On Fruition: Operational Stewardship

Fruition: the bearing or realization of fruit. Fruit is what nature uses to propagate species. Fruit is also what humans bear in order to propagate their endeavors. I think we can all agree that the most difficult part of any endeavor is the human part: the way we think of ourselves and others, and consequent decisions made and actions taken, the considerations we have to make in groups of humans, all interacting, reaching toward (hopefully) something common. In this series of posts, I’ll dive into some of the human aspects of fruition.

The Stuff of Winning

I occasionally read business and leadership books, and have found that I especially enjoy learning about being effective, inspiring others, and what motivates us. Influenced by what I like to read, I used to think that organizations that had the right top level Stuff of Winning did just that — they won. They bore fruit. I thought that if they had the right values, vision, mission, and inspired leadership and good people, they would succeed as an organization at whatever Thing they set out to do.

Now I know that this is false. There is at least one other key ingredient for success in teams. It acts like the rivets holding together the airplane or the epoxy in the composite. I’m going to name that (not so secret) ingredient Operational Stewardship. It’s the everyday actions, either done well or poorly, with Heart or without it, done with thoughtful timing or not. In every case, the stewardship of mundane everyday operations either moves us toward or away from fruition.

Learning New, Foundational Patterns

Communication is the first thing I think of when it comes to Operational Stewardship. Communication isn’t at the top level Stuff of Winning. It’s actually below the floor and in the foundation. We somehow assume that fruitful communication comes with getting older or with getting a liberal arts degree, and while we feel its presence strongly, we can’t always put our finger on it when it’s bad, bad, BAD. There are foundational arts and techniques that can and must be learned, or our teams will suffer for it. Most of the time it’s our own ignorance that gets in the way of success. For instance, if we habitually say one thing and do another, we rob our credibility. Or if I have the habit of getting defensive, it becomes clear to the other party that I’m mostly thinking about myself. Sometimes our problem can even be staying silent when words are needed or forgetting to include a contextualizing prelude to the information I’m about to share. In any case, failure to communicate well hinders the fruitfulness of our families, teams and organizations. In some cases, a brilliant vision, large companies, and even families can flounder and fail as a result of these details being ignored.

Last month I had lunch with a charming young woman from India. She told me a story of how she started out believing she was horrible in multiplication as a school-aged child. She just couldn’t memorize the multiplication tables. But after she had a particular teacher who taught her some simple techniques on how to study, she suddenly found herself at the top of her class in math. This persisted. And now, she is getting her Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering at a local university. What was the change? It wasn’t her motivation, and it wasn’t her skill at math itself. It was the equipping of her mind with a new, foundational pattern for executing well. It was improved Operational Stewardship.

So here are 3 things I thought of off to top of my head that I could do today increase my everyday operational faithfulness:

• mindfully wipe the kitchen counter with efficiency and a happy heart
• in as many interchanges as I have throughout the day, use good eye contact and appropriate touch to help people feel respected and at-ease
• eat what we already have because I’m right at the limit of our grocery budget for the month

These types of simple acts executed faithfully in a family, a team, or a workplace help us to feel and be encouraged, make us effective, and elevate us. We are human, and the humanity in doing small things well makes a significant difference in our ability to succeed over time. Over and over again, day in and day out, these small things and the messages we send with them, not only with our words, but with our body language, our tone, and our commitment to executing the very mundane things of our lives: this is the sap that bring us closer to fruition.

What small acts of Operational Stewardship (done well or done poorly) have made an impact in your families and teams?