Head and Heart at work

Conversations is about connecting with the heart not head. The heart is superior to the head. What ever is known to the head is available to those who connect with the heart and more.

The head has knowledge. That knowledge is gathered from the world of manifest. It is ordered and patterned through modeling and algorithms. It is designed for input, process and output. This knowledge is functional, purposive and supports manifest outcomes.

The head solves for problems around the physical laws. Maths, Physics, logic serves well when trying to solve for complex design issues that lend itself to this.

Here, problem definition, root cause analysis, determining possible options and arriving at criteria’s to for best solution and implementation plans and contingency plans. Are critical to success. Be it a marketing campaign or a war campaign, strategy and tactical execution is critical. 

Professionally, we have to be good at Head. That is what the workplace is about: solving business problems. Competition, product placements, pricing, distribution, logistics and manufacturing at optimized costs. The head is all about functional and business competencies and we have to be good at it.

At the level of the heart, lies leadership of people, who make the head happen more effectively. The head requires management, while people require Leadership. Leadership is about the softer aspects of business. Interestingly, the harder problem is to the ‘softer’ side of enterprise.

Knowledge when fused with heart becomes wisdom. Head gives you data, analytics, insights even, but heart takes you further: it provides forsight.

When you operate at the level of the Heart, Head is already there.

The head can never trust, the heart can never doubt.

Organisation Workshop - Exploration in Systems Thinking

Most explorative work usually is around the individual. I am often asked if there are effective designs around exploring Organisation dynamics. Yes there is, and it is the Organisation Workshop introduced by Barry Oshry.

In this workshop, participants are randomly selected to play the roles of Tops, Middle, Bottoms, and Customer(s). Each day in the organization is of 15 minutes with reflection time built in between each day (Time out of time).

Instructions are few and simple. Tops have wide powers around organization and direction. Each day costs are clarified by way of expenses and variable costs: some fixed and some discretionary. The task is relatively simple and explained by the Customer to the Tops, who then go about communicating and executing through the Middle and to the Bottom. The ensuring drama provides rich data on how people communicate, collaborate, and act. A classic for reviewing systems thinking.

Several days are played out before the simulation ends. Then de-brief begins.

The whole simulation is not role playing but real play.

I have used this often in my work and it is a treasure house to reflect on Organisation.

“The nature of system is certainty; the nature of structure is security; the nature of beauty is order. These define the ‘oughts’ of a good society. When the ‘oughts’ become ‘musts’, they become tools of oppression and unleash great sorrow. When that sad day arrives, the way to regenerate the society is not to defy or to deny but to define; not to resist or to desist but to persist.”~ Pulin K. Garg

Styles of Training

Styles of Training – something you may wish to think about 

Let’s look at what trainers do:

1. Procedural statements
a. ‘Raise you right hand in front of you and then move it up above your head….etc’
2. Demo
a. ‘Watch me and observe the right procedure. First, you begin with…..then……’
3. Giving Information, sometimes using rhetorical questions?
4. Seeking Information. This can be done by asking questions
a. Direct question – to someone
b. Indirect question – posed to the group
c. Relay question – who would like to answer this?
d. Reverse question – And what do you think?
5. Summarizing, ’so let confirm where we are so far’
6. Check Learning – quizzing / testing

At a process level, trainers tend to:

a) Propose
b) Build on an existing proposal
c) Agree
d) Disagree
e) Bring in – ‘what do you think, John?’
f) Shut out – ‘let’s hear what Jane has to say first, Peter’

Depending on what situation you find yourself, you would need to vary the intensity of 1-6.

As a teacher, you would be doing a lot of  giving information, and check learning.
As a driving instructor, you would be doing a lot of demo/procedural statements.
As a facilitator, you would be doing a lot of seeking information.

Varying your style for each learning event is what’s important especially in adult pedagogy.

Be Sincere, not Serious

Be Sincere, not Serious

‘Be a joke unto yourself’, said Osho jestfully adapting from Buddha’s last words, ‘be a light unto yourself’. 

Life is not to be taken seriously, instead be sincere. 

