This past week, I had the good fortune to meet  Ed Cohen, the Editor and Publisher of Global HR News. We were attending an executive briefing on the impact of the recent presidential elections. After the meeting, we chatted briefly about our respective businesses. One aspect of my practice, which came up in our conversation,  is working with organizations to create or rethink their Vision and Mission.  A light went off in Ed’s mind and he suggested that I write up my thoughts on the  topic for submission to his website. Thus, this entry.

I am frequently asked how I work with organizations to develop or rethink their Vision and Mission. Where do you begin? How do you define and differentiate between the two commonly used but often misunderstood business guidelines? Why bother  creating them? Where is the bottom line benefit and practical application to the exercise?

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” Lewis Carroll

I think Lewis Carroll sums it up perfectly. Without a clear Vision, a business just is. It may be successful but has no internal rudder to steer a course.  I am sure you all know of businesses that seem to succeed in spite of themselves. But, what happens when one harnesses the passion of the business leader(s) or entrepreneur(s) and frames it in a way that all executives and employees can own it and use it as a daily guide to decision making. In its simplest form, that is the value of a  Vision and Mission statement. They are key to setting the working direction and framework of a business.

Unfortunately, the terms have been so overused or misused that the ability to use them as a real time guide for decision making has largely been lost or diminished.

Here is a  practical working definition:

Vision Statement: A statement of who the company chooses to be out in time. Usually 5-10 years. The Vision Statement is worded in current time like a future value statement. For example,

• AA Technology is the premier provider of intelligently designed solar systems and energy efficient solutions serving people, business and the planet

Mission Statement: A statement, at a high level, of how you will accomplish the Vision. With the above example in mind, here is a corresponding Mission Statement.

• AA Technology provides our clients with sustainable energy solutions developed through a collaborative team based approach, partnerships with key industry visionaries, a commitment to ongoing energy based education and extraordinary customer service. We are dedicated to making Solar more affordable to a broader market.

Basically, the Vision Statement states who or what you aspire to be and the Mission Statement offers how you will get there at the highest level. Vision should be a single sentence that you can recite on demand. Also, Mission is ideally short and to the point. Sometimes, Mission is substituted for Vision but I find the above working definitions to be very effective. The idea is that you are clearly stating for your entire organization, what moves you. Why you are in business. And, then how you will hold yourself in fulfilling the Vision.

So, the next obvious question is how do you use Vision and Mission? The answer is every day! You reflect on the Vision and Mission in every decision you make. The statements become a guide to insure that you are moving in the direction you have chosen. Is your strategy consistent with the Vision? Are the actions you are taking supportive of the Mission? Are the goals and tactics consistent with the vision and mission? If they are not, you do not pursue them. The vision and mission are the guiding principles of the business. If well thought out and constructed, the business will more readily achieve the intended results. You will not be on just any road, but the road you have clearly chosen.

If you are interested in how Source Consulting can work with you to define your Vision and Mission, email us at info@sourcedecision.com or submit a request by clicking on the contact tab of this website.

The other weekend I indulged in the guilty pleasure of watching the recent animated movie, Kung Fu Panda. It is the story of an unlikely Hero, a klutzy, huge panda, who dreams of being a kung fu hero. Although predictable, the story is filled with many standard incites about being true to oneself, dealing to one’s inherent strengths, team work, the ravages of unchecked ego and trusting your internal instincts. But, there was a moment in the film that took me by surprise. The character of a great sage, Oogway, in the form of a wizened, old turtle, speaks to Po, the Panda, about taking advantage of the moment. He says,

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But, Today is a gift; that is why it is called the Present.”

I do not know if this elegant phrase is an original invention of the script writer’s mind or an excerpt from some ancient Zen text but it speaks a powerful truth. And, that truth, if consciously followed brings energy, intelligence, equanimity and focus into one’s thinking and actions. It may be the most essential truth to great leadership and management performance. Said in practical terms, focus on what is in front of you now. Be present to what presents itself to you. Be in the moment. The past is done. We do not know what the future will bring. We only have what faces us now; this moment.

