Why strategy is a leader’s best friend

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JUST. ARTICULATE. A. STRATEGY!!!!!

If I could name the biggest factor leading to inefficient use of resources, overwork, de-motivation, and burnout that I witnessed and experienced over the course of my own 30-year career, it would be this:

Lack of clearly articulated strategy.

It’s the elephant in the room no one seems to want to acknowledge in the quest for increasing productivity and returns.

I’m all for growth, moving fast, experimentation, trying new ideas, getting creative—at the right point along the journey.

At some point, you need to pick something, stick with it, develop an elegant, integrated strategy to implement it—and then communicate it widely, clearly, and repeatedly, while also devoting resources to it.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve operated without either an articulated strategy or any resources devoted to it—and it’s a constant source of frustration (and conversation) for my clients.

Lack of strategy leads to de-motivation and burnout because without strategy, we don’t know where to place our concerted efforts in order to work towards success.

Without a coherent strategy as our orientation point, we end up expending energy everywhere, which dilutes the impact of our efforts.

Then, because our efforts aren’t focused on a strategy that gets us somewhere, they aren’t rewarded. We’re working hard, but not getting the gratification of seeing a real impact and being rewarded for it.

It’s like trying to sprint a marathon, but no one decided where the end is or what “finishing” looks like—or gave us any water to drink along the way.

Or, maybe there IS a strategy, but no resources devoted to it. So, it becomes another to-do list along with our other million to-do lists, and more often than not, they are all “priorities,” (because how can you prioritize when there’s no strategy?), so it’s impossible to determine where to focus our energies.

So, we overwork to compensate for the lack of resources or strategy, feel overwhelmed because we don’t have adequate resources to do high-level work, and end up doing a whole lot of work we’re not all that proud of because we weren’t set up with the conditions we need to do great work and make an impact.

This is incredibly de-motivating.

The burden of bad strategy flows downstream.

One antidote is to create a good strategy, and stick with it.

Another is to connect the dots—understand how lack of strategy or changing one mid-stream play out across the system. All too often, I see leadership teams change strategy without a real understanding of how this impacts teams at all levels. This is truly unfortunate—and avoidable.

If you are leading a team, please look at your strategies, objectives, goals and tactics—and communicate them clearly. Repeatedly. Look at what resources are devoted to implementing those strategies. If you don’t have resources to devote to a strategy, then I’m sorry to tell you… it isn’t a priority. Don’t pretend it is. That is bad leadership. If you insist it is a priority, then find resources for it; that is good leadership.

If you don’t have time to develop a strategy, then be clear and honest about the fact that that that IS your strategy.

Accept that there will be some wasted work along the way, because how can a team make good choices about where to devote resources and energy without a strategy? They can’t.

If you are being led and don’t understand a strategy, please manage up and ask. If there isn’t one, ask why. If you’re being asked to perform a task that isn’t aligned with a strategy, ask why you should execute it—get curious about the rationale behind to ensure it’s worth the time and effort. At the end of the day, we don’t always get to make that decision—but knowing what we’re working with is paramount if we want to do fulfilling work that actually helps us achieve our mission.

If you are consciously crafting a life you love, please look at your strategies, objectives, goals and tactics for achieving it. Look at what resources you’re devoting to implementing your strategies. If you don’t have resources to devote to a strategy, then I’m sorry to tell you… it isn’t a priority. Or, decide that it is, and reallocate your resources.

What’s true for life is true for work—because we’re humans. We want to do good work, and get the payoff from doing good work. That means making choices, and not others. That means devoting resources to some things, and not others. That means letting go of some things, and not others.

To be a humanful leader requires an understanding and acknowledgement of how strategy and lack of strategy impact our decision-making, autonomy, energy, and performance. Welcome to the paradigm shift.

Untangle your value from your rank + role.

Untangle your value from your rank + role.

Most of us currently operate within cultures that use hierarchy to signal authority, rank, and expertise.

Bosses, C-suite, and experts are seen as more valuable than those who fall lower on the totem pole.

Rank is equated to power, high value, leadership, and dominance.

But we’ve mixed up our PERSONAL value with FUNCTIONAL value of roles and rank within hierarchy.

Someone higher up may (or not) have more functional value than someone else.

