Monday 29 December 2014

The foundation for success in everything

It is easy to live in an either/or yours/mine world.


The reality is we can, if we choose to, live in three worlds, yours, mine, and ours. And herein lies the foundation for success in everything.


Our world is the most powerful. Some writers have called it the third way. I believe ours is the relationship harmony point, the glue if you will, that binds us together as life partners, families, communities/tribes, teams, clubs, cities, towns, villages, and the great opportunity - our whole world.

Discovering and maintaining shared-view requires an honouring of yours and mine and a willingness to not be precious about either, rather to embrace both, and then to co-create ours which transcends yours and mine.

Honour everyone else’s way. Be confident in your own way. Transcend both and find a way together.

I have found that foundational to all success in organisations is a shared-view about:

where we are (reality)
where we're going (possibility)
why we're going there (purpose)
how we will get there (strategy)
who will do what and when (execution)
how we will know we are on track (milestones and lead measures)
how we will behave along the way (culture and values)

Forget about new years resolutions. Instead have the resolve essential to find shared-view with everyone with whom you live and work.

Be remarkable.
Ian

“I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.”

Rudyard Kipling

Sunday 28 December 2014

Relationships are all there is

This Sunday's sparkenation.

People are the solution to the problems that confront us. Technology is not the solution, although it can help. We are the solution -- we as generous, open-hearted people who want to use our creativity and caring on behalf of other human beings and all life.

Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals who can go it alone.

We humans want to be together. We only isolate ourselves when we're hurt by others, but alone is not our natural state. Today, we live in an unnatural state -- separating ourselves rather than being together.

We become hopeful when somebody tells the truth. I don't know why this is, but I experience it often. Truly connecting with another human gives us joy. The circumstances that create this connection don't matter. Even those who work side by side in the worst natural disaster or crisis recall that experience as memorable. They are surprised to feel joy in the midst of tragedy, but they always do.

We have to slow down. Nothing will change for the better until we do. We need time to think, to learn, to get to know each other. We are losing these great human capacities in the speed-up of modern life, and it is killing us.

The cure for despair is not hope. It is discovering what we want to do about something we care about.

From the book ‘Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future’ by Margaret Wheatley.

Be remarkable.
Ian

More sparkenations here where you can also download all 52 of this years sparkenations in the one ebook.

Tuesday 23 December 2014

Ditch dogma and live your best life in 2015

I have a strong distaste for dogma - rules and interpretations added to an insight, idea, ritual or whatever, than mean someone's thinking or the thinking of a minority is trying to control everybody else.

Celibacy is dogma in some religions.

An appalling attitude towards and treatment of women is dogma in some religions.

The edict that Christmas should be about celebrating the birth of Christ is dogma. So too is all the commercialisation around this time of the year and the insane happenings in shopping malls in a few days time.

I celebrated the winter and summer solstice this year and the birthday of Persian saviour Mithra, who was born the night of the winter solstice. Why? Because I could. And I admit in defiance of dogma!

In the policies, procedures, practices, processes and systems (PPPPSs) of your organisation what's dogma and should be ditched?

I have a simple philosophy when it comes to PPPPs. I ask, Does this mean people are treated with dignity and respect? Does this enable people to bring their best to their work? If the answers are no I encourage immediate change/s.

Whatever your reason for the season I honour and respect your choice and wish you well.

Please consider where dogma has a hold in your life and ditch it. I reckon you'll then have your best year yet in 2015.

Be remarkable.
Ian




Sunday 21 December 2014

It's what we give every day that really matters

This Sunday's sparkenation.

The following words in Paul McGee's latest newsletter got me thinking

"Whatever your reason for the season it's worth remembering this:
True fulfilment in life comes from experiencing the most joys, not acquiring the most toys."

I admit to not being all that fond of Christmas. This stems in part from being born on Christmas Eve. The only thing worse would be being born on Christmas Day! Us Christmas children get over it of course when we get that it's not about us!

My annoyance is more about the focus on giving (or is it the focus on receiving) once a year.

To me it's what we give every day that really matters.

Whatever your reason for the season I wish you well. More I wish you the joy that comes from giving every day.

And I wish that you will give to others every day in 2015 your greatest gift, that of living the best one-of-a-kind life that you can live.

