highly sensitive power » Leadership

Book | Glimmer

Grace Kerina — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:01:07 +0000

My copy of Warren Berger’s book bristles with Post-It Notes. Its full title is Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, Your Business, and Maybe Even the World and it features the visionary ideas of Bruce Mau, along with other designers and thinkers on the topic. I’m forcing myself to stop at page 50 and recommend it to you right now. It’s important.

I have a new theory: highly sensitive people (HSPs) are perfectly suited for being designers. I’m so convinced that we’re extremely valuable precisely because of our various traits, and this book supports that idea in many different ways.

The innate curiosity, complex thinking abilities, and long-viewing we’re capable of as HSPs puts us within sight of visions that are out there, but that might actually work.

What if we saw ourselves as capable and effective at designing the world we want to live in? What if we start with the assumption that we’re built to press our faces up against the outer edge of the envelope and look beyond, to reach out and grasp what didn’t exist until we thought to touch it?

By relying on “abductive reasoning,” or the ability to think about and picture what might be, designers can glimpse possibilities that lie on the other side of the fence.
~ Warren Berger, Glimmer

Designers “live in an expansive world where they believe the only thing limiting us is the stuff we haven’t figured out yet. And they’re excited about it. You’ll hear them say things like, ‘I’m working on this really cool problem that has no answer!’ That’s what they live for.”
~ Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management, as quoted in Glimmer

We need you. We need you. We need you. Your valuable ideas, your whacky imaginings, your unpolished, half-formed, rough, barely describable flights of fancy contain miracles with the leverage to change the trajectory of the planet.

What we’ve found is, if someone has an enthusiasm or curiosity about many different disciplines, then they can be more flexible, more empathetic, and more engaged with the world.
~ Tim Brown, IDEO’s Chief Executive, as quoted in Glimmer

Find some way to pursue what intrigues you. Never mind if no one else is intrigued. That’s the point. Be first. Be brave. Be so curious you drench yourself in questions and come out cleansed, a gift cradled in your hands.

Feeling lost on a project can be the first step toward finding an original solution.
~ Warren Berger, Glimmer

Commit to Difference

Grace Kerina — Mon, 25 May 2009 07:15:27 +0000

We are here now. Here and now we can make a difference. No argument. No excuses. Only committment. We are already committed, whether we choose to believe we are or not. Commit to the commitment.

“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”
~ Frodo

“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”
~ Gandalf

~~~~~

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”
~ Galadria

(Quotes from the movie The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring.)

Flickr photo: Free Dark Angel With Dragon Tattoo Regret, by D Sharon Pruitt

Related reading: A Forgiving Tale, Pep Talk | Wing It

Creative Collaboration in Great Groups

Grace Kerina — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:01:33 +0000

I’m always jonesing for creative collaboration, and the more I get, the more I want. There’s magic when teamwork morphs into incredible synergy.

Part of the attraction is my own nature (after all, my Style Statement is Timeless Connection), but another big part has to do with the direction our collective consciousness seems to be heading these days – toward global viewpoints and collaboration at all levels.

In addition to getting my fix through working and playing with collaborators on a regular basis, I’ve been reading about the topic. Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, by Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman, offers these 15 top lessons about Great Groups:

Greatness starts with superb people.
Great Groups and great leaders create each other.
Every Great Group has a strong leader.
The leaders of Great Groups love talent and know where to find it.
Great Groups are full of talented people who can work together.
Great Groups think they are on a mission from God.
Every Great Group is an island – but an island with a bridge to the mainland.
Great Groups see themselves as winning underdogs.
Great Groups always have an enemy.
People in Great Groups have blinders on.
Great Groups are optimistic, not realistic.
In Great Groups the right person has the right job.
The leaders of Great Groups give them what they need and free them from the rest.
Great Groups ship.
Great work is its own reward.

For more about Organizing Genius, see this Inc. article by the book’s authors: “The Secrets of Creative Collaboration.”

Flickr photo: do your own thing, by notsogoophotography.

Related reading: Highly Sensitive Havens

Kudos for Sensitivity

Grace Kerina — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:15:13 +0000

Who do you know who’s sensitive or highly sensitive in a way that makes your life better? Your child? Your brother? Your best friend? Your co-workers? Your baker? Your doctor?

Tell them. Soon.

There’s a don’t-wait theme running through Highly Sensitive Power – for an important reason. We can’t wait. We can’t wait for society to make it easy to be sensitive. We can’t wait for someone else to take our own dreams as seriously as we do. We can’t wait for connections that take us to the next level to come to us. We need to go out and get all of that for ourselves. We need to initiate. The time is now, and not one moment later.

A powerful way to build a society that tolerates sensitivity is to speak out, to let people know that you value sensitivity.

Tell someone today that you appreciate their sensitivity. Show them that their sensitivity makes a positive difference.

Take responsibility for making the world more inclusive. Take a stand.

Flickr photo: Gorgeous Green, by geishaboy500.

Related reading: Book | Kinship with All Life, Interview | Nan

Sensitivity, Curiosity, and Leadership

Grace Kerina — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:15:01 +0000

I believe that being sensitive equips us to lead. Sensitivity, by definition, involves a greater than normal ability to feel or notice or think about what others do not. Do you see that whether you’re highly sensitive – embodying a range and depth of sensitivities, or sensitive in a single area, you sway at the top of a mast, seeing what others miss? Do you see the powerful gift in that?

We don’t have time to wait for Western society to embrace sensitivity as a gift and thus make our lives easier. Instead, let’s stage a quiet revolution, a revolution that begins with self-acceptance and curiosity. Our unleashed curiosity contains the power to challenge the status quo.

Lead by asking questions. Lead from your sensitivity. Ask yourself. Ask others. Ask to unfetter and expand. Ask with love. Inspire. Be a beacon, not a spear.

What is the gift at the centre of your sensitivity? Ask yourself until you know. Polish what you find. Be weird. Be valuable. Step into a spotlight. Share.

“Curious people count. Not because there are a lot of them, but because they’re the ones who talk to people who are in a stupor. They’re the ones who lead the masses in the middle who are stuck. The masses in the middle have brainwashed themselves into thinking it’s safe to do nothing, which the curious can’t abide.”

~ Seth Godin, in Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Flickr photo: Duel Beam, by mandj98.