The Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast: Episode 14
Rhonda: Welcome to the Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast from rhondapeterson.com. This is Rhonda Peterson, your Bold & Courageous Leader coach, along with my co-host Andee Marks.
Alignment is a word that has become part of my vocabulary over the past few weeks. Thanks to issues with a tight neck and shoulders, I’ve been in physical therapy. My physical therapist says this is related to my time spent hunched over my laptop and it’s affecting my posture, which wasn’t that good to begin with. Good alignment is critical to loosening my neck and shoulders so we’re working on that through exercises. I won’t be free of this potential problem until I adjust my workspace. A laptop, keyboard, and screen is not conducive to the human body being ergonomically aligned. This focus on alignment and the body really stuck with me. It’s not just our physical body that requires alignment in our workplace. Our mind and spirit also benefit from alignment in our work.
The definition of alignment is the proper positioning or state of adjustment of parts in relation to each other. When our God-given identity is not reflected in our work, we’re out of alignment. We struggle to stay motivated, to find meaning in the work we are doing on a daily basis. We’re mentally, emotionally, and spiritually all hunched over in a defensive position. We feel frustrated and stuck. We don’t have proper positioning. Our parts are not in a state of adjustment in relation to each other.
Andee: Rhonda, physical therapy addresses a lack of alignment in our physical body. What’s the benefit to alignment in body, mind, and spirit and why does it matter?
Rhonda: The benefit to alignment in body, mind, and spirit is that through that we can do our best work. We are most engaged in what we’re doing and we are most energized in what we’re doing. Not to mention that we will be doing the work that God’s called us to do if we are aligned body, mind, and spirit. And why does it matter? It matters because for the same reasons we just said but also because God wants us to be in that space that he created for us. That’s why he created it for us. In doing that, we can shine his light into the world, no hiding our light under a bushel. That means we’re in proper alignment and self-awareness is part of proper alignment.
The environment is the context of where our alignment happens. That can be in the workplace, the family, our church, a community organization. Any of those things are the context where we need to be in alignment of our environment with who we are.
Andee: Exactly because our identity is not… it’s who we are all the time. There’s this core self that doesn’t necessarily change from one environment to another. Alignment needs to be across the board. In your workplace, in your family, your church, your community, wherever you find yourself. Although as you begin to work towards alignment, it might be a little overwhelming to think about having to achieve alignment in all of those places so you might choose just one area or one environment in which you want to direct your attention and your energy to begin with and then move on to another once you’ve achieved alignment in the first.
Rhonda: That’s a good point. Before we start making sure we’re in alignment in other places, we must be sure we’re in personal alignment. We need to have our alignment of ourself in order to achieve alignment with the environment. That means alignment of how we’re living with our values and the why that we carry within us. That needs to be aligned within us before we can be aligned with our environment, the place that we are, the context that we’re in.
Andee: Just a few minutes ago, you used an interesting descriptor. You were talking about alignment or being out of alignment in our work, and you said we’re spiritually hunched over in a defensive position. I think that word defensive is very telling. What are trying to defend? And it occurs to me that we might be trying to defend our very self, our true self.
Rhonda: That’s an interesting point you bring up on that, because why do we feel that we need to defend ourself? But if we’ve had experiences where being honest about who we are has gotten us a negative response, then we are going to be defensive. We’re not going to be willing to put ourself out there. In order to be authentic, we need to be our true self. We need to be Bold & Courageous and trusting God for what it is and for the places that we need to be interacting. There may be places where we have to put ourself out there and take the risk. Not there may be, there are going to be places where we have to put ourself out there and take the risk and other people may not understand. We have to be our authentic self, our true self, in order to stay in alignment.
Andee: Talk about the benefits of alignment.
Rhonda: Andee, there are three benefits to alignment. First of all, it releases our potential. When we know our true self, it frees up our capacity, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When we were talking just a bit ago about that defensive position, if we know our true self, we don’t have to be in the defensive position and we’re freed up to be able to be truly who we are. We’re not wearing the mask of having to hide who we are and act like something else in the world because we want to be accepted. When we’re functioning out of that true self, it releases our potential because there’s not all that inner conflict going on all that time of who am I supposed to be? Especially when you’re in one of those situations where in one context you act one way and in another context, you act another way. That can get exhausting over time and eventually you forget which person you are in which location.
Being free of that inner conflict allows us to focus on our masterpiece work, which is focusing on where you can make the highest contribution. When you’re living in your true self, you don’t have to impress others, but you can contribute out of a place of confident humility. That means I know what I can do and I gladly contribute it for the greater good. For the good of this organization or this group of people. When you’re with people that are going in the same direction, you can go further faster. When you’re in a group of people where you agree on the “why” and you can be your authentic self, your true self, there’s not the pull in different directions.
It’s like a relay race when they have the handoff of the baton. Everybody has to be in alignment for the baton handoff to happen. If you’re not aligned, obviously you’re not going to get the handoff and you can’t possibly win the race. What’s important to remember is each person plays a part but they’re not playing the same part. The person who’s coming up to hand off the baton is in one place and they are in one position with the baton. It’s got to be stretched out so that the next person can get a hold of it. The person that’s receiving it has their hand stretched behind them and open so that they can receive the baton and they’re in a position so that handoff can happen very effectively.
