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| Path: Main Street : Resources & Library : Research Articles : Feature Article |
Why doing less is essential to doing more
By Pattie LaCroix
November 19, 2009
I have the privilege of offering professional coaching to a number of creative and innovative leaders in the social sector across Canada. What these people have in common is a keen sense to do more with their lives, and to nurture that which is meaningful to them. What they all come to realize, as is evidenced by their decision to invest their time in personal coaching in the first place, is that by slowing down they are reaching their destination faster.
In a culture that values more, bigger, faster, slowing down rubs against every learned behaviour. How can I be getting more done faster when I set aside time to pause and reflect? And that is the key...pausing and reflecting allows us to identify patterns, connect the dots, and see a problem in a new light, thereby unearthing new solutions.
"No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew," observed Albert Einstein. Learning to see the world anew requires us to break our familiar patterns, to reframe our internal conversations, and to deeply observe that which we pass by everyday and never really see.
"Without those new perspectives and the continuous infusion of novelty and innovation in our lives, our organizations, and our systems, there is a slow but definite loss of resilience and an increase in rigidity," observe the authors of Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed.
Reflective action allows us an opportunity to authentically engage with ourselves and with others. It is not possible to authentically engage with ourselves without pausing and reflecting. In this time of economic recession, where we are called upon to do more with less, I am inviting leaders in the social sector to do more by doing less.
Taking time to reflect and to take a new look at old problems results in tapping into an intelligence embedded on our emotions, something that has taken a backseat to rationalism. Neuroscientist Johan Lehrer, in his recent book How We Decide, observes:
One reason: our "reasonable" prefrontal cortex hasn't had nearly as much time to evolve as the inner animal of our emotional brains; logic has yet to learn its own limits. The conscious brain is ignorant of its own underpinnings, blind to all that neural activity taking place outside the prefrontal cortex. This is why people have emotions: they are windows into the unconscious, visceral representations of all the information we process but don't perceive.It is essential during these highly charged times that leaders in the nonprofit sector invest in creating space and time within organizations to reflect, to research, and to consult, so that we can identify patterns upon which to build innovate solutions.“We believed that ways of seeing could change ways of doing, that influencing practice in turn could influence progress,” conclude the authors of Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed.
Innovation is the heartbeat of a successful organization, of inspired leadership, and of meaningful change itself.
Pattie LaCroix has provided strategic engagement services to support leadership that ignites innovation in the social sector. As CEO of Catapult Media she provides strategic planning and professional coaching services to a wide range of organizations. You can reach Pattie at www.catapultmedia.ca.
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