Coming up with a framework to help define Junctional Thinking has made me take a look at some of the lessons I have learned along my career / life path. I am becoming increasingly comfortable with the notion that my work life and my personal life share a mission. Yes, they will require me to sometimes separate them as far as time and attention are concerned, but the mission for my engagement in all I do will has some consistency to it, and for me it is to be a capacity builder, and social impact driver.
So what does that have to do with creating a framework for Junctional Thinking? Simply put, I cannot do what I am called to do without operating at the intersection of a number of different sectors, and I believe there are six key skills, behaviors, ideals (SBIs) we have to embrace throughout our daily interactions to make us into the most capable Junctional Thinkers.
Learning - It is a perpetual state of inquiry, and the key SBI. And the first bit of learning we need to do is about ourselves. Who you are is not your title or your credentials, it’s more complicated than that, and takes some time to figure out, but the journey is worth it. One of my biggest lessons was through my weight-loss journey, an experience that continues to teach me so many lessons.
Listening - Learning calls for us to listen, and listen actively to a wide range of inputs and experiences. These are the things that help us make sense of the self-knowledge we develop in the learning process, but also to be able to work more effectively with others. Listening involves more than our ears, we can listen with our eyes too (something to contemplate perhaps).
Leadership - And by this I mean that we subscribe to the idea that leadership is an outcome and not always about a person. A colleague of mine taught me this a few years ago, we open our course with a discussion on the topic, highlighting the fact that we often conflate leadership with “a leader”, and the notion that teasing leadership and leaders apart can have a liberating effect, freeing some of us from the pressure that comes with both terms.
Patience - A virtue and a muscle, it gets stronger with use (and rest). Everything has its time. Context and content make a difference (as might approach), but loosening our grip on the idea of things needing to happen “right now” really works. It also allows for other inputs to land on the idea pad, ideas that might not have been able to land if we moved too fast.
Partners - Essential, because rarely in this ever more interconnected world, does anything happen as a solo enterprise. We need partners, but they need to be of the right kind. The kind we get along with, the kind we have taken the time to get to know. The kind who will be there through all the weather systems that impact oriented ventures go through. But how do we find and pick those partners? We’ll get to that, just not in this piece.