THINKING TWICE

 

LOOKING TWICE

Who goes on a respite vacation to Palm Desert, California and registers for a symposium focused on leadership in the workplace? Tulip does.

As she sits in the conference room awaiting the beginnings of the keynote address, she looks around curiously at hundreds of other attendees who are likely there for reasons unlike hers.

The presenter is from Arizona and comes with a wealth of experience in behavioural management specific to helping  members of boards deal with different types of personalities and attitudes. She uses specific examples of generational relationships, organizational skills, and establishing a vision and a mission statement, but also realizing, recognizing and accepting different people have different values and approaches to reaching goals. 

At this point Tulip realizes that everything that has been said can apply to everyday relationships with family members, friends and colleagues:

• *all humans evolve over time
• *all humans make mistakes
• *all humans have challenges
• *all humans have boundaries
• *all humans have core values

Some of the challenges in all types of relationships start with:

• *wanting control or dominance
• *misunderstanding or not wanting to understand    individual differences or values or boundaries
• *insecurities about evolving or changing trends
• *anger management issues
• *unable to recognize and respect diversity
• *unable to let go of past wrongs, missteps or attitudes

Tulip further fuses the presenter’s business-focused narrative with a more personal perspective. One of the key approaches to forming a strong and long term relationship is to understand the base and basis of each other’s personalities. That conclusion does not happen instantly, it develops over time — sometimes a short time and sometimes a long time. Sometimes it works out to be a worthwhile effort, and other times it is obviously a waste of time. 

There are anomalies in every colony:

• Be okay with examining a comment and asking questions
• Be okay with answering questions openly and honestly
• Realise there is not just one way of looking at things and often there is not just one right way to move forward
• Respect differences of opinions; agree to disagree but then move on without firing back
• Embrace democratic principles and civility in all discussions
• Blend in the “new, unique and special” contributions 
• Be willing to adjust opinions, attitudes and behaviours

At the end of the keynote address, Tulip sits back smiling. Everything that was said has far extending power. She wonders if anyone else in the room felt the same and made the same correlation between the presented business model and their own personal lives. She hopes they do as it may well be a new 21st Century model for healthy, fruitful relationships of any kind in the increasingly complex, ever-evolving, compartmentalizing, competitive, challenging and changing world.