Manila, 25 March 2020 — Worldviews drive people to cope with Covid19 in different ways.

In Grow3Leaders, our international community of leaders, we unpack this month how we can build habits, a toolkit, and integrity. In earlier posts, we already explored how to avoid Three Leader Traps and how to Kill Off Choice when it comes to being decisive in habit building. In Coping with Covid we discussed some immediate applications in coping with the health crisis that is rapidly changing work and life in countries around the world.

Work In All Colors

In this post, we explore a leadership tool to double-click on the question of what motivates people to display a wide diversity in behaviors in response to the health crisis. It’s one of the tools we use in Grow3Leaders and it’s called Work In All Colors. This tool was used by Nelson Mandela when he rebuilt South Africa as its first democratically elected president.

Work In All Colors helps us to understand seven worldviews that drive people to cope with the conditions in their life and work, and how this affects the way they communicate and behave. This is critical information to help leaders talk in the language of our ‘audience’ so that we can connect well, build trust, and open doors for positive changes to take place.

The seven worldviews we study and work with are summarized in the diagram below. With the help of the Work In All Colors tool, let’s observe some of the different behaviors we can observe—in ourselves and in people in the world around us—regarding how we cope with the unprecedented conditions presented by the Covid-19 crisis.

Here are some examples of healthy and unhealthy behaviors to cope with the crisis, motivated by prominent values in seven worldviews ~ marked by these colors:

PURPLE - Motivated by Safety

Healthy: Put trust in your family and other groups you treasure, to provide a sense of safety and security.

Unhealthy: Entrust your security to beliefs that separate outcomes from your own responsibility to take action.

RED - Motivated by Power

Healthy: Act quickly and decisively to improve the situation for yourself and those who are in your camp.

Unhealthy: Binge on Netflix, oversleeping, hoarding toilet rolls, bullets, or going to the beach to enjoy yourself because “I am fine and have no symptoms.” 

BLUE - Motivated by Order

Healthy: Stay calm, follow instructions, and sacrifice your own freedom (or safety) for public benefit.

Unhealthy: Become paralyzed by inaction.

ORANGE - Motivated by Success

Healthy: Find new opportunities, including in online collaboration and in business for online learning.

Unhealthy: Profit unethically from overcharging for face masks and other critical supplies.

GREEN - Motivated by Solidarity

Healthy: Volunteer for community service, collaboration, celebrate positivity and don’t leave anyone behind.

Unhealthy: Neglect social distancing because of close relationships, and bitch against for-profit businesses. 

YELLOW - Motivated by Synergy

Healthy: Do your own analysis and find your own smart solutions.

Unhealthy: Reject advice by others, rules imposed, and any loss of freedom. 

TURQUOISE - Motivated by Holistic Thinking

Healthy: Celebrate the reduction in pollution that has resulted from the lockdowns.

Unhealthy: Loose track of the suffering and hardship experienced by people. 

If you have already explored the importance of understanding worldviews in your quest to become an effective leader (influencer of positive changes) I’m sure that you will be able to add to these examples of healthy and unhealthy behaviors.

Building Leadership Skills

Using the Work In All Colors tool, what behaviors have you been showing so far in the Covid-19 crisis? What motivated you to behave that way, and why? And how did you respond to behavior shown by others? Which behaviors appealed to you, and which behaviors turned you off? Reflecting on these questions will bring you precious intelligence to grow your leadership.

In Grow3Leaders we stretch our understanding of why people act the way they do, and what we can do to influence better outcomes through positive changes. That involves getting to know ourselves and other people better. This work is best done working together with others. Learning together is faster, more effective, and more fun than figuring out leadership all by yourself (the 20th-century approach). That’s how we came up with the Grow3Leaders challenge of learning leadership together.

If you are interested to grow your leadership and grow leaders in your workplace, then consider joining us by taking up the Grow3Leaders challenge. As the name suggests, you join by inviting 3 colleagues from your workplace to join you. Together, you form a Collab to influence a meaningful change ‘Out Loud’ together over a period of 6 to 8 weeks, using the tools and experiences for effective leadership behaviors we share in the community.

This week, Grow3Leaders members will explore three tools for the March theme of BUILD: to practice building habits, a toolkit, and integrity. Joining Grow3Leaders is free of charge—not free of commitment. Come to BUILD with others, learn to Work In All Colors, and make a difference in this time of great challenge.

Acknowledgments: This week I enjoyed a series of exciting and meaningful conversations with collaborators that inspired me to create this post. In particular, I acknowledge Floor de Ruiter in Amsterdam, Vanh Mixap in Melbourne, Rashmi Shrestha in Kathmandu, and Piet Filet and Brian McIntosh in Brisbane for sharing their passion, commitment, and curiosity for discovering 21st-century leadership and innovation. Through such collaboration, we keep extending our understanding of the drivers that motivate people and how to work smarter and more collaboratively to influence better outcomes, including new ways of online learning.