Offering Goodness, Truth + Beauty | Sofiya Deva, This Same Sky

Offering Goodness, Truth + Beauty | Sofiya Deva, This Same Sky

# 27: Offering Goodness, Truth + Beauty | Sofiya Deva, This Same Sky

Sofiya Deva didn’t waver from her commitment to launch a new business, This Same Sky, even in the face of a pandemic.  She was unwilling to turn away from any of her ‘loves’ – of beauty, for supporting multi-generational artisans, ethical and sustainable fashion and her self-described geeky love of strategy and business.  I believe Jim Collins would give her an A+ in building a business with a clear core ideology (Vision, Purpose, Values).  Listen in and you’ll also be gifted with Sofiya’s reading of This Same Sky’s brand poem.

Show Notes

“We have a twofold purpose: On one hand, supporting the artisans and preserving their traditions. On the other hand, we’re trying to inspire a more intentional lifestyle for our consumers…that is more fulfilling and authentic.”

Sofiya Deva, Founder and CEO of This Same Sky

Integrating your passions, strengths, and purpose

Not only did Sofiya Deva launch her brand, This Same Sky, in the middle of the pandemic, but she managed to masterfully integrate her loves and strengths. The company focuses on artisan-centered rotating collections of personal and home accessories, but it’s also a social enterprise that earns these multicultural artists an exceptional livelihood. Her purpose is to preserve traditional arts and crafts and remind us that we can’t forget the irrefutable value art can bring into our lives, – even in an era where minimalism is gaining traction.
One of the other passions the brand draws from? Poetry. The inspiration for the company name comes from a book of poetry of the same name. Everyone under “this same sky” lends to the sense of solidarity, that we’re all in this together. Profiling different artistic lifestyle pieces, it celebrates the distinctiveness of cultural differences while affirming a sense of unity.We discuss how Sofiya is achieving “the good, the true and the beautiful” within her new company, and how her pillars and purpose have fueled the company’s genesis and growth, even during such an uncertain time.

When less is more, choose intentionally

[17:47] “My subtle critique to sustainability in the present moment is we have a lot of emphasis on minimalism, and less clutter, which is great, but…I think if we just negate and eliminate, without tapping into a greater sense of who we are, a greater sense of where we come from, it’s incomplete for me.”

As consumers, we’re always voting with our dollars one way or the other. We understand not amassing possessions just to have them. But let’s also choose wisely, bringing things with beauty and life into our home.

The changing landscape of fashion

[25:51] “[The fashion industry] is in need of reform. But the great thing is that consumers are demanding that reform, so I think the brands that are going to deliver that reform have a competitive advantage in terms of being more desirable by consumers.”
[27:59] “Being born in the middle of a pandemic, it’s forced us to be even scrappier than we would have ordinarily been, and very adaptable and very agile – and to really think through, how can we create?How can we create a diverse and flexible business model?…We leaned into collaboration and how to create win-win scenarios.”

Balance passion and self-care

[34:03] “As an entrepreneur, you have to take burnout very seriously. You have to recognize that you’re not immune to burnout; you don’t have infinite energy and resources. I’ve had some really good coaches who have helped me recognize that, actually, my energy is a really valuable resource in this project, and I need to guard it.”

As Sofiya says, it’s important to engage intentionally and assess priorities so you’re able to follow through.

Connect with Sofiya:
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofiya-hyder/

This Same Sky https://thissamesky.com/

Social handle: @thissamesky

Twitter – https://twitter.com/sofiyadeva?lang=en

Other mentions:

This Same Sky by Naomi Shihab Nye – https://www.amazon.com/This-Same-Sky-Collection-Around/dp/0689806302
Guide to Owning Your Value – https://mailchi.mp/d37649fa5f04/own-your-value
Guide to Reading Poetry – https://mailchi.mp/6b573fc30d9e/guide-for-reading-poetry
Vickery Trading – https://vickerytrading.org/
Forbes article on Corporate Gifting: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2020/10/01/how-to-make-corporate-gifting-count-this-holiday-season/?sh=7b7db4453666

