This week and next, please share your experiences with balance-- what it means to you and how you try to achieve it. "Apply" the Live-With and record your successes as well as what did not help.
Also how are the live-withs helping you through the holiday? Any insights about how they have helped you with difficult relationships?
We felt that confronting gender differences was important. The key is seeking and bringing out your authentic self. Thoughts?
Leading Change-- We will start next class with more on this topic. If change is the only constant, then leading change becomes a major part of every leader's job. We have covered a number of frameworks regarding change-- and there are plenty of others around...
What has been your experience with either leading change or "being part" of a major change or turnaround effort. What did you experience? How did you cope to get through it?
Do you have thoughts about Nissan and Carlos Ghosn?
Have a great week and holiday...
Balance! Since our class last week, I keep thinking about using my intuition. yes/no, yes/no...however, I keep catching myself reverting and considering so many other things in my mind when making a decision than using my intuition. I always thought I was tuned into my intuition and used it a lot...this has been a humbling realization.
ReplyDeleteWhich now brings me to balance...what balance? I am conscious about balance and how it is ever changing moment to moment, yet cannot seem to 'feel' balanced. I am chasing and chasing. I am trying to stop, breathe, maybe walk around the room. I know this is something within me that I can impact. It feels like I am hanging on to this pattern because I believe it is associated with my past successes. My intelligent mind knows this is not true, yet I am still working through it.
I felt a sense of continued change last week. The week before I felt what I was experiencing and learning from the “Live Withs,” class and the reading was sinking in … all an inner sense of things … at peace, not unhappy with change, acknowledging the inner work I want to continue working on. One on one I can talk about the feelings, but cannot seem to succinctly articulate them here … other than to say I feel blessed.
ReplyDeleteThe Nissan article was such a joy to read. It felt like I was reading a novel and I couldn’t wait to get to the ending. I wonder if Carlos Ghosen would be interested in running our government for a couple of years? Chapter 10 was pretty awesome too … so many good exercises to work on!
Hey Aloke, weren’t you going to post a couple of questions from our last class that you were interested in getting feedback on?
Happy Thanksgiving Holiday everyone. May you all be enriched with many blessings.
We recently underwent a drastic change in our organization. There was a new management that bought about a lot of modification in the operations and the nature of work done at our company. It was more like a paradigm shift as it affected the nature of the day to day work that we were doing, to an extent that we had some reduction in our workforce, which made things worse, as we now had to work double the time to cover up the same work. Initially I could not help myself and with my "VOJ" was blaming everyone else to be responsible for this, and how I was a victim and the world was against me... But then I thought of trying the "see with your heart" live with.. and to my surprise, I really felt better.. for starters I stopped blaming and complying and taking responsibility for the situation myself.. since we were all in the same boat, I was as responsible to amend the situation as any one else... This really helped, as this helped transformed my attitude to "how can I do it..." rather than "I cannot do it..." .. I think this made all the difference as I suddenly started to feel as the part of the solution rather than the problem!
ReplyDeleteI’ve had many conversations with friends regarding balance. Maintaining balance between the different components in our lives is a challenge that we’re constantly facing. I often find that I prioritize work over other aspects of my life. Recently, even before this live-with, I’ve been trying to change this. In order to maintain balance, I often list my priorities for a certain period of time and come up with the combination of activities that feel the most balanced. This will ensure that I prioritize work activities, as well as priorities that are important in my personal life, such as talking with friends living far away and working out. When I make sure to blend these activities in to my day to day, I feel much more personally fulfilled than when I am just focused on one area of my life.
ReplyDeleteThe live-withs have helped me to focus on the positive during the holiday, even though I’ve been away from my family. I feel as though they’ve enabled me to feel much happier with my decisions for the holiday and more fulfilled in the activities that I’m participating in.
