Leadership Lessons Learned

My friend and the incredible scholar David Rosowsky published a piece in Forbes last week about what he termed the excessive homogenization of US higher education.  As always after reading anything from David, it led to my deliberating on parallels elsewhere and everywhere.

My first association when organizing my thinking, without even contemplating writing yet, is often through music. 

When considering homogenization and to me the conversely yet also akin in a strange way extremism, it brought Supertramp to mind and their great 1977 tune “Give a Little Bit”.  It references giving a little bit of your love and your time and receiving it back in turn.  The great lyrics “There’s so much that we need to share, so send a smile and show you care” as well as “See the man with the lonely eyes, oh take his hand, you’ll be surprised”.  In general, small bits and pieces of love or time provided, small gestures such as a smile or holding a hand, can have profound impact.

Perspective is obviously a wonderful educator, but often one gained more in hindsight than preemptively or in the here and now.  I don’t have the answers and please don’t take anything as my presuming to preach, especially if you are already in the choir, but we must find a way to seek the ability to blend to a workable or collaborative degree without blending to homogenization.  We must avoid leaping to opposite corners of the boxing ring and having everything be all or nothing as our only options.

In the corporate world just like in all aspects of life, how can we seek blending that which should be blended.  Balance is a dangerous word and/or concept to me because it focuses more on what is not versus what is.  Seeking work life balance leads one to focus on what one isn’t doing versus what one is, where we aren’t, what we aren’t, how we aren’t, why we aren’t.  Work life blend can give one greater tolerance as the pendulum swings back and forth and can help focus on what you are, what you have, and what you will, versus the negatives.

Flexibility versus rigor (or process or structure) should not focus on what is versus what isn’t, but rather on what could or should.  Whether it be remote versus in office, 24×7 accessibility versus offline time, or set hours versus flex schedule, how do we work towards finding the middle ground we can in most instances to allow for meeting the needs, requirements, and even preferences of our people, our customers, our industries, and our ultimate goal of meeting our mission.

How we frame things matter.  You can add in-laws and negative associations that sometimes are tied to that, or you can add a new set of parents or family that you are blessed to become a part of, just like you can add a new leader to take direction from or one that you can learn from and be mentored by (perhaps on how not to’s as much as on how to’s).  You can move more towards technology taking on a more prominent role, or you can recognize that the pictured bag phone I used back in the early ‘90s actually allowed me to assist customers after hours just like a compact iPhone does today, with limitations of course, but with the same ability to provide the key aspect of empathy, friendly service, respect for the other party’s time, issues, and sensibilities, and to set expectations on what, when, and how things would be tackled towards resolution.  We can balance revolution when necessary with evolution when progress is being made.

While, I certainly don’t have the answers for how to resolve much of what we battle over and about regarding absolute positions or stances taken or being pitched, I would like to think that we could focus more on our common goals as the priority versus letting our differences always taking precedent.  We can also do that without excessive homogenization.  Pick what we truly can be flexible about and be more flexible in those areas than anyone ever has been.  Pick what needs to be standardized or rigorous and be more rigorous in those areas than anyone ever has been.  Instead of a world (corporate or otherwise) that is all or nothing, just like Supertramp crooned in 1977, how about we “give a little bit”.

#itmatters #leadership #mission #mentorship #moderation #blend #balance