It’s that time of year, when we WISH all was calm and bright, as we rush to wrap up the year, get plans in place for the next year, and run from one holiday party to another.
Leaders and employees are struggling with overwhelm. The sands are shifting beneath our feet. We’re trying to get our arms around things like artificial intelligence – how and when it will impact our companies and organizations. What to embrace and what not to embrace. We’re wrestling with BIG issues in our national and international conversations, and they are playing out in our workplaces. With the answers unresolved or polarized in many cases, it makes leading harder.
Focus is one of our biggest challenges – WHICH strategy is going to be the breakthrough for us – and then being disciplined about carrying it out. Generational differences in style, customer expectations, workplace culture, and work/life balance create the need for new dialogues. Frankly, wanting to turn it off and disconnect is the hushed whisper among many. It’s a complex world, with massive change occurring, and nobody has a playbook. There is freedom in design with no playbook, and there is greater risk in the freedom.
Extraneous distractions in our companies, organizations, and lives are keeping us from achieving our greatest impact. I hear it every day working with businesses and organizations on strategy. Too many new things are coming at us – the latest bright shiny object – and leaders are pulled in so many directions. Getting very clear on what it is that will make the difference, focusing our energies and talents on those things first, and allowing all of the other distractions to fall away is a key to business and personal success. At the very core is our need to know and behave from our values. Recognize when you are out of alignment with your skills, heart, or values and reign yourself and your company or organization back in. Failure to do so can irrevocably devastate strategy and lives. Being IN alignment equals mastery of self, purpose, and goals.
If you want to leave 2017 calm and see 2018 in the bright light, pull yourself back to the core and engage in some self-reflection. Then take a look around at the impact you have on others if you or organization are out of alignment. Overwhelm is a bi-product of a lack of focus, discipline, and resources. Get those in alignment for 2018, and all will be bright.