It’s really interesting to think about how they do that because if you’re not someone who’s ever had to run a really race, you’ve never really had to think about that. You’ve probably seen one, if for no other reason than you’ve watched one on the Olympics at one point in time. If you think about that, that is what we need to be doing with each other. Going in the same direction so that we can go further faster in our authentic self. Each person in that leg of the race is positioned there because it’s their best place to be. It’s kind of like when Jim Collins in Good to Great talks about being in the right seat on the right bus and I add on to that, to do your masterpiece work.
Andee: I think another great reminder of this we find in scripture. Paul is so gifted talking about the church in terms of the body of Christ. Each part of the body has a particular function. Everybody has a part to play. I love Eugene Peterson’s translation of that in Ephesians 4. He writes, “He handed out,” He of course being God. “He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts.” He goes on to say, “He handed out gifts of apostle, profit, evangelist, and pastor teacher to train Christ followers in skilled servant work. Working within Christ’s body, the church,” and this is the beautiful phrase, “until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other. Efficient and graceful in response to God’s son. Fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.” I just love that phrase, “Moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful.”
Rhonda: Think of all the potential that’s being released as that happens. And what a great Segway, Andee, into the second benefit of alignment. The first benefit of alignment is that it releases potential. The second benefit is that it facilitates collaboration as opposed to unhealthy competition. We’re defining unhealthy competition in this situation as vying for position or power, not working together toward a goal.
Andee: That reminds me of a scene from the movie The Right Stuff. The crew is competing against the clock rather than competing against each other. It’s a scene where the NASA command team has to resolve, it’s a life-threatening situation with the astronauts who are running out of fresh oxygen on board Apollo 13. The team on earth has a box containing everything that is available to the astronauts that are on board Apollo 13, and so the earth team dumps everything, all the contents from that box on a table, and they start trying to assemble a filter that will work on the actual spacecraft. Here’s a group of leaders working together with very limited resources and certainly a ticking clock and the stakes are really life and death. They have to collaborate effectively in order to solve the problem. If they compete against each other, valuable time and energy is wasted and the astronauts, their colleagues on board the spacecraft will die.
Rhonda: That is a compelling example of collaboration. Not only is it collaboration, but it’s healthy competition. They’re competing against something that is critical. Often times in our leadership, we too are competing against something that’s out there because why else are we leading? We are leading because there’s something that needs to change and we need to bring together all the gifts of our team to collaborate to make that happen. My question for our leaders is what is the stuff that you and your team have to work with? How do you move to alignment so that you’re tapping the potential of each person on the team? The stuff isn’t necessarily equipment. It’s often the gifts of the people that are on your team and are we using the gifts that are there and available for us in the most effective way? So that we’re working together rhythmically as Eugene Peterson translates in Ephesians 4.
Andee: I think it’s interesting that when we talk about resources, we tend to think about money. We tend to think about material things and we tend to think about people just in terms of their physical presence.
Rhonda: Warm bodies.
Andee: Exactly, exactly. Instead of focusing in on how has God equipped this person to do this particular task. There’s always the possibility that you may realize you’ve got the wrong person in the wrong seat on the bus. God hasn’t equipped this person to do the task that you’re expecting them to do, so they’re just going to slow down the process. It’s better to evaluate each person, what each person brings to the team and place them appropriately. Again, thinking about the relay race, for each position, there is specific abilities and skills that person needs to be in that particular spot in the relay.
Rhonda: It’s really a strategic thinking process and it’s also a situation where you are honoring the gifts that that person has, that they may or may not even be able to see them. It may be a blind spot that person has that they just haven’t ever been exposed to that thinking before of, “Wow, I could actually do this.” That is within the body of Christ, it is within your workplace, it could be in your family. Maybe somebody different needs to be washing the dishes, who knows.
Andee: I’m all about that. Somebody else needs to be washing the dishes.
Rhonda: Thinking about the fact that we have people in these different roles, how do we move to alignment so that we’re tapping the potential of each person on the team? Or the opposite also being true, competition with each other brings a lack of alignment and potential. If we’re not working together, it is going to interfere with our productivity.
Andee: What I hear you saying is leaders need to realize where competition may be taking place on their team and what the source of that competition might be. Is it misalignment or is it a healthy competition?
Rhonda: That’s an interesting point. Is it a competition that is that vying for position or power, is it a competition that’s born out of I’m in the wrong space and there’s frustration so it’s coming out in competition with someone else, or is it competition that is focused toward all of us getting our best from ourselves and our team? The answer would be yes. As a leader, your role is to look at that and make sure that the competition is competing against that goal out there or competing toward the goal out there maybe is a better way to phrase it, and is working together and building each other up. As opposed to tearing down others to make yourself look better.
Andee: Because that unhealthy competition is going to impede productivity.