This is not to say that we ignore the lessons of the past or shy away from setting future objectives and goals. These are key elements to our decision making. But, we do not hold our selves hostage to what has happened or what might be. Take all relevant factors into your decision making process. Then, move ahead decisively letting go of past and future. Focus on the job at hand. And, if you need to check against your assumptions or reflect on history, do so in context to what is happening now. By focusing on the Now moment, you will find you have more energy, enthusiasm, creativity and skill in action.

In future articles, we will talk about techniques to practice being in the present.

How often have you noticed that when things are difficult at work, when you feel stressed or overwhelmed, there is a correspondence between the physical body and the emotions? Inevitably, the emotions appear predominant but every so often, we may notice that there is a physical sense of anxiety or nervous feeling in the gut. Or, an overwhelming sense of fear associated with missing a deadline or disappointing a boss. What ever the circumstances, the mind and body are intimately connected. For every state of mind there is a corresponding state of physiology. Now, we think that the circumstances are creating the thoughts of fear or anxiety. But, if the truth be known, the thoughts are merely a convenient reflection of something happening in the body. We begin to feel the anxiety or discomfort in the body first. But, because the mind cannot have a feeling on an abstract basis, it pulls something from the hear and now to justify the feeling. If I am feeling a pit in the stomach, the mind says: “How can I ever make this deadline!” The deadline may indeed be a fact but worrying about it only serves to complicate one’s thinking and subsequent action. Better to acknowledge the deadline and move dispassionately as best as one is able. Worrying does nothing for the situation.

Recently, I was working with a client who has a tendency to overreact and move into drama when dealing with a particular co-worker. As you know, this serves only to aggravate the individual and those around them. We lose sight of the real situation and clarity. When we respond emotionally, we create an environment that quickly escalates into greater drama and conflict.

I worked with this individual to first become conscious and aware of when they begin to move into this “drama” space. Upon realizing they are moving into this, I then suggested they take a moment. Allow the attention to move to their breath. In that, they will likely notice some disturbance or movement in the body and some associated, non specific emotion. Maybe the fists are clenched and anger is there or there is a pit in the stomach and fear is there. By taking a brief moment to allow this internal attention, the body has a tendency to settle down and therefor, the emotion does as well. At this point, one is more focused in the present moment and can begin to move, decide, act, or think about the circumstances more dispassionately and intelligently.

In doing this exercise, my client realized that she was irrationally intimidated by this co-worker and any interaction stirred up her own self doubts and insecurities. As soon as she got this, she was able to drop the irrational reaction and proceed with greater calm and conviction.

In this example, the simple act of taking a moment to allow one’s awareness to focus on the breath and thereby the body,  can calm the emotional state and create a space where clearer and more appropriate decisions can be made.  This simple technique brings the awareness to the present, now moment where we are most powerful, alert and effective.

When I began my practice, I researched various assessment tools that would not only fit my mission to support executives in becoming more aware and thereby, more effective but also are intuitive and easy to use on an ongoing basis. There are many excellent tools out there but most require significant follow up to have a lasting usefulness for the client. One that I resonated with is the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI). It is very easy to use, immediately useful and intuitive in a way that has lasting benefits and results. This tool is based on the Relationship Awareness Theory of seminal 20th century psychologist Elias Porter. The theory has four key observations.

• Behavior is Driven by Motivation
• Motivation Changes in Conflict
• Personal Weaknesses are Overdone Strengths
• Our Personal Filters Influence Perception

The SDI graphically reflects one’s motivational value system and value relating styles or behaviors, how your motivational value system relates to your peers or teammates, your core strengths and weaknesses and how you move into conflict. The goal is to increase your awareness about yourself, how you relate to others and how others relate to you based on the underlying Motivational Values. This increased awareness reveals where you and others are coming from and therefor offers the opportunity to choose to communicate more effectively and resolve conflict more quickly.

The SDI is not your typical assessment tool. It does not tell you who you are or what your skills are. It simply reflects back to you how you feel when things are going well and when you are in conflict and provides a facility and understanding to use this reflection to the benefit of yourself, your team and your business or organization. We use the SDI as the core baseline for work with all clients.

Below is an example of the SDI reflecting the 7 Motivational Value Systems and their corresponding management relating styles.

For more details on the SDI, email us at info@sourcedecision.com.

