I recently read the following passage in an article that was focused on the difference of how infinite vs finite loop games are governed. Its usefulness in life in general was not lost on me:
“A strong person is one who carries the past into the future…Power is concerned with what has already happened; strength with what has yet to happen. Power is finite in amount. Strength cannot be measured, because it is an opening and not a closing act. Power refers to the freedom persons have within limits, strength to the freedom persons have with limits.
Strength is paradoxica. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish…but because I can allow them to do what they wish…”
If only people who worked together would remember that your title means quite little to what you deliver, although it may give an outsider a perception of your level of power. Your true strength will not be governed by what you write or say, but what you listen to and do. Some may preach that “words are our currency”, yet what lies behind them is the true meaning to each of us, and from that truth comes the action. A southern baptist minister once counselled me: “When someone’s words and actions are not matching, follow their actions to find their truth”.
And so as I sit here, facing beautiful and frozen Lac St Louis (see pic), I ask myself how to help my new solar team be strong rather than powerful. We are a solar power company in genesis, working hard to speak through our actions. The world will be watching as we toil hard to prove to them the worthiness of partnering with us in our mission. New members will come, old members will go, as time determines what we desire to bring within the team in search of a higher achievement, or what we must leave behind with gratitude for all they did to help us get to where we did. Our ultimate measure is in fact how useless we can become to our team through the conscious delegation of authority and the development of their strength, from which comes our own.
OK…off to figure out how to make myself more useless today… :)…
Sass
Corner office view:
Can you find me a better corner office view than this?