A Cause Greater Blog

What are the qualities of leadership needed in our world today?

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and anxious (VUCAA) world. No matter your role, the current reality calls everyone to deepen their understanding and practice of the qualities of their leadership.

But what are the qualities of leadership that are helpful and needed in our world today?

Leadership, as defined by Ed and Peter Schein, is the creation and implementation of something new and better [1] . This simple yet profound definition gives us a launching point for conversation. This definition also helps to differentiate leadership from management, governance, and other ways of working together that can distract us from naming and practicing quality leadership.

No matter your definition, the human qualities that you embody in your practice of leadership must reflect these present realities.

Below, I’ve named three leadership qualities that I've found helpful.

I’m curious of what qualities you believe are needed in our world today. Please respond by posting them at the bottom of this blog.

Quality #1: Deep Listening

Deep listening to another person is increasingly rare and uncommon in many of today's leaders and in the places they occupy. Unfortunately, we tend to listen to confirm our understanding of things, we listen to reinforce our position on our known reality, and we listen for ways to draw another person’s power towards ourselves.

True deep listening means that we comprehensively understand the other person’s context through the words, phrases, and stories that they share with us. To deeply understand another person’s context, we must tap into and utilize our natural curiosity. This innate human quality allows us to open our minds, hearts, and bodies to wonder and consider the other person’s perspective, context, and situation.

When we listen with curiosity, we seek to understand another person’s word choice and the meaning they have for the words they are using. When we use our definition for the word or phrase someone else is using, we shut down curiosity, believing that we understand what they mean. We don't.

What if they have a slightly different definition or meaning behind that word or phrase they are using? We can’t say that we have truly listened to someone until we can repeat back to them what they mean by the words they are using.

Herein lies a helpful tool that helps us to listen deeply. It is perhaps the most powerful phrase in human relationship building…Tell me more.

Quality #2: Authentic Curiosity

As already noted, curiosity is a powerful tool when listening to another human. In a VUCAA world, curiosity about the present moment (and those present moments to come) further opens our minds to the emerging future.

In leading oneself, let alone leading others (whether a corporation, non-profit, church, denomination, family-owned business, partnership, etc.), we must tap into our curiosity and consistently ask ourselves a series of questions. Helpful questions that fuel our curiosity and help us search for how best to lead.

Questions like:

What current activities or behaviors, while helpful in the past are keeping me and those around me from thriving now and into the future
What new learnings and ways of being must I acquire and utilize, including unlearning those things that no longer serve, to position myself and those around me to live into a vibrant future?
How can I improve my current ways of thinking and being that will help create and implement the changes necessary and bring about a new and better future for everyone?

Let’s get curious about the answers to these and other questions that will help you improve and grow as a leader.

Quality #3: Humility in Action

Humble leadership [2] as defined by Ed and Peter Schein is the practice of all forms of leadership by integrating them with Situational Humility. Situational humility is a developed skill characterized by the openness to see and understand all the elements of a situation by:

Accepting uncertainty, while remaining curious to find out what is really going on,
Being open, intentionally and mindfully, to what others may know or observe, and
Recognizing when unconscious biases can distort perceptions and trigger emotional responses.

Humility in Action combines and integrates listening, curiosity, and situational humility into the act of leadership. In doing so, you are able to form your next steps with a dramatically expanded amount of information and with the understanding that you cannot do leadership alone.

So, what are the qualities of leadership needed in our world today? I believe these three are a great start.

Deep Listening

Authentic Curiosity

Humility In Action

What qualities would you add?

Mind how you go,

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Senior Design Partner

[1] Humble Leadership 2^nd Edition, Ed and Peter Schein, Berrett-Koehler, 2023, page 4.

[2] Humble Leadership, 2^nd Edition, Ed and Peter Schein, Berrett-Koehler, 2023, page 3, 8

Enough

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

What is enough?

