DIALOGIK IS MAKING A MOVE

A Story About Purpose

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” And Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Wise words from two great philosophers.

Taking this wisdom to heart, in September the Scales family is moving to Valencia, Spain for a year of adventure, exploration and learning. Dialogik Creative Leadership is moving too, and we will continue to serve our clients from the Mediterranean coast.

The story of this move is a story about purpose. At Dialogik, we work with clients who trust us to discuss their dreams, their challenges, and their opportunities. We explore what matters most to help them find clarity and direction. In this work, I “help leaders create workplaces full of value, joy and purpose.” That is my unique purpose at work.

In a more personal context, my purpose is also “To create a life of adventure and meaning for myself and my family.” For me, these words are a driving force: a signal of what is most important to me and of what I want to bring into this world.  

The idea of living this purpose can fill me with anxiety and doubt. Can I really do this? Are the risks worth it? What risks am I not seeing? This move to Spain is reinforcing what I know: any purpose-driven decision comes filled with anxiety. It's an unavoidable piece of the package and a sign you’re exploring something new.  

This will be an adventure for the whole family. We are caught in the swift current of change: the endless tasks to get done before we leave, envisioning new adventures, and bittersweet goodbyes.

This is an exciting chapter for Dialogik Creative Leadership too. We will continue to work with Executive Coaching clients and design/deliver Development Programs for leaders and teams. We will build our client base in Europe as we continue to grow our business in North America.

What is the Purpose Of Purpose?

This adventure is teaching me first-hand about the joys and the challenges of living a purposeful life. It is helping me answer the question a client in a workshop recently asked: what is the purpose of purpose? 

I believe that a clear, compelling, and meaningful purpose serves as both a sail and a rudder for our lives. It gives us a reason to get up and face the day; it motivates us to move through challenges; it inspires us to take risks and face fears that we might normally shy away from, and it directs our way. When our purpose truly connects with us, we take the risks needed to create new realities.

How To Make Purpose Matter

For purpose to matter, to really matter, it must feel as natural as holding your child’s hand or hugging a loved one. In the same way, it must be genuine, from the heart, and unique to you. No platitudes, no fancy words, and no hint of a “should” in it. Just something that represents what you really care about.

The right purpose lights a fire in your soul. “To create a life of adventure and meaning for myself and my family” is deeply important to me. It connects with me, and it lights a fire in my soul.

This is the key: your purpose must truly connect with you to be of value. It can’t just sound good at a client meeting or look smart framed on an office wall. You know you have it right when those who know you best look at it and say, Yes, that’s you!

Finding purpose is not easy work. We all create assumptions over time about what our lives should look like. What it means to live a good life. What work is appropriate, and what work isn’t. What role money and career should play. We are hard-wired to migrate to what others have told us to do. Some of these assumptions have value and can serve us well. 

However, to find our true purpose, we must be prepared to question these assumptions and discover what really matters to us.  This can take time and hard work. The first 12 years of my working life I worked in careers that others had defined as “success” and I did so because I thought I should.

When I realized that I had the opportunity to explore something else, I worked on my own purpose, and my world shifted. I found the career I am still in 20 years later. I started working with a different clarity and energy. And it has made all the difference.

So How Did It Happen That We Are Moving To Spain?

This process started several years ago. I was feeling a little lost and wasn’t sure where I wanted to take my business, and I was beginning to get restless. I spent 3 days away from home at an isolated cabin with my laptop and empty flipcharts. My goal was to figure out what to do with the next phase of life. I had a business that I loved, a growing family, and a loving partnership with someone willing to put up with my insecurities and questions about our future.

While at the cabin, I reflected on the best experiences of my life. Adventure, travel, and living abroad played a significant role in many of these stories.

I created a mindmap and called it “2020-2030 Scales Family Plan:  A Decade of Adventure”. As I developed this mindmap, a giant epiphany hit me: I have a limited window to be with my children, as children, before they grow up and start living their own lives. This was a moment that mattered! 

This insight shocked me and sharpened my focus: there is one decade remaining – just one! – where I have control over my kids. Hopefully, they will choose to be in my life for decades to come, but this decade is the only one where I can significantly guide how they spend their time. So – and this was a huge motivator – I simply noted the ages my kids were at the time, and how old they would be in 10 years. It was a “reinforcing euphoria”. It gave me incredible clarity and pushed me to action. 

Here is the mindmap I created that afternoon in 2019. Note the legend I added in the bottom right corner: my kids’ ages in 2020, and how old they would be in 2030. More than any other part of the mindmap, this is what pushed me to act.

Understanding This Mindmap

There are different “nodes” to capture the biggest opportunities, questions, and concerns on my mind. Where would we go? When would we go? How would we fund this? Everything that excited me or scared me went onto the mindmap. It was a place for ideation, exploration, and problem-solving.

This reflection was fundamental to our decision to move to Spain. It gave a framework and a path forward to bring my purpose into life. We hope our children will read this article one day and understand why we took them to Spain, and perhaps be motivated to discover their own purpose.

Finding Your Purpose

Finding purpose is a messy, imperfect process. It's never complete and it is not easy. We all have family responsibilities, financial challenges, and meaningful commitments that we must honor and that can pull us away from purpose. This work is difficult but infinitely rewarding. It is not about what the purpose is, rather it matters that it connects with you and who you are.

When I was 17 years old, my Grandpa gave me The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. This passage from the book has inspired me countless times:

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.

Keep experimenting!