But no one is more inherently valuable as a human being than others. Our value has nothing to do with our jobs. To be a humanful leader—one who is collaborative, co-creative, and inclusive—this is crucial to understand.

The function of our role, however, becomes more or less valuable depending on the circumstances. We just don’t have systems that reflect that, by and large—we have fixed systems, not fluid ones.

When hierarchy + identity become entangled, things go wonky.

Hierarchies are useful: triage, emergencies, situations requiring quick, coordinated execution and pre-planned strategies and protocols. In these cases, functions meet context, and a fixed hierarchy is efficient and effective. Makes sense.

But as rigid models used to signal rank + dominance—which in our culture have also come to signal personal value—hierarchies become a tool for disconnection. When every action is ranked, each action becomes a judgment of better than/less than—every action becomes a transaction.

When relationships become transactional, we lose the possibilities that come from collaborating, co-creating, and mutual respect; we end up relying more on people-pleasing or politicking to receive accolades—and our salaries.

We run the risk of losing ourselves, because our identities are not found in rank, roles, or value judgments about them (even if someone tells you they are); identity can only be found within.

This is one reason why many leaders end up feeling “alone at the top,” or disconnected from the reality of their organization. The farther apart the roles in a hierarchy, the more disconnection and distrust exists between them.

Others can feel less-than, like imposters, or needing to pacify those at higher levels.

This inhibits healthy competition, which arises from going all in with others who are willing to do the same. 

It also hinders the institution from operating effectively as an organism. We all saw during COVID that the value of a role is largely contextual: front-line healthcare workers became the most valuable roles on the planet, but their rank within hierarchy didn’t necessarily reflect that.

Creativity, collaboration, and innovation rely on mutual connection, respect, safety. Rank and hierarchy hinder this—unless proactive steps are taken to make sure that they don’t.

This is a loss at a personal level: managing egos is far less interesting than evolving our expertise.

It’s also a systemic loss: rank hinders feedback that flows up, and feedback is intelligence about the organism’s health. Why might feedback be withheld? Because it might be received as an affront to rank by the ego—and if that person is the one who evaluates us, and our evaluations are what ensure we get to pay our bills… well, that’s some dynamic tension right there. Let’s talk about it.

When we untangle personal identity from role/rank within hierarchy—when organizations can focus more on functional aspects of hierarchy and less on egoic—that creates an ecosystem that fosters healthy human collaboration, competition, and creativity.

That is an open, innovative system. That is growth mindset. That is evolution.

What could healing hierarchy look like?

1. Untangle value judgments from roles within hierarchy.

2. View it as a multi-faceted, contextual organism in service of a mission rather than a tool for wielding dominance.

What if we revalued hierarchies?

What if the current way of overvaluing the top and undervaluing the bottom of the triangle is flawed? Not because hierarchies are bad, but because fixed hierarchies have been used for signaling dominance, which is arbitrary, which erodes connection, which erodes trust between individuals and of institutions, which erodes community, which erodes human prosperity, which erodes generosity and compassion and joy?

What if we used hierarchies as a fluid tool that could flatten and reassemble based on context and necessity?

Where affluence flowed to the most valuable based on circumstance—not fixed, arbitrary judgments of who has more “social capital” or “power” than whom?

What if the hierarchy understood that the top of the triangle only exists because the entire rest of it exists? That it is a reciprocal, interdependent system that can only operate as a unit? That every role is only as valuable as the circumstances it responds to, which will shift because life does?

What if hierarchy knew how to get itself into flow state?

What if the structures and systems we build evolve as quickly as we do?

This is part of my series “Healing Hierarchy: How to shift from domination to collaboration in the workplace.” More to come.

Learn how to discern healthy pleasure from unhealthy “pleasure”

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Learn how to discern healthy pleasure from unhealthy “pleasure.”

Pleasure is a beautiful thing.

Pleasure is built into our bodies.

Pleasure is part of our power as humans.

Pleasure is feedback.

Pleasure is our birthright.

And, there needs to be discernment around when healthy pleasure tips over into unhealthy “pleasure.”

There is a difference between seeking real pleasure—things that nourish, replenish, enliven, and satiate you—and unhealthy pleasure, which is a bottomless numbing mechanism for pain, rather than a movement towards health.

