{"id":17334,"date":"2020-11-12T12:25:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T03:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waca.associates\/en\/?p=17334"},"modified":"2021-03-08T12:01:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T03:01:59","slug":"the-possibilities-toolbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/articles\/the-possibilities-toolbox\/","title":{"rendered":"[KIT] The Possibilities Toolbox"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kimberly1\"<\/figure>

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12 Keys to Self-leadership, Seemingly Impossible Results 
and an Unstoppable Team<\/strong><\/p>

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All my professional life I\u2019ve struggled with what are broadly referred to as \u201chuman skills\u201d. Emotional by nature and rebellious by choice, it\u2019s sometimes been extremely challenging for me to follow the sage advice \u201cBe hard on the issues, but soft on the people.\u201d Now, in perhaps one of the greatest ironies of my life, I have become the lead facilitator for a series of workshops on \u201chuman skills\u201d for Tokyo Medical and Dental University<\/a> professors. I\u2019ve distilled what I consider the essential human skills into a \u201cmindset toolkit\u201d that makes these sometimes-fluffy ideas succinct and accessible. <\/p>

The 12 Tools.<\/strong> The 12 heuristics<\/a> below have helped me transform Feelings, Actions, Communication and Thinking (F.A.C.T.) in myself, my colleagues, and the thousands of people who have survived what I affectionately call my \u201cworkshocks\u201d (workshop seemed too tame a word). <\/p>

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Perception is NOT Reality.<\/strong> Like just about every young person on this planet, I grew up thinking that the view of the world my senses transmit to me is \u201creality\u201d. Gradually this notion was transformed through education and experience. In my university physics classes I learned how different the reality of our universe is from my perception of it. Solid objects? They\u2019re mostly empty space. Visible light? That\u2019s just the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that my eyes can detect. Since then I\u2019ve found plenty of examples of how easily our perception of reality is distorted<\/a> by the way our miraculous brains work. Optical illusions<\/a> provide a powerful example of this. As a result of my experiences I now understand that there are everyday situations in which I can\u2019t accurately see<\/a>, hear<\/a>, count<\/a>, or add<\/a>. As a result I\u2019ve developed a healthy skepticism about what my brain tells me is \u201creality\u201d, a great deal more humility about what I know to be \u201ctrue\u201d, and a more open mind. Very handy! <\/p>

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Complex is NOT Complicated.<\/strong> Although birds flying in flocks are fairly close to one another, they somehow manage to execute their aerial ballet without mid-air collisions. This is just one of many everyday phenomena that appear complicated, but are merely complex. Complexity Theory<\/a> has proven that relatively simple principles can underlie apparently complicated situations. Knowing this has inspired me to look for organizing principles and patterns in tumultuous times. Even if I can\u2019t perceive the underlying patterns, I no longer find it intimidating to face a situation that seems complicated because I know there is a possibility that a simple order lays beneath the perplexing exterior.<\/p>

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There is NO BOX \u2013 Except in Our Minds.<\/strong> The greatest obstacles I\u2019ve faced in my life have been self-imposed. Adult human brains seem to readily embrace negative thinking, and overcoming this tendency takes conscious awareness and discipline. Possibilities multiply when I stop thinking about the obstacles to success and start asking \u201cWhat\u2019s possible?<\/a>\u201d, \u201cWhat seems impossible?\u201d, and \u201cWhat would make \u2018impossible\u2019 become possible?\u201d Self-limiting assumptions and beliefs kill many ideas before they are even voiced. Logic and reason fail us because we can\u2019t perceive reality or the entire catalog of possibilities. Serendipity and intuitive leaps are legitimate paths to discovering new possibilities. They\u2019re just anxiety-inducing for those of us who prefer to know exactly what\u2019s going to happen before we begin!<\/p>

