FountainBlue

Our September 14 Workshop Topic: Infusing Creativity, Humor, and Play in the Workplace, with Kathy Klotz-Guest, founder, Powerfully Funny

A couple of months ago, we launched our creativity series on the topic of 'Awaken Your Intuition', which opened up our thinking about the importance of creativity at work. We then followed up with a conversation on 'Welcoming Creativity Into Our Lives', which helped us move from the creative to the practical. To round out our three-month creativity series, we will focus this month's workshop on 'Infusing Creativity, Humor, and Play in the Workplace'.

The work-life question is ever-prevalent, particularly in the Silicon Valley. Many people who stay in the valley enjoy working hard and playing hard, welcoming opportunities to balance the two. But do we need to delineate the intense, results-oriented side of us from the more creative, fun-loving side of us? Can we balance the two, and if so, what is the business and personal value of doing so? The current demands of innovation require both. Productivity does mean process, but companies that undermine play, creativity and humor will ultimately hurt their own innovation. Fun and play are key ingredients for sustaining a healthy corporate culture that nurtures creativity.

Below are kernels of wisdom she shared at the meeting. 

• Give yourself permission to laugh
• Know that there's an inner critic, which constrains your creativity and monitors your actions.
• Find ways to combine known things in new ways, first in a playful context, and note how it can impact the way you solve problems and think and act at work.
• Have fun! Enjoy the process.
• Creativity is not a formula. It is messy and wants to be free.
• Everyone has their own special form of creativity.
• Humor and creativity drive original thinking which brings personal and professional benefits.
• Exercise your humor muscles regularly. Note Kathy's suggested readings.
• Work with people who embrace creativity and see things with a sense of humor.
• Having a sense of humor is an indicator of success, even at the executive level.
• Find the surprise and discovery around you.
• Find the a-ha in the ha-ha.
• Don't let fear of failure inhibit your love of discovery and exploration.
• The greatest threat to creativity is success. It encourages people to replicate the model/process/product, etc., rather than keep being original.
• Embrace the creativity and humor in others. Be a 'yes and' kind of person rather than a 'yes but' kind of person.
• Balance the possibility with the practicality, at work and at play.
• Be willing to mingle and be friends with people who are different than you.
• Make the time to be creative, to laugh.

• It's good for you personally and also good for the workplace.
• Be spontaneous.
• Define your boundaries, and then open up possibilities
• Be supportive of creativity in others, as it will benefit all.
• Be a generous listener.
• Make creativity a team sport!
• Don't surround yourself with people with CAVE mentality (Citizens Against Virtually Everything)
• Do surround yourself with people who will support you and empower you, and who would not judge you.
• The more you say it, voice it, the more you will realize the possibility.
• When you run into something unexpected (luck - good or bad), ask yourself the question, 'What Does This Make Possible?'
• The Fear of Failure means that most people won't even bother establishing goals.
• People who don't establish goals cannot achieve them.
  

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In today’s demanding and competitive workplace, leaders need every possible advantage to achieve success – for themselves and their teams – and perform at the top of their game. Leadership and career consultant, and multiple Ironman finisher Bobbie LaPorte led us as we explored the proven relationship between physical fitness and career success, discussed the implications for your sustained performance as a corporate leader and discovered what "Getting to the Top of Your Game" means for you.

For this session, we brought together leadership concepts from our previous sessions and focused on how being fit and feeling your best help would help you address the challenges and opportunities that leadership presents and how the important practices of self-leadership and personal accountability can help leaders more effectively leverage their leadership style and inspire others to also lead with power, influence and integrity.

The workshop provided the information and tools to help us more effectively lead, but also addressed our current leadership challenges and honored our leadership successes in an interactive session beneficial to all, without the employment of calisthenics. Below are notes from our thought-provoking discussion.

Define what it means to be "At The Top of Your Game"

Bringing out the best in yourself

• Energy to do all you need to do
• Ability to create, innovate, be strategic
• Feel "in charge" of your work and career
• Have a high level of personal effectiveness (from objectives to follow-through, to results, with little self-doubt)
• Play to your strength
• Self-confidence/self-awareness and self-esteem, assertiveness, with humility
• Emotional and physical stamina
• See things more clearly
• Persistence/stick-to-it-ness
• See higher potential, vision
• Leading from any chair, even if organization's leadership is flawed
• Prepared to address and deal with day-to-day challenges, leveraging strengths, skills, tools, resources; responding vs. reacting
• Good personal stewardship (of your body, of your potential)
• Disciplined
• Using sports to find balance - to give you a mental and physical break

Yourself in relation to others

• Other-centeredness, confidence without arrogance
• Seeing, realizing, empowering potential in others
• Influencing others
• Setting boundaries between self and others and work
• Working with Coaches and mentors, also supporting others
• Building a community of support
• A role model which epitomizes someone at the top of their profession - like Michael Jordan for basketball

Understand the proven relationship between fitness and career success

• University of Massachusetts (2004) and Virginia Tech (2003) with Cooper Clinic with several hundred executives in a multi-year study found that leaders are better able to handle demands of today’s workplace
• University of Georgia (2007) study found that Managers at all fitness levels experienced sharper focus, greater confidence, stronger will

Learn how self-leadership and fitness can increase your effectiveness

• Self-leadership – the process of influencing yourself to achieve your personal goals; personal accountability
• Achieving "fitness" helps you feel your best and is an essential component of personal effectiveness

What are the benefits of using self-leadership to "get fit"?