Sudara – https://www.sudara.org/
Olivela – https://www.olivela.com/
Wolf and Badger – https://www.wolfandbadger.com/us/

To subscribe to the Rise Leaders newsletter for more resources:  https://mailchi.mp/426e78bc9538/subscribe

To discuss executive coaching, leadership development program design, and workshop facilitation, please visit: https://rise-leaders.com/contact-info/

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive.  Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

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Offering Goodness, Truth + Beauty | Sofiya Deva, This Same Sky

A Vaccine Against Closed-Mindedness | Jay G. Cone PhD

A Vaccine Against Closed-Mindedness | Jay G. Cone PhD

Jay Gordon Cone Ph.D. has decades under his belt working with leadership teams to build successful strategies and navigate challenging times. These days he is also focusing his considerable intellectual horsepower and passion on creating a “vaccine against mind traps and closed-mindedness”.

Jay believes if we can boost our immunity to chaos, we can respond with creativity and compassion rather than paralysis and tribalism.  Join us as we talk about bias, quicksand questions, and four disciplines for getting unstuck.

Show Notes

“If we were able to have a more productive approach to uncertainty and ambiguity, we actually might find responses that make things better. But we want the easy answer. And it’s our fascination with the easy answer, actually, that prolongs the chaos.”
– Jay G. Cone

Overcoming thinking traps

We often find ourselves stuck – both individually and collectively – as a result of chaos, uncertainty, and unpredictability. In such times, it’s common to gravitate toward the easy answer, regardless if it’s the best way forward. When we fall into these thinking traps, we may oversimplify the problem to create a simple solution. This need for closure creates hasty action plans that can entrench you further into the problem – getting your mind “stuck.”
Today Jay outlines tips for avoiding thinking traps and nurturing an “unstuck” mind that’s open to new possibilities. Much of it begins with knowing the right questions to ask (avoiding “What should I do?”) to forge a new way forward. Being able to adaptively respond to uncertainty is helpful, because expertise and learning from the past doesn’t necessarily provide a fail-proof roadmap for the future.

The importance of building mental stamina

[9:30] “[In chaos] the only responses that we have are based in the limbic system in the amygdala, and we want to fight or we want to flee. But if we can develop our stamina for thinking, when things are complicated or uncertain or ambiguous, then we’re not as susceptible to the same ideas and…closed mindedness and tribalism, that tends to paralyze us.”
[22:03] “And when you start focusing on simplistic answers, then you tend to hang out with people who have gravitated towards those same simplistic responses. And it gets to the point where it’s just too difficult to be open to new information, different perspectives, or to continue processing things.”

How to know you’re stuck

[11:22] “One very common experience … you’re really not clear on why it is that you can’t achieve this goal. You make up all these reasons for why this attempt failed…So if a pattern emerges, there’s a good chance that there’s something more to be uncovered.”
[15:59] “If someone expressed a point of view…and all of a sudden [you] have horrible judgments…if that’s a feeling you’re having, and it’s one you’re not particularly proud of or that doesn’t make sense to you, that might be a leading indicator of stuckness as well.”

Identify quicksand questions

[26:09] “One of the things that you can look at is the way people pose questions because the way people frame a question about a situation they want to change reveals a lot about how they’re thinking and feeling.”
[29:30] “All these things that we want other people to do, we just frame a question around them and we work toward altering the behavior – rather than trying to understand whether we as leaders, organizations, are complicit and whether there’s something other than their behavior that needs to change.”

Practice the 4 Disciplines for getting unstuck

[36:32 ] Jay has designed 4 Disciplines to use when you feel stuck.  We can use these disciplines in team and individual settings when we find ourselves overwhelmed or repeating familiar patterns with unsatisfying results.

