In Memoriam
9/11 puts the work we do in perspective. I found myself that day in Vienna Austria, training country representatives from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the former Soviet Union how to help groups reengineer their business processes. Towards the end of the day a participant interrupted my teaching by handing me a large Post-it note that read "The World Trade Center has been bombed and 40,000 people are dead." I had no idea what to think so I read the note to the class and asked if they had heard anything about it. Some reported they had received text messages confirming an attack. (Yes, texting was already going strong in Europe in 2001).
We had almost completed the workshop, so without uttering another sentence I told everyone that class was over. I arrived back at my hotel room in time to watch the hijackers' horrific attack on the second tower. I became glued to CNN and the BBC that week in Vienna (the only English stations besides HBO), interrupting reports from abroad with bike rides and walks in the city and along the Danube. What became painfully obvious to me then still rings true today: while the work we do at times dramatically helps people, teams and organizations, that work pales in comparison to what is truly important in our lives. And we hope that friends, colleagues and clients have no doubts that this is the case as they observe how we work with them.
Building Community
At LeadershipSmarts our goal is to create sustainable leadership and genuine change. We have partnered with thousands of you over the last 5 years in Alberta. We recognize the inherent difficulty in developing new skills and practices that create better results. To that end, we will be launching 2 new communities this fall:
Crucial Skills - for people who have attended one of our Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations or Influence course.
Training - for those facilitating those courses within their organizations.
Look for further details and an invitation to join these communities this month.
Changes
Our Monthly Newsletter will focus on topical content areas and the community mentioned above. We will feature much of the Newsletter content on our Blog, starting in October. The headlines and beginning of the piece will be found here, with the rest of the column found on our blog. You'll find an example of a shorter piece directly below.
We are also changing the nature of our Executive Breakfast Seminars to focus on an overview of our skills and processes. These breakfasts will be coming to Calgary and Edmonton in early October.
Adversity: What's the Problem with Problems?
"Houston, we have a problem." Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert wanted Mission Control to know they had huge obstacles to overcome as a result of the explosion and resulting loss of heat and water in the spacecraft. In life and death situations, problems are surfaced and dealt with real time. Contrast that with people at the water cooler who have been overheard saying, "They don't want to hear or even know about it." But "it" is precisely what leaders must hear and must know.
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