June 16, 2021

Want to Be More Productive?

There are seminal moments that punctuate each of our lives in business.

Usually, those moments don’t happen within the business, do they?
They happen elsewhere.

They happen because we Got Away.

(Which reminds me of an old, old, (old!) song called ‘Get Away’ by cool R&B and jazz musician, Georgie Fame.

In one line he looks far beyond the horizon of years, and predicts the breathless memories that will be created between him and his Love.

And says: “I Know It’ll Be Because We Got Away”)

Today – this lunchtime – I was ‘Away’.
Saying farewell to a 96-year-old member of our family.
My mum’s elder sister.

Standing there, beneath that ancient tree, beneath the peace of its magnificent canopy… my mind and heart Got Away.

And I thought of matters more important, more infinitely foundational, than the noise that invaded my mind over muesli-grapes-and-banana this morning.

The only interference of suffocating technology, in that sacred moment, was the Zoom connection allowing cousins and grandchildren to tune in from different continents.

I could see answers.
Because I was thinking clearly.
And that was because I Got Away.

You see, the question is this…
How are we going to change our thinking (to change our future) if we’re still sitting in the same place where our current thinking was formed?

Not going to happen (easily). Is it?

We need to Get Away.

We need to be in that place and space where revelation flows to us, and answers pour through us, with ease.

Yours could be while running.
Or staring at the breaking ocean waves.
Or imagining that the noise we’re making in the shower is singing.
Or walking, awash in birdsong, early in the morning.

Which begs the question.

If we’re more effective, more innovative after such thinking…
Why don’t we go there – Get Away – far more than we do?

I meet leaders who are excited that their teams can Get Away, well, maybe every six months.

Six months?
Six months delay, to plug into the best revelations that they’re capable of receiving!

Why would we limit their effectiveness like that?
Why would we want them NOT to think more brilliantly, more frequently…
So that they can ACT more brilliantly?

What would stop you giving your business more seminal, life-shifting moments?

There’s an ancient tree out there.
Waiting to bathe you beneath the peace of its magnificent canopy.
Waiting to share one hundred years of observations.
Waiting to help you see what you have forgotten in your morass of roles and responsibilities.

Out there – not in here, staring at this screen – might very well be the answer to the problem you’re wrestling with right now.

Out there – not staring at their Zoom webcams – could easily be the quality of thinking that inspires your team to serve clients in a way that would knock their jolly socks off!

I believe you know it’s there.
Not here.

Your responsibility – as a leader – is to Get Away to find it