Aligning Your Culture, Using Curiosity at Work, & More
Welcome to the Outside Performance newsletter. Each week, I write about topics, people, and ideas that I find interesting and inspirational; following my own curiosity to ignite the spark in others. Join by subscribing below:
In today’s edition:
Quote - Changing Your Perspective
Framework - Using Curiosity at Work
Article - Culture: The Importance of Living What You Stand For
Idea - How to Boost Creativity
Podcast - Leading by Nature
Quote
“A lion chased me up a tree, and I greatly enjoyed the view from the top.” - Confucius
There’s always a different way of looking at things in life. Not only can we look at a negative situation in a positive light, but often we gain something we didn’t have access to without the situation.
Change your environment - go for a walk - and see how your perspective can shift.
Framework
How to use the ‘four stages of curiosity’ to help you at work
Terry Heick is a leading critical thinker. He has worked with a whole range of organisations - from start-ups, to schools and universities, to corporations like Microsoft, to political bodies like The White House.
Terry created a learning model called the ‘four stages of curiosity’ to explain how, as human beings, we use our curiosity to carry out self-directed learning:
The four stages of curiosity in Terry Heick’s model can be used in a wider application for approaching new topics, to quickly understand their relevance and wider impacts on you, your business and its customers:
Process: I want to understand the process; the system; how something works - begin by mapping the system, part of the system or process you need to understand; you can use a mind map for this. This process helps us to join dots either now or at a later stage.
Content: I want to understand this content - what information can you find on what you have mapped; what is it telling you? This could be from within your organisation or outside of it (eg private companies, regulators, research institutions).
Transfer: Look at my knowledge within new contexts - following review of your content, what findings are produced if you transfer your learning into new contexts? Can you see new or consistent themes emerging in different areas?
Self: Why is this important for myself; my business, my customers - understand why what you’ve learned may be important and impactful for you, your organisation or your customers. Look at how this might influence your actions or direction.
Next time you approach a new topic requiring some in-depth investigation, actively think about how you can use your curiosity to help you.
Article
The Value of Authentic Culture
Don’t pretend to be something you’re not
An interesting article on the importance of being authentic when it comes to defining your culture at work.
Some key highlights:
Understand the market you are operating in; its restrictions and limitations - if you are a regulated financial services firm, setting a freewheeling, high risk-taking culture won’t work. Encouraging your employees to act like they are in a small, disruptive start-up when they need to manage risk, will lead to cultural misalignment and lack of clarity. This will impact business performance.
Remove the ‘Say-Do’ gap - understanding your market as well as your purpose will allow you to ensure that the cultural values are realistic, and employees and business purpose are culturally aligned. This will reduce the ‘say-do’ gap, increase engagement and help employees feel ‘at home’ in the organisation (provided you have hired for the same values).
Align cultural values to business strategy and performance - if you are working in a highly regulated environment, it doesn’t mean that the company cannot be a great, innovative place to work. But, being honest about the strategic factors important to the business will allow everyone to be working towards the same, common goal - ‘…And this is where the real magic starts to happen’.
Idea
Try something new to get creative
We can all fall into the safety trap, particularly as we get older, of doing the things we know we are good at…and avoiding those that we are less proficient in.
Yet, learning something new, or approaching a task we think we suck at, is a great way to force the brain to problem solve and get creative juices flowing.
So, embrace more of the new, and don’t worry about the results - you’ll be benefitting in any event.
Podcast
Leading By Nature
Giles Hutchins is an Executive Coach, Author and Podcaster, and current Chairman of the Future Fit Leadership Academy.
His podcast is a great listen for anyone with an interest in how business needs to better align to principles of sustainability, and for those who want to ensure business exists to also benefit the natural world.
His latest podcast is with Dinah Nieberg, Co-Founder and COO of Blue Green Future.
That’s it for this week’s edition, I hope you enjoyed it. It is a first edition and so, like the advice above advocates, I have certainly boosted my own creativity during this session of writing.
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