Healthy pleasure satiates and replenishes us—it is balanced.

Unhealthy pleasure is a detour to distract us from pain—which it can’t ever actually fulfill, which is why we always crave more of it. When imbalanced, it can turn into addiction, numbing, distraction, or overindulgence in an attempt to self-soothe.

We do need to self-soothe, but we need to get to the root of just what it is we are actually trying to soothe and address it directly, rather than trying to tamp it down. This is where deep inner work comes in, dealing with our shadows and trauma, and learning new skills for healing and balance.

And, we need to learn to choose healthy, balanced pleasure SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS PLEASURABLE.

We don’t have to justify it. We win no extra points at the end of the game of life for denying ourselves true pleasure. Healthy pleasure is a tool for self-balance; without it, it’s hard not to fall victim to unhealthy pleasure in some way.

How do we discern balanced pleasure from imbalanced gratification?

Imbalanced gratification leaves us wanting more—it is never complete. It never has enough, so we don’t feel lit up by life. We feel anxiety about not getting the thing we’re craving. When we get it, we feel let down—if we don’t numb that feeling, too.

Healthy pleasure makes us feel ALIVE, energized, and connected to life, others, and ourselves. Healthy pleasure is tied to our values, gifts, and deep desires.

Healthy pleasure fills us up WITH OURSELVES, so we feel generous—healthy pleasure wants to be shared. Which means healthy pleasure is healthy not just for you, but for others, too. That is a beautiful thing.

What it means to rewild

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What it means to rewild

In ecology, rewilding is a movement that allows the natural world time to replenish after cultivation: time to rest, enrich, and realign with her innate intelligence, patterns, and rhythms.

What if humans allowed ourselves a similar process of rewilding? Of rediscovering our true nature?

This could look like…

• Learning how to tune into our intuition

• Rediscovering our instincts

• Learning how to listen to our bodily wisdom

• Naming our strategies for getting our needs and desires met

• Expressing ourselves authentically

• Taking off our masks so we can connect fully and freely

• Reclaiming our passion

• Claiming our truest power

• Creating: a gift, an idea, a poem, art, a project, a paradigm… whatever wildly unique offering you have singing beneath your skin, ready to surge through you. 

When we untangle ourselves from outdated conditioning, stories, and habits, allow ourselves space to sieve through our own rich soil, then plant seeds for a new vision and nourish our deepest desires… we bloom.

Our blood remembers how to sing.

I developed the Creative Rewilding journey as a regenerative process to restore ourselves to our natural state of curiosity, creativity, and vibrancy.

To reignite our fire.

To wander between our inner and outer landscapes.

To tune in to our unique gifts and values, align with patterns in nature.

To fall in love + lust with our own lives—so we can use that as scaffolding to “code” our life force and create what only we can create. 

To fire up our own life force so it can surge through us.

This is generative activism: We transform the world by aligning with its natural rhythms and patterns. And our own.

You know you have a gift you’re meant to offer the world.

The Creative Rewilding process will help you clarify what that is and shift limiting perspectives, so you can GIVE IT. It's needed.

Your greatest gift is someone else’s deepest desire. Will you give it?

The surprising power of play

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The surprising power of play.

Playing is basically evolution that works well for our nervous systems—not the kind of evolution that requires us to starve, mutate, exhaust ourselves, inflict pain, render ourselves extinct, all that fun stuff. 

• Play is experimentation. 

• Play is iteration.

• Play is pushing past our boundaries.

• Play is creative.

• Play is co-creative.

• Play is strengthening.

• Play helps regulate our nervous systems.

• Play is fun.

• Play strengthens social connection.

• Physical play strengthens our muscles, body language, connection cues.

• Play laughs in the face of judgment--and invites it to play.

• Play dares itself to take it one step too far.

• Play is a way for us to grow and evolve with low stakes. The outcome doesn’t matter—which means we can be open to any possibility arising, rather than trying to control and manage the process so we achieve a predictable process and outcome.

Play is growth mindset.

Predictability, control, managing—these are all excellent things in certain circumstances. And unbelievably boring in others.

You know the phrase, “If you want to make god laugh, tell her your plans?”

