Wednesday 30 November 2016

The five keys to a successful Google team (and likely yours)

There's a lot of highly valuable insights in this post by Julia Rozovsky, Analyst at Google People Operations (their term for HR).

Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions.


Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Monday 28 November 2016

The higher purpose of leadership

There's one thing I notice above all in the most remarkable workplaces - more people are leading and being accountable than in other workplaces.

Image Courtesy of Shutterstock

How are you creating more leaders in your business?

Who will you become? What will you do next?

Should you be looking for some help, there's two unique ways we can work together.

Option One

At midnight AEDT this Wednesday 30th November, my one time only offer to mail you The Appreciative Leader handbook, and conduct a 1:1 mentoring session with you online, expires. Membership in the exclusive Appreciative Leader community is part of the package. It's just $99 all up, a price I will never be making available ever again. Find out more and apply from here.

Option Two

A one-of-a-kind leadership elevation experience awaits you and your leadership team. It’s my way of helping you, in your own best way, to create more leaders in your business, and therefore guarantee 2017 is your best year yet. Only available for 13 teams. Find out more and apply from here.

Be remarkable.
Ian

Friday 25 November 2016

Work/Life Balance Is BS


Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Words certainly do have power. In the case of the term 'work/life balance' powerlessness would be more apt in my view.

I meet lots of people feeling stressed because they can't seem to get what they tell me is the elusive balance. Momentarily they are not happy with me either when I suggest that the idea is a myth, BS in fact!

The following extract from my Changing What's Normal book is what I often give to people as an alternative. You can download a digital copy of this book here.

The word balance for me implies equal. I prefer the word harmony, therefore life/work harmony.

My personal and business life are not equal or in balance, and are never likely to be.

They are in harmony with one another, that is, they work together like a symphony, two sides of the same coin

Here are my 11 laws of life/work harmony. I trust they will help you live a more harmonious life.

1. The Law of Harmony 

Opposites attract. There are always at least two sides to every story.

Possible Action/Results: Always think both/and, rather than either/or; accept the good with the bad; appreciate pleasure, gain from pain; focus on the positive, learn from the negative; and you will soon begin to find harmony in your life.

2. The Law of Possibility

The opportunities life offers us are endless. There are no limits, except those we place on ourselves. There is nothing we cannot achieve.

Possible Action/Results: Adopt the Wayne Dyer mantra "You'll see it when you believe it."

3. The Law of Personal Responsibility 

No one else can make us feel or think glad, sad, bad or mad. How we feel and think are choices we make.

Possible Action/Results: We must own our feelings and thoughts and not get tangled in other people’s feelings and thoughts. We must let go of attachment to what other people feel and think. Soon we eliminate guilt and worry; two of life’s most useless and most debilitating emotions.

4. The Law of Attraction 

Success is not something we attain, rather something we attract.

Possible Action/Results: Commit to life-long learning; focus on insight more than information and wisdom more than knowledge. The more we become who we are capable of becoming the more we attract success.

5. The Law of the Farm 

You find fertile ground, plough it, seed it, and nurture it, and more often than not you reap a harvest. We get what we give. What goes around comes around. These are modern ways of describing an old adage; we reap what we sow.

Possible Action/Results: The message of this law is that we must focus on proven processes and detach from outcomes. If we are taking the right action, results take care of themselves.

6. The Law of Relationships 

We gravitate to those we like, know and trust.

Possible Action/Results: Establish shared values with family, friends and work colleagues, and agree on how they will be lived; have shared goals and agree on the key strategies to achieve them; practice non-judgment; give genuine attention to others. Before you know it your relationships will be stronger and the great door of opportunity will open more often.

7. The Law of Service 

Giving without attachment to getting back creates one of life’s great paradoxes; we get more back.

Possible Action/Results: Fully understand what others need and provide it; go the extra mile

By adding value to every transaction and interaction; co-create wow experiences at work, home and play. Before long others will be serving you in ways beyond your wildest expectations.

8. The Law of Confidence

Confidence is to maintain a positive inner and outer image and display them. The problem can be that confidence is often perceived as arrogance.

Possible Action/Results: Demonstrate openness to learning and not asserting your way is the only way while at the same time believe in yourself; believe in others; speak and communicate from your heart; and confidence will rarely get mistaken for arrogance.

9. The Law of Actual Communication

Not all talk is communication. We often talk just for the joy of it. To actually communicate is to agree on some course of action even if it is to agree to disagree.

Possible Action/Results: To communicate better speak with a specific goal in mind and listen simply to understand, and when speaking and listening ask for feedback to ensure message effectiveness. You will most likely find you will speak less and listen more. The result however is to eventually eliminate misunderstanding, one of the great negative stress causes in life.