Do you have a definition for enough that you use on a regular basis?

A few weeks ago, I was asked to reflect on the concept of enough with a kindred spirit. It was in the context of fundraising and how the concept of enoughness influences the culture of an organization’s fundraising.

Enoughness is not limited to fundraising. Our definition of enough touches every area of our life and leadership.

As I considered my respondence to my friend's inquiry, I was reminded how much our world does not want us to pause and consider the concept of enough. For me, I had to sit down, think, read, and yet again consider how have I allowed fear, doubt, and shame to crowd out my holistic understanding of enough.

(Within this blog I’ve noted some of the resources used in crafting my response.)

Our society is very good at hurling fear, doubt, and shame at us every day. Helping us believe that there will never be enough, that we are not enough, and only through the pursuit of more we will ever have enough. This is completely upside down, recognizing this juxtaposition is helpful in understanding how to have right relationship with others, including a right relationship with ourselves and our definition of enough.

After a time of reflection, words to describe my sense of enough began to flow and I’m deeply grateful that they did. These concepts are now more present than they have ever been before and I’m reminded of how nourishing, fulfilling, and helpful they are.

There will be enough – trust in this truth. If we don’t, there will never be enough. We often consider this the abundance mindset, when we open ourselves to seeing potential rather than the finite, opportunity rather than dualistic thinking, and faith in God—rather than faith in ourselves to make sure there will be enough.

Among the many resources to learn more about and practice there will be enough please consider Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher. An economist by training, Schumacher recognizes that when there is simplicity in design there is more room for humans and their souls. A favorite cookbook growing up was called More with Less. Within its pages were simple, tasty recipes that helped you eat better and consume less of the worlds limited food resources.

We are enough – one of the messages that permeates our society is that we are not enough. In order to be enough, you need to buy this, belong to that, or look like them. None of which is true and we fight this battle every day of our lives and multiple times per day. Unless we are intentional, this type of thinking can also influence our relationships with others. If we are not careful our relationships can become transactional, monetized, territorial, and dysfunctional.

When we are enough, you are enough and I am enough. When we think, feel, and act in this way, we see the wholeness of ourselves and the wholeness of other humans. This opens for us a pathway to what Ed and Peter Schein call Whole Person to Whole Person relationships. Please see Humble Leadership for its contribution to the concept of enough.

A recent finding of mine is an author and artist Geoffrey Baines. You probably know him better than I do. I found his not so recent blog, citing Eckhart Tolle and particularly helpful in developing my definition of enough.

Below is one of Geoffrey Baines' drawings. Its simplicity and message are amazing! To my knowledge the cartoon is unfinished.

Finally, God is enough. If God isn’t enough, then I need something they don’t provide. If God isn’t enough, than I’m not enough, you are not enough, and we won’t ever have enough.

When God is at the center of our lives, something else is not at the center such as money, power, prestige, etc. Perhaps you have another concept of the divine or the infinite, so please use your concept here.

When we believe God is enough, then we have what we need, we are whole, complete as we are.

The Franciscan alternative orthodoxy asks us to let go, to recognize that there is enough to go around and meet everyone’s needs but not everyone’s greed. [1]

Application to your leadership

As you apply the concept of enough to your leadership, what implications come to your mind? How does your definition of enough impact:

How you value and use your time?
How you view power in your relationships with others? (Including your board of directors, leadership team, and employees.)
How you treat customers, donors, and those you do business with?
How you value your company, its stock price, its underlying worth?

These are only a few questions for you to consider as you contemplate the concept of enough.

Please respond to this blog post by sharing your thoughts. Please share a reading that you have found helpful on your journey in understanding what enough means to you.

We are all in this together.

Mind how you go,

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

[1] Center for Action and Contemplation, Enoughness instead of Never Enough, published 19 February 2016, accessed 11 April 2026.

Now and Not Now

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

You, perhaps like me, learned of the phrase "Now and Not Now" from a family member, friend, or colleague.

