Experiencing Magic
We’ve all been to meetings where a bunch of people show up not knowing what to expect. The agenda goes a bit sideways, the participants hijack the meeting and the end result is not much has changed. Then, there are those rare times when the right facilitator (or facilitaors) show up and magic happens. Everyone at the meeting is engaged, the meeting flows effortlessly and you accomplish more than you ever dreamed of. Well, that happened to me yesterday.
San Diego is loaded with lots of talented leadership development experts and facilitators and I feel like I’ve met many of them. Yesterday I got to experience the brilliance of two of them, one I’ve know for a number of years and one I recently just met. The first facilitator managed the entire meeting, his name is Eric Kaufmann. Eric and I have become good friends over the past few years and he is a master at his craft. A published author, keynote speaker and someone who has chosen the path much less traveled. Eric held space for everyone, kept the meeting on track and we able to elicit the right energy to produce an end product that was just magical.
What was even more magical was the portion of the meeting that was facilitated by a new friend, Elizabeth Deicer. All I can say is this, when someone has deep experience in creating the type of organization we are looking to create, they can take less than 45 minutes to orchestrate magic that gets everyone aligned and brings clarity to an effort that has lacked clarity for many months. Sometimes we forget how nice it is to spend time with real experts, those that have invested the 10,000 hours to learn to be a master. I have learned over my career that to become a master at something is not always hard, yet most people don’t invest the time to earn the mastery. Yesterday I witnessed it twice within one meeting.
I must confess, that the quieter I was the more we accomplished. When the meeting turned to business development and the areas that I’ve focused my 10,000 hours then I was able to contribute in a meaningful way. I guess that the learning from this experience is that it is so worth it to find the right people to take on the right role in any situation. The more we surround ourselves with people that are truly expert at what they do the more we can create magic. At this point in my career I believe all I want to do is to create magic, so it’s time to find the genius in all the people that I meet and make sure I call upon the right resource at the right time.
To a life well lived …..
Larry Kesslin 