10. The Law of Adaptability 

I heard a great saying one time “better to adapt than be a sitting duck and get run over”

Possible Action/Results: Our willingness to adapt, be flexible, and go with the flow are keys to a negative stress free life. A key seems to be to realize it is not what happens to us that is important rather our response to what happens. Take responsibility for your responses to life and life will respond to you.

11. The Law of Synchronicity/Interconnectedness

Everything is connected in some way to everything else.

Possible Action/Results: Seek coincidence, follow your heart, “do what you love” says Steven Farber “in the service of people who love what you do”; and your life will soon change for the better.

Have a personal sustainability plan (thank you Adam Werbach for the idea from his book Strategies for Sustainability) i.e. do what you can personally for the good of people and our planet. Imagine if everyone did this. We would have universal harmony.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable
Ian

Wednesday 23 November 2016

Knowledge is no longer power

More than a decade ago I interviewed my colleague Jim Cathcart.

At one point I enquired of Jim whether or not he thought that knowledge was still power? He gave an empathic no and said:

"Trust is power."

Regardless of who's being elected and who's not into political office, and why, I reckon Jim is still right. You?

Below is some advice from Jim that I think is priceless.


Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Monday 21 November 2016

"Price is what you pay; value is what you get"

The Appreciative Leader Master-class and Wine and Wisdom Evening on 30th November in Ballarat, Australia (my birthplace), are the final events this year (maybe ever) where you can receive your copy of the signed, numbered, limited edition handbook, The Appreciative Leader (only 150 printed), and be inducted into the exclusive Appreciative Leader community. You can register for the master-class here, and the wine and wisdom evening here.

Should you not be able to participate in one of these events, up until midnight AEDT Wednesday 30th November, I'm keeping open my one time only offer to mail you the handbook, and conduct a 1:1 mentoring session with you online. Membership in the community is part of the package. It's just $99 all up, a price I will never be making available ever again. Find out more here.

The Appreciative Leader Monday Morning Momentum Wisdom Series 
Every Monday at 8 am AEDT November 7th 2016 - 30th January 2017.
Image Courtesy of Shutterstock


In a great book, which you can purchase here, Masami Sato asks: "So what makes the difference between businesses that are simply doing well and those that are creating exceptional value and are loved by their customers?"

Masami provides 3 answers:
"1) The type of value you create.
2) The way you deliver that value.
3) The way you connect with the stakeholders."

As a part of my life-long partnership with Buy1Give, the organisation that Masami founded, when you get your copy of The Appreciative Leader handbook, and become part of the community, 12 families in need receive 3 nourishing meals.

Who will you become? What will you do next? 

Be remarkable.
Ian

Helping business owners and leaders increase the positive difference your leadership makes, and to create more leaders in your business.

Friday 18 November 2016

Innovation is change that adds value

There's a lot of valuable insights in this article by Chris Pash.

I'm sure you'll agree that the 215 billion mentioned is a big number!

What I found particularly insightful was the following:

The top three traits of innovating companies are:

Process — encouraging employees to ask questions that challenge (13%)
Adapting — adapting your products and services to make the most of opportunities (13%)
Philosophy — expecting employees to offer creative ideas for improvement (11%).

Yet the simplicity of innovation often eludes people. Dr. Amantha Imber nails what's needed.


Who will you become?  What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Wednesday 16 November 2016

"The system will prevail." What if it won't!?

In an attempt to calm the anxiety, frustration, and in some cases anger surrounding the election of Donald Trump, some pundits are saying "The system will prevail." What if it won't!?

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 proved beyond any doubt that most of the systems we have come to rely on in our society are shaky at best.

I'd suggest that evolution, and in some cases peaceful revolution, of our systems and structures is essential because:

not every citizen is afforded basic human rights
some citizens are not living in harmony with our planet
some citizens don’t have fresh water to drink
some citizens don’t have a livelihood
some citizens don’t have a home
some citizens can’t get an education
not all citizens have a say about our future
not all citizens have equity of opportunity
some citizens are still engaging in the futility of political and/or religious violence
some of our younger citizens are being abused
some of our citizens are dying everyday of preventable diseases
some of our female citizens are being exploited and abused
some citizens have no health care
some citizens are hungry ...

I could make a long list, as I'm sure you could too, of what's wrong with our world.

Awareness of what must be better is important, however what really matters is the quest we're on individually and collectively to make a difference.