I think this is basically the universe’s way of telling us that we are not the boss of her—but she would love to play with us, because she loves a good laugh and loves creating things. 

If you want to grow, PLAY.

If you want to be creative, PLAY.

If you want to evolve, PLAY.

Play answers a surprising number of questions.

How else could the world have ridiculous things like blue-footed boobies and hammerhead sharks and hot-magenta dragonfruit and sloths? There’s a tiny bug on my gardenia with fuzz coming out of its butt—it’s ridiculous. You think these were the a result of serious, controlled work?

No, clearly these are manifestations of the mindset of, “I wonder what happens if I do THIS?”

What if we let go of trying to manage the process, and played through it? Together?

What if we outplayed play?

Want to up the ante?

Practice ridiculosity: ridiculousness at high velocity (I like to make up words, because I love to PLAY).

Don’t underestimate the power of ridiculousness. Go play.

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There’s been a lot of research over the past several years about the importance of play. And one of my favorite books is Deep Play by Diane Ackerman. I highly recommend it!

Learn from nature’s patterns: radiate

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Learn from nature’s patterns: radiate

This one’s pretty obvious. Nature shows us endless examples of the radial:

• dandelions

• the sun and stars

• hands and fingers

• the iris of our eyes

• a drop rippling outward in the water

• sunflowers

The lesson of the radial?

Let yourself shine your radiance—in all directions.

Throw yourself out there—in all directions. 

AND

Receive from all directions.

Draw nourishment from all directions.

Put out feelers in all directions, so they can draw in the nurturing you need—into your core.

Let your own radiance feed your core: your heart.

This may be the secret wisdom of the radial: that it flings itself outward in all directions… because it knows all roads lead back to the heart.

Shine on, wild ones. Happy rewilding.

Learn from nature’s patterns: fractal

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Learn from nature’s patterns: fractal

Consider the fractal:

• tributaries of a river

• veins and arteries in our bodies

• a fern

• the branch of a tree

• spines of mountains

• leaves of a succulent

• our lungs and neurons

All are examples of fractals, a pattern that repeats itself over and over at different sizes as it grows and expands.

The fractal is another pattern in nature we see everywhere—but how can the fractal pattern bring us closer to ourselves?

Ever repeat a pattern over and over in your life, for better or worse?

That pattern was created because it works (or worked) in some way. Repeated over time, that pattern creates structure—it becomes its own blueprint and scaffolding for replicating itself. It’s a fractal.

Our brains LOVE this: predictable, repeatable patterns simply require less energy than doing things differently.

This is one reason it can be so hard to break a pattern—the wiring wants to perpetuate itself.

The good news is, this is also why truly changing a pattern ripples out into ALL areas of our lives—the pattern reconfigures itself at all levels.

This is why personal self-development is not different from leadership development is not different from relationship development is not different from culture-shifting.

Same skills—different scale.

That’s a fractal.

One example that’s common with my clients (and myself):

Learning how to have difficult conversations while maintaining authentic connection. This is something that will help you in conversations with your colleagues as much as with your partner and friends.

Same skills—different context. 

Is there a pattern in your life you’d like to rewire?

If you were to shift one pattern, what areas in your life could transform?

I’d love to know—share in the comments!

Learn from nature’s patterns: torus

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Learn from nature’s patterns: torus

A tree.

A human body.

An earthworm.

The Everything Bagel. (Anyone?)

Perhaps the universe itself.

What do these have in common? 

They’re all examples of the torus, a rotating, regenerative, self-perpetuating… doughnut.

A tree grows up from the ground; as it grows through seasons and cycles, it sheds leaves and disperses rain off its leaves, both of which nourish the roots and soil it needs to continue to grow.

A regenerative, self-nourishing cycle. Its own decay + shed serve its continued growth.

Human bodies, even earthworms do the same thing.

We ingest nutrients, they nourish and sustain us, then we release that sh*t back into the soil to fertilize what we need to grow to continue nourishing us—so the cycle continues. 

So beautifully symbolic. Such rich, earthy wisdom.

How can the pattern of the torus be useful? Ask yourself, in both a literal + metaphorical sense:

• What nourishes you? Are you proactively growing that?

• What do you need to shed in order to continue to grow?

