Business people of Edinburgh, you are amazing! And Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, you have plenty to be proud of!
To set the scene, I am an exiled Scot returning “home” in the next few weeks.
I am so excited!
And feeling a whole load of warmth and welcome.
And so, I want to reflect back some things you may have stopped noticing about yourselves. And to thank you.
I have spent a week each month since January building a network and exploring opportunities for my company to support businesses locally. I have also been scoping the opportunities to offer Scotland as a fabulous venue for the work we do for businesses from outside Scotland. We don’t export, and so I have an ambition to bring in half our revenue from external customers.
So, what am I noticing?
Quite simply – energy, bright eyes, and generosity. There is such an evident and impressive willingness to help. People are interested and interesting. Eyes light up around projects and possibilities. There is always new people to introduce, and avenues to explore. Edinburgh Chamber’s social media support has been tireless.
Place is a very important ingredient in the work we do. The venues and their settings in and around Edinburgh, and elsewhere around Scotland, are fabulous. I asked for help via LinkedIn to build up my understanding of these. To date I am gusting 5,000 views and loads of advice and ideas! VisitScotland have been incredibly helpful too.
Thank you
If you have stopped noticing and appreciating the amazing business community you are part of, I hope this short piece from a homecoming exile has helped a little to remind you. Thank you.
Dave Stewart
Managing Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company
Email: dave@freshairlearning.com
Tel: 0800 052 7900
The Fresh Air Learning Company is on a mission to breathe fresh air into the effectiveness and resilience of boards, senior teams and leaders.
Why? We know how shifts in self-awareness, trust, collective thinking, courageous conversations, and powerful storytelling can lift an organisation. Been there. Done it. And now helping others dodge the risks and leap ahead of avoidable underperformance.
How? Bespoke experiences, journeys and programmes. Outdoors. Indoors. The right place for the client. Powerful. Unforgettable.
Dear CEO,
A CEO was asked when he had last heard bird song.
The CEO burst into tears.
He had been living a life of offices, taxis, trains and planes. Incessantly.
What about you?
What are you hearing? Now? Routinely?
Intermittent high pitched screeching? The threatening bass riff from Jaws? Maybe a happily creative jam session. You are part of a great team.
Who is the arranger, the conductor in all of this?
And what of the whispers?
The lows and highs on the edge of hearing?
What sense are you making of these? Great ideas in the making? The fin of an inbound shark?
A whisper that you are adrift? In the wrong place?
Back to the tearful CEO.
There’s something right there about being disconnected from something deeply important.
Something we are missing in our flat worlds of screens, spread-sheets, tables, flip-charts, floors, roads and runways.
Something that refreshes, inspires, and energises. And a whole lot more.
Dear CEO,
When did you last hear bird song?
And listen?
Deeply? In awe? Enchanted? Content?
WHAT NOW?
If you have found this stimulating, we would love to help you reconnect, refresh, and re-energise.
One such opportunity is Highland Hack “Fresh Directions” 9 – 13 Oct 17, a 4 night hotel-hopping, 3-day facilitated walking journey through the Highlands for a small group of business leaders looking to write the next chapter of their lives. And here is a one-minute video that provides a small taste of the journey.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Dave Stewart
Managing Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company
Email: dave@freshairlearning.com
Tel: 0800 052 7900
The Fresh Air Learning Company is on a mission to breathe fresh air into the effectiveness and resilience of boards, senior teams and leaders.
Why? We know how shifts in self-awareness, trust, collective thinking, courageous conversations, and powerful storytelling can lift an organisation. Been there. Done it. And now helping others dodge the risks and leap ahead of avoidable underperformance.
How? Bespoke experiences, journeys and programmes. Outdoors. Indoors. The right place for the client. Powerful. Unforgettable.
Strategic reviews, business planning meetings, and budget setting rounds are only a few weeks or months away for many businesses.
Now is a great time to think about what kind of events your Board and executive team are going to need to make the most of your time, particularly if you are thinking about going offsite.
Here is a framework of 10 Ps. We hope you find these helpful.
Get in touch if we can help in any way. And note that we are running a Business Book Walk in the Pentlands on Thu 17 Aug about “Extreme Ownership”, the philosophy and practice of leadership by the US Navy SEALS. Information and booking here.
1. Purpose
Are you clear about the purpose of your event or meeting? Keep strategy and operations separate. Mixing your thinking modes will lose people and cause confusion.
Do you need an agenda-driven meeting, or a more creative and developmental inquiry-based event? If you haven’t tried the latter, this could be an exciting learning opportunity.
2. Ph’un and Ph’izz
If you are after some lighthearted fun and fizz then you need to consider a specialist provider. Not us. We think you may be wasting your time and money unless your clear purpose is around reward.
3. Place
Operational discussions are often best conducted in the workplace. Go offsite if you need to do some fresh thinking, have big conversations, and plan bold moves.
And for crying out loud, don’t just replace the office conference room with a hotel conference room! We work a lot with Board and executive teams using a blend of indoors and outdoors. See why here.
