Our world can be very small.
When I got a deep splinter in my finger and it got infected, it was a constant preoccupation.
Was it getting better? Was it getting worse?
It filled my head and squeezed out room for more important, lofty thinking.
Small things can divert our attention and focus from the really big picture things.
As leaders, we need to manage the superfluous issues of our own personal world, and those of our team, while contending with what’s next.
The less we hurt, the more we can think.
And at the moment, we are carrying huge amounts of uncertainty, facing down recession, rising inflation rates.
A little bit of certainty is useful.
Stretching our thinking doesn’t give us certainty; it gives us a structure in which we can step forward with courage.
First, why don’t we think more strategically?
System structures: We’ve got our heads in silos because that’s where the deliverables are, that’s where we’re accountable, and that’s where our compensation is tied.
Cultural norms: At work, it may not be safe to share our ideas. It may not be safe to speak up. It may not be safe to challenge the status quo.
Quite often these people stuff challenges are the real root of the problem of why leaders are not willing, or able, to think strategically.
So there may be systemic and cultural issues to resolve first. This is big work.
How to start to stretch your thinking
Start with being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Adopt the mindset of an explorer, willing to lean into the unknown, ride the waves of uncertainty, and creep forward through fog and uncharted territory.
The mindset of an explorer is critical.
We need to be curious, otherwise there’s no hope of embracing what the future holds because it is so easy to get overwhelmed and revert to business as usual and silos.
When in doubt, map it out.
There are two things to map: problems and possibilities.
Often I meet with leaders and they describe a cluster of challenges.
The first step I always recommend is: map it out. Mindmap the issues. Draw the connections.
When we put our challenges in visual form, it allows us to put some shape to them and make better sense of what we are facing.
We start to see where the friction points are, and where the opportunities for flow and growth might be.
Things we can map:
Our team dynamics
The system flows in our organisation
The trends and events impacting our industry.
Learn, grow, adapt.
How do we actually do this?
Learning, growing and adapting requires us to challenge who we are, what we think, and how we operate.
Scary stuff.
Here are some guardrails to help:
1) Compassion.
We need compassion in this world of diversity and opportunity. Compassion for ourselves, because leadership is freaking hard, and compassion for those we want to take on the journey with us.
2) Collaboration.
Working with others requires us to throw our ideas and our beliefs on the table and sort through them with others.
This is confronting work, and there is no room for ego or attachment.
It’s about being in service to making a difference.
And sometimes that means letting go of our ideas to become something bigger and better.
3) Creativity.
Break out the finger paint!
Uh, no, not really.
Creativity is a way of liberating thinking by providing constraints.
Use parameters as boundaries to tease out new ideas.
Try these ones:
What if you had to deliver all your results in the next three months? What would you stop doing? Start doing?
What if you lost your entire database? How would you connect with clients and prospects?
What if your budget was halved? What would you prioritise?
What if you had to expand your service delivery by 10 times next month? What would have to change right now?
Stretch your thinking with these processes
1) Look wide.
This is the hardest part: seek perspective.
Find a point of view that chafes against your own.
If you’re a monarchist, read a republican’s website.
If you’re against the Voice, find out why it matters to those who advocate for it.
If you think transgender rights are confronting, find out what it’s like from someone who feels like they are living in the wrong body.
Catholic? Learn about Islam.
Islamic? Learn about Buddhism.
You get the idea. Find something that feels like truth to you, and find a point of view that is different.
Wallow in the discomfort until you can see it through someone else’s eyes.
2) Synthesise.
Find the good parts in two different ideas and bring them together to create something new.
For example, what are the best bits of a remote working culture and one that is office-based? How can we create something that brings those two together?
3) Visualise.
Take a look from different heights. How would you consider the issue if you were an ant? Or how does this challenge look from the street? From the city? From the state? From the country? Continents? Globe? Galaxy?
Scale can change what we think is important and relevant.
4) Harmonise.
Embrace paradox. This is where two different ideas are equally good, and we can apply either of them. Can we sit between them and use both?
For example:
What are the benefits of planning everything? (certainty)
What are the benefits of planning nothing? (flexibility)
When does each approach serve us? When does it not serve us?
See the whole tapestry, then make a new one
On any issue we can ask, “what does this mean?”
Perhaps the better question is, “what COULD this mean?”
In this way, we seek to see the tapestry of perspectives, of truths.
We cannot see the whole tapestry if we just look at one thread, the one we like the most.
Once we can see more of the whole, we can pull on the threads that are helpful in creating something more, something positive.
And with these threads, we can weave something new.
How do we choose which threads to pull?
We ask, “Does this help to uplift? Is it in service to humanity? Does it make the world a better place to be? Does it embody care and compassion?”
And in this way, we become weavers of worlds.
Live well, lead well.
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Related articles
Fit For the Future Leadership: From strategy to execution - what gets in our way?
Fit For the Future Leadership: Three ways to make more time for strategic thinking
Leadership for the Future - 7 skills you need
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About Zoë Routh, Canberra leadership futurist
Zoë Routh is a leadership futurist, podcaster, and multiple award-winning author. She works with leaders and teams to explore what's coming and what it means for leadership of the future.
She has worked with individuals and teams internationally and in Australia since 1987. From wild Canadian rivers to the Australian Outback, and the Boardroom jungles, Zoë is an adventurist! She facilitates strategy and culture for the future with audacious teams.
Zoë's fourth leadership book, People Stuff - Beyond Personality Problems: An advanced handbook for leadership, won the Book of the Year at the Australian Business Book Awards in 2020. Her fifth book is a leadership futurist science fiction dystopian novel, The Olympus Project.
Zoë is the producer of the Zoë Routh Leadership Podcast, dedicated to asking “What if…?” and sharing big ideas on the Future of Leadership.
Zoë is an outdoor adventurist and enjoys telemark skiing, has run six marathons, is a one-time belly-dancer, has survived cancer, and loves hiking in the high country. She is married to a gorgeous Aussie and is a self-confessed dark chocolate addict.