For me, it was a friend who was sharing with me the complexities of dealing with others upon their learning of his ADHD diagnosis. Over breakfast, he shared how helpful this phrase (Now and Not Now) was in helping himself and others understand how his brain works. Go him!

There is Now…and there is Not Now.

Experiences in the present moment (NOW), are things that need to be tended to in this moment, creating space for his immediate attention. In other words, what is right in front of him is extremely important. In my context with him, our breakfast was very important to him. He was fully present, listened deeply, made eye contact, and responded emotionally aware to our conversation. I could tell he was here, present in this moment, and nowhere else. A huge benefit to me, and I’m sure a benefit to others he would meet with throughout his day.

A great example of what is meant by NOW.

And there is NOT NOW.

Things to tend to and dealt with that don’t have an immediate deadline, things that take place in the future, perhaps something placed on the ADHDer that is important to someone else. Things to do tomorrow, next week, by the end of the quarter, by the end of the fiscal year. A non-ADHDer experiences these timeframes.

For him, he experiences NOT NOW.

My friend works with people every day of his life (perhaps like you do.) He deals with the stresses of our VUCAA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and anxious) world, has a family with young children, and an organization to run. He has a lot on his plate.

I’d imagine you can see yourself in this picture, I know I do.

As I’ve gotten to know individuals with ADHD, began learning more and more about ADHD from Clients, continued my learning by reading, I started to recognize a pattern. That many people see those who are neurodivergent as less than, that something is “wrong” with them, that they are unable to handle tasks, or set and achieve SMART goals.

I’ll be honest, in my first learning about ADHD, I also wondered some of these same things.

Than a thought occurred to me. What if ADHD is a superpower? Kinda like flying for Superman, contemplation for Richard Rohr, or helping others like Mother Theresa.

What if we turned this upside down and looked at it from a totally different perspective. What if we saw ADHD as a strength and not a weakness?

A few days ago, a list came to my mind of NOW and NOT NOW and how our world does not often what us to focus on the NOW…our world wants us to focus on the NOT NOW (especially those of us who live in a hyper capitalistic nation.)

Focusing on the NOW is essential and focusing on the NOT NOW, might need to take a back seat.

Here is my list:

NOW	NOT NOW
What today requires	The plans for tomorrow that I can’t even control
The person in front of me	Someone and somewhere else
Being	Doing
Seeing a pattern	Creating a chart that defines what is
Listening	Assuming
Time to smell and taste	Eating to fuel your body
Wonder	Moving on to the next thing
Innovation	Keeping the system going
Sitting in discomfort	Getting the job done
Tending to what is needed	Achieving a SMART goal
Clarity	Certainty

What words would you add to this list?

What words would you add to NOW...what words to NOT NOW?

I am a novice in understanding ADHD, but I’m learning every day. I believe this learning is essential, because we need all of us to make our world a better place.

This year’s blog series is on the learnings you seek to acquire that will help you meet the requirements of 2026. I don’t know what those requirement are for you, but imagine that they are right in front of you, in the here and NOW, and perhaps not in the NOT NOW.

Mind how you go,

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

What new learning will help you meet the requirement 2026 offers?

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

For avid readers of A Cause Greater, you will recognize this question from my last blog post.

There is a lot happening in our world today. This has been true for a long time, and shouldn’t really surprise anyone. Answering the above question will help all leaders prepare for their current and future reality.

For nearly three decades we have been describing our world in terms of VUCA. Volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. We at Design Group International have added a second A, adding the signifier anxious in our work with Clients.

These five descriptors help paint a robust and nuanced picture of the many challenges facing leaders. These five descriptors create a call for new learning for all leaders. Humble leaders recognize that they don't know everything. Humble leaders know that they must continue to learn and bring their full selves in order to lead in our VUCAA world.

