In the Mandt System we, as employees try as far as possible to act and behave in ways that mirror and are consistent with what we teach in the program. In particular in the areas of building healthy relationships, communication and conflict resolution. Over recent weeks we, as a company have been dealing with a set of shifting responsibilities and as with any change process event the associated anxieties and concerns that individuals understandably have.
After some initial frustration with the reaction of colleagues I made an active decision to ‘run toward the fire’ and began to do what I could to put out the peripheral fires whilst ensuring the main fire did no grow and was being managed to bring it under control. The surprise in this approach was that I found myself listening much harder to ‘the real message’ in peoples communication and also have learnt a tremendous amount of practical things about how to cover off support to customers and mange some of our system issues.
In sounds cheesy to say it but taking this approach rather than the other roads I could have elected has given me some terrific learning, allowed me to try and model what we teach, and hopefully improved the quality of relationships with key colleague’s. So my tip for this weeks blog is that sometimes ‘running toward the fire’ can be a better choice than the other if and where you can do that safely.
Simon Kemp – SVP Business Development
