“Vancouver is full of inspired entrepreneurs. This month’s conversation is with Barbara Ross-Denroche, co-founder of Refinery Leadership Partners. Refinery is a different kind of consulting firm, whose clients include Goldcorp, Finning and Coast Capital Savings, to name a few.”

You can read the full article at http://www.makeitbusiness.com/columnistarticle/Fiona-Walsh/Refinery-Leadership

Check out the full article in Texas CEO Magazine here

How do we design?

Our design work is all about matching a set of experiences to the needs of a client. If we have done good discovery work, we have a deep appreciation of the client’s culture and a clear sense of the opportunities for individual, team, and organizational growth. The design process is the creation of a bridge, a journey, a ladder, a challenge (take your pick of metaphor) that helps spur development from the present reality to the possible.

When we design, we first tackle the story … we envision the experience(s) that people will have that will spur them toward their own leadership growth. When we’ve hit upon a strong and clear story of development, we assemble the concepts, the tools, and the language that the leaders will need as “equipment” to make their journey. We recognize the basic story of where we are going and from that we can dive deeper into the set of linked experiences and associated concepts that complete the package – the “how we get there” parts.

The importance of the story – a design of experience – can’t be underestimated. Simple, beautiful stories about the world and our place in it have always been, and will likely always be the most effective learning apparatus we human beings have. A good design of experience creates a journey in which the person we were when we set out and the person we are when we finish have interesting things to talk about.

As with any journey, a well-designed learning experience should be: challenging (hard!), but also fun, exhilarating, and well-paced. There should be parts of the journey that are all uphill and may prompt people to consider turning back and there should be parts that are gentle, meandering walks with enough relaxation to allow people to look at the scenery. There are also times at the campfire or lunch breaks for us to reflect on what happened during the days’ effort.

What happens to us along the way on a physical journey gives us fresh eyes to see the terrain over which we’ve traveled. What happens to us along the way in well-designed leadership development is we gain fresh eyes to see ourselves not only as we are, but as we can be.

In this piece I will share my understanding of what inspiration is, how it sits at the core of who we are at The Refinery and how it influences the work we do with our clients. I´ll do so by dancing on the frontier between the pragmatic from the philosophical (a bit more tilted to the latter!).

I am convinced that inspiration is the common denominator of The Refinery’s team. We, first and foremost, are a collective of human beings passionate about offering our clients the best of us. We create learning spaces that enable people to grow –time and time again– into a truer, happier and more authentic version of themselves and consequently becoming more effective team players, increasingly adding value to their organizations. Beautifully enough through this experience we ourselves remain on our growing edge.

What is inspiration anyway? What inspires you? What happens when you let your inspiration guide you? …and when you don’t?

Inspiration is a powerful thing… it´s somehow unexplainable and unavoidable; it´s a blessing and, when silenced, can become a curse.

Inspiration is a motivation, yes, but it’s much more than that. The main difference is that while other types of motivation my compel us to act, moved by fear of not having/being enough, scarcity, obligation, etc., inspiration arises from a deep sense of personal purpose and propels us towards service, towards sharing with the World our own personal gifts (ideas, images, creations, words, laughs). Inspiration fuels the desire to give, to connect with others and form a spontaneous ‘place’ that has only come into creation, uniquely, here and now. This place is “each one of us” with our lights and shadows, with our talents and shortcomings, and when we allow it to happen, we offer life our very own flavor. Refreshing!

Can your team, your organization, your family do without the “full of you”? At The Refinery, we don´t think so and we want to help you be inspired to unleash all your potential.

Inspiration comes in different forms and differs from person to person. We don´t chose exactly why or how we become inspired, but we all know that feeling of high energetic connection to life. When we experience the beauty of the world, it is our muses essentially reflecting it back to the beauty that lies inside of us. We may feel the thrust of life running through our veins with a powerful song, a gentle smile, someone´s kind words, a great business initiative, the silent colors of a sunset, the way our boss lead a difficult topic, a poem, a lovely painting, someone’s beautiful eyes, silent meditation, someone’s authenticity, a humble landscape, someone’s generosity. Life is beauty. I believe we have the right to rejoice in it and to add our own share. As a good friend likes to quote: “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, it’s all around us and within us.

Do you choose to see it? Feel it? Be it? What would change in your team and your organization if you encourage people to follow their inspiration?

Any and all great feats, every breathtaking work of art, the most noble of human achievements and the most humble and private ones too, have been brought to life through inspired human beings. We have all experienced the passion to simply give it all, for the sake of it. People talk about this state of creation as moments where time disappears and work is not a burden but a gift. Many great artists and athletes have described it as a state of “flow” where creativity occurs through them, there´s no struggle. When we are “only” motivated, we may need to achieve something to feel success. But, when we are inspired; who we are, what we do and what we give is all one experience. Doing/being form inspiration, this is the reward in and of itself.

