Where you lead, I can follow

I was facilitating a meeting this afternoon of a team of amazing leaders. I assembled this team to work on implementing a grant that we received to bring primary health care to people living with mental illness. It is always significant to the members to be part of such a nobel team trying to do their best work on behalf of those in need. While the meeting was going on a member in the room was really annoyed with my style of leading.

You see I have some strong beliefs in people ability to lead. I really do be believe everyone is a leader and a follower. I also believe that everyone is a patient and everyone is a doctor and a teacher or a student. If we look deep enough we all have something that is our talent, skill or ability.

This means that we all have something to give to the situation. When you can change the model by giving the power and accountability to a well-meaning group of people great things can happen. Whether the situation is leading our family, our team, our church our work, seriously does not matter. This team has been together a very short time. But has grown strong in their intentionality to achieving our goals. They were the same team who was responsible for writing the $1.6 M grant that would bring health care to those in need.

I wondered today, how did this team become so committed in such as short period? What was the element that made this group work. It was amazing to watch. Every member was contributing. Each person had tasks that they were accountable for and seemed to clearly know their charge and was intentional about getting tasks accomplished. As I reflected tonight, I discovered the binding concept that brought this team together. It was their intention to change the system. They are committed to see things differently.

They are not a group people who just want to sit around talking about the change, rather they want to make the change happen. The power of intention blazed around the boardroom table at the speed of light.  I liken this type of change process to that of one which feels like building a car as we drive. The change philosophy that is most effective is not linear. Our world no longer operates linearly. We are a generation that has to manage information very quickly. Being able to look at 3-4 computer screens at a time to make clear and effective decisions. There is very little room for decision made by your gut. Our decisions have to back up with data and analytics. My theory is that to get traction on change we must have about 5-7 components of the change happening at one time. This is very hard for sometimes for people who are part of the change like the person annoyed on my team today.

The best part of watching this team in action today was that they were are a group of people who wanted to change. They were intentional and accountable to completing all that need to be accomplished. Strong teams make life good.