Week #6-- Just Do It! Facing Fears and Company Culture

You now have two new tools in your tool bag:

1) The Three Stressors: categorize for clarity and forward action.

2) Face your fear: speak it out loud, then re-frame it as a Hero's Journey. What would breakthrough on the journey look like? What is the vision you see ahead? What will it take to Leap?

Try using these two tools and following your live-with, JUST DO IT!, this week in order to take action on your course challenge. How can you get enough clarity, so that you can take appropriate action on your challenge and any other challenges you might be facing?

Regarding company culture and WestJet, please post any ideas that you have.

The Ray chapter introduces the Relationship Challenge. You can comment on this if you wish.

Also, if you are not familiar with Whole Foods, try to visit one... and read the case

Have a great week,
Hal & Julie

Week #5-- Do Only What You Love; Love What You Do and Leading Innovation (IDEO)

We hope you are having fun with this Live-With and will post your experiences below. Please also share your thoughts about matching how you spend your time with your values, goals and what you love to do. Go for progress, not perfection... Remember the “Love-to-Do Commitment” you have made. How is it progressing?

We covered a lot of material about IDEO and we encourage you to share any reactions or questions that were stimulated. Based on the video and the discussion, you can share some ideas and comments about this company? What are some of the concepts that might be useful for YOU in your own organization?

Have a great week.

Week #4-- Ask Dumb Questions and Leadership Concepts

Please share your experiences as you work with dumb or powerful questions.

Let us know about your feelings as you frame the questions-- for example, what is the role of the VOJ? How about the reaction? Did you get your answer and maybe more?

You can even try questions with strangers-- so long as you genuinely want to know the answer. Many of us REALLY like to share of knowledge if someone asks and is interested...

What have you found?

LEADERSHIP--
We covered a lot of material about leadership and we encourage you to share any reactions or questions that were stimulated.

Any thoughts and observations about:
++ Management Mindsets
++ Emotional Intelligence
++ Aesthetic Intelligence
++ Intergrative Thinking

Which of the ideas seem like they will be useful for you now and in the future?

Week #3 - Precise Observation: Pay Attention! and CoolBurst

So, now you are in week three of our class and, we imagine, getting the hang of these live-withs. You've had time to experiment with Have No Expectations and Psych(e) Out Your VOJ. Our new live-with, Pay Attention, builds on these first two.

You are becoming familiar with your own creative process and with your VOJ. When you have a deeper awareness of both, you begin to be more open to the world around you, and the world inside you. This week, we invite you to pay attention to both worlds.

Listen, see, taste, touch and smell with precise observation, as a young child filled with wonder, a scientist absorbed in research, or an alien who has just landed on earth and is seeing things for the first time.

Shake things up! Travel a different route, eat different foods, talk with strangers - do anything you can to have a foreign experience, as if you are a traveller in a new world, because in reality you are. In every moment, life is changing right before your eyes.

So, get out there, and in there, and Pay Attention. Then come back here to fill us in on all the wonder-filled moments you have experienced. You could share thoughts about the Crossing the Ravine exercise and whether/how it provided personal insight.

We discussed the CoolBurst case study in Monday's class, with three excellent presentations that covered the case. If you did not share your views, it is not too late. What do you think Luisa should do?

Please share with us here any questions, thoughts, etc. that will help us all to get more out of this interesting case study.

Week #2 - Tool #2-- Relax the VOJ and Leadership Style/ 7-S Model

Have fun this week with efforts to control the VOJ... Keeping a journal is especially helpful as you experience and observe judgments of all kinds with a new sense of understanding.

We promised you would be “changed” by week #2… What do you think? If you truly engage with your efforts in observing and “Relaxing the VOJ” you WILL see the world and your interactions in a new light. Let us know your experiences.

We also discussed Leadership Styles and the 7-S Model. Continue to notice what leadership style your boss/parent uses, its effectiveness, and whether a different combination of styles might work better. As a leader yourself, consider what your natural styles are and how they support your own internal values. Finally, how does the 7-S Model relate to your organization? Does this framework help you see how things operate?

Nothing is off-limits. Post any other thoughts that you feel would benefit your class mates.

Cheers,
Hal