They promote division, not collaboration.
We don’t know how attached we are to something until we let it go.
As I finished delivering my keynote, the room wasn’t just filled with applause — the entire floor was covered with small pieces of paper.
“The audience loved your talk, but the cleaning people will hate you,” one of the organizers told me laughing.
I was invited to speak about the democratization of leadership in agile organizations. Our attachment to titles inhibits organizational growth — that’s why I encouraged people to let go of it both physically and metaphorically.
I asked participants to write down their name and job title. All at the same tore their ‘business card’ saying at once: “I’m no longer (their job title), I’m just (their name).”
I’ve facilitated this exercise several times before. However, watching close to 1,000 people letting go of their title-attachment simultaneously was a powerful and energizing experience. We usually don’t rea…
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