Kickstart Your New Year by Embracing Uncertainty: A Systemic Approach to Aligning and Energising your Team
It never ceases to amaze me how many leaders move towards the future by looking into the rear-view mirror or, in the face of uncertainty, shrug their shoulders at the futility of considering it. Are we losing the art of audacious ambitions at a time we most need to reimagine?
The festive season is a time of endings and transitioning to new beginnings – it is a time to reflect on lessons learned, progress made, and invoke hope and energy for the year ahead.
The new year is often seen as a fresh start, a blank slate. However, knowing what to fill that blank page with can lead to writer’s block, or imposter syndrome, with fear, or even guilt, of hoping for something magnificent in such treacherous times. And so we hold ourselves in the grip of depleting returns.
The notion of what is important, too, is shifting daily. While this can be a motivating perspective, it's also confusing and one has to make extra effort to step out of the zone of confusion, into a zone of creative and generative innovation, the energy to which a new year invites us.
Moving beyond these impasses of creative expression are vital for today’s leaders, and it can be achieved by harnessing the power of human connection as you transition to 2025. Tapping into that power is as much about the energy of co-creation as it is the creation itself.
And so, it is important to approach the new year with your team – gathering the “human system” around you to delve into what lies beneath and beyond – to a sense of hope, purpose and ambition, and develop a way of working together for the year that can harness and work with short and long-term alignments, goals, adaptations and ways of capturing value shaping a new story that will become history of how your future was moulded into being.
Hiring an external facilitator to guide your journey is highly advised and that’s the work we love at Xenergie! To find out more about our leadership studios and journeys, please contact us for more info.
In the meantime here are some tips:
Consider your intent and ambition in its fullest way. This involves considering the interconnectedness of various factors and recognizing that sustainable success isn't a one-time event, it’s an ongoing process, all of which needs “containing” in a process of learning and organisation development.
Such a process has many winding roads, highways, milestones and measures. These milestones - often called “traction” - are often not counted or valued in traditional ways of working, and worse, may revert in cutting off the very success you dream of in its infancy. Thus you will need to establish a new or additional set of KPIs around this work relating to competency, contributions and capacity building.
To embrace this and begin to align, defining “action learning” as an innovation process and project, and making it core leadership responsibility, is the starting point.
The Power of the Action Learning Process
One of the most significant challenges in any new year is dealing with uncertainty. Economic downturns, geopolitical tensions, and unforeseen events can disrupt even the best-laid plans. Rather than fearing uncertainty, embrace it as an opportunity for innovation and adaptability – energy for innovation comes from being connected to the external context, and aligning the inner motivations and callings of your team with this. Action Learning helps in four key ways
A) Build Capability to Respond: This is about relating, learning together and forging a path to the future, ensuring that you and your team and your wider stakeholders can quickly adapt to changing circumstances, together. This is more than agile working, it requires a relational and orchestrated adaptive method - a facilitated team “action learning” journey - in which new ways of seeing, reflection, learning, evolving roles and taking action are crystallised into new paths and forms of value. This way of working has to be both learned and then embedded to create the foundations which will enable your team to navigate uncertainty – in other words the certainty comes from the way of working as a team or collection of connected teams, rather than the environment, in knowing that there is capability to respond.
B) Dream the unseen future into being: By consciously placing energy into developing your burning ambition, you create space and a neuro-pathway for openness and manifesting something new. Consider multiple future scenarios, both positive and negative. By working with the energies of all scenarios you reduce risk and anxiety, aspects which can quickly invoke derailment to the unprepared. Too many leaders find it hard to imagine what they don’t know or what they fear – this is a creative muscle which has become weak in habits of short-termism or waiting for others to bring the tablets of stone – and part of the resilience-building vital in 21st century leaders. Exercising your mental muscles in this area will not only help you develop contingency plans and be better prepared for unexpected challenges, but generate immediate forward movement and uplift from the doldrums of hopelessness.
C) Become Relational in your Daily Doing: By engaging in action learning it shifts your thinking in a relational way, and with a focus on constantly keeping stakeholders in view and in relation to the work you are engaged. The more connected you are the more engaged and adaptive you can be to multiple changes at multiple levels in a project, and a river of constantly shifting perspectives in stakeholders. Thus being relational is far more than just be agile and learning from failure with iterative improvements – it invokes a much deeper and wider landscape of relational efforts and content.
E) The Art of Manifesting: Setting Intentions and Taking Action
Thoughts create energy, which creates things. Manifesting is not just about wishful thinking. It's about setting clear intentions, working with the energy of creation and taking consistent action to bring innovative thoughts into life and business. When harnessed by a team, the amazing can happen. When manifesting, work towards:
Clear Vision: Develop a clear and inspiring vision for the year ahead.
Goal Setting: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.
Positive Affirmations: Use positive affirmations to reinforce your intentions and boost your motivation.
Consistent Action: Take daily steps towards your goals, no matter how small.
Aligning is a Verb: It’s Continuous activity and journey
Team alignment is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process. It requires consistent communication, trust-building, and shared vision.
Open Communication: Create a culture of open and honest communication, where team members feel safe to share their ideas and concerns.
Shared Vision: Ensure that everyone on the team understands and is aligned with the company's vision and goals.
Regular Check-ins: Conduct regular team meetings to discuss progress, address issues, and celebrate successes.
Team-Learning Activities: Foster strong relationships and teamwork through team-learning activities that build understanding and cooperative action towards tha shared vision and 21st century leadership of the organisation.
By adopting a systemic approach, embracing uncertainty, harnessing the power of manifesting, and prioritising team alignment, you can set your organisation up for long-term success in the new year. Remember, it's not just about the destination, but the journey.
