April 30, 2010

Dear Colleagues,

It was a pleasure to have you join Unbound Ideas for Dr. Kevin Freiberg’s April 28 webinar, “Blowing the Doors Off Business as Usual”. Thank you for participating in the discussion and providing feedback on the event.

We are pleased to make this session summary available to you along with several resources provided by Kevin. On the right side of this page, you will notice a light blue column that contains several elements. Just under Kevin’s picture, you’ll find a slide image that links to the on-demand recording from this session, along with access instructions. If you did not sign up for this access, but did attend the live session, contact Tad Furtado at (800) 348-3470 or via email to learn more about gaining access.

Next, you will find a list of resources that include the session handout material as well as a two-part call to action for gutsy leaders. Kevin also produces a monthly newsletter and audio program, to which we encourage you to subscribe. This link is also located on the right side of the page.

Kevin started the session with a question he has frequently been asked. His early writings about some of the best organizations in the world, particularly Southwest Airlines, have described the advantages of great culture, great leadership, and great brand identity. Many have asked him, How can an individual contributor dare to be great when his or her organization doesn’t have an outstanding leader or even a supportive culture?

Kevin’s answer, in a nutshell, is that exceptional contribution and impactful leadership is a choice. He spent the rest of his session defining the benefits of that choice, how it gets manifested in many ways, and why we avoid the choice whenever possible.

Choice is essential to our freedom and autonomy. It helps us feel strong and secure, and provides us meaning and engagement with our lives and work. But the problem is that all of us surrender our freedom to choose because we externalize the problems or challenges we face and fashion ourselves as situational victims. We tell ourselves that if we had better circumstances – a better boss, a better customer, a better organization or life – we would have the freedom to be exceptional. Kevin informed us in no uncertain terms that our freedom to choose is ultimately restrained only by ourselves.

This perception or mental framework has enormous implications for organizations. Clearly, organizations benefit tremendously when employees bring their full selves to work, and are fully engaged and committed. But individuals who wait for organizations to provide the necessary support or permission diminish their lives and work.

Kevin asked, Who owns the culture of your company? He argued, it’s not the leader or the board or the executive team that runs a company, but the rank and file. When individuals make the choice to lead, they overcome organizational resistance and create the culture they desire.

Kevin provided a number of examples of this outlook and its impact. He focused on “accountability” as the path to engagement and commitment. Full engagement means being accountable to ourselves, to our team, and to the customer.

Kevin then dove deeper into the idea of choice, and provided a graphic that was extremely helpful in understanding why we choose to be victims versus how we can choose to be indispensable. He talked about the attitudes and approaches we must cultivate to take the latter path.

These included, feeding the right attitude; refusing to play small; and nourishing new ideas; along with declaring war on entitlement and complacency.

In his final major point, Kevin stated that the interconnected world we live in today demands a different level of commitment and engagement. If we do not make ourselves indispensable, we not only diminish our lives, but we are easily replaceable. We must take personal and organizational risks, be secure with failure, and make every day count. When we do so, we make live more meaningful lives and make our organizations outstanding.

He ended by acknowledging a problem. We are not often motivated to make game-changing choices unless we experience sufficient pain. Kevin offered the hope that the benefits to ourselves and our organizations of living a life of deliberate choice have been made clearer by the discussion we just heard.

Once again, on behalf of Dr. Kevin Freiberg and ourselves, we thank you for joining us and look forward to our next opportunity to cross paths.

Warm Regards,
Unbound Ideas