Did you wake up this morning and get yourself a beer?
Is your future uncertain?
And is the end always near?
If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, please join us for an uplifting session of Cornerstone Corporate Bingo and experience an agile pivot in these unprecedented times.
Just kidding. Here’s the serious bit. Since Melbourne’s first lockdown in March, Cornerstone has been hosting online events that we call ‘Thinking Sprints’. These 1.25 hour sessions are fast paced, interactive dialogues that give you the opportunity to think, express and exchange views with a small, select group of (no more than 8) business peers, with a focus on your own organisation.
For the first 3 months of Sprinting, the focusing topic was: ‘Beyond COVID-19: Calm or Chaos’. (For a summary of the insights from these Sprints, read this short blog, or listen to this 30 minute podcast)
After the Melbourne lockdown no. 2, we changed the focus to ‘Living, working and leading, with a pervasive, persistent pandemic.’ It was during one of these Sprints that a participant said something like: “We are still at ‘wave one’ of change; still in our historical boxes looking out and being defined by our problems. When do we get beyond our problems and into possibilities? There are opportunities and possibilities that we haven’t even thought of yet.” I found his comments arresting and my perspective shifted, which is part of our intent in hosting these ‘Thinking Sprints’. When Victoria comes out of this next wave, it is quite possible that another Australian state will be experiencing their next wave and so the waves may roll on. Even when Australia has eradicated this diabolically clever, cunning and baffling virus, other parts of the world will undoubtedly be experiencing their next waves. Whether you are local or global, either the ripple effects or the tsunami will impact you and your organisation. We have to get out of the problem box and into the space of opportunity and possibilities.
One of the ways we can help each other do this, is to tell the stories that we hear about - those organisations that are thriving; that are innovating; that are leveraging their collective, creative intelligence to rethink and re-shape strategy. Indeed, this sharing of good news was the focus of a recent CEO Circle session where its convenor, Philippe Etienne, said: “I can’t think of a time that has been more demanding of leaders to lead, to create context, to help those around them focus on what they can do rather than agonise about what they can’t. The many examples I’ve seen of people throughout organisations step up and demonstrate true leadership has been incredibly energising.”
Think about the fancy restaurants, having never entered the take away market before and now doing take away for customers who don’t normally do take away; redesigning the meal so that you finish the cooking at home without compromise to quality and detail.
Or what about Victoria’s abalone farmers - particularly those around Mallacoota where the major manufacturing plant burnt down in the January bushfires. A temporary factory, built in record time, will enable the harvesters to shuck, rumble, remove the roughage and send off to a contract canning operation, instead of the pre-COVID export of fresh abalone. The facility may also include a high-end retail outlet with cooking classes, shop, café and education centre.
Businesses really do need to do some agile pivoting in these unprecedented times! The AFR recently had an article on strategy (25th July, 2020), advising business leaders to “..link current moves to future outcomes.” Strategic foresight and scenario planning is necessary - not to predict the future, but rather to imagine multiple futures and possibilities.
At Cornerstone, we think the uncertainty and ambiguity facing organisations requires a different kind of thinking. This thinking involves balancing the overuse of positive capability - the need to be right, to be certain, to look at the world from a black or white perspective – and to consciously engage with ‘negative capability’ (French, 2001). This capability requires leaders to sit with, (albeit uncomfortably) the unknown, tolerate the ambiguity and see the world in all manner of grey. It requires leaders to lean into the discomfort of not knowing, in order to allow for the ‘unthought known’ (Bollas, 1987), to rise from the void and provide a way forward that may not have presented itself had negative capability not been engaged with.
Heavy stuff? Maybe - however our experience of engaging in negative capability, is that it lets one’s sub-conscious do the heavy lifting. So in some ways, it’s effortless.
After reading this, and if you still feel like getting yourself a beer upon awakening, and if you are mooching around, singing along with Jim Morrison - “I’ve been down so god damn long, that it looks like up to me” please seek medical / psychological help.
Alternatively, click here to contact us - particularly if you’re interested in joining our next Thinking Sprint, or having us host one with your senior team.
References
French R. (2001) ‘Negative Capability, managing the confusing uncertainties of change’ Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol 15. No. 5 pp 480-492.
Bollas, C. (1987). The shadow of the object: Psychoanalysis of the unthought known. New York:
Columbia University Press.