The Grameen bank and You

The Synergy in Life System — Section 20

Ever heard of the Grameen Bank?  No collateral, No legal instrument, No group guarantee or joint-liability.  And… unlike many banks right now, this one is doing FANTASTICLY well!

If there was ever a story worth telling it is of the Grameen Bank and Professor Yunus.  He is a pioneer or magnificent magnanimity.  Below is the 20th excerpt from my book The Synergy in Life System.  Please read about this Nobel prize winning professor and how he helps others.  It has a bearing in your life too.

Helping Others

Some will say that they cannot or should not have affluence because there are so many poor and unfortunate people in the world who have nothing other than misery in their lives.  As you likely are deeply concerned about the plight of poor and unfortunate people, you should spend some of your time helping them.  You can help them best, however, not by giving them some form of material things that will keep them in their place, but through giving them the power of hope and by developing pictures of affluence in their minds, and by helping them to realize their deserved expression of life.  Read the rest of this entry »

Consider this…

The Institute for Global Ethics has conducted research around the world attempting to find out if there are a CORE set of values common to all people.  Their findings are … there are.  If this is true — and when you have visited their site and read their research, there is no reason to think otherwise — then this knowledge represents a powerful knowing.  It points to a similarity amongst all good people.  If we all have a similar basis for our values, then our understanding of one another can be placed upon a stable foundation — one that we can see and understand in one another.

And while this similarity holds for all people across the globe, it also holds for people near you.  And knowing this gives you a powerful tool for creating positive change and making positive influence.  Do you want to know what they are…?

There’s compassion, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect.  All cultures value these regardless of creed or color or religious background.  So, if your actions and the actions of groups you work with are focussed upon using these core values in reaching your goals, aims, and objectives then anything you attempt to accomplish will be guided by natural ‘laws’ of being human.  That’s powerful!  Agree to keep these words central to your team, your group, your family and you are agreeing to synergize your energy through positive, natural, and globally acceptable actions that are based upon core values to being human.  This is truly profound. 

New book coming out soon… Look for it!  This one is focussed on the communication patterns and synergy of groups.  THANK YOU to everyone who has purchased The Synergy in Life System.  The PDF’s are rolling out hot.  Its great to serve!

Douglas

Principle Centered Leadership :-)

Stephen Covey wrote a great book… a great big book many years ago.  Principle Centered Leadership.    Here’s what it means to me…

Covey expends a great deal of time and effort focusing the readers attention on natural metaphors.  The enduring law of the farm is the grand, guiding theme of this book.  The first sixteen chapters focus greatly on the development of self, and they culminate in a management model called the Principle Centered Leadership paradigm. It is constructed on the following foundations: the alternate life centers of security, guidance, wisdom, and power; the characteristics of highly effective people; the resolutions of discipline, character and competence, and service; integrity, maturity, and abundance; growth; moral compassing; Principle Centered Power; communication; influence; and balance.  What does all of this mean to me? Read the rest of this entry »

Finding ‘UP’ through Systems Thinking

If you are sick, you really don’t have to do anything… at the very least, people don’t expect much of you.  That’s fair because most people feel a little low now and then and getting cut a little slack can go a long way to recovery.

BUT

What if there is no direction for a recovery?  To recover, you are returning to a state of balance and if you don’t know what or where that balance is you don’t know what direction to head for an optimal state of being. Kind of like jumping from a height into a lake and losing the ‘UP’direction for a moment.  That’s a bad moment.  It feels very out of control.   Now, what about organizations?  What if they are ’sick’ and no one expects much of them because they don’t have the talent, the funding, the facilities, the management team, the support, the recognition….  What if your organization is sick and you are floating along with no where to recover to?  No ‘up’.

What if?