• What healthy, regenerative systems + cycles can you create that continue to supply the nutrients you need without depleting the source?

• What systems and cycles do you see that are NOT self-sustaining?

As we continue to examine nature, nature feeds us back: with foods, beauty, wisdom. 

Regenerative cycles have an innate balance.

How can you find balance in relationship with yourself and the world?

Be the doughnut you wish to see in the world. 

Dare to meet life intimately

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Dare to meet life intimately.

Life will only be as fulfilling as the depth with which we’re willing to meet it.

Surface-level connections will fulfill us… at the surface.

But our depths crave intimacy and sharing. Intimacy craves depth, not masks and walls.

What if we stopped holding life at arm’s length?

What if we entered into an intimate relationship with all that is?

What if we were willing to walk through life…

… holding everything with care and protection

… seeing fully

… being seen fully

… open

… being opened

… sharing

… embracing what is, not what we think should be

… releasing masks and performance

… touching and being touched

… loving wholeheartedly

… being moved by life?

The tragedy is that we’ve narrowed down the idea of “intimacy” to something that only happens behind closed doors. (Another tragedy is that sex does not necessarily include intimacy—sometimes, it’s anything but.)

But why not be intimate in every realm of our lives? 

Why not share deeply during lunchtime?

Why not be willing to be moved by a random conversation in line at the drugstore?

Why not hold with care what you see on your walk?

Intimacy is everywhere, if we have the courage to meet it: a type of quantum entanglement that thrills in knowing us—as we know ourselves—more and more fully.

An intimate life is a gift to humanity.

Why not live life as if it were a love letter to the planet?

The importance of showing up messy

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The importance of showing up messy

I’m someone who, for the most part, has been able to show up well in my life. I’m pretty presentable. I know how to play well with others. I can get the job done. Not always perfectly, not always the best, but good enough.

One May day in 2020, I woke up and everything changed. I had a cerebrospinal fluid leak, which caused by brain to sag, which prompted a cascade of neurological and physical degeneration over the next 13 months. It was awful, and terrifying. It screwed up my life, and my nervous system. I was conscious, but my brain would fade in and out constantly. I cried and catastrophized frequently, methods my body and brain used to try to find regulation. I was a complete mess. I felt like I was losing my tether to my body and this planet.

Interestingly, I could still show up, albeit in a diminished way. I could still have conversations. I could still garden or make art, some days. I could smile and laugh, sometimes. I grieved with some friends who were also going through difficult challenges. I even navigated the sh!tshow that is health insurance. I was just a complete mess while I did it all.

And this was an important lesson for me:

I’ve learned that showing up messy doesn’t diminish my intelligence.

I’ve learned that showing up in grief doesn’t lessen my impact.

I’ve learned that showing up in tears doesn’t mean I can’t get things done.

I’ve learned that showing up even though I’m a mess doesn’t mean I care any less.

I’ve learned that showing up inconsistently is sometimes me giving 100%.

I’ve learned that showing up scared is actually pretty courageous.

If anything, these messy, inconvenient states remind me of why I’m showing up in the first place: to help and to care, and to normalize helping, caring, grieving, healing—in all realms of our lives. Even when we’re a mess.

This doesn’t mean I don’t need days of respite and solitude—I do.

This doesn’t mean I should push through everything, no matter what—it doesn’t.

This doesn’t mean it’s always a great idea to show up messy—it isn’t.

But there are a lot of stories floating around about how we should “never let them see you sweat,” that emotions are unprofessional, that grief is something to be dealt with… somewhere else, some other time, if at all: we don’t really make time or space for grief—or people experiencing it—in our culture. (And look into the origins of “professionalism” and ask yourself if just maybe we need to update the concept.)

At times, these ideas held me back from showing up, because I didn’t feel I measured up—that my mess, emotional state, ill health, inconsistency was a burden, one to be borne alone, by myself.

But really, these stories are just telling us to turn off our humanity.

To keep us alone, isolated, or shamed by our humanness when we most need to connect with others in it.

To keep the machine running.

I’m not at all interested in performing like a machine. I just can’t live down to that expectation.

I’m bringing human back—to all the places we’ve been told it’s too imperfect to work.

