As a leader, how do you support the development of relationships among the members of your staff?
Relationships: The Pathways of Organization
Relationships are the pathways to the intelligence in the system. Through relationships, information is created and transferred, the organization's identity expands to include more stakeholders, and the enterprise becomes wiser. The more access people have to one another, the more possibilities there are. Without connections, nothing happens. ... In self-organizing systems, people need access to everyone; they need to be free to reach anywhere in the organization to accomplish work.
To respond with speed and effectiveness, people need access to the intelligence of the whole system. Who is available, what do they know, and how can they reach each other? People need opportunities to "bump up" against others in the system, making the unplanned connections that spawn new ventures or better-integrated responses.
From: Finding Our Way by Margaret Wheatley
Published by: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
I love this part of the post: "People need opportunities to "bump up" against others in the system, making the unplanned connections that spawn new ventures or better-integrated responses." Some of the most valuable learning that happens - happens when we are not planning for it. I have learned that being attuned to others and really listening to their ideas, concerns, questions - pushes my thinking and motivates me to inquire further into my own practice. Implementing any new idea really requires the knowledge of the research and the willingness and persistence to try it out and adapt it for a specific context. Let's keep bumping!
ReplyDeleteThanks for these insights, Theresa. Your comments make me think about what this means for us as leaders. It means that we need to be out and about and not stuck in our offices. If we believe in the importance of these relationships and the need to 'bump' into each other, then we need to out and about. Leaders who stick to their offices will never create these sorts of environments for learning.
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