Find The ‘Lighthouse Question’
One of the most powerful insights from BIF2016
Unlike most conferences, the BIF Summit has no theme beyond presenting remarkable stories of transformation.
Why? The BIF organizers know that the participants themselves will discover patterns, aha’s, and insights that make sense for them.
I work for BIF, but like everybody else at the Summit, I have to — and always do — discover my own insights each time. In this series I’ll share my top insights from BIF2016, including BIF2016 storyteller videos. You can explore the entire set of BIF2016 videos here.
Insight: Find the ‘lighthouse question’, the one that guides you forward.
I loved this metaphor as soon as I heard it at BIF2016. While the insight was clearly present in the talks I include here, I was never able to find it in any one person’s talk. So I have to credit it to a RCUS conversation. RCUS means ‘random collisions of unusual suspects’ — the conversations and connections that arise from RCUS. RCUS is a critical and highly valued part of the BIF Summit experience, and one of the reasons why inc. magazine listed BIF2016 as one of the 10 most innovative conferences of 2016.
By the way, if you Google ‘lighthouse question’ you’ll get many links to questions about lighthouses. So it’s not a thing, apparently, except for me. I even tweeted about it:
I believe concept ‘lighthouse question’ is worthy of thing-ness. What else would you call the question that reliably guides you through stormy weather on very rough seas — a question big enough and important enough to guide a process of transformation?
The Value Of Asking Questions
Questions are Kare Anderson’s forte, helping her to land an internship and later a job as a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. In her talk, spoke of the value of asking questions and the value of clarity, which to me equals ‘lighthouse question’ — the question or questions that lead you to insight and transformation.
Don’t Leave The Big Questions Unasked
In her work, Amy Whitaker continually poses the pivotal question, “How can you be a creative person and show up in the world of work?” Creativity can be risky in a business setting, where employees are evaluated on the basis of what they produce. Big questions are sometimes left unasked. But, Whitaker says, “The paradox of business is that it utterly depends on creativity in the long arc.” Asking the big questions takes you reliably through that long arc.
Find The Patterns In Complex Systems
Brandon Barnett describes systems thinking as “thinking about a complex system as a system with instabilities — but we don’t know where the instabilities are.” In his work with complex systems, Barnett has learned that finding the “through-line, the patterns in the complexity” leads him to the “catalytic points” that represent the instability of the system and allow for design and testing of the system.
A Shared Purpose Connects People
For Celine Schillinger, large organizations are ecosystems of relationships. She has found that worker engagement and quality both increase when workers are empowered and proud. The ‘North Star’ for her is connecting people around a shared purpose, which results in work and a workplace that is more human and a society that is more connected.
‘Order Doesn’t Require Control’
‘Tap Into The Power Of Reinvention’
‘Use Your Own Journey To Transform Yourself’
‘Turn Off Autopilot and Do Something Different — Anything’
