To build Uncommon Teams, we must:
Without movement we cannot make, we cannot build, we cannot achieve our desires. While any movement allows us to make, build, and achieve, smooth, silky, sustained movement allows us to make, build, and achieve with so much more ease. Sustaining our movement requires sustaining our energy and sustaining our drive.
Each of us is energized and recharged by certain things -- and we are drained by certain other things. I need time alone, stories about discovering our strength, texture, and challenges to my balance. If I'm around too many people for too long, I lose my ability to think and understand what I need, and I lose my ability to help those around me. I've learned to bookend time with others with time by myself, so that I start out overflowing with energy, replenish it while I'm with them, and fill back up after we're through. Without a constant influx of stories about how others discover their strength, I lose touch with my own. Texture for me comes from my senses: the feel, smell, taste, sound, and colors of my food, music, clothing, and surroundings. If I go too long feeling feeling I know exactly where everything is and how to handle it, I start feeling bored. I need to experience the edges of my physical, emotional, and mental balance in order to feel stable, confident, and secure.
You may be energized and recharged by these things, some of these things, or completely different things. The more we understand what energizes us, how and when works best for us to recharge them, and how drained we can get before we absolutely must take time to recharge them, the more we sustain the energy we require to sustain our movement.
Each of us is also driven by certain things. My drive comes from helping other people understand who they are. The more I'm doing that the happier, more motivated, and full of joy I am.
You are likely driven by other things. The more we understand what drives us, the more we can connect everything we do to them, and the more we sustain the drive we require to sustain our movement.
We must sustain both our energy and our drive in order to sustain our movement. Think about a car: without sufficient amounts of the right type of fuel, the biggest motor in the world won't make it go; without the right type of motor connected in the right way and provided the right type of fuel in the right amount at the right times, the biggest tank of gas or battery has no effect. Whatever energizes and drives us, the more we understand what they are, how we need to get them, when we need them to arrive, and how we need to balance recharging your energy and drive with expending them, the more we are able to sustain our movement and achieve our desires. The more able we are to sustain our movement, and the more consistently we do that, the more we can focus on maintaining our alignment.
While movement allows us to make and build, achieving our desires requires our movement to be aligned with those desires. We do not even need to know what our desires are so long as we can measure our alignment with them, modify our course in a way we theorize will increase our alignment, move a tiny step along that course, and then measure our alignment once again.
Each of us has unique signals that tell us how aligned with our desires we are. I often see a glow that increases the more aligned a choice is; I often feel physically pulled towards the direction that increases my alignment, and I feel much more calm, confident, and willing to move the more aligned I am with my desires.
You likely have different signals. You may hear, feel, or taste different things the more aligned a choice is for you. You may have a gut feeling about which way is best. Your signals may focus more on how misaligned a choice is, such as feeling increased dread rather than increased joy. The more we understand what our signals are, the more we can practice heeding them, and the more we can use them to modify our course.
Unless we happen to be perfectly aligned with our desires, measuring our alignment must be paired with modifying our course, else we can only continue our state of imperfect alignment. The tinier a change we make, the smaller our downside if we happen to decrease alignment, the safer we are likely to feel, and the more willing we are likely to be to take that next step. If we also view our course change as an experiment, we remove any risk of getting it wrong, for an experiment can not turn out wrong, only differently than we theorized. Every modification we make is simply the basis for the Tiny Experiment that is our next step.
Change can be scary. However unhappy we are, whatever we change might make things even worse. This is why we move in tiny increments, small enough that we feel safe and secure knowing that even if things go completely off the rails, we haven't made too much of a mistake. In fact -- we haven't made a mistake at all, only tried an experiment that went differently than we expected. No big deal; this is what experiments are for, to try something and discover what happens.
Even the tiniest steps can always be broken down into even tinier steps. Anytime an experiment feels too big, we'll split it up into even tinier ones!
Just because Measure, Modify, Move is a cycle doesn't mean we always start with Measure, nor that we always traverse the entire cycle. If our direction feels right enough, we may continue moving without modification. We may measure a different way or experiment with several different modifications before we feel ready to move. We can decide to skip measuring and instead make random choices for awhile and then take stock of our alignment. All of these can be valid choices...and if it doesn't turn out the way we expect, well, it was just another Tiny Experiment giving us more information for our next measurement, modification, and movement.
As we more consistently sustain our movement, and as we gain experience maintaining our alignment, we may start to become aware of the impact we're having on ourselves and on those around us. With our increasing ability to sustain our movement we start to have energy and drive to focus on managing that impact; with our increasing ability to maintain our alignment we start to have a process for finding our way to manage that impact.
Movement allows us to make and build, and alignment allows us to make and build the things we desire. Managing our impact allows us to make and build the things we desire in such a way as to maximize their benefit to ourselves and to all those around us. First we optimize that to work best for us, then we adjust that to balance what we need with the needs of those around us.
We each have a unique way of interacting with our world that works best for us. I take in information visually, process it kinesthetically, and express it back out aurally. I tend to bounce back and forth between big pictures and small details, between what is possible and what is going on right now, between my ideas of how things might work and my experience with how they actually do. Generally I focus more on objectivity and fairness while also celebrating the subjective uniqueness of each person. I use structure as a foundation for spontaneity. I make decisions when they feel right to make, not on any particular timeline.
You probably interact with your world differently. You may take in information kinesthetically, or aurally, or by some other means. You may focus entirely on big pictures and never really consider details, or vice versa. You are probably different in each of these. Knowing how we prefer to interact with our world allows us to optimize our interactions to best suit our preferences, so that we can focus on those interactions rather than translating them into terms we understand.
You and I each have our unique optimal way to interact with our worlds, and what is optimal for me likely isn't optimal for you. When you and I interact, either I must flex my preferences to match yours, or you must flex your preferences to match mine, or we must each flex our preferences somewhat and meet somewhere in between. The more I flex my preferences towards yours, the more energy I must expend to translate my worlds to yours, and vice versa. With each interaction we must decide where to place the balance.
As we more consistently sustain our movement, as we more consistently maintain our alignment, and as we gain experience managing our impact, we may start to desire helping those around us do the same. With our increasing ability to sustain our movement we start to have energy and drive to focus on those around us, with our increasing ability to maintain our alignment we start to have a process for helping those around us, and with our increasing ability to manage our impact we start to balance what we and they need so that we can minimize friction and maximize growth and progress towards our desires. We start to Lead Uncommonly.
As you become more able to sustain your movement, maintain your alignment, and manage your impact on yourself and others, you are becoming more able to not just lead but Lead Uncommonly. You are becoming able to leverage your personal growth to help each person on your team find their own way, so that you can help them achieve their personal goals as you help them, individually and collectively, achieve the goals of your team and organization.
Leading Uncommonly is not a simple task. It requires strength and stability on your part, in order to engender the same in your people. It requires simplicity, in order to make clear what matters and what doesn't. It requires movement, measurement, and modification, both in how you interact with yourself and in how you interact with those around you, in order to sustain your movement and that of your team, maintain your alignment as well as that of your team, and manage the impact you have on your team, they have on you, and you all have on your larger organization. Are you ready?