Focus on Flexibility to Maintain Your Balance
by Grace McGartland
As seen in Words of Mouth!The ability to bend without breaking and adjust easily to change is desired
by most but demonstrated by few. Yet flexible leaders who are willing to change the
playing field will make a difference not only to their organizations but, more
importantly, to themselves.
Flexibility taps our energy and our reserve of enthusiasm. It
loosens the ideas stuck in our mind’s "Chinese finger lock," minimizing the
struggle of both sides of the brain to win and easing the tightness of the lock to allow
the ideas to freely move forward. As an essential attitude, flexibility adds to the medley
a welcome dimension that is often missing in business environments. Headlines everywhere
warn: "Organizations now succeed or fail depending on how well they can adapt to
change, anticipate change, and create positive change." The bottom line is that
change has always been a factor, but today its impact is occurring at lightning speed.
It is true that some of us adjust more easily than others.
For instance, take Sam Walton, founder and president of Wal-Mart Store, Inc. "Change
was his middle name," recalls Sam Walton’s close friend and business associate,
George Billingsley. "He was a terror to travel with. You never knew where you were
going next." Sam Walton was esteemed for his ability to change. Flexibility was often
cited as his most endearing trait.
Developing flexibility is a must because:
- Flexibility forces you to SHIFT among alternatives so you are fully
aware of your own responsibility when making choices.
- Flexibility gives you the ability to DEVELOP a flexible focus that
allows you to maintain your balance while staying on track.
- Flexibility MOVES you toward excellence rather than setting you up
for perfection.
You need to reach out and take the risk that threatens your
boilerplate solutions. Begin increasing flexibility, balance, and personal responsibility
in your organization by checking off areas that provide opportunities to try different
operation modes. Here are a few areas to get you started:
- Work hours of all employees
- The dress code
- How the pay periods or benefits programs are arranged
- A special one-time assignment for an employee
- An award to an individual whose bright idea didn’t work
Then call a meeting to generate ideas on how to do it. Use
these ideas to develop your team’s balance and its own sense of personal
responsibility:
- Physically change their frame of reference: Spend
the whole meeting standing up. Hold the meeting outdoors.
- Dare to be positive: Instead of listing all the
reasons that something won’t work, have your team put on silly glasses and look at
the new horizon. Then ask questions like: How does the situation look from your new
viewing point? What else do you see?
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