Month: February 2011

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Is that even legal?

racial-discrimation-in-a-workplace-

“Hey, I got an HR question for you.” This is a statement I hear often. In most cases it usually involves a scenario description followed by, “Is that legal?” In my experience, most of the scenarios I hear come from bad workplace conduct, behavior or policy and are not illegal. A recent blog post by Donna Bellman breaks down the top ten employment laws that you think exist that don’t. The post is straightforward and to the point. Follow the link for the entire list, but here are a few from my frequently asked questions:

Wrongful termination

If you live in Arizona or Montana, your employer can only fire you for just cause. Otherwise, they can fire you for any reason or no reason at all. They don’t have to have a good reason. They don’t even have to give a reason.

Hostile environment/harassment

Hostile work environment is not illegal. Harassment is not illegal. Bullying is not illegal. Hostile work environment or harassment due to race, age, sex, religion, national origin, disability, color, taking Family and Medical Leave, whistleblowing, or some other legally-protected status is illegal.

Discrimination

Discriminating against you for being you is never illegal. Favoritism, nepotism, being a jerk, are not illegal. Discrimination based on age, race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, color and genetic information are illegal.

And despite the fact that many aren’t illegal, I am often surprised by how HR has responded to the scenarios I hear which range the gamut from full “blowing off’ to complete overreaction. If you an HR professional you need to know the difference. And if it is just bad workplace behavior take a stand against it even if it isn’t illegal.

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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.

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Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 16 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. She is available to help you with your Human Resources and Training needs on a contract basis. For more information send an email to smazurek0615@gmail.com or visit www.sherimazurek.com. Follow me on twitter @Sherimaz.

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Social Media Strategies

What Works?

There’s a virtual explosion of social media tactics and tools available to help you in your online marketing campaign. How do you choose those that ‘fit’ your company?

Start with a great social media STRATEGY. Developing one always revolves around your marketing goals and objectives. Examples of some of the more fundamental social media goals include:

  • To increase overall awareness and/or goodwill
  • To increase engagement
  • To increase referrals
  • To increase conversions/sales

Ideally, you want to build a loyal base of Brand Advocates – individuals who “blow your horn” for you. They absolutely LOVE your company – and they will trumpet the benefits you provide – a totally unpaid army of PR agents.

Real World Social Media Strategy – Case Examples

Strategy – Brand Advocates:

360i Digital Marketing invited select bloggers to an exclusive screening of NBC’s “Kings,” which included a set tour and Q&A with the cast and Executive Producer, resulting in advocacy well above traditional Digital Word Of Mouth benchmarks.

Strategy – Tie-in to Offline TV:

NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” Facebook Page leverages the show’s interactive nature.

Strategy – Make a “Task” Fun:

H&R Block found that in order to truly engage taxpaying consumers in a meaningful way, they’d have to set up shop in a variety of social environments, making taxes funny, interesting and/or personal – depending on the audience and unique attributes of each platform. On MySpace and YouTube, H&R Block created the spoof character Truman Greene, who sang parody songs about his love of taxes.

Strategy – Focus on the Consumer

Skittles took quite a different route. In a bold move, the candy brand re-launched its Web site and put the focus almost entirely on consumer-driven conversation. For the new site, primary navigation was designed to overlay three main conversation hubs: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, along with “official” content such as product information.

Strategy – Celebrity Attention:

Vitamin Water launched a campaign starring LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, putting an existing social platform, Facebook, at the center of its hub and spoke architecture.

Commonalities

Successful strategies all have one very important thing in common – they KNOW their audience. Keeping their audiences’ passions in mind, strategies directly appeal to them, their online content engages them, and they have areal opportunity to achieve their objectives by developing these relationships.

(Thanks to 360i Digital Marketing for the inspiration.)

What online strategies have worked for you? What HASN’T worked?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book has a name change! The Net-Powered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Reputation as Currency

Group of people in a meeting

Stakeholder trust can ease the impact of crises

We all know by now that prior reputation has a major impact on the reaction of the public to crises. It’s been proven that, given a similar crisis, popular and trusted organizations take less of an initial fall than their counterparts. Why is it like that, though? Steven Behm, associate U.S. director of crisis and issues management at Edelman, explains in this quote from a Media Bistro article:

Reputations are a perception-based measure of the general public’s belief in an entity’s commitment to do the right thing. In a crisis, reputation is the currency by which organizations either borrow or default on in order to afford an ongoing license to operate. In most cases, the public expectation of companies today is that the issue will be addressed head-on and that measures will be taken to ensure the crisis never happens again. That said, the opportunity gap to invest into a reputational bank of goodwill becomes exponentially more costly during and after a crisis if there isn’t a foundation of trust at the start.

