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Amid the noise and haste …

In a world running at warp speed, when we operate in a business culture that is a mile wide and an inch deep, most of us find it challenging to explore the depth of thought that can uncover sustainable value. It’s a tough truth. And it’s also unacceptable.

Ideas, insight, and innovation do not come from sound bytes, speed, superficiality, platitudes, lies, and millions of tweets, pins, and likes. They come from a more thoughtful place, from more in-depth conversations, from shared brilliance

It’s the shared brilliance that’s missing. We can have an instantly and ubiquitously connected culture, yet our engagement’s value and depth are minimal. Extensive research shows that 70% of US employees are not engaged and don’t care about their companies. That is a quandary for every strategy and program to improve performance, productivity, employee engagement, and long-term growth.

Amid the noise and haste – and waste – I believe we need to have more consequential conversations – about the root problem, not the next quick fix. As Einstein said, when asked what he would do if he had ten days to solve a problem: “I’d spend nine days on understanding the problem and one day on finding a solution.” We, too, must solve this far-reaching problem of employee disengagement by first deepening our fundamental understanding of the problem rather than thinking that the next “expert’s formula” will be the panacea. Because after forty years of these promises, the problem persists.

Consequential conversations require leaders who want different consequences, who recognize that we cannot expect to improve performance in a knowledge society when our organizations are not capable of engaging more than 1/3 of our people’s innate brilliance. We need leadership that believes the workplace can be and must be a vitally engaging and generative place for individual and collective brilliance. And we need leaders willing to develop a new capacity for accessing that brilliance.

To further the conversation and thinking on this issue, I’ve started to share some more in-depth commentaries on my fritchconsulting.com website. I would encourage others to join the discussion by reading the “papers” I have posted there. 

The five Commentaries are entitled:

  • The linchpin between work and each and every individual is their human brilliance
  • The very thing we need the most of, we have the least of
  • Mediocrity makes a folly of leadership, at every level
  • The numbers don’t lie
  • The fulfillment of brilliance

The linchpin between work and each and every individual 
is their human brilliance. In the new year, your leadership can replace the noise and haste with brilliance.