This week on A Conscious Life Conscious Leadership Flash Briefing, a slightly unpleasant topic:

Conflicts

I’m not afraid of conflicts. At times they can be quite useful. And other times they can be devastating.

Let’s start with the downsides:  

Downsides of conflicts

For too long I’ve been dragging a conflict situation with me. I had hoped it could be solved years ago, and kept hoping.

However, it’s true as a former colleague, now IBM Leader told me:

‘it doesn’t help you being right or wanting something solved if the other side doesn’t want to listen or contribute to any solution’ - Paul V.

You can perhaps here a certain sadness and sorrow in my voice today.

That is one side of it, another side is anger and frustration.

The worst is when you start your path downhill, basically losing yourself. When you feel overwhelmed, a no good, a know nothing, hopeless, shameful, paralyzed, slowly dying!

There's another side, you may want to choose that instead!

But let’s not go...

Today marks the start of Susan McCuistion’s New Diversity Summit, a week full of diversity and inclusive leadership

This weekend I enjoyed another Star Trek episode. Yes, I’m a Trekkie.

I also read an article from world economic forum- it captured the star trek formula:

The Star Trek Formula

"The Star Trek formula is to work together, share ideas and resources, look out for the best interest of society and the planet, use technology to benefit and advance, and develop each person as a valuable member of society. Local solutions to local problems, solved through inclusive innovation."

Humans, Ferengi, Vulcans,even Klingons at some advanced stage – united in a federation of planets, with star fleet mission being:

Space: The final frontier
To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no man has gone before

Star Trek offers a hopeful vision of the future and a template for our lives and our society that we can aspire to!

More r...

As we’re warming up for next week’s New Diversity Summit– today let me tell you about the Diversity Icebreaker tool. 

Diversity Icebreaker is a team development product developed in Norway by psychologist Bjørn Ekelund and his company Human Factor AS.

A mechanical engineer friend of mine recommended this tool. she works as designer in a fast growing international high tech company with people from several cultures. She loved this tool!  

Here’s what she said:

Diversity Icebreaker makes people ask, reflect,listen and talk.  

If you can facilitate a group process you can facilitate a diversity breaker workshop.

It’s designed to create a non-judgmental atmosphere through personal sharing and fun interactions.

After completing the 10-minute questionnaire, we engaged in a set of fun group processes. In these few hours we developed a shared understanding of how to make best use of the diversity of our group.

What does the product owner say?

Diversity Icebreaker is a multi...

Let’s talk Diversity 

>>Register here for the New Diversity Summit<< 

Yesterday, Monday, was a non-day for me, life happened. These days happen to all of us, we just have to make sure they don’t spread and find good ways to lift our energy.  

So, one day into the week, let’s talk Inclusive Leadership and Diversity, preparing for next week’s New Diversity Summit, hosted by Susan McCuistion. 

I met Susan 3 years ago and we have been following each other in common networks of inspiring business people since.

Cat, music and Disney lover, Susan is a leader walking her talk.

With a background as mathematician, Susan is now using her genius in supporting organisations develop more inclusive leadership through diversity.

Listen to what she writes:

“I am an eternal optimist. I believe people are basically good. I believe 99% of us wake up in the morning with good intentions - to go to work, make a decent living, take care of our families, connect with our friends, and help our c...

Why conscious Life – Conscious Leadership ? Let’s start today with what we understand with that word.

Definitions

There are many definitions:

Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or of being aware of an external object or something within oneself. the ability to experience or to feel, being awake, having a sense of self or soul.

Professor of psychology Max Velmans said "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.”

Research and observations

Consciousness has been researched for the last decades with main focus on understanding what it means to be present in consciousness,  the typical research question being

"tell me if you notice anything when I do this"

You can also observe it from your own or another person’s arousal and responsiveness.

Latin

The latin ‘Conscius sibi’, translates literally as "knowing with oneself", or...

