Looking back

I’m back from three weeks in Japan, somewhere I used to live and know very well. 30 years have passed since I left my tiny flat in Daikanyama. 30 years of many other countries, roles, and stories.

The Julian of those days would probably not recognise the Julian of today. Who would ever have thought I would leave the wonderful mayhem of my Tokyo life to dedicate my working career to talent and leadership development?

The old saying has it that you don’t step into the same river twice, yet the mind by nature scans for continuity. Amid the changes, we look for the constants, the connections, the bridges between there and here.

That which seems like a false step is just the next step.

Agnes Martin

We sketch the lines back over the intervening years and turns. The storytelling mind draws the narrative plotline to link those stepping stones even if at the time each one felt like a leap into the dark. The paths taken, the paths rejected. In saying yes to one direction, we inevitably say no to so many more.

It can be insightful to pause and look into the past, to see the world of your younger self through the more seasoned eyes of today. Exploring the lifelong expedition of yourself, as someone called It recently. For sure, it’s often hard not to groan and drop your head into your hands at the younger self. What on earth was I thinking? But this shouldn’t be an exercise in beating yourself up, so let’s try a more positive framing… Who was I back then? What was important to me? Who and how did I want to be?

I do this look over the shoulder with individuals and teams in setting out new direction and vision. It can seem counter-intuitive to look back when we’re looking forward with strategy, yet it’s important to map out and recollect what brought us together in the first place and who we were when we set out on this particular journey.

What were our dreams of the future?

What have we neglected or set aside along the way to who we are now?

Which values and dreams do we need to reconnect with?

What do we need to bring back to the forefront?

Often, the most pertinent question is What have we become too comfortable with? This addresses the waning of the original fire, the clouding of the driving spark that happens when we grow to accommodate and tolerate behaviours and actions that were not part of the original plan.

Another common exercise in leadership development is to write a letter to yourself from a set point in the future – six months, a year, more. This is the advice you would have given yourself. These are the goals you will have achieved by then. This is the person you will be. Re-reading that letter when you hit the set point can be humbling and surprising.

And so for me it’s back to work. Ongoing projects, new projects. Coming back up to speed as with any break from work, I see the spinning plates still spinning, but some of them I feel can now drop and break, they’re really not that important. Others can spin a little longer, and some need to be dealt with right now.

I like to think the Julian of 30 years ago would applaud some of the stuff I’m doing, while raising a youthful and dubious eye at some of the other stuff I do. That’s OK. I can live with this Julian.

Re-energised and re-infused by some of those dreams and visions I had 30 years ago, I’m curious to see who and how Julian will be in the coming years.

Your timelines are likely different, but who of the old you do you need to bring back into the new you?

Julian

I help people lead their own way forward