Some thoughts on thriving during (digital or otherwise) transformation

I started writing posts in Medium about a year ago. Since then, I feel like I have changed significantly. My beliefs about the world have changed a lot. I don’t think I’m alone in this — many of us have started asking bigger questions, perhaps about the world we have created as a species.

When I started this blog, it was a response to my interest in psychological safety and its importance when we work together. This concept is about providing an environment which actively nurtures trust, thereby allowing people to take risks by questionning or suggesting ideas freely when working with others. At the time, this seemed an essential bedrock for individuals to really invest and find some joy in their work. Handily, this was also a prerequisite for high performing teams and organisations so, it’s a bit of a no brainer.

Google says this works so it must be right, right?

A key element of this was for the ‘leader’ to be humble and show vulnerability. At the time, I realised I was telling everyone how important this was but that doesn’t tend to work nearly as well as just doing it!

So I started this blog as an easy way of being vulnerable by sharing my views and exposing myself to the ridicule of the public (often through LinkedIn). I’m also a big fan of the concept of ‘working out loud’ — we all work busily and deliver stuff but very rarely do we talk about why we do things, our doubts, failures and what we can learn from it. This is a missed opportunity for everyone to learn.

I still like these ideas and think they are valuable. Only you can be the judge of this. Still, if nothing else, the posts I have written give people a way of getting inside my head (scary!) and getting to know me. So new collaborators can decide whether to run a mile or hang around and talk some more…

Recently I have started preferring conversations (with Bard and Hilary, my new guides and fellow travellers) to writing posts. But I have recently decided to write to help me order what I have found and also in the hope that it might help you on your journey.

So, on to my topic of thriving during transformation.

After reading many books, trying stuff out, debating with my friends at work, there are very few things that I think are necessary for true transformation.

And when I say transformation, I’m not talking about technologies, skills or methodologies. These things can have value for some people and can provide some stability when starting out. But, without being open to challenging and changing your own values and beliefs (and helping others to do the same if they ask), it’s all just superficial and we won’t work out where we went wrong or find a better way of being that is lasting.

So here are some more or less universal ideas that I believe are critical to help navigate inspiring but also unsettling times

Firstly, every circumstance and every individual is different. And we change over time as we grow. And what is right for one person in one team may well not be right for another person in the same team. No cookie cutters or silver bullets here. So how could there be some universally applicable ideas?

Let’s see…

Personal growth is necessary for true transformation— evidence of people learning from their experiences and adapting — trying new things; not continually trying the same thing, especially if it isn’t working. I’m not suggesting that there should be a target or a specific amount of growth, just evidence of changing values, beliefs and behaviours.

If that’s true, what do you need for growth?

Self awareness and reflection.

You need to get to know yourself better. Know your beliefs, your values, your biases, your strengths.

Reflect on how you have interacted with your colleagues. What has worked, what hasn’t. Why might that be? What have you learnt? Have you formed any hypotheses? What would you like to try next time?

Are your beliefs holding you back? I have noticed that I have a need for autonomy. This is because I want to do what I believe is important. Some things I believe are VERY important. If this is the case, I may get protective or secretive about this. Just in case someone takes it away or tells me it isn’t important. This is perfectly understandable behaviour but likely to be self-destructive. If I work on ‘secret’ projects, they will be uncovered eventually. And this approach increases the risk of them being taken away. As the cliche goes, you have to ‘take people on the journey’.

Recognising this has helped me with a couple of things:

• finding meaning in my work — the more I can find meaning, the more motivated I become. This has sent me on the path of finding opportunities which have positive social impact. I wrote here about how I found an opportunity to make the workplace somewhere where we can flourish, not just turn up and comply in order to get paid.
• finding ‘sub-missions’ within my work that are personally important AND finding collaborators and explaining why this is important and its relevance with my team.

You may find your beliefs are actually holding you back.

If you want to reflect on your beliefs and finding meaning, here are a few of tools that I have found useful.

After a period of reflecting on my work as part of transformation and what inspired me, I realised that the opportunity to make work a place where we can all flourish and grow was very compelling.

At the same time my wife introduced me to Simon Sinek and his book, Find Your Why, which helped me take this further. It helped me explore my childhood to understand myself better. I wrote here about how I have discovered a new label of adventurer to replace my old label of business analyst. It may sound crazy but I can describe why I am an adventurer and what that means much more easily than fumbling over what a business analyst does. Enjoying the challenge of something that is seemingly impossible but also important; being ingenious and resourceful; taking the big picture view and spotting the gaps, for example.

It is also helpful to spend time understanding your strengths.

In the adventurer post, I talk about the StrengthsFinder which is another simple process to uncover your strengths. The post covers the process and how it helped me put words to what was lacking in my working life.

Finally, another toolset which is useful is Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey’s work on understanding limiting beliefs. This is the idea that beliefs we develop based on childhood experiences can sometimes hold us back in our later life. They have introduced practices that allow us to bring these to the surface, recognise them, the impact they have on our behaviour and change them over time.

I don’t have enough space to describe the practice here but it is covered in their book — How the way we talk can change the way we work.

Just being heard can be very powerful

Finally, simply spending time talking to someone else is one of the best ways to reflect and trigger opportunities for growth.

Your partner in this needs to be someone you trust and has your best interests at heart; they don’t need to be a coach but I suggest they do need to follow these rules:

• listen carefully and ask questions only for clarification
• resist the temptation to ‘solve’ your problems (I can find this challenging, especially when it’s my daughter!)
• do not judge
• don’t add your assumptions, analysis or interpretation unless specifically asked

Simply being able to talk about whatever is on your mind with someone’s full attention who is interested in your wellbeing can be a powerful experience.

We often have the answers within us, especially the ones that are right for us. Noone can know what is right for you, only I can know what is right for me, at this time, in this context. But it can be confusing, talking it through and being heard requires you to explain to another and new ideas can emerge from this.

I am running a little experiment myself at the moment. I want to help others (perhaps people who have had similar challenges) and so I need to start by building a trusting relationship.

I am also trying to avoid the potentially damaging impact of money which can turn relationships into transactions. I will do this by offering my time for free.

If you would like to explore this further, please contact me on alex_papworth@yahoo.com.