Evolve

Our daughter, now 3, is perfecting that most brilliant one word question - Why?; and in getting very practiced at responding, I realise how critical this question is to all of our work at Evolve and NoMadMeetings.

I just completed the dream tender, with a full quote, and had fun doing it! Why?  A rare gem. The organisation had defined the objective (Why) with a good understanding of their audience (Who) and had left the ‘How’ up to the respondent (the potential contractor). Sound simple? Yes! Like common sense? Yes! And like many things that we write about in Evolve Now, the simplest things can be the most powerful and least practiced (unless you are aged under 5 with the wisdom of asking the Why? question incessantly).

The ‘NoMad 5 Step Model for Effective at a Distance Communications’ has the Why at its heart – The reason Why you are having a meeting determines Who needs to be there which determines How you are best to plan and run it. We underpin this with powerful questions to help clients refine the Why and the Who. Many clients come to us with a ‘How‘ (for example, we want to do an online meeting using xyz as a platform). We spend deliberate and focused time stepping the client back from this, and through a series of coaching questions, help them refine the Why and the Who. Often the ’How‘ (approach) originally presented to us is changed, radically and often much simpler and less costly.

This simple Why, Who and How lends itself to many a story, quote and metaphor. And I can feel one coming on now….

During the 1990’s I toyed with the notion of being a ‘Mountaineer’. This led me to Mount Aconcagua, Argentina in 1997, a trip guided by adventurer and wild woolly mountain man, Jon Muir and the first women to scale the 7 big continental peaks, Brigit Muir.  4 weeks on the Mountain; one of those in a blizzard waiting for a window  to summit, crammed into two men tents, taking shifts to hold the tents down and out, against the 100km plus winds (did I mention the  minus 60 degree Celsius wind chill factor?), which threatened and ultimately did shred most tents.

“The peak of Aconcagua can be a sweet and complacent woman if the goddess of the sun (Febo) shines and the god of the wind (Eolo) sleeps, but when the furies of the gods of the wind are unleashed and the dragons of the clouds devour the sky, the peak turns into a terrifying and cold witch”. www.aconcagua.com

After day 5 of the ‘cold witch’ unleashing her fury, and five days and nights of pondering ‘Why’ I was there, I had the AHA moment. It was all about experiencing the mountain, as much a spiritual experience for me as a month in an ashram. Summiting was not only irrelevant, but felt increasingly ‘wrong’ as I contemplated local indigenous connections and perspectives of the Mountain (which were to leave her alone). I was the first in our party to head back down to base camp and with this decision I easily let go of the notion of summiting, without any conflict or disappointment. A rich and intense experience I had had (both Gods – Febo and Eolo). Through not summiting (or in conventional speak – failure) I had learnt so much.  When I walked off the plane at Sydney airport, my family looked ashen and greeted me with dropped jaws – I looked “mummified”. When excitedly sharing my photos, someone honestly remarked “Wow, looks like you spent a month in a quarry with some snow”. They were all relieved that my next Mountain, was to be on the Far South Coast of NSW and was less than at the lofty height of 600m.

Now that I more clearly understand my intention (the Why), I choose different mountains and different experiences, and on many occasions, with increasing (and overdue) sensitivity to indigenous connection to Mountains, I stay away from the summit. Now with some purposeful reflection on the Why before I set off on the journey, I find that I choose a more satisfying path. As my daughter tugs at my skirt and asks “Why” for the 10th time in less than one minute, I can trust that she is on the wise path, and let the rising impatience slide.

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EVOLVE NOW BOTTOM LINE: Focused and deliberate contemplation of the ‘Why’ can be time masterfully spent, for both you and your clients, yielding  the right approach (the How) and solution.If you are discussing and or have committed to an approach (How), pause, step back and check that you are clear on the Why and Who.

