Posted By:
Tate Linden
Quick update!
Last week I spoke to a great group of coaches and organizational developers about my developing book applying Gandhi’s wisdom to branding. His quote, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony” seemed to make sense to everyone, but when I used it in practice to reference the thinking, saying and doing of an organization’s leadership everyone was left scratching their heads.
What I learned from the experience is that there’s too much awkwardness and wiggle room in explaining someone’s reason for doing or saying something as “their thinking”, or worse, “their THINK”. I spent half the session doing verbal gymnastics to make “think” stay within the model I was discussing instead of using the Think/Say/Do model as way to introduce the conceptual and them immediately applying more business- or brand-appropriate language.
Leaders speak of their intent or motivation, and since that’s who I’m speaking with and about there’s no reason to make them try to learn some buzz-wordy “my THINK is X” phrasing when all we’re talking about is what gets us out of bed in the morning. What really surprised me, though, was that until now I’d been so absorbed in the development and application of the philosophy that I’d completely ignored how awkward it was to discuss.
Many thanks to the ASTD and CBODN members who helped me discover the problem and watched me work through it in real time. Both cool and humbling to experience.
(And if you want to buy the post image on a tee? Gandhi just might approve.)