Be remarkable.
Ian

More sparkenations here.

Wednesday 17 December 2014

Are your people leading and following by choice, not because they feel they have to?


As mentioned in previous posts World of Business Ideas is a great resource. I recommend setting up a free or paid account in order to get access to their videos. 

This video by Jim Collins on the next big management shift invoked my imagination as the subject is dear to my heart - people leading and following by choice, not because they feel they have to. Collins puts it "people following because they have the freedom to not follow."

In the new world of work we're operating more and more as Collins says "in networks more than organisations."

At your place 
How many people are doing what they love in the service of people who love what they do?
How many people are fulfilling their role/s in ways that they have chosen to do so?
How many people are living the purpose of your organisations existence in ways that is in alignment with their personal purpose?

Your answers to these questions are a great barometer of how well you're embracing the new world of work?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Monday 15 December 2014

Where in your business in 2015 do you need to stop playing around the edges?

There was a game we played at school that involved a whole bunch of kids hitting a tennis ball with the palms of our hands into the wire gates of the shelter shed.

It was an exiting game as people tried to exploit the angles and try and hit parts of the gate that meant the ball went in all sorts of weird and wonderful directions that made it impossible for people to hit back.

My mate Alec and myself became experts at hiding in the crowd, fluffing around the edges and only getting involved when we had too. This strategy meant we were often the last two left in the game. Until others woke up that is. Then everyone tried to play around the edges.

Life is like this sometimes. 

Usually though success doesn't involve playing around the edges. We've got to be where the action is.

Where in your business in 2015 do you need to stop playing around the edges?

Be remarkable
Ian

"We dance around in a ring and suppose;
But the secret sits in the middle - and knows."
Robert Frost

Sunday 14 December 2014

What are you doing that's better, different, or more unique than anybody else?

This Sunday's sparkenation.

Remarkable is the new normal. Great is no longer good enough. Ordinary is your enemy.

In modern business in order to boom and never bust you must be remarkable in 7 areas:

Disrupting yourself.
Differentiation: what your people do that others do, just better, differently or more uniquely.
Discovery: ensuring your people know their gifts/talents and how you are helping them to enhance them.
Drive: helping your people achieve what is important to them and meeting their intrinsic motivators.
Delivery: how you create, capture and deliver value to all your stakeholders that they demand, desire, and feel that they deserve.
Distinction: the ways the experience of your customers/clients online and in-person makes you stand out from the rest.
Differencemaking: the human problems your business solves.

Often it's the little things that turn ordinary into remarkable.

This week I went for a coffee with a client of mine in Warrnambool in Western Victoria, Australia. We walked past several coffee shops to get to his favourite one.

No-one carries a card to be clipped and eventually get a free coffee here. All the customers know where their card is on the walls, point them out, and the Barista ticks them off. I actually felt the sense of belonging regular customers have. This is the significance of small, a little thing making a big difference. And the coffee and the service were exceptional too.


What are you doing that's better, different, or more unique than anybody else?

Differentiation is just one area you need to be remarkable in.

How remarkable are you in the seven areas?

Go to my website here and scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see the diagnostic below.


Follow the instructions on my web page and I'll be in touch with you to arrange a complimentary high value briefing. It's my gift to you to help you to ensure that 2015 is your best year yet.

Be remarkable.
Ian

More sparkenations here.



The above diagnostic is also my contribution to the ebook Expect More From 2015 which contains ideas from 24 experts. Please download the full ebook with my compliments here.

Friday 12 December 2014

Are you pursuing goals and answers or vision and questions?

I meet lots of people focused on goals and demanding answers as to why they're not achieving them.

There's some great advice in two short videos posted by the folk at World of Business Ideas (WOBI). The presenters Tal Ben-Shahar and Ben Zander are two of my favourites.

Here's Tal on Focus on the question not the answer.

and here's brilliant Ben on vision v. goal.

NB You will have to set up a free account with WOBI to watch these videos. I recommend that you do and discover the storehouse of great insights they have.

Are you pursuing goals and answers or vision and questions?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Is life/work balance another myth you can rid yourself of in 2015?

I think life/work balance is a myth. Your personal and working life are not equal.

I coined the term life/work harmony in my Changing What's Normal book because I believe harmony is really what we're after.

