machbare zu lenken.
Antje von Dewitz, Mut steht uns gut!, 2020 Benevento Verlag

Quelle: Antje von Dewitz, Mut steht uns gut!, 2020 Benevento Verlag (Keine Affiliation oder Sponsoring)

Longing for divinity – what Bittersweet has to do with our workplaces and daring leadership

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson April 13, 2022July 20, 2022in courage, Culture, Daring Leadership, Enough, trust, Uncategorized, values, vulnerability

During this great resignation employees are leaving workplaces and listing ‘Uncaring leaders’ as their number one reason (source: McKinsey – Gone for now, or gone for good? ). People are desperate for meaning, values, purpose, kindness and leaders who care.

What if we have to go a step further, and consider that employees are desperately seeking both guidance as well as safe story stewardship for their longing for divinity and wholeness. And with no where else to go they are now searching for this in the workplace.

Let’s go a little back in time. Since I read the book “The Gifts of Imperfection” many years ago, I have had an ongoing quest in the back of my mind regarding ‘Faith’ – what is it to me, where do I find it, how do I cultivate it? This came as a result of one of Dr. Brené Brown’s findings in the book that the most wholehearted people cultivate faith in their lives, making her include guidepost #6: Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith. This has nothing to do with a religion and Brené Brown offers following definition for faith.

Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.
The Gifts of imperfection, Dr. Brené Brown.

More recently Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor talked in her book Whole Brain Living about how our ‘character 4’ on our right brain side already knows about the deep connection we all share. Also the work by Dr. Martha Beck explores how to let go of culturally-derived values, and follow the longing for warmth and yearnings to stay in our own integrity.

Now with Susan Cain just publishing her newest book “Bittersweet” (published April 2022), I have been provided a further addition to the thinking on our inherent longing for that more beautiful place.

I am an avid fan of the work by Glennon Doyle and how she has cut loose from culturally imposed rules of how things “should” be and writes about it so beautifully in her books (Carry on Warrior, Love Warrior, Untamed). So I was very excited to see that Susan Cain went into a conversation about the findings in her book Bittersweet with Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle on their podcast We can do hard Things.

It is a beautiful and stirring conversation – do listen to it yourselves – and it resulted in this post. They talk about how that longing or yearning that we feel in those moments of beauty and sadness remind us of the better world that could be, that it ideally makes us stretch together to build such a world even if we never fully reach it. It reminds us that this feeling of longing and bittersweet is a moment that connects us with each other. This really brought for me the point of faith or a longing for divinity together.

Ok – so that’s all great, but what about the workplace?

In the podcast, they also speak about relationships and refer to a finding from Esther Perel to which I went and found this reference in a another article: “In our modern world, we have the unrealistic expectation that our relationships will fill in for the divine, offering wholeness, transcendence and unconditional love”.

So let’s come back to the workplace – I wonder, did the time at home in the pandemic make us realise that we will not find divinity within our relationships? And so now we are off searching for it in our workplace? And that is why if we are not cared for, looked after, if we are made to feel morally compromised, constantly put in competitive situations to go against each other then employees are leaving or burnt-out or certainly not going to be in a best position for healthy striving.

Why is this important? Because we have to have conversations about it – and as it is even more ambiguous and wishy-washy and touchy-feely than even talking about emotions, I fear many organisations will avoid going there. And at the moment business schools are hardly building strong skills and competencies in this area.

For leaders ready to look at this a bit closer, we do have starting points.

The work by Dr. Brené Brown, published in her book Dare to Lead, showed that courageous, wholehearted leaders have in common that they truly care for and connect with their employees. In daring leadership I work to build courageous, wholehearted leaders and work cultures. And I continue to see this as an important first step for leaders – as it teaches what courage is, how to rumble with vulnerability, why values with behaviours are important, what the elements of trust are and how distancing from the stories our minds make up we can gain resilience. So it means skills to sit with uncertainty are built, there is space for the conversations and for being a learner, not a knower.

The Dare to Lead^TM program includes how grief gets in the way of LivingBIG, that is the belief every person is doing the best they can, yet it handles the topic of grief with a lot of caution. And I see grief as part of sorrow and bittersweet, about something that is lost and what it may make us yearn for and stretch for with action.

