Tag: Joe Gerstandt

Keeping it Conversational

Having just blogged again about how email is a poor substitute for conversation, I thought I should check myself and see how I’m measuring up.

Last week started with a shot of extra Joe Gerstandt via Skype quickly followed by an interview with Jo Dodds for Engage for Success radio. Tuesday was spent talking with clients about culture, effective communication and collaboration. On Wednesday I got to spend time talking with Meg Peppin and the author Jamie Notter on humanising work, before flying towards the weekend in conversation with Kev Wyke about business development, and more client stuff about making work better and communities. I also squeezed in phone conversations with Julia Briggs and Dorothy Matthew too, and a few very helpful mini chats with folk on Twitter. The week closed on a high after Susan Avello offered to have a Google Hangout with me as a sneak peek on my contribution to the upcoming Illinois SHRM conference in August.

My session in Illinois on connected leadership will be a series of building blocks. I’m pulling together a series of stories, approaches, ideas and exercises and I’m going to lay them out and encourage people to choose the direction of the talk on the fly. A lot of my work is about how good conversations sit at the heart of good work, and by way of example I want the nature of the session to be more conversational and participative.

Having checked my email sent folder I’ve not done as well as I would have liked, and a few people have had emails from me where I think a phone call would have been better. Sorry if you’ve been on the less conversational end of things this last week, I make mistakes and I learn from them too – I will do better next time.

And I guess another thing I need to check is – was all this conversation needed? Would our week have been more collaborative, more productive had we not picked up the phone as often as we did? I guess I should have closed each of the conversations I’ve been involved in with those questions, so I can’t speak for everyone but for me, those conversations weren’t just enjoyable – they were absolutely necessary. Thank you to everyone I spoke with for helping make a good week, great.

Two Friends, One Adventure.

If I could choose to be anywhere on the morning of Monday May 20th 2013, I would choose to be in Omaha.

Two friends, Joe Gerstandt and Jason Lauritsen are going on an adventure. It’s called The Frontier Project. They won’t be travelling alone, a band of courageous, restless souls will be joining them to blaze a trail. I predict they will have an exciting, challenging and valuable time together. I’m not generally afflicted by FoMo (Fear of Missing Out) but in this case I’ll make an exception, and though we’re many miles apart – I’ll be there in spirit.

Joe and Jason are kind enough to check in with me from time to time. Sometimes we share business ideas, sometimes we try and bust a few creative moves, our fledgling poetry slam fits nicely into this category. As nice as it is, we don’t just talk – I get real challenge and push back from my conversations with Jason and Joe. I find I thrive when I have an edge to sharpen my thinking on and Joe and Jason are a key part of that edge.

I’m planning some exciting developments with a trusted friend and associate to develop and bring the ‘Proceed Until Apprehended’ approach to work to market this Autumn, and In the next few weeks, ‘I’m Not An Artist’ will be available for you to experiment with. Would these possibilities be coming to reality without time spent with Jason and Joe? Probably. Would they feel the same to me as they do now? Unlikely.

So – if you’re in Omaha on Monday, get along to The Frontier Project. And if you’re not, then check these two poems on Perseverance for a hint of what you may be missing.

Creative Leadership – What is Normal?

Paintbox

I was watching TV recently and Francesca Martinez was a guest on The Jonathan Ross show. Francesca Martinez is a comedienne with cerebral palsy but prefers to describe herself as “wobbly”, that works for me. During the interview, Francesca was asked about ‘normal’ in relation to her own experiences growing up. She replies asking ‘what is normal?’, and puts forward a view that if you are normal, or more likely if you think you are normal, then you are in fact, a freak.

Normal is a Trap

I think Francesca’s onto something here, and because she has combined normal with freak, this feels like a good time to let Joe Gerstandt, Freak Flag Flyer par excellence, have his say on the subject:

Normal at Work

The desire to conform at work bothers me. Sure – we probably need to operate within certain parameters, for example I’m a big fan of open, respectful disagreement in the workplace, but when that overheats and turns into punching your coworker in the face, for most people that crosses a line. Regardless of the urge you may have to punch said coworker in the face, thankfully we mostly acknowledge that such extreme action sits outside of normal working practice.

We often observe a drive towards ‘normal’ around performance review time. For example, when I worked at BT we used a five point performance scale to measure people, where 1 was ‘Outstanding’ through to a 5 which signalled ‘Needs Improvement’, or to give it the full title as one of my mangers once referred to it, ‘Needs Improvement means you’re shit and should be fired’. Except we didn’t use the full scale. The unwritten rule was that ‘no one gets a 1, and no one gets a 5’, and so, surprise surprise, people tended to aim for the middle ground, a number 3, or a ‘Good’. As if to reinforce this behaviour, when I worked in sales I lost count of the number of times I and others had bonus payment capped as stories circulated about the need to help some of the poorer performers over the line. The timing of these bonus ‘normalising’ conversations were always after you’d delivered your numbers, and protests were pointless.

More worryingly though – this culture of ‘normal’ drives most people towards….’normal’. I mean – what is the point of aiming for the stars if somewhere in the psyche of the organisation it is written that no one can get there? I moved twice in the organisation to try and shake off this uninspired approach and in the end, it took the appointment of a new director to shake things up.

Art is not Normal

Lichtenstein is in town. If you live in London you probably knew that already, because Roy Lichtenstein’s work stands out. For those familiar with his art, it is (for the most part) instantly associated with his name, and for those who don’t know his name, when you see his work you will likely go, ‘Yep – I’ve seen this guy’s stuff before’, or words to that effect. It is distinctive.

The world of art abhors normal, art is subjective and simultaneously provokes one or more emotions including and not limited to love, hate, admiration and loathing, depending on your point of view. And that diversity is part of what gets us to the creativity and collaboration that so many executives implore their staff to deliver, while all the time driving them towards ‘normal’ through their behaviour, work practice and reward systems.

I clearly could have picked any artist to illustrate this point but seeing as his work is currently being exhibited at the Tate Modern I chose Lichtenstein. Incidentally, if anyone would like to visit the exhibition as my guest, I’ll be going along again on the 1st and the 8th May at around 3.30pm. Feel free to get in touch if you would like to come along, first come first served.

Creative Leadership – Making Work Better

I believe we need to think more critically about how the world of art can help the world of work. If you believe that too and you’d like to explore pathways to creativity and collaboration, I’ve packaged up some of the work I do with clients to enable improved effectiveness into a one day Creative Leadership workshop. There’s one running in May, another in July and a third in September, grab a place now through the links above, there are discounts available for early bookers. Hope to see you soon.