The Winds of Facilitative Leadership blow through our Doors

It was a blustery day as I traveled to have pictures taken of our two new picture card decks; the DOOR deck and the LET THE PICTURE PICK YOU deck. I had the challenge of figuring out how to best highlight these incredibly amazing card decks (let me repeat, INCREDIBLE & AMAZING) and my ideas to date were, well, less than inspiring.

I felt pushed and rushed and my whiny side was helping me create more stress. In addition, the weather threatened to turn bad, with some pretty heavy winds and I was 18 miles from Home.

I arrived at the Photographer’s studio and walked in with my stuff. Still full of anxiety I laid the card decks on the desk and start talking a mile a minute. Karen, the photographer, gave me a glazed look as she tried to grasp what I was talking about and what I might want. I stopped talking, handed her the DOOR deck and let her spread out the pictures.

Karen seemed transfixed. I noticed she started to handle the cards differently, like they were extremely valuable. I sat there quietly. Then, she started brainstorming and shared that she takes lots and lots of pictures of doors. Her studio is loaded with them; in senior pictures for backgrounds, as props, etc. She honors and reveres the power of doors.

Karen had lots of ideas, and while I trusted in my heart that they were what was needed, my head said they wouldn’t work. So, I took her to our webstore to see how we posted all the previous pictures she had taken. Her ideas shifted but I still couldn’t imagine how they might work. Then, I noticed one of my favorite doors on the table, just an archway that opens onto a sunny, green, beautiful place. I released my barriers and opened my internal doors.

We went on a website field trip to see ideas she had learned thru webinars; Karen is always seeking more learning and building mastery…PERFECT. After a little more searching she got a vision. So, outside into the wind we went, down the alley. I never noticed all the old buildings in this town before, and certainly, never noticed the textures and colors. We walked to a building with amazing bricks to hang a mini collage of about 12 doors. The wind said NO.

We walked on further to a red barn-like door. The wind said YES, and we were able to hang the doors. The pictures were taken. My heart soared. I searched around in my mind for a way to make this happen. Little seeds of ideas started to form.

The weather was getting worse and we hurried inside, by now there was a tornado warning. I thought of the Santa Ana winds, when Jack Black in the movie, THE HOLIDAY, says that when they blow, "all bets are off" and "anything can happen." We edited a few pictures and took a couple of pictures indoors that were more “product shot” like.

The story is not yet done and I have some work to do on the webstore. Then, I’ll move to the LET THE PICTURE PICK YOU deck. One thing I know, these Picture Decks are so precious and so important to us at IdeaConnect, and they have a power for us as we learn and build mastery that we want others to be able to share and connect to that feeling. We are intent upon creating tools for and supporting the realm of Facilitative Leadership. For us, FACILITATIVE LEADERSHIP is the WAY that is blowing in full force.