BUILD
Carla Silver, a friend and colleague, Executive Director of Leadership and Design, (www.leadershipanddesign.org) chose her #OneWord2020 and it is BUILD.
While it may not come as a great surprise to those who know Carla and her team’s work at L+D, that word BUILD connected with my #OneWord2020 TIME in ways I had not imagined.
One of the main themes and an essential part of the mission of L+D is to BUILD capacity. We could explore the meanings of “capacity” and I leave that to you to apply to any one of the meanings. I want to focus on the act of building and how critical that is in the following questions. You do not flip a switch and BUILD anything of value. It takes TIME.
What do you do when you want to BUILD:
- Confidence?
- Trust?
- Loyalty?
- Sustainability?
- Pride?
- Endurance?
- Collaboration?
- Culture of kindness and respect?
- Skills?
- Facilities?
Here are some essential ingredients which are necessary for any desire or intention to BUILD something:
You need to have a vision, a rationale, and perhaps most importantly some kind of design or plan for moving forward. You need to know what resources you will need, what kind of capital both financial and human, will be required and how you will measure your progress each step along the way. All of these require a component of TIME, some parts requiring more TIME than others. No shortcuts. It is important that each piece gets the TIME it needs and deserves in order to come to fruition.
Have you seen an unfinished building, standing idle because a critical part was either missing or it disappeared? You want to be sure you have all the pieces in place or know where to go to get them; otherwise the BUILD will not be completed. BUILD is both an action and the result. I leave you with this question: What are you building in your life and in your work, and where are you in that process?