As you read this blog, take a moment right now and consider this question in gold:

What new learning will help you meet the requirement 2026 offers your leadership?

Pause. Read the question again.

Pause again.

And take a deep breath.

In the moments that follow, take a look at the table below. Which one of these descriptors do you want to lean into and learn something more about?

Descriptor	Desired learning
Volatile
Uncertain
Complex
Ambiguous
Anxious

Once you find a descriptor (or maybe more), consider these additional questions to help frame your desired learning.

Take your time, there is no rush. This moment has been given to you by you to aid your learning.

What new learning will aid my understanding of the volatility in my marketplace?
What learning will help me and my team deal with today’s uncertainty?
Given the complexity I’m experiencing in my role, what can I learn that will create calm and presence in my interactions with my team?
As I look to the future, I’ve never experienced this much ambiguity in taking next steps. What can I learn about myself or my industry that will help me?
I can tell that my nerves are a little fried these days and that I’m more tired than rested. What will help me lower my anxiety and the stress that I fell?

Feel free to read the list of questions again. Considering which question (or slight variation) best suits your needs in this moment.

No one is watching, so take your time. This is time dedicated to your learning.

Now, take a piece of paper and write down the descriptor you have chosen to lean into. Next, write down the learning you’d like to acquire that you believe will be helpful in meeting the challenge 2026 is offering you.

Take a deep breath and look at your answer.

Congratulations! You have taken an important step in meeting the requirement out ahead.

Way to go you!

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

Along with a notebook and my favorite fountain pen, what’s in my backpack?

Becoming an Ally, By Anne Bishop 4^th Edition

Permission to Rest, by Ashley Neese

Rereading, How the Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work, Kegan and Lahey

What will 2026 require of you?

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 05:00:00 GMT

I love our Community of Practice.

Design Group International’s Community of Practice (CoP) are the individuals who practice their Process Consulting craft together on our platform. Our CoP has varied in size and scope over the past twenty-five years. We have always had senior professionals who care deeply about their Clients and how best to help them in whatever form that help takes.

We meet on a monthly basis and during our December virtual gathering, my fellow partner Matt Visser, posed a question to everyone, ’What is the burning question you will face in 2026?’

My answer came quickly, What will 2026 require of me?

As many of you know, my Process Consulting practice has innovated (at least four times in my counting) over the past thirteen years. Each innovation has asked (required) of me something new and better in my leadership. My practice is innovating once again, and I know now that this innovation will again require something new and better from me.

When we innovate (turning an idea or invention into something new that creates value, improves upon an existing technology, or provides for an unmet need), we also learn.

This is one reason why innovation is difficult. Learning can be hard.

Sometimes we believe that we can innovate without learning. We believe that we can innovate by using our current knowledge, leveraging what we already know. This is folly and does not recognize the incredible value that learning brings to ourselves and others.

So, how is innovation connected to what will 2026 require of you?

Often, what is required of us is something new and we hope better. Such as a step we are wanting to take that we have not yet become willing to take.

The difference between wanting to willing is aided by learning.

This learning can take several forms. Learning more about ourselves, learning more about those around us, even learning more about the systems and structures keeping us from innovating and taking the step we are required to take.

As you consider your answer to what will 2026 require of you?, consider these humble inquiry-oriented questions:

• have I tried to meet this requirement before?
• what happened when I tried?
• how did my trying or not trying impacted those around me?
• How has my trying impact me?

Given your answers consider one more question: what is something new that you can learn that will aid you in meeting your answer to what will 2026 require of you?

As you form your answer to this question (What will 2026 require of you?), I encourage you to take a moment and write it down. Right here, right now.

Pause. Rest for a moment. Pause again. Now, look at your answer.

Set your phone’s timer for 45 seconds. Close your eyes and consider your answer.

When your timer rings, open your eyes slowly.

As you prepare to go on with your day, I encourage you to do one more thing.

Don’t tell anyone your answer. Let it be yours alone.