Does anyone benefit from you holding back?

Inspiration is a gift, a challenge and a curse. Inspiration opens us up; it gives us the opportunity to understand with greater clarity, to be reminded of what matters most to each one of us. When we follow our heart, we need to be prepared to face disapproval, as we are challenging the stability of the systems we are part of. Breaking patterns, uncovering our true voice, here and now, again and again, is a lifelong commitment; it´s to not easy– it takes a concerted effort to turn muck into gold. But what’s truly hard is just not trying and ignoring your inspiration to live a life filled with personal meaning. When people give up and decide they can’t allow themselves to move in the direction that their heart/mind compel them to, people lose their sense of direction, of relevance, of worthiness. Bitterness substitutes joy. Judgment substitutes the celebration of diversity. This is the greatest risk I see for all of us.

Can the World do without our best? Should it? My answer is NO, and it´s up to each of us, every day, to make this decision.

Steve Jobs liked to say, “You cannot do great work, unless you love what you do”. To me this speaks to the fact that when our creations are embedded with the DNA of love, the quality of our work and our deliverables are completely different than when we act via the ordinary– going through the motions. At The Refinery, we love what we do: we love helping our clients bring the best of them to the World.

Our work is rarely like this. Our work is more typically aimed at changes in behavior, not simply acquisition of facts. Our clients expect us not only to influence individual change, but organizational change. Changing an individual’s behavior is tricky…as any smoker or ex-smoker can attest. Changing an organization’s behavior is at least as challenging, if not more so.

At least half of the value of a good medical practitioner’s skill is knowing what needs to be changed. From Greek origin, diagnosis means “seeing through”. A competent doctor screens out all the “noise” of various symptoms and sees the underlying condition that can be addressed to improve health. By correctly seeing the underlying issues, change is possible.

Our skill as learning practitioners focused on improving leadership, is to see the organizational conditions that are both limitations and opportunities for growth. We see through the organizational noise to the possibilities for an organization to be more successful if their leaders are stronger, more self-aware, and more confident.

We need to spend quite a bit of time just “hanging out” with our clients to begin to recognize the opportunities. We do not stop this process after we begin teaching. It continues throughout an engagement, helping to shape our work.

We employ many of the skills and tools of field researchers in “discovery”… drawing on sociology, anthropology, social psychology and journalistic interviewing and observation. It demands a substantial consultative toolkit.

Learning designed for change, that is not informed by deep “discovery”, typically will fail to appreciate the resistances in the organizational system. Learning designed to fit within the system, but tweak it or enhance it, is always born from the client reality, even if it challenges it.

When I read this report, I was surprised at the relatively low growth in this industry, especially given the pace of change and growth in technology and the ongoing conversations about utilizing technology for learning at the ASTD Tech Knowledge Conference last month in Las Vegas. Technology allows us to cater to different schedules, locations, and learning preferences, so it got me thinking about the barriers of using technology for training and development.

What does it take for online learning to be really successful? I’ve been a part of a few different types of formal online learning – guided courses, self-directed learning, and between class discussion forums and assignments. I’ve also designed and facilitated technology-based programs using email, learning management systems, and web conferencing. Through my experience as a student and facilitator, as well as through my academic work in the field of adult learning, I’ve identified a few key ways of utilizing
technology effectively for formal learning experiences.

In the ASTD report, one finding was that self-directed online learning in particular has declined between 2009 and 2010, while instructor-led online learning increased as a percentage of learning hours using technology.While self-directed online learning is great in principle and useful for certain kinds of learning, I don’t believe it is a very engaging form of education. Most noticeably, for me, its effectiveness is hindered due to the overwhelming amount of information available. There is so much information available on a particular content area, that it’s de-motivating rather than motivating.

A serious detriment to technology-based learning, I believe, is in its application to certain content areas. Of particular relevance to me is in its application to management and leadership development. The problem as I see it is that it does not afford the opportunity to practice real skills, conversations, and reflection in an environment comparable to the workplace. At The Refinery, we are particularly purposeful about relating our work in a
learning environment to situations in the workplace. This means learners practice ways of behaving that replicate what it means to be a leader in their organization – they observe their own and others’ behaviours, they provide and receive feedback, they engage in conversations about performance, they create and deliver compelling business cases, and they work together to learn, create, and perform.

We’ve had to innovate to maintain our commitment to developing leaders through practical, real experiences while embracing technology to enhance our programming. Rather than simply design and create an online program that brings together information from across the internet, we’ve coupled online deliver methods with what we’ve experienced to be true about learning.