There is no way to buy this “reputational bank of goodwill.” It takes effort, and the best way is to build a rapport with your customers through hard work, solid service and honest communication.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

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Don’t Get Caught in the Peter Principle

Group of professionals having a discussion on career change

career question and adviceA reader asked for career advice on this situation.

“A new position, which will be a promotion, has just opened up in the company. It sounds very exciting even though I haven’t had much experience in that kind of responsibility. But I have a good track record and friends are urging me to go for it. I think I’m bright enough to take it on, even with my lack of background. Is it too big a risk?”

The Peter Principle

It states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” In other words, the cream rises until it sours. So if you don’t have the appropriate background, you’re obviously going to have to be able to get up to speed fast. Here are some things you need to consider before throwing your hat into the ring.

  1. Would your boss be supportive or offended if you moved on?
  2. What are your strengths and how can you leverage them for this position?
  3. How much time would you have before you’re expected to perform at top speed?
  4. What skills do you need to be successful in the position and where will you get them?
  5. Will the person in that position train you or will you have to dive in and either sink or swim?
  6. If you do succeed in the new position, will it advance your career or just be another line on your resume?
  7. And most important, if you fail or don’t meet expectations, how might this affect your career?

These are just a few starter questions to help you assess the degree of career risk involved in going after this position. Find someone objective, like a mentor or coach, who can help you look honestly at the pros and cons. Then decide is it worth the time, effort and the stress of taking on this kind of challenge.

Career Success Tip

Make sure you don’t get caught in the Peter Principle. Choose your assignments carefully. They can make or break your career. Also, be aware of Murphy’s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will. Nothing is as easy as it looks. Everything takes longer than expected.

How well do you choose your assignments? How much career risk are you willing to take?

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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Y is for Yearning

A-spiritual-teacher-meditating-outside

What do you yearn for? Our souls yearn for the things that make us most happy. Some of the words that describe yearning is to crave, long for, want very much. What do you really yearn for?

This has changed for me over the years and right now my soul seems to be yearning for time to slow down and let go of constant action and accomplishment. It feels great not to be so scheduled that I can take extra time after a training to stop by a store to check out the deals. Or I can spend extra long conversing with a friend because I’m not rushed to do the next thing.

Often times the work that we do provides us with what our souls are craving for. Or our work can do the exact opposite, it can give us the craving for other work that we hope one day we can do. Whichever the case is for you, take the time to really ask what your spirit is yearning for.

The daily devotional and journal that I’m reading is called God Calling. One of the recent entries shared how God wishes we yearned for Him, just like we yearn to take in fresh air on a beautiful sunny day. This really hits home for me living in MN as we’ve had a streak of “warm weather” (around 40 degrees) and everyone has been outside yearning for the day when all the snow will be melted. Being outside more this week than I have this past month, has created that burning desire for spring to arrive. So the same can be with our spirit. Our spirit inside of us longs to be heard, given a breath of fresh air.

How to listen to your yearnings

So I’ve been trying to breathe more and give my spirit the chance to come alive again. How do you do this you might be asking? I’m trying to figure out the same thing! All I know is that I’m taking the time to slow down, be more quiet and just listen to the yearnings that come my way. So far what I’m hearing is that my spirit is yearning for simple and easy.

One example is the “self love” date that I mentioned I would be checking in on from last week’s entry X is for eXtra special. I craved to have some time for myself doing what I loved in whatever way it unfolded. While my day consisted of volunteering, praying, writing, reading, shopping and connecting with loved ones, I especially enjoyed just spending the day without any expectations or deadlines.

Another example is that I tend to over prepare when it comes to my trainings. I’ll bring a bunch of props, books, and other resources to share. I’ll spend extra time working on my PowerPoint presentations. I’ll time out my agenda to make sure that I cover everything. I’ll get to the training an hour beforehand so I can set up the room and be totally ready before any of my participants arrive.

