This program weaves together the critical skills for optimal performance, across weeks or months to enable measurable improvement. It consists of six segments that stand alone as well as build on each other.
"Productive insight; clear (often sudden)
understanding of a complex situation." Free Dictionary
Pop the bubble of conditioned
thinking and emerge into the creative realm of "no absolutes," continuous
change, uncertainty and unlimited possibilities.
Then, there can be innovation,
adaptation and optimal performance.
Performance & Open-minded Mindfulness:
Open-minded: questioning everything,
accepting diversity and uncertainty.
Mindful: consciously aware; concentrated.
Foundation for blending process, project,
engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize
performance.
This Newsletter
Our aim is to stimulate the kind of thinking, dialogue and understanding that leads to optimal performance.
Breakthrough - Bursting the Bubble and Embracing Change
By George Pitagorsky
The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hold on to, no parachute. The good news is there's no ground.
~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Have you ever been stuck in a state that seems as if it will last forever?
Maybe it is a work situation in which the organization is going round and round in an unpleasant cycle of mediocre performance. Maybe it is a team that has the same arguments about the same things over and over again. Maybe it's your life in general.
Do you wish you could break through and change the situation?
Breakthrough is a "productive insight" and "the clear (and often sudden) understanding of a complex situation".
Being in a Bubble Imagine being in a bubble, maybe it's nice in there, maybe not. You are in this huge bubble and you are not aware that you are in a bubble. You think that your bubble is all there is, nothing outside of it. Like in the movie The Truman Show, where the main character is in a TV show about his life and he is unaware that it's a TV show until there is a breakthrough and he becomes aware of the bubble. The first breakthrough is about becoming aware of one's condition, recognizing it for what it is.
Once we do this we can never go back to the way things were. The illusion of an ordered existence is gone.
Pop the Bubble The second breakthrough pops the bubble and fully accepts the reality of the vast expanse outside of the bubble, free from conditioning, open to creativity, uncertainty and the flow of events. This second breakthrough may come right with the first; immediate full acceptance. More often there is a process in which one moves out of the bubble but is drawn back in by the force of past conditioning and fear of the unknown. It's safe inside the bubble. This process requires action; by living skillfully we can eliminate the bubble for good.
Breakthrough in the 'Real' World Breakthrough in business organizations, communities and families is about individuals who accept continuous change. The structures that all seem so solid are illusions. At best they are clever means to get things done more effectively, avoid problems and generally organize and order things. At worst they are barriers to effective performance. They become the force behind "We can't do that because it's not the way we do things here."
When we break the bubble, we recognize that we can manage change. We can initiate intentional change and monitor and direct it. Often we can alter the direction of unintentional change. We may be able to slow change down or speed it up and we can even stop it, but just for a while.
Collective Breakthroughs Change in an organization requires collective breakthroughs. First, there is the objective recognition of the current state, acknowledging its pluses, its flaws and its power to achieve goals. Then, there are the breakthrough to action and the breakthrough to continuous improvement which is accompanied by the acceptance of the responsibility to manage change.
When change becomes accepted as inevitable, we are no longer surprised by it. Then we have the ability to take the control we can have, always remembering that, ultimately, we are out of control; we are in free fall.
In free fall we can freak out, try to hide back in the bubble or learn to fly.
Next month's article is "Uncertainty, Change, Chaos, Risk and Opportunity".
