Friday 25 February 2011

Chris Brogan nails it on social media etiquette

Chris Brogan is an author and social media strategist I admire. His latest blog post about social media etiquette here is great.

I find it a great checklist for what to do and what not to do for achieving success through social media. What do you think?

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal inside corporations for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Wednesday 23 February 2011

How may real life/real time conversations are you having with your customer/clients/prospects every week?

This is a very insightful slideshare by Polle de Maagt of InSites Consulting


How may real life/real time conversations are you having with your customer/clients/prospects every week?

Real life/real time conversations are one-way to differentiate yourself from the billions embracing social media and networking who really don’t as yet get relationships of high value and mutual reward.

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal inside corporations for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Monday 21 February 2011

4 key questions to answer that may well determine your future

Fast Company’s 50 most innovative companies list for 2011 here
is very insightful into the future of business.

Fast Company’s introduction to their list says in part:

... world will be ruled by the kinds of companies on this list. They're nondogmatic, willing to scrap conventional ideas. ...They're willing to fail. They know what they stand for.

How non-dogmatic are you?
How non-conventional are you?
How much are you willing to fail?
What do you stand for?

Your answers to these questions and how you act on your answers will largely determine your success this year and beyond.

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal inside corporations for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Friday 18 February 2011

Closing the knowing - doing gap

There are many great insights in Daniel Pink's book Drive – the surprising truth about what motivate us. However one of Daniel's conclusions really made me think: there is a mismatch between what science knows and business does.

There is often a mismatch between what we know and what we do. For me the narrower the gap between what we know and what we do, the more fulfilled life we live and the greater influence we assert.

Part of my plan this year, my 20th in partnering with passionate and enlightened business leaders to change what’s normal inside corporations for the good of people, our planet, and for profit, is to close the gap between what I know and what I do.

This is a challenge!

The most challenging aspect of my work with organisations is to actually inspire people do what what they know they should.

To begin my own journey I reread The Knowing- Doing Gap by J. Pfeffer and R.I. Sutton (HBS Press, 1999), a very insightful book. From there I made a list of the crucial things I know about life and business where I have have not fully implemented or acted on successfully, what I know.

Try the above exercise. I am sure you too will find it challenging however like me as you change what’s normal you will probably find the journey as rewarding as I am.

To know and not to do is really not to know.
Stephen R. Covey

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal inside corporations for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Monday 14 February 2011

What are you prepared to risk to fulfill the dreams you have for your company?

I read this incredible story in a Strategy + Business article, a publication by Booz & Co on 4th February 2011.

One night in 1973, Fred Smith, the founder of the FedEx Corporation, decided to gamble, literally, on the future of his company. Short of funds to pay for airline fuel, Smith hopped a weekend flight to Las Vegas and took the company’s last US$5,000 to the blackjack table. By Monday morning, he had the $24,000 he needed, and then some. Nearly four decades later, FedEx is a regular on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list. According to the authors of this paper, there may be a connection between the company’s dramatic story of survival and its high level of employee commitment.

The article which you can read here goes on to detail results of a series of four experiments, where researchers explored how reflecting counter factually on an institution’s origins — that is, considering “what if” scenarios — can influence stakeholders’ actions and commitment.

I found it all fascinating.

What are you prepared to risk to fulfill the dreams you have for your company?

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal inside corporations for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Thursday 10 February 2011

The pleasure and pain of being an exception

Alan Weiss, one of my heroes, puts out a memo every Monday morning USA time. It is a pithy thought from him and an quote from someone else. To really stimulate your thinking at the start of every week subscribe to Alan's Monday Morning Memo here.

A recent memo from Alan contained this quote:
How glorious it is -- and also how painful -- to be an exception.
-- Alfred de Musset

You are a one-of-a-kind. Do you see yourself as such?

It is sometimes painful to become all that we are capable of becoming, yet for me it is life's most important quest, and the other side of pain is pleasure.

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal inside corporations for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Monday 7 February 2011

The problem with taking taking sides is it usually means winners and losers

I have been involved in sport all my life for enjoyment, fitness, and the life-long friendships that have been the result, and because in sport winners and losers is OK, it’s the nature of games.

The same cannot be said for politics where the model of government and opposition rarely means the best ideas get adopted because unless the opposition agrees with the government great things rarely happen, like in Australia right now where the government and the opposition are fighting over how to help people devastated by floods and cyclones. It’s a joke. The monumental failures of dealing with climate change and fixing the broken financial services system are just two more examples of the many.

The troubles in Egypt of the past few weeks further demonstrate the problem with taking sides. I wish for democracy everywhere in the world, however my kind of democracy means everyone wins or at very least there is equity of opportunity.

Put religion in the mix and you often get more trouble if this means people debating the undebatable about whose God is the right one and killing one another as a consequence.