Let's look at beliefs and inner assumptions related to self-awareness

Your inner assumptions are the beliefs you use to organise your identity. Your beliefs define how you see your self and your relationship to the world. The following beliefs are often associated with self-awareness:

• I am inherently worthy and secure
• My worth and security come from within and are not made up by how others see me, or by how I perform
• Inner development is necessary for the full deployment of my self
• Full expression of my creativity leads to a meaningful legacy
• I contain a mix of strengths and weaknesses, light and dark
• Self-Acceptance is the key to accepting others
• When I find unacceptable parts in others - it points to aspects of myself for which I have not been willing to be fully responsible

How does this fit your beliefs and assumptions? 

I propose you take some time today to reflect upon these!

PS: As a certified Leadership Circle Practitioner, I use The Leadership Circl...

Let’s make this week a Self-Awareness week

I spent Saturday with fellow practitioners from The Leadership Circle Community, digging into Scaling Leadership throughout organisations.

A lot to share from that gathering, and I chose Self awareness because it came out as the most important dimension, as expected. 

What is it and what does a high score mean for your leadership?

Self-Awareness measures your orientation to ongoing professional and personal development, as well as the degree to which your inner self-awareness is expressed through balanced perspective and high integrity. 

Scoring high on self-awareness is a positive indication of your leadership! 

It suggests you actively pursue and value personal and professional development

You are an alive and vital person

Having developed your sense of purpose, you act from your inner center, consciously expression your core values

You are trusted to 'walk your talk' 

And people respect you as someone who acts with integri...

Let’s end this round of Self-Leadership skills with some PERSPECTIVE

24 years ago, I was taught the art of consulting as a Master of Management Program at BI - the Norwegian School of Management.

The most important tool I took with me is a tool I’ve used very regularly since then. It has become even more important as I’ve delved into the art of leadership.

HERMENEUTICS

The tool is Hermeneutics, an interpretation methodology dating from Greek antiquity, mainly used in the humanities, but with practical application to be found in leadership domains. 

It helps us come past our prejudices, understand a situation from several perspectives.

With it we are able to better understand various stakeholders and act strategically, rather than letting ‘events’ happen to us because we didn’t understand them or their implications.

Rather than understanding only a few disparate parts of something given, we are able to fathom the whole elephant – be it one in the room or just a plain orga...

Today’s Self-Leadership skill is PROSOCIAL CARING

In my years studying the most important leadership skills, the word LOVE turned up as a one of them.

Although I agree with the principle, for an engineer and rationalist like me, and probably many leaders with the same or similar background as the one I come from, that word is not obvious.

Prosocial caring has a different connotation. Prosocial caring is easier to say.  

When you look at the human condition – which we all are part of – we all survive and thrive through love / I mean prososial caring. 

As infants, we all depend on our caretakers to give us adequate support.

We are social animals, we need security, belonging, recognition, acceptance. This never ends. It doesn’t end at the office door either.  

Pete Townshend sings it so well in The who’s Rock Musical Tommy

‘ See me, feel me, touch me, heal me!’

 When you lead others, you need to care for them, about them.

When you lead yourself, you need to care for you...

Today, let’s talk CREATIVITY

Einstein said ‘Creativity is intelligence having fun’. I just love that quote. 

He also said ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them’.

I like Einstein!

To keep ourselves relevant in today’s accelerating changes in society and technology, we need to innovate, to think new thoughts, to create something new. 

We need to be creative, we must open up to creativity.

My friend, Leadership Philosopher and Physics Engineer Leif Runar Forsth, has spent years teaching creativity, practical innovation, and creative problem solving to leaders and others, in Norway and abroad. A lot to learn from him!

Another creative approach I value, this one with global outreach, is MIT and Otto Scharmer’s U-lab, applying Theory U (U as in Uniform) to transform business, economies, society and self.  My friend Helio Borges with others, is contributing to the future of Venezuela with this approach!

MY FAVOURITE CREATIVITY APPROA...