4. Professionals
Are you going to self-facilitate, use internal staff, or engage external facilitators? If the latter, make sure they are experienced, qualified, and insured for the activities you need their support for. And make sure they produce a risk management plan to underpin anything that is more than just another day in a conference room!
5. Prep
In our experience the most productive Board and executive team events are based on pre-event engagement with participants. And we don’t mean just chucking them some reading like a hefty Board pack or some out of context articles from Harvard Business Review.
If you want to generate excitement and anticipation, and get the creative juices flowing, then do something which sparks their imagination, engages their emotions, and spins up their desire to share their ideas and points of view.
One-to-ones around a compelling inquiry theme, based on a framework of strengths-based questions is a great way of doing this. This will help identify the themes your Board or team feel strongly about. And if these are recognised in the design of the event, the engagement process will help spin up collective buy-in.
6. Plans
This may seem obvious, but make sure you have some sort of plan that addresses these 10 P’s. Not too much detail however, especially around timings. Build in flexibility. Have an agreed intention and a flow which will achieve this.
Do make sure that admin and logistics are sorted. Getting this wrong will just annoy people and distract them from the business of the day. That said, you might be amused to discover who finds late, cold coffee a trigger for a major anger strop!
7. People
Who needs to participate? Do they know? Are they available? Are they up for the pre-event process? How will you deal with any last minute absences?
If you are engaging external facilitators, are you going to let them drive the event design in consultation with you? [Trick question: the answer if yes!].
And what about external contributors? They can offer specialist content, perspective, and challenge. Really think about how you can use them. Work with your facilitators on this. Build them into the energy and creativity of the event.
8. Props
Sometimes an empty room with just a circle of chairs, or a hillside and a well-earned sandwich, are the most powerful spaces you can create. Simplicity and real human connection. The magic happens “between the noses” so to speak.
Have you considered how a walking meeting could generate some great conversations? We do a lot of these for our clients. Check out our 60 second video here for some ideas.
As it happens we are running a Business Book Walk in the Pentlands on Thu 17 Aug (Yes! This week for many of you reading this) on “Extreme Ownership”, a book about the philosophy and practice of leadership by the US Navy SEALS. Information and booking here.
Again, good facilitators will plan the props that make best use of the space to serve your event’s needs.
9. Products
What will be the tangible outputs of your event? In what form? How do they support your purpose and contribute to the outcomes you want? What will you do with these outputs?
10. Post-Event
How will you make the event count? What will you be communicating outwards as a result of your event? Who will do what? With whom? With what? How? And when?
How will you evaluate the event? Good facilitators will have pushed you to agree an evaluation plan early on in the design phase.
WHAT NOW?
If you have found this stimulating, we would love to help you explore the framework more deeply.
One such opportunity is the Fresh Air Business Walk we will be leading in the Pentland Hills on Thursday 17th August. Full information and booking is on Eventbrite here.
We can also offer masterclasses, programmes, and coaching in the workplace.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Dave Stewart
Manging Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company
Email: dave@freshairlearning.com
Tel: 0800 052 7900
The Fresh Air Learning Company is on a mission to breathe fresh air into the effectiveness and resilience of boards, senior teams and leaders.
Why? We know how shifts in self-awareness, trust, collective thinking, courageous conversations, and powerful storytelling can lift an organisation. Been there. Done it. And now helping others dodge the risks and leap ahead of avoidable underperformance.
How? Bespoke experiences, journeys and programmes. Outdoors. Indoors. The right place for the client. Powerful. Unforgettable.
Whatever your views of the conflicts the West engages in, there are some powerful leadership lessons at the operating level worthy of exploration.
The 3-minute read summarises the philosophy and practice of the US Navy SEALs as described by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin their book “Extreme Ownership”. It is a very similar approach to that of UK Special Forces, and indeed the wider Armed Services.
Our aim in this blog is to offer some short take-aways for business leaders. This is surface-skimming stuff, and offered simply as a reflective entry point. Which of these are you struck by? What will you most deeply think about, experiment with, and maybe adopt?
We also want to offer the opportunity to workshop this framework in the Pentland Hills on Thursday 17th August. Information and booking for this Fresh Air Business Walk is at the end of this blog.
So, here are the 3 themes and 12 elements of “Extreme Ownership”.
1. BEING
1.1 OWN IT. Self-aware, relationally effective leaders actively influence everybody and everything that impacts their world. They take an enterprise-wide view and engage broadly with energy. They create the conditions for success.
1.2 WALK THE TALK. Effective leaders understand that what they tolerate sets expectations and tone.
1.3 BELIEVE. To convince and inspire, leaders truly believe in what they do, and take time to engage and explain. They know that a buyable “why” is vital!
1.4 PARK YOUR EGO. Mission and team have primacy over self. Listen and reflect, and lead with humility.
2. DOING
2.1 NURTURE RELATIONSHIPS THAT ENABLE. Think “enterprise” not just immediate team or silo. Develop relationships. Listen and understand. Focus on collective possibilities. Identify common purpose.
2.2 ENCOURAGE SIMPLICTY AND CLARITY. Help people understand and believe. This will help achieve desired outcome when you’re not there and “Plan A” has gone out the window.