Get in touch with Jay Cone:

https://unstuckminds.com/contact/

Resources:

Unstuck Minds website
https://unstuckminds.com/

Unstuck Minds Blog: https://unstuckminds.com/receive-periodic-tips-insights-and-ideas-
from-unstuck-minds/

Free Assessment: https://unstuckminds.com/your-thinking-to-action-profile/

 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/unstuckminds/%3Fref=bookmarks

Twitter  https://twitter.com/unstuck_minds

Blindspot:  Hidden Biases of Good People https://www.amazon.com/Blindspot-Hidden-Biases-Good-People/dp/1491528869

To subscribe to the Rise Leaders newsletter for more resources:  https://mailchi.mp/426e78bc9538/subscribe

To discuss executive coaching, leadership development program design, and workshop facilitation, please visit: https://rise-leaders.com/contact-info/

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive.  Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

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Offering Goodness, Truth + Beauty | Sofiya Deva, This Same Sky

Taking a Collective Stand | Achieving a Bold Stakeholder Vision

Taking a Collective Stand | How to Achieve a Bold Community Vision

This episode is being re-published because the content feels incredibly relevant given our political and social environment.  In the mid-1990s Jennifer Touchet and a group of committed citizens took a clear and unified stand against a powerful and complex system and won!  They used positive political strategies based on a win-win-win approach and intentional inclusivity.

Show Notes

In the beginning, the vision was something for the community, and truly nothing more than that. That’s what held us together. We wanted to bring the community together.
–          Jennifer Touchet

The Power of Your ‘Why’

In episode 21, I discussed owning your value and the key elements to unlocking authenticity and personal power. This week we take a deep dive into the first element, “Know what you stand for,” as embodied by my guest, Jennifer Touchet.

Holding true to the vision and the “why” of the community was indispensable during her bid to establish a nature center in the urban neighborhood of Oak Cliff in Dallas, TX.

While some wanted to erect a high-end, gated community on that beloved spot of land, much of the neighborhood knew and loved it for the nature and recreation it provided. What followed was a years-long project requiring passion and persistence. Enjoy learning some key pointers from our conversation.

[3:12] …BeBe spoke so passionately and it was clear that she had a bigger vision for who should benefit from … this jewel that was in our community. So afterward, I connected with her and … asked her if she wanted to work together to try and bring the community voice to what’s really going to happen. And she wanted to…

Be Empowered by Your Beliefs

[9:32] “One of my core beliefs is that local communities that are closest to problems are also closest to solutions…”
“I firmly believe that the community can come up with what’s best for itself. I kind of believe that in general, that the communities that live and work and play where they are, that are closest to things know also how to make it better.”

Know the Stakeholder Environment

“If you want to get anything done, you have to look at all the different factors that will affect your ability as a person or as a group to get that done.”

Know When to Relent and Know When to Relax

Knowing your stand is important. But there often comes a time when compromise needs to occur.  Originally Twelve Hills was 20 acres of land. To achieve their purpose, they had to scale back and negotiate. As Jennifer said, “To win doesn’t mean winner take all.”
[16:08] “We had to go back and change our plan, and negotiate with our city government, the school district developers to come up with a different vision. Twelve Hills today is just over five acres…But there were some people that felt like we gave up too much. But at that point, it felt like it was going to be if we fought for all, we were going to get nothing.”

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Owning Your Value | Key Elements for Authenticity and Personal Power
https://rise-leaders.com/owning-your-value/

A Guide For Owning Your Value:
https://mailchi.mp/d37649fa5f04/own-your-value
A downloadable worksheet for defining and voicing your value

To learn more about Twelve Hills please visit:
https://twelvehills.org/

To connect to Jennifer please visit:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-touchet-0437571/

Sign up for Rise Leaders newsletter:

https://mailchi.mp/426e78bc9538/subscribe

To discuss executive coaching, leadership development program design, and workshop facilitation, please visit:
https://rise-leaders.com/contact-info/

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive.  Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

Sign up for Rise Leaders newsletter:

https://mailchi.mp/426e78bc9538/subscribe

Have Friends & Colleagues Who’d Like This podcast?

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Visionary Leadership Keeps a 100-Year-Old Mission Relevant

Visionary Leadership Keeps a 100-Year-Old Mission Relevant

Visionary Leadership Keeps a 100-Year-Old Mission Relevant

 

Jennifer Bartkowski, CEO of Girl Scouts Northeast TX

Innovation, strategic thinking, and execution are marks of Jennifer Bartkowski’s  leadership. She invests these talents as CEO of Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas (GSNETX), and in collaboration with strategic partners, is transforming the Girl Scout experience. Jennifer is committed to making Girl Scouting a path to success for all girls. Her passion and visionary leadership are changing the game for GSNETX.

