What a buzz. I just got back from my first ever speaking gig at the Women’s Leadership Program for Leadership Victoria. This is the first time I’ve been asked to share my story to a group of people purely because it's a bloody good one. The three day event was focused around the adaptive leadership principles found in Your Leadership Edge by Ed O’Malley and Amanda Cebula and it turns out that our story thus far, is a ‘complex adaptive challengers’ dream!
Adaptive leadership, in a nutshell, is divided into four parts. ‘Part 1: Diagnosing the situation’ is followed by ‘Part 2: Managing Self’. ‘Part 3: Energising Others’ leads to ‘Part 4: Intervening Skillfully’. My job today was to be a real life example of all four sections so people could recognize where we’ve faced complex adaptive challenges and how we responded. For better or worse, depending on which part of the story I was at.
It felt very indulgent to be sitting in a circle of 20 or so very impressive women and have them listen to our story. They all listened so intently and laughed in all the right places. It made me feel really proud. It also made me appreciate that our story is worth sharing. It was quite an interesting discovery to be honest. I thought it would feel strange or disingenuous, like we were somehow gaining from our misfortune in some way but it didn’t.
True to my brand, I didn’t have anything prepared and just rocked up on the day to talk to a group of strangers - please don’t take this as disrespect for the audience and their time, not at all. ‘Sexy indifference’ is what I like to call it. It's either going to work or not work. By not preparing a speech, or stressing about talking points, I was able to go with the flow of conversation and adapt the direction to fit in with the existing framework that the three day event was exploring. The only two points I did open with were that I believe everything is either ‘good news or a good story’ (this sets the tone) and that in situations like this, I ‘wing it’ so who knows where this conversation will lead (this sets expectations).
The whole experience was quite therapeutic. Much like this blog is a way for me to reflect on the week that was, being given the floor for 45 minutes to talk about everything felt quite cathartic. I found myself drawing conclusions about things that I hadn’t clearly formulated before, or at least had never said out loud.
It’s easy to get caught up in the moment but I felt really purposeful sharing this all with such a welcoming group of women. I wondered if it would’ve felt the same if there had been men in the audience or the group was larger? It's hard to tell but whatever the case, the vibes were high.
I just got some feedback from Leadership Victoria and they were stoked with the session. It also led beautifully into the participants' next session which was about telling their own stories. I realised, whilst saying it out loud, how important storytelling is to me. The very fact that I was sitting in a circle of women sharing my story, coming to this conclusion seems silly now given the circumstances but sharing our journey (via this blog) as it happened (is happening) is a thread that binds the last 5 years together. What was once just reflecting on the main events has become a main event itself.
I was asked what I was going to do next. A big part of adaptive leadership is about making conscious decisions and ‘winging it’ feels like the opposite of that. When we dug a bit deeper though, there is a value system that underpins my opportunism. When I write about something, I’m extending the impact it had on me to others. Most of the time this is purely entertainment for the reader but every now and then it will give someone the encouragement they needed. Someone might take a risk because they see that we’ve taken so many and even when it doesn’t work out, it's going to be either good news or a good story.
Leadership Victoria have asked if I’d be interested in applying for the Williamson Community Leadership Program which is the state equivalent of the Future Shapers, the Ballarat Community leadership I completed last year. Of course I said that I would LOVE to apply but quickly followed up by asking what they had in the way of scholarships… At $22K, it’s a big investment for someone who just qualified for a Health Care card.
Being able to share my tales with others has become an incredibly fulfilling thing to do. At the moment I feel very privileged to be able to share these thoughts with you now and I’m loving transferring these vibes across to the Tech School where they’re put to use with our Student Leadership team especially. Whatever the future holds, I’ll be prepared for it by not being prepared at all.
