Leading With New Eyes

I’ve been wearing glasses since 3rd grade, and without them my vision isn’t great. My optometrist recently offered me a fork in the road – choose clearer vision at a distance or precision up close?

I chose distance. Something I had been postponing for a while.

Now menus require my extended arm (ugh). Reading smaller print demands brighter lights. The trade-off isn’t really subtle, I noticed the up-close difference right away.

But walking my neighborhood? Driving? Squinting at that tiny workout board at the gym? Bueno!

Sometimes seeing clearly requires accepting new limitations.

Leadership can work the same way.

We might resist a prescription change that our teams or organizations need. We cling to familiar views and feelings, keep things comfortable, predictable, and often times – inadequate.

Putting in a technical fix is tempting – create a new process, add another committee meeting, or try something that feels smart.

But what if the real solution requires us to see differently? To accept new limitations while gaining unexpected clarity because of new information or a new angle?

Adaptive challenges require us to adjust our own vision, not just the tried and true lenses we use to view problems.

What would change if you chose a different way of seeing?

This past week I presented to two different groups on an idea of being a human-centered risk professional. Risk professionals love technical problems – it’s easier to find a solution – we simply look one up or ask a friend, get an idea, and boom, we have an answer to implement. Very transactional and oh so gratifying.

The hardest challenges are the adaptive ones, because they require mindset or behavior change, and they usually take a lot longer, so we avoid them.

“The single biggest failure of leadership is to treat adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems.” ~ Ron Heifetz

• How can you shift your eyes this week to look at a challenge in an adaptive way?

• How can you personally look at that challenge with new eyes, willing to adjust yourself, over a longer term?

• Can you pause on an easy fix to understand if the challenge would be better solved by you developing yourself further?

If you’re feeling stuck in the tactical mud, send me a note about a challenge that you’ve been working through and I’ll share some reflective questions that will help!

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Here are a few resources that I’ve found interesting and have been sharing lately with clients:

1 // So many friends and colleagues have been affected by layoffs recently – please forward this post to someone you know who’s been impacted! (2 min read)

2 // For my friends that worry: “Am I in control of the next, right move?” (3 min read)

3 // This is how to ask for what you really want. (8 min read)

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