Listening to my spirit, I was getting the sense to make this training I had today more light and simple. It was telling me that I didn’t need to bring all this extra stuff and take all this extra time to get ready. I just needed to TRUST that I knew this material and to let it unfold as it needed to during the class. So today’s training went great and it felt so easy. I was there only 20 minutes before it started, brought only 4 books/props and only used 2 of them. I remained open to the flow of the class and let the energy of the 32 participants drive where the class should go. I spent more time discussing some aspects than I thought and other times I covered areas I didn’t intend on covering. I had a man who worked at the help desk in my class, so he helped when there was a computer issue and I didn’t have to stress about that. It was so fun, easy and effective. Having had this experience of it being easy and light makes me want to have more of these opportunities. However, when I’ve approached my work like I mentioned before, it was not the case. It felt heavy and a lot of work.

Again, what are you really yearning for? We would love to hear from you!

p.s. I actually thought all week that I would be writing that y is for yielding. Yet when I started writing, I didn’t feel the yearning or ideas flow. Right then, yearning came to me and I started writing about that. It can be that easy, if you take the time to go within so you can let your spirit guide the way.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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Janae Bower is an inspirational speaker, award-winning author and training consultant. She founded Finding IT, a company that specializes in personal and professional development getting to the heart of what matters most. She started Project GratOtude, a movement to increase gratitude in people’s lives.

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Gift Clubs: What They Are … And Aren’t

members-of-a-gift-club.

It has become common for nonprofit organizations to publish listings of donors arranged by the sizes/ranges of their gifts. In the vast majority of cases, those gift range categories are often known, erroneously, as “gift clubs.”

This is a very popular, simple process. It is popular because it is easy to implement and doesn’t take much thinking. Many organizations use this mechanism because they look around and see the lists that other groups publish, and think they must/should.

To a significant segment of the donor population, however, the particular category in which they become listed is of little consequence, and was not what had motivated the gift. Motivations for giving can be as varied and diverse as the backgrounds, personalities, experiences and lifestyles of your donors.

Gift Clubs, as they were originally “designed,” don’t have names-on-a-list as the be-all-and-end-all of the development process. Gift Clubs serve to identify, cultivate and satisfy much of what motivates donors. They embody a process that engenders major gifts, as well as providing donor recognition. (See: What Is A Major Gift?)

To be successful, a gift club must be highly visible to your target audience, and membership must be marketed as being highly desirable … and not just because you say so !! (When it comes to major gift fundraising, marketing is a one-on-one proposition.)

Membership-By-Invitation is the major factor that distinguishes gift clubs from “recognition lists.”

First, and most importantly, each of these clubs must have a chair or president, a person whose reputation, social/political position and/or clout commands the respect of his/her peers and evokes some level of desire in prospective donors to want to become a member of that club.

Basic level for an invitation-to-become-a-member can vary as the type of organization and circumstances vary; and, you can have more than one “Club” with the same minimum dollar requirement — with different leaders and different (mission-related) activities.

Name your clubs for an “activity,” name them after organizational founders, name them after people you want to honor, give them names that would help you market the desirability of becoming a member, but don’t call them gift clubs.

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Have a comment or a question about starting, evaluating or expanding your fundraising program? With over 30 years of counseling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, I’ll be pleased to answer your questions. Contact me at AskHank@Major-Capital-Giving.com
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Have you seen The Fundraising Series of ebooks ??
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If you would like to comment/expand on the above, or would just like to offer your thoughts on the subject of this posting, we encourage you to “Leave a Reply” at the bottom of this page, click on the feedback link at the top of the page, or send an email to the author of this posting.

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Size Does Matter…When It Comes to Audience

Audience filming through smartphone

It always happens to trainers who are well-versed in speaking/communicating in classrooms and smaller groups. Inevitably they are tagged one day by their bosses to speak at the regional or national conference, participate in the plenary, or even act as a master of ceremonies. To the trainer perfectly comfortable in his or her training environment, the idea of speaking to a larger, dispassionate group is daunting. For the boss, the caveat is the assumption that a good communicator should be easily able to speak anywhere to any audience as if it makes no difference at all.

But size does make a difference. Some would think in fear level, but that can be dealt with more easily than you think. Personally, I like a bigger audience. I like the idea that I have to bring them all to me like The Pied Piper, and thus find it more challenging. The bigger the crowd, the more impersonal the individuals. For most of us that makes the audience seem less ferocious. Yet, the smaller audience is more attentive to your every move–or hesitation. Both groups want you to succeed, however.

