Holy Cow! What a couple of weeks it has been! A week or two, like yours I’m sure, full of adventure! I’ve been in Labrador, in Toronto, in Vancouver and in Central BC. And in the midst of that there was an email transition internally and I temporarily lost access to the list of people on this email. Hence, I behind about a week on Leadership Notes. It is good to be back on track!

One of my adventures was a fascinating conversation where I learned an interesting fact about Canada’s Houses of Parliament. The Parliament Building, the famous building with the Peace Tower in the Centre Block that is so emblematic of Canada, is in  fact an unfinished building. The architects designed it that way. To this day there is a mason who works away, finishing the building, but never finishing it. New sculptures, new carvings are always being worked on. And the reason for this ‘unfinished symphony’ is that Canada herself is unfinished; she is growing, she is emerging, she is changing.

And I think this is an amazing metaphor, not only for Canada (and other nations as well), but for organizations and individuals. The organization you lead, or the team you lead, is always growing, always emerging; it too is an unfinished symphony. You as an individual, your colleagues as individuals are always growing, always emerging, you too are an unfinished symphony. I wonder then what the implications of that incompleteness be? What happens for you as a leader to know that not only is your organization unfinished, but that you are unfinished? Might you look differently at your team? Might you look differently at yourself? What new sculptures, what new carvings are being worked on? What new carvings, what new sculptures have yet to emerge?

May this week find each of us finding new possibilities in our unfinished symphonies.