My view is that leadership thinking can be based on a simple formula of three imperatives:
Escape + Search = Think
Escape + Search = Think
Escape + Search = Think
DFQ #04:
Post your comment on how you think
ESCAPE + SEARCH = THINK might help
you to become a much better leader.
Leadership is most challenging and rewarding when moving from a cvs to a bvs. It takes courage and skill to move away from the status quo. From my experience, this can be achieved from either formal or informal positions of leadership.
“Escape + Search = Think” provides a clear and powerful summary of what I have experienced but not articulated.
CVS is very restricting – and being struck in it leads to defensive actions, destructive politics, and unproductive, go backwards actions.
BVS on the other hand is very liberating. There is always a BVS.
As a leader, it is your role and job to rise above mediocrity, hopelessness and complaining – and show others how they CAN find a BVS …
… and a BVS always leads to a more productive outcome, and a more valuable result for all concerned.
CVS essentially restricts vision, effectively limiting options and breeds complacency.
BVS on the other hand broadens horizon, adds extra dimensions and opens up the field for creativity & innovation.
BVS, thus will help me open up my mind for looking at things with new perspectives, broaden my vision and will compel me to strive for pushing the limits.
Leadership is about taking people somewhere (leading them from “here”), what better place to be than a BVS? Recognising the CVS & communicating the purpose of the journey is also an important part of leadership.
First, you have to take charge of now & show its limitations – escape.
Then, you have to find & communicate the goal – search.
Next, you have to lead people there – think (for you & them).
ESCAPE + SEARCH = THINK will make me a better leader because it will enable me to provide advice and leadership in a much more effective manner by constantly searching for better ways of approaching issues that need to be addressed.
Most of the time most of us are concerned with justifying / defending a position, which we either have formed ourselves or which has “always been that way”.
ESCAPE + SEARCH = THINK helps us to identify options, alternatives which can be considered and one of those options could provide a much beter way of doing things. Or not doing them.
And that is one feature of good leadership.
When escaping one’s point of view, it is not necessary to discard it, but in escaping one then deliberately searches for alternatives. So Escaping complemented by Searching is a powerful combination for a THINKER.
This tool can continuosly be used at any moment as needed
Progress is not found in cvs. Like Einstein says –
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
As an employer you learn to manage the way you’ve been managed, as a father you normally mimic your own father’s actions – For better or worse most things we do are taught or mimicked. Escaping & searching and I like to add not settling allows you to x10 any situation.
I already use this technique, without giving it this label. It’s a recognition of my introvert thinking styles. My staff would be very familiar with me describing something as a ‘sleep on it’ problem. If I have the time, I find it better to take some time overnight away from pressing office issues to let issues percolate in my brain and connect with other information, whether that be previous experience, bouncing ideas off others, research, etc. It takes some expectation management with staff and colleagues re not having instantaneous answers, but I feel the result is richer and more effective.
Within my role i have to approach situations head on. The Esc + Search = Think is a usefull tool to have espeacially when you have to think outside the square, so to speak.