As you proceed in 2026, you are the only one who needs to know your answer to what is required of you.

As you meet this challenge, know that you are achieving what is required of you. In doing so, you are not only meeting this challenge you are building character at the same time.

Mind how you go.

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

Along with a notebook and my favorite fountain pen, what’s in my backpack?

Becoming Trustworthy White Allies, by Melanie S. Morrison

Permission to Rest, by Ashley Neese

Teaming, by Amy Edmondson

Can you please tell me more?

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 05:00:00 GMT

Can you please tell me more?

Six very simple words.

When spoken from a posture of curiosity, these words open up unlimited possibilities of understanding another human.

We live in a very polarized world. We see and experience polarization everywhere. It is in the news, in our politics, in our schools, in our businesses, in our grocery stores, in our families, even in our churches, synagogues, and mosques.

Polarization keeps relationships separated, fractured, and apart.

These six words can take us in a different direction.

When we ask, ‘Can you please tell me more?’ from a posture of curiosity, we are seeking to understand the deeper meaning of what the other person is saying to us.

As their answer to our question enters our ears and brain, there is a superpower we each have that can kick into action next. It is our empathy. Empathy has gone out of style as of late, but as humans, we each have a level of empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. Empathy allows us to truly see another person, to feel (even experience) what the other person is sharing with us.

This very same empathy allows us to learn more about what they mean by the words they are using, what they believe about a situation, and why that is important to them.

Can you please tell me more?, does not end with their answer to our question and our empathic listening and learning of their response. Like Captain Marvel or Superman, what happens next is how we use of that superpower for good…in this case to continue building our relationship with them.

When we respond to them and reveal a little more about ourselves, we are able to cross the chasm that polarization has created. We are able to make a step towards them rather than away from them. We have the opportunity to build something rather than destroy something.

You have this superpower. They have this superpower.

Which means that we all have this superpower.

How cool is that!

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

Along with a notebook and my favorite fountain pen, what’s in my backpack?

Becoming Trustworthy White Allies, by Melanie S. Morrison

Teaming, by Amy Edmondson

Humble Inquiry, 3^rd Edition by Peter and Ed Schein

Your creativity matters

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 04:00:00 GMT

My wife is the artist in our family.

I’m a late bloomer in this regard and have never considered myself an artist. If you’ve seen me draw a picture on a whiteboard, you know why.

It wasn’t until I saw the above name tag that I ever considered myself an ‘artist.’

Each of us is creative. Your creativeness is uniquely yours. Your art, in whatever form it takes, comes from a well of creativity that never ends. Ever.

Your creativity, like water, permeates everything, including your leadership.

About a year ago, I began hand-making pens on a lathe in our garage. Since college, I’ve used a fountain pen every day of my life.

My father used a fountain pen for most of his life too, and I attribute my love for fountain pens to watching him write with his Montblanc. My father had beautiful penmanship, learning the Palmer Method in a rural Delaware grade school.

So why start hand-turning pens at age 58?

To be honest, I needed a creative outlet that wasn’t related to my profession as a Process Consultant. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my work with Clients. Many of you reading this blog are Clients … so yes, I love my work with you … and I needed a creative outlet to express other parts of who I am.

Creativity does that naturally.

I thought handcrafting fountain pens would be a perfect match. And it was.

When you create a pen (like you do creating anything such as an agenda for a team meeting, a strategic plan for your organization, or content for a board retreat) your mind, heart, and body shift into a different space.

Not like shifting from one gear to another, more like shifting from flying a plane to kneading dough.

Everything changes. Your perspective shifts. Your breathing slows. Your mind clears. Your whole being is focused on something you can’t really control and yet somehow influence.

Time stands still.

When handcrafting a pen you have the opportunity to choose the wood (my favorite is Lignum Vitae, translated wood of life, pictured above), the shape the pen will take, and how you want the pen to feel in the hand of the writer.

