A blog about leadership: What kind of society do you want to create?

What community do you want to create?

Daily I meet colleagues, family members and acquaintances who, with loud voices, advise me to put my cross by another political party, subscribe to another newspaper or vote YES in a referendum. I must admit that in the eyes of these people I have been wrongly demarcated. I want to make that conversation about our society much better.

I work professionally to help corporate employees and managers create the business they want. This broad formulation (the company they want) can be made more specific: The meeting culture, the spirit of cooperation, the level of service, the values, the vision, etc. This is about the company, the department, the team - a limited group. As an approach to this work I use FISH! - an invitation to some ways of being, when you now start talking about such important things as 'our company'.

Political debate - bvadrrr…
When it comes to our society - Denmark - I have discovered some quirks. Most Danes are to some degree preoccupied with creating our society. We also have some professional 'creators' - those who call themselves politicians and who sit at Christiansborg Castle - Borgen. They come up with ideas and suggestions and talk together and discuss in closed and public spaces. They stand for some different views and when they debate, they engage emotionally. Several of them raise their voices and sound almost agitated and angry. It sounds like they want to enforce their views.

Clear meaning and short temper
Such people I meet privately. Colleagues, family members and acquaintances who have a number of opinions and a short temper. I just have to vote for another political party. I have to vote YES. I have to subscribe to another newspaper. All this I often pay attention to and I must admit that in the eyes of some other people I have been wrongly demarcated.

What do I do now?
Here's what I want to try. I want to practice asking about the community others want to create. The better I get at it, the better the discussions - or rather the dialogue. Here are some of the questions I want to ask, both in a narrow turn and in an intense political debate:

What kind of a community do you want to create?
In what ways do your ideas help create the community you want?
What does your ideal society look like?

So what … ?
Then I will continue with questions like these:

What are we really talking about? How big is this?
What do you really think about this? How do you feel about the 'topic'?
For what reasons did it happen? 
What needs to be done and who does it?

I bet I will achieve some factual and realistic conversations that can contribute to a society where more people listen to more and thereby understand more. Then we can start talking about quality and dignity in the vital debate we must have about our society - Denmark.

To myself I say: 'Have a nice time with listening to how others want to create out Denmark and how I want to create our Denmark!'

Written by Michael Meinhardt, LEADERS WAREHOUSE.