Our Biggest Challenge
6 years, 6 months, 1 day
21 January 2023
Last week I wrote that our biggest challenge was mindset, and I am indebted to Nikki van Dam who responded by sharing with me the Inner Development Goals.
It posits 23 ‘skills and qualities’ brigaded into 5 dimensions: Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating and Acting, which, it suggests, are what individuals and organisations need in order to steer the world towards a sustainable future, and deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. It reminds me of Mike Berners-Lee's ‘8 Thinking Skills for Today’s World’ in his wonderful book, There is No Planet B.
There is a lot of wisdom in such frameworks, but writing them down, reading them, absorbing them and debating them doesn’t actually get us anywhere. The real question is what can we do that will help us as individuals to develop those skills for ourselves, and support their development in others. Here are a few suggestions:
Deliberately and systemically make space in team and/or client discussions for every individual to ‘check-in’ at the start with what is front of mind for them, to build empathy and a stronger sense of team.
Routinely ask everyone involved, whatever their seniority, for their perspective and ideas, to try to avoid group-think and jumping to obvious conclusions.
Set the example in the way you act. I still remember nearly 30 years ago when I was in the Civil Service, a moment when everyone was running around to deal with some urgent Ministerial request, and the team’s director came into the part of the floor where we worked and quietly asked everyone to sit down, and then took control of a much calmer and more productive discussion about what needed to be done.
Find a personal mentor and take the time to discuss anything and everything with them on a regular basis. And seek out opportunities to access professional coaching, for example through a personal development course. And then try to drop all of your judgements about what is and isn’t useful or embarrassing and embrace the meditation, breathing exercises, reading out poetry or whatever else they throw at you. I’ve been fortunate to have a personal coaching relationship for more than a decade now, and I find it hugely valuable.
Finally, on a regular basis, find space for some reflective time. You might do that as I do by writing a diary. Or when walking up hills. Or gardening. Or over a glass of wine on a Friday evening. Looking back, even if just over the last day or two, gives us the chance to remember where we made a difference, moments that made us happy, things we might do better next time. But above all what it is that our existence is achieving in the world.