Humans need creative outlets.

Unfortunately, our world seems to be going the opposite direction. Pushing us harder and harder to keep our focus on cash flow, future value, the bottom line, more of this and more of that. All of it can get overwhelming, taking away from you valuable energy, passion, and insight.

Taking away what is truly important in life.

Creative outlets (like pen making) are restorative, life-giving (rather than life-taking), and inspiring to the soul. Creative outlets help us live balanced lives (link here to learn more.)

When we are not in balance as humans, we become disconnected from ourselves and from others. We become lopsided in our approach to human relationships and the challenges and opportunities we experience in life and in our leadership.

Your balance matters. Your creativity matters.

So, I’m curious. What are your creative outlets and how do you find creativity helpful in your life and leadership? Please post your answer in the response section below.

Let’s learn and grow together.

Mind how you go,

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

P.S. Please consider joining other leaders on 10 and 11 November 2025 at our Culture Change Leadership Fall Workshop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. During the workshop we’ll explore how to evolve the culture of your organization and give you time and space to work on what’s really important for your organization, business, school, or ministry. Take a moment to visit our workshop below.

CCL Workshop Registration Link

Along with a notebook and my favorite fountain pen, what’s in my backpack?

Teaming, by Amy Edmondson

Humble Inquiry, 3^rd Edition by Peter and Ed Schein

Rereading The Essentials of Theory U, by C. Otto Scharmer

Why letting go can be more difficult than you expect

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 04:00:00 GMT

One of the most helpful human and organizational change theories comes from Otto Scharmer, it’s called Theory U. Readers of A Cause Greater will recognize the author as I’ve written on how to practice his theory in real life many times.

Theory U takes you through an interconnected and human process that helps you open your mind, open your heart, and open will to the new behaviors needed to incorporate the changes you seek (please see the below graphic the describes these steps.)

Scharmer named a point in this change process where you are letting go of a past pattern of working (thinking, feeling, and being) and are sensing what is about to emerge from the future, what he calls letting come.

The step at the very bottom of the U curve is called presencing. Which is defined as being present in the moment of letting go and sensing what is about to come to you from the emerging future.

Presencing is a very deep and personal step that we take during transformation and where you ask two very fundamental and meaningful questions. Who is my Self? and What is my Work?

Unfortunately, many people don’t ever get to the presencing step! They continue to hold onto the very thing they desperately want to let go of.

So, what’s up with that?

In working with leaders and in doing this work on myself, I’ve learned that deep change and transformation is harder than you expect. The two questions at the bottom of the U curve (Who is my Self? and What is my Work?) when answered truthfully (consider using Richard Rohr's definition of true self as you consider your answer) can shake the very foundation of who you are as a person, let alone as a leader.

This past month I was working with a Client who ran straight into his inability to let go of something he was desperately wanting to no longer hold on to.

He was keeping himself from presencing and the mystery of what could emerge in the future.

My Client is the successor CEO to a founder. One of the founder’s creations was conceptually a brilliant program designed to serve an industry. Unfortunately, the program has always been challenged in getting off the ground. The program has had various leaders, including both the founder and my Client, and has still not gotten out of the start-up phase.

In listening to my Client, I could tell that he was holding a lot of pain, anxiety, and shame that were keeping him from letting go of the program that the founder started. As we explored these feelings, I wanted to open a channel to create space for other thinkings, feelings, and actions to get expressed and explored.

So I posed, “what are you not wanting to admit to anyone?”

From that question an avalanche came out of my Client that had been pent up for a very long time. As he began to let go of all of what he was holding, he was able to recognize that he was also holding the company back from investing energy and resources in new and better ways. By keeping the program going, he was not investing valuable time in initiatives that were bearing fruit and in need of his creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.

My Client was very surprised (at himself) and didn’t realize what he had been doing all along. As he began to let go (of the program and his feelings of failure) he could begin to see what might happen next. He was able to take a step into presencing!

