When our second daughter was 12, we rented an RV and toured around Alberta, Canada. Family vacations were not her favourite at the time. Famously, at one point she sneered at us with derision and said, “YOU want ME to go hiking in the Rockies??!”
Today, at 22, she is in Banff, Alberta and sent us the following text: “I am having so much fun. How did I not like this before?”
No one wants to be held to the opinions of their 12-year-old self. Continue reading “Allowing for Change”
I’ve spoken to several Executive Directors over the past couple of months who’ve started their stories with, “I’m so glad we….” They finished their sentence in various ways, ranging from “…were clear on our priorities” to “…invested in culture-building” to “…had the right people around the leadership table” to “…trusted each other.”
A few others have had the opposite story to tell, that began, “I wish we…” For them, the ending has often been some variation of “…figured out remote work well before now” or “…made those changes we talked about but never got around to.” I suspect there are likely other endings they are reluctant to admit out loud.
Become comfortable with discomfort.
It might sound good as a hashtag or on a T-shirt, but the above statement is utterly impossible. Discomfort is of course, by definition, not comfortable.
It’s one of the reasons we have default settings. They are comfortable. They save us time and mental energy. They eliminate conscious choice. To move away from them requires deliberate decision. As Dr. Jason Fox explains, our default is “selected automatically unless a viable alternative is specified.” Continue reading “A Default of Privilege”
Throughout this period of lockdown, I’ve been so looking forward to the collective waves of gratitude that we’d experience, just as we’ve lived through the pandemic restrictions collectively. Small things we’d taken for granted would be cause for celebration.
While that has partly been true as various constraints have recently been eased where I live, a more dominant emotion in me and those close to me has been stress. Continue reading “Stressful Gratitude”
I write on being nimble and responsive to changing conditions from the “front of the room,” perhaps when you are running a meeting, workshop or negotiation. Much of our ability to excel at this comes from detailed preparation, self-awareness and practice. And it really helps to be well-rested and well-nourished in the moment.
Even with all of that, nimble facilitation is tiring. It requires a good dose of adrenaline, and a crash inevitably follows. Continue reading “Chronic Responsiveness”
