Becoming Optimistic: A Look Towards Our Future

Lauren Powers, SVP of Business Development

While there is so much tumult in the world, I find myself surprisingly optimistic. As I engage with others, I see that many of us have sought some personal and professional equilibrium and peace in a difficult time.

From my perspective, our institutions are being challenged while despicable hate crimes keep occurring. Disasters created naturally, or at our own hand, abound. But, I truly believe that we will come out of this time better and more loving. We have found common ground in places we did not realize existed. Daily, I come across instances of people stepping up, engaging in difficult dialogues, unifying, and showing compassion in very human ways. I find myself and others more drawn to greeting strangers and sharing meaningful conversations based on common values of decency, if not always agreement on politics. In fact, I have never had so much conversation about the role of state and society. Civility exists… you just have look for the common occurrences that we sometimes overlook in the heat of bigger news headlines. Just keep an eye out for it, and you will come across it at the local store, in a shared ride, with your colleagues and/or extended family members.

Leadership comes from the desire and inclination to make a difference and from core principles that guide us in our actions and inform our decisions. With political leadership at times confused and paralyzed by partisan politics, I am encouraged by other leaders that fill the void when most needed: student leaders who use their voices to express the hopes of the younger generation, corporate CEOs who do the right thing even when not required by law, world leaders who are assuming center stage on important global issues, local leaders who are filling the gaps, and individuals who have realized that they, by speaking up, can have a powerful voice and be part of a change effort. This past election, we gained more diversity among the leaders who will represent us at all government levels. I can’t help but think that we will all benefit as a result. As I listened to the themes in the eulogies expressed for George H.W. Bush, I was reminded of the basic and important values that will sustain us going forward: compassion, kindness, community, a purpose greater than oneself, friendship, willingness to see beyond our own views and accept that the other person is still valuable even if we differ, taking the time to acknowledge others, and last, but certainly not least, a sense of humor.

Working in the leadership development field is anchoring for me. It has been rewarding to help organizations and individuals grow. As we look to the mindset, knowledge, and skills needed now and into the future, I am more than ever proud to be part of an organization and a field that is working to respond to the critical challenges we face in societal, professional, and personal arenas. Working together with all of you, we can continue to:

• Strengthen interpersonal and conflict management skills
• Open our minds to test assumptions
• Expand the boundaries of our thinking so we can uncover exciting innovations
• Take some risks to bring about real transformation
• Look beyond the present and beyond ourselves to think strategically

So while, at first, I was alarmed by some of the changes taking place and the potential failure of our revered institutions, I now choose to be encouraged. We live in a tumultuous and, at times, seemingly senseless world. But we have an incredible capacity to learn, empathize, and lead. Through hardship can come growth. May this be a year where we dig deep, reach out, and share our humanity. Let us continue to open our minds and hearts, and use our talent and personal leadership skills to bring more goodness into this wonderful, messy world! I see a future where we engage respectfully, with kindness and purpose, invite diverse ideas, and provide support for one another so we can create a stronger tomorrow.

How About We Skip the New Year’s Resolutions This Year and Instead Ask Ourselves Some Key Questions?

By Nelson Soken, Chief Innovation Strategist

Most people who make a New Year’s resolution fail by February to keep their promise to themselves. As 2018 winds down and I look forward to 2019, I was reflecting on the past year and was struck by how important it is for each of us to deliberately make time to create space for practices to help us grow. Life is a journey of learning and discovery where the goal is not necessarily to get to a final destination, but to keep seeking and observe the world with surprise and wonder. If we aren’t careful, our experience of life can be time-deprived, distracted, scattered, stressed, anxiety-ridden, rigid, linear, narrow-minded, pessimistic, cynical, self-absorbed, routine, unmotivated, disempowered, self-assured, and uninquisitive. Do any of these words resonate with how you feel about this past year? Looking to the new year, I encourage you to start 2019 with a positive attitude and perspective!