A step he had tried to take many times, but was never able to get to in any real or concrete way.

As you consider this story, please consider the following two questions:

What might you be holding onto that you need to let go of?
By holding it, what are you keeping yourself and your organization from achieving?

I’d love to listen and learn more, so please don’t hesitate to call.

Mind how you go,

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

P.S. If you’d like to listen to an excellent podcast on Theory U, look no further than my colleague Philip C. Bergey. Link here to Episode 6 of Leadership Meets Life Podcast.

Along with a notebook and my favorite fountain pen, what’s in my backpack?

Teaming, by Amy Edmondson

Humble Inquiry, 3^rd Edition by Peter and Ed Schein

Rereading The Essentials of Theory U, by C. Otto Scharmer

What bunnies teach us about transformation

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 04:00:00 GMT

I hate crabgrass.

Crabgrass just doesn’t look good in a lawn, it spreads everywhere, and is extremely tough to weed.

Every year we’ve applied a chemical in our backyard that helps kill crabgrass before it has a chance to take root. For various reasons, earlier this year we chose not to apply the treatment. Like clockwork, the crabgrass took root and spread throughout our back lawn. GRR!

Interestingly enough, something else happened because of this decision.

A new family of rabbits moved in and are eating the crabgrass. Who knew.

As many of you know, our backyard is filled with native plants that provide a natural habitat for butterflies, bees, birds, deer, and rabbits!

Our new family of rabbits reminded me of one of the principles of the humble inquiry and Process Consulting approach…every action is an intervention.

As a Process Consultant, when you walk alongside a Client you must be aware that everything you do is an intervention within the Client’s organization. Just the fact that you are in the room with the Client is an intervention. Every action, no matter how small, even if perceived as inconsequential, is an intervention in the Client’s larger transformational process.

It is for this very reason why at the Society for Process Consulting we train leaders on how to become excellent listeners.

All of us can become better listeners.

As leaders, strengthening our listening skills helps us stay curious, ask better questions, build more open and trusting relationships, and go deeper in our understanding of what someone is trying to share with us.

These same listening skills can easily regress when pressure builds, when fear takes hold, and when our power gets challenged. Listening can turn into telling faster than snapping your fingers.

Take notice to what happens to your listening the next time one of the above three things happen.

Whether you are a department head leading a team, a CEO charting a new course for your organization, or a Process Consultant seeking to walk alongside a Client, remember every action you take is an intervention no matter how small.

Your reading of this blog on listening is an action that will have an intervention.

What intervention do you hope better listening will take hold of in your organization?

Mind how you go,

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
Co-CEO & Senior Design Partner

P.S. For those considering developing your listening skills – please consider learning more about these four listening competencies.

Listening Competency	Definition	Helpful Resource
Actively and Comprehensively	Listening toward comprehensive comprehension of what someone is saying to you.	Blog by Dr. Gerry Krupp
Conceptually and Contextually	Listening for what the person means conceptually and within whose context.	Blog by Dawn Yoder Graber
Architecturally	Listening for what someone is willing to do, not just what they want or need to do. Listening at this level creates the ability to design a process with them to move from where they are toward where they want to go.	Blog by Kate Frillmann
Adaptively	Listening to clarify and document a person’s adaptations, fostering someone’s ability to learn, grow, and adapt.	Blog by Ron Mahurin

P.S.S - Sign up today to attend the Culture Change Leadership workshop! Held on 10 and 11 October 2025 at the Prince Conference Center, this workshop promises to be an excellent opportunity to learn more about how to evolve your organization's culture.

Along with a notebook and my favorite fountain pen, what’s in my backpack?

Teaming, by Amy Edmondson

Almost finished Humble Inquiry, 3^rd Edition by Peter and Ed Schein

Rereading The Essentials of Theory U, by C. Otto Scharmer

Developing high-performing teams

lon@acausegreater.org (Lon Swartzentruber) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 04:00:00 GMT

How do you develop a high-performing team?

