It’s great to run programs. To facilitate groups. To teach. To build container. To create some learning. To clarify some next steps. I’ve been able to do quite a bit of this in my life, working with so many good folk.
At the heart of all of that is relationship. “Relational Leadership” is my preferred naming for programs. Or, when needed it is the subversive messaging that I hold to.
When we have deliberate connection together, relationship from many lanes, then the good stuff tends to come out. The new ideas. The joy. The ahas. New collaborations. It means paying extra attention to what happens at the beginning and at the end of programs. Start with relationship, to create an appreciation together — this is often blending personal with professional. And then send them home with what feels like more.
In relationship, the group (team, system, unit, family, friends…) finds what they need in a way that I could never script with such depth and accuracy.
Yet, I have a couple of principles that I often emphasize.
– If you want a system to be healthy, connect it to more of itself (Humberto Maturana).
– Who we are together is different and more than who we are alone (Margaret Wheatley).
My buddy Chris Corrigan spoke / wrote it recently in this succinct paragraph below ( read his full post on his site):
While meetings are important, my experience is that the most significant results of most meetings is the relational field that is built by being together. Many clients expect high stakes meetings to produce miracles – fundamental transformations in insight or decision making that changes everything. In my experience, a single meeting is inadequate for this. However, dialogic containers can be powerful places where people learn new things, change views, form new relationships, or discover new insights. That is their promise.
So, I love the claiming the work under the work. Connection and relationship coheres it. Connection and relationship reveals it. The proof is in the pudding. Sometimes it seems like the fuzzy, soft stuff. Sure. But actually, it’s the foundation that gives us ability to grow impressively.
On we go, flow. We do a bunch of this in B&B — jump in for a session.
