Our ultimate joy comes from fulfilling co-promises

Material for today’s podcast is mainly drawn from the Co-promises sparkenation of my Remarkable Workplaces book.

Sparkenation: a spark that ignites passion that leads to action that changes what’s normal.

Listen directly to the podcast version of this post here.

In a nutshell

‘The People Centered Economy: The New Ecosystem For Work’ makes my recommended business books to read list. One reason I like this book is that some of it’s authors are technology guru’s. And in the case of one, Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet.

There’s a link to this book at the Remarkable Workplaces companion resources web page.

I mostly like this book because its focus is on raising the value of people in stark contrast to what most business leaders are trying to do, lower the cost of tasks.

To achieve this most noble of objectives requires not a compromise rather a co-promise. Let me explain:

In the Epilogue of the ‘Changing What’s Normal’ book I said:

“In my year as President of the National Speakers Association of Australia Ltd (NSAA) (now Professional Speakers Australia (PSA)) in 2003/04 I chose Fulfilling Our Promise as my theme.

It was our Association’s 16th year and I determined, after consultation with many members, and untold hours of soul- searching with fellow Board members, that is was time to change what was normal about how our organisation was going to get where we wanted to go.

The process of changing what’s normal became known as Operation Stature reflecting our desire to be an organisation recognised internally and externally as one of stature.”

I learned crucial lessons that year about being a Sparkenator (someone who is on the never-ending journey of being a wise, witty and warm communicator, a trusted adviser, a compassionate coach, a maestro mentor, an engaging and inspiring speaker, a change champion, an appreciative and value driven leader, and a candid, convivial and compassionate conversationalist).

I learned that compromises lead to mediocre performance. It takes a series of co-promises to achieve magnificence.

I was learning the science of quantum leaps in those days. And although I didn’t know it then I was also practicing the art of the aggregation of marginal gains.

Above all I learned that through small yet significant steps and their combining, human capacity is something to treasure and value above everything.

The following is a standout line early in The People Centered Economy book (page 11).

“Human capacity is probably the world’s most underutilized resource, the world’s largest potential market.”

Although I detest referencing humans as resources (or even worse assets or capital!) and breaking everything down to markets or economies I value the sentiment of the wisdom above.

To co-create a Remarkable Workplace requires the majority of your people to be operating at their capacity, i.e. as pictured

The journey to the majority of your people operating at their capacity begins with appreciating their character and is extended through care, compassion, commitment and courage, while improving competency.

A lot of businesses focus is on increasing just competency or skill. Don’t be one of them. Go deeper and tap into the deep humanity of people.

The recommended actions and deep work recommended below will help you.

3 Recommended actions

1) Review your position descriptions and change them to role clarity statements. Make these about relationships and value delivery and not about tasks. Leave tasks to operating manuals and checklists. There’s a template that you can download at the bottom of this webpage.

2) Make sure that all your future recruitment is about hiring people of character, willingness and attitude first and abilities second.

3) Review all your key relationships. Who will you become and what will you do next to be more compassionate and caring?

Recommended deep work

1) As a team complete your Plan and Co-Promises on a page. You can download recommendations and a template at the bottom of this web page.

2) Translate the above into individual Performance Possibility Plan’s (PPP’s). See example of my PPP and a template for you and your colleagues at the above link.

Should you not yet be familiar with PPP’s and their power as conversation focusing tools please reread ‘The Appreciative Leader’ handbook and check out the videos and other resources at the companion resources page to that handbook here.

Please also participate in my online first Monday of the month Maintaining Momentum For Mavericks conversations as I explore PPP’s and related tools regularly.

Learn more about these and other special events here.

Do Your Work.

Be remarkable.

Ian