Leaders need to keep changing

If you've been a leader for a few years, you'd have noticed how leadership and the expectations of leaders keep changing.

The world of work changes and leaders need to adapt, flex, change with it too.

From when leaders were controllers and commanders, to an era where leaders were all about coaching their team members via 1:1 conversations, and now to today...

Today we see leaders better leveraging everyone's time and strengths by using the skills of facilitation.

My concept of the 'Leader as Facilitator' doesn't mean you become a full-time facilitator. It means you draw on the subtle, engaging and nuanced skills of facilitation to help people work together well - when needed. I wrote 'Leader as Facilitator' in 2016 to help people run better meetings, drop corny clichés (like 'I hear what you're saying' or 'Let's take it offline') and work in more collaborative, productive and creative ways.

Work still needs to get done. No matter the apps, software or systems you use, you'd do well to have the complex and impactful suite of skills that are facilitation.

Facilitation. It means 'ease' after all.

Q: How could you better build your facilitation skills?

What sensemaking is and why we need it

When the Institute for the Future said sensemaking was something we'd need for 2020 and beyond, I'm sure many people thought 'Huh? What is that, why do I need it?'

We have some natural abilities to make sense yet we also need sharper skills when problem solving and dealing with complex issues and information.  

I wrote a book called 'Making Sense: A Handbook for the Future of Work'. This books proposes that using visuals isn't about pretty pictures, but rather functional and practical tools that help us get to grips with information and ideas quickly.

The sooner we make sense of what's going on, the sooner we can make decisions ... and the sooner we can act.

We usually try to make sense by talking to (or at) each other. But making a 'map' is more effective.

How do you make a map? In 'Making Sense' I've provided: 40 thought starters 10 thinking tools 21 techniques 32 templates to help you make maps for sense. So when you need to make sense of things, get the book out, start mapping and sensemaking. You'll be equipped to decide and act... sooner.

Q: How do you currently make sense of things? 

Visual Mojo : How to capture thinking, convey information and collaborate using visuals

The world has experienced a 'visual revolution' over the past decade.

We see more hand-drawn fonts in the font list on our computers, more hand-crafted signage in stores and more hand-created imagery in the media.

It's no surprise then that hand-drawn visuals are more engaging as they ignite the mirror neurons in our brains, firing up our interest and attention. If you worry you can't draw, I assure you it's less about the drawing and more about working out what you're trying to communicate.

We all need greater clarity among the crazy.

I wrote 'Visual Mojo: How to capture thinking, convey information and collaborate using visuals' in 2013 and it's even more relevant today. 'Visual Mojo' is a workshop in a book with space to draw and write in the book. I know we were 'in trouble' if we wrote in books when we were younger, but I want you to break some rules!

'Visual Mojo' will build your visual skills, your confidence, creativity ... and most of all the impact your communication has.

Q: Do you ever use hand-drawn visuals in your work?

Be CURIOUS

Being a risk taker and explorer in times of uncertainty can feel like it’s a great risk, but it can also reap huge rewards. It means stepping into uncertainty, unknown and unsure.

But go, step into it. Be intrepid. To be otherwise is to be timid, weak, pusillanimous – yep, that’s a big word that will stop you being able to work with uncertainty.

When we are fearful of uncertainty, we get smaller ideas, take smaller risks and try to stay in 'safe and same'.

Businesses that support risk taking can achieve some mighty innovative things. So to work in uncertainty, we simply need to be curious.

And if we are scared, curiosity becomes the opposite of fear. Be CURIOUS. Wonder. Enquire.

Be intrigued and interested and you'll be just fine working in uncertainty. 

Collaboration, co-creation and working with others

Co-locating, buddying and pairing people can make awesome stuff happen - learning, problem solving, knowledge sharing.

Better than if we have to face uncertainty alone.

Why do we sit in stables, stalls, pods and cells all on our lonesome? Share a desk and go co! There's a reason why software developers sit next to each other and do 'pair programming'. It's efficient, engaging and enlightening!

In the modern workplace, alone time is good, but collaboration is a benefit. It's a 'co-brainer'.

We need to be working with others at some time. I like the Agile Manifesto's: 'Choose interactions with individuals and groups of individuals, over working on processes and tools.' It's easy to bury down deep in the work of designing systems, tools and processes. But could we be more human, more collaborative... not clichéd collaboration, but engaging, productive and enjoyable collaboration?

Working with other humans enables us to find solutions we may never have found alone.

Q: What's a collaboration or co-creation you've worked on that ROCKED?