I also like the term integration as used in this blog post by Kevin Roberts Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi.

Is life/work balance another myth you can rid yourself of in 2015?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Monday 8 December 2014

Will you add to the staggering 507,647 impacts that were created in just 15 days?

Here's the recording of my session for the recent Global Impact Summit.

Underneath the recording you'll see that I have selected projects you can choose to give to. Just might be an excellent way for you to change what's normal in your giving and how you positively impact other people in life-changing ways.


You'll see that you have access to the recordings of all 30 sessions of the summit as well giving you a truly great personal and business development resource to help you to make 2015 your best year yet.

Enjoy. Learn. Give. Be remarkable.
Ian

Sunday 7 December 2014

To be or not to be? really is the question

This Sunday's sparkenation and also the seventh and final in a series this week.

My wife's passion for and involvement over many years in the theatre meant a pilgrimage some years back to the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

On our pilgrimage I bought a fridge magnet that holds pride of place on my office whiteboard.


“To be or not to be” really is the question.

And “This above all. To thine own self be true.” really is the answer.

Being there with you as you discover and decide what these profound statements mean for you and how you will act on them in your life and work is the reason I get up every morning.

I'm not for everyone of course. My candidness scares lots of people. Others find it like a burst of refreshing cold air on a muggy summers night. My best friend, who with his partner was with us when we bought the magnet above, died on the 25th May 2011. I promised him that I would never die wondering what might be.


Until midnight tonight Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time December 7th, I'm offering here a very special offer for individual membership of my Maverick Thinkers Studio.

To check out what's inside my studio join me for the final group tour of my studio for this year. It's on at 6.30 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time today December 7th. Please email ian@ianberry.biz to get the link.

Be remarkable.
Ian

More sparkenations here.

Saturday 6 December 2014

The triumph of transformation begins and ends with transition

In all of my work my focus is on working with you and/or other leaders in your business, to discover and decide the quantum leaps you can take to move from where you are to where you want to be, both personally and in your business.


There’s a lot of talk about the need for transformational change. The facts are that 2 out of every 3 change initiatives fail. A big reason I see for failure is people trying to take big jumps rather than transitional steps (quantum leaps).

In my work with you transformation will be the outcome yet transition the focus.

The triumph of transformation begins and ends with transition.

This is the significance of small.

When you decide to become my client you will be making a positive impact on the lives of people in need straight away. As soon as we begin to work together, 12 families in need will receive 3 nourishing meals through my being a Proud partner of Buy One Give One. Again the significance of small.

Find out about the 5 ways we can work together and make an impact here.

And go here to check out my special offer for individual membership of Maverick Thinkers Studio. This offer expires at midnight Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time tomorrow December 7th.

To check out what's inside my studio join me for one of the final group tours for this year. You can choose between 5 pm tonight December 6th or  6.30 pm tomorrow. Both are Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time. Please email ian@ianberry.biz with your preference and I will get you the link.

Be remarkable.
Ian


Friday 5 December 2014

What is No BS Mentoring?

When I take people on tours of my Maverick Thinkers Studio to show you what's inside I point out that my tools for discovering and sustaining remarkability and building and growing a distinguished 21st century business work brilliantly, yet only when you use them in your own way.

I explain that my No BS mentoring is a key, in part because it enables pinpointed use of the resources inside my studio.

This question is then often asked, What is No BS mentoring?

Here's my answer:

Broadly speaking there are two types of business advisers (read consultants, mentors, coaches, trainers etc). Firstly there's those with solutions who are out looking for problems that match. These folk have models, secret steps, all kinds of pathways they believe will lead their clients to reach their promised land. I am definitely not one of these people.

I'm of the second kind of adviser. I don't have any solutions for your challenges. I am very skilled and passionate however at being there for people as you walk your own path and discover your own solutions to your challenges. You'll own the solutions more of course and savour the results of implementing them. My role is to help you to be accountable as you execute.

Two of my gifts (talents) are to see what most people don't and to say what most people won't.

As I have enhanced these gifts over 25 years (still a work in progress) I have become very good at asking great questions at precisely the right time for you. And I have mastered (also still a work in progress) being candid and reminding, inspiring, and sometimes persuading you to be candid with yourself and other people. Being candid is the keystone to sustaining remarkability (bringing that one-of-a-kind human being that you are to everything you do).

