In an imperfect world with stifling budget and ever-expanding mandate, you might be tempted to roll your sleeve more and work harder. Before you do that, check all the value and motivation-destroying activities you engage, see instituted, or passed off as necessary. 

1. Bureaucracy. Too much paper-shifting, oversight, approvals. I saw this in my former life as a municipal staff and very draining. 

2. Failure work. Countless rewriting and re-editing, and asking for countless validation. Let's define what's needed and stop repeating the process. 

3. Overreach. It's good to say you're inclusive and highly participatory, but overdoing it, doesn't add to another inch of impact. 

4. Not communicating well. Setting clear expectations and being mindful of interpretations from different stakeholders matter. It's a preventative measure you can start with. 

Ask these questions now in your organization. Reframe the assumptions and received thinking around them. Provoke new ways of doing things. It's your work, it's your life. 

I have been following the unfolding Philippine electoral events, with the former President's son, Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos unassailable victory as President and his running mate, Sarah Duterte, the incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte's daughter, as Vice-President.

Sad to say, after the Marcos's ouster by the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, the majority of Filipinos elected the Marcoses back is a case of collective amnesia. With the post-truth machinery in full throttle, the democracy of the country is now in the brink of massive collapse on many fronts.

For someone who was born, raised, and educated in the Philippines and now based in Canada, I simply can't understand this phenomenon when in fact that there are many qualified, honest, competent people who can become president. We have great people who can lead. But winning is another thing.

In a island country where the elites rule and politicos rule until they drop dead, the Marcos campaign was well-oiled, in the digital and ground-level landscapes. Instead of the guns, goons, and gold, now it was the trolls, the disinformation, and the total censorship. The |"no talk, no mistake" policy proved beneficial in the long run.

As with millions of observers, we have yet to see a no-platform-of-government incoming President wing it and make social progress, economic development happen for 90+ million Filipinos and the diaspora workers scattered all over the world. 

This is a grand example of post-truth democracy- all the trappings of a democratic exercise rigged by the unmediated, brazen, corrupt use of digital politics to the fullest measure allowed by societal standards and norms of political engagement. The winner obviously takes it all. 
​
It's the best and worst of our digital age.

We are watching. 

It's that time of the year. 
I was on the phone a few months ago, with the Executive Director who was looking for a Strategic Planning service.  As usual, the conversation went as far as detailing the needs, specifications, and the rationale for reaching out for an external resource. 

It's also time to break the three misconceptions about strategies and strategic formulation, in general.

1. Get the text out soon. The product is important but there's more to the written text
The process dynamics will be so rich that you should  capture  the momentum to bring your organization to another level of development or competency. Strategy exercises expend a lot of energy and resources, do it all with care and devotion, it will have positive compounding effects.

2. We begin from zero every time. The process is not linear and you don't have to start all over again
The brick-and-mortar style can be shortened, there is no hard and fast rule on stages and how organizations should approach the strategy development. Use your prior strategic decisions to move you forward on a long-term path unless there's a big reason to make a radical right turn. 

3. We don't have to implement them. Yes you do.
It doesn't mean that you have to implement them all at once and with equal amounts of strategies and tactics. Implementation is an art and a science. There are bridging processes to ensure that the old strategy gives way to the new one without cutting off continuing impacts. It's like buying an expensive exercise machine and not using it or winning the lottery and returning the money back. Get the point? 

4. We want to include a specific commitment to (another motherhood value statement). You can't include the kitchen sink, sorry.
Remember, its your strategic direction- how you are going to act in the face of internal and external challenges, constraints, and opportunities to achieve your goals. Unless, it's strategic, leave it to the values section. 

Read this before you call someone for external support or talk to your Board or staff so you can get on with the program. Call me when you're ready to proceed. 

I heard this comment a few years ago, from a supervisor commenting on an employee having "too much fun" outside work, vacations in Mexico and booking up more in the next few months. The supervisor saw a rejuvenated, well-tanned staff beaming with optimism and joie de vivre. What's wrong with that picture?

