“There’s a reason we’ve been here over 40 years.
We’re old school. We take our time,
and time grows a business.”

— Mourad Ohanian, Cobbler

There’s an old Spanish proverb that translates roughly to the saying ‘the cobbler’s children have no shoes.’ Meaning that someone with a specific skill is often so busy assisting others that their own affairs go unattended. A classic and frustrating conundrum.

I had a ‘cobblers’ moment this week. During the months — and now years — of the pandemic, I have primarily focused on supporting other individuals, groups, and organizations. It is my preference and feeds my desire to contribute and make a difference. I didn’t realize that along the way I was not attending to my own needs or those of my business as well as I was attending to others.

• I have a hunch that you can relate. Can you?

This week after serving for months on the planning team for the OD Network International Summit, I switched gears to be both an attendee and presenter. I put on my learner’s hat for several days, and stepped up to facilitate with a partner on another day. I sat and listened, made copious notes, visited and chatted with the exhibitors, met individuals in person with whom I had interacted on remote calls, dusted off my networking skills, and participated in community.

I didn’t realize how hungry I was for the need to have my spirit fed.

A respected colleague whose career and content have influenced my own work was the first session I attended. Peter Block, founder of Designed Learning, an early contributor to the field of Organizational Development, author of some of my favorite books, and provocateur filled my cup in the short thirty minutes he had to kick off the day.

The pandemic has crushed my business model of being embedded in organizations so I am quickly able to lean in to work the whole system and deeply understand the organization. I redesigned my work life in the early 2000s to migrate from being a road warrior who was in a different city every week, writing and speaking, and generating work to support a growing organization of consultants, to being the individual who made a minimum of a one year commitment to an organization, joining the leadership team to bring organizational development processes into where ever I was needed: planning, leadership and management development, systems design, decision making, and group process. Individual coaching happened naturally, and I operated like a trusted advisor and faux manager where I was asked.

I felt that the more I understood the organization, the more value I could add while remaining objective and working to facilitate that the individuals within created their change and built the capacity to sustain the change.

I still believe in the whole system: strength-based interventions — with process facilitation and discovery at the core. However, there has not been much demand for convening groups during the past four years of widespread remote and hybrid workplaces.

To be safe, we needed to work remotely. We learned how to do this while continuing to move forward. We developed new tools and abilities. And, maybe, we became comfortable with not commuting, blending our home and work lives effectively.

You have no doubt heard me, in the past, express my concerns about remaining distanced in our work world. While I can see the gains in efficiency, I can also see the disconnect in communications, learning, innovation, mentoring, and the human need for connection.

From his home in Cincinnati, Peter Block affirmed my deepest instincts. Though he has been doing this for a decade longer than I have, we exist to do the same thing — facilitating the movement away from parent to child structures of communicating and using power to create adult-to-adult environments where talent is to be liberated.

Peter provided the clearest definition of the role of OD (organizational development) that I have encountered: “OD is an argument for tapping into human gifts.”

Sigh.

This is why I exist. I feel affirmed.

Peter advocates for working in groups. He stated:

• “Peer relationships are the pathway to accountability and connection.”

• “When we talk, listen, and share, we move in the direction of finding our common ground.”

• “It is in small groups where we restore our humanity.”

• “It is in conversation prompted by simple, abundant,
and curious questions that we discover what we need.

Peter asked us to explore and share with one other person our thoughts to this question:

• “What are the crossroads you are facing?”

Ugh. I knew exactly what I would share. I have been ruminating for months by myself and getting nowhere. It required me to be vulnerable. Yet, what did I have to lose?

I shared that I was struggling with my own reinvention – while I was so busy helping everyone else to find their way in the changing landscape of the world and work. In was in what Peter shared about who he was going to be and how he was going to continue to find his relevancy that helped me to know that I would continue to operate with the principles I have learned and witnessed to be impactful. But maybe I could do it a little differently; maybe, in smaller bites.

I have been a shoe-less cobbler, limping through the last four years of the pandemic-initiated recasting of world and work. But now, I feel like I have on running shoes, ready to be in the race again (at the beginning of the pandemic I wrote using the metaphor of being in a marathon).

Expect a call from me. I will have good questions in my pocket. A listening ear to lend. And the desire to join you in forging forward to embrace the work that needs to be done in a way that engages and liberates the best of each person.

• Have you lost your inspiration? Direction? Path to contribution?

• Has the changing work world caused you to lose a piece of your best self?

• Do you have what you need to facilitate those who look to you for
leadership in finding their internal drive.

As Peter says, “Advice creates distance.” I agree.

I will continue to bring questions, tools, processes, good observational skills, and commitment to our relationship. I don’t need to change or redesign my way of working – just flex to how we are coming together today, tomorrow, and into our shared future.

• What are the crossroads you are facing?

• Want to start a conversation?

Leslie

“It is literally true
that you can succeed best and quickest
by helping others to succeed.”

— Napoleon Hill