While I love the smaller groups, I have more experience with the larger groups of 250 to 500 at National and Regional conferences. I am an introverted actor, if you can believe that, but I still love doing public speaking. Size does matter when it comes to an audience. There are some differences.

The transition from classroom to auditorium is not an easy one, but it’s not as scary as you think. In fact, the audience is not watching you nearly as closely–if you think about it.

Theatre actors know this because theaters differ widely in the size of the house. I performed Hogan in O’Neill’s MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN in The Littlest Theatre in Oregon City, Oregon–just outside Portland; the theater prided itself on seating only 36 guests. In Colorado Springs, Colorado, I directed BLITHE SPIRIT and ROMANTIC COMEDY to an audience of 1600.

Although the performance space on stage was slightly different, the actors had to expand their gestures and movements so the entire audience could receive comparable performances. Sound must also be amplified. Sound can be improved with the use of strategically placed mikes or mikes hidden on the actors themselves. Musical theatre has been using them for years. Even so few theaters use them for non-musical plays–even with 1600 in the audience, preferring the age-old use of actor projection.

My character, Hogan, is a blustery and loud fellow, which would have made the larger audience pretty easy to play to. I had the opposite situation so I had to make sure I didn’t scream at my audience. The small, closer audience can see every wrinkle, every misstep, every expression, or lack thereof; for an actor, that means you can’t let up for an instant on character. In the same way, the trainer doesn’t want lose focus on learning and leave one smaller scale audience member behind either.

Naturally, it makes sense that with a large group that you can’t be quite as intimate as you can with a smaller group, and you need to be a bigger you. Like an actor on stage versus the actor in front of a camera. The bigger the area, the bigger the facial expressions and the gestures.

Here’s how I do it. While you can’t connect with individuals as you can in a small group, you can connect with groups who will think you are connecting with them personally. Don’t worry it’s a good thing; just don’t tell them. I try to connect with people in various locations in the room so I can spread my wings and move a bit, and concentrate my talk in their direction and in the other focused directions as possible without making it really obvious. Notice I said I wasn’t talking to them directly but about twenty people seated around them think I’m speaking to them directly as well.

It’s a bit like lion taming–only with more lions. Hopefully, no one in your audience has in mind having you for dinner.

Still, it’s like being a lion tamer–only with more lions. You can still tame them with your charm; your charm just has to be bigger to fit the room. You can’t be demure. And, you may have to get a read on your audience when you’ve said something important or profound by turning to the other side of the room and ask, “Right?” “Do you see?” Something like that.

Actually, if it is possible to transition to the larger audience, the best way to get started is to have a partner you feel very comfortable sharing the stage with. First, you follow your partner’s lead with the audience, and then your own lead as you feel more comfortable. Soon you won’t need the partner.

I happen to like the dynamic of two speakers or trainers working a group this size because you can more easily keep the audience engaged and surprised from time to time. For me, that’s fun. If you need a partner, give me a call.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

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Best Practices and Marketing Case Studies

Stories, Test Results and Lessons Learned

In this time of information overload, contradictory messages, and fast-changing marketing ‘Best Practices”, some of the most intriguing advice comes from real experiences from real companies. So I took great interest in the MarketingSherpa’s Wisdom Report 2011, which shares a collection of their best marketing case studies and customer insights.

Over-arching lesson: COMMUNICATE

Companies tended to focus on marketing fundamentals in 2009. They took stock of basics and planned strategies and tactics for their 2010 campaigns. This makes enormous sense, since 2009 exploded with new tools and thought leaders who convinced us that without a strategy to achieve our goals, we wouldn’t achieve them.

So 2010 was a year for the execution of those strategies, in which companies, large and small, focused on their communication. Some extended the simplest expressions of “Thanks”, while others spent untold hours and budgets devising complex social media marketing strategies and tactical campaigns.

A few marketing case study excerpts from Marketing Sherpa’s report are intriguing, as you consider key elements in your digital communication strategy:

LESS IS MORE

“Since digital marketing is cheap (and often free), we tend to over-do it.

More links, more content, more email newsletters, more pages…

Seth Godin once said:

“Once you overload the user, you train them not to pay attention. More clutter isn’t free and is a permanent shift, desensitization to ALL the information, not just the last bit. More is not always better. In fact, more is almost never better.”