This is where I believe we have to dig deeper and not shy away from conversations around the bittersweet, grief, nostalgia, beauty. These play a critical part of connecting us with our humanity, our longing, our faith and those emotions awe and wonder. It can put us in communion with each other. Taking from Brené Brown’s newest book Atlas of the Heart – we have to become more confident as story stewards to one another.

If you are looking for something concrete to do:

Develop your own thoughts, skills and awareness (you can start with books mentioned in this post)
Get leaders trained to enable safe workspaces, where vulnerability and uncertainty is allowed (eg. the Dare to Lead^TM program)
Business schools – do include new programs so leaders come away with empathy and humility
Start incorporating and become aware of beauty in your life and workplaces

Although my thoughts here are around the workplace, I believe it is imperative that our education systems and our local governments step up in their responsibilities to engage and enable dialogue on our societies’ values, our moral compass, our desire for communion and connection with each other. As really I am not convinced we want these beautiful, soft issues of humanity to be cared for by large corporate conglomerates.

I leave you with some words from Susan Cain in her conversation with The House of Beautiful Business:

I think it’s possible to admit – not just admit, but embrace – all the bounty of what spiritual longing actually is. That’s completely consistent with deep agnosticism. But we’ve lost sight of that.
House of Beautiful Business. LONGING IS THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR MOONSHOTS, AND ALL OUR LOVE

And if you wonder where I am with my personal quest for faith. I continue to rumble with it, explore, learn and give myself grace whilst doing so. Currently it rests for me around my gratitude practice, the mantra Martha Beck offers “I deserve to live in peace”, my reading of the Tao Te Ching and it’s call to Non-Action, and the Buddhist high virtues of: loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity.

(Clear is kind: I provide links so you can find my sources and find publications. I have no affiliation with any of these external sites or any return from doing so.)

What if we might have been wrong? … then let’s have the courage to do better now

Posted by Anne-Marie Deanson January 19, 2022July 20, 2022in Abundance Mindset, collaborative narrative, Culture, Daring Leadership, Enough, Uncategorized

The Great Attrition triggered surely by our collective recognition of our vulnerability and the finity of our lives has gained significant traction in the US and now in Europe. McKinsey ran a big study and recently shared these numbers, which caught my attention in the blog here.

“More than half of employees who left their job in the past six months did not feel valued by their organization (54 percent) or manager (52 percent), or they lacked a sense of belonging (51 percent). Additionally, 46 percent cited the desire to work with people who trust and care for each other as another reason to quit. Employees want stronger relationships, a sense of connection, and to be seen.”
It’s not about the office, it’s about belonging. McKinsey.com, 13th January 2022. Accessed 19th Jan 2022.

It is good to see our human need for belonging and it’s role in the Great Re-Evaluation, as Arianna Huffington calls it, get the deserved attention.

Small fixes as suggested in this post by McK are a good immediate step.

Yet if we mean the change seriously, I believe this calls for a real re-think of our societal and organisational cultures. Including slowing down, lots of self-awareness work to be able to show up as a courageous and vulnerable leader, and reframing our mindset towards one of abundance and collaboration.

That would include in organisations having to question our productivity and performance measures, including which behaviors and deliverables those measures really create and measure. Or questioning being so occupied with competition, profit, busyness and creating more wealth for the few beneficiaries right at the top of the current structures?

It’s a bumpy path and vulnerability is uncomfortable, we might have to admit some management choices we were part of for example to drive up productivity and consumerism weren’t so great. We have to look at our individual choices – how do we show up towards ourselves and others, what and from whom do we make purchases, what do we have to let go off.

It can also be pretty lonely if you are ready to start down this track, with various shareholders resisting any change and pulling you back when they can.

I am convinced those leading the way with courage will create spaces for people sharing their values in purpose, authenticity and belonging to join them and at some point that magic tipping point for others to follow will happen. In the same way I prefer to believe people are doing their best, I prefer to be part of reimaging a great place that our world is developing towards.

What are the choices you make?