Before asking me to work hard to change what I do, I need you to show me how things are going to be better. Help me connect emotionally with the better future we are building. Tell me the story of how we improved people’s lives, how we overcame the obstacles and made it happen together, as if it had already happened. Energize me.
I know it is not an easy thing to do, but it’s only then that I will be ready to discuss what exactly I need to change, how much effort will be needed, how do we engage others and when will we do it.
Even though I know I need others to help me engage emotionally with the cause before I can contribute, I sometimes skip helping others connect. In those occasions I typically tell myself this time it is obvious and we all know why we need to do it. This time I don’t need to go through the tough emotional labor of connecting us all to what is possible. They will just engage, won’t they? I inevitably feel silly when they don’t, and I realize I just did it again.
It is hard for me because it requires 3 difficult things. First I need to be vulnerable, showing my own emotional engagement before I can connect with other people’s emotions. If that was not hard enough, it also requires me listening at a deep level to understand what makes others tick which I may have not even considered. And finally, it will only work after accepting that it is our common connection that defines the shared goal, and as such I don’t get to define it.
This week I did just those three things once, and it was beautiful. I shall do more of it.
The Adaptive Executive 