Culture Cast – Interpreting the Meaning of Play at Work

Organizational culture Personal leadership Podcast

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In Season 3, Episode 1 of Culture Cast: Conversations on Culture and Leadership, Lorne and Lynette discuss how organizations can implement, encourage and promote more play at the work place. Does your leadership have a culture that makes the office a fun, enjoyable place to contribute?

Please feel free to subscribe to this YouTube channel, follow this podcast on Soundcloud, as well as Lorne and Lynette’s social media platforms for all the latest Culture Cast uploads and announcements.

Lorne Rubis is available @LorneRubis on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook

Lynette Turner is available on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as through her site, LynetteTurner.com.

We look forward to sharing Season 3 of Culture Cast: Conversations on Culture and Leadership with you every Wednesday. 

Why Purpose Matters When Cheers Fade and Pain Increases

Abundance Accountability Personal leadership Respect

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Story: I have personally been involved with a professional sports franchise that brought current players and alumni together. When you put professional athletes from multiple generations in the same room, one sees the difference. The guys in Armani suits drinking fancy martinis look very different from beer drinking men in baggy old slacks. Virtually all current tier one male professional athletes are multi-millionaires. Their brothers from the past are starkly different. And many who starred in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s are below the poverty line, some even on welfare, with lousy health to boot. Lots of retired NFL players make the past athletic landscape even more ugly with serious opioid addictions that often lead to detrimental and painful outcomes. Read this Sunday NYT article for a staggering description of this NFL situation.

Key Point: Pro sports provide a poignant micro picture of what happens when people leave the spotlight. It is less dramatic in corporate life. However, I can assure you that people who wrap up their entire sense of purpose and well being into their work will be disappointed in a somewhat similar way. Executives will find that their “email prestige” stops almost overnight, and the loss of an executive assistant, expense account, and a full calendar of meetings leaves a world potentially more empty than anticipated. People at other levels will be surprised at how replaceable they are and the promise of staying in touch with most teammates inevitably fades, regardless of how well intended the commitment.

Actions we can take:

  1. It is vital that we keep developing ourselves. NO ONE else owns your career development. Do not depend on anyone waking up thinking about what your next steps are going to be, or how your personal equity is increasing.
  2. Remember that your job is usually NOT your life’s purpose. Hopefully it is a medium to act that out, but it’s generally NOT why you are here. You can lose a job, a career even, yet always retain your purpose and values. Discover that personal purpose. Be intentional about your values.
  3. If you are doing anything that brings so much pain that you find yourself with an addiction, it is not worth it. No amount of money can ease that kind of pain.

After the spotlight,

Lorne

One Millennial View: I remember being fascinated by an up-and-coming comedian telling a story on a podcast where he opened for a larger comedian at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. One minute he’s performing in front of 20,000 people at a legendary venue, and then when the show was over, he returned by himself to his quiet apartment in Queens. The next weekend, he was performing the same material for an unenthused gathering of 20 people in a small club in upstate New York. The giant contrast is a blunt reminder of the ups and downs we can all experience in our careers. Still, whether it was for 20,000 people, or 20, the purpose and values underlying his job remained the same. In this case, it was to spark laughter, but even with an enormous contradiction of audience size, he never asked that funny question, “what am I doing with my life?”

– Garrett

Blog 964

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

 

Lead In With Lorne – Does Your Team Have Psychological Safety in Meetings?

Podcast

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Hi readers and listeners,  

We invite you to take a couple minutes to watch/listen to our new podcast, Lead In with Lorne: A Leadership Story to Start Off Your Week.

Lorne discusses psychological safety in the workplace, and the value of letting everyone in your meetings and organization feel comfortable to share their true viewpoints and self. 

Enjoy it on the YouTube video embedded below, or audio listeners can hear it on SoundCloud now too (iTunes coming in the near future). We hope it enriches your Monday

Kindly subscribe to the YouTube channel and SoundCloud to make sure you start your week with a leadership story. 

 

Why Leaders Should Resist Phony Management Buzzwords

Abundance Accountability Personal leadership Respect

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Story: Organizations are notorious for throwing new management buzzwords and concepts around like a manure spreader gone out of control. Someone at the top of the house emphasizes a new phrase or concept and BINGO, within weeks it’s in almost every company presentation. If you don’t liberally sprinkle around the newest phrase, you find yourself on the outs with the “cool kids.”

Key Point: I do love jumping on emerging leadership insights when they’re supported by solid research. (In fact, I have to be careful not to be one of those buzz folks myself). Carol Dweck’s work on a FIXED MINDSET versus GROWTH MINDSET is an example. The upside is provoking people to think, learn, unlearn and act more effectively. But the downside can be oversimplification and the tyranny of people faking a phony level of understanding. It is seductive to chase shiny new things and search for a magic management elixir. However, we have to be mindful of the harm of political tyranny outweighing the good of thoughtful application. To illustrate, let’s look a little more at GROWTH MINDSET.

As noted by one of Dweck’s colleagues Eduardo Briceño, “growth mindset is the understanding that personal qualities and abilities can change. It leads people to take on challenges, persevere in the face of setbacks, and become more effective learners.” However, Dweck defines the risk of having a FALSE GROWTH MINDSET. “Saying you have growth mindset when you don’t really have it or you don’t really understand [what it is]. It’s also false in the sense that nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time. Everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets. You could have a predominant growth mindset in an area but there can still be things that trigger you into a fixed mindset trait.”

Actions we can take:

  1. When embracing new concepts, allow yourself and others to soak in the understanding and meaning. This requires an investment of time, conversation, exploration and thoughtful introduction into the relevant community. Be wary of overnight trends that could distract and soon vanish, leaving a garbage trail.
  2. Resist the tyranny of jumping on superficial management buzz and bandwagons. Plain, clear language is best. When we introduce new words, thoughts or approaches, appreciate that regurgitation is not necessarily true understanding.

Less fake buzz in leadership,

Lorne

One Millennial View: New phrases and lingo can be fun. Millennials can seemingly upgrade social status by being ahead of the curve on this. But it’s like a car, as soon as you drive it off the lot [share it, say it], it starts rapidly depreciating in value, and time starts ticking to find a new model to replace it. The same goes for phony buzz at work. To some, it’s cheap and disingenuous right out of the gate. Let the concept sell itself because it has genuine longevity and value, not because it has a temporary ring to it.

– Garrett

Blog 963

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis