Past Flourishment Sessions

September 2020: Collaborate like a real live team

About this month: You were probably never taught how to work on a team. However, chances are you that work on teams all the time now.

So . . . how do you make the most of being a teammate? How can you all learn to collaborate, to work together?

That’s the topic we explored for our September Flourishment. We explored what the military and sports have that your business is often missing. We discussed two of the most important parts of teamwork to design. And we talked about some of the barriers that many have experienced that make collaboration tough—but well worth reaching.

July 2020: Conflict-defusing strategies

One of the suggestions we’ve heard from you, over and over, has been how to effectively handle conflict in the workplace. Whether it’s two team members who just seem to rub each other the wrong way, or difficult clients, or unhealthy conflict, one of the realities of working with people is that there WILL be conflict. The only question is, how will we handle it?

This month Will Gray led us in a discussion around how we can prevent conflict before it starts, and the value of promoting healthy conflict.

June 2020: Coaching your team into next-generation leaders

If you’re a leader, you’re not just leading stuff. You’re leading people. That’s why it’s so crucial that you know how to help people grow— not just in their work, but also as people.

HBR recently found that high-performing companies are moving away from traditional "command-and-control practices" towards coaching. Not only that, but the coaching manager is much more effective in general.
"As Sir John Whitmore, a leading figure in the field, defined it, skilled coaching involves 'unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance.' " Funny enough, most managers think they're pretty good at coaching. However, the data shows that most are not as good as they think!

During June’s session, we explored some of the helpful concepts in the book The Coaching Habit, by the wonderfully named Michael Bungay-Stanier.

Will Gray and Chris Cloud led the conversation through 6 key questions you can use to unlock more of the potential of the people you lead.

We had a vigorous discussion around some of the challenges and opportunities with developing a coaching culture, and a coaching mindset.

Thanks to everyone who attended, for your input, and for being leaders who are growers.

May 2020: 7 common hurdles to making great decisions

On the list of indispensable practices for leaders, decision-making is a close second behind communication. But most people struggle to make effective decisions. Maybe even you. Chris Cloud led the conversation this month, exploring the 7 hurdles to becoming a great decision-maker. Chris has served as an executive coach for many business leaders and teams. Chris shared how he learned from his weakness, and 9 principles that have helped him and many others to become better decision makers.

April 2020: How to communicate like a boss

This month we launched our leadership flourishing focus, starting with the topic of communication. Whether you're the founder / boss, or another kind of leader in your organization, communication is a key part of how you will help people flourish through your leadership.

Because of COVID-19, communication has become even more crucial to how you lead. That's why we'll take the first half of our conversation to learn powerful principles of communication. Then we'll explore how you can help the people you lead through effective remote meetings and remote communication.

Dr. Will Gray led the conversation. He has taught communication at Clemson University, as well as in other leading institutions around the world, and has led communication at two of the fastest growing companies in the Southeast.

We discussed 7 powerful principles that can help you make the most of any communication, as well as how to improve your COVID-era communication through virtual meetings and email.

March 2020: Marching to the beat of a different drummer (breaking negative industry molds)

What if your industry is wrong? Most industries have a normal, status quo way of doing business. But there’s often a better way to do business, one that leads to more human flourishing—both for you and for the people you serve. We explored the stories of several companies who broke the mold in their industries. They redefined what’s possible, and in the process, created more personal flourishing! In conversation was Dr. Mary Brittain Blankenship of Spruce M.D.

Dr. Mary Brittain Blankenship, our guest conversationalist for March

February 2020: Work-life wholeness (work & rest)

Will Gray was joined by our conversationalist for this month, Chris Cloud. They discussed the following principles:

In this age of busy-ness, and in our culture of burnout, it’s more important than ever to recognize the importance of Sabbath rest. God rested, and celebrated His work. He “delighted in” it, and we can do the same. Sabbath was made for our benefit, not the other way around.
Shalom - we tend to think of this as just an old Jewish greeting, but it is so much more than that. It is “all things as they ought to be.” Everything in its place. It’s “wholeness”.
The idea that “work-life balance” is not a Christian concept, but rather “wholeness” is more in line with what God has created us for.
Amazing Grapes - Will shared his story of visiting a vineyard in Italy. They were running an experiment to see how many grapes were ideal on a cluster, in order to maximize the flavors. This was a world-class vineyard, and all of the grapes were excellent grapes, yet they recognized that they had to prune off some great grapes off each vine so that the nutrients would go to making amazing grapes. We discussed how often in life and work we have to prune “excellent” things in order to produce “amazing” work.
The group discussion this month was particularly vibrant and energizing. This topic really resonated!

January 2020: What’s faith got to do with it? (faith & work)

Will Gray was joined by our conversationalist, Brannon McAllister (who leads the Leaf Institute of faith & work, as well as director of the Leaf Fellowship program).

They discussed the importance of the creation mandate, to go and cultivate the earth, which means to “bring about unrealized potential.” We can create culture, new ways of serving our clients, or creative art. This launched us into a vigorous discussion of how our faith & work can become more integrated, and less disintegrated.

It turns out, faith has everything to do with every part of our life and work.

October 2019: Interview with guest Ross Robinson on Building a strengths-based leadership team

Is your leadership team living up to its full potential? Are you leveraging the strengths of each team member?

There’s something powerful that happens when a team is aligned to its strengths. During our October event, special guest Ross Robinson helped us explore how our leadership can be more in tune with the unique gifts every member, and how to make sure we are maximizing those. To help us each flourish, collectively and individually!

September 2019: “CREATING WORK RHYTHMS THAT HELP YOUR TEAM TO FLOURISH, AND BECOME MORE PRODUCTIVE”with special guests, Mark Johnson & Paul Johnson, founders of Pathwright

Paul Johnson and Mark Johnson are the founders of Pathwright, a tech company right here in Greenville that is one of the leaders in providing online learning software. Their team is flourishing in some unique ways, and one of the reasons is that they have done a lot of thinking and innovating around the way they schedule projects, and the rhythms of work.

They shared with us the growth path of anything - whether it be a business, product, or even team culture. Moving from Functional, to Fun (and beautiful), to Fast (scalable). Additionally, they spoke of how they have had to think about stages of growth, from a team of two, to a team of several, to a “team of teams” and how each stage represents its own challenges. They shared lots of practical ideas for paying attention to rhythms and seasons, from SCRUM, to Pomodoro, to taking walking meetings as a team. They even pulled back the veil and shared their own secret to keeping their team from burning out on projects. Hint: it involves Pathways.

The collaboration time was some of the best we’ve had, and everyone walked away with a commitment to try their One Thing this month.

August 2019: "No one teaches you how to work well on a team"

Dr. Will Gray and Chris Cloud have been helping leadership teams get strong and healthy for more than a decade. They shared the good, the bad & the ugly of what they’ve seen. They provided an overview of the “5 Functions of a team” (the opposite of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team).

They included “10 Common Traps” that people face on a team:

Terrified of making decisions as a team
Don’t know how to make decisions as a team
Dominator in Chief
No forgiveness
Defensiveness
Attacking the person, not the idea
Operating from different pages
Cynicism
Trash talk behind each other’s backs
Misunderstanding that leadership comes naturally, and so does serving on a leadership team

They recommended solutions to each, and how you can take Jason Bourne baby steps on making progress on a team.

Multiple companies brought their entire leadership team, or part of their leadership team. The emphasis was on the workshop collaboration at the tables, where each individual identified areas where their own team could improve, and where would like to grow next as an individual team player. Everyone walked away with their key One Thing Commitment for the month. Remember, this is a Lunch and Do, not a “lunch and learn”!

July 2019: An interview with Equip Studio, who is turning the typical industry norms on their head, and people are flourishing as a result.

Sims Key is the President and a Partner in Equip Studio, a nationwide architectural firm that brings the stories of churches and businesses to life with architecture. He was joined by Elisa Sowell, one of Equip's newest hires.

Architecture is one of those industries (like stock trading or healthcare) that is famous for burnout.

But not Equip. The four partners behind Equip Studio started their company because they knew the culture of an architectural firm could be different. It could feel like . . . family.

We heard the story of how this company is turning established industry norms on their head, and bring your own questions for the Q&A part of the interview. Sims shared how the partners set out to start a different kind of company, one leading with values first rather than values last. One with a culture that people want to be a part of, where work-life wholeness is encouraged. Elise shared her experience of looking for searching for a company after graduate school, and what attracted her to Equip Studio.

As we always do, we took time for collaboration with fellow business leaders, and everyone walked away with a One Thing commitment to try this month.

June 2019: an interview with Rick Hubbard, founder of the “Starbucks of Dhaka (Bangladesh)”

Rick Hubbard and his wife, Chris, founded North End Coffee Roasters in Bangladesh in 2011.

Bangladesh is the developing world, and not for the faint of heart. In spite of many obstacles, including one of the worst terrorist attacks in history that happened just down the street from where the Hubbards were living, North End Coffee has gone on to become the Starbucks of Dhaka, a city of over 17 million people. They currently have 230 employees, 9 shop locations, and supply coffee to 250 other shops & restaurants. They have also helped to start 50+ local coffee shops and trained over 400 baristas. They are also helping around 300 coffee farmers and their families to grow quality coffee and build their businesses.

Most importantly, Rick and Chris are building a flourishing organization with the gospel at the root. People are flourishing at North End in amazing and counter-cultural ways.

We were so inspired by Rick’s story, and all the lessons he is learning in the process. After the interview, we worked through a From/To statement: “moving from top-down leadership (authoritarian) to servant leadership (Christ-like, transformational)”. We collaborated at our tables, and discussed with our groups the implications of this shift in our own lives and organizations.