In being serious you mortgage yourself to the other, an expectation that arises not from the self but from the other. Seriousness is a psychological disease. In being serious you confirm to expectations that you make unto yourself: to be perfect, in every way. This idealistic notion is a phantasy, a most subtle enemy that continues to ever remind you, ‘I’m never good enough’. What is there to be serious about? Seriousness requires effort: you need to be trying all the time, to live up to an occasion. There are many, ‘who take themselves seriously’. They want it all: Power, recognition and wealth. Seriousness is about belief. Making an assumption around something. What is really true about beliefs? Beliefs are about notions we hold. We replace one belief with another: the process goes on. Replacing one false notion with yet another. Pause for a moment, close your eyes and reflect: what is the one thing I am really sure about? Are you sure? If you wish to be rich, you have to be a beggar. In other words, unless you have no beliefs, unless your glass is fully empty, you will never know. Being a Knower is different, then it is no longer a belief. A knower knows, he does not need to believe. You need to believe only if you have a doubt. Wonder why we believe in a God, but know it is now daytime? One is belief, the other is knowing. 

Life is not a problem to but a mystery to be lived. The serious have questions. Life is not to answer the question: instead life is about answering the questioner. Philosophers have gone on churning questions they pose to themselves, and then they go about answering it. What do you call that: 'fool o sophy! Drop the question, life is then accepted. You don’t find the answer. You get an experience. And the experience is more blissful than an answer. Every question has a short-lived answer, held true by the assumptions of the context. Change the assumptions and you recreate doubt. As I said often on my blog, the mind can never trust, the heart can never doubt. When the question is dropped, you connect. Bering serious, is about being a questioner.   



Be sincere always. Sincere is acceptance of yourself and of the other. In being sincere, you drop, being appropriate: to be something else. Sincere allows you to amplify your commitment, in your own unique way, and without the pressure of pretense.  Being sincere is accepting, who you are. To accept, ‘I’m evolving and growing within. Good enough, and I could be even better. Better than I was yesterday’. Life is to be a playground, a dance, a love affair. Life should be a circus, everything should be in playfulness. Life is too short for this. What really matters? Someone once shared a wise thought: remember in every act, how does it connect to your beginning or to your end. If every act is held under probe with this lens, what would really matter?

Life needs to be lived in spontaneity. Here today, gone tomorrow: in between be Sincere, stay playful. Enjoy the mystery of yourself. 
Be human, unto yourself and others.

Live Now Here, not there in Nowhere! 

Rules - what are they really for?

Rules – what are they meant for?

Why have rules at all? Rules provide a reference point for how a game is to be played out. Imagine a game of soccer or cricket with no rules: it would be chaos.
Even when we have a boxing bout that avoids the queens rule, its is with a rule: that no rules exist. Nothing is to be regarded as ‘fair play, you can do anything to bring the other opponent down. You may Spit, bite, kick, punch, whatever. The only objective is to win.

When you lower the set of rules, you lower the standards of fair play, period. Refer to one of my posts on the Mahabharta war, wherein almost all rules of fair play, was violated by the Pandavas. As someone said, all is fair in love and in war.
http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/all-is-fair-in-love-and-war.html

We do need rules to govern our lives: to play its game. These rules are fair conduct, morality, ethics or law, or Company Policy. They are created for consistency, fairness and an opportunity for a level playing field. Often the rules provide for a handicap, where the forces are unequal or dissimilar in terms of natural endowments. Like in the case of horse racing or golf. These are affirmative actions to create a balance. Same could be said for the reservation policy. We all like rules, it allows for a pattern of order (traffic rules), builds trust and respect around how each person can hoped to be treated. When we bend rules covertly, we signal, unfairness, arbitrary whims and fancies and we end up being distrusted. However, for the rich, the powerful, rules are disliked: they wish to find loopholes: through Jugaad. Imagine all of us succeeding through jugaad, we never would. Most of us wish for our rights, what about our duties?

Rules are put out by a community to guide collective action. At and individual level these rules turn to personal principles. Remember, there are no eternal rules: everything rule lies in its context, and needs to change once context changes. ‘The old order, changeth yielding place to the new, and God fulfills himself in many ways, lest one custom should so corrupt the world”, write Lord Tennyson.

