By Lora Dow

Since 1998, Beloit College in Beloit, WI, has published an annual “Mindset List” of the incoming freshmen. It’s alternately amusing and appalling to think about the world as it once was, how it will never be again, and what effect that has on a person’s psyche.

After you check out the mindset of the class of 2014, I’d encourage you to think about this thought from the introduction:

“They will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information and knowledge. So it will be up to their professors to help them.  A generation accustomed to instant access will need to acquire the patience of scholarship.

Soon enough, these freshmen will be applying for positions in your organization. You can bemoan their differences from you. You can feel threatened by their adeptness with technology and their impatience with “intolerably slow email.”

Or you can recognize that their energy and enthusiasm is an essential ingredient to organizational success. You can acknowledge and accept that you have something to teach them. You can nurture that eagerness and challenge it with meaningful work.

After all, leadership isn’t an app.

by the Donor By Design Team

One of the more fascinating discussions at the 2010 Global Leadership Summit was with Terri Kelly – CEO of WL Gore and Associates. You may know them as the creators of Gore-tex among other things.

Since its founding, WL Gore and Associates has had a very loose and flexible leadership structure.  Task forces and special teams take priority over departments or divisions.  No one is ever given an assignment, instead they must choose to accept it.  Most interestingly, leadership is defined by followership. The resources asssigned to any one project directly correlate to the ability of the project’s creator to convince others that his or her idea is worthwhile.

Your peers choose you as a leader simply because they choose to work with you and believe that your idea is a good one.  The role of leader is earned each day.  Kelly herself was chosen to be CEO by her fellow employees.

If leadership is measured by followership, how do you rank as a leader?

By Lora Dow

The Donor By Design team spent a couple of days at a leadership conference last week.  It was a great experience, full of ideas and insights that we’ll be sharing with you here in the blog and – if you’re a client – in our day-to-day work with you.

One of the ideas that made all of us sit up and take notice was the idea that some tensions or problems in organizations are better left unresolved.

Take a moment with that.

Some things are better if you don’t fix them.

The idea, articulated by Andy Stanley, and echoed by other speakers at the conference, is that often healthy conflict can be leveraged to move organizations to higher levels of performance. Stanley encouraged us to consider those issues regarding which you may have said, more than once, “I’m not going to have this conversation again.”  Does it keep coming up again anyway?  Why?

It may be because there truly is no real answer.  It may be a tension inherent to what you’re trying to accomplish: a tension to be managed, not solved.  In these cases, he suggested that a leader must be able to recognize and argue the merits and downsides of each side and more importantly, find the “rhythm” of the tension, recognizing when one side merits priority and then when the other should take focus.

It made me think of a teeter-totter. (remember those?) The point is not to stay balanced in the middle, but to move up and down, back and forth. If one side dominates, the fun is over.

Some conflict is necessary for a healthy organization.  And, indeed, if you play it right, it can be the inspiration for true growth.

So, for example, instead of trying to “solve” the conflict between systems and flexibility, lead through it.  Neither side will “win” if one side “wins.” After all, there is a time and place for both systems and flexibility. 

Challenge each side to see the upside of the other side. Systems-oriented people need to flex a little to accommodate unforeseen circumstances and people who are more oriented to go-with-the-flow need to realize the power of systems and procedures.

You need both.  However, from time to time, they are going to bump up against each other.  Andy’s message to us was “manage it.”  Because in managing the tension (versus ignoring it or forcing the issue one way or the other), your organization will improve.  Systems, where they are needed, will be streamlined and more effective, but your organization will be more nimble to deal with new challenges and opportunities.

This concept doesn’t just apply to businesses or churches.  It also has a deep meaning in a person’s day-to-day life.

Imagine giving up the struggle to find “work-life balance.”  Imagine simply acknowledging that it’s never going to happen perfectly each day, and instead work to find a balanced rhythm between work and home life over time.  Sometimes you’ll need to focus more on your family and sometimes work will be more important.  Can you be OK with that?  And, can you see where allowing yourself to shift back and forth between competing interests allows you to move forward whereas struggling for perfect equality can leave you stymied?

Jim Collins, another speaker at the conference, put it this way:  Great leaders learn to say “and” instead of “or.”  They can balance two competing concepts and make both of them happen.  They know when to make a decision and they know that sometimes those decisions can be “yes” to both sides.

As a group, we spent a lot of time talking about this concept and what it means to us, to our clients and in our own lives.

What do you think?  Is it time to rethink the balancing act?