While conducting my usual search of interesting material for upcoming workshops, I came across a commencement address from a few years ago by James E. Ryan, the Dean of the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. It has a great deal of wisdom on learning and living with a mindset of curiosity and inquisitiveness. You can view the entire address here. This very popular address was turned into a 2017 book entitled, Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions, by James E. Ryan. In the commencement address, Ryan claims that a life of success and happiness can be achieved by having a mindset of inquiry. He encourages all of us to ask and answer five essential questions throughout our life and in all situations, including:

• Wait, what?...to seek understanding
• I wonder?... to always be curious
• Couldn’t we at least?...to start to make progress and get unstuck
• How can I help?...to build relationships through humility and be willing to have someone give you direction
• What truly matters?…to guide one through big decisions by confronting what is at the heart of the matter

The bonus, and potentially, the most important question he proposes is: “And did you get what you wanted out of life, even so?” which is a line out of the poem, “Late Fragment,” by Raymond Carver in his last published work, A New Path to the Waterfall, a collection that was written while he was dying of cancer. Ryan points out that the “even so” at the end of the question captures the fact that life will not be perfect and that the reality is that we will all experience pain, disappointment, and failure. Yet, even so, a full life offers the possibility and opportunity for joy, contentment, and positive experiences and relationships.

As I reflected on the Dean Ryan’s commencement address, what struck me was how much of the content of Barnes & Conti’s programs resonates with the essential mindset and behavioral skills in the areas he addresses:

• Defining one’s purpose, vision, mission, and strategy
• Encouraging empathy and perspective-taking
• Influencing others and creating win-win solutions while retaining and building relationships
• Encouraging inquiry, curiosity, and creativity
• Functioning with integrity, humility, and purpose
• Creating cooperative, collaborative, and cross-functional team effectiveness.

So, as we reflect on the past year, how would we answer the question, “And did you get what you wanted out of life, even so?” As we consider our actions in 2019, what can we do proactively to incorporate these essential questions so we can respond more affirmatively and feel more fulfilled at this same time next year?

I close with the poem, “Late Fragment,” in its entirety. May you have a wonderful time with family and friends during the holiday season and a successful 2019!

“Late Fragment” by Raymond Carver, from A New Path to the Waterfall, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989.

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Coming Soon: New Book on Constructive Debate by Kim Barnes

Kim Barnes' new book, Building Better Ideas: How Constructive Debate Inspires Courage, Collaboration, and Breakthrough Solutions, will be published in the fall of 2019 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. The book is based on our popular program, Constructive Debate: A Collaborative Approach to Building Better Ideas. We developed that program at a client’s request a number of years ago, but it has once again become timely.

The focus of both the book and the program is to help organizations engage a broad range of people in ideation and to create a culture where unusual and innovative ideas get a hearing and there is a clear process and encouragement for critiquing and improving ideas. Another important outcome of learning these skills is to institutionalize a civilized and effective way for inviting, welcoming, and using disagreement, thus avoiding “groupthink,” reducing the reluctance to speak out, and supporting innovation and change. We will let you know once the publication date is announced. Kim says that she is excited to be working with a new publisher, especially one with Berrett-Koehler’s excellent reputation and track record.

More on Constructive Debate

• Kim Barnes will be presenting on the topic of constructive debate at two conferences this coming spring. See the schedule, below.
• How much does your organization or workgroup engage in constructive versus unconstructive debate? Take our brief survey to learn your constructive debate profile.
• Interested in our Constructive Debate™ program? See our website for more info.

Public Programs for 2019

We're offering three of our public programs in 2018, Exercising Influence, Consulting on the Inside, and Strategic Thinking. All three are being offered as Webinars; Exercising Influence is also being offered in person.

The schedule:

Exercising Influence

April 2, 2019
October 23, 2019

Exercising Influence Webinar

July 10, 2019
November 7, 2019

Consulting on the Inside Webinar

April 3, 2019
October 24, 2019

Strategic Thinking Webinar

June 4, 2019

Cost for the webinars is $395. In person programs are $795.

Visit our website for the full schedule and to register.

Barnes & Conti Presenters at HR West and ATD

Two Barnes & Conti thought leaders have been invited to present at conferences in the spring of 2019, CEO Kim Barnes and Chief Innovation Strategist, Nelson Soken, Ph.D.

• HR West 2019, March 11 – 13, Oakland, CA
  • Kim Barnes will be speaking on “Uncovering Better Ideas Through Constructive Debate” Wednesday, March 13 beginning at 11:45 am.
• ATD 2019 Conference and Expo, May 19 – 22
  • Kim Barnes will be again be presenting on constructive debate: “Building Better Ideas: The Value of Constructive Debate,” date and time TBD.
  • Nelson Soken will also be featured as a speaker with a topic focusing on innovation entitled, “Design Thinking: An Approach to Transform Your Organization and Improve Outcomes,” date and time TBD.

