There is a natural order of things.

Start.  Middle.  End.

Preparation. Delivery. Feedback.

Birth. Grow.  Decline. Death.

A funeral.  

In May 2024,  I attended a funeral.  It’s the celebration of a life well-lived.

Christine Cox, FIMC CMC was a colleague of mine at the Institute of Management Consultants.

Christine was a super lady, whom I admired immensely.

She was an IMC member for 26 years and was a highly respected consultant.

She interviewed me when I wanted to become qualified as a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) in 2011.

And then we worked together as fellow colleagues and directors for the past year or so.

At the funeral service, I learned of other aspects of her life which were equally important to her.

Family, friends, her numerous pets, her music.  That’s a normal, full life.

Our role as leaders.

As business leaders, if we truly wish to encourage our people to be the best version of themselves and to contribute to the fullest, what might we consider doing?

Some ideas.

How about these ideas to get the discussion going.

1. Encourage conversation.

2. Bring out what’s important.

3. Bring to the forefront of our thinking, those key Values which drive the organisational behaviours.

4. How about we make them explicit?

5. Ask, “Is this how we want it to be around here?”

6. Then let’s help the team to create the future that’s valuable to them and to us.

Sliding into chaos.

The natural order of things, once we have started, includes much effort expended, a serious amount of learning, and then as we let things slide, perhaps a gradual reduction in order, followed by an increase in disorder and then ultimately all out chaos.

Birth.  Growth.  Bump into many unknowns.
Learn how to cope.  Changes.  Confusion, complexity, disorder and chaos.

At what point would it be good for us, as business leaders, to interject ourselves?

An alternative pathway.

The natural order of things can have an alternative trajectory.

It would be based on “how we design it to be”.

“How we design it to be” is based on our Values.

Our Values are what we hold to be important and valuable to us.  Our beliefs.  Our ethics.

Things which we will not give ground on.

No lying.  No stealing.  No cheating.  Helping others. Being supportive.  Valuing learning. Doing our best.

Our values are the glue which holds us and everything together.

We have a choice. 

We can help those around us. We can design and create the culture and the Values which we want.

We can choose to behave according to those Values.

And in the process, we can create the future, which we all want.

Or we can choose the other route.

Follow the natural order of things, as defined by someone else.

The choice is totally ours.