“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised…you should get over that quickly…the world is messy, there are ambiguities”
President Barack Obama
These words from President Obama in a recent talk that I tweeted about this week (read on for link to the tweet and video):
We live in a complex and ambiguous world. Let us hold firmly to our values and also seek to understand, not to judge. There is a real power in the word “more”, so let us always seek to do “more”, to be “more”, as well as to accept ourselves and others and all our imperfections.
Be More
In the earlier post “Being More“, I wrote:
As I write this, today I was working with a CEO around where they plan to take their business in 2019. They have a big and bold transformative vision, and today it felt a little, well, too much for them to get from where they are to where they wish to go.
I put to them the question, “so, how can you simply be.. more?”
Expanding on what President Obama said, purity is a lovely ideal, but if we reject (or “call out”) people and ideas that do not meet with our ideal of purity, our ideas may remain pure, yet we both drop into judgment of others and also limit our and their potential.
If you are ready to model #OpenLeadership, to #BeMoreYou, then visit the #BeMoreYou page to assess who you are, where you are, and where you may look to Be More.
Purpose + People + Planet AND Profit
The image at the top of this page is the core model I choose to operate from when matching with brave and transformative leaders.
I only work with leaders of businesses and organisations that have an unremitting focus on Purpose+People+Planet, something I call the new triple bottom line.
From the “virtuous circle” in the drawing though, you can immediately see that this spins with momentum only if there is a focus on Profit as an outcome. As I’ve written about over and over, to achieve this requires balance, a “both/and” conversation rather than the “either/or” that often comes from purists who simply must have everything perfect before taking forward steps.
A company that I greatly admire and that I have the privilege of working with as a client is a global business that works in areas like oil, gas, mining and other extractive industries. Did I reject the idea of working with them because of that? No, as they are very much driven by Purpose and strongly held and lived Values, and, through that they are constantly driven to do MORE, to be MORE aligned to all of this with the work they do, the clients they choose, as well as how they do what they do.
In the last five years, this company has more than doubled in size and will do the same in the next five years. They will be at the forefront of the “energy remix” as we move away from extractive power sources, as well as continue to lead on iconic and epochal grand scale infrastructure projects that will serve communities and change lives around the world.
Be More.
President Obama, Being More, Doing More
President Obama himself is an example of complexity and ambiguity. Personally, I admire him greatly, and at the same time, I do not agree with everything he did or said as President or since. However, do I believe that he is driven by Purpose, that he wants to serve People and Planet? I do. He is always looking to Be More, to Do More.