Regardless of what our institutional status quo sustainers or status quo shifters do or don't do, my choice is to focus on the difference I can make, and to collaborate with others to make a difference together.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian


Monday 14 November 2016

What's The Story?

The Appreciative Leader Monday Morning Momentum Wisdom Series
Every Monday at 8 am AEDT November 7th 2016 - 30th January 2017

To receive these short and succinct insights into increasing the positive difference your leadership makes direct to your inbox, sign-up here for my Monday Morning Momentum Musings. A bonus is that you will be able to download my Changing What's Normal book.

What's The Story
One of the 8 roles Appreciative Leaders play remarkably well is that of being a Story-sharer of significance.

My colleague Colin James, a master-story-sharer himself, has written a great little ebook to help you. You can download it here.


Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable.

Ian
Founder The Appreciative Leader Community

Friday 11 November 2016

3 key must do's when the status quo is no longer serving you

The Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, the large vote for non traditional political parties in the recent Australian election, which almost toppled the Government, and the election of Donald Trump, are just three examples of many that indicate widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo (normal).

Trump is actually calling this a movement, which is one thing I would agree with him about.

Closer to home to your business, the rise of organisations like UBER, Airbnb, and a zillion other technology enabled companies, are showing every day what happens to traditional businesses who ignore dissatisfaction with the status quo.

3 key must do's when the status quo is no longer serving you, and better still before it stops serving you!

1) Disrupt yourself

In your business there are areas where employees, customers/clients, and other stakeholders, are dissatisfied.

You already know where there's trouble.

Appreciate it, acknowledge it, and start taking collaborative corrective action today.

2) Begin today to ensure that you are systematically, and forever onwards, reviewing processes

Processes include policies, procedures, practices, and systems. These are the stuff of modern management. Review everything in the light of this question - Does this mean it's simple for people to bring the best version of themselves to their work?

Wherever the answer is no to this question, take immediate collaborative corrective action.

3) Make imagining what can be and moving there, one quantum leap at a time, part of your cultural DNA


Life and work are a continuous journey of moving from what is to what can be. Yet, as Eckhart Tolle has so wonderfully observed, "stress is caused by being here, and wanting to be there."

One quantum leap at a time action significantly reduces stress and resistance to change.

The above is the change process I use in the beginning of my work with individuals and teams. Then over time I help my clients to create your own change process.

What is your change process? You must have one if you're to thrive in a world where movements are rapidly replacing the status quo when sameness is no longer serving.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian

PS My Changing What's Normal book may help you. During the release of my latest publication, The Appreciative Leader handbook, you can download Changing What's Normal with my compliments simply by signing up for my Monday Morning Momentum Musings here.

Wednesday 9 November 2016

When it comes to values behaviours are far better than words

There's a lot to like about this book. You can read my Amazon review here.

One of many takeaways for me was the 10 value statements of Jack's business The Entourage as follows:

1) Be wow - seek to amaze in everything you do.
2) Make it happen - be outcome orientated.
3) Everything's world class.
4) Have a growth approach - take ownership of your own growth.
5) Have fun, bring quirk.
6) Do more with less - become a master of leverage.
7) Live in the extra mile - good enough isn't good enough.
8) Come from heart - stay humble, respectful and compassionate.
9) Take initiative - don't wait.
10) Dream out loud - have dreams and goals, and celebrate personal milestones.

Use these 10 to turn your values words into behaviours. When it comes to values behaviours are far better than words.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Monday 7 November 2016

What do you do that your competitors aren't prepared to do?

Image Courtesy of Shutterstock. 

The Appreciative Leader Monday Morning Momentum Wisdom Series
Every Monday at 8 am AEDT November 7th 2016 - 30th January 2017

The full article from Bernadette Jiwa is here.

Who will you become. What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Founder The Appreciative Leader Community
Helping business owners and leaders increase the positive difference your leadership makes, and to create more leaders in your business.

Friday 4 November 2016

The 9 types of intelligence are all critical leadership skills

Below is a useful infographic I found here.


Intra-personal and interpersonal or as I prefer to call them, self-awareness and awareness of others, are the top two leadership skills in my view. They influence how we grow in the other seven areas.

Perpetual learning, unlearning, and relearning in all 9 areas, and then plugging in the results of these direct to your business operating system, are essential for you to increase the positive impact of your leadership, and to create more leaders in your business.

Who will you become? What will you do next?

Be remarkable.
Ian

Wednesday 2 November 2016

The future of your money

You can download an excellent report here from TomorrowToday about how Financial Technology (FInTech) is disrupting the world of Financial Services, and by definition your world, and your money.

Be remarkable.
Ian