Strategic Doing

Chapter 12TEN SKILLS. GOT IT. NOW WHAT?

In the past ten chapters, we introduced you to ten different skills. You can use any of these skills with the groups, teams, and organizations you're a part of and that are facing complex challenges. They take practice to master, but you will immediately see productivity gains. Fewer wasted hours in meetings. Less confusion over direction. More excitement and engagement in the work that you do.

Each of these skills stands on its own. Give some forethought, for example, to the strategic conversations you need to have. Take some time to make sure these conversations take place in both a safe place and safe space. This alone can be transformational; we've seen how that first skill, applied and reinforced, begins to change a tide of bad conversational habits. When people feel safe, they are more open to revealing and sharing their assets.

The second skill holds equal potential. Over and over, we've heard from groups that just talking about what the questionshould be – not even trying to answer it yet – has completely changed the conversations they are having. They've gone from having to beg people to attend meetings to having to train more leaders, because so many people want to be part of a group that is daring to dream a new dream.

Here's another example. If you're faced with several opportunities but have only enough time or money resources to do one, pull out the Big Easy matrix. You'll find that the two dimensions of this matrix help ...