I’ve been writing recently about balance, about having only enough Structure to allow Flow.
Today I will share a story, about Flow and Kung Fu Panda!
For background, one area of my work is to facilitate leadership meetings for businesses and organisations around the world. Whilst many people do this, I specialise in situations where a leader recognises they need to do something brave and different to truly achieve transformative results. With that sense, they ask around their peers, telling them what they need, then I get contacted from such referrals.
What do I do differently to others? My “what” is bravery, to stretch the client and their team to grow, to get out of their comfort zone to truly begin the process of transformative change. My “how”?
Ah, you see, that is where we come back to “only enough Structure to allow Flow”
Sure, I engage with the client in really deep dive planning, yet in the moment, the magic happens in “Flow”.
Now to my example. I was reminded of this in meeting up recently with a colleague who was supporting me in the room at that time. A number of years ago I was flown to London from Cayman by a client to help them with a two-day event for their top fifty international leaders, high powered executives of a top global financial institution.
They were seeking to connect to a new vision for their business, but they were stuck in the past, in the mistakes, the patterns, the behaviours, the brand etc.
We worked through a few things and it felt to me that they were still stuck, we were not breaking through in the way the CEO was seeking. They wouldn’t let go of the past.
The whole room was looking to me. What was I going to say or do next? I turned my back to the room, looked at my colleague, and quietly said “I have no idea what to do next”. They smiled at me. They’d seen this before.
I paused, “let go” of needing to know the answer, then smiled. I turned around and said:
“A few days ago I was hanging out with my youngest son and he asked me to lay on the couch with him and watch a movie. He chose a Disney movie called Kung Fu Panda, and in it, the most amazing piece of wisdom was spoken, but a turtle to a panda, no less !”
“Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery,
but today is a gift…
that’s why it is called the present”
I let that sit in the room, then felt it. The crackle of energy, the spark. After a few seconds of silence, someone shared “I was watching a movie with my children and this little green man said, “Do, or do not, there is no try”. As a Star Wars geek I almost jumped up and down with laughter that he had never seen Yoda before, but simply smiled, as the energy was released, they were ready, they were in the present, ready to do the work.
Enough structure to allow Flow, and I can’t think of a better example of Flow than this. For all my decades of experience, what came through me in the moment was wisdom from a kid’s movie!
