We were preparing to go on a major road-trip, packing up our family of four kids to spend 6 weeks in QLD. It was the first family holiday we had ever taken other apart from camping trips and the odd weekend in a tourist park cabin. Some close friends did something very special for us. They made us a compilation cassette tape of travelling songs.

I smiled inwardly all the way through Paul Kelly’s article in the current edition of The Monthly, in which he celebrates the making of compilation cassette tapes. He scoffs at the click, drag & burn of the CD. Kelly describes the labour of love associated with judging the right moment when to press record and the creative pondering about the ordering of track. He references Tarantino’s Death Proof and Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, (link to the ‘Monday morning tape’ clip) probably the only films to engage the deep giving that is compilation cassettes.

I think I will go shopping on the weekend for a C90. I always used to use BASF, I presume they still make them. I’ve already got a bunch of yurting (nomadic caravaning ) songs in my head, its gonna be fun to get them together. Our old Patrol will be a great acoustic home for the click of the cassette into the player. With no air con, and the windows down, I’ll be wafting the Waifs and Paul Kelly et al across the Aussie landscape.

I’ve got mates who operate at the cutting edge of new media (G’day Steve). But I rarely tweet. Maybe it’s a stage of life thing. I have in the past been an almost compulsive connector/networker, these days I get tired thinking about it … I derive deep satisfaction from slow and simple pastimes with Maria. While the kids watch their TV shows on computer screens, I handwrite in my moleskin journal with an ink pen. Like Hannah Montana and Peter Garrett before her I want the best of both worlds. Amidst the connected ubiquitousness of new technologies, the ‘discipline of slow’ is good for my 00’s soul.

Better go and check from my 3G phone to see where I can get a C90 tape …

After another working trip out of town last week Maria and I decided to leave the kids at home and head up to the Yarra Valley for a night over the weekend. Saturday was clear and sunny. We meandered our way through the back roads between Yarra Glen and Healesville.

We drove with long periods of silence. The scars of Black Saturday are everywhere.

I have seen the after-effects of bush fires before. But the scale of this and the background knowledge of the fatal horror on the very roads on which we drove was poignant. As we browsed the shops the discussion was still about recovery. The newspapers are still peppered with references. Little known village names like Chum Creek are now legend.

But my lasting memory will be of a phenomena I’ve never seen before. Autumn colour was everywhere. Dazzling oranges and brazing reds were across vineyards and bordering roads at every turn. But we were struck by the green ‘fur.’

Actually, it is not fur, but from a distance that’s what it looks like. Charred trees … covered from base to branch tip with vibrant new green growth, as if being taken over by a parasitic creeper. I think I would have expected trees recovering from a bush fire to sprout new growth from their branches as in spring. Not so. I wondered what happens next.

Trauma rocks normality. I am not a psychologist but I imagine there are parallels in human life. Recovery from trauma probably looks very different than normal growth. When the ‘green shoots’ come, they likely do so in surprising places. I thought more …

Our world is in trauma now. The twin crises of environmental vulnerability and the financial crisis dishing out pain and inviting a new way of being. As in bushfire recovery, I wonder whether conventional cycles of recovery will fail, Rather we will see new growth sprouting from places we didn’t expect. If we are not attuned to the nature of the trauma, the fury ‘green growth’ could be mocked as try hard. Instead it could well be the signs of human resilience and creative hope.

I will have my eyes open for ‘fury green growth’ in the economy.

I feel like I am always banging on about ‘perspective’. The reason is obvious to me, because I know how important I find it myself. This morning was a good case in point:

I woke early and was contemplating the work ahead of me today. There are some meetings and conversations with some pretty important decisions to be made. I felt the level of anxiety rise as I contemplated the different dynamics and responsibilities I have in them. Then as my thoughts shifted to the broader perspective, the outcomes of the projects in which the activities sit, I could sense an immediate shift … my anxiety started giving way to an energised motivation.

The three projects on which I will work today are all great projects. One, in partnership with a Uni, involves the development of a diagnostic for measuring the ‘generativity’ of a workplace, another is a major initiative to cultivate a social enterprise hub in the CBD, and the third is preparation for a sustainability workshop for the regional Board of a global company. Fantastic projects. Focussing on the bigger picture helped me heaps, rather than lamenting the busy activity in isolation.

I hope you can locate your activity today in the context of the broader outcomes you are trying to achieve … it certainly helps me to do so.

I confess to becoming more cynical of late when it comes to business and leadership books. My appetite to feast on the musings of others used to be insatiable. The business section of book stores used to feel like a well worn boot … familiar yet strong. For some time now, even when I habitually seek the places out, it has left me ambivalent.

I had a relapse yesterday.

My mind was consumed with what felt (and still feels) like an impossible problem. Not a totally unfamiliar one, fairly typical organisational dysfunctionality. (refer Albrecht’s Law) What was perplexing me was my inability to get any traction around the issue. It was disconcerting. Like a childhood dream when you are trying to run away from something and feel like you are being held back.

My name is Col, and I’m a bookshop-aholic. The object of my relapse was the unremarkably named ‘Influencer‘. Like most books of its kind, some simple and powerful ideas get padded out with stories and elaborations. Even though I had a few flights ahead of me to digest it … it only took about 20 minutes to be inspired to not give up.

One of the profound ideas, to which my musings here will not do justice, is that you simply cannot verbally persuade people to sustain different behaviour or see the world differently. As someone has famously suggested, “You can’t persuade someone to change their mind about a position that they didn’t ‘think themselves into in the first place.”

The ‘master influencers’ in the study managed to transform people’s lives by cultivating incentive for a few very specific behaviours. Interesting.

This simple refresher thought has put some wind in my sails when I think about my work with others. It also rings true in relation to my own efforts to maintain wellbeing. It pays to identify a few simple behaviours that we know will result in particular outcomes. Discipline, yes. Simplicity, yes.

Yesterday we celebrated my dad’s 70^th birthday. It is right that such times are full of in-house jokes and stories that only family and close friends appreciate. In my little speech however I tried to take a different tact.

I was prompted by relatively recent experience when I was back in my home town for the launch of a book that Dad had written. The topic of the book, a history of a Trust Fund that had been a vehicle for civic leaders in Ulverstone to give back to the community, brought together a large gathering of people. Throughout the evening, the recurring comment made to me was, “Great man, your dad.”

This helped open my eyes to the man my father has been from a perspective other than that from within the immediate family, where the moment is overtaken by forever, the depth of knowledge trumps the reality of public contribution.

So in preparation for yesterday, I did what you do these days if you want to find out about someone … I googled him. One of the things I found was a transcript of a speech he delivered to a public works conference in 2002. Having spent his career in local government, he offered some perspectives on the BASICS of public service. These, I realised as I read, were things that my father had valued highly, and although rarely verbalised in the family context, he had modelled these and instilled them in me and my three siblings. As is my dad’s custom, he used an acrostic:

B stands for ‘Back yourself’. Dad has always been an outstanding problem solver, particularly when it comes to engineering or ‘handyman’ related challenges. He taught me to believe that there is always a way.

A stands for ‘Attitude’. I struggle to recall a time when people were criticised openly in our home. Dad has passed on to me the value of giving people the ‘benefit of the doubt’. In reality, everyone acts in ways that are reasonable to them. Acknowledging that for the most part people act with positive intention is a trait that I think has served me well. All behaviour is ultimately rooted in an attitude, it is therefore imperative to make sure it is our attitude that is right … behaviour will follow.

S is for ‘Simplicity’. Edward deBono famously distinguished simplistic from simplicity which he suggests lays on ‘the other side’ of complexity. For my dad, life has appeared uncomplicated. There are a few things which have been important to him … other things in life get moved around to accommodate these. I admire the simplicity that this generates.

I is for ‘Innovation’. Dad has been incredibly inventive over the years. Whether organising his workshop, renovating, making things, solving problems, he has set his mind and hands to some outstanding creative endeavours. He has taught me the value of discipline, productivity and diligence in the process.

C (and the S) stand for ‘Common Sense’. My father has always valued rationality over emotionality. His ability to dissect something objectively is a real strength. I hope that some of the ’sense’ he has expressed through his 70 years has rubbed off on me.

Thankyou Dad for demonstrating and passing on these ‘basics’.