ARE:A Renewal Enterprise

Becoming A Vision Collaborator

A long, long time ago (like in the 1990's) leaders had the idea that it was their job to see the future and in many & various ways cast their vision to their people.

I'm only being a little snotty. 

This approach at least acknowledged that people need a vision. Nobody likes being told what to "do." They want something to believe in. They want to know that what they do matters. 

But across organizations - in both the for profit and the not-for-profit worlds - we have begun to realize that people rarely catch a vision they haven't participated in dreaming up. What's more, when it comes to the kinds of dreams that mean big changes in their organizational life, most people - about 85% of people in a typical organization - aren't natural dreamers. 

Check out this "Change Openness Distribution" graph to see what I'm talking about. We used it during our webinar on "vision" this week and lots of you requested it. Here it is: 

The Power of Vision

-Our webinar this week was a technological roller coaster - we spent about the first five minutes thinking people couldn't hear us when they actually could. Thanks, everyone, for the phone calls & emails letting us know you were hanging in there with us! Anyway, our topic this week was "pursuing vision" for the sake of organizational change. We argued that in today's culture, ideas (especially "moral ideas" that shape who we are, what we value, and what we are being called to do & be) - more than any other tangible or intangible factor - determine the effectiveness of an organization. Ideas matter because they motivate and mobilize people; without them nothing much happens.

Webinar Tonight

You are invited to join us for a webinar on Vision being held TONIGHT, Tuesday, May 27, at 7 PM Central time/8 PM Eastern time. 

A webinar is a seminar that uses telephone for the sound portion and the internet for the visuals. You can listen in and then interact by using the online portion to ask questions. When you register you receive a phone number to call and a link to the webinar web site. 

Our topic tonight is: PURSUING VISION for the sake of leading change in your organization. 

To register – click on this link - https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/980290581

The Power of Love

I don't know, maybe I'm a little odd for somebody over the age of 35, but I've never had much of an opinion about Barbara Walters, one way or the other. I don't watch "The View." I don't have any plans to read her new book. Still, I've been interested in the reaction to Barbara Walters on the release of her autobiography, called "The Audition," from pundits, other media types, bloggers, etc. In the June issue of The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan is especially tough of Walters. Her review is titled, "The Uses of Enchantment." And her blistering criticism of Walters is, in a sentence, that "Barbara Walters got the story by giving her subjects what they wanted." And what exactly is it that Walters gave them? According to Flanagan: Love.

Re-Imagining Success

How you measure success depends on what you were trying to accomplish. And the less clear you are about your purpose the less clear you will be about if you got it done. This may seem obvious but for many of us, we do what we do and simply keep doing it – just because we did it yesterday, too.

Talking Yourself To Death??

Too many organizations I know are writing their epitaphs in advance. One day, their tombstones will read: We talked ourselves to death. The reality is that, in the fast and ever changing environment most organizations are trying to navigate today, leaders have to be quick to act. And very often that means acting without a carefully constructed plan based on prior experience, perfect information, and somebody else's "best practices" because, frankly, those things simply do not exist.