By Robert E. Quinn
One of the things I find most rewarding in my work is that not only do I get to witness transformational change during my workshops and classes, but oftentimes I have the opportunity to reconnect with former class participants—sometimes years later. And they have stories and experiences that relate back to what they learned in the workshop. The impact is long-lasting. Such was the case when a former student came to visit. He graduated last year and is now trying to build a consulting practice in his area of expertise. He came because he is frustrated. People are not showing an interest in what he has to offer, and he is having a difficult time finding new clients.
I listened for a long time and then started asking questions. The questions were intended to explore his purpose and the possibility that he had the wrong focus. Instead of being focused on the needs of the people he was meeting, he seemed to be focused on his own intellectual product. Since his potential clients were not connecting to him, he was having no experiences, and since he was having no experiences, he was not learning how to contribute effectively. He found the insight useful, but then he wanted to know how he could possibly change.
I took him back to last year when he was in my course on the transformational leadership. In that course we did not focus on knowing. We focused on being. We learned how to elevate ourselves into a state in which we were purpose centered, internally directed, other focused and externally open (www.leadingwithlift.com) I call it the fundamental state of leadership. It is the state of optimum adaptive contribution.
As we reflected on the course, he showed some enthusiasm. He told me how it changed his life. At the end of every session each student received 21 bits of best-self feedback from other students. (Statements of a person’s greatest observed strengths, with a concrete example of each.) At the end of the semester he took all of his best-self feedback and made it into a word cloud. To this day, looking at the word cloud inspires him. At Christmas, instead of buying presents for his family, he gave each one best-self feedback. He said it was stunning. Two nights later, one of his siblings wanted to talk about it. She asked where he learned to do such a thing. He described the class and explained how the course changed his life. She asked, “If I took that course would it change my life?”
His answer was interesting: “It already has changed your life. Because I took the class, I am behaving differently and that has changed the conversation in our family. Because the conversation has changed, your life is already changing. Just by feeling the impact of the best-self feedback you life will start to be different.”
I was impressed by this story: one, because he made an effort to take his experience from the class and apply it to his life, and two, because he shared it with others. As we talked about this we were able to link it back to the central topic, and he could more clearly see why he was failing as a consultant. He had lapsed back into living from his head. He was relying on knowledge and telling people things. He needed to change himself. He needed to get outside his head and into the fundamental state of leadership. He needed to clarify his purpose and increase his integrity so he could become more other focused and externally open.
As he was leaving, he wondered why he was able to maintain what he had learned in class in his personal life, but had slipped away from what he learned in his professional life. I told him that he had 18 years of formal education. In hundreds of courses he was taught to know and do. He only had one class focused on how to be and how to become.
As he prepared to leave, he seemed different. There was a ray of hope in his eye. I am grateful for his visit. I am grateful for his story. I am grateful for what came out of our conversation. In it we became open to each other and we co-created new possibilities.