“Feedback is a gift.” “Learn to accept feedback.” “Feedback matters.” Sure. All true…. but I believe we’ve been trained to look at feedback as a one way transitory mechanism. If we shift our paradigm to one of complex adaptive systems, it changes what feedback means, when and why we give it, and how we receive it.

ChatGPT is great at helping to tighten and tone e-mails. Most of us (I’m guessing) are using it (and other AI LLM programs) for this. But I’ve been thinking about the process of moving from that angry e-mail to the healthy e-mail, and I believe that process matters.

These motivation and engagement-centric questions reflect a somewhat control-based approach to leadership. The implicit assumption is that motivation and engagement are "inputs" to be manipulated or controlled by a leader. This mindset assumes that the leader has some sort of power to affect the team’s level of motivation.

My conversational counterpart said to me: “well that’s an instrumental value”. I challenged him: “but isn’t the purpose of an organization to serve the customer – a terminal value in and of itself?” He responded no, arguing that serving the customer is an instrumental value – a means to the end value of making money/profit. I told him I disagreed – if you treat the customer as an end – in and of him/herself – then you will eventually realize profit. I mean, it’s just Kant, right?

My Dad went and built himself a Koi pond.

This started about four years ago. A professional landscaper dug the hole, laid the lining, and plumbed the pond. Then my Dad started his endeavor to create this small ecosystem in his very own backyard in central Indiana.

What if wanting to be a leader meant striving to be a person of integrity, modeling the behaviors you hope to inspire in others? What if it meant developing greater self-awareness and emotional intelligence, improving your decision-making, and building more trusting and understanding relationships?

So what can you do today to start to move from a rough team experience to one in which teamwork is more fun?

My high school commencement speech opened with a poem…