I was born to create. I create at work and at home. Teams, relationships, communities, sweaters, quilts, jewelry.
I was recently playing in what I lovingly call my "crafting basement". It's my happy place. That day, I was working on a quilting project in anticipation of my friends' baby. I'll pause my story briefly to give a quick overview of how a quilt was made. If you're familiar with this process feel free to skip the next paragraph and move to the continuation of my story.
A quilt typically has a pieced top (small pieces of fabric sewn together to create an interesting design) and a large piece of fabric for the back (also known as backing) between which is sandwiched a piece of batting (the part that gives the quilt some fluff). The sandwiched layers are then quilted together (stitched together with simple or complex patterns). Once the quilting process is completed, the sandwich gets trimmed to size and a small strip of fabric called binding is sewn to the edge to close the edges of the sandwich and give the quilt a nice finish.
I challenged myself to mix things up a bit and go for a non-traditional backing on this baby quilt. My favorite part of making a quilt (other than the finished item) is the pieceing process. It's fun to pull fabrics of different colors, match them up and transform them into a beautiful piece of art. For this baby quilt I decided to do a pieced backing - in the back of my mind, I'm envisioning a reversible quilt of sorts. Now, I consider myself an advanced beginner, which means I'm still at the phase where the backing shifts around during the quilting process. A carefully planned design on the back would shift and end up catty-wampus. To solve this problem, I opted to try for a crazy quilt style look so the finished back would have a nice look to it regardless of how much the backing shifted during the quilting process. This approach is something I dreamed up (though I'm sure I'm not the first to do something like it). I combined my past quilting experience and my creative brain to embark on a new approach to a problem. I wasn't sure exactly how to execute my vision, but I was confident I could figure it out as I went along.
As I was working on the quilt backing, it struck me as a good metaphor for leadership.
Every day I head to work with a general plan of how the day is going to go but also knowing that the day will unfold in the way it unfolds. I'll get pinged with questions for which I'll have qick answers, I'll encounter situations similar to ones I've encountered in the past and know exactly how to respond. It's also possible my day will get knocked into next week by something I didn't see coming.
I'd love to say that my initial reaction is always I've got this! as I pull step 1 out of my back pocket. Turns out I'm not there yet and my back pocket isn't that big. That's OK though, I've got a box full of tools to help me navigate the situation. In addition to books and internet resources, I've got my entire life's worth of experience being human, I've got a career's worth of experiences in the workplace, I've got a lifetime's worth of relationships with people, and I've got got a community of fellow leaders to lean on when I get stuck. I pick the tools I need to piece together the beginnings of a plan and bring my tool box along for the ride in case I need to use additional tools to get to the other side.
When I'm facing a difficult conversation, I like to take some time to review the specifics and plan an approach. The tricky part, at least for me, is to stop when I've gotten to what I think is a decent plan. It's very easy to move past that point into overthinking. The truth is, no matter how much you prepare, you can't predict the other person's reaction. Once I've got an approach, I like to bounce it off a trusted colleague or two to get their feedback. This generally results in some minor tweaking - then it's time to go have that conversation. In the case of extra difficult conversations, I highly recommend setting aside some time to circle back with the trusted colleague to talk through how things went.
When I'm getting indications of crossed wires, I dive into 1:1 conversation mode - checking in with the people involved in or close to the situation to get a range of perspectives. Ninety-Nine percent of the time the wires got crossed due to a communication snafu, so I bring stakeholders together to talk through the miscue and identify a path forward to get everyone back on track.
When someone comes to me pushing back against change, feeling anxious about uncertainty or doubting themself, I remind myself what it's like to be in the position of pushing back against change, feeling anxious about uncertainty or doubting myself. These reminders allow me to have the conversation at hand from a place of empathy.
Have you checked your toolbox lately? Does it contain long forgotten tools or is there a new tool you're ready to add?
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