What this means I conjure is that too much fun outside work means there is misery in the workplace for the supervisor, the staff, and probably within the department. God knows who else is not having fun there.

On the other hand, this statement should be read backwards. Nobody now wants drudgery in work. If you are miserable in your job and continue to stay on for the paycheck, your wasting your life, which has a limit. Statistically speaking, Canadians live up to only a certain age and then life goes downhill. And if you're a slaving as a supervisor, that's not supervision and not management, either. 

For those who are refugees from working in organizations like me, I do not miss this arrangement. I'd rather be doing something that feeds my soul, puts money in my wallet, and lets me sleep good at night. 

The future of work is all about fun, flexibility, and autonomy in the workplace. There is a high degree of challenge and complexity but also independence and the ability to use one's judgement in the interests of the organization. The reason people quit their job is because of their boss not because of the job itself. 
The staff resigned after a few months. No surprise there. 

If you're having too much fun at work, that is a good sign. How much is too much is up to you!

a Our lives turned upside down for the good when a cat came into our family. A stray cat suddenly appeared and made our hearts melt. Of course, my five-year-old is the number one cat lover aside from my husband. We took him in (by subtle force), until we figured out if he's an inside cat or an outside cat.

With previous knowledge on cats, my husband both the whole gadgets in case he decided to be a home cat. A family member said and another friend confirmed, "a cat has a mind of its own."

And so, with a bit of time, we figured out that he is both. He is both an inside cat and an outside cat. When the weather is great, we let him out and when it's time to go home, he's there waiting in the yard. Sometimes, he would wait until our truck was in the other house, and if he sees the truck, he will jump right on to be packed home.

Another family member said, "He's cat that behaves like a dog."  He surely has a mind of his own. Our house is a hotel, an entertainment center, and a respite against the cold, brutal world.  We're okay with the arrangements. He's just being who he is. It won't be great for other families for sure. 

If you're organization is set up to be something and behaves otherwise, and people get their noses up or insist that you  behave like one (because of their own conditioning), it's time to break the stereotype. What people project on your organization, may not really who you are and most of the time, they're dead wrong.

I asked this question because many organizational executives are comfortably in a fear mode in these difficult times. 

What's the next disruption that will derail, disrupt, disembowel your organization's market positioning? or for that matter, your reason for being? what is the most existential threat likely to happen in the next five years? 

If it's the fear of the uncertain/unknown that drives your executives to grind down everyday, you better back up and check that the fear is a positive fear that you can control and manage.
If it's the fear of being left out/missing out in the trend-train, check the rational behind the impulse, and fall back to where you are actually generating sustainable outcomes.
If it's survival and modest growth, plan to pivot when you can transition comfortably in the next 3 years, until such a time when you have the golden opportunity to create this new future.
If it's growing and reclaiming lost ground, there is no better time, than now. Get consensus and act on what you have existing at the moment. 

"What's driving you forward?" is a better question than "What drives your executives sleepless at night?" 
You need to capitalize on the dynamics of forward-motion than the idealized notions of lessons learned. And I hope you're not running around a carousel. 
​

An organization that identified a huge gap in their operational talked to a consultant recently. They are willing to confront the pain and are willing to take steps to immediately reset their efforts. Then silence, silence, silence.

What's happening behind the scenes would be telling? When managers have no strategic confidence to make decisions on the basis of information acquired and in the best intentions, paralysis-analysis occurs. They like bring too many people in the analysis of the problem, the prognosis, and the actions to be taken. They want to be told what to do. In short, they want to avoid failing at all costs. 

When this happens, failure-avoidance leads to very smart but all too narrow gains. What can you lose  with that investment? Reputation loss, money, staff time, and opportunity costs? 

Think hard, are you losing all of them right now as we speak by doing the paralysis-analysis and failure-avoidance techniques. 

If you're too afraid, shut the doors and windows, and stay under the covers. 