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Replace Judgment with Curiosity.<\/strong> I vividly recall the day in August 1995 that I discovered that my brain was a voting machine \u2013 constantly judging whether something was good or bad, right or wrong, whether I liked it or didn\u2019t, or whether I agreed or disagreed with a particular point of view. This polarized thinking didn\u2019t leave any room for nuances in my perspective or graciousness in my behavior with those on the opposite side of an issue. Gradually I came to appreciate \u201cshades of gray\u201d, and the value of being curious about other people\u2019s perspectives. I no longer imagine that my way of achieving results is the only way, and I try to help people discover what\u2019s possible instead of leading them in a direction that I think they should go. <\/p>

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\u201cImpossible\u201d is Merely Difficult.<\/strong> There are dozens of famous examples of everyday occurrences that were labeled \u201cimpossible\u201d by some smarty-pants at some point in history. Before their invention, experts scoffed at the notion of airplanes, rockets, home computers, and brain surgery. Thought leaders proclaimed radios, telephones, TVs, and automobiles to be passing fads that would never achieve commercial success. Because these pundits couldn\u2019t personally imagine HOW to achieve something, they labeled it \u201cimpossible\u201d. But even the smartest human being doesn\u2019t know everything. And the future often brings changes in circumstances that invalidate previous assessments of feasibility. I\u2019ve developed a healthy disregard for anything labeled \u201cimpossible\u201d. To me that word just means that we haven\u2019t found a way . . . YET!<\/p>

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Change Feels Uncomfortable.<\/strong> When something is new or different it can push us out of our comfort zone, triggering negative feelings. As a result many people avoid, or actively resist change. Charles Darwin said, \u201cIt is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.<\/em>\u201dMany times in my career I\u2019ve faced challenges that felt overwhelming. At these times I\u2019m filled with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Recognizing my discomfort as an indicator of an exciting challenge, instead of a warning that I should flee, has enabled me to take advantage of opportunities that others might have declined. Now I make a habit of putting a big smile on my face and shouting \u201cWooooooohoooooooo! I\u2019m uncomfortable!\u201d when that feeling strikes. It\u2019s done wonders for my relationship with change.<\/p>

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Different <\/strong>\u2260<\/strong> Deficient.<\/strong> All my life I\u2019ve been the \u201cdifferent\u201d one. When I worked at HP one of my friends gave me a book called \u201cA Peacock in the Land of Penguins\u201d. Reading it helped me understand why I felt so out of place. Now research has proven that diverse teams have an advantage over monolithic ones. And the most diverse business organizations deliver substantially greater business results. It\u2019s challenging to deal with differences, but the benefits are undeniable. Imagine a baseball team with 9 great catchers \u2013 no one would expect them to win! Aside from the obvious types of diversity such as gender and ethnicity, I\u2019ve found differences in thinking and work style even more challenging to handle \u2013 and extremely valuable in equipping a team to deliver breakthrough results. <\/p>

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Collaboration Beats Competition.<\/strong> I\u2019ve never played competitive sports, and from an early age I had an aversion to playing games that had winners and losers, especially if I was the loser. Even though my grades were excellent, I avoided comparing them to others because of something my wise mother told me: \u201cThere\u2019s always someone better than you and there\u2019s always someone worse than you.\u201d Collaboration, on the other hand, has always intrigued me. When I was young I rallied the neighborhood kids to build camps in the woods near our home, and plan lengthy bicycle trips that our parents had no intention of allowing us to embark upon. Over the course of my career I\u2019ve discovered that making the pie bigger is more profitable than arguing over who gets the biggest share of a few crumbs.  <\/p>

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Creativity Is Risky and Messy. Experiment!<\/strong> Many organizations say that they want more innovative products and services, but don\u2019t provide an environment supportive of the messiness associated with creative endeavors. The creative process is non-linear. Fifty percent progress towards the goals may not be evident when 50% of the budget is spent. First drafts often fall far short of the final requirements. An unimaginative person might struggle to keep their anxiety at bay as their team lurches unpredictably towards success, while the courageously creative shout the credo \u201cPrototype, don\u2019t perfect!\u201d Teams able to rapidly integrate feedback from experiments and prototypes can achieve far better results than those who obsess over perfection in the first revision.<\/p>

