Choose Your Path

Posted on June 11, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative

A watercolor I call, “House On Fire.” It’s an unusual piece for me…

I am still unpacking from my move. My sketchbooks and journals have been bound in plastic wrap since I hauled them across the country and then brought them into the house from the Budget truck in October. I cut the wrap this morning because I was looking for a sketch to give as a gift and during my hunt I found an old work journal. It was a gold mine!

I’m preparing to facilitate a workshop on The Art of Team and the notes I found were from a team I worked with a few years ago. This organization had a history of abusive leadership. There was a serious lack of trust within the group. It was a classic case of “everyone else is to blame and nothing is my fault.” Everything was territory that needed to be guarded and protected, especially personal value. Their individual worth as human beings was always in question.

Here are notes from our world-class conversation. This is what the team discovered as it waded into the swamp of its dysfunction:

The path of power splits, there is a fork in the road of power:

One path leads to the creation of power with others.

The other path leads to power over others; a path of taking from others.

The fork is defined by where each individual seeks their worth:

Seeking your worth based on others responses will take you down the path of needing power over others.

Finding your worth within yourself will open your way to creating power with others.

Here’s the point: it is impossible to change the group dynamic and create a cohesive team until you change yourself. Every dysfunction in a team can be traced back to this root.

In this sense, people never have problems, they have patterns (This is the first recognition from my book, The Seer):

Seeking your worth from others is a pattern.

Finding your worth within yourself is a pattern.

Seeking your worth from others patterns you to orient according to what you get from others.

Finding your worth within yourself patterns you to orient according to what you bring to others.

If you desire a functional team, cease seeking to solve your problem (seeking your worth in others eyes) and begin establishing a new pattern (find your worth within yourself).

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.