As Boris Groysberg and Michael
Slind argue in this piece;
leadership in the 21st century is like a conversation - they refer to it as “organizational conversation” leadership
model.
Most of us have started to realize
the necessity to drive our engagement with our employees and other stakeholders
in a conversational manner. But I wish to go a step further – how many leaders
of today have started to check if they are having a nutritious conversation?
Do you ever think about why we
have a conversation? The easy answers are because we want something and
need to communicate, to express our opinion, get to know the other person or
when we really have nothing else to do or without any productive reason i.e. sometimes
you might engage in a conversation because you are bored, sad or happy, just
because it's lunchtime, or because that the other person looks so good.
Those are some of the emotional and
physical reasons why we engage in a conversation but do we ever put
much thought into what makes a good conversation – to meet our expectations
from it. Why nutrition value of a
conversation forms an important quality that we should not ignore?
Having a Nutritious Conversation helps us in meeting our goals and meet/exceed
expectations others have from us. The conversations we engage in, should
be filled with necessary elements to provide the needed energy, excite and
encourage the other person to function, with needed caution and a gentle
reminder of possible ramifications if the ball does not roll at the right pace
and in the right direction – thus meeting or exceeding our expectations.
Just like we need to put fuel in
our car or recharge your cell phone battery, everybody needs to be fed with
right conversation every day. In any organization, as I mentioned in my previous piece - leadership should come from within each of us
and at every level. When each of us will truly appreciate the need for having a
nutritious conversation, each piece in the organizational jigsaw not
only completes the void it is expected to fill, but also engages with other pieces
in a nutritious way thus contributing
to the overall organizational
conversation.
Let’s have a healthy and a nutritious conversation!