Have you ever experienced in your team a moment when everyone moves together in a spontaneous and seamless way; where there is a moment of AHA that opens the team to new possibilities? And, this group experience, however brief, solidifies the team’s dynamic in ways no particular exercise or facilitated experience had done before. It is as if, for a moment, the individual boundaries and restrictions fall away leaving a purely empty space from which emerges wholly new energy. This energy then moves the group as one versus a group of individuals. The actual experience is possibly one of a moment of no experience, sudden quiet or silence or maybe even an emerging feeling experienced at the same time by all. We know this experience less by the actuality than by the subsequent action. During the experience, there is no experience. It is a moment of timelessness that reveals itself to the mind after the fact in action.

How many of you can relate to this? I am sure many, particularly those who work in team projects. And, how many wish they could recapture this for all their team projects and yet it seems to be arbitrary and non-reproducible. What is this fleeting experience that creates such a powerful wave of energy and unified focus?

Having spent many years integrating my classic business practice with inward research through meditation and contemplation, I learned to move into this transcendent place at will. However, moving a group or team into this place is a different sort of challenge as each individual in the team must have moved into this place simultaneously. So, how can this be? It is one thing as an individual practice but a wholly other thing as a group. I believe we can look to physics for some explanation and encouragement.

First, some academic background: in 2003, a PHD candidate, Renee A. Levi, conducted an in depth research study into this phenomenon. The title of her thesis was “Group Magic: An Inquiry into Experiences of Collective Resonance”.¹ Levi used a methodology that interviewed a broad spectrum of individuals and groups as varied as a police officer’s arrest situation at gunpoint with 7 suspects, a strategic planning retreat with two recently merged social service agencies, a small soup shop where employees work together under great demand at lunch time, a Senator’s campaign team, a US Air Force Unit, a Quaker Friend’s meeting, a Business Leader’s retreat, and many more. Levi came to define Collective Resonance as a “felt sense of energy, rhythm, or intuitive knowing occurring in a group of human beings that positively influences the way they interact toward a common purpose.”

Levi goes on to describe Resonance in terms of physics; “resonance is the phenomenon of the transmission of vibrations from one vibrating body to another in the absence of any contact with each other…..in physics, two sound waves of approximately the same frequency (or harmonic of the other’s frequency) will eventually entrain or come together and cause an increase in the amplitude of the wave….resonance occurs when the wavelengths are exactly the same, that is, when two wavelengths of similar frequencies come together as one.” When speaking of vibration here, it is not just sound. It includes the vibrational energy of the physical body, beating of the heart and organs, activity of the brain, etc.

The shared experiences of Collective Resonance of all those interviewed ranged over 14 descriptors: “felt in the body, contains movement and rhythm, involves emotion, is felt as a connection to others, involves a felt sense of movement of boundaries, is high energy, includes touch and close physical proximity, requires a shift out of the cognitive and intellectual domain, is felt as a connection to self, feels calm, grounded and relaxed, feels like an altered state of consciousness, contains awareness of an energy field, is felt as a connection to spirit, and requires total presence.”

The study observed a number of key shifters that moved the group into Collective Resonance: 1) Getting in touch with one’s own truth and then articulating it to the group; 2) a feeling of vulnerability, enabled by a sense of physical or emotional safety was the most widely reported factor that shifted groups into resonance; and 3) Silence was another widely identified shifter.

Although more research is necessary to repeat and validate these findings, our experience in groups leads us to believe there is much to be said for Collective Resonance.

The next question is how do we consciously create this phenomenon? Many of the interviewees reported that by talking about the experience recreated the feelings of Collective Resonance. So, one might postulate that Awareness of the experience is enough to consciously move into it a will? If that is true, then we all have the capacity to recreate this experience within. However, how does one move a group into this or set the environment for this to take place.

In physics, there is a phenomenon called Phase Transition. It states that when 1% or more of a system or field becomes orderly, the whole field transitions into orderliness; much as a magnet being rubbed on a piece of iron. The magnetic begins to order the random molecules of the iron. When 1% of the molecules in the iron become orderly, all the molecules of the piece of iron become orderly and a new magnet is created. If one can see this not only as a physical phenomenon and accept that we carry with us a field that is the sum total of our awareness, physical state, emotions, mental activity, it follows we, as individuals, can create order in our respective environments. If we are orderly and in that place of Resonance, we can have a major impact on co-creating Collective Resonance in our team, organization or family. Bottom line: Become more orderly yourself and great transformation can happen for you and your teams.