Balance is something I worried about a lot when I was working and starting to think about having kids. I assumed I would take the standard maternity leave and then go back to my job, feeling guilty about leaving my tiny baby in the care of virtual strangers while also feeling guilty about not putting in so many crazy hours at the office in order to spend time with the baby. However, we ended up moving to a different country when I was pregnant with our first baby, and so the work-life dilemma solved itself for a little while. Having the freedom of choice taken away from me has been a gift, because it has allowed me to completely focus on and enjoy being a stay-at-home mom, knowing that it is the only reasonable alternative at this time. This isn't to say that I don't still struggle with balance; I sometimes feel like the part of me that isn't a wife or a mother gets a little lost, and whenever I think about going back to work, I worry about balancing my career with my family. However, I am extremely grateful for the time I've had at home, and I think the experience has changed my perspective on balance. Before I had kids, I loved my job, and now (most of the time) I love being at home with my kids. Therefore, when the time comes, I hope I will be able to focus on loving my time at work and loving my time with my family, instead of constantly feeling like I should be somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion about gender made me think of this article, about a couple that decided to keep their baby's gender a secret: http://www.thestar.com/article/995112#article
If the link doesn't work, try searching for "Toronto Star genderless child"; the original article was dated May 21, 2011.
I've been involved in major organizational change in an entrenched bureaucracy for 10+ years. It's very exciting to be involved in something like that with a group of committed people. In my experience, it really comes down to the leadership at the top as to the true penetration and sustainability of the effort. I've seen the spectrum. And it's hard not to be attached. But the crafting and implementing of the change plan is incredibly rewarding in and of itself. No longer a novice, I understand the grey hairs who used to say, "It'll never work. We tried that before..." I used to enjoy conversations with folks who felt that way - and now I know more clearly how they get that way. Although disappointed in some leaders recently, I am not negative or cynical about the possibilities for organizations with true leaders. I see myself as seasoned and optimistic. The Nissan story reads like a textbook case for change that worked amazingly well. The meeting with employees to hear about the problems, breaking down of silos with the CFTeams, using established talent to lead the teams, creating the case for urgency, requiring big goals. Several aspects are quite stunning: the willingness to resign - wow! And then the challenging of the keiretsu group - huge! Changing the seniority system to pay tied to performance - I'm amazed that he was able to change that (unclear if that came from the teams.) It's truly a great story. The cross-cultural aspect is also intriguing - he innately respected other cultures being multi-cultural himself; and his lack of a dominant culture was his strength. Deconstructing an entrenched organization like this Japanese one, with such a long established culture, and bringing in a more agile structure and transitioning it to an organization that now debated issues and promoted folks in their 40s to upper mgmt., for example, that is a tremendous reconstruction. What's he doing now?
ReplyDeleteI really liked the Nissan's article, I got impressed with the way Ghosn got all those people motivated and committed to do all those changes. It was a great idea to divide the tasks in teams to have more focus on the result and optimize time.
ReplyDeleteI've never been working for a company that had a big change, but some of them had a hard financial time and needed to have a downsize, and for the leaders it was a tough challenge to keep the employers motivated.
About the gender differences I really think men and women have some characteristics that are not easily fulfilled one to another but they are very important in a career. I worked in a consulting where 90% of the employees were men and I saw myself trying to be way more analytic and trying hard don't put my emotion on anything because I felt in pressure, I wouldn't like to do something wrong and be compared because of my gender. The pressure didn't feel good but I developed some different skills and I ended up being nicely respected with the job I did because I was analytic (as a men) and I excelled with my communication skills (as a women).
Taking this course before Thanksgiving has been a miracle!! I had the most relaxed/fun Thanksgiving celebration I've had in years. Even with some serious health issues looming with a couple of family members, we (11 of us) cooked together, walked on the beach (Pajaro Dunes was glorious), talked together … the celebration and four days together were joyous!
ReplyDeleteMy husband asked me, as we were preparing to leave for home, “is it the class that has made a difference? I haven’t seen you deal with all the family stuff in such a calm manner for a long time!”