You have to know where you are going in order to get there…. That’s what forecasting is all about and planning.  Do they work?  If the road you are driving on leads to a cliff, then all the planning in the world, all the best talent on board, the best equipment etcetera will not mean much by the time you reach the end of the journey!  Forecasts and planning must be made in health and plan for health.  A sick organization is not the best planner.  Its like a sick person.  It just wants to get better and lays low and does its best to recover.  Luckily for individuals, we are — most of us — able to return to relative health after being ill.  Thankfully, gratefully, we return to health.  An organziation doesn’t have such sophisticated organizing power as does the magnificent human body… so, it needs to see itself as a system — and within the system that it inhabits — before it can find its up.

The systems thinking exercise in objectivity is done through symbolic conversation.  Using symbols to ‘tell the story’ of the organization helps everyone first SEE what the parts make and then realize — collectively — just WHAT the organization is.  After this, purpose and direction are determined.  And THEN strategies can be implemented — but ONLY those that make sense in terms of the system’s organization, structure and capacity.  And, all along the way the tools of systems — the symbolic language of organizing — are used for deep conversation and clarification.  They are used to CREATE the organization’s picture and its story.  Complete a systems thinking exercise in objectivity and you are ready to apply energy and find the correct times and places to influence for gain, for good, for improvement.  Its the only way that works.  It is the way.

Douglas Leadbetter M.Ed.

Systems Thinking in Daily Life: A to B

Proactive systems thinking is the best kind of systems thinking.  If you can make a change in a process or situation or system so that you don’t have to ‘react’ later on, then you are using systems thinking to your best advantage.  Sure, systems thinking can be used to ferret out problems and solve problems, but its that ‘problem’ word that we would like to get rid of because if you are not dealing with problems, then you are able to focus more of your energy on opportunities.

In the diagram above a simple visual aids in explaining the benefit of understanding your system and using that knowledge to apply change effort strategically.  Here’s the basic idea:  you want to move the line from 1 to 8 over time.  The angle of change that you can employ is limited to one grid of ascension per grid of time.  So for you math types, its a rise and run equation.  For every cell moved along the ‘x’ axis you are able to move one grid upwards on the ‘y’ axis.  This is really simple but powerful.  Look.

 In instance ‘A’ they waited until the fourth unit of time before implementing the change at the prescribed angle.

In instance ‘B’ the change was made in the second unit of time to impliment the change at the prescribed angle.

Look at the difference!  In ‘B’, using the EXACT same angle of change as in ‘A’ you finish at 6 rather than 4!  Simple?  Yes.  So simple that people forget about the power of proactive change?  In way too many instances people do not examine their systems and find areas of influence.  Far too often, people wait until a problem occurs, thus using vital energy that COULD be used for increasing positive possibility.  All the best. 

Douglas Leadbetter  M.Ed.

Systems Thinking in Daily Life: variation

You must read this post! It contains important information about your application of simple systems concepts to daily living both as an individual and as a member of a group. The assumption made throughout this post is that you would like to increase the occurrence of positive moments, actions, and directions for yourself and for your group(s). If this statement rings true for you, then have a look at how understanding variation gives you power.

Everything in our world is subject to variation. This is easiest to see in organic organisms in cycles such as sleep, growth, decay, times of high energy and times of low energy. The variation of inorganic organisms with the rhythms of electron orbits and string vibration is not as important to this topic, so we’ll leave that for another time. We are living organisms that have variation in our daily cycles of life. The key question to this post is “can we affect these variations to lessen the bad and increase the good?” YES!

Let’s first look at a hypothetical variation graph. This one will represent the variation we see in ourselves and groups with highs and lows in our states of mind, our peak functioning, our effectiveness, success… etc.

In this simple representation of variation, the vertical or ‘y’ axis represents highs and lows. The upper peak of each of the curves represent positive, and the lower peaks represent less positive or negative. The horizontal or ‘x’ axis represents time. So, in a simple analysis of this particular graph we can see that the curved line represents movement between positive and negative states over time. The constant horizontal arrow represents the midline or base state.

