Donna Highfill
  • Home
  • About
    • About Donna
    • What People Are Saying
    • My Other Blogs
      • Dame Nation Blog
      • Huffington Post
  • Services
    • Power Up BUSINESS
    • Coaching
  • Books and Tools
  • Blog
    • Fave Products
  • Contact Me

Talent and Tumbleweeds

AndrewBlogNo commentsJune 6, 2011

When I was young I lived in Southern California, and was mesmerized by the desert. We moved into a house when I was eight-years-old that had been owned by a man who collected desert objects, like skulls and wagon wheels. Those objects lined our tiny backyard.

To keep with the theme, I went into a field one day to find my own treasure. I soon found out that skulls aren’t that easy to find in a small neighborhood field, but as I was looking for a skull, a tumbleweed blew by me. I went after it.

I took the tumbleweed home, named her Samantha, and kept her in our postage stamp of a backyard. I fed her leaves and sticks, taking her out for a roll every day. I even watered her, which wasn’t the best idea.

After a while I realized that my tumbleweed had no room to tumble. I had boxed her in, and she wasn’t nearly as impressive blowing from one side of our yard to the other. I had inhibited her with my desire to own her.

Sometimes, that’s what we do with our best employees. We hire them because of their ability to think outside the box and bring creativity to our team. After a while, we start boxing them in with phrases such as:
• That’s not how we do things around here
• We tried that once and it didn’t work
• I don’t think we have the systems to support that idea
• That’s going to create a lot of extra work

We take these free-wheeling spirits and fence them in with old beliefs, and then wonder why their creativity is blowing away.

If you hire creative talent, give them room to be creative. It might have to be within your control, but try not to put them on the corporate hamster wheel of mediocrity. You can:
• Provide a “tumbleweed room” where all thoughts are entertained and let these thinkers use it once a week, for any topic.
• Create a tumbleweed of ideas, rolling a ball around the room while letting people “feed” the ball by taping ideas to it before it is rolled to somebody else.
• Catch yourself when you’re boxing in a creative thinker, and truly entertain their ideas. .

Sometimes talent needs to tumble. Find ways to let that happen.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn How to Tell a Better Story and Achieve Success!

Sign up below to receive 48 FREE Energizing Messages.

Connect with Me

Email
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest

Recent Posts

  • A Cab Driver Who Appeared as if from Nowhere
  • Here’s Some Honesty For You
  • Laughter is My Hero
  • A New Year in Old Clothes
  • Why I Will Face the Fall

CHECK OUT MY BOOK

highfillcover

As a leader, do you implement change only to watch the projects, processes and initiatives stall because you can’t get the people driving them to change? In my new book Real People, Real Change: Stories of a Change Warrior in the Business World I share real stories to illustrate how leaders can move people to action.

Archives

Where Donna Will Be Speaking Next

  • April 22, 2015 - SunTrust Women's Networking Group
  • April 23, 2015 - SunTrust Women's Networking Group
  • May 12, 2015 - LPGA Championship, Kingsmill, Williamsburg VA
  • May 21, 2015 - Education Association of Fundraising Professionals, Eerie, PA

Certified_hi-res

mbti_certified
huffbadge

Learn How to Tell a Better Story and Achieve Success!

Sign up below to receive 48 FREE Energizing Messages.

Recent Posts

  • A Cab Driver Who Appeared as if from Nowhere August 9, 2017
  • Here’s Some Honesty For You March 16, 2017
  • Laughter is My Hero January 10, 2017

Contact Me

804-370-6665
[email protected]
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright
  • About Donna
  • Contact Me
Copyright Donna Highfill 2014