Staying relevant in a constantly changing world is daunting. As organizations age, their appeal often grows stale and without significant revitalization, they risk demise. Jennifer is accomplishing what has eluded countless leaders: she is bringing new life to a century-old organization to meet the demands of contemporary challenges. And she’s doing it while staying true to the Girl Scout mission: To build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

Building on the Mission

“We asked ourselves, What else can we do with this strong foundation?  Our answer: we can get girls excited about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). We can get them excited about financial literacy and how it makes more things possible as they grow up. We can teach them about healthy living and healthy relationships and other skills required to be healthy adults. We can teach them about the outdoors. It’s fresh and exciting!

“One of the challenges of Girl Scouting is that we’re 105 years old.  It’s a blessing and a curse.  People know us for cookies, camps and crafts.  We are all of these things and we’re proud of them.  And we’re so much more today – the organization has been going through a real transformation.

“For six weeks of the year, Girl Scouts is cookies.  Every single girl owns their own business where they develop important skills like decision-making, goal-setting, financial management, and business ethics.  This experience creates a powerful foundation to build on.

“We are also camp, which is so critically important today.  This generation of kids is the first to grow up almost entirely indoors.  We have a proven history of teaching leadership at camp better than anywhere else.  (Note:  Girl Scouts founder Juliet Gordon Low purchased land for camping before investing in a physical building.)

“And yes, we are crafts.  Girl Scouts has always been about fun and creativity and we intend to keep offering what the girls enjoy.

We are taking all that is foundational and setting it on its edge.”

Women, Technology and Girl Scouts

In 2010, Texas Instruments (TI), a Dallas-based global technology company, approached GSNETX, asking them to be a partner in solving a business challenge: A significant talent shortage in the fields of technology and engineering is predicted by the year 2020. Girls are less likely to go into technical fields and TI would like to change that. TI has long been committed to diversifying the workforce and has been a champion of developing and promoting women. TI imagined that Girl Scouts could offer years of positive STEM experience all the way through high school, shaping their desire to pursue STEM degrees in college. A K-12 STEM Engineering badge was the first accomplishment of the partnership.

Texas Instrument’s offer also fits with Girl Scouts’ commitment to the development of leadership skills in girls and young women. Their curriculum, driven by the earning of badges, provides experiences that develop confidence, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills and encourages the pursuit of challenging goals.

The STEM Center of Excellence at Camp Whispering Cedars

The timing was auspicious. Alongside the initiative with TI, GSNETX was taking a strategic look at their physical properties. A decision was made to unite the new STEM initiative with an investment in Camp Whispering Cedars, a gorgeous property in southern Dallas. That is how the STEM Center of Excellence at Camp Whispering Cedars was conceived.

Jennifer’s visionary leadership and passion for girls energized a campaign that cast a wide net across the business, academic, cultural and philanthropic communities. She invited them all to take part in giving local girls from all walks of life fun, hands-on experiences with STEM. The community responded with a resounding YES!  A sample of collaborators joining TI in this innovate effort (so far): the University of Texas at Dallas, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the Dallas Arboretum, and many very generous donors. Other business partnerships are emerging and they’re eager to make this vision a reality. (Read about Capital One’s boost!)

STEM Highlights at Camp Whispering Cedars:

  • The telescope-equipped Moody Observation Tower is a place for girls to get high above the trees to study astronomy and sleep under the stars. They will also experience themselves as part of something much bigger.
  • Girls will learn underwater robotics when they’re not swimming in the on-site swimming pool.
  • Rockets will be launched, archery skills honed, walls will be climbed and girls will zip-line above the largely un-groomed, wide-open spaces so many kids no longer have access to.
  • A GeoScouting app already guides girls on their hikes through the beautiful escarpment, learning about rocks, plants and the geologic formation of Camp Whispering Cedars.