Seth Godin provides the best description of my kind of mentoring that I've be able to find. He says.

Good advice is priceless. Not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. Not imaginary, but practical. Not based on fear, but on possibility. Not designed to make you feel better, designed to make you better. Seek it out and embrace the true friends that care enough to risk sharing it. I’m not sure what takes more guts—giving it or getting it.

I'm up for it. You?

I promise to be the performance partner we all need for you.

I'll be open, honest and frank. I'll call you out when I feel you're bullshitting yourself and anyone else.

I'll be authentic, forthright, direct, straightforward and plain-speaking. I'll call a spade a spade, and sometimes a shovel.

I promise to be the torchbearer for you, someone who shines the light on what's possible, and steps with you into the unknown where you'll discover what you don't know that you must do to be remarkable.

One of the consequences will be that your workplace will become a BS Free Zone.

Imagine that.

Imagine the elimination of what causes conflict, difficulty, and disagreement amongst people.

Imagine a significant increase in the number of people consistently bringing their best to their work.

Imagine yourself having the time and energy to do what really matters to you and to only be doing what you love in the service of people who love what you do.

Be remarkable
Ian

The next group tour of my Maverick Thinkers Studio is on at 5 pm tomorrow Saturday December 6th Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time. To join in please email ian@ianberry.biz and I will send you the link.

To arrange a private tour please telephone me on +61 418 807 898.

Thursday 4 December 2014

Your number one role as a leader

I believe that the number one role of real leadership is enhancing people’s gifts - your own and those of the people around you. Gift is another word for talent.

In a great book ‘The Talent Masters - why smart leaders put people before numbers’, authors Bill Conaty and Ram Charan state:

“Talent will be the big differentiator between companies that succeed and those that don’t.” I couldn’t agree more.

They also state:
“Talent masters understand the subtleties that differentiate people.”

Being a maestro of gift/talent discovery and enhancement in your business will be the catalyst for you distinguishing your business in the market place.

Bill Conaty and Ram Charan also state:
“The enlightened CEO recognizes that his top priority for the future is building and deploying the talent that will get it there.”

In the next group tours of my Maverick Thinkers Studio, designed to show you what’s available 24/7 when you become a member, I’ll be showing you The Enhancing Their Gifts System (ETGS), my flagship program, and the fast track to being a remarkable leader and change champion. 

ETGS is matters to master about change in a box (online when you join Maverick Thinkers Studio)

When you join Maverick Thinkers Studio you are granted a license to use ETGS in your own way. 

More people consistently bringing their best to their work will be the consequence. 

And You will have more time and energy to do what you love in the service of people who love what you do. Imagine that.

I will be revealing what's inside the ETGs box on the next group tours of Maverick Thinkers Studio today December 4th at 5 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time and tomorrow December 5th at 7.30 am Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time. 

Please email me ian@ianberry.biz nominating which tour you'd like to join and I will email you the link.

To schedule your private tour please telephone me on +61 (0) 418 807 898 anytime between 8.30 am and 8.30 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time.

Be remarkable.
Ian

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." Ralph Nader



Wednesday 3 December 2014

The Significant Six

Welcome to post 3 in a series of 7 this week, all designed to add value to you as you seek to sustain your remarkability and also to let you know group tour times where I personally show you what is available to you 24/7 should you take up membership of my Maverick Thinkers Studio.

Remember until midnight on December 7th you can take up two months membership for one months investment. You might prefer the self-directed achievement option which is just $55 per month. Find out more here.

The next group tours are on today December 3rd at 5 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time and tomorrow December 4th at 7.30 am Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time.

Please email me ian@ianberry.biz nominating the tour you want to join and I will send you the link.

I have also set aside the next 4 days to conduct 1:1 tours. To schedule your private tour please telephone me on +61 (0) 418 807 898 anytime between 8.30 am and 8.30 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time.

If I was to ask any of your employees what is the strategy for moving from where you are to where you want to be in a years time in your business, would your people be able to give me a succinct one sentence answer?

Strategy is like a compass. It’s the reference point for all decisions you and your employees make in your business. The ability of people to describe your strategy in a sentence tells me how much they own it and have bought into it.

