Dilemma Dialogues

[steve gardiner]

Dilemma Dialogues Launched



Yesterday, 20 members of the Leadership Forum at Silver Bay
participated in our first Dilemma Dialogue.

As Chief Facilitator, John Harvey remarked, “it has been our
aspiration to extend the Leadership Forum at Silver Bay experience
from a meaningful 3 day conference at an inspiring venue to the same
conference experience, PLUS opportunities to learn, share ideas, and
energize….”

It was refreshing to have so many folks join the call, not only old
friends, but brand new people who have not yet attended the annual
Forum.

Yesterday’s theme was “Blaming the Rat!- Influencing Behavior During
Challenging Times”. The questions posed during the dialogue were
adapted form the work of Steve Kerr, the former Chief Learning Officer
at GE and Goldman Sachs, who will be joining us this summer at Silver
Bay.

IT IS OUR INTENTION ON THIS GOOGLE PAGE TO KEEP THE DIALOGUE GOING


During the 45 minute call yesterday, many great ideas were raised
about self –motivation and “motivating the masses” during these
chaotic times.

Now, via this Google site, we can continue the dialogue and elaborate
on the points made during the call.

To get us started, below are just a few of the thoughts mentioned
yesterday, and I encourage people to add points that were covered that
I missed, AND/OR jump in with new ideas or comments .

I will add a posting tomorrow about today’s Dialogue #2, “Doing Versus
Knowing- Aligning Values and Actions”. This dialogue will be heavily
influenced by Doug Lennick, the author of Moral Intelligence:
Enhancing Business Performance and Leadership Success”, who also will
be with us this July at Silver Bay.

BRIEF NOTES from “BLAMING THE RAT” to jumpstart the online dialogue:

- During chaotic times, it is essential to maintain your focus

- When anxious, it is important to take care of yourself, for
example, one person
meditates regularly.

- Jim Loehr, who joined us in 2007, has an excellent website, which
offers tips on
reenergizing ourselves.

- Anne Matteson, former Vice President of Organizational Development
at the Energy
Project will be at the Forum this year to share how sustainable high
performance
cultures engage people’s energy rather than their time. The Energy
Project website,
www.theenergyproject.com is another good source of ideas.

- Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz’ s book, The Power of Full Engagement
is a terrific
resource

- One person, who is in transition, mentioned that she finds it very
useful to stay in touch
with another colleague undergoing transition- she values this
personal partnership.

- Leaders (and that means all of us, not just those holding senior
positions) must
continuously articulate the vision.

- Leaders must create an environment where divergent opinions and
innovative ideas
can be expressed without fear. People in uncertain times may be
reluctant to voice
their opinions.

- During turbulent times, it helps to remember the lesson of
“simplicity”. A good place to
go for those reminders is “ The Simplicity Survival Handbook”
authored by longtime
Leadership Forum member, Bill Jensen. See his website: www.simplerwork.com

New Note

If your organization isn’t already doing it, you may want to offer a
workshop on Managing Multiple Priorities. It has become the most
popular session we run at our firm- we get twice the enrollment for
that workshop than anything else offered.

If you don’t have the in-house capability to run the program, there
are a number of folks within the Forum community who could help you
out.


That’s it for now. There was much more discussed yesterday, but I was
so anxious to participate that I did not take notes. Today I will do a
better job.

So as our friends at the Olympics would say: LET THE DIALOGUES BEGIN!

Steve

Silver Bay 2009: You Need It Now More Than Ever