I went with no expectations, no active VOJ, love/compassion in my heart, the Loving Kindness Meditation incorporated into my centerpiece, and the result was WOW … far better than I could have ever imagined!!
During the three days before the holiday, I focused on balance with three of my clients in their preparation for the up-coming holiday. I find that having the conversation opens up a dialogue that opens up a pause (!) that opens up possibility for change!
This was an outstanding week and I am so grateful for the influences and wisdom/insight that have come my way.
On Balance and Kermit the Frog
ReplyDeleteBefore moving to Palo Alto, seeking balance between work and my obligations as a Mother was a real challenge. Seeking "balance" I would work in the car (I had a driver), stay up late at night, work whenever I could. I also took my kids everywhere, read them stories, etc. I thought I had balance because I managed to do everything. I was wrong. My health went out of balance and I was living under a lot of stress. I´m special, right? I can do everything.
When we moved to Palo Alto I decided to regain balance. So I went the other way. So far, I am not engaged professionally because adjusting the family has been such a challenge. To me, focusing on what is important at a specific time in your life is a way of balance. I know there are hundreds of interesting opportunities out there. But it doesn´t bother me. It would have two years ago. I am learning about priorities.
Last weekend I saw a great leader in action: Kermit the Frog. He knows his team. He believes in each one of its members. He let´s them know how much he appreciates them.
I was recently "being part" of a major change in our organization due to the recent acquisition of our company by a Major company.
ReplyDeleteI guess most of the successful small organizations go through this kind of change, i.e. being acqired by a Big guy.
In our case, initially there were lot of rumours about various aspects of the acquisition and we were little worried, but the management in our company had tackled this problem by frequent, focused and short meetings with the team about the acquisition and the progress of the same. Individual leaders conducted these meetings within the team, and we were encouraged to ask any question openly and were answered most of them.
A discussion forum was created where anyone can post any question either openly or anonymously, and the questions were answered by the respective department leaders. We got most of the clarifications here, as many felt comfortable posting it online than asking the same in a meeting.
Changes in the organization structure, different milestones in the integration were communicated to all of us through group mails well in advance, so that there were no sudden surprises.
A focused team was formed within our company to handle the integration issues, thus the integration was completed without impacting the productivity of the most of the team in the company.
Online Trainings were mandated about the new company's culture and ethics, thus there were no cross culture issues.
After the integration, an online survey was conducted to get the pulse of the change among the people.
I feel our company had handled this major change in our organization very well.
I think one of the new challenges of being a professional woman is the shift into also being a partner and mother. Right out of college, I wasn't even thinking about children, however, I was daydreaming about being a leader in my profession and winning awards for my work. The moment that I started to think of myself as more than just an executive, but rather as a wife and future mother, those dreams and those years of focus all of a sudden felt misled. I looked at my career in absolute success and realized that it wasn't going to allow for me to be satisfied in my personal life. Now that I am in that position I feel like I have to reevaluate every element of my professional and personal life, sacrificing parts of each to be able to have both. I almost wish I would have been prepared for this right out of college, but then again, I know when I was chasing the dream I would never have listened.
ReplyDeleteMy workplace has undergone a huge reorganization over this and the last year, while I have been there it has grown from 80 to 400+ staff. This has of course put lots of stress and growth pain to the people and the organization. Parts of the changes has been managed in a good way, many other areas much less so, for one, not much efforts has been taken towards retaining the expertise and knowledge in-beded in the 'old-timers', but all efforts to requite new talent, 'the grass is always greener' or is it...?! Another aspect is the lack of forward thinking and go towards new thinking around management/leadership styles, which is a pity as the new organization could need some less conservative flavors to fit the new and younger crew, so they don't loose them too. Understand there must be more structure and efforts to track and monitor staff as you grow, especially when so exponentially,but to become so much more hierarchical, I don't think is a must, both the fun and efficiency is long gone.
ReplyDeleteThe big question is if all this is something to 'live with' as its beyond me, or if one should take the big leap, as I do not think there will be any drastic changes to the better in even the remote future !?