So, how do we get more of the ‘good’ and less of the ‘bad’?  One secret for both individuals and for groups lies in the arrow.  The arrow is the midline of contentment… or simply, being.  Think about the diagram and think about yourself.  When you are on a ‘high’ it feels pretty good.  You are elated, full of energy, electric.  When you are on a low, it doesn’t feel good; lows are just low and not any fun at all.  The midline though… it’s quiet contentment.  Just being is a nice place to be.

Think about this in a group.  Have you ever been in a group where a member is trying to hard to ‘make’ something happen?  They are trying to make things fun or they are trying to show themselves off… or, or, or.  You know what this feels like.  It’s tense.  Maybe you are lucky enough to have been or be part of a team or a work-group where everyone is content… wow!  That’s the place where things get done!  A contented person will work harder, longer, care more, and do more for the company or group and for their co-workers.  Read the studies on successful corporations, and you will see that this has been proved as truth over and over again. 

So, the question now remains, “how do we get to the arrow?”  Or a question like that would do.  Well, as individuals we try to simply ‘be’.  I explain this in great detail in my book.  There’s a bit of letting go and there’s a bit of constructing thought.  There’s a dynamic tension, but its attainable and in quite practical ways.  In groups, you need to define what a simple contentment looks and feels like.  Everyone wants to come to work to do a good job, feel good about their work, and go home feeling they have done a good day of work.  The problem is in the systems we set up around us.  There are things that frustrate and confound in every organization and without a good or even a professional facilitator to help you address your situation objectively,  you are often doomed to steep in your own self-created mess.

Seeing systems is half the solution.  Truly.  The other half is in learning how to direct the natural flow of systems.  Not so much trying to control, but working to steer and direct.  Its a soft science kind of like the soft martial arts that would rather redirect the energy of another and not meet it head on.  Why ‘take on’ your systems when you can influence them? 

There’s another place to focus upon for both groups and individuals and that is in the ascending curve just as it passes the midline of the arrow.  At that moment, one should work towards building the next success.  Build on the upswing.  Direct thought and action to the attainment of positive success at the upswing and you can move from one success to the next. Charles Handy, in The Empty Raincoat discusses this with charming alacrity as it applies to business success.  It applies to individuals as well.  Athletes do it all the time.  When they have achieved one level of a training cycle and got that success under control they reach for another, higher level of success.  If an athlete spends too much ‘down time’ they lose all their gains and have to fight twice as hard to train their way out.  No, the smart ones build success upon success.  A jet airliner spends a lot of fuel to get off the ground, but once up they use far less.  Its like that in our understanding of variation.  Think about, construct and direct success as you experience success and continually reach for the next success.  This is a powerful mental model for you to begin using.  Comments?  Tell me about a time you have used any part of these ideas.  Tell everyone about using them successfully in the next few weeks.  It works.  That’s all.

The Community Earth Council Movement

Margaret has provided the following comment:

“I would suggest anyone who is interested in the power of groups taking action to look in to the Community Earth Council movement.”

The Earth Council site welcomes you to their page with the following statement, followed by even more introduction:

Community Earth Councils (CECs) are groups of elders (50+) and youth (16-28) working together to address global environmental and social challenges at the local level. CECs build community, helping young people find meaning and purpose while providing elders with a way to give back, inspire, and impact the future. Participants in a CEC explore how, together, they can bring vision into action.

First, however, they spend time getting to know each other, sharing their stories, hopes, and aspirations. They then explore possible projects for addressing a community need, possibly by partnering with other individuals and/or organizations. After a period of planning, they move to implementation, working shoulder to shoulder.

Is this not worth doing something with… about?  Anyone with any connection to this that would like to comment.  I am watching the numbers on this site, and they continue to grow — a lot of onlookers?  Anyone have a contribution on this topic?

