If you have never run a business, studied a profit and loss statement, and attempted to navigate the constraints of your cash flow, you would have a difficult time understanding this.
If you are not committed to treating your people as people, not just a “human resource”, you would have a difficult time understanding this.
There is a huge chasm between these two things. It is where the Mind of the Owner lives. But the two, seemingly polar opposites take place in our professional and personal lives.
In this great conversation, Dr. Rob McKenna, founder and CEO of WiLD Leaders, defines this paradox as “Seemingly contradictory things both of which are true”. Most of us would agree. When it comes to managing the brutal reality of cash flow, taxes, regulations, auditors, and investors, it can seem impossible to provide the right care and feeding to our people.
But McKenna likes to move up the ladder of understanding until he can see the whole picture. He begins by asking if we all are lacking something at any given time in our lives. And if that is true, if we perceive we are lacking something, we don’t feel whole. We want to fix it. We want to change the conditions that have caused it. If we stop pursuing the emptiness of this we die a little death every day.
No wonder that pollsters are suggesting that our misery index is fairly high right now. And that our employees consider their jobs as unsatisfactory. Or that we mistrust the institutions that permeate our lives like the businesses we work for, the educational systems that supposedly prepared us for that workplace, and the government that is supposed to steward and protect our resources and our lives.
To McKenna, learning how to trust oneself and, in turn, trust others is a foundational step toward living and working in this time of change. It is a focus on the one (the individual) with an eye to the many.
This is not a program. This is an investment that has a profound impact on the individual as well as the business they work for and in.
If he is right, then the employee and leadership development market is ripe for disruption, because it lacks the “scaffolding” to reach the psychological needs of our people and connect it to the reality of the business.
If his WiLD Leaders can help us achieve this, then we have the foundation to change how we see each other and our circumstances, which drives innovation and change in ourselves, the companies we work for, and the part of the world we were placed in to nurture and grow.
I hope you enjoy this Great Conversation with the heart of a leader pursuing a journey to wholeness from a platform of trust.