Now I am not suggesting for one moment here that we don’t take a stand against injustice, tyranny, inequality, or any other of the world’s issues. I am suggesting we find better ways to live in our world.

Business may well be the last bastion of hope. Enlightened business leaders create shared value, i.e. everyone wins.

Creating shared value is so important I have dedicated my life to it and made myself an authority on how to create shared value or CSV as it is sometimes called. In a recent Harvard Business Review article Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer refer to CSV as The Big Idea.

What are you doing in your business and in your life to create shared value?

The future is not about taking sides for the consequences are winners and losers. The future is not about who is right and who is wrong. The future is not about politics or religion, although both have their place. The future is about finding ways to live in harmony which each other and our planet, and where everyone has the opportunity to win.

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Thursday 3 February 2011

Social media action as part of business development that is not supported by personal attention is a recipe for heartache

Stories about management consultants abound. Here is one of my favourites:

A management consultant is on holidays on a tropical island. He notices a local fisherman who sells out of fish every day by noon. He approaches the fisherman and suggests a four point plan to sell more fish and make more money. Getting some subcontractors to fish for him will increase production by 25 percent but then moving to a fleet will double production in just six months. A joint venture with another shipping company will see the man become a millionaire within ten years.
The fisherman asks what the fourth step is. The consultant says he will be able to retire, do some fishing in the morning, have a siesta and then play with his kids. The fisherman replies, “but that is what I do now.”

Anon

The management consultant above is guilty of not providing or paying personal attention.

From my perspective much of social media and social networking is like this.


My goal online is to attract a few people that I can pay personal attention to in real time, and to nurture and grow relationships with these people of high value and mutual reward.

The intentions behind my goal i.e. the why, is three-fold.

1) Give without attachment to getting back
2) Enhance my reputation in my areas of expertise
3) Attract the right kind of people that I can pay attention to

What are your intentions regarding your online work?
As the saying goes be very careful what you wish for as our wishes usually get granted!

I recommend a great article on giving personal attention by Kaila Colbin here.

My free to fee model here is an overview of how I pay attention to people both online and in person and how I maintain harmony between online and in person actions.

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master™ - catalyst for changing what’s normal for the good of people, our planet, and for profit

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Insights shared via multiple mediums provide greater value

I suspect you are like me in that you are listening and watching online as much as reading words on your screen.

Therefore in order to provide you with as much value as I possibly can, I am going to post more podcasts and interviews here as well as providing my thoughts on video occasionally.

This post contains a selection of my previous podcasts and interviews that were once at a different blog.

I was thrilled recently to be interviewed by Kellie Frazier of Connecting LLC in United States. You can listen to this perhaps the most wide-ranging interview that I have ever done here.


On 28th April 2010 I was interviewed by Gihan Perera of First Step Communications on the subject Is Doing Good REALLY Good for Business?

Gihan asked me key questions. All of them tough to answer!

You can listen to the interview here:



or download the mp3 file here: MP3 File


On this podcast I explore why there are rarely rewards without first taking risks. Please download to your player here.


On this podcast I am interviewed by Patrick Sweeney of Australian Speakers Bureau on the main aspects of my corporate social responsibility/sustainability/doing good keynotes/plenary/general/concurrent and/or breakout session presentations. Please download to your player here.

To book me for your next conference or in house meeting please contact Patrick on 1800 477 325 or email Patrick for details info@asbgroup.com.au


On this podcast I am interviewed by Ann Villiers of Mental Nutrition on why I founded The Differencemakers Community. Please download to your player here.


On this podcast I am interviewed by Tom Murrell of Media Motivators on why doing good is great for business. Please download to your player here.


On this podcast I share insights about 7 key aspects of successful workplace cultures. Please download to your player here.


On this podcast I chat with Ciaran McGuigan, the Executive Director of Strikeforcesales, about how he engages his sales people. Ciaran can be contacted on 1300 309 162. Please download to your player here.


I really enjoyed my chat with Kevin Ryan about why employee engagement is the name of the game today for success in business. Please download to your player here.


Kevin Ryan and I chat about the difficulties of modern communication and the deeper issues we must understand and master in order to communicate remarkably. Please download to your player here.


If you want to reduce employee turnover and improve employee retention then you will find lots of value in this podcast where I have a chat with teams that work guru Lindsay Adams. Please download to your player here.


Strong leadership and management is impossible without strong foundations in place. Without such foundations we are on shaky ground. On this podcast I share my insights into what the strong foundations are. Please download to your player here.


Lindsay Adams and I chat about the ever-changing face of teams, the vital differences of high performance teams and the 12 essentials to find your teams edge. Please download to your player here.

Be the difference you want to see in the world
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
The Change Master - catalyst for changing what’s normal for the good of people, our planet, and for profit