You have to be either bored or desperate to play solitaire. 
The game you play when there is nothing else to play.
But even worse than playing solitaire, is cheating at solitaire!
No one is looking.
No one will be hurt.
What harm can it do?
To cheat on yourself is like a death of a thousand strokes.
You take short cuts.
You fail to count all your strokes in a round of golf.
You make self justifications that can't be justified.
You are silent when you know you should speak.
You speak when you know you should be silent.
You make yourself bigger or smaller than you really are.
You over or undersell yourself.
You let bullies walk all over you.
When you cheat at solitaire you lose.

Every home has one - a fourth drawer.

The first drawer is for cutlery and just below it the second one for utensils.
The third drawer has a range of storage items from tea towels and tinfoil to glad wrap.

The fourth drawer is for everything else with no specific home. Over time it becomes the collection place for
rubbish. There may be some things of value here but you'll have to dig deep - they will be hard to find amongst the chaos. This could also be called your junk drawer.

Not only does every home have a fourth drawer but everyone has one!

Here's how it works.
Your first drawer is for your basic tools of trade.

The second drawer is for your utensils, the special abilities that set you apart from others; the strengths that you play to every day.

The third drawer is for your "wrap up, cover up and clean up" tools; no one is perfect and we all wrap up, cover up or clean up.

The fourth drawer is your junk drawer.  When you've gone through all your other drawers and you can't find anything that works you go searching through the fourth drawer and then let rip.  

Others watching on or at the receiving end ask, "Where on earth did that come from?" - the fourth drawer.

The fourth drawer comes into play when you are tired, under stress, outside your comfort zone, facing uncertainty or at
the limit of your competency.

Most people have no idea what's in their fourth drawer so here's what you could look for. . . resentment, disappointment,
jealously, cynicism, bitterness, insecurity, fear and a host of other traits from a wounded soul.

Sooner or later you'll have to clean out your fourth drawer - if not, one day it will spill out onto the floor and create a big
mess.

So the next time you ask "Where did that come from?” you know the answer . . . the fourth drawer.

andrew norton 2012

Leadership has become an elitist sport, a few
pros take to the circuit while the crowd watches and applauds or condemns.  Sideline debates, often heated, break-out on what a leader is and isn’t. Score sheets are created on the function and form of leadership describing their characteristics successes and failureFew ever venture to put any flesh into the game. Occasionally one of  the pros will  write a book on what leadership is and if you’re really lucky you’ll get a personally signed copy.

The language of leadership has predominately been shaped by Newtonian physics and military strategy. These two forces have been adapted by the corporate world to give us leadership as we know it today. When people say “I’m not a leader” what they are really saying is “If that is what a leader is, I’m not that.”


But what if the language of leadership is too small to capture the vast range of human experiences of leadership?

What if there is more to leadership than command and control?

What if the science of leadership is found wanting to describe  its  art and mystery?

What if the corporate ladder of leadership is up against the wrong wall?

To answer these kinds of questions you will need to hear a different voice; the voice of a Poet.

The Poet’s task is to invite people into conversation about their experience of life, ask the questions that no one else is asking and to create a sacred silence that speaks of identity and meaning.  This is the task of a leader.  
 
To do this will require stepping into a new space and learning a new language.  This is a space you enter into without preformed and formulaic answers; it is a disruptive and disturbing conversation that requires courage. It takes courage
because you may be changed by the conversation.  It is a conversation about who you are and who you are becoming, and about relationships rather than "things".

 The voice of the Poet is one way you can begin to venture into this territory.

The Poet   

Who has time to read between the lines and tell the untold story?  
 
Who can foresee the changing seasons by the falling of a single leaf? 
 
Who has the courage to tell the Emperor he is naked?   

Who has the strength to do the heavy lifting, with silence?  
 
Who is the one in your organisation who can split the knottiest of wood with a solitary word? 

Who can describe a bird in flight, without words? 
 
Who arm wrestles with Ambiguity and goes fifteen rounds with Paradox undefeated? 

Who picks up the broken and makes a sculpture of beauty? 

Who breathes life into the corporate soul? 

Who is never seen at award ceremonies? 

The Poet

 a norton © 2012



Many of the challenges of  leadership cannot be resolved in an email, another restructure or a strategic
plan. They require a conversation that drills down deep beneath the surface.
Does your work make you more or less fully alive?
Where does vision come from?
Do you have the courage to be you?


The Prophet  
 
Like lightening in a bottle,

the Prophet speaks against all odds.

A force of nature striking the gods of Babylon into a thousand splinters.
 
Undefinable by the org chart,

untamable by the bureaucracy,

wild at heart,

tender of hand,

the Prophet speaks of injustice and hope. 

The Prophet sees with eyes on fire

a land of promise and plenty

yet is fierce in conversation about what is,

as one who is in this world but

not of this world.

 No wonder most prophets get stoned or fired.  
 
a norton © 2012


Leadership is the courage to speak up, to speak out, to speak for and to speak against.  Without this, leadership degenerates to “the blind leading the blind”. 
 
What is your experience of injustice in the workplace?

Who speaks up, out, for and against?


The Priest 

Sometimes words are too small to capture the magnitude of our life together.

Words like . . .
 
Gratitude

 Fear

 Failure

 Forgiveness

 Betrayal

 Pain

 Loss

 Grief

 Celebration

 Hope

 Wonder

 Intimacy

 Community

 
These words belong to the Priest,

who collects them in the chalice of human experience,

and offers them  as wine to nourish the soul. 

a norton © 2012



With the pressures of life and work people are increasingly searching for a language that adequately describes their experience. When work overwhelms they describe it as “soul destroying”. No matter how you define the soul, the leader’s task is the care of“souls”. This is about building  a community where celebration, grief, fear and hope are expressed in authentic
ways.

 Is your work big enough for your soul?

In what ways is your soul nourished or damaged at work?

What is your deepest fear?

Leadership is not for an elite few. Leadership is the experience of everyone because everyone has an experience of leadership. Leaders make followers; followers make leaders therefore the act of following is leadership.
 
It takes all types to be leaders.

What is the first thing you think of when you hear “we are going on a team building exercise”?

Is it simulated out-door games?

Be informed - team building is not playing games!

Teams are built:

1)      In the crucible of a trial or challenge. The team will either pull together or blow apart.

2)      Shared values. These are not flip chart values but ones that are deeply embedded within the culture of the team.

3)      A common cause / vision. When the cause or vision is greater than individual agendas. It is impossible to win as a team and have individual stardom. A winning team is where  all  are stars.

4)      Story telling. It is not until you know one another’s story that you can begin to develop a team story.

Of these four ways of team building story telling has the greatest impact.

·         It is through story telling the trial or challenge will begin to make sense

·         Values can only be accessed through the stories of an organisation

·         A vision is not a vision until everyone can see it and when that happens it becomes their story!

What is your story of a highly effective team?

What is your story of a dysfunctional team?

What has been your best team building experience?

If you don’t like playing games but want help with building a team I’d love to be part of your team.