Leadership Notes -- Thoughts on Leading People and Making a Difference in Organizations
Word count this issue: 563
Estimated reading time: 3.0 minutes
In the Veronica Roth’s novel Allegiant, Tobias “Four” Eaton says, “There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. That is the sort of bravery I must have now.”
We, individually and collectively, need to be courageous in themidst of the dramatic changes occurring all around us in the midst of the Digital (R)evolution. We need to look beyond the way things have worked in the past. We need to focus on gritting our teeth and trying new things. Each and every day, try something you haven’t done. Try a different food, take a different way home from work, change the furniture arrangement in your home, do a different circuit in the gym, say yes to an idea at work. If you are normally optimistic, spend a week thinking about risks, if you are normally pessimistic, spend a week thinking about possibilities. In Myers Briggs terms, if you are an ENFJ for example, try to be more introverted, dig into yourself for answers. Think more about facts than your intuition. Be more spontaneous than planning. We have all sorts of ways and means of trying new things. The more we do, the more we will change ourselves. The more we change ourselves, the more courageous we will be. Because perhaps the worst thing that has happened for us in the past 20 years is that we are now more afraid. Fear filled people do not make good decisions.
Finding the courage to change our thinking is vital, and although difficult, we are able to do it. The science of changing your thinking is often linked to neuro plasticity. This is the brain's ability to reorganize itself. In short it allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to adjust themselves in response to new situations, changes in their environment, disease or injury. One way of thinking about how neuro plasticity works in our lives is thinking about a healthy breaking up of lovers. Our brains create neural pathways about each other. Our favorite walks, favorite restaurants, the things we do together, the songs we listen to, the food we ate, as well as the jokes and laughter we share. The sounds of each other's voices and the names we have for each other, are carved into these neural pathways. It takes courage at the end of a love affair to create new neural pathways; we keep running into people who knew “us”, we find ourselves in the same restaurants, or hearing songs that remind us of the other. Our default towards sameness and routine that lies deep within our brain holds on for a long time, and we need to consciously and courageously decide to do new things, to metaphorically and literally go down a different road.
May this week be one of different roads and new discoveries for each of us.