• Discipline and drive
• Stamina & endurance
• Increased self-knowledge
• Persistence
• Perseverance
• Risk-taking; courage to fail/lose
• Taking the "long view"
• Patience
• Endurance
• Pushing self; realizing your potential
• Doing more than you think you can
• Seeing the best in others
• Mental toughness

Longer-term benefits might include:

• Building confidence, mental toughness
• Achieving more than you think you can do ("crossing the finish line")
• Demonstrating commitment and purpose
• Role modeling behavior for others
• Leveraging leadership style – making it your own

Making the connection between fitness training and discipline and corporate performance:

• Goal setting - specific, challenging yet achievable
• Managing your Self-talk
• Consciously providing Self-reward/positive reinforcements
• Leveraging Mental imagery (picturing success)
• Support and coaching

Develop a personal development plan for success:

• What are Your Business & Leadership Challenges? - List your Top 3
• Consider how the benefits of getting fit help you address these?
• Review your goals and benefits; Choose top 2; define outcomes – how will you make the connection?
• Develop plan for "first steps"
• Connect with Bobbie LaPorte or your coach or accountability partner for a 30/60 day check in

For more information:

• The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education by W.E. Deming
• The Goal, A Process of Ongoing Improvement by E. Goldratt
• The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Improving Organizational Performance by G. Langley
• Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos by D. Wheeler
• Understanding Statistical Process Control by D. Wheeler
• Leadership On the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading by Ron Heifitz
• The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work by Peter Block

We left intrigued and inspired by the conversation and empowered into action. We look forward to continuing our discussion on how to elicit effective leadership skills in ourselves, and in those we work and play with. Below are notes from our discussion.

Thoughts on leading with power:

• You are completely responsible on how to use your power, grow your power, balance it with influence and integrity.
• Be willing to stretch your comfort zone.
• Understand your passions, and your commitments. Take action on your commitments.
• Know your skills. Build on your skills and strengths.
• Build relationships bigger than goals. Relationships are the foundation of power and influence.
• Listening leads to relationships, not listening leads to fragmentation and suffering. Build power through listening and engaging others.
• Learn as you lead.
• Power: The ability to do or act.

• Surround yourself with empowering, like-minded people.
• Understand your skills and build relationships and communities which would respect your skills, complement your skills.
• Build relationships bigger than goals. Relationships are the foundation of power and influence.
• Listening leads to relationships, not listening leads to fragmentation and suffering. Build influence by listening.
• Be the kind of leader who cares, shows character, is competent and consistent and shows commitment.
• Influence: the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.

• Understand how you can be healthy and whole.
• Understand the internal conversations you're listening to now, and be prepared to think deeply about why you are having these conversations and how you can shift them so that you're actions, commitments, communications are in alignment with who you are.
• Know where you are headed, why you are headed there. Ensure that your power, your influence is in alignment with your direction.
• Start first with where you are headed - your passions and values. Then build relationships and communicate and engage to build power and influence toward a common vision.
• Be flexible enough to allow your passions, values, desires to evolve.
• Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not. Oprah Winfrey
• Integrity: wholeness, perfect condition

• In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, Deborah Anacona (2/2007) http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b02/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=R0702E
• What Leaders Really, Do John P. Kotter (12/2001 excerpt) http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=R0111F&referral=1043

Although one doesn't have to lead in order to communicate one does need to communicate well in order to lead effectively. Understanding and then expanding your communication style will positively impact how you are received and enlarge the range of people to whom you can meaningfully connect to in your network.

Communication skills are among the most powerful tools available to leaders today. Great communicators listen more than they talk, and ask more questions rather than advocating for their particular point of view, and have clear goals for their communication. They are aware of their own communication challenges and strengths, alert to different communication styles, know how to communicate effectively with these various styles, and can continue to communicate effectively even in stressful or challenging situations.

In this action-packed and fun-filled workshop, Kimberly Wiefling enabled us to understand and be effective with different communication styles, raise our awareness of how our communications are being received by others, and inspire us to take action to more effectively communicate with a broader range of audiences. We'll not only learn, but practice, listen generously, be a "thinking partner", and creating a "thinking environment" to rapidly create a meaningful connection and positive rapport with people from widely varying backgrounds. You will leave this workshop with a fresh perspective on the power of your communication and a commitment to implement some of the practical ideas immediately in order to achieve your goals with others.

Below are also notes and comments from all of you, our active participants.

• Identify and empathize with others
• genuine and authentic
• focused on interests of others
• Open-minded
• Generous Listening

• Infer, make assumptions
• Interrupt
• too shy or self-conscious to network
• too pressured to 'fill the silence' when networking
• highjack conversations - turn them to talk about yourself rather than listening to what someone else is communicating

• It's easier to speak if you've listened first
• It's hard to do generous listening, it takes practice
• It's hard to break the habit of interrupting
• It's hard to avoid "helping" speaking with your ideas
• We need to find ways to push conversation forward as a listener
• It's hard not to use 'why' questions, rather than 'help me to understand' phrasing
• It's hard not to use 'how' and jump to action too quickly. Ask 'what would make that possible' instead
• It's hard to communicate when others don't share your perspective - speak about touchy-feely things to engineers for example