Rules are to be followed as a general principle but abandoned if dysfunctional. Stake not your life, but your meanings about life, said Pulin Garg, my beloved teacher and Guru. Like goals, they provide direction but are meaningless by themselves. Read more about this in my post below: http://stevecorrea7.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/another-perspective-on-goals.html

Society is governed by rules, at the level of the individuality, there is no need for rules. Read my post on ‘Be part of community; but foremost be individual’. 

Conceptually, rules come from ‘location’ in context: they are prescriptive, often stale and anachronistic. Uncalibrated, and without reform they become draconian, living in staleness, living corpses of the past, of dead traditions and rituals whose original sense and meaning have been lost to obscurity. 

Remember this one rule: there are no rules. Everything is contextual. 

Towards Transformational Change

Towards Transformational Change

Much has been shared on Change Management in so many ‘to do’ consulting manuals. However, change has a soft and a hard part: and interesting enough the softer part is harder relative to the other.

I look at change metaphorically speaking as a sailboat on the ocean.

For me, the hard part is the Project Management aspects: Prepare, Engage, Design, Implement, Monitor, Embed, Evaluate and Terminate and the ‘check points’ that would determine Go/No Go, at each stage. This is the intellectual part of change. The content part of change.

However, it is the softer aspect of HOW, we will deliver change that is more crucial. People connect to a Vision, a compelling vision of the future, a place which would be better than Today: that story needs to be told: Together we are changing! The story needs to be reinforced regularly and wins/losses shared transparently along the journey to build trust, credibility and for leaders to come across as being fair, transparent and authentic.

Kottler model of Change is an interesting framework that creates this. So too, the CAP (Change Acceleration Process) by GE. Each consultant uses their own framework that works best for them. Each step builds on the Process element of change. It is said that if you had 10 hours, what would you you use most of the time on: Sharpen the axe (Process) , or chop wood? (Content).

Amongst all, the most crucial part of the process: the Principles of Transition. This work is to be co-created by the steerco, and to be understood widely across the organization. Transition principles lays out clearly the Performance Ambitions, Reasons for Change, Business Case, and the why of Change. That said, it should speak to the Values of the company, and how it would approach all elements of change through those lenses, like the North Star that is fixed and directional.

Even more importantly, it should clarify, the Leadership Standards as to how leaders are expected to lead change and the ‘Must Do’ behaviours.

In my experience of dealing with change, I believe, that people are not uncomfortable with dealing with change. They are indeed uncomfortable with the uncertainty that change brings and not having answers to the questions that get raised, which leads to anxiety and personal frustration. Communication, Communication and even more communications , allows people to embrace change.

Abiding by standards, Principles of transition, Being fair, transparent and authentic with skill, and sensitive to how people respond to change is crucial for change to be transformative.

Change when handled well would lead to institution building, at its worst, it creates one bad design to another bad design. Structures are transformed, but people in those structures continue to operate without any change.

For change to be institutional, it needs to define and embed new ways of working, that is reinforced by rewards.  The tolerance of the lowest error, determines the threshold of the culture. If you tolerate late arrival to the meeting, no matter how insignificant that establishes the implicit tolerance and culture of the workplace. Leaders need to demonstrate what they are intolerant too and call this out publicly. Clearly, between what is said, and what is done, done beats said, any day.

When Strategy and Culture collide, who eats who for breakfast?

Most Change is destined to fail: the hard is delivered: the easy bit. The soft is left undone. Organization that truly wish to bring transformational change must focus on that 1% difference, which is a significant differentiator. It is the 1% difference which makes the 100% difference.

News - from facts to entertainment

I try not to react to news each day hoping I manage my day with sanguine composure. 

I find news disturbing and energy sapping. It keeps people constantly scared and anxious: building unconscious fears and seeding prejudice. News by definition is served out with one objective: sensationalism. To gain eyeball for the channel and deliver the commercial goals for prime time advertising. TV channels compete, racheting the decibel levels to steal the march from its' near rival, clamouring to gain attention.  As we have so little time to reflect on the news or to ascertain the veracity of what is being shared, we fall prey to colluding with the editorial slant that it so vociferously espouses.  