Geoff

FOUR WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR IMPACT IN 2021

Improving your leadership impact seems simple. The ideas are simple. The practice is simple. The methods are simple. However, given the uncommon nature of great leadership, it's fair to say that something is missing. That's because great leadership is simple, but it isn't easy.

Here we share four simple ideas that you can put into practice to improve your impact in 2021. These are our lessons from the front of the room: concepts formed over 15 years of working with leaders from different organizations and cultures. Warning: the ideas may seem simple, but it will take effort, intention, and focus to put them to work for you.

1. Make the Room Better
Is the room better when you walk in, or when you walk out? As a leader, you either make a room better when you walk in, or you make it better when you walk out. Which type of leader are you?

If you walk in and people get excited, if they open up and start to share more ideas, if they clamor for your attention to hear your thoughts on their ideas, or if you bring traction and energy to their ideas, then the room is better when you walk in.

If you walk in and people get quiet, if they defer to your ideas, stop sharing, stop taking risks, if their comments serve only to protect themselves and minimize any potential negative exposure, then the room is better when you leave.

Think about the best boss you ever worked for. What happened when she walked into a meeting? Likely, ideas flowed more naturally, people felt heard, and problems were solved collaboratively. Think about the worst boss you ever had. Chances are when she walked into the room people got quiet. Everyone was on edge, waiting to see which way the wind was blowing that day.

Do whatever you need to do to make sure the room is better when you walk in.

2. Embrace Your Humanity. Become “Radically Human”
2020 was the year we learned to drop the façade. We joined Zoom calls from our kitchens, with kids screaming in the background and cats walking in front of our cameras. In 2020 we saw each other as more than human resources: we saw each other as resourceful humans. We adapted, and we learned to like the authenticity of it. Work attire became less formal; many of us discovered our productivity went up with our increased autonomy, and we learned not to fear showing up for a zoom meeting in a t-shirt or without makeup. We showed our imperfections to the world and discovered that it was OKAY.

We are entering 2021 with a new appreciation of each other as human beings. Organizations will embrace radical humanity and the leaders who make the most impact will be those who learn to be vulnerable and accept their human imperfections with their teams.

We are learning that when we are vulnerable with each other we no longer spend precious resources managing our "image": we accept ourselves as perfectly imperfect, and we invite others to do the same.

As a leader, you can accelerate this change in 2021 by role modeling vulnerability and humanity. Start by being honest about your weaknesses. This requires self-awareness and self-acceptance. When we know and embrace our imperfections, we dare to share them with others. And this sharing enables others to do the same. As we become more open and human with each other, our freedom to share ideas, experiment, and innovate increases. Our willingness to admit mistakes and ask for help. All things that contribute to a richer, more productive work environment.

This focus on being radically human will grow as organizations see the benefits of an open, inclusive and trusting workplace. As a leader, go first. Role model vulnerability and humanity, and see what emerges.

3. Learn to Listen. Really, Really Listen.
Most of us are terrible listeners. We think we are great listeners, but we aren't. We listen to respond. We listen to judge. We listen to agree or we listen to disagree. We listen to our agenda. And usually, we listen for our opportunity to start talking. But we rarely, if ever, just listen with curiosity. To listen simply is to honour the other person's existence. To let them know we see them, they matter, and their words and ideas have value.

Practice this: the next time you are talking to someone, notice how many times you judge what they are saying, or interrupt them. Then, try again. Don't interrupt. Resist the urge to judge. Don't share a perspective, or a witty comment, or try to fix the issue. Just show them that you heard what they said. Acknowledge their thoughts, ideas, worries, and aspirations. Don't try to fix, solve, improve, synthesize or summarize.
Show you heard them, nothing more or less. And notice what happens to them.

You will learn two things: one, how incredibly difficult it is to listen like this. To let go of our own agenda, plans, judgments, and wants. To simply see the other and honour their experience. And two, you will learn the incredible power that we hold in our hands every time we pay attention. We listen and we learn. And we connect.

4. Effort Give Way To Existence
Human beings are highly evolved animals that exist as part of the natural world. Learning to see ourselves as a part of, not separate from, nature opens up beautiful opportunities for acceptance. We are part of nature and we are exactly as we should be.
Accept this indisputable fact about yourself, then accept it about your family, your partner, your children, your neighbours, your allies, and especially your enemies. Accept it about every living being that inhabits this earth. We are part of the natural world. We grow, we change, we develop. And eventually, we die as do all living things.

In this acceptance lies freedom: the freedom to exist, nothing more or less, because that is what life does. Effort gives way to existence, as with all living things.

5 WORKPLACE MYTHS THAT NEED TO DIE

I used to have a nasty habit of quitting really good jobs. The first great job I quit was in advertising, managing a beer account: I was 23 and worked on Kokanee ads all day long. My client would ship flats of Creston’s finest to the house whenever we had a party. Dream job. I worked with brilliant, creative people and we had fun. To my social network, it appeared that I had made it.

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LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM A NIGHT IN LA WITH DAVE CHAPPELLE

The best leadership lessons often come from the most unlikely places. Last night I was lucky enough to be at the tiny Comedy Store in LA for a packed night with Dane Cook, David Spade, Judd Apatow, Bobby Lee and Brian Monarch on stage. They were hilarious and it was a good, complete night. And then - things blew up.

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HOW TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH FOUR SIMPLE WORDS

When we Turn Judgment Into Curiosity, we open ourselves to learning. We acknowledge that our perspective is just one of many. We admit that there is a limit to our knowledge, and we desire to expand it. We say to another, “You are important and your ideas are important.” We open a container for discussion and sharing.

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