TOTAL IMMERSION
What organizations need to remain competitive rests in their managers' abilities to build bridges between acquired data and intuitive wisdom. When this connection is made, individuals enter the state of Total Immersion that relieves their exhaustion and allows them--and their organizations--to take energetic leaps. When totally immersed, three thing occur: first, we recognize that all things are connected; second, we become willing to throw away the conventional models and make up the answers as we go along; and third, we are able to get comfortable with uncertainty. Jack Welch set the tone for his corporate team, giving them license to invent solutions and thrive on uncertainty by trusting their instincts. The results? "We certainly didn't have a clue how we were when we set our target. But we're getting there... hanging those dreams out there, in view of everyone, so that we can all reach for (connect to) them together."

FOSTERING SPIRIT
Spirit, or attitude, enables people to balance their power and lead with superior performance and personal growth. Flexibility, awareness, courage, humor, and action are the sources that facilitate their ability to integrate different types of knowledge and to encourage others to do the same. Marshaling the resources of 1,700 full time and 700 contract individuals, Lee Hebert, Plant Manager at Monsanto Company, created a solid business team model with a 30 percent improvement in salaried productivity. When asked how he had the know-how to see that his ideas would work, he revealed that his strongest guide was his personal conviction, his own sense of spirit, his ability to know. Because he had a sense of his own spirit, Lee Herbert felt confident in giving plant employees the authority to develop and make necessary changes to improve productivity. It was the spirit of the leader that germinated this success. His flexibility, humor, and personal conviction radiated outward, and he was then able to lead, inspire, and move innovative ideas forward, resulting in tangible outcomes.

ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED New medical research shows that basic cellular interconnections between potential and reality have more bearing on our organizations than we might think. Psychoneurommonology (PNI), a medical specialty, states that the body is an integrated circuit where all parts are continuously communicating with each other. Through neuro-transmitters and neuro-peptides, every cell is sending a message to every other cell. These medical findings reveal that intelligence is not the sole domain of the mind; rather, each sub-atomic level of our being radiates intelligence: we are totally integrated. A dramatic example of how this inter-connectedness works at an organizational level is Motorola's strategy of enlisting a minimum of 300 champions in strategic parts of the company to promote new ideas rapidly and extensively through the entire system. The thinking behind this initiative was to create a significant number of advocates (individual cells) to act as awareness-enhancing agents from the top-down and bottom-up; to create a totally integrated system where more than one key champion (the brain) was immersed in the process. This was a major factor in their quality effort's success.

MOVING BEYOND: HOW SOME COMPANIES DO IT
When we reduce our thinking to a single dimension--analytical judgment--we risk missing the rippling wave patterns that emerge from our intuitive knowledge base. At the Toronto Central Business Banking Center division of the Royal Bank of Canada, continuous improvement has been a major initiative, and Manager Glenn Blaylock has found that blending data with wisdom helps to keep employees focused on "finding the golden nugget," even when they have to search for it through difficult terrain. At a General Meeting, Glenn gave a presentation on customer complaints, an issue that can be threatening to employees and cause defensiveness, which might in turn shut off productive discussion. To take off some of the pressure and create an environment conducive to open and positive exchange of ideas, Glenn brought a large stuffed toy lion to the meeting (Royal Bank's logo includes a lion's head). He used the lion as a prop and asked the meeting participants to imagine they worked for a company that produced toy lions, and that the company had been getting complaints about the quality of the product, particularly loose stitching and lost stuffing. From there, he led the group into a discussion of how the company might respond to the complaints and "strengthen the thread." Using the lion lightened the atmosphere and helped to reinforce the idea that it's crucial to look at opportunities to improve rather than be defensive. It also helped people to focus on continuous improvement rather than seeing the experience as career threatening.

FIRST STEPS: MAKING THE CHOICE
Building the bridge between acquired data and intuitive wisdom takes practice to see and feel the connections, to be free to make up the answers, and to be comfortable with the uncertainty of it all. When integrated and totally immersed in our thinking, we're unstoppable. It is powerful. These concepts challenge us to reassess how we think. Building a bridge between your rational and intuitive knowledge base requires a dynamic shift in managing your thinking. The ability to make the shift demands that you get out of your own way. It is called choice. Choice is our greatest liberating power. When more leaders like Jack Welch free up their managers by making the choice to stop arguing over petty numbers and move toward stretch targets, then organizations will be totally integrated, totally immersed, they will no longer be exhausted.