Great Ideas and Decisions
First, let’s start with how bad ideas and decisions are made.The quality of our leadership breaks down when we: 1) react from emotions, or 2) think about it.Reacting From EmotionsAs leaders, we often make our biggest errors when we are reacting from emotion. Because we have been trained that emotions are bad, we want to clear them out as soon as possible, and unfortunately, we have not been trained in how to effectively work with our emotions.Since we do not have the tools to work with our emotions, we react in an attempt to resolve them quickly and rid ourselves of any uncomfortable feelings. To our determent these reactions are rarely good business. When we respond from anger, we alienate people; from fear, we either undercut ourselves or become over protective or controlling; from shame, we explain and defend ourselves; from sadness, we withdraw into ourselves or make rash decisions to recover what we have lost; and the list goes on…Emotions are here to alert us to things that we wouldn’t otherwise be aware of. This sensitivity is critical to good business, but we tend to ignore it or override it. Emotions lose their utility, however, when we are carrying unresolved feelings from the past. These unresolved feelings could be recent or even stretch back to early in our careers.To be free from reaction and to be able to use our emotional awareness, we have to do two things. First, we have to have a process of cleaning up all of our emotional clutter from the past that keeps us reacting and overreacting. Second, we have to become comfortable with our emotions and able to reflect on them without reacting to them. Only through awareness and through being comfortable with our emotions can we get the crucial information and insight that they are here to give us.Great leaders are comfortable with their emotions.Thinking About ItThinking about things is a mainstay of business, but as a way to address new ideas or to solve problems, it is flawed.Thinking, in the traditional sense, comes from our conditioned brains, and the source of our thoughts is everything we have been taught by others. Much of this learning came from before we could discriminate between good ideas and bad ideas. Many of the execs I work with can identify many ideas they have carried all their lives, and they have always lead them down the wrong path. Ideas are fine as long as they are working, but when things stop working, or when we need a new way of doing things, they take us right back to where we started.Thinking is a slippery slope. Just as a good lawyer can argue either side of a court case, our minds can take a position on anything. They can argue for the innocent or the guilty, for right or wrong, and it can be very difficult to tell the difference. Just watch yourself when you get into a mental dilemma. See how often you decide on something and then immediately your mind begins to tell you why it is a bad idea, so you switch to the other decision and again your mind goes right back to telling you why it is a bad idea.Most ideas that come from the mind are like laws passed by congress, either totally reactionary or insipid compromises.Great Ideas and DecisionsGreat ideas and decisions come from a different source. For now lets call this source creativity. Creativity comes not from emotions or thinking but from a different place. The primary conditions for creativity are a clear mind and clear emotions.Inner quiet is the source of all of my creativity.Through the state of inner quiet awareness comes insight and wise and innovative solutions. Inner quiet takes in everything, all the information seen and unseen. Inner quiet can be created individually or within a group.To this inner quiet we can bring Inquiry Method™ tools: curiosity, questions, wonder, openness, inspiration, and values. These tools are amplified by good will, vulnerability, and gratitude, and supported by a structure of community, a strong system of personal integrity, and a process for accountability—all parts of Inquiry Management and Leadership.Great leadership comes to leaders and groups who have grown within themselves and then supported and stimulated growth in their team. There are few things more satisfying than working with a group who has great ideas and makes great decisions.