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With the recent adventure of my NoMad colleague, Nigel Russell,  sailing across the Tasman (in a leaky boat), we have both spent some time reflecting on fear,  the value of it as an emotion, and its all pervasiveness. Fear plays a role in all that we do at both Evolve and NoMadMeetings and is an oft’ expressed emotion by our clients. Here are some examples:

• Undertaking an Intentional Living Program: “I am frightened of the changes that I will have to make in my life if I uncover my true intentions”
• An online meeting: “What if the technology goes Kaput!”
• A meeting marketplace™: “It is different to the usual way of doing things, what if it fails and I have stuck my neck out?”

I was so impressed by the way in which Nigel approached his sailing trip, which mirrored how I have found him to be with everything. His fear was palatable. He stepped through that fear by acknowledging the emotion (the story), assessing the facts (the risks) and then developing sensible contingencies to ameliorate the risks.

Both Nigel and I love exploration and adventure. With more maturity and experience, we also love taking risks in a way that builds on this, treating our fears as valid, and separating fact from story by looking at what we can do to reduce risk and things just plain ‘going wrong’.  It is this experience that we share through both Evolve and NoMadMeetings. I am pleased to bring you below, a special feature from Nigel outlining the risks and fears of ocean sailing and how that relates to online meetings……

I knew that there MUST be a connection between sailing across the Tasman and the techniques needed to communicate masterfully with people at a distance.   Surely!

The yacht trip was a labour of love to take the Greenpeace global campaign yacht Vega (boarded by the French in Moruroa Atoll, where the French Government conducted its nuclear testing programme) back home to New Zealand.  She was berthed at Port Albert, Victorian gateway to the Bass Strait.  She had not been sailed in earnest for years, and the goal was to bring her back to where she was hewn out of a large kauri log on a beach in NZ, 60 years ago.

The barriers to getting her (and us) back safely were huge.  There is risk in ocean sailing anyway, but the safety issues for Vega crossing the Tasman seemed almost impossible to overcome.  The story has a happy ending.. I and the other 3 people on board arrived intact with the beautiful Vega in Auckland to a fanfare of media and friends and family.

The happy ending only occurred because of some basic principles.. and it is these principles that I found also resonated with the way that we (NoMadMeetings) prepare organisations for THEIR journey to effective at-a-distance communications (webinars, phone and online conferencing, meetings etc). Here are some principles and observations of an ocean sailor and NoMad facilitator:

• The bigger the obstacles, the bigger the purpose needs to be.
• While preparation and safety is everything, no risk means that we would not have left the dock.
• It can be very lonely in the middle of an ocean.  Be prepared to draw deeply on your self confidence and the experience of others who have been there before.
• It is not until you ARE in a gale that you LOVE that you spent time in preparation.  On cold wet windy nights we were grateful for all that time up the top of the mast making sure that the electrics were OK and the mast head pulleys working.
• I think that I and others would think of adrenalin as being part of this trip.  Interestingly, there was almost none.. sort of dull until I reflected on an interview with a high performance pilot.  He said that as soon as he had adrenalin, he would know that he was under performing and in fact putting the plane and passengers at risk.  This made sense.  Adrenalin comes from our “flight and fight” brain.  So boring old preparation and planning leads to boring old predictable performance.  A boring old pilot taking us on a boring flight – safely and predictably.
• Contingencies are a waste of time, except when you need them!  When we arrived at Auckland Customs we had lots of food left over, the expensive emergency life raft was intact, our water was hardly used, we had plenty of fuel, the flares were plentiful, the first aid kit unopened, the ocean buoyancy vests remained in their packs.  BUT if we had an emergency…..

One of my favourite moments of the trip was sailing at night, standing alone beside the mizzen mast, the waves rushing past, the stars swaying in the sky and this 14 tons of yacht just pushing through the water totally focused on getting home – whether I was there or not.  A yacht with a purpose cannot be denied!!  Funnily I have a similar feeling when I am facilitating an online event where the participants are … creating a bow wave from their sheer enjoyment and engagement, and there is a momentum in the online event which is felt by everyone.  Amazing virtual meetings can be a rush – and there is no chance of being dumped on by a wave or even losing a life.

EVOLVE NOW BOTTOM LINE: Only a person who risks is free. Feel and acknowledge the emotion (the story), assess the risks (the facts), adjust the sails and soar through the waves of fear to next level.

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