You can see this out through screaming headlines in the dailies, live news streaming, channels with news anchor, who invite panels not for objective dialogue but to stimulate argumentative views, where emotions are exploited and manipulated and all of us become live spectators to an unfolding drama. Everyone who watches has vested interests and all are gratified perversely. Panel members, who get an hour's slot to fame to either celebrity status or notoriety. I often wonder why panel members even bother to come when they know it could only be reputation damaging, but I guess they do not care. Unashamed, unabashed, and unrepentant they confirm to us all the sadness of our times: Crime and evil pays, justice and fairness continue to be violated. The anchor enjoys his potency to grandstand each news hour: interrogating and attacking, and making insinuations all the time, even while wishing to appear to be asking a question. Your silence confirms your guilt, your responses are taken as an excuse. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. The audience these days is also invited to engage with the gory drama, through live text streaming of messages right through the telecast. News today is perverse entertainment, not objective reporting of facts, even a permissible allowance for offering a perspective. 

News today is speculative, sensational, gory, emotion rousing, and devoid of facts and accurate confirmation by authorities. Through archived images, manipulated clips set to multiple loop, and subtle innuendoes, the media whip up a kangaroo trial: a media trial that allows them to be prosecutor, judge and jury. Through all this we remain hypnotised, our mental abilities suspended, our thinking ability restricted, as we consume large portions of adulterated poison. This toxicity plays itself out in so many other ways: and anger is often deployed where it does not belong.  

Who is to blame? To answer that question respond to the riddle below:

A Queen, ignored by the King, decide to elope with a Knight, who seduced her and galloped off through the forest, where they were confronted by a Ogre who attacked the horse. The Knight, pushed the queen to the ground and certain death. The ogre’s soul was possessed by a wicked Witch who lived in the mountains. Who is responsible for the death of the queen? 

Once more on Leadership

How to like and be liked

Let me offer you two thoughts from David Rock, the SCARF model and my builds.

Our brain, he argues is wired for either reward (dopamine release) or punishment (I have elaborated on this from a Buddhist Perspective in several of my posts).

Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness have a tremendous impact on our relationship.

Status – an increase or decrease can be achieved through feedback. Using Appreciate Enquiry, or feedforward – focusing on what is being done well. By offering negative feedback all the time we create and perpetuate the danger response. Also, as leaders, since we wish to share more on any issue with our direct reports, they may feel even more vulnerable. Enhancing the status of the other, making them feel valued would help. Read more about Pygmalion effect.

Certainty – What will happen during change. Just giving more information moves them to reduced anxiety. Setting clear expectations will create certainty.

My experience tells me that people are not afraid around change, they just need more and more information around the uncertainty that surrounds change. Providing regular communication will help including engaging people during change.

Autonomy – offering people choices, reduce stress. People need to know they have choices. Avoid micro managing. No one likes a hobson’s choice. Even in a stormy brawl in a bar, police tend to be very polite to the offender and offer him choices, ‘Would you like for us to walk outside and discuss this, or shall we move to the back of the bar?’. Try this with your child, “Would you like to do your homework an hour before dinner, or would you prefer an hour post dinner?”

Relatedness – when you meet new people, you feel stress regarding strangers. But as we get to know people (he is like me; not like me) is important to increase or reduce oxytocin. As leaders amply the personal relationship as they do not wish to be too close. Discussing one’s emotions reduces the impact of the emotion. All humans have a desire to engage and relate. All our fears are ‘internal’, created by the brain. Apprising one’s own thinking, feeling and behaving continuously would lead to personal growth. Remember we are all part of the social world.  

Fairness – a fair exchange increases positive feelings. Providing a perception of fairness is critical. Having a set of principles is important. Employees need to feel safe. That their backs are being protected. Organizations must demonstrate justice and fairness is being dispensed.

As leaders, we may end up creating danger responses by default. To enhance increase Status, Provides clear expectation, empowers, relates and connects and comes across as being fair. When we focus attention (I prefer to call it awareness) we become intelligent, and we experience total mindfulness.

Compassion, that goes beyond sympathy and empathy becomes ours to possess. Then we truly become leaders.