Yikes! Brain Freeze!

An interesting thing happened to me Sunday morning. Brain Freeze. Regular readers might have notice that instead of its usual Tuesday morning arrival, you received something Sunday morning. Something quite a bit different than my usual musing on things leadership and such. By my mistake…yes, I take full responsibility for my lapse…you received my random musings and travelogue that goes out erratically to those who like to keep up with what I’m doing. I hear that often there’s a interesting idea or two mixed in amongst the other stuff. Usually a few subtle bits of humor that often are not too obscure for readers to actually understand. My therapy, as I think of it. But I do apologize to those who wondered what had dropped in on them.

When I sat down to write this, I realized my mistake. First off, I read it to see what I had subjected you to. After reading, I figured I owed you an apology…see above. Then upon further thought, it occurred to me that there actually are three things deserving of your contemplation that fall out of my mistake.

First off, I made a mistake. It happens to everyone. Unfortunately so many are unwilling to admit to their mistakes so apportion blame everywhere but where it belongs. Instead of taking responsibility and fixing the mistake rapidly…they let it fester and add to its negative effects. As I thought about this it occurred to me that often the measure of true leadership is being willing to take full responsibility, full accountability for what occurrs on your watch.  Even if it really wasn’t your fault.

Second, I noticed that I did something I never do in this endeaver. I put in a bit of a plug for one of my activities: EOS Implementer. A subtle plug, but still a plug. I won’t repeat it here but hope you noticed the three highlighted words and their explanations. If not, go back and find them. Vision, Traction, Healthy. Read the definitions. Think about them and then think about your organization. Does your organization fully meet the definitions? If not, you have work to do.

Third, I ended with a bit of information about the young people who will be entering your organizations in the years to come. Forget the humorous inserts about my mental condition and think about the implications of digital dementia for your organization. Every one of you is going to face this in the years to come and will have to adjust your organization to accomodate it. The time to begin this journey is now. It is already upon you and is only going to grow. The successful will not only adjust and accommodate but figure out how to take advantage of the shifts in thinking, the shifts in ways of working, the shifts in interests and desires.

May all your mistakes be as mine, an opportunity to find the gems hiding behind the first blush of angst and embarrassment.