Facing uncertainty can be challenging – being a business owner facing uncertainty is tougher.
Red Direction helps you [fast track and] grow your business – authentically, pragmatically, and resiliently.
Starting the conversation…
During times of growth and change (personally, professionally, and leading your business through) stay the course.
Host: Jess Dewell
Cohost: Scott Scowcroft
What You Will Hear:
An ask – #VBBRadio is trying something out. Please go check it out (link in Resources below).
Find problems before they are all-consuming.
All emotions and thoughts are valid – they are yours.
4 steps to problem-solving.
Root cause versus a symptom (usually a squeaky wheel).
What failure really is.
Self-forgiveness.
Decide how communication will look and sound.
What we prioritize matters.
Nadine Hack on increasing empathy.
Ron Goode on giving the benefit of the doubt.
3 levels of awareness.
Audience Question: How do you know when is the time to actually abandon the course, to change it? Giving up on one thing, or change is a strategy too.
When to abandon course.
The communication of goals and change.
Everything has an end.
Michael Rosenblum on getting to the brilliance.
Power of a Present Retreat.
It’s BOLD to focus in on what’s happened, where we are at, and where we want to be 5+ years from now.
Notable and Quotable:
Jess Dewell 5:40
So they’re going to be three key areas to the program today. The first is finding problems before they’re all-consuming. The second is decide how communication looks and sounds in your organization. And the third is a recap of how “Present Retreat’ also fits this conversation of staying the course.
Scott Scowcroft 9:52
It’s all good. Just by saying that, that releases so much of the boundaries that constrain us when something arises.
Jess Dewell 12:28
The four steps to solving problems, is one, knowing there’s a problem. The second step is confirming that that’s really the problem, or is that a symptom of a bigger problem? And the third step is going once we found our real root problem, then what? What are our options? And what are the things that we are going to include to evaluate those options? Actually do the thing that was chosen, and the fourth step is to review it and decide if you liked it. Regardless of the outcome. whether you like it, whether you don’t like it, it allows the next situation to have a different set of problems.
Jess Dewell 13:24
When we can find the root problems versus the symptoms, we have the ability to understand quicker, what is a symptom? And what is the problem? So are we fighting the right fires? Are we planning with the right information, the one that’s going to be the most impactful?
Scott Scowcroft 14:11
There’s no real such thing as a failure, unless you let it defeat you, because if there’s a failure on the way and you learn from it, then that actually strengthens your ability to go forward. In fact, there are very few, if any, people who are successful who haven’t had that trail of large and small failures that they learned from.
Jess Dewell 15:06
We have this fear of failure, so we change the word because we don’t really want to look at it. And then we have this culture that we see in society, and mostly in certain cultures within organizations. And it’s to fail fast, it’s to take big risks. In one side, it’s the avoidance piece, and the other side, it only works when you learn from what you do,
Scott Scowcroft 15:47
There’s scripts that we have in our head that we play over and over and over again. Part of learning from quote/unquote “one’s failure “is to rewrite the script so that you’re not just repeating something, over and over again.
Scott Scowcroft 17:59
There’s merit in forgiving myself because I’m going to make these different changes. Because I have these other people in my life that will speak truth to power. Maybe they’re mentors. Maybe there are other people, but they’re the ones who will allow me to do those mid-course corrections that may be I’m not able to do myself because I’m too close to the situation.
Jess Dewell 36:24
Everything that we do in our business, everything — a product that we have, a process that we have, a technology that we have, the people we have — it’s going to have a beginning, a middle and an end. We showed up, we did what we could, and then we’re done. Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end.
Jess Dewell 37:13
At some point, we have to make the decision to change, not because it was the wrong decision, or we’re behind the eight ball, or anything like that, but because it’s done. The thing has run its course. The relationship, the technology, the capacity of the person, the willingness of the person to continue to do and evolve, as the company continues to do and evolve.
Scott Scowcroft 41:06
Go to the 20,000-foot level and then look down. Because you’re so high, you can see if you stay on the current path, what terrain you’ll be going through. But you can see what other train that there might be in front of you as well.
Scott Scowcroft 41:43
There’s a concept of artificial intelligence, where it takes all of these disparate points and comes up with answers that are not necessarily obvious. Well, I would say that there’s something beyond and even better than Artificial Intelligence. It’s Real Intelligence, because our brain is so much more complex in so many different ways than the computers that are out there, our brains have the capacity to be able to do everything, I think, based on what you’re saying, with “Present Retreat,” that artificial intelligence does, but it can do it much better. So for me, your Present Retreat is just laying the table to allow, well, maybe its wisdom to come out, our intuition, or all of those things that make the human condition and make us approach our human potential.
Jess Dewell 43:51
When we’re increasing our awareness, we are better equipped to communicate so that we can help others understand what’s happening, so that they can practice their awareness. Which then goes back to the very beginning of, it’s all what we prioritize and what problems we solve and the way that we choose to work together.
Jess Dewell 45:26
Being able to seem like you’re in flow comes from purposeful action. And that purposeful action and protecting that time, to into, it to be empathetic, to grapple with things to decide what we need to solve, to figure out if we are solving the right problems — all become part of our regular process. We as leaders talk about it, and then the more we talk about it, the more of those around us talk about it.
Jess Dewell 46:43
It’s bold to stay the course. It’s bold to be consistent. And it’s bold to do something that not many people will take time for. Well, if you don’t have time for President Retreat, then you don’t have time to prioritize communication. So means you’re not talking about awareness, which means who knows what problems you’re solving? Are they the ones you want for the course to where you want to go?
Resources:
Help us test out this new platform we are experimenting with to increase distribution of #VBBRadio – click here.
Audience Question: What would be the good way to motivate people to stick with the change? (Sometimes the benefits are not always visible, but the growth pains are.)
Tags:
problem-solving, empathy, vulnerability, responsiveness, communication, awareness, growth strategy, future