I just ran an article of the same title in my January e-newsletter. 

In a matter of five years,  a dozen of executives I met at the mid-level positions in various on-purpose organizations have moved on, either had taken up their own businesses or  transferred to careers they want to explore. Now that we're close to an emergence from the pandemic scenario, this shifting will be accelerated.

Some call it pivot, some redesign, and some heeding that second calling. If you're like me that went from a full-time employee to self-employed, you know that this is not a hobby or just a gig (as some would call it to downplay its serious requirements).

The great redesign or simply reinvention is a response to challenging economic shifts that are happening even before COVID19, the global fuel crisis, and the worldwide inflation. We are beginning to see a generational shift to the concept of work, not as drudgery but as an extension of personal and professional identity and fulfillment, with more individual choice as main driver than the need for status, wealth accumulation, or security.

In tough times, the opposite happens. People are resigning in jobs they previously would hold on tight until the storm calms down and allows them to figure out their long-term goals. Highly individualized lifestyle choices, the ubiquity of technology and infrastructures and enablement created a wider menu of options available right for a global talent are immense. My friend from Nigeria has chosen to call Edmonton home despite the lure of Silicon Valley, and other innovation hubspots in the world. 

Leaping to another career, job, or lifestyle choice is an act of bravery in a world of ambiguity.

​When times are great, or when you feel like you're thriving despite and inspite of circumstances, that is  the perfect time to sit still and figure out your next pivot. 

There is only one way to find one if you're following the trend rather than understanding what it does really mean for your organization.

You can't even explain it in your own words.
There's a lot of jargon, no meaning behind. 
You skip pointing out the downsides to the new concept.
What does it means to those that will be affected by this new thing.
Lastly, what has to give to make it all work and be sustained.

Take this new concept apart, is it really new? or a combination of many old things thrown together to get a new stew? More often, it's an old stuff pretending to be the next best thing. 

Beware!

Values set your culture and your culture becomes your identity. Your identity becomes your growth driver. Hundreds of organizations and companies go into the value route unaware of the broader implications to their business strategies and overall operational effectiveness. 

There are 3 important elements to put into place when you're contemplating on going the values route to bring about positive changes in your organization.

1. Values makes the organization and the organization makes it explicit

If you want to be taken seriously, take values seriously. Don't follow the bandwagon. Set values resonate at all levels, and your committed to in the long haul. Periodically reflect, build on, and keep these alive at every fork in your organizational journey. 

2. Live it and breath it
It's not alright to set it and forget it. Not with values. When invoked and lived powerfully, these values become filters for all kinds of things that do not sit well with your organization. For example, a company that prides itself with hiring people with disabilities, will pursue business strategies that bring about inclusion, empowerment, and engagement as core operational values, not just making profits. 

3. When in conflict, check your values
When internal conflict happens, check your values. Set metric for accountability on how leaders and all stakeholders should behave according to these values. Account for discrepancies between actions and rhetoric. Guard against misleading and unfounded interpretations that can develop over time.

4. You will lose some people and opportunities
When values are taken seriously, you cannot have the whole world. You will never compromise with your values for the sake of short-term gain or agenda because it's the flavor-of-the-month. When the Black Lives Matter becomes trendy, most organizations publish their statement of support and with changes that they promise to uphold regardless whether these have enduring implications they can adequately sustain for the long haul. Looking back, mere palliative measures simply fade away from relevance when weighed against bigger priorities.

5. Own it and take the responsibilities 
The beauty and benefits of organizational values come with costs and responsibilities. Setting new norms as a founder or Board or new Executive Director can be daunting but the rewards outweigh the initial difficulties. I know of an organization who had been discussing their values for a long time in a causal manner until recently when the discussions have surfaced more complex dimensions not previously brought up. This is a sign that readiness is higher and that another next step must be taken to move this forward. Get the temperature right and it will not feel neither stalling nor rushing to get this done. 

Suppose you have all these things, now what? Enjoy these values and make them relevant everyday.