“Put simply, try reducing your company’s newsletter to above the fold or limit it to just one link.”

(Contributor credit: Nathan Potter, IDES, www.ides.com)

GUERRILLA MARKETING TRIUMPHS IN BAD ECONOMY

For one client in the business of education: “In this down economy, the pursuit of new students becomes challenging. Our marketing / communications department worked to strengthen our email marketing campaigns with great results. We added student testimonials to our campaign and prospective students responded to our present students.

“We also began to ask our present students to refer their colleagues and friends to us with an email campaign that succeeded beyond our estimation. One can prosper in a down economy by looking at guerrilla marketing tactics to reach prospective customers.

(Contributor credit: Dr. Raymond Guilette, The National Graduate School, www.ngs.edu)

EMAIL MARKETING

MarketingSherpa’s client wanted to increase renewal rates among members completing their first year of email marketing membership.

According to their client: “After pouring over MarketingSherpa’s Best Practices in Email Marketing Handbook, (excerpts at this link) we

recommended a “postcard”-type email format to deliver single-focused messaging. The outcome was a series of email blasts, by life stage segment, that were blasted every two weeks, PLUS a series of “special” emails that universal appeal, which were blasted based on calendar date or triggered event.

“Open rates of the first “Welcome” email were 2.5x higher than the previous benchmark and clickthrough rates nearly 300% higher. Open rates of the first

Segment-specific email were nearly 350% higher than the benchmark and clickthroughs, depending on the subject matter in the email, were well above benchmark metrics.

“After 16 weeks of blasting, segments were still at 30% open rates and 15% clickthrough rates. Event-triggered emails enjoy open rates of 50-80% with clickthrough rates between 70 and 95%. While retention rates are just starting to be measured, we know we increased engagement with the brand, so we’re hopeful that we see that reflected in renewal rates.”

(Contributor credit: Carolyn Goodman, Goodman Marketing Partners, www.goodmanmarketing.com

What communication tips do you have to share from YOUR experiences?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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Challenging Our Own Mental Models and Our Growth as Consultants (Part 1 of 3)

A disconnected conversation between two work colleagues

(Part 1 of 3)

I have been in Africa for the past month. I am still in re-entry. About once ever 12-18 months my partner and I take teams of people into developing nations to work in villages to build clinics, or schools, or other projects to assist the local community as a whole. We have been doing this for over 15 years. There are consulting lessons in this work as well as personal development lessons for people who hope to do consulting. This is the subject of my next three posts here.

The foundation for this work is an organization called Global Citizens Network. GCN is based in Minneapolis and works in 20 countries around the world. The vision of the network is a network of people committed to:

  • The shared values of peace, justice, respect, cross-cultural understanding and global cooperation;
  • The preservation of indigenous cultures, traditions and ecologies;
  • The enhancement of quality of life around the world.

The consulting lessons are a part of the agreement (the contract), which we make with the village as a whole.

First, we are there to provide help to the village as a whole, not to any particular person or group.

So we define the whole system, as best we can define it, as our client.

Second, we only do work that the village elders or committee has defined as their need.

We do not go in and say, “This is what you ought to do.” We are driven by our client’s needs, not our desires to make it all better, or do what we are interested in at the time. This is our content goal. The goal is owned and driven by the village and so is the technology of the work itself. We use local masons to perform the work in a way that is consistent with their culture and methods. We do not tell them we know a thousand way to make this work better, cheaper, less labor intensive or what-ever; we go in to work with them where they are not where we wish them to be.

Third, if we bring 10 volunteers to work, the village has to provide an equal number of volunteers to work along side our team.

The idea of course is to maximize interaction with the local folks. For our work the clinic is a vehicle for the mutual understanding between people, which is our process goal. We are working to build trust and to support local self-organizing and sustainable development.

In my next post I will look at the personal development lessons of this experience.

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For more resources, see the Library topics Consulting and Organizational Development.

