Inside this Sunday:
- I’m reading about what is enough.
- I’m working on a new category called the Learning Culture Officer.
- I’m thinking about wise words from Derek Sivers.
A company without values is like a ship without navigation.
Since the beginning, Curious Lion has had 5 values.
Then on Christmas Day my in-laws were with us, and we were enjoying some Manhattan cocktails. They were admiring the new mugs Jill had gotten made for our team, resplendent with the Curious Lion logo on the side. It’s amusing to me that getting swag made with your company logo is a marker of progress. I’m quite proud of those mugs.
They asked me why our logo has 6 sides.
It was time to kick into spin mode.
My first thought was to answer that we had 6 values.
Only trouble was, we had 5…
The 5 original values reflect my own personal values:
➢ Our people are our most valuable asset
➢ We are curious
➢ We are inclusive
➢ We are playful
➢ We are productive
We needed a 6th value, and this presented a fantastic opportunity.
As I wrote at the end of last year, our team has doubled to 12 incredible humans.
To live our values, they needed to pick the 6th value.
So we started a competition.
We received 14 suggestions.
Some weren’t technically values.
Values describe how a company of people acts.
We had to eliminate some great suggestions which were more about what we are.
Some that we eliminated:
➢ We are creative
➢ We are curators
➢ We are mentors of change
➢ We are transformation designers
All great descriptions of what we do, but not how we do it.
So we whittled it down to a shortlist of 3 and put it to a vote.
The result was pretty much unanimous.
Now we have 6 values and I can confidently say that this is why our logo has 6 sides.
We also had 5 existing supporting values.
Thanks to two of our team voting for option 2, we decided to add this to make it 6 supporting values.
This was a really fun process to be part of.
We embodied one of our original values: we are inclusive.
And since we’re young and growing, the team can proudly inspire new hires with values they hold dear.
Our ship has a powerful navigation system for what lies ahead. 🚀🧭
See you in two weeks ✌️
The most popular link two weeks ago was my new course, The Learning Culture Experience. We added two new founding council members, so definitely check it out again if you’re curious.
What is Enough?
This beautifully illustrated article by Lawrence Yeo explores the concept of essentialism, from the perspective that, in the words of William Blake, “you never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”
The most basic human experience of this is eating.
We’ve all, I’m sure, had that feeling of eating too much of something we enjoy and regretting it afterward.
But the thing is, you learn your lesson and never do it again. Unless it’s Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream.
Applied to the world of work and building wealth, over-eating looks like this:
“You’ve entered the domain of greed when you no longer pursue an endeavor because you’re curious about it. It’s when the coldness of utility replaces the warmth of curiosity. Ambition morphs into greed when you stop listening to your inner compass, and start paying attention to what your actions may do for external things like your reputation.”
So how do you know what’s enough?
“Enough is what remains when you remove these desires for approval or praise. It’s when you conduct an honest audit of your needs, and understand what has been conditioned into you, and what is true to who you are. If you’re well aware that reading a great book will make you happy, do you really need to go out and get that expensive car? Do you really need to make more money to support your family, when what your family needs is your attention?”
And the best way to find this magical point of enough is to test yourself beyond enough. Binge on that ice cream.
“You have to have your Worlds of Enough extend upward before realizing that this trend needs to be corrected. After all, a minimalist is nothing more than a maximalist recovering from this epiphany.”
This article pairs well with one I’ve shared previously in this newsletter, If You’re Still Worried, You Aren’t Wealthy, by Ben Carlson.
As Yeo concludes:
“If success comes your way, you don’t want that success to automatically feed itself into expectations of more success.”
👉Read the full illustrated article
The Learning Culture Experience
We added two new founding council members.
- Christopher Lind, the Chief Learning Officer of ChenMed and host of the Learning Sharks podcast, which I was a guest on.
- Rebecca Scales, the Head of Learning Content Strategy at the Expedia Group.
I’m also doing a live webinar on Feb 17 – you can register here to learn more about the program.
Please share this with anyone you know responsible for learning in teams.
The Vision: The Learning Culture Officer
3,300 words later, my vision for the future of learning and a new role for the profession is done!
I published the first three parts of a four-part series on The Learning Culture Officer (LCO).
Check them out here:
- The Learning Culture Officer (1 of 4): Something Needs to Change
- The Learning Culture Officer (2 of 4): What The Future Looks Like
- The Learning Culture Officer (3 of 4): The Times, They Are ‘A Changing
If you want a sneak peek at the final part, reply to this email with “LCO” and I’ll send you the full version before the public gets to read it.
Public (Virtual) Appearances
As mentioned above, I was a guest on a recent episode of the Learning Sharks.
If you want to hear Christopher and me working through ideas from the vision for The Learning Culture Officer, this interview is well worth a listen.
You’ll also learn why Christopher and I are the Apex Predators of the learning and development world. 🦁🦈
This email newsletter was originally shared with subscribers on January 30th, 2022. To receive the latest newsletters twice a month, sign up below!