Harmony

Characteristics of harmony

Let’s talk about harmony.

You’ve got that companion guide with harmony and I will take you through just the first page, you can take notes, we’ll talk about isolating harmony and truly diving deep into that. And then without, without too much Prelude, I will introduce our phenomenal guest for the day. So if you’re following along and you want to know about harmony, I think the best way to understand it, it does live in that relationship building theme. But I describe harmony really as the bridge builder. It’s building bridges through consensus through deflating emotion. Anything that gets a little bit too excited or too negative or too angry, I think harmony can really bring it down, bring it back together. What harmony does is it leads us forward through practicality, when you dive into the extended definition that you have there, at the first, the top of the page on the companion guide, you’ll notice a few words that maybe stand out to you things like looking for areas of agreement. And really, let’s think about why that is I think sometimes harmony gets misunderstood as putting agreement first, because maybe there’s a fear of conflict. The truth about harmony is they put agreement first because they they truly believe there’s little to be gained from friction. So it is seeking to hold friction to a minimum so that we can move forward, I think it’s important to consider what other themes are at play, you can’t necessarily and a great reminder around any theme, we cannot guess or, or or assume too much about how the themes going to show up in a person because human beings have so many dimensions to them. These themes have so many dimensions. And so that’s something we’ll talk about with harmony is what else is driving it. Today, you’ll hear harmony and positivity with a little bit of discipline. Sometimes when you think of harmony and achiever, it’s let’s get to consensus so that we can check things off our list. But there is this productivity element to harmony, you can read it in the definition, it says Wouldn’t we all be more productive if we kept our opinions in check? Instead of looking for consensus and support, you would believe we would. And you live by that belief, when others are sounding off about their goals, their claims and their fervently held opinions, you hold your peace. And so it is in many ways about being able to bring a group toward a place where there’s a common understanding, and then being able to use that common understanding to move the group forward. When other people start to argue about their their favourite theory or their favourite concept. You can steer the direction of that debate. And you may tend to talk about maybe what’s practical, or what is what is common, what are we all already agreeing on. So that those the extremities of emotion that happened when a whole bunch of humans get together, they can drive you in a great direction. But I think what you can do with harmony is bring it back after that moment has happened and said, Can we all get on the boat? And can we all get going? It’s a good boat. So that is actually my favourite part of the long definition is we’re all in the same boat.

It’s a good boat. We don’t need to rock it too much just to show that we can. So let’s talk about what does it look like to lead with harmony.

When we think about harmony and leadership, I think there’s a an amazing amount of maturity that can come from leaning into that ace in your deck. To borrow that actually from something Ed said earlier, you have all 52 cards, right? But you need to know what the ACE is. And if harmony is your ace, one of the areas of your leadership you can think about sharpening is not just needing peace, not just needing a calm sea, but being able to provide that for others and provide it not as a means to an end or not as the end that hopefully we’ll get to someday. But as a way of leading. I’ve got a quote here from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And it says peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. So it’s not the end. It’s not the means it’s both it is let’s not just be afraid of conflict. But let’s realise that if we can use peace to get to where we’re going, then where we end is also much more collaborative and much more mutually beneficial. I think as an individual harmony is about finding the most peaceful way forward. As a leader. It’s about creating it in many ways, and you probably create that by helping others by into collaboration. I also think about as a leader with harmony, considering the best way for you to get your own ideas across. Many times harmony is a theme that will help you. It will help you mediate it will help you help others be heard. But as a leader, you have your own opinions. You have your own voice. And leaders with harmony might get those heard, by collaborating with other people to think about understanding the players on your team intimately understanding what motivates them what gets them in sited and then which of those people might be a great champion for your cause, which of those people can take your even keeled approach and really shout it from the rooftops? I think a couple of great questions to ask yourself as a leader with harmony is first to study your style of collaboration. That is what harmony brings to the table, this ability to say, let’s, you know, let’s let’s put a pin in any sort of areas of dissent. And let’s think about where we can move forward. And in many cases, that means studying the puzzle pieces and finding the places that they fit together. So think also about yourself, what kind of collaborative partners could help make your cause be heard? When is it that you find the most practical way forward? Is it after you have heard everybody’s opinion? Do you need perhaps, to sit down one on one with people? Harmony in many ways it’s about is about sensing, it’s very similar to empathy in that way. And in that you can probably very quickly, very quickly figure out an area of consensus. So study that get curious about that. Are there situations relationships, even physical spaces, that that consensus is more clear to you? And how can you spend more time in that area? How do you best defuse a situation again? Are you better in a large group? Are you better one on one, think about how you could keep focus on the larger organisation and the large team goals or the value of your initiative, and how you can help people connect the power of consensus to bigger goals. Sometimes I think harmony by itself is just about guys, we got to move forward because that’s what drives me. But as a leader, think about how you can help somebody see how moving past conflict will help them achieve something bigger. Ask what does harmony drive toward for you? Again, if you’re somebody with harmony and achiever consensus might get you closer to accomplishment. If you’re somebody with harmony and say, competition, consensus might get you closer to winning. So study your Harmony, study the dimensions of it the dynamics of the themes that that you bring to the table, and really understand how you could how you could get even closer to maximising that. Again, harmony is a bridge builder. It’s a consensus builder. It’s about moving forward practically. Let’s talk finally just about our four needs of followers. Before I bring in Edie to the conversation, we know there are four things that that followers need from leaders. They need trust, compassion, stability, and hope. I just want to focus drill down on each of those of what harmony brings to the table in terms of achieving that. First of all, we’ll talk about trust. One way that leaders of harmony can build trust is by learning the individual talents of everyone on your team. What inspires and motivates each person and when when are they most motivated. So I find that when you speak with leaders with harmony, they can be really great orchestrators of groups of people. Help yourself understand when each voice needs to be heard where each person feels most comfortable. So that you can really utilise the the greatest talents that you have there in your group. A leader with harmony might use that theme to show compassion. Think about this way your even keeled nature is going to be a great way that you show love to others. And I won’t back off from that in pieces of our original research. Instead of the word compassion, we actually did hear the word love. So perhaps the way that you show love is a lot like my grandpa Ervin, who’s married to my grandma or Anita, who’s very similar to me. We are up and we’re very hot. And when we’re down, we’re very cold and we tend to run on extremes. And my grandpa Irvin, he’s 96 I think they, he is just the best complementary partner to her because he thinks she’s wonderful, you can tell he cherishes her. And he never goes too hot or too cold. He is he’s very dependable, very reliable, and very even keeled. And I think that that is one way that he shows love. If you’ve got harmony, tap into that tap into the fact that you always have your pulse on the practical, even when things are a little bit at extremes. And the best way you maybe can do that to show compassion is hear people before you try to defuse the situation. Let people have their moment where they need to be hot or they need to be cold or they need to be angry or they just need to be sad. Hear them out. And then bring in that practicality and help defuse it. A leader with harmony might use that theme to build stability by connecting again your desire for consensus to larger goals. Talk about where we need to be in the future, and how agreement will help us get there. And finally with help help each voice be heard, help people see their own individual future to help them see what comes for them. On the other side of conflict, you might find yourself if you’re a leader with anything if you want to focus on hope. How do you use? How do you use pictures? How do you use language? How do you use language that looks forward so that it’s not just about where all of us are going, but maybe individualise that help people see where their future is? What lies on the other side of of dissent or of emotion and how do we get there through harmony?