A Virtuous Cycle

Jennifer, the GSNETX team and their award-winning Board of Directors have created a cycle of contribution and benefit that is acting as a flywheel, reinvigorating itself with each accomplishment.The obvious benefactors are the young women who will experience STEM in an environment that only Girl Scouts can provide: an outdoor, all-girl setting, infused with leadership and life skills. These young women will be primed to follow degree programs leading to a job market hungry for their capabilities.

Local tech businesses will enjoy an enlarged and diversified pool of female talent ready for work for the foreseeable future.

Enrollment in engineering and other STEM-related university programs will increase. The more girls who enter programs with a flourishing peer group, the more will persist and complete their STEM degrees.

The City of Dallas is also a significant benefactor, and Jennifer is “proud to be a part of Mayor Mike Rawling’s Grow South initiative. Girl Scouts is investing $13M in 92 acres of the most beautiful land in Dallas, and we’re happy to be a part of the city’s priorities.”

Also promising is the role Girl Scouts can play in positively impacting race relations. At camp and in many troops, girls are playing, sleeping and learning next to girls of racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds different from their own. Their parents are also interacting with each other for a common goal: to prepare their girls for a bright future.

Innovation in Girl Scouts Delivery: Making the Experience More Accessible

A limiting factor for the number of girls able to participate in Girl Scouting is the number of troop leader volunteers. GSNETX is experimenting with new ways of delivering Girl Scouting: “We’re piloting a partnership with a few DISD elementary schools and exploring possibilities with KIPP schools as well. We’re actually going in and helping the teachers understand the Girl Scouts leadership experience, and enabling them to deliver Girl Scouting to girls at their schools. Those girls are using our STEM Center as a field trip space and becoming Girl Scouts in the process”. Solar Prep, an all girl’s STEAM (A is for Arts!) school in southern Dallas is calling itself a Girl Scouts school. 100% of the students there are Girl Scouts. It’s a new model.

“Finally, we’re piloting a way to make the space available to girls and boys in schools in the southern sector of Dallas for field trips. These schools don’t typically have the revenue to send their students to expensive camps in East Texas. Camp Whispering Cedars is a short bus ride away which gives them access to a 21st century STEM Center and an incredible outdoor space.”

A CEO Exemplar

Jennifer speaks from experience about the impact of Girl Scouting:

“I was a Girl Scout myself through ninth grade and earned the Silver award. Girl Scouting is a long tradition in my family:  my three sisters and I were led by my mother and she was led by her mother.  My daughter is a Girl Scout and I volunteer with her troop. Through Girl Scouts, I got to try new things and have experiences that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I was the oldest of five kids and we didn’t have a lot of money, so every winter I worked hard and sold cookies so I could go to camp for two weeks on my own. I got to be my own person and meet new friends. As I got older I went on destination trips and got to do really cool stuff.

“Between Girl Scouts and competitive swimming, I learned leadership, teamwork, time management and how to work hard and be competitive. Girl Scouts opened doors for me and I’m passionate about making sure that girls from all walks of life have access to the Girl Scout leadership experience and programming. It can be transformative.

“We’re all on a leadership journey: me, all of our staff, and of course the girls. My entire life and career have led me here, building the skills the organization needs now.  And I’m being challenged to develop new ones all the time!  I believe we are doing this work on purpose. We’re leaving a legacy for the future by building on an amazing foundation for Girl Scouts of the 21st Century and beyond.”

For Reflection:

  1. Is your mission clear enough to guide strategic decisions?
  2. How can your legacy products and services be delivered in new ways that fit the current environment?  Explore out-of-the-ordinary ways that your mission can be accomplished.  (GSNETX paired camping with STEM)
  3. Who are your stakeholders?  How can you partner with them for win-win outcomes? (Consider the innovative partnership between TI and GSNETX)
  4. Do you feel on purpose with your vocation? Are you passionate, engaged and creative in your thinking?