We then had a drawing for a bottle of Napa Valley wine - congratulations to this month’s winner Bernie Anderson who walked way with a fine Charles Krug Cabernet. Not coincidentally, Charles Krug is the older winery in Napa Valley that is still in operation.

May 2019: “how to raise up and unleash leaders who take ownership” with Tim Whitmire

We had our best group yet! Over 30 incredible leaders in Greenville joined us. Tim Whitmire, the co-founder of the largest free-fitness movement in the United States, and OKR consultant to one of the fastest growing tech-startups in the country, shared some key insights:

He shared his lessons from his time on the Harvard rowing team, about moving from “Orsman to Coxswain”
Must have a clear mission in order to row together.
Must have goals with metrics, and hold accountable to those (“Measure what Matters” by John Doerr, 2018).
“What’s love got to do with it?” - Tim shared how love is imperative to making any “boat” or organization go faster. There are two types of critical love in an organization: First, “Philia” (in Greek) which is affectionate regard, friendship, usually between equals, most famous expression is “brotherly love”. Second, “Storge” (in Greek) which is the natural empathy that parents feel for their children. It is also used to express the acceptance or endurance of certain situations or individuals. “Storge” love is absolutely critical to the success of an organization so we have to cultivate it.
During the workshop we collaborated on our own “OKR’s” (Objectives & Key Results) and developed our inidividual “One Thing” commitments for the month.

April 2019: “what are the core elements of a flourishing business?”

We heard the story of Pete Carroll, the legendary head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, and how he is building a flourishing organization that is completely different than the typical NFL organization. We then collaborated and workshopped out various elements of flourishing, and One Thing we can each take back to our organizations to implement. Some of the elements of flourishing are moving “from X to Y” such as:

From Immobile (lacking leadership/destiny) to Mobile
From Micromanagement to Empowerment
From “What Happened” to Proactive
From Stagnation to Fermentation
From Mediocrity (resting on laurels, status quo) to Excellence
From Management to Servant Leadership
From “My way or the highway” to Everyone has a voice
From Hiding & Manipulation to Transparency & Trust
From meeting goals/deadlines to An environment of succeeding (not just managing tasks)
From Success as measured primarily by revenue or size (wealth) to People are made in God’s image, and success is holistic

We have also been working on a longer list of elements of a flourishing organization:

From competition to be crushed to competition to be celebrated because it makes us stronger
From short-term gains to long-term cultivation mindset
From Exploitation (of people and resources) to Investment mentality
From Fortress mentality (personal kingdom) to building partnerships (seeking The Kingdom of Jesus)
From Fixed mindset (people don’t really change or grow) to a Growth mindset (we can all grow and should)
From Scarcity mentality to Abundance mentality
From Profits over people, to People over profits
From only looking at my corner of work, to considering other factors (such as environmental, political, sociological, cultural)
From values-last to values-first
From “Business as usual” to “Business as calling”
From business for self to business to serve God & others (stewardship)
From relationships for gain to relationships for love (love your neighbor)
From “giving is the exception” to “giving is the norm”
From sacred & secular divided, to sacred & secular united (sacred infiltration)
From copying the competition to leading and innovating
From mimicking or avoiding popular culture, to creating unique and intentional culture
From “driven by the winds of the market” to “driven by mission"
From risk-aversion to faith-driven risk
From disdain for this world, to engaged with this world
From bowling alone to accepting community
From Christian superiority to God can work through whomever He wants
From anemic companies to healthy & flourishing organizations (health is the goal, not the byproduct)
From cynicism to choosing to focus on what is redemptive and good
From Transactional to Relational
From hiding behind “professional” to genuine and authentic
From top down leadership (authoritarian) to servant-leadership (Christ-like, transformational)

March 2019: “how to build a better community through business”

Chris Cloud shared 2 powerful stories of companies he has worked with, who are literally changing the world through business as the platform, in Nepal and other places. Here are some of the takeaways from the discussion:

It can be easier for us to identify “needs” and challenges in another culture, then in our own back yard.
We spent time workshopping, “What are some of the challenges in the Upstate?”
We then turned those challenges into Opportunities and explored was that each of our organizations could make an impact on one or more area.

Flourishment March Presentation

Chris Cloud shared his heart for business as mission.

Workshop

We had an incredible time collaborating on how we can each apply these principles from missional businesses, into our own organizations locally.

February 2019: Will Gray presented “how to win customers for life using the Ritz Carlton way”

We had a great time in February!

An incredible group of leaders gathered to meet and hear about the Ritz Carlton way of creating customers for life. The feedback we received was that the most exciting part was the collaborative/interactive part of the session, with actionable takeaways.

Wine Giveaway

Each month we give away a bottle of Napa Valley wine, as a reminder to each of us of how collaborating and sharing ideas and resources will make us and our organizations stronger if we show up with that intent.