These might just be the spaces we need it most.

And in return…

We need to get comfortable with others showing up messy.

There is a lot going on on the planet. Too much.

If we’re going to move through these times with our humanity intact, we have to create compassionate space for falling apart—for ourselves, and for others.

This can’t be relegated solely to the realm of therapy, counseling, or self-development.

Grief, illness—they don’t care about our timelines. Q4 is irrelevant.

Grief and illness are the disruptive technologies meant to jolt us back into our humanness, and they will show up when and where they please. Maybe in the middle of a Tuesday.

And—if our systems can’t accommodate our humanness… remind me, what is the point of them?

We need leaders in every arena to learn and model how to hold grief, illness, and nervous system dysregulation humanely.

We all need to learn how to do this. There is a lot of grieving and caregiving to be done; this will be anything but convenient.

I truly believe that in some not-so-distant future, organizations will be evaluated by how well they are willing and able to embrace this.

We can’t turn a blind eye to the magnitude of change occurring. I’m not the only one who had a rough few years. Many went through worse than I did, or have been dealing with it for far longer.

It’s an invitation for us all to lean into our humanity, re-learn how to be fully human, and recalibrate our systems so they are in alignment with our full humanness—together.

This is the heart of humanful leadership: our capacity to hold one another in the full spectrum of our humanity—not just the sanitized parts.

It’s a mess. Hold on. Embrace it. And each other.

What it means to be humanful

Fill yourself up until you are overflowing with your own humanity. Be humanFUL.

When we are satiated by the fullness of our own humanity—when we are “humanful”—we then get the pleasure of pursuing not just what we lack, but what we truly desire.

Can you feel that tipping point where acting to fill a void tips over into sharing excitement and desire from a place of fullness? That’s our sweet spot.

But… how do we fill ourselves up?

By being fully human:

Filling our senses with healthy pleasures.

Spending our energy on what feeds us back: healthy food, water, movement, authentic connection, beauty, awe.

Healing.

Resting.

Playing.

Co-creating.

Fueling our passions, core values, and deep desires.

Fostering healthy relationships, ones in which we all get to be exactly who we are and who we aren’t.

Expanding our definition of “human” to include the environment that supports us, grows us, and nourishes us, to include all the other earthlings, flora and fauna alike, in our interconnected web of life.

Nourishing them back, so they can continue to nourish us.

Wondering.

Sharing.

Giving and receiving. 

To know ourselves and to honor ourselves is to fill ourselves up.

When you are full of yourself in the healthiest way possible, then please—GIVE the gift of yourself.

You—yes, you—are the gift you are meant to give.

Be an earthling. Love earth. Act accordingly.

In a universe where everything is interdependent, we are made human by our connection to all that is.

We’re not human perched on top of all that is. We did not evolve in some hermetically sealed capsule.

We evolved WITH all the other earthlings—saltwater, cicadas, orchids, worms, hawks, gazillions of bugs, maples, giraffes, amethyst, groundhogs, fire, dust, dew, whale sharks, waterfalls.

All of it.

We take in tiny remnants of it all every single time we breathe, eat, see, hear, touch.

The word “human” has its roots in the Latin “humus,” which means earth. We are of the earth.

When the earth changes, we change. When we change, the earth changes. We all have our place, and when one thing changes, all things do.

The only way to truly be happy and healthy is to love and respect ourselves, others, and everything.

If we are made human by all that is, we must love earth and all the other beings who share this planet (and universe, and multiverse, and…) in order to be fully human. Humanful.

I’ve started using the word “humanful,” because to me, it feels like filling ourselves up with our own humanity—in the largest sense of our human earthlingness, connected in a reciprocal relationship to all that is—not the small, arbitrarily separate sense.

When we are full to overflowing with ourselves—not in some unhealthy, ego-based narcissism, but in knowing and feeding our own generative, divine fire because it is also earth’s fire—it’s so much easier to find balance, generativity, and generosity, and spill that over into loving everything else.

It’s so much easier to find our purpose.

I think the purpose of humans is to be fully healthy, happy humans, because I happen to think that that works out well for everything else.

To me, this is how we define our humanity: by remembering and loving our true nature and our place here as earthlings—entangled with everyone and everything else.

Humanful.