The importance of how you show up in the ‘doing’
When embarking on developing a purpose-led organisation, it is helpful to bear in mind:
The world we want to create is the way in which we can create that world
Tom Rivett-Carnac, How to shift your Mindset and Choose your Future
How we are being, the speed and quality of our mind, our energy and our emotional state all fundamentally change how well we can “do” anything, as well as what we choose to “do”. The effectiveness of our doing is determined by the sophistication of our being.
Alan Watkins and Nick Dalton, Change the Workplace, Change the World
We have learned through our work that the approach we take to catalysing change is as important as the change we are seeking. We therefore seek to role model the behaviours we are seeking to catalyse through the way we approach our work.
Blueprint’s approach:
Attention to dignity of people – treat everyone as a someone not a something
- Co-create – work ‘with & alongside’ not ‘to and for’
- Encourage thoughtful / critical reflection and sense-making
- Encourage seeking different perspectives in decision making – how do you know?
- Curiosity & creative tension – invite people to openly share their views. Surface tension & underlying differences with curiosity and a neutral position (not judgemental)
Christiana Figueres also illustrates this point the book The future we choose:
As we learned during our stewardship of the Paris agreement, if you do not control the complex landscape of a challenge (and you rarely do) the most powerful thing you can do is change how you behave in that landscape, using yourself as a catalyst for overall change. All too often in the face of a task we move quickly do ‘doing’ without first reflecting on ‘being’ – what we personally bring to the task as well what others might, and the most important thing we can bring is our state of mind.
Exercise:
1. As you start to think about your role as an advocate for change, start to think about what might challenge or trigger you?
These might include:
- a pre-conceived view of what ‘success’ looks like,
- a need to have all the answers,
- discomfort with complexity
- the need for examples or case studies
What do you feel your particular challenges or triggers are?
2. How are you thinking about what you want to achieve, and how you are relating to other people?
- Am I acting out of curiosity and a desire to invite people to help create or support something that they believe in? Or to support something I have already decided is desirable and worked out?
- Am I actively listening to understand, make sense, learn and respond, or waiting to ‘tell and sell’
How we show up is everything!
Example:
Inspired by Blueprint’s Framework and Principles, one CEO we know has a copy it on his desk and practices one of the behaviours outlined in the Framework a fortnight at a time. He recognises that how he shows up is an important catalyst for change within the organisation and across the industry. And that the behaviours in the Framework can help create habits and therefore the conditions for people and purpose to flourish.
This CEO remarked that by focusing on one behaviour at a time, it made it easier to develop the other behaviours too. This is because all these behaviours are oriented towards promoting two key principles that are at the centre of our thinking:
- Each person is a someone not a something (the dignity and value of people)
- Delivering value by serving society (the common good)