Looking Inside
More than a month ago, my wife had a dream, she saw me owning a house in a very fancy place, centered in a niche business area, with an amazing vintage appeal, that was crowded with people and things, lots of stuff here and there, all luxurious and valuable, however not properly placed, as well disorganized. The crowdedness in the place made it look dull. In her narrative, she saw the people spreading around the place in a way discrediting its value, the way they were crowding, the energy they were bringing, the way they were utilizing its spaces showed they are taking it for granted with a lot of dependencies. (What we call in the Egyptian 3asham).
I was dazzled by this dream, it was reflecting a lot of my current situation. From what I know about what we are offering is that it is valuable in its essence and important as a reason for existence. However, I know also that there is a big challenge we are having that blocks those who want to benefit from these services to access them, and another challenge with orchestrating activities that on-boards the right people to do the right things and adjust the overall energy of the place.
It started the past few weeks, even before the distancing measures, I was spending more time alone, reflecting, with a lot of noise inside my head, having many challenges happening in my life that made my actions seem helpless and in-efficient. I was in a mid-way of crossroads, between having a good WHY, and a lousy HOW which made the WHAT irrelevant.
In the process of doing inner work, I made some use of thinking out loud with honest mentors, coaches, and companions, who supported me to reflect internally, and see the bigger picture, was a good phase to start from.
Till that time of reflecting and re-shifting my perceptions, I learned about my wife's dream, I knew we had a lot of inner challenges with how we present ourselves in the market, how I position my services, what kind of team efforts and process ensures that the value promised is delivered. In some areas, our organization was overstaffed, and in others, we had no talents to cover some important value creation steps.
We worked on our financial structure, our talent management, stopped some resource-draining projects, focused our work on minimalism, till we come up with a new product roadmap, and a new way to showcase our services, and we are in the phase of integrating this in one plan.
Sitting at home with the COVID-19 measures made me look internally in a better manner, it is clear that the work we need to do is mostly inner-work. Running over from a meeting to another, to phone calls going through different activities to deliver to clients and ensure your financial targets met, makes you lose - in many cases - the sense of how to re-look things internally to better serve you externally. Focus and a fresh eye perspective definitely support how you will -re-organize your inner arena before moving outside.
As time elapses, change happens, we do not necessarily in many cases, it is not in favor of our reality and growth, once your focus on making change a friend and an alley to take it as an opportunity to align and do what a windsurfer do, to support you reach your next destination, that would be the best thing you can do in such circumstances.
Coming back to the dream, I believe, I am proud of the location of my house, believing it is a great asset and value, as well I cherish every part of it, and every person in it, but, I think that myself and my partners have a lot to do in how we are handling and managing this asset to bring value to its citizens and clients. As well, I guess most of the leaders nowaday have to take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to start their inner-work too.
#PAUSE #REFLECT #GROW #INNERWORK #LEADERSHIP #CULTURETRANSFORMATION