We maintain a cohort model in our online learning – learners engage in a group in which they can build relationships, challenge, and support each other. All cohorts’ learning is guided by a Refinery facilitator. This facilitator points learners to new, interesting, and relevant information; they act as a coach and guide; and they hold the learning space so the learner can try new things, reflect on their performance, and take risks.

We also don’t completely eliminate face-to-face interaction. By kicking off and augmenting our programs with in person sessions, we establish relationships in the cohort, we practice using the skills learned throughout the program, and we celebrate success together. By blending both online and in person learning, we are able to more efficiently deliver on
learning objectives.

Finally, we utilize action learning methodology to have learners applying their learning in the workplace. Action learning presents an opportunity for learners to try showing up differently in the workplace. They take on projects that test and utilize new knowledge or skills and have a real impact on their workplace and organization. This method has been used online to great effect in Evoke, an online game that seeks to inspire people to change the world. By using gaming methodology to get people to try new things in their world, Jane McGonigal engaged over 20,000 people in this initiative/game.

Etienne Wenger, one of the foremost writers about Communities of Practice as an engine of growth and learning, writes, “Learning is the engine of practice, and practice is the  history of that learning”.

Technological advances are quickly changing the landscape of many industries and environments around the world, and the world of learning is no exception. Rather than trying to utilize technology in its most simplistic, obvious, and cheapest sense, we need to approach technological innovations innovatively. We need to open our eyes to what is possible while remaining grounded in what we know about how people learn. Technology should never be the solution; rather, it is an enabler for a wider group to access learning
designed (and largely) delivered by humans.

I plan to touch on a few different aspects of our leadership development methodology, including our discovery process, assessment process, and design process. All of these are in some sense “proprietary” but none of them are easily imitated. I’m happy to open the kimono so-to-speak.

In this first post, I’ll focus on teaching vs training. We regularly use the word “teaching” to talk about our work. It is the most common word used internally to describe what we do when we are flying off on plane to go and do it, and probably equally common when talking with clients or prospective clients. We rarely use the word “training”, although most of our industry refers to itself this way.

Our distinction is not intended to be snobby. Good training is exceptionally important. Good teaching is exceptionally important. The two are closely related.

What, if any, difference between these two terms is relevant for our practice?

For me and many others that have written about the distinction, training is aimed at developing a concrete and well-defined skill. We tend to use training most often in a professional context because of this meaning. After all, professionals are “done” with formal education, right?

Teaching, on the other hand, implies two things that matter to our work:

1) Leadership ability is not easily reduced to discrete skills. The ability to lead and manage involves an array of important skills (e.g., managing budgets, giving feedback). We do include training on such skills in our work. However, none of these alone is sufficient to develop leadership. That’s what is amazing about leadership and leadership development. It requires investigation of one’s values, one’s biases, and one’s emotions. Self-awareness, adaptability, and moral fibre are complicated “skills” (if they are even skills at all).

2) Teachers know things. Sometimes, training can be seen as a technical skill only. Meaning, if we learn certain training methods, we can train anyone on any skill, as long as we are clear about the objectives . A reductionist view of training would suggest we don’t really need to know much about what is being trained, as long as we know how to train. I don’t like this view of training – and don’t agree with it – but it does exist. Our consultants, in contrast, are expected to know something about what they teach. Indeed, we expect them to know a lot about what they are teaching … have insights about leadership, management, communication, feedback, EQ, and the disciplines we teach.

Ultimately I see good teaching as something that opens conversations. One of our partners, David Gibbons, will always get asked to help people with finance management on their personal financial decisions or on matters of investment. He helps make “finance fun”, to use one of his favorite expressions. Teaching sparks curiosity in others because our passion and depth of knowledge is infectious. This is precisely what we are all about at The Refinery.

Jose Bautista, resident slugger for the Toronto Blue Jays, is an athlete of late that has put in his fair share of time practicing. He has managed to rise from a relatively unknown player in the world of Major League Baseball to winning back-to-back Hank Aaron awards. His story is an example of how practice does indeed make (near) perfect but, more importantly, illustrates the enormous impact that a good coach can have on an individual’s performance.

Drafted in 2004 by the Baltimore Orioles, Bautista’s first year in the majors was less than ideal. In his rookie year he ended up on the rosters of five different clubs and was eventually sent back to the minor leagues. There he largely remained up until 2008, when he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. His career was off to a rather mediocre start, but from here things start to get interesting.

At the beginning of the 2009 season, Bautista started working with Jays’ batting coach Dwayne Murphy. By September of that year Bautista had made the rise from being a little-known utility player to being considered one of the league’s best power-hitters, finishing off the year with 13 homeruns. Bautista continued to work with Murphy through the off-season and ended up finishing his 2010 season with 54 homeruns, easily earning himself the Hank Aaron award.