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Most Failure is Avoidable.<\/strong> Although I\u2019m equipped to support my clients with sophisticated leadership and team effectiveness tools, the problems they face rarely require more than the most basic models and insights. Most teams continue to fail for entirely predictable and avoidable reasons, such as the failure to build trust, the inability to communicate effectively, the absence of clear, shared goals, and a lack of agreement on priorities that must drive the allocation of scarce time, budget and other resources. A memorable example of this is the story of a whale being tracked using a transmitter attached to it\u2019s body. It disappeared from the radar immediately upon submerging because the device wasn\u2019t waterproof! Common knowledge and common sense aren’t common practice. It\u2019s the discipline to DO what we know that is lacking in so many individuals, teams, and organizations.<\/p>

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Make Mistakes and Fail Forward.<\/strong> Risk-taking and mistake-making are a necessary part of the journey to innovation. But we usually assume that mistakes are to be avoided, and failure tends to be surrounded by blame and shame. Rather than playing the blame game, a much healthier and more empowering view is that mistakes are stepping stones towards the goal. At HP<\/a> Labs, one innovative team\u2019s guiding credo was \u201cBuild a tall junk pile!\u201d Fail fast, fail forward, using feedback to learn and improve along the way. In order to encourage appropriate risks, I require people on my team to make at least 3 mistakes a day \u2013 new and more exciting mistakes, of course, not the same ones over and over again. <\/p>

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You Can Lead from Any Chair.<\/strong> Like many people, I once believed that leaders were found at the top of an org chart. But after decades of working with dozens of organizations I\u2019ve seen plenty of people occupying a leader\u2019s chair, but not leading. As a result I\u2019ve learned that leadership isn\u2019t a position in an org chart or a title on a business card. A leader is someone who acts like a leader, communicates like a leader, and thinks\/feels like a leader \u2013 regardless of position or title. This insight carries with it a weighty responsibility. Once we realize that we have the power to make a positive difference we can no longer be content with merely complaining about upper management. In my first corporate job at HP, I pretended that this 100,000 person company was my own, and that what I did mattered. Thinking and acting like an owner gave me the courage to do and say what others only dared to think. Leadership isn\u2019t always rewarded, but I find it much more rewarding<\/em> than waiting for solutions from above while complaining about the inadequacies of the management team. <\/p>

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Why Change? <\/strong>Tolstoy said \u201cEveryone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.\u201d These 12 tools have the power to transform our teams by changing ourselves first. Don\u2019t believe me! Do the experiment and see for yourself. I look forward to hearing about your transformational mindset adventures.  \u2013 Kimberly                               <\/p>

Kimberly Wiefling<\/a> lives and works in Silicon Valley, California, USA. She has been called a force of nature \u2013 the good kind! She creates inspiring workplaces by helping \u201cgroups of people\u201d rapidly become \u201ctrue teams\u201d so that they can achieve what would be impossible for any individual acting alone. And she helps these teams accelerate their progress by applying common sense principles proven effective globally in the real business world. She is the author of Scrappy Project Management<\/a>, also published in Japanese, and the executive editor of the whole series of five “Scrappy Guides.” Kimberly and her Silicon Valley Alliances<\/a> team work with globalizing businesses, traveling extensively in the US, Europe and Asia. 
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Author: Kimberly Wiefling, Wiefling Consulting, Inc.<\/p>

kimberly@wiefling.com<\/a>    +1 650 867 0847<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"12 Keys to Self-leadership, Seemingly Impossible Results and an Unstoppable Team All my professional life I\u2019ve struggled with what are broadly referred to as \u201chuman skills\u201d. Emotional by nature and rebellious by choice, it\u2019s sometimes been extremely challenging for me to follow the sage advice \u201cBe hard on the issues, but soft on the people.\u201d Now, in perhaps one of the greatest ironies of my life, I have become the lead facilitator for a series of workshops on \u201chuman skills\u201d for Tokyo Medical and Dental University professors. I\u2019ve distilled what I consider the essential human skills into a \u201cmindset toolkit\u201d that makes these sometimes-fluffy ideas succinct and accessible.  The 12 Tools. The 12 heuristics below have […]","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":17342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/possible-4062883_1920.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17334"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26462,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17334\/revisions\/26462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waca.or.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}