Back2Different

When I first met Roger Martin ([email protected]), I realized he was someone who spoke with marked purpose—what he was about to say would be focused, clear, and memorable. I found myself hoping he would be the next person to speak in our group.

Roger, who is Co-Founder of The Mindset Difference, working with Sarah Matthew, Founder of The Vibrant Company and Barry Holmes, Founder of Zoom Creates, is working on a new book: If Not This, Then What?  He will be contributing to Humanity at Work as well. More on that in the next podcast.  2022 will see both projects available.

In this episode, Roger and I  take a wonderful hike together through the pandemic, organizational culture, quitting smoking, neuroscience and human capacity. You will find his voice and his insight a pleasure and a treasure as we explore what he calls The Great Pause.

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Nicola Lipscombe ([email protected]) lives in Kent Town, South Australia. Heartwise Leadership—her words for her focus— captures her journey and her work. She has wandered the planet, worked in business and the academic world, found herself not quite sure who she was seeing in the mirror, then stopped ‘following the guard rails’ and went hell-for-leather forward into finding Nicola rather than being told who she should be. 

“A bit of a wildling, somewhat of an introvert, quirky, playful” she says of herself. We had a delightful romp through bunches of topics and ideas as we arrived at that central point within.

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My first conversation with Shara Lewis-Campbell (https://www.beautyandthebeastpublishing.net) leapfrogged from theme to idea to insight and back again. It affirmed my belief that all we need to do is be mutually interested in discovery and our interests will align. Shara's and my country of origin, culture, race, generation, gender, all differ. Yet we quickly found ourselves passengers on the same tour bus, entranced by the landscape of ideas and humanity. During the podcast, we wound around to talking about emotions and growing up. My anger was not required, said Shara at one point (very British, I thought, but also very powerful). Join us for a bit.

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Valerie Andrews (reinventinghome.org ) has caught on to something immediate and important—what has home become, especially during the pandemic? Home has been that place of memory, where we ate and slept and familied between school or work. Some of us have moved a bunch, some of us live (especially now) in a caravan of RVs, some of us still live within the walls that grew us up. No matter. We all embrace and need that place that provides a door into a deeply rejuvenating part of our lives. Valerie is helping us explore what is changing and what will always abide within home.

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Colin Heyman (maine-stream.co.uk) showed up as part of a growing cadre of coaches and facilitators who recognize that we all need to contribute to a world based on understanding and community. This is not a political issue, it’s a survival issue. And it’s a business issue. The data are clear that when people feel valued and included in any endeavor, they work not only harder, they work better. It’s time, past time, actually, that we ditched the idea of work. How about endeavor, literally, “do one’s utmost.” We need to create space for people to have an ethical and emotional attachment to what powers their paycheck. The fuel of our contribution is emotion.

 My conversation with Colin has only one problem, btw. It was too short.

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Says Bilbo, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out one’s front door.” That dangerous business leads to adventure and connection. I love that kind of danger. So here’s Steven Howard, guru of Caliente Leadership (https://www.calienteleadership.com), whom I met while virtually meandering. 

It took a while to finally talk, then longer to stop. I had to put the brakes on since the record button wasn’t. 

We’ve both traveled a good bit, went out on our own in the mid 1990s, and we share devotion to questioning the conventional: “No more work/life balance—it’s about work/life harmony.” We prefer seeing leadership in terms of relationships rather than transactions, and we both look for what we can do, not what we can’t. Maybe the pandemic opens us to a better reality now that all our rectangles are the same size.

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I’ve discovered that podcasting is a great way to make new friends. We begin miles apart (even thousands!) and very quickly find ourselves having the kind of intimate conversations that grow with close friendship. Sarah is no exception. We’ve been friends for a long time, though we’ve never met. When we first started our conversations, Sarah was the Chief Happiness Officer at a corporation. I'm not making this up! She and I have both traveled a long road with lots of lumps and bumps, and we’ve both decided that happiness is not an idea, it’s like breathing – necessary and often not given thought. So join us for a no-holds-barred, rapid-paced journey exploring Spaces for Happiness: The Power of Enough
To find Sarah: happinessiscourage.com,  linkedin.com/in/skratekin1

Oh, it was not Dick van Dyke and Suzanne Pleschette, but George Peppard and Mary Tyler Moore. Mea culpa.

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I will confess that Colleague Consulting is one of my clients. Maya Larson (linkedin.com/in/mayalarson) just came to the company as its new president. She’s been discovering lots of stuff throughout her life, including helping deal with two weather disasters—Katrina in New Orleans and superstorm Sandy in New Jersey. Like me, she’s animated by passion, a sense of adventure, and a strong curiosity. When we live that way, we find (or they find us) happy accidents.

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“We need to have a big enough conversation” said Catherine Sherlock (linkedin.com/in/catherinesherlock) the first time we spoke. I agree. The conversations we generally have about what’s happening tend to be too small — focused on agendas, opinions, or events, rather than on the systems and beliefs that limit our sense of discovery and spirit. She and I ran into the usual scheduling madness before finally finding an hour to explore and to challenge each other. She approaches coaching and leadership from a very human (and humane) place in her work (highermindfulness.com). She points out that as we focus on changing our relationship with our self, our impact on those around us gains power and benefit,  all the result of moving from self as enemy to self as ally.

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This is how it works: Along comes this fellow by the name of Nick Wright; we bump into each other in the virtual village. In the course of our conversation, he mentions a friend (also in the U.K) named Chris Lever ([email protected]). “I think you two have a lot to talk about,” Nick opines. It turns out we do, and here it is. It’s a good story that begins with young Chris walking up to a stranger on the docks and asked, “Got any work for me, mate?” It turns out he did.  

Chris loves salt water, and we both find sailing wonderful and necessary. So Chris moves up the ranks to achieve his Captain’s ticket. Then he’s working in the corporate world, then he sets up his own shop, Teleios Consulting, a vehicle for leadership, coaching, and assisting organizations to actually embrace measurable change. (BTW, here’s a short article about teleology (don't let the long url scare you!) -  https://thelearningcounsel.com/article/teleology-explanation-phenomena-terms-purpose-they-serve-rather-cause-which-they-arise

So listen in and follow us in Episode #32: “What do you see?”

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