2.3 REFLECT, PRIORITISE, EXECUTE, REPEAT. Take a deep breath, look around, identify the single highest priority. The main effort. Create a simple plan, execute robustly, and remain situationally aware. Repeat. Build agility from contingency plans, rehearsals, and core competencies.
2.4 DECENTRALISE. Higher intention, outcomes, and constraints are communicated and understood. Delegations & trust help teams navigate complexity. Leaders are mindful of how and where they play.
3. SUSTAINING
3.1 PLAN, TEST, REFINE, REPEAT. Are task and desired outcomes clear and aligned with strategic purpose? Do delegations and egos enable contribution of valuable ideas at all levels? Are back-briefs, stress-tests, and rehearsals programmed?
3.2 LEAD UPWARDS. Are the skills, trust, and respect present to enable challenge and support upwards? Are people encouraged to “own it” at all levels? (See 1.1 above).
3.3 BE DECISIVE AMIDST UNCERTAINTY. Create decision-action cycles that are faster than the opposition to regain the initiative; and which adjust as situations evolve and new information becomes available.
3.4 JUDGING BALANCE. Know when to lead, when to follow; fit for sprints as well as endurance; calm but not emotionless; courageous but not foolhardy; attentive to details but not obsessed; humble but not passive; etc…
WHAT NOW?
If you have found this stimulating, we would love to help you explore the framework more deeply.
One such opportunity is the Fresh Air Business Walk we will be leading in the Pentland Hills on Thursday 17th August. Full information and booking is on Eventbrite here.
We can also offer masterclasses, programmes, and coaching in the workplace.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Dave Stewart
Manging Director
The Fresh Air Learning Company
Email: dave@freshairlearning.com
Tel: 0800 052 7900
The Fresh Air Learning Company is on a mission to breathe fresh air into the effectiveness and resilience of boards, senior teams and leaders.
Why? We know how shifts in self-awareness, trust, collective thinking, courageous conversations, and powerful storytelling can lift an organisation. Been there. Done it. And now helping others dodge the risks and leap ahead of avoidable underperformance.
How? Bespoke experiences, journeys and programmes. Outdoors. Indoors. The right place for the client. Powerful. Unforgettable.
None of us wants to die regretting the life we didn’t live but could have had. Of being in the wrong place, living someone else’s story, and failing to do anything about it.
As the irrepressible raconteur Quentin Crisp once said,”It’s no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, ‘Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.’ By then, pigs will be your style.”
So, why do so many people live out an ill-fitting storyline?
Social Psychologist Dr. Andy Milward explains, “We are motivated to craft a self identity that gives meaning to our existence. We reflect on the events that have characterised our lives so far. Some planned, some random, some good, some disappointing. Subconsciously, we tie these together in the form of a story. Just as with a novel, our story has an underlying theme. And this determines the content of future chapters in our life story. If we want to change our unfolding story, we need to figure out this theme. We can then write a different chapter, according to a new theme that will lead to a happy rather than a dispiriting denouement.”
Jo Bradshaw, a one-time business advisor in Milton Keynes, is a great example of someone who has crafted an exciting new life.
As a young professional she had a very limited appetite for the outdoors and adventure. Fast forward a handful of years and Jo is now a freelance high altitude expedition leader.
A charity cycle trip led onto other charity challenge. And soon her friends helped her notice that a new story was possible; one she could make a living from; one she could inspire others through.
Jo is now looking to complete the Seven Summits in 2018, a huge endeavour she is undertaking to support the work of Place2Be, a charity that provides emotional and therapeutic services in primary and secondary schools.
She has climbed Everest, Denali, Aconcagua, Elbrus, and Kilimanjaro; and will attempt Carstensz Pyramid and Mount Vincent over the coming year.
Would you like to explore more with Jo and Andy? Learn about narrative psychology? And start to shape the next chapter of your life?
Chamber member Dave Stewart, MD of the Fresh Air Learning Company, has created the “Highland Hack” series of themed walking journeys for small groups of business leaders. The next one, “New Directions,” runs 9 – 13 October 2017, features Jo and Andy as well as a number of fascinating guest companions.
As Dave explains, “Unlike a traditional residential programme, Highland Hack is a hotel-hopping journey on foot through the wild beauty of the Scottish Highlands. The physicality of journeying is an important aspect of the reflective process we facilitate. The route follows the northern section of the iconic West Highland Way and is accessible to a wide range of fitness levels. It’s a perfect setting to reflect, re-energise, and recalibrate around the big steps business leaders need to make. It’s also a whole load of fun!”
The Fresh Air Learning Company is on a mission to breathe fresh air into how ambitious companies think and act; and in particular to accelerate the effectiveness and resilience of their boards, senior teams and leaders.
The company specialises in immersive outdoor team experiences and inspirational leadership journeys. Team experiences are designed to develop the self-awareness and trusting relationships required to boost performance. Leadership journeys provide the space and inspiration for leaders to reflect, refocus and re-energise around the big steps they need to take.Team experiences range from reflective Board away-days to powerful simulations set within dramatic storylines. Leadership journeys range from half-day business leader walks to multi-day, creative thinking treks through the Scottish Highlands.