We will go into how we can become more orderly in a future article.

¹Credits: Renee Levi “The Collective Wisdom Initiative”. To obtain a copy of the complete PHD dissertation, visit the Resonance Project. http://www.resonanceproject.org/home.cfm

For a summary of the Dissertation, go to http://www.collectivewisdominitiative.org/papers/levi_exec_summary.htm#p

Have you ever suddenly changed direction that radically alters your perception of the business situation and the opportunities therein? Was this change precipitated by some event, conversation or sudden clarity? Was the action almost dream-like; moving in some sort of frictionless flow? Were you only surprised at your actions afterwards? And, were the results extraordinary; either internally in how you felt or externally in manifesting something new or remarkable?

Recently, I made a big change in the direction of my business that shook my old habits and thinking and exposed me to unfamiliar waters. I was actually physically shaken by the action that I had moved into so quickly and seamlessly. In just one day, I read something which broke through the dream like existence of habit and ritual that identified my life and my business focus. Acting from some transcendent place, I made very quick and decisive steps to clear the path for this new awakened state of being in business. The details are less important than the experience which was one of excitement and fear. What had I just done! I seemed to throw away a sure thing in favor of some elusive new focus. Will I make it? What will be the reaction of peers? Did I do the right thing? At the same time, I felt excited, reinvigorated, expanded and more hopeful than I had in years. All these kind of thoughts and feelings popped up after the course correction. I know that this action was prompted and directed by some higher aspect of my Self; that higher intelligence that is always present but not often acknowledged. Nothing else could have moved me so quickly. Particularly as one who is not impulsive as a rule.

A friend of mine called. I told her what I had just done. Rather than judging my move as crazy, she congratulated me, wisely offering the following parable:

“There was an ancient fishing village that was experiencing a drought in their daily catch. The head fisherman and the villagers were frustrated and depressed. One day, a wise man came to the village and offered advice to the Head Fisherman. He said;”Fish in the Deep Water”. The Head Fisherman did not know what to make of this man who just appeared offering this unsolicited advice. But, since nothing else was working, he and the other fishermen set out the next day to fish in the deep water. To their great surprise and joy, they found an abundance of fish and returned to the village with more than enough fish to support the village for weeks”.

This spoke beautifully to my situation. I had moved into the deep water guided by my higher intelligence or awareness. On the surface, it would appear that I had acted rashly on the advice of some subtle energy within. But, as I moved through the experience, the fears generated by old habits gave way to joy, confidence and sense of abundance well before any new business could manifest. I have already filled my catch of the day and just need to work hard to bring it in. This is Intelligent Risk. Trusting in your higher intelligence and moving with no surety of a particular result. The risk is that we do not know what will manifest. The intelligence is that we move from non-ego based, more expanded intelligence that delivers exactly what is required. Thus, in the biggest sense, there is no risk. If a business or organization can tap into its higher purpose, the movement to greater success and satisfying action cannot be stopped. So, dare to go into the deep water!

As a side note, within days of this course change, significant new business opportunities emerged.

The purpose of this blog: An Inward Approach

In my 30 plus years in business, I have observed many people, projects and businesses at varying degrees of success. I experienced along with my peers and employees the joy of succeeding at a goal, the satisfaction of implementing a well thought out strategy and the disappointment and pain associated with projects gone awry. In all this there is one observation that holds true, the impact of each experience whether qualified as positive or negative has a very short life span. Successes are great but we quickly move on to achieve the next success. Failures are painful but we quickly move on to correct the situation or try something new. Experience is consistent in that it always changes. It has no permanence. It just leads to more desire, more experience, more, more and more. And that is the natural play of life in its experiential form. However, when one asks oneself…

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Source Consulting mentors executives and teams to move productively through change into new opportunity.

The cornerstone of the practice is supporting executives in becoming more aware. An aware manager is a more effective manager. With awareness new choices appear that lead to better decisions, increased focus and greater results and profits. If you are aware that you and/or your business is in need of change, Source Consulting is the best solution to support your move into greater opportunity and success.

www.sourcedecision.com