VIEWS ARE MY OWN

OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE ARE MY PERSONAL VIEWS

Shakespeare said "All the world's a stage . . ." I agree! I believe that life is one big improvisation! I love helping leaders explore the way art and creativity can improve life and intersect with the business/non-profit world! What do you want to learn today? What do you want to create? Let's do a scene!
Showing posts with label insight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insight. Show all posts

Thursday, February 6, 2014

When Ideas Become Orders

In the improvisation of life, sometimes it takes going back and reviewing a scene in my head to see why I reacted as I did.

Recently, I took the time to step back and ponder a gut reaction I had to one of life's scenes.

The behavior that inspired such a strong (angry) reaction from me was an idea thrown out to a group.

Ideas! I love ideas! I love to brainstorm with people, I love to get the energy flowing I love to turn the best ideas into action plans and implement them.

So . . . being angry due to an idea, that was out-of-character, right?

Wrong.

The person who shared the idea is someone in the group who honestly never does any of the heavy lifting. This person shows up to meetings, throws out a bunch of "ideas" and then disappears until the next month's meeting. I got angry because I felt bossed around. I realized that it wasn't an idea thing at all, but, it was a STATUS thing!  This person was pulling high status on the rest of the group! (Click HERE to read my post on status.)

The idea was really an ORDER.

It was a directive to others in the group to put time and effort into implementing a plan devised by this person.

This self-avowed "idea person" was really a dictator.

No one likes a dictator. Dictators inspire loathing.

Leaders inspire. Leaders do their part in implementing an idea.

This scene in the improv of life gave me the gift of insight.

I love ideas and I don't want to be a dictator, so, I've decided that unless I'm willing to put in the sweat/time/effort to seeing an idea of mine to fruition, I'll do my best to KEEP IT TO MYSELF!