Please watch for future newsletters and e-bulletins for the specific information and participant discounts.

Barnes & Conti Global Update

2018 was a good year internationally with several clients adding new locations to their scheduling of programs, and our wonderful international partners increasing deliveries to their own clients as well.

We are looking forward to building on this year’s success with even more international work in 2019.

Many thanks to all our partners and consultants for their continued support. The following are countries outside the USA where we or they ran workshops in 2018:

• Gregg Brown Consulting in Canada
• Luke Chen based in Taipei and China
• Equoranda in France
• Michael Gold in Bulgaria and the UK
• Indextec in Brasil
• Integrated Consulting Group in Hungary
• Mas Talento Organizacional in Mexico
• Momentum Group in Israel
• PAIZ Konsulting Sp. in Poland
• Tidal Shift in Canada
• Hywel Thomas in the Netherlands
• Claudio Toyama in Canada
• Vicki Nicholson Associates in India, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Switzerland, and the UK

There were also some 2018 international client deliveries made by our own Eric Beckman in Canada, Dubai, India, and Singapore.

Visit our website to find more about our global network.

What’s Going On: Everyone is Interested in Intelligent Risk-Taking! (excerpt)

by Nelson Soken, Ph.D.

Why Now?

As 2018 draws to a close, I would like to share some thoughts on a trend that has emerged this year… an uptick in interest and demand for our Intelligent Risk-Taking and Creating a Culture for Risk and Innovation programs! Why the sudden interest? Organizations are recognizing that keeping competitive requires actively managing multiple options in parallel with improving speed and agility. The exponential rate at which data is generated, global economic uncertainty related to trade and tariffs, and how quickly decisions must be acted upon in an ever-changing global environment contribute to this complexity.

So how does one deal with this complexity, bordering on chaos? How does an organization create an environment where decisions can be made quickly to capitalize on opportunities (gains) while minimizing potential downside risks, analysis paralysis, and/or making decisions without adequate analysis? One option that companies are seeking as a remedy is more “intelligent” decision-making and risk-taking, and thus, a growing interest in these two programs. We focus on the required mindsets and skill-sets for intelligent risk-taking. These include:

1. An understanding of what intelligent risk-taking is and isn’t (e.g., intelligent risks, under-intelligent risks, and “the one that got away”—risks that should have been taken but were not)
2. Clarity about the organizational culture and context for risk-taking, including its operating principles, norms, values, and key risk arenas
3. Insight into one’s own approach and attitude toward risk-taking and that of others (both the rational and emotional aspects)
4. Management of an 8-step process for planning and implementing an intelligent risk through active management of the key factors, implications, consequences of different solution paths toward a desired future state (Envision, Choose, Assess, Adjust, Prepare, Commit, Act, Evaluate/Learn)
5. The use of processes and tools to manage those risks that are not easily quantifiable, as well as those that can be measured
6. Commitment to build and maintain organizational support for intelligent risk-taking. 

Often, when working with organizations, we provide an analysis of an Organizational Risk Assessment Survey* that provides a snapshot of how employees perceive their culture around risk-taking...

The article continues on our website.

*Follow this link to see a demo (not interpreted) of our Organizational Risk Assessment Survey.

Recipe from our 18th Annual Virtual Feast: Savory Arugula Bread

Lauren Powers, SVP Business Development

Lauren says: “Rainy summer days at the beach require a project. And there is nothing I like more than cooking with my daughters and discovering a new recipe.

Emma recalled that she had seen a year earlier this great sounding recipe in a magazine for savory arugula bread that was more like a cake, and the Internet hunt began. There is a French name for these savory cakes, “cake salé” and they are often served as a nightly nibble. We could not find the original recipe but we did find two that seemed interesting and merged them to create our very own, largely adapting it from diplomatickitchen, 2011. There are tons on the Internet with all sorts of savory ingredients that we will continue to try. Search savory cakes for other ideas based on what you have in the fridge.

We took this out of the oven just in time to take it to my sister’s that night as a pre-dinner nibble. It got rave reviews! Serve it with dinner, or as an appetizer. I definitely enjoyed a small piece for breakfast the next day.

It will now be making an appearance at holiday time!

Visit our website for this recipe and several more!