The secrets to solving today’s complex leadership challenges

As a leader, you're expected to chart new ground, but what happens when the ground itself is shifting? The most tried and true leaders are struggling to cope with the impact of the H1N1 pandemic, the fallout from the recession, the emerging labour shortage, the increasing demands and impact of the younger workforce and more.

In this new climate, tried and tested principles of business and leadership are falling short and even proven leaders can feel like they're sinking into quicksand. The reason that these tried and true principles are falling short is that they start at the wrong place for today's uncertain, complex, even chaoitc world. They are missing a key step.

Unfortunately, the problems today are often too complex for one person to have a clear vision of what to do. You often only have part of the picture.

As a leader you're supposed to know what's happening and where you want to go. You're supposed to have all the answers and make all the decisions.

It used to be that decisions were black-and-white. Today it can seem like it's all shades of grey. With so many players involved, you're never quite sure how everyone is going to act or react, and yet you're responsible for the outcome. And that can feel like walking out onto quicksand.

In this uncertain, complex, chaotic world, you can't simply start by building a plan and executing it. There's a vital step that's missing.

In moving forward today you have to start by actively engaging all the key players and finding the common ground, the common purpose that you share for moving forward. Your common shared sense of purpose is the foundation for bringing all the players together to co-create the way forward because all these players collectively have all the pieces of the puzzle. This is the practice of Co-Creative Leadership.

By creating a common shared purpose, you connect together stakeholders who may otherwise have been at odds with each other. With the common agenda of shared purpose, you can then work with all the players to identify the shares principles by which you will collectively move forward.

Only then can you collectively co-create a plan with clear timelines and and accountabilities that everyone buys into because they have all helped to build them - together.

Purpose-Pinciples-Plan

These are the stepping stones for gaining traction and moving forward in this uncertain world. Only then do you have the collective commitment and clarity for moving forward.

And that's exactly what our expertise is at Chrysalis - helping you and your stakeholders collectively co-create:

• Shared clarity of purpose
• Shared and clear principles of engagement for moving forward
• Shared plan with clear timelines and accountabilities that everyone buys into because they collectively co-created them

To find out how Chrysalis supports you in crafting your collective purpose, principles and plan for moving forward, click here.

What makes Co-Creative Leadership effective

While the traditional leader was supposed to have all the answers and make all the decisions, the Co-Creative Leader acknowledges that no one person has all the answers. In fact, even a senior management team does not have all the knowledge of the organization as a whole.

Co-Creative Leaders admit that they don't have all the information or 'the answer' and engage and tap into the collective wisdom of the broader community of stakeholders. By engaging all the players in strategic and meaningful conversations, the Co-Creative Leader goes beyond traditional negotiation to allow the entire community of players to understand each other and create new win-win-win ways forward.

Co-Creative Leaders practice the Art of Hosting and Convening Strategic and Meaningful Conversations to find new ways forward. These conversations are the DNA of effective learning organizations.

Traditional facilitation can involve, with a good facilitator, up to fifty people, with the facilitator up front conducting the process. In contrast, hosting can actively involve literally hundreds or thousands of people in forging the way forward.

Imagine taking your entire organization - a hundred people, a thousand, two thousand - away for three days to develop your strategic plan.
That's what hosting allows you to do.

In fact, at Chrysalis, we've found that a strategic combination of both facilitation of small groups and hosting large communities produces powerful results.

To find out how we can help you engage your key players, click here.

The biggest problem with most plans is implementation because there is no buy-in and commitment.

Imagine the commitment if everyone has been a part of creating the plan.

The challenge here is the perceived loss of control by the leader. The reality is that there is no control anyway if people don't buy into your plan. It takes courage to step out and share the power. That's the courage of the Co- Creative Leader.

And, of course, it takes time. That's the second biggest argument to engaging everyone. "There's no time. We have to act now."

The reality is that acting quickly without engaging all the key players can actually cause more problems than what you started with.

Why you don't have the time to do it quickly

It can often feel like everyone is after you for your time and input, that everything has to be done right now, and there's no time to think things through properly.

Traditional leadership calls for quick, decisive action, even when all of the facts and perspectives are not known. Unfortunately, that lack of information and limited perspective can cause far more problems down the line than you were facing to start with.

It seems you never have the time to do it right the first time, but you always have the time to fix the problems that emerge later.

In contrast to this, the Co-Creative Leader invests the time required to engage all players in strategic and meaningful conversations. They also invest the time required to go through the U-Process, a proven framework for initiating large- scale change when many players are involved. The U-Process is the difference between action and wise action.

The first stage of the U-Process is sensing, where you go out to the system, ideally with representation from the whole system, and find out what all the different views and perspectives and perceptions are.

Only when you have the whole picture through sensing can you move to the second stage, presencing, at the bottom of the "U", where you dig underneath all you've learned to surface the root, systemic issues that are causing the symptoms that most people are reacting to.

It is only at this point, when you have identified the root systemic issues that you move up the right-hand side of the "U" into realizing to start paving ways forward. It is here where real innovation happens, where you can find new ways forward that you never dreamed possible before.

This is the difference between taking action and taking wise action.

Click here to find out how you can make this difference.

Where Co-Creative Leadership Starts

Co-Creative Leadership starts within. Co-Creative Leaders first and foremost have a clear sense of purpose - they are absolutely connected to their inner core of meaning and motivation - and they connect that purpose with their work.

The traditional model of leadership says that you need to focus on facts and data and hard business. That's why it's so limited.

Truly high-performing individuals and organizations have a clear sense of purpose and meaning in their work - that is why they excel on a consistent, ongoing basis.

Once Co-Creative Leaders are anchored in their own sense of purpose, they help their core team create a shared sense of purpose in their work. This can be challenging with teams that have been working with long-standing tensions and conflict (working in spite of themselves, you could say) but it can be done.

At the bottom of the "U", in presencing, Co-Creative Leaders connects their personal sense of purpose with the issues that they are dealing with to identify what aspects of these problems - and their solutions - they will "own" to make sure the ways forward come to pass. Only with passion comes commitment.

If there are other individuals and organizations involved, Co-Creative Leaders continue this process to grow a strong sense of shared purpose for the work they are doing. Purpose (the "why") comes first. The how and what comes much easier once you know the "why".

Chrysalis has long-standing expertise in helping leaders connect with their core sense of purpose and craft their personal leadership from that base. Contact us to find out how.

How Chrysalis Helps You Grow Co-Creative Leadership

Chrysalis focuses on evolving leadership with the fusion of the Art of Hosting and the U-Process to engage all key players in creating new win-win-win solutions that everyone co-creates and is committed to making work.

We help Co-Creative Leaders host the meaningful conversations they need, and we act as strategic thinking partners for Co-Creative Leaders in finding new ways forward. We support you in awakening possibilities and in bringing forth what you know is possible.

Our Discovery Program has been helping leaders gain absolute clarity on their core purpose and how to use that clarity to create the success they want for over 15 years. We also work with leaders one-on-one with our Purpose Coaching to gain that same focus.

We can support you with coaching, and we can help you bring even dysfunctional teams into alignment and high-performance.

E-mail us to find out more about Co-Creative Leadership and how we can help you grow Co-Creative Leadership for yourself, your organization and your community.