September, 2016
ONE RULE OF CHANGE: SET YOUR RULES!
When planning my upcoming trip to New England I have been thinking of all the villages I used to visit and live in, the countryside full of strong stonewalls marking edges of farms, communities, and homes. Walls that are loyally repaired have stood for over a hundred years. There is a sense of stability and safety seeing these boundaries; stone walls. Visual markers that clearly state “container” limits, mass, and form.
That makes me look at how the most successful business, relationships, communities, DO evolve; they create and regularly mend clear boundaries, rules, and process. They create very safe containers to work and partner within.
Basic stuff like hours of work, price for product, services performed, need to be clearly outlined, showed, and stated. Showing the next level of “process rules”, one defines boundaries in the form of communicating values, integrity, quality, guarantees.
Just like the massive unmovable stonewalls you can see so clearly in the fields of New England. There they “are”…no doubts. As you give folks your rules, your non-compromising patterns of delivery, promises, brand guarantee, in a clear manner of communication you remove doubt.
Remove doubt, create safety.
By stating your rules to all you communicate and share, you have created a safe zone or container in which change, creativity, ideation, evolution can happen. Clear dialogue can happen as folks feel safe…they know your boundaries. With doubt gone, safety established, more time is spent creating and communicating at a much more meaningful deeper level. Have you defined your rules, values, brand clearly?
Are you clearly showing your rules?
Think of those walls in the fields of New England standing like strong sentinels proclaiming neighborly boundaries…how do you show your boundaries, your rules? It is one thing to “talk” about your rules, it is another to show your rules of business and relationship.
The universal language is now “pictures”, so why not draw out your process, your promise. Your rules are your story “stones” that outline your container boundaries. Draw this out in pictures, SHOW your rules. You can create pictures, quick sketch doodles or hire a person to help you draw up and discover your boundary key visuals. Quick sketch doodles are fast ways to show folks your rules in a non-intimidating manner. From power point slides, meeting summaries, mapping out future scenarios, even for requests for event sponsors, all can be communicated clearly in a quick focused manner with quick-sketched visuals.
Better understanding is created by “rules”. Showing your boundaries creates a feeling of safety. Show your rules clearly (like those strong stone New England walls), so you can move forward step by step without any doubts. Yep, “you can get there from here” as the New England saying goes!
Thanks for your time and sharing!
I’m Paula Brown; Visual Scribe / Feng Shui practitioner / Author / Animal Communicator. I am a visual storyteller showing you how to IGNITE YOUR STORY, YOUR ENERGY, YOUR WELL-BEING for both business and home. My site is: www.chilightful.com Connect on: LinkedIn, Twitter. and you can “like” my facebook page at: www.facebook.com/ChiLightful
