A good belly-laugh, please?
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A gray seal laughing as he basks on the shore…. this is an image that to a leader represents leadership. It is also an image that helped a leader shift his company culture and attitude toward a “lighter,” more fun working environment.
I use images to assess leaders and guide them in leadership development. The model is called Visiva Leadership®. In this blog, we explore real-life case studies of the model at work. Let’s take a look now at this image.
A good-belly-laugh
When I received this image a few years ago, two things happened instantaneously: I laughed-out-loud, all by myself in my office, and simultaneously I puzzled to understand how this image was representing leadership. Let me put things into context: The leader that sent me this image was at that time part of a focus group that I was leading to assess the culture of an organization; the topic for this focus group was leadership.
Using images in a group setting
When I use images with a team and in a group session I do this: I first collect all the participants’ images, and then during our group session, I show each image, one at a time, to allow the person who has chosen that image to share with us why this image represents leadership to her/him, what the meaning of the image is for her/him, what has generated that choice. This approach to using images within the team allows the individual to express what she/he thinks and what she/he wants to bring to the conversation, while also allowing the group to interact. The result is always a very rich and dynamic conversation because it is the creation of the group: they are using their own material, their ‘below-the-line-of-the-water-thoughts’ that are allowed to come to surface in a very safe space. Through this process the group comes to life by generating their own dynamics and dialogue, My work is to provide a strong container that will support and allow them to unfold and analyze the deeper meaning of their own thoughts and beliefs.
Back to the laughing seal
Now back to the session where the gray seal image belongs. The participants in that focus group were senior leaders within the organization who were responsible for line functions. They were very passionate and committed to their work. Following my process, I started to show one image at a time and the dialogue began. The images were all different, as they almost always are, and they were images that expressed the concepts of: “teamwork,” “inspirational leadership,” “servant leadership,” “solo leader,” “conductor leader,” “supportive leadership,” “accountable leadership,” “leadership in crisis.” The images created a very thoughtful and deep conversation conveying many aspects of leadership and behaviors within the organization.
And then I showed the very last image: A gray seal laughing as he basks on the shore.
The group, still enthralled with the depth of the prior conversations paused for a brief moment, almost suspended in an incredulous disorientation and then all at one ….burst into loud-good-belly-laughs. It was magical. The energy shifted. The body-language changed.
The group thought it was a great and much needed joke after a very intense conversation, but it was not a joke for the leader who chose this image.
A culture of “lightness of being”
When I asked our leader: why this particular image? he shared his reflection that usually conversations on leadership revolve around deeply serious, thoughtful concepts, just as it happened in our focus group. Just think of the thousands and thousands of books and the myriad number of articles on leadership that flood our inbox. However, what is rarely brought to the leadership conversation, the leader said, is the concept of “lightness of being.” Referring to The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, our leader challenged Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence, the idea that events have already occurred and will recur ad infinitum. He offered the alternative that each person has only one life to live and that which occurs in life, and in every moment of life, occurs only once.
What a concept and what accountability we must carry on our shoulders as senior leaders! If we concur with that concept, how do we lead our teams and our organizations holding the concept of the single occurrence in mind? What is our contribution, how do we influence that single occurrence? And what do we as accountable leaders do to bring both seriousness and lightness into our working environment?
The group was hooked by this different way of thinking about leadership and I knew then that there was no way I could end my session on time….
What does the image say?
It is no secret that there is a strong connection between a positive work environment and individual performance, offering benefits to employees and employers; an incredible amount of quality research confirms this. The group knew this, and they put a lot of energy into amplifying this concept. While it was certainly a highly engaged conversation, I noted that the conversation stayed on the surface, a more general, high-level discussion of the concept. When this happens, I always go back to the image as a way of grounding the conversation and it was then that I asked the questions: How do you relate to this image? What does this image evoke in you? How does this image associate with bringing “lightness” to the work environment? There were more than few jokes and a lot of giggles and laughs. It was good, it was what the group needed, and then the energy shifted again and the dialogue started.
Going deeper into the image
It was our leader who began the conversation by going deeper into the symbolism of the image. For him there could not be “real, meaningful lightness” in the organization without authenticity and vulnerability. The image spoke to him about that and the capacity “to show your chest, your heart,” as he put it, to be open to who you are, to be present in that single occurrence, just like that, in first-person with no protection, no structures to protect what you do or framework to create a persona for what you need to do.
In reality, while gray seals are great acrobats in the sea, they are very clumsy on land. “Look at the image: what a great way to acknowledge that clumsiness—clumsiness that many times we have within ourselves—with a great belly-laugh,” he said. How many times do we fail, make mistakes, or are in a clumsy situation? Why not honor that very only occurrence by adding lightness to our work environment and use our own vulnerability and authenticity to give ourselves permission to have a positive attitude and a good belly-laugh! Why not support our people by creating and developing a working environment where laughs and joy are respected as much as seriousness and determination? There is no contradiction between the two positions; on the contrary, the answer is to create integration.
Culture is dictated by behaviors that drive actions, and as a result determines how things get done in an organization.
“Good, real belly-laughs,” he said, “are the organization’s fertilizer where seriousness, determination, and performance can grow and flourish.”
And today . . .
After the focus groups the organization, moved on and did a lot of intentional work in bringing and integrating more joy, laughs, and “lightness” to the working environment. As a result, the employees showed higher engagement scores in the annual company survey. The “gray seal leader” as the team affectionately calls him, is still there, a strong presence, and he is one of the major forces at work.
During this time of COVID, work-from-home, and Zoom-fatigue, I could not help but think about him: his passion, his image, and the need that we all have for more “lightness,” for a good belly-laugh. I called him recently and asked: How do you keep-up the “lightness”? How do we create it when we cannot be with our people?
His answer was brilliant: “Learn from the Millennials, one of the happiest generations: they have no limitations, they are constantly clicking and sharing online. They build networks, they create communities. They laugh online. They express and sprinkle emotions online. They are who they are online as they are in person. They are never tired of doing that.” And he added, more for my generation I think: “Never get tired of fertilizing the organization in person as well, whenever we can do that again!”
How do you experience your working environment? Do you create “lightness” within your team? Do you live your life—personal and work—with the idea, that which occurs in life occurs only once? What does it mean for you?
What is your image of leadership?
