We’re all on a beachball

Diplomat and Secretary of State Madeline Albright was once asked: “if you could give all the world leaders one piece of advice, what would it be?”

Her response...

“I’d tell them that what matters anywhere matters everywhere.”

This is also true for your organization, department, and project team.

In Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott encourages us to think of our group or organization as a beach ball, with many stripes: red, green, yellow, blue, orange, and white, and so on.

The finance team is standing on the red stripe. The execs stand on green. The tech team stands on yellow. Marketing stands on blue, and so on.

If you’re on the blue stripe, you live blue. You hear blue conversations all day, every day. You know more about what’s happening on blue than any other stripe. You turn on your computer, it’s blue. You pick up the phone, it’s blue. The halls smell blue. You might even say: my organization is blue.

So you’re in a meeting explaining your brilliant marketing strategy, and everything that comes out of your mouth is blue. The CFO, who lives her whole day in red, has a furrowed brow, arms crossed.

Cash flow is tight. Health care costs are skyrocketing. All she sees is red. She says, “I’m excited about this project, but I wonder if you’ve seen our latest cash-flow projections.”

Then the debate is on: red-blue-red-blue-red-blue…

The IT Director is squirming. All-day, he’s in yellow, and he’s sitting there thinking, “My server is down. I don’t have time for this!”

Our context determines how we experience the world. To connect and be more effective, remember, that we’re all on a beachball and most of us don’t know it.