Systems Thinking — Business Energy

Lately I have been navigating the WWW looking for sites that share similar ideas to this one.  So far a few have popped up and I’ve left comments and joined discussions. For a moment I would like to present one that is called Business Energy written and managed by Penelope Else.  She struck me with her interesting and voice-laden article about the need for business people to twitter.  I think she convinced me to tweet and twit etc.  More than that, however, it was when I read her ‘about’ page that I knew there was someone to recommend to readers at this site.  In blue below is a section of that page:

What is Business Energy?  It’s the vibe that your business puts out into the marketplace: the energy with which you create and implement new ideas, cohere as a team and engage with your customers.  It’s the source of your attractiveness for new business opportunities and the cause of your success.

It comes from a combination of: clear goals & planning, creativity, leadership resilience, good social networks and a healthy, motivating attitude towards staff and clients.  These don’t always come naturally, but they can all be learned.

If you have spent any time at this site looking around, you will recognize immediately what I like about Penelope’s words.  Vibe… vibration?  Energy….  Cohere as a team = alignment and synergy.  Clear goals and planning are right there with determining a purpose.  Good social networkers….

I have a great feeling about this site and Penelope’s work; I am grateful to her for creating such an enriching site.  I want to take just a moment to reflect on good social networking; it is at the root of building direction, alignment, purpose, and the synergistic focus that truly brings high performance results. Furthermore, I am becoming convinced that the web is presenting to all of us who are tuned in an opportunity to make connections, mine knowledge, stay current, make good decisions and so much more. If used correctly, I find that the web and related tools offers an opportunity to find streams of energy and thought that are useful and helpful in each of our growth and success. We have at our finger tips through techniques that can be learned, an opportunity to meet with people from all around the world in what Will Richardson calls intraspaced communities built around passion.  We are able to become more than the sum of the parts through working together towards common aims.  We are truly able to find others who align with what we align with and create vibrant cadence in positive directions.  Thanks for reading.

Douglas Leadbetter M.Ed

In taking action…

In taking action, do so and believe that you can do so in the following ways: demonstrate fairness, give encouragement, nurture, show patience, stay interested in positive growth, provide quality service, contribute in positive ways, demonstrate honesty and integrity, be concerned with excellence, value human dignity, be accepting, be kind and open, show compassion, be gentle, be teachable, be creative, be loving and demonstrate an abundant character, be receptive, be appreciative, be reflective…. 

A Mind Bending Experience

Had an excellent day yesterday.  I invested in learning.  Learning from some pretty cool people.  It was a mind bending experience!

At this site, we talk about and are developing the systems of the individual towards the massive positive power found in synergy; and, we talk about and are developing the systems of groups towards that same power of synergy. 

What I found out yesterday from Will Richardson is just how interesting and powerful a web of connections there are in the effective use of the Internet.  His day long conversation with our group was inspiring and at the same time uncannily related to the development and refinement of systems. PASSION is one of my favorite words as it can be used to describe something that is meaningful and purposeful, live-giving, and interesting.  One person passionate about any topic creates a force.  Many people working together to enhance and challenge one another’s understanding about a topic of common passion creates an elemental force! Read the rest of this entry »

Synergy…

Synergy

The true power, true synergy comes when focus is given to the vision of the person or of the group.   It is when a focus is placed on the ideals, values, and beliefs of a person or group that synergy has a possibility of occurring.  In individuals it occurs when focus is complete and not forced.  There are techniques for achieving this state.  For groups, it occurs when shared focus is clearly articulated and communicated, and each person on the team or in the group gives their effort to their individual role – knowing the function of their role and their purpose in achieving the overall vision of the group. 

As an individual, as it is in a group, the vision and purpose must be articulated.  A ship at sea is rather aimless and wastes a great deal of energy if there is not port to sail to.  So it is with individuals and groups.  The trick is in the techniques used to achieve synergy.  The keys to this system is being laid out for you in The Synergy in Life System posts and in the book; the keys to achieving synergy in groups is on the way….

Douglas Leadbetter M.Ed