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Today's news is tomorrow's archive.

If you're waiting for the right opportunity, it might pass you by without you making sense of it.
Fortunately, the world will not stop to pick you up when you're ready and willing.

I believe that opportunities are disguised as conundrum- confusing and difficult problem to solve. I saw with my own eyes, how purpose-driven organization turned their world upside down because they saw massive opportunities during the pandemic for their members, the least of these members. I observed how customer-driven organizations refuse to let their excellent track record be affected by the remote work during the crisis. I know personally that small business are not cutting costs but instead, expanding value to their community even more.

These are opportunities. Another kind of opportunity is what you imagine and create for yourself.  Waiting sucks! I have been mentoring a newcomer professional for a number of months and I can say that she's not waiting in her room. She is busy getting out there, creating opportunities to network and link up, and building her credentials so that she can land the job she dreams of! She is physically, emotionally, socially, and financially buffing up! What a great attitude can do? 

It's not cosmic alignment or a question of luck or maybe a great break, it's the everyday readiness that springs you forward. When the opportunity is at hand, I get ready for the next. 

What are you readying for? 
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So many people want to make a difference but very few are capable of being different from the rest.

By now, people should understand that there is no Big Brother, somebody to validate their every move, approves them, and tell them they are on the right path. It's an imagination. 

Besides, the vast majority of the Earth's population are dreaming with their eyes wide open. Instead of living for a purpose, they live based on what's comes to them. If you're life is performative, who needs an audience?

With the current Ukraine crisis, we know that this didn't happen overnight. Many years of hostility preceded this and both sides are guilty of violating the trust and blatantly eroding any civilized manner of diplomacy. The road to peace is littered with good intentions but bad consequences. 

Independent thinking is a breath of fresh air in an environment where conformity is more favored than an inquisitive mind. Standing up against the mob is an active protest in itself. But you need a better strategy than just a moral action. 

Whether you're in the Board room or in your shop or working in the on-purpose sector, becoming different is not pushing hard on certain agenda or being rough on others. It means standing for your values and principles, standing up for your organizational values, and standing up for purpose-driven impact. The consequences of doing these actions can be great but being compliant without understanding has dreadful effects too. Know what you are capable of doing. Act with integrity.

That's the way to making a difference in your cubicle (or home-office). 

In the on-purpose world, we still have organizations stuck in the twentieth-century thinking that the public donors do not want to pay for administration. Websites of many of these organizations are proud of declaring that they only get 10% for administration, the rest to core programming. Many think that it's larceny to allocate more than 10% or to some extent bad practice to ask for more. 

What we can glean from this based on leadership and management perspective, these organizations have no 

- capability of building up and strengthening their core processes 
- capability of securing and retaining great talent- a must to survive and thrive!
- capability to build strategically for the future
- see themselves as sacrificial conduits with their begging bowls every year
- always uncertain, tentative and highly disrupted by the larger forces around them
- cannot stand up for their principles, values, and commitments

They maybe good with their programs but they're not sustainable and even effective in the long run. If you're not taking care of your own house, how can you be the most charitable for all? 

Don't compromise your organizational sufficiency in the altar of public legitimacy.

At the next blog, I will share some of the strategies to get away from the 10% group. 

I have seen first-hand how on-purpose organizations refuse to get help when they should, not when it's too late  to do so.

That moment is like the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOM) when executives have to make the decision to get good and fast help in the hope to turn the tides for their benefit.  As the saying goes: "In moments of weakness, don't make a decision. In moments of strength, take the best decision."

I would like to add to that.  The real value is asking and admitting that you need help. That is the first sign of courageous leadership. Knowing when to do is a sign of better sense-making. And taking action by talking to able and wise mentors, coaches, and advisers or even with peers, is a sign of prudence and wisdom.

What's preventing them from seeking help? It's not the lack of resources, budget, or capacity to take new things or learn new things. It's the ego that's preventing leaders from taking new ideas because they think that theirs is the greatest, or they have nothing to learn or they can never fail. Sometimes, they just don't want people to know their issues. Most of the time, it's the low risk appetite. 

If your working in organization that refuse to look themselves in the mirror and ask difficult questions,  don't enable this and don't go with the flow. You can start asking for help and getting the help you need!

Leaders and managers, stop auditioning and lead boldly. 

There will not be an announcement saying, "You're next to promotions, here's the baton." It is up to you to figure it out. At the end of the day, the best leaders and managers do not wait for an external green light signal. Most often, I find in my 20+ years of career in jobs and consulting, that it's always too late. 

Waiting for the green signal from others leave you more vulnerable to external validation and external success metrics imposed on you. It is better to trust your judgement and keep on building your competencies. The right opportunity will come and when it comes, you're ready for it.

In matters of decision-making, the same principle follows. Don't explore a certain future with the intention to seek out certainty. Explore your organization's future with the intention of embracing ambiguity and being effective at cruising along such complexities in your strategic environment. Ambiguity is a friend, not an enemy to curse or throw rocks at!

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The best organizations are constantly unlearning not just learning constantly.

There a big difference between those who are always challenging themselves versus those who are already feeling that they have reached and arrived. 

A few comments I have heard through the years where external help is rejected on the basis of: 


​If it's not invented here, it wont work.

We are pretty good at what we do. 

We have another consultant that we 're still working on.

We don't need another external person to know our problems.

The current Board or Executive will not support this intervention. 

Our Request for Proposal is our vehicle for getting help. 

Our priorities right now are very different from the last Executive Director.

We don't have a budget for this kind of exercise. 



All these are excuses and should not be seriously considered.

The best organizations do recognize that 'if there's a will, there's a way.'  Unlearning should happen before actual learning happens.  Bringing a resource is a matter of strategy and an asset that can be deployed when needed, not when the organization is in a critical condition.

Past success is never a predictor for future success. ​