Organizational leadership at any level is complex.

Whether you are starting out in your career or have over four decades of experience, you are regularly a part of a team. In today's blog we are looking at the competencies involved in developing a high-performing team. Go you!

If you are just joining this blog series, we have been using a rather simple leadership development framework (leveraging the work of Ginger Lapid- Bodga) to help build out your personal leadership development plan. What we have been calling your leadership endeavor.

The framework is rendered below and is designed to focus our attention on striving towards self-mastery or what we are naming as becoming a multi-rested leader (which is step one).

Each blog in this series is taking a deep dive into this framework and utilizes many author’s writings (including my own) as well as best practices in leadership and organizational development.

As we strive for self-mastery, the first set of skills to develop are our people skills (harkening all of us back to what we learned in Kindergarten.) Those skills help us become better humans. In developing our people skills, we have outlined two important components:

1. Being a better listener and communicator (Leadership Endeavor Step #2, link to blog here)

2. Developing high-preforming teams (Leadership Endeavor Step #3, which is the purpose of today's blog.)

Being a better listener and communicator (Leadership Endeavor Step #2, link to its blog here)
Developing high-performing teams (Leadership endeavor Step #3.)

In Ginger Lapid-Bodga’s book What Type of Leader Are You?, Ginger identifies seven helpful competencies to develop and rate yourself on when developing a high-performing team. They are:

1. Providing team leadership

2. Creating a team vision

3. Attracting and developing team talent

4. Designing a team architecture (please read a recent case study on this concept)

5. Establishing effective team processes

6. Building a team culture

7. Assuring quality products and services

Providing team leadership
Creating a team vision
Attracting and developing team talent
Designing a team architecture (please read a recent case study on this concept)
Establishing effective team processes
Building a team culture
Assuring quality products and servic

Perhaps there is one of these seven competencies that you identify with quickly and feel competent exercising, perhaps there is one that might be harder for you to get your mind around and are less comfortable using. Take a moment to read the list again and name these two for yourself. One easier and one harder.

For me, I identify quickly with #2, creating a team vision. I often reference this as developing a team covenant. A process that identifies the purpose of the team, the team’s vision, who plays what role on the team, and so forth. I’ve helped countless teams develop their covenants and am amazed at how helpful they can be in charting a productive course forward. I'm super comfortable and competent with this one.

The competency that I’ve had to work on is #5, establishing effective team processes. This one has always been hard for me because I don’t like telling people what to do when they look to me for direction. I’d much rather help them craft the process together by co-creating it with them. Over the years, what I’ve learned about myself is the importance of being open to another person’s perspective and trusting their insight as well as being able to trust my own instincts as to what next step to take. Then, to speak clearly and directly. That is super hard for me to do. My leadership journey (just like yours) continues.

In a recent conversation with my colleague Noele Stith, she shared an extremely helpful resource from Facilitating Power on this very issue. It’s called The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership. If you are working with a team, group, community of practice, or any cross section of people, I highly recommend learning this spectrum. Not only is this spectrum easy to understand there are simple exercises you can do to help your team build ownership around important issues you are facing.

Well done you! You’ve learned more about your next leadership step: developing high-performing teams. Here is our leadership development framework to help you see how far you have come. First we focused on you developing you (what we have called becoming a multi-rested leader), next we learned more about being a better listener and communicatory, and today we learned more about developing high-performing teams.

Next month we will dive deeper into developing your enterprise skills. Looking forward to joining you as you build out your leadership endeavor.

Mind how you go,

Lon

Lon L. Swartzentruber

Design Group International
CEO & Managing Partner

PS: If you would like to talk with me about your leadership journey, please give me a call me at 616.516.9870, or schedule a 30-minute discovery call , or simply email me at lons@designgroupintl.com.