When asked what was key to his power hitting success, Bautista is quick to credit his batting coach, Dwayne Murphy. As Bautista explains, coaches are able to see things as they are starting to happen, before a player can see it and before it can turn into a slump or a crisis. In this case, Murphy noticed that his new player was starting his swing too late and worked with Bautista to start his swing a little bit earlier in the pitch.

There is a very short period of time between the moment a pitcher releases the ball towards the plate and the batter’s decision whether to swing at the ball or not. To pull in Victor Frankl’s work from “Man’s Search for Meaning”, this critical period of time is the space between stimulus (the pitch) and response (to swing or not to swing, that is the question). As Frankl puts it, “Somewhere between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Like a batter standing at the plate, our daily lives are filled with stimuli and the space where we have the power to determine our response. As leaders, we are constantly bombarded by these kinds of situations: timely decisions that need to be made on the spot, heated moments with co-workers where you have to choose your words wisely. We can’t be successful in these situations 100% of the time but I’m sure that we can all agree that there is always room for improvement. In baseball terms, we often struggle to “keep up with the pitch” and end up hitting fewer homeruns than we would like (ever have someone “throw you a curveball”?).

Jose Bautista worked with batting coach Dwayne Murphy to become masterful at managing the space between stimulus and response and this has realized huge dividends for the all-star and his team. Finding split-second differences that can be inhibiting the full potential of an individual’s performance illustrates how minor changes can create enormous impacts. As leaders in business, we can also work to become masterful at managing this space.

Coaches, teachers, and facilitators in the world of leadership development can work with leaders to see things that those leaders might not see. They can see those moments in between stimulus and response and help a person reclaim that space to regain their capacity to choose an appropriate and effective reaction. Developing your ability to make the most of that space between stimulus and response will pay you back big in your organization, with the people you lead and in your personal life.

As bold as this statement may sound, I think that connectedness at the retreat, after the serious business was finished and we had the chance to eat, drink and dance, was most meaningful when our minds and bodies merged and, to some extent, let themselves become one with the ‘music’. Myself, being somewhat of a serious daydreamer, started building a fantasy world at the party. This happened at the very moment I started dancing. Almost in a flash, I was transported for one or two minutes back in time to the fourth grade. The team reminded me of the Tainos, the indigenous people who lived in our island La Hispaniola (today comprised by two nations: Dominican Republic and Haiti), before the Spaniards’ “discovery” in 1492, and how they were portrayed in my history book. There were pictures of some of them hunting, others fishing and others building houses, but there were also pictures of  them holding hands while gathered in a circle performing what they called AREITO.

The AREITO, as a formal ceremony, was considered the most advanced cultural expression of this group and consisted of singing songs and dancing together. Along with singing and dancing, Areitos included the narration of past anecdotes and hero stories. However, to me, the most powerful and fascinating aspect of the Areito in the Pre-Columbian culture was its incredible capacity to get tribe members connected for a clear emotional purpose. Hence, each Areito meant different things such as love, pain, war or even mystery.  And, yes, they usually drank some “be yourself” and “loosen up” beverages. Areitos had a leader who was in charge of ensuring that the ceremony achieved its purpose, just like we have Sergio Montiel, our Areito leader. In our team, this modern manifestation of “Areito” helped us, the “newcomers” at The Refinery, tune in with the cultural rhythm of the company.

I believe that our degree of “connectedness” or “bonding” to others is proportional to the memories/stories we intentionally seek out to create with them and keep fresh in our hearts and minds, despite our busy lives, time differences or geographical distance. Genuine connections forge fraternal love, the only kind that almost never grows weary, or eclipses.  Making it a priority is always, of course, contingent upon personal will. It also requires humbly acknowledging that we can only receive what we can give. This is true regardless of environment as ‘connectedness’ is just as critical to strong professional relationships as those closer to home with our friends and family.

I think that now more than ever it is easier to nurture strong ties by leveraging information and communication technologies, especially social media. I learned through Mike Bruner, our Marketing & BD ‘guy’, that we are doing a great job exposing our practice out there through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. But, if tribe connectedness is to be pursued, and that includes all our friends and partners outside the internal team at The Refinery, we need to seriously start focusing on ourselves and begin our own internal social network. Let’s harness the momentum that we all possess right now.

This online community will be like a honeycomb to bees, can you imagine the joy of honey- making? This honeycomb will be a space in the clouds where we can come together anytime to share things like pictures, songs, and just about anything that makes us unique as inherently social beings. It must be that official secret village where we all know we can continue sharing what Mark Frein got us started with. The unfolding of comedy, tragedy and romance as we experience life and growth within The Refinery.

Will you “bees” willing to Areito in the clouds? How does your workplace compare on the connectedness front?