 

Leader or Follower? A Bogus Choice

Leader or Follower? A Bogus Choice

Leader or Follower? A Bogus Choice

team paceline_cascade cyclist_cc

 

The weekend following my solo outing, my husband and I went out again. He’s a more experienced cyclist than I am and is also much better at navigating our route, so pretty quickly I fall back and he rides out front. Considering our goal is fitness-focused and having an activity we do together, this arrangement works. That said, we do pay attention to our times and feel good when we see improvement. We also push ourselves to ride further as the riding season progresses. Speed is less important than distance. This day we planned to ride 25 miles.

About five miles out I realized I had zoned out – that my level and type of engagement on this trip was very different from the previous weekend. Not only was last weekend’s ride the first on my own,  I had also been caught in a storm which added an element of adventure. While I was enjoying this ride, it lacked the almost hyper-awareness of the previous one.

In Gallup terms I was somewhere between Engaged and Disengaged. Was being a ‘follower’ the cause for this? In a way, yes. Today I had the energy and outlook of ‘being along for the ride’.  I was not connected to any outcome or my role in achieving it. I had been much more invested when I was solely responsible for reaching my destination the prior weekend.  Interesting.

My mind jumped to considering the roles and mindsets of leaders, teams and team members who are focused on achieving organizational goals (or not). Experts tell us that in the near future, organizational success will rely more on the collaborative efforts seen in self-managing teams. As the shape of how work gets done changes, leaders and followers will become less distinct. Leaders will need to fall back and team members will need to step up.  A more intentional level of engagement will be required by both.

The Onus is On Us

Frederic Laloux, author of Reinventing Organizations, writes about a new type of management that is emerging in a few forward thinking companies.   These organizations are finding better ways of working together that produce sustainable results for all stakeholders:  employees, communities, vendors , shareholders, and the environment.  They are defined as Teal organizations (seeThe Future of Management is Teal). Self-managed teams are a key characteristic of Teal organizations and will require more trust, humility, integrity, passion and connection with purpose.

“Teal Organizations operate effectively, even at a large scale, with a system based on peer relationships. They set up structures and practices in which people have high autonomy in their domain, and are accountable for coordinating with others. Power and control are deeply embedded throughout the organizations, no longer tied to the specific positions of a few top leaders.” – Frederic Laloux

The transition to Teal will be easier for some than others. Team members who prefer to work for an authoritative leader, with clear hierarchies and prescribed roles may find this arrangement challenging. The processes and rules will be different; work will be more organic and solutions emergent.

Nick Petrie from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) also writes about “the rise of collective leadership” in his white paper, Future Trends in Leadership Development.

“…a future made up of complex, chaotic environments is less suited to the problem solving of lone, decisive authority figures than it is to the distributed efforts of smart, flexible leadership networks” – Nick Petrie

Falling Back as a Key Leadership Capability

In group- and team-cycling, the paceline is central. Cyclists ride in a line, taking turns at the front ‘pulling’, which allows others to ‘draft’, or take advantage of the wind being blocked by the leader. Each person leads for a short time and then falls back so that another can step up. The group is able to maintain a faster pace and higher collective energy.   This is a beautiful example of distributed leadership.

As an executive coach I have given clients the assignment to ‘fall back’ – to trust others’ ability to lead. Some people find it difficult, even uncomfortable to not be in charge. They’re concerned things won’t be done ‘right’, or that no one else is prepared to take on the challenge. As in the cycling analogy, not only would this be exhausting but it also impedes the building of trust, the development of others and ultimately the success of the team.

I also appreciate the paceline metaphor because each person has to train,  to prepare themselves to take the lead in order to be a part of the team. In the world of cycling, as I believe it will be in organizational life, individuals choose if they want to train or not, and that will determine the contribution they are able to make to the larger team and how they will be invited to participate.

The roles of ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ have changed over the thousands of years that we humans have been organizing ourselves for reasons from survival to commerce to connection.  We are on the cusp of a new rendering of these definitions which many of us will welcome.  Every transition brings expected and unexpected consequences; self-awareness and conscious choosing will support our collective efforts during this transformation. Being ‘along for the ride’ won’t be an effective long term strategy for success in the future.

Note:  Thanks to my good friend and serious cyclist, Bob for the lessons on pacelines and team cycling!