Micah was CEO. On a cold Thursday afternoon, she had an idea. She knew that it was a great idea, the sort of idea that could change her life and the life of everyone in the company she ran. Micah was pumped.
Micah spent Friday and the weekend thinking about her idea. She outlined a detailed explanation of her idea and created a strategy to implement her idea. At Monday’s leadership meeting Micah spent three hours unpacking her idea. She detailed all the steps they needed to take, the implications and the outcomes. She waited for the applause.
The leadership team were gobsmacked. They couldn’t grasp Micah’s idea. It was like trying to catch a slippery pig.
Micah was disappointed, but she could see the potential in her idea. She wouldn’t give up. Micah gathered the accountants and engineers. They worked for days crunching numbers and building scaffolds. At Thursday’s leadership team meeting Micah and her team presented pie charts and bar graphs. They produced a risk assessment matrix and resource allocation plan. They outlined a technical roadmap template. The engineers and accountants cheered.
The leadership team were dumbfounded. The numbers flashed before their eyes like schools of fish. The flowcharts plunged and swirled like a rollercoaster ride. The leadership team felt a little sick.
Micah felt sick too. She could see the great things that her idea could achieve. If only her team could see it too. Tears welled up in her eyes. Without the understanding and support of the leadership team her idea could wilt and die.
Micah was exhausted. She took Friday off and spent the weekend with her Mum. She took a long walk on a boisterous beach, where she could taste the salt in the wind. She watched foam rolling across the sand and felt damp sand squelch between her toes. Micah remembered a time on that beach when she was a child.
At Monday’s leadership meeting Micah was calm. She talked quietly to the leadership team about a time she’d built sandcastles with her father. She described how he’d press and mould the sand. She talked about how he’d add just the right amount of water. She remembered how he added details carefully from the top to the bottom so sand wouldn’t fall into the carved surfaces.
Her father knew all about how to build sandcastles, but his designs were never wondrous or enchanting. They were solid and well designed and a bit boring.
But when she worked together with her father, when she brought her vision and excitement to the sand, when she demanded spires and turrets, when she called for embedded feathers, shells and sparkly stones they built a sandcastle that was truly wondrous.
Micah showed them a picture of a gorgeous sandcastle. She and her father knelt beside it with their arms around their shoulders, buckets and shovels in their hands and huge happy smiles on their faces. She explained that her father had passed away two years ago and there was a tear in her eye.
Then she apologised to her leadership team. She said that she had come charging in with spires and turrets, but she had forgotten what everyone else on her leadership team brought. Their skills and their ideas and their own vision. Micah invited the leadership team to bring their own stories that Thursday and share them too.
When they did, there were tears and there was laughter. They shared stories about what they loved, their hopes and their fears and the team went home that evening feeling as though they had truly seen others and been seen themselves.
Two weeks later the leadership team came back together. Micah had invited all of them to bring ideas. They came in different shapes and sizes. They shared those ideas and discussed them. They did so honestly and with compassion because they had a newfound trust for each of those in the room. Micah brought her idea back too, in its simplest form.
When they could see all those ideas on the table, they looked at them from different angles and perspectives. They discussed and had good-natured arguments. They trimmed ideas and discarded parts. They moved pieces and found others that fit perfectly together.
At the end of the meeting they stood back. The idea they had built together was truly a thing of beauty. It had whorls and spirals and towers. It had structure and it had detail. They stood back and admired the new idea, the one that they’d created together.
It was far more than any of the ideas they’d brought themselves. It was an idea that was wondrous, one they could all embrace.
Micah stood back too. She knew this idea was far more than the one she’d started with. She knew it was an idea that would change the future for all of them. She stood back, remembered her father and shed a tear. Other leaders saw her crying. They were concerned, they asked if she was okay. She smiled and said it was a happy tear.
Then she brought the team together. She saw that their idea was a great one. But each of the leaders had a team and for their idea to truly take root it had to be one that all of them could embrace. She asked that they share the idea with the people in their teams and get their opinions and ideas. But first she asked that they spend a morning with their team, telling stories about the things they loved, their hopes and their fears. Because that built trust, and when a team had trust they could share their ideas. They could see others and feel seen themselves.
Micah offered to come into each of those meetings and get them started. She’d love to share a photo and a story with them. A story about how she’d built a sandcastle with her father.