Rhonda: It absolutely will. But being in alignment, yourself and with the others on the team, enhances productivity. Each of us wants to make a contribution wherever we are in our masterpiece work journey, even if it’s in the short-term. If we are looking for the place where we need to be or if we’re trying to identify our masterpiece design and where we need to walk it out, we still want to be able to make a contribution in that space. Where is the place that we can contribute and make a difference at this moment in this space where we are? That may be a situation in where it’s a small sliver of what you’re doing, or it might be a bigger part. It just depends, but it’s a situation where we want to look at how we can find that glimmer of hope as we go to work every day and we say, “This is what I can do to contribute to the organization in the short-term until I know the space where I need to be.” That can help us to stay plugged-in in the short-term, in a place that’s not really a good fit for us.
It can also be part of getting to engagement. Engagement is a big buzzword today in the workplace and I believe that incorporates both alignment and productivity. It’s being present and contributing what you have to the organization in an active way. You know where you can make a contribution that’s good for the organization and it’s good for you so it benefits both you and where you’re working, where you’re contributing, where that context that you’re in, that we were talking about earlier.
Alignment provides an opportunity for everyone to contribute their masterpiece work to the whole, the greater organization. Working towards the same goal means going in the same direction. There’s not time wasted working at cross-purposes and we’ve all seen that in the workplace. It’s a motivator of seeing how your work can contribute to the larger vision of the organization and you can experience the reward of work for the team being greater than the sum of its parts.
Andee: I hear so much self-awareness in this conversation. I think so much of alignment comes back to self-awareness as the understanding of our masterpiece work.
Rhonda: Yes, that is absolutely true. That deeper understanding of self and what motivates us is a way of moving into our masterpiece work. You can also look at it from the standpoint of the Johari Window and self-awareness means more open space in the Johari Window. Organizational alignment releases that potential within the organization. If a group of people, if a team is in alignment, they all have an arrow and their arrows are all pointing in the same direction, which leads to increased potential. It leads to being able to release that potential. There’s momentum going on. All those arrows are moving forward in the same direction. If the arrows are not in alignment, everyone is pulling in different directions, and obviously if you’re pulling in different directions, no one’s going to go anywhere. Have you ever heard of a tug of war?
The second possibility when the arrows are not in alignment is the arrows are pointing inward, so everyone is shooting at everyone else, because they want to get what they want. Sometimes that’s called a circular firing squad.
Andee: Once again, alignment means competing against the challenge of reaching a goal or solving a problem or capitalizing on an opportunity. It does not mean competing with others in the organization for a position of power or authority?
Rhonda: Yes, that’s absolutely true. This also has to do with allocation of resources and as we talked earlier about the resources of money, time, attention in the organization. It could be the resource of people. That is probably the most important resource of all, the resource of people because their time translates into the value of the organization which translates into cash flow. Without alignment the organization becomes fractured. Everyone is vying for what is most important to them instead of what is going to move the organization forward. There’s going to be splinters, there’s going to be fractures, and there’s no lasting impact. Operation from the true self is the catalyst for others to do the same. This creates an awareness of your compatibility with your environment which enables you to stay or go and you can choose either option without anger or malice. That is so important. This invites discernment without anxious judgement.
Earlier, we talked about alignment in our workplace. Our mind and spirit also benefit from alignment in our work. In my quiet time this morning I came across this definition of alignment from Richard Mulholland. He didn’t call it that, but boy, this is definitely how I define alignment. “God’s presence becomes the context of our daily life. God’s purposes become the matrix of our activities and the values of God’s kingdom shape our life and relationships. God’s living presence becomes the ground of our identity, the source of our meaning, the seat of our value, and the center of our purpose. When our God given identity is not reflected in our work, we are out of alignment. We struggle to stay motivated, to find meaning in the work we are doing on a daily basis. We are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually all hunched over in a defensive position. We feel frustrated and stuck. We don’t have proper positioning. Our parts are not in a state of alignment in relation to each other.”
Today we’re announcing the Bold & Courageous Leader retreat at the Sawmill Creek Resort in Huron, Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie. Here, you will discover better alignment with God’s masterpiece work for you. You’ll find the opportunity and space to spend time listening for God’s voice, allowing Him to speak into your spirit, reminding you of how he created you as his masterpiece. Gaining a deeper understanding of your masterpiece identity provides a profound alignment between work and your faith. You’ll leave the retreat refreshed, with a deeper understanding of God’s desire and design for your life. You’ll return to work with a new perspective anchored in your identity in Christ. Listen to more details on the retreat in upcoming podcasts. There are also more details on my website rhondapeterson.com. We would love to have you join us.
To find out more about today’s topic, get downloads of our previous podcasts or to learn how you too can become a Bold & Courageous leader, visit rhondapeterson.com. Our ever-growing community is waiting for you. If you liked today’s show, there are three things you can do. You can subscribe to the podcasts on iTunes or Stitcher. You can give us a rating or a review on iTunes. The subscriptions and ratings help others to find us more easily. And you can help us get the word out by sharing the podcast with your friends. This is Rhonda Peterson, your Bold & Courageous Leader Coach. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you for the next Bold & Courageous Leader Podcast.