If I then asked any of your employees Can you please show me your unique piece of the strategy execution map? would they immediately be able to access it?

Execution is like a quilt map. Every person has a piece and they need to know and have co-created precisely what it is otherwise you can forget about your strategy being fully executed.

The above are just two of what I call the significant six because when the six are in place it’s possible for people to consistently bring their best to their work. When the six are not in place, remarkable results in your business are not possible.


In the tours of my studio I will share with you more about the significant six, why they really matter for your peace of mind and the prosperity of your business, and how you can enact them in your own way.

Will you join me for a group tour, or contact me for a private tour?

Be remarkable
Ian

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Doing what you know you should

I've had the honour and privilege to provide my No BS mentoring to more than 1000 business leaders in over 40 countries. Always the journey begins with people doing what they know they should yet are not.

Profound change occurs. Not least of which is this discovery.


The above and other crucial discoveries lay the foundation for the rest of the personal change journey.


Often my clients use this diagnostic tool to begin to do only what they love doing.


The above tool is one of many resources for humans inside Maverick Thinkers Studio. The key though is not mine or other people's carefully selected resources rather using them in your own way. This is where my No BS mentoring comes in.

I'm conducting the next group tour to show you what's inside my studio today December 2nd at 7.30 pm Australian Eastern Daylight Saving time.

I'll be conducting a further tour tomorrow December 3rd at 7.30 am Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time.

To join either tour please email me ian@ianberry.biz stating your preferred time and I will email you the link.

Be remarkable
Ian

Monday 1 December 2014

Remarkable is the new normal

And your greatest gift and my special gift to You

Remarkable is the new normal was a key thread of my presentation/conversation for the Global Impact Summit. You can view the recording here.

Recently as part of a Q &A following one of my presentations I was asked what I believed was the world’s greatest challenge. My response in the moment surprised me. I have reflected on it a lot since. I haven’t changed my mind. My response ‘A lot of people need reminding, inspiring, or persuading that they’re remarkable.’

Remarkable people don’t bully others.
Remarkable people don’t show their lack of intelligence by being violent towards others.
Remarkable people respect views and opinions that are different to theirs.
Remarkable people are passionate and persuasive yet never arrogant enough to think and act as if their way is the only way.
Remarkable people have ditched dogma and instead lead by example.
Remarkable people are not attached to their ideology, belief system, or political party bias, instead they debate ideas and then collaborate to achieve what really is good for humanity.
Remarkable people have roles not jobs. They understand that jobs are part of roles and that all roles are about relationships and delivering value to others as perceived by them.
Remarkable people are candid and authentic. They say what they mean and mean what they say.
Remarkable people promise big and deliver.
Remarkable people do their deep personal work and show it through their acute self-awareness, and therefore their willingness and ability to be highly aware of others.
When remarkable people are in the room, they’re in the room (thank you Nigel Risner).
Remarkable people share powerful stories, the kind that others can see and feel themselves in.
Remarkable people co-create cultures of candour where elephants in the room are named, and closets are absent of skeletons.
Remarkable people tell the truth as they see it, yet never in ways that are a put down of others.
Remarkable people ... Please insert your thoughts.

We are all unique. Not a single duplicate in the 100 billion lives that have walked planet earth. When we bring our best, free of BS, we are all remarkable.

Your birth was remarkable. Being born at all is even more remarkable than our birth. For most men only one or two of the 500 billion sperm cells produced in a lifetime reach the female egg, one of less than 500 that each woman produces in her life.

The fact that any of us is alive at all says to me that every life has a profound purpose.

Robert Louis Stevenson put it this way: To be who we are, and to become all that we are capable of becoming, is the only purpose in life.

Your greatest gift to the world and to yourself is to fulfill this purpose.

Be remarkable.
Ian

PS My gratitude to You for reading this. 

Take time in the next few weeks to celebrate what’s both going remarkably well in your life and what could be better. Then from those insights create a strategy and an execution plan to follow so that 2015 is your best year yet.





PSS From today until midnight Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time on December 7th 2014 I have a gift for you of two months individual membership of my Maverick Thinkers Studio for 1 months investment. Please accept my gift here.

I will be conducting group tours to show you what’s inside my studio every day 1st - 7th December. Find out about how to join a tour here.

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