Leaders, think of your people as balls of energy

The first law of thermodynamics, also known as Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another

Imagine all the people you lead as powerful balls of energy and light.

Put them in a room and what would happen?

Picture them bouncing and pinging around the room randomly like some kind of manic video game. Off the walls, ceiling, floor, colliding with each other.

What if, however, you could direct all that energy to one place?

All of that energy needs somewhere to go, and as the first law of thermodynamics states, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed or changed.

I’d also add that energy can be released, so imagine the untapped energy in people working with you just waiting to engage with the right ideas and align around them.

In the Cascading Leadership model, I outline a model for transformative change in organisations about iteratively Engaging, Aligning and Enrolling entire organisations around visions for transformative change :

by iteratively engaging, aligning, engaging, aligning, this is a method of trusting everyone in the organisation to add their value to the vision and how it will be achieved, with ever-expanding ripples growing strength from everyone in the organisation from that first pebble from the leader.

Now, go back to that idea of balls of energy wildly bouncing around an enclosed space, off the walls, floor, ceiling of a room.

Imagine they can all be aligned around an idea of breaking out of that space, then engaged in the thought that if they all direct their energy to the same point on a wall they may smash through the wall and escape. With that focus they will all enrol (to take action) and, one after the other, direct themselves with precision, focus and energy and soon break out of the space.

In August 2018 a sole 15 year old sat outside the Swedish Parliament to protest what she called the Climate Crisis. By the last week of September 2019 (just completed) literally millions of people around the world marched with passion around that idea.

If you think of your people as balls of energy that can align, engage and enrol around an idea, what would you direct them towards?