Ivanna Rosendal

Some people are incredibly good at linear thinking. It’s an important skill in the workplace. You can explain how A becomes B, which then becomes C, which then becomes Z. You can manage according to the plan. It seems like things are in order and the money fits. I can’t seem to think or act like that. Actually, that’s not true. I can achieve linearity for short periods of time. But it takes energy and a lot of self-control. I’ve been in jobs where I haven’t succeeded because I performed linearity. However, reality is rarely as well organized as linear processes would have us believe. Plans don’t stick, and what you’ve started may not be worth finishing as defined in step A. Luckily, we’re also people who can handle when things don’t go according to plan and when you can’t even make a plan in the first place. Operating in complexity is the right skill to have in our increasingly unpredictable reality. But finding out that it’s a superpower has taken me half my career. It wasn’t until I started cultivating my non-linearity that I found my niche – and started succeeding in the workplace. I can see patterns and pull together concepts from different domains to solve stuck problems, and daring to lead with intuition and set up experiments to test possible solutions has unlocked outcomes I couldn’t have planned for. Finding your power is about daring to believe that who you are is absolutely right. Even if you may not be standard. And then unlocking and growing your potential.