Leadership Singularity - Season Two Ep. 25: Takeaways

So why don't we end this discussion with that last question, which is actually two questions in one, kind of a wrap-up this conversation. If you had to repeat this experience all over again, is there anything that you would change?

Number one.

And then since this experience, what changed in your work or in the way that you work? So two questions: if you had to repeat this experience over again, is there anything that you would change? And since this experience, what changed in your work?

I wonder how many people listening to this, watching this, will remember Edith Piaf in 1960 who sang the song 'Je ne regrette rien.' I think, as I've said a number of times on this call, it's the learning that's the most powerful thing for me. The fact that we get something wrong and we change something and it's difficult and you get told no, or, you know, people disagree with you. That's the beauty of it for me. I wouldn't change a thing. And I think we've done plenty of that. I think it's, you know, it's all in the book really. This is the sort of stuff that people have to become comfortable with— dealing with ambiguity, uncertainty, messes, chaos, creativity, asking better questions and different questions through, you know, why would we possibly want to change that? So no, I wouldn't change anything. I'd be back in a heartbeat on a different topic. I think that What I've taken away and what's changed in my work is the language and the lessons I've learned from, from you all. I think, you know, Jonathan taught me a lot about when we had our one-to-one about the flow and the, you know, the, the water flowing through and the, the challenge of being authentic and trust. And there's so much new language in there for me that was astonishing. I think we've said, Virginie, how wonderful, you know, you convened and orchestrated us and the joy, Patrick, we've had of challenging ourselves to think differently on every topic. I think I'm going to take heed and comfort from the fact that there are others out there who are just as crazy as we are. And, you know, I've loved that whole thing. So that's, that's me. Jonathan.

This crazy is incurable. That's the thing. We're not going to get better. We're not going to get sane and well. And so let's work with that. And I guess this process, as well as the book itself, is teaching me to take a little bit of an extra moment.— which doesn't have to be a great delay, but just a little moment to be in less of a hurry to declare that I know what is happening and what has to happen as a consequence for that. And that is the moment where I think beauty comes in, not because we have it all planned down to the last pixel of the image, but because of natural human processes, when people get together, which is what a company is, you know, things happen like fermentation. And if you give it a little bit of time, that plain old milk can become something wonderfully cheesy, or, you know, a great wine can come from grapes. That you just let sit out on the table for a little bit too long. And I think that that kind of perspective goes back to what Patrick talked about in terms of ecosystems. Ecosystems are not fragile machines. And one of those phrases that we talked about earlier, you know, the idea that there's so many phrases that we throw away now and they've lost their meaning, business ecosystems. Is one of those. You know, but if we really understand what an ecosystem is, then we have to value many different kinds of leadership that are out there. And one of the most important things that a leader can do is to wait and to see how a situation develops and sometimes to let other people come up with the great ideas. And I think that we've built a beautiful little ecosystem here. And I'm hoping that as people read the book, they're going to become part of that ecosystem and feed into it because every ecosystem becomes more powerful and more rich, the more diverse it becomes. It's not about top-down monocultural control. It's about having a system that takes the energy from one place and shares it around as part of that flow that John was talking about.

So for me, if there's anything I would change, I can't say there's anything I would change because this effort was the change, right? This effort was a piece of the change. It was a part of the process and is not finished. It's merely— it exists in the middle of our experience and it is a It is a testament and it's a marker to what we want to achieve. So as it relates to this, maybe I wish I could have, uh, I could have written more, you know, each of us could probably added another 3 or 4 chapters if we wanted to. Um, and, uh, you know, we always want to contribute more and that's a good sign that we feel passionate about what we're doing. Um, so there's an endless level of creativity and commitment that go into this idea, which says that It's important that we are trying to change something, and that means we need to change something in ourselves to help influence change around and to other people. So I would not change anything that we really did there. The takeaway for me in terms of how I would treat my work is that you guys exposed me to an idea of a greater social environmental sustainability, which is something that we don't consider in my industry, in federal IT contracting and defense contracting, where people are building weapons and bombs and things of destruction, people's first thought isn't how do I sustain this, either ecologically or even economically or from a leadership perspective. This, the Beltway Bandits here in DC, it's a very type A, eat your own children kind of environment, and that's incredibly destructive. And you guys have given me a beautiful perspective to help try to inject a little bit of that human element, a little bit of that sustainable element, back into the— back into what's going on here. And we're seeing the changes that are happening across some of my clients. So you guys have given me a brighter light to lead as I engage with my clients as it relates to how you're going to keep this kind of dynamic going, how are you going to continue to treat your workforce in the right way, and how you're going to continue to message truthfully and with integrity and in a way in which not only your mission lasts, but more importantly, your customers' missions last. So those are my— that's as it relates to me in terms of what I would change or not change and what that brings to my current work. What about you, Virginie? What would you change during the process and how has it influenced you?

So I think I definitely— I'm in line to with what you all said, that I wouldn't change anything. And the reason is because it's an improv exercise, so you actually don't have any control. So there's nothing that could— I could have changed because it was an improv. So that would be number one. And then how it changed my work, I actually, since then, I've been getting a lot more into co-creation projects. Recently, I started to work with a musician, and we've created a new form of media composed of spoken words and music called sensemaking. It's super fun. I'm engaged in a small group creating a sort of mindfulness game in which we teach, or we want to help people express their true self. Again, not sure if anything's going to come out, and that's okay. And then in my day job, I'm definitely taking this idea of, you know, focusing on creating something beautiful for and with my client and with my teammates and looking at how this creation impacts others' lives. So I think co-creation has become a pillar in the way that I work, which was not the case before. It was just not. So whether it's COVID, whether it's this opportunity, I think it might be a mix of things where I'm starting to recognize that communities and business ecosystem are the new foundation of the life that I want to build. Because I think in communities you find people that are like-minded. Have a chance to have a more meaningful impact on a more local basis. And, you know, it just brings you home. So that's, that's what changed in my work. So that was the last question. Thank you so much for taking the time to share, and it really felt almost like a working session where we could just share, and I didn't take any notes, so that may be the only difference. I'm hoping that this conversation can inspire people to take a look at the book, which is free on all our websites, and of course they can buy it on Amazon or gift it to someone that they care about, or they think are willing and open to disrupt a little bit their own belief and own practice. And we'll see where that takes us. So thank you very much.