The Nature of Flourishing

The last blog focused on the 3 types of obstacles that block and frustrate us as leaders – Systemic, Organizational, and Internal. But these three are not independent. In fact, these obstacles are deeply intertwined, and untangling them is a complex process. Here are a couple of principles to help jump-start the process.

Flourishing is multi-dimensional.

True individual flourishing is spiritual, mental, emotional/relational, and physical. Looking at only one or two dimensions is misleading and dangerous. True organizational flourishing encompasses your purpose, processes, people, and profits. Looking just at your top line revenue or bottom-line profits as an indication of your organizational health and effectiveness is an overly simplified and short-sighted perspective. Flourishing leaders know that health and effectiveness (both personally and organizationally) are multi-dimensional.

Flourishing isn’t devoid of pain and struggle. 

Many people believe that flourishing is simply the absence of pain and struggle. This may be true for a season but suffering and struggle are essential ingredients for flourishing. If we don’t struggle, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow then we will eventually be unable to keep pace with the needs, opportunities, and expectations around us. The world will leave us behind. We must grow to flourish, and we must struggle and suffer to grow.

Flourishing flows from the inside out. 

A counselor once told me, “You can’t give what you don’t have”. This is true individually and it is true organizationally. I’ve seen many leaders fail to take their organization to the next level due to their own internal hurts, hang-ups, and bad habits. No organization can be healthier than the leader. Or said another way, Internal obstacles create Organizational obstacles. 

A couple years ago I was working with a Chick-fil-A Owner/Operator whose business had stopped growing. He was frustrated that the people he had in leadership roles were not really leading, and we couldn’t figure out why. One day we had a call, and he was unusually excited. Apparently, the night before a bus full of students had pulled into the parking lot just before his restaurant was scheduled to close. Dozens of students poured into the restaurant and overwhelmed his staff with orders. This Owner/Operator – with all the best intentions in the world – immediately jumped into the operations to help his team. Twelve hours later he was still buzzing with excitement.

“How often does this kind of thing happen?” I asked him.

”Not often enough! I love it when I get to make the fries. I’m the fastest fry guy on the team and love working shoulder to shoulder with my team to help them out of a jam.”

“But if you always bail out your team when they get in a jam, how do they learn to solve their own problems? If your leaders don’t learn how to solve problems and make decisions that matter, how are they ever going to lead?” 

Awkward silence.

This leader had what I like to call “well-intentioned bad habits”. He wanted to help his team, but by helping them in the short run he was actually hurting them in the long run. He found a great deal of joy and satisfaction in the tactical operations of the business. CEO work didn’t feel like work to him, so he avoided it. And his internal issues created organizational issues. 

Likewise, I have seen many organizations try to tackle systemic issues in society or in an industry, only to be thwarted by their own internal dysfunctions. No industry or community can be healthier than the organizations within it. Or said another way, Organizational obstacles create Systemic obstacles.

Perhaps the best illustration of this dynamic in recent years is the financial services industry. Financial institutions are so focused on delivering financial results, that many have lost sight of their vision and values. Under increasing pressure to deliver results, financial institutions have opened fake accounts, reduced the quality of their customer service offerings, ignored the ethics of their charters, and bypassed many of the controls designed to mitigate the risks of their industry. These short-cuts and transgressions within individual organizations, accumulated over time, led to the crash of the entire industry in 2008. 

True flourishing flows from the inside out. Internal obstacles create organizational obstacles; organizational obstacles create systemic obstacles. But flourishing leaders create flourishing organizations, and flourishing organizations create flourishing industries and flourishing communities.

What obstacles are holding you and your organization back from achieving your purpose?