Monday, November 1, 2010

Innovate Emotional State

During the last 30 years, and specially during the first decade of the Century XXI, Innovation has been one of the most popular topics and subjects, as much as in organizations and in universities and public entities as well.

I was browsing a while, and I found that many sites are talking about changing paradigms as the key to innovation, and I agree with that. However, nowhere speaks to innovate the Emotional State or the Emotional Space in which we live and from which we learn: Fear.

Fear as emotion drives us to hide, to stay "stuck" or to run away. And as Emotional State, it leads us to want to have everything under control, being one of the biggest enemies for Innovation this way.

Then, how are we going to want to innovate from fear, when it leads us to control everything, and control doesn’t give any space or for flexibility or for much-needed creativity to innovate?

Then I have the opinion that we find it hard to innovate, not because we don’t have talent for that, but because since we live and learn from fear, we do not give permission to make mistakes, or for error; key variables to create change and innovation.

I guess this is the reason for the most popular phrase when talking about innovation: “we must dare”, because we only need to dare when we are afraid.

If in first place we innovate our Emotional State or Emotional Space in which we live, I mean, changing Fear for Gratitude, a whole open universe of possibilities and views will appear in front of us.

Unlike Fear that leads to the Control, Gratitude leads to Trust, and Trust is the main engine in order to coordinate actions with others, for others and for ourselves.

As I indicated that Fear predisposes us to hide, to paralyze us, or to run away, Gratitude predisposes us to want to be "a gift" for others as much as emotion, as Emotional State or Emotional Space, and in both cases it leads us to Trust.

Imagine how much innovations would be achieved from Trust, where both, wrong and making mistakes are allowed and not punished.

So I think as long as we live and learn from Fear and Control, innovation will be difficult or with slow progress, because pretending to break paradigms (to open boxes, fields, and mental maps that command us) from them it’s a very tough task. We better must first change the paradigm of living in Fear-Control, to live in Gratitude-Trust: we shouldn’t try to do different things while living in the same the same emotional paradigm.

I am sure that making this change, breaking paradigms will be very simple and easy, because we will trust others, the circumstances, the uncertainty, and we’ll trust ourselves.

Rodrigo Silva Ortúzar
rsilva@insideout.cl
http://ltaac.blogspot.com/

Saturday, October 23, 2010

The 33 miners:Sense of Purpose and Leadership

Having a Meaning in life generates a purpose, transforming it in our engine, our motivation and guidance. The meaning is felt, is with oneself, with others, you live it, you choose it, eliminating the "meaningless", and most importantly, it's action.


I can not stop thinking about the Meaning of Purpose that each of the 33 miners trapped in the mine San Jose would have, and more importantly, how did they come to find and establish a Common Meaning Purpose that does not decay and motivate then until they were found?


In my prism, there is a close and direct relationship between direction and leadership, understanding that leadership is the activity of mobilizing people in scenarios of uncertainty, where breaking the status quo of the organization is critical, and questioning the habits, attitudes and values people is the essence of adaptive work. Furthermore, it is a risky activity that involves losses, not only economic but often emotional, sentimental and even worst, they may lose their life (Martin Luther King is an example).

Then, if an activity as risky as leadership that involves going "upstream", why are there people willing to exercise it? This is where I make the connection with the concept of Meaning. A person is willing to exercise leadership and bear all risks and difficulties it entails, by having a Meaning: A Meaning of Purpose.

As Victor Frankl says in his book "Man Searching for Meaning": "There is nothing in the world that could train a person to overcome external constraints and internal constraints such as having awareness of having a task in life ".

Without an specific purpose, nothing makes sense. As Meaning is with yourself and with others, itself creates a compromise between those who are exercising leadership and people who are involved with the purpose, building a Common Purpose Meaning between eachothers.

Thus, our aims undertake us and connect us with other people. Together they give meaning to the adaptive challenge. Only with a particular meaning of purpose and that it's common to everubody, people begins to accept the losses and changes that are needed to break paradigms, judgments and assumptions, and develop adaptive work. You can not lead by your ego, but by oneself and for others, in order to reach a better place for everyone.

So, who must have exercised leadership among the 33 miners, faced a challenge from an adaptive scenario of uncertainty, where solutions were not fully known, however, they were willing to do so and take the risk, having a clear and
powerful meaning of purpose, that also allowed them to transmit and manage it, making it a Common Meaning Purpose for all trapped miners.