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Jim Smith has over 40 years of organization development experience in a wide range of organizations. He can be reached at ChangeAgents@gmail.com

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Leading the Dynamic between Ambiguity and Agility

Silhouette of people following their leader on a hill

In 1999 I facilitated scenario building for eleven cross-functional pharmaceutical teams (R&D, clinical development, global marketing, regional operations, manufacturing, and regulatory). The future was 2020 and we were imagining the marketplace, what consumers would expect, how diseases would be treated, and the features and benefits of the gold standard therapies of the day. Imagining the future for most people is difficult, it is just too Ambiguous, and each team struggled to conceptually get out of their own way.

Ambiguity is a powerful learning environment. As the teams’ worked to create their shared interpretation of a nebulous future, they were forced to construct meaning that was relevant to all the functions within the room. In doing this, transformation occurred and they no longer saw themselves as isolated functions, the future as unknowable, or their actions reduced to a single path upon which they stumbled blindly forward. Contained within their diverse perspectives, wide range of expertise, and varied contributions to the product development and commercialization process, Agility waited.

Ambiguity ∞ Agility

Ambiguity allows us to interpret the VUCA mess, finding meaning and just enough structure in our immediate situation so that we can act. Agility centers us and reminds us that reality is socially constructed, ours to interpret and create. In the VUCA world, the Ambiguity ∞ Agility dynamic is central to strategy and planning. If we don’t like our options, we need more diversity to generate Ambiguity. Reducing Ambiguity focuses meaning so that we act with intention. Agility ensures resilient, adaptable action by constantly adding just enough Ambiguity to the mix. And so the cycle goes, a dynamic that companies like Ideo and Jump have perfected.

The Ambiguity ∞ Agility dynamic also impacts consumer goods. For those of you my age, remember the “van” of the 60s? That was a product category that had so little Ambiguity that a van was only meaningful if you were a hippie, rock band, or had a trade business. The concept of “minivan”, however, had enough Ambiguity to be meaningful to lots of people. The auto industry Agilely exploited that meaning, flooding the car market with products. This was repeated when trucks, a vehicle with low Ambiguity, was integrated with car, a high Ambiguity product, and the SUV emerged. Other industries also use the Ambiguity ∞ Agility dynamic; walk down the cereal aisle in any grocery store for a glimpse of all the “meaningful” alternatives to oatmeal and Cheerios. In fact, market research uses this dynamic to create a bit of VUCA in the daily lives of consumers.

Memories of the Future: Introducing Ambiguity into Business

Back to the business of scenario building, when someone in the group says, “We can’t possibly know the future,” remind them of NASA’s commitment to put a man on the moon in ten years when they didn’t have fuel for a rocket, a spacecraft, computers small enough or powerful enough to perform the mission, or space suits that would protect the non-existent astronauts (just to name a few obvious things they didn’t have). Or watch Apollo 13, and notice how Ambiguity allowed for new meaning to emerge from a pile of junk and saved the lives of three people on their journey home. What “pile of junk” ideas are starring you in the face that can be re-meaninged and turned into gold? What Ambiguity ∞ Agility alchemy are you missing right now?

We are often trapped by our past experiences and continuously relive our Scenarios of the Past. For this reason, it helps to think about creating Memories of the Future, a term taken from neurobiology. Our brains capture thoughts and imaginings as memories, even before they occur. Using scenarios to create Memories of the Future introduces Ambiguity into our interpretation of events as we perceive them. When you have imagined four different futures and are presented with a situation today, your ability to be Agile in the face of controversy is dramatically increased.

Lessons for Leaders

  • When you encounter Ambiguity, whether it is a product category or another’s opinion, look for diversity of meaning. When multiple interpretations of the situation are held in creative tension, Agility naturally emerges.
  • Don’t rush to structure reality before you have fully explored the terrain. The Ambiguity ∞ Agility dynamic is foundational to innovation, creativity, and design.
  • Scenario building, simulations, and imagining the future are not frivolous business games; they are powerful means of engaging the collective mind and using whole brain logic. Ignore these at your peril in the VUCA world.

Dr. Carol Mase

Carol@CairnConsultants.com

Carol challenges leaders and their organizations to think differently about the world and how they can achieve their fullest potential in it. Her unique background unites business and biology, psychology and physics, bringing them into creative tension and generating tools and applications for all levels of the organization – from the C-Suite to the manufacturing floor. Carol has worked as an entrepreneur and an executive in Fortune 500 companies, always introducing fresh ideas that produce innovation and change, locally and organization-wide. She holds a degree in Psychology/Education, a Masters in Human Ecology/Interpersonal Relations, and a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine.