The following is the seed for a new activity that we call Building the Foundations. The intent here is to get some common understanding of what is needed for the foundations of a new society or community, then to start making commitments to take action to make it so. Our hope is that by planting the seed NOW, it will have time to grow into a tree and bear fruit by the time harvest comes in the Fall. Yes, our time horizon is that close. We choose to make 1997 a Year of Manifestation. Please join with us in this bold new adventure.

New submissions should include:

RESOURCES

There are always sufficient resources to do what needs to be done.

However, there are generally not excessive resources, so be aware of how you are using, consuming, and applying them.

Don't apply the wrong resources to the job. The result is waste, inefficiency, and often a poor job. If you see this happening, say something. If it is within your control to fix, DO SOMETHING about it.

WORKLOAD

Do what is yours to do. And, do it cheerfully and to the best of your ability.

Accept your tasking from spirit directly. Don't expect it to come from others, however spirit may use others to convey your tasks to you until such time as your connection to source is firmly established.

Realize that this may require you to take initiative. Be bold and do so. You will be amazed at what gets accomplished when you do so.

Just because you see a task that needs to be done, that does NOT mean it is yours to do.

Sometimes, your part is simply to make others aware of what needs to be done ... so that they can take on the tasks that are rightfully theirs.

Work or Dharma is your sacred Duty. You truly have no choice but to do it. Given that, you might as well do it willingly and joyfully.

GETTING THINGS DONE

There are always many choices for HOW to do things. Doing it yourself is only one option. Finding the right person to do it is another. Simply identifying that it needs to be done is a third.

The key to getting things done efficiently is to employ the RIGHT resources and make sure they have the right tools and the right training to use the tools.

Be careful of exerting too much will in deciding what needs to be done. Spirit knows what needs to be done and will ensure that it is completed. You may or may not know ... so be open to allowing HER WILL to be imposed and expressed at any time.

Don't get too fixated on outcomes. Rather focus on doing the best that can be done under the circumstances and within the time and resource constraints that are available.

In any team, make sure that you have at least one person that is good at basic problem solving and understanding the big picture. This can save great amounts of time and ensure that the product or results reflect the best application of resources to the tasks at hand.

Work the problem! Don't waste resources on tangents that are not essential. Sometimes this is unavoidable and you don't know that you are on a tangent until you evaluate what you find. But be aware and keep resources focused on the problem.

This requires having a good characterization of the problem and any know uncertainties at all times. This should be a flexible characterization that changes over time to reflect the partial results of work in progress.

TIME MANAGEMENT

In this one respect, we are all equal ... whether you are a King or a Beggar or anything in between, 24 hours per day is what you are alloted. There is nothing you can do to increase this allotment.

Make time management a high priority task in your life. How you use your allotment of time makes all the difference in the world.

Constantly look for ways to do things faster and more effectively. Then take action to implement them in your life.

This may require an investment of your time to learn new techniques or tools ... but the investment has great payback ... so DO IT.

At least 10% of your time should be allocated to finding ways to do whatever you do better and faster. This will allow you to do far more with the remaining 90%.

Don't waste your time on things that don't require your unique skills unless you have to. Offload such tasks to others so that you are free to apply your skills to the tasks which others cannot do. This may mean you have to train someone to do the tasks you want to offload. That's OK. It is more than worth it.

If you are spending more than 40-50 hours on work each week, you are either taking on too much or you are not effectively managing your time so that you can get the work done with less effort. The solutions are offload, or work smarter.

CORE BELIEFS ABOUT PEOPLE

People like to do a good job. In general, people will do the best they can given their understanding of the task, their skills, and the working environment they find themselves in.

If people don't do a good job, it is usually not because the people failed, it is because the processes were bad, the resources were incomplete or improperly assigned, or the tasking itself was flawed ... it failed to convey what was needed or didn't allocate the right subtasks to the right resources.

People have very different skills, even people with equivalent degrees and job titles. Tailor the allocation of work to the individuals that are involved. Empower teams to create the infrastructures needed to effectively work together and get the job done well.

People need honest constructive feedback if they are to learn and grow. Without this, their awareness of the quality and usefulness of their work lacks ... and they don't have the information they need to understand their strengths and weaknesses.

If someone does poor work but believes they do good or even great work, the system failed, NOT the person. Permitting this to continue is wasteful of resources.

Awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses is extremely important. It is not always necessary to overcome weaknesses or even improve upon them. Often awareness is sufficient.

One of the greatest benefits of working together in teamsis that individual weaknesses can be compensated for by corresponding strengths in others.

Avoid taking on tasks that require what you are weak at ... unless you are knowingly doing this to improve your skills in that area. But, even when you do this, make sure there is someone you can call on for guidance or assistance.

If you enable them by providing the right working environment, you will be constantly amazed by what people are able to do.

Motivate and reward people appropriately for doing a great job. Be realistic about expectations ... and make sure that the people involved believe in what they are doing and know they can get the job done well.

THE VALUE OF INDIVIDUALS

Your "value" as an individual is NOT measured by what your paycheck shows each week. Your value comes from the skills you possess and your ability to use them in a manner that allows you to get a variety of tasks done.

As a general rule of thumb, at least 10% of your time every week should go to improving your skills or to learning new techniques or tools that allow you to more efficiently do whatever you do.

You'll find the payoff in this is far more than 10%, since the things you learn will have a variety of uses that you won't even know about until later, sometimes much later.

Your awareness of self, your awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses, your awareness of the things you like to do and the things you don't ... these are crucial to your value. We all have skills that are useful. However, surprisingly, very few people have a clear picture of what they do well and what they can't do well.

For the most part, while teams are required to do the whole job ... it is the INDIVIDUAL contributions to the work that get it done. Know where your unique contribution has the greatest effect and impact. Be willing to take responsibility for action items that you recognize require your particular skills. You know YOU. You can't count on others to know you well enough to task you. Be proactive and volunteer.

EMPOWERING TEAMS TO GET THE JOB DONE

Be respectful of other people's time. Also be respectful of your own time.

One technique to help you do this is to set values on time. Realize the price that is being paid for time is generally 2-3 times what the individuals involved actually make. Yes, this amounts to big numbers. Make sure whatever you are asking of others is worth the cost.

Meet only when necessary. Make sure the agenda is such that it requires the meeting participants to really be there.

My personal preference would be to eliminate the phone altogether. I prefer that phone calls be treated like meetings. They should be coordinated and scheduled. They should have an agenda and a specific period of time alloted. If more time is needed a follow-up meeting or conversation should be explicitly scheduled.

E-mail reaches me quicker and is more effective. It gives me a record of the information, question, or issue at hand and provides a means for me to respond quickly and effectively. Also, if the issue is not within my scope of responsibility or expertise, I can easily forward it to someone else who might be appropriate along with any additional comments I might have.

Control the dissemination of information to those who need to know. If there are others who may need to be aware of parts of the information ... set up something that allows them to easily get to what they need when they need it.

The intent here is not to hide information. Rather, it is to do our part to prevent or at least limit information overload.

For example: if you send an e-mail out to 20 people when only 5 people on the list really need to see it, you have wasted up to several minutes of 15 peoples time needlessly. Don't do this if you can avoid it.

Make decisions at the lowest level at which the information is available from which to effectively make the decision.

Make sure that whatever processes a team uses are serving the team and facilitating getting the job done. Provide an effective means for continuous process improvement. If the process is getting in the way either change it or eliminate it.

At the working level, develop flexible working processes that facilitate working together. Use whatever tools and techniques work. If you find or develop something that works and saves you time, share it with other ... it just may save them time too.

Maintain an awareness of the big picture, and what role each person plays in that big picture. If the team is a car and the task is to carry passengers to a specified destination; if the drive train fails, the car goes nowhere; if the navigator fails, the team gets lost and doesn't reach it's destination.

Treat problems as challenges. Nearly always they will have gifts for you. Typical gifts include teaching you something about yourself, about what you can (or cannot) do, and how to work effectively with others.

There are no showstopper problems. There is nothing wrong with having problems. Just be aware of them, and do what can be done to resolve them, jump over them, tunnel through them, or just work around them.

We are all HUMAN! We make mistakes ... that is just part of our nature, period. Mistakes are opportunities to learn. They are a natural part of work and living. Failures are fine as well. Remember how many times Thomas Edison failed before he finally came up with a light bulb that worked. Had he stopped even after several hundred failures, we might still be in the dark.

In team environments, trust that mistakes will be found, if not by you, then by others ... in time to correct them or learn from them. However, you shouldn't be making the SAME mistake more than a few times. If you are, then either you are not learning from your mistakes or the system is failing to catch this and provide appropriate feedback.

Make an investment in the team. It is not sufficient to do your job well individually. As a rule of thumb, at least 10% of your time should be expended on things that facilitate the team working together better and getting the job done more effectively. This should be much more than 10% if you have specific management responsibility.

Within any team, there will be leaders and followers/workers, there will be generalists and specialists. Be careful that these are not defined by positions or job title ... but rather by the abilities and skills of the people involved. All of these roles are required to get the job done. No one is more important than any other. Be content to do whatever you can do ... and do it to the best of your abilities.

EMPOWERING VOLUNTARY TEAMS

Here the challenges are even greater since it involves the voluntary commitment of peoples "free" time.

Be even more respectful of people's free time ... not only that of others, but YOURS as well. One trick to doing this is to set the value of free time at TWICE what paid time is worth.

For voluntary teams, it becomes even more important to define a purpose, the guidelines for how the team will interact and function, processes for working together, and specific tasks and responsibilities.

From a personal standpoint, I don't volunteer or have much experience with such teams. My sense is that this may change in the future but that it is not in my hands.

I have voluteered to do the work of spirit through this endeavor that I call BEYOND IMAGINATION. However, in this endeavor, it is not for me or any group for that matter to define the purpose or set goals or define anything. SPIRIT herself reveals what is to be done at what times and by whom.

Spirit, though my intuition, reveals to me what is to be done and moves me to do whatever I am to do. I trust that any people I am meant to work with will be moved to find me and contact me and that it will be obvious as to how we are to work together and toward what ends.

OK, I guess that is enough of a start for one month. We'll see how spirit moves me to continue this avenue of expressing next month.