In 2022 my focus is on elevating wise self-leadership by helping you to enhance your Response Ability, the keystone character trait of wise leaders.
Thursday, 23 December 2021
Helping you enhance your Response Ability, the keystone character trait of wise leaders
Monday, 20 December 2021
The D.R.E.A.M. Matrix For Sustaining Wisdom In Personal Well-being
My one word for 2022 is DREAM. My gratitude to Jason Fox for the one word theme for a year idea and to Chris Brogan for his three words for a year insights. Read more about these two visionaries and their ideas here.
For 2022 I've also turned my one word into a matrix as follows. See below the diagram for my thoughts on the fifteen components.
You can listen to the podcast version of this post here.
What is your essence?
Please be a Happy Being Magnificent role model in your own best way.
Monday, 13 December 2021
What's your post pandemic strategy?
Strategic planning is an oxymoron. In my view along with change management and performance management it makes the top three worst actions you could take in your business.
You do need a strategy. Strategy is like a compass.
In simple terms a strategy is the framework within which you make decisions about how you're moving from where you are to where you want to be.
You should be able to describe your strategy in a sentence.
There's a short podcast and post here about how to do this.
Change cannot be managed. We lead change. You need a change process to lead effectively.
There's a short podcast and post here about how to do this.
Performance cannot be managed either. We lead performance.
If you're still doing performance appraisals you are endangering your employees well-being. We do not want to be appraised and never have. What we want is to be appreciated.
In the new world of work wise leaders have discarded performance management and are embracing performance energetics. There's a short podcast and post with 25 suggestions about how to do this here.
Like leading change and leading performance you can only know the effectiveness of your strategy through its execution.
Execution is like a quilt. Everyone's piece is different. When everyone's piece is stitched together you have your execution plan. Not a strategic plan, an execution plan.
There are five critical success factors to execution of strategy that I've learned over 30+ years of doing this work.
1) People executing your strategy must buy-into it at worst and at best have input into it.
The days of Boards and CEO's being the sole strategy setters in my view are dead.
When the people doing the work are engaged in determining strategy, execution is almost a given.
2) Practices and Processes are paramount
Do your processes (this includes policies, procedures, practices, principles, systems and structures), mean that it's simple for people to bring their best to their work?
Are the daily practices in your workplaces, i.e. the rituals, routines, ceremonies, stories, narratives in alignment with the behaviours of your values?
Does every employees have a role clarity statement that overviews who they have relationships with and what is the value being exchanged and delivered?
3) Human connection and ongoing conversations are crucial
There are 15 conversations that count. You can download a playbook with my compliments about these here.
4) After-action-reviews highlight accountability
I recommend reviewing one action at a time and answering the following questions:
what happened and why?
what did we learn, relearn, and unlearn?
How can we be better, wiser and more valuable in applying these learnings?
Who will we become? What will we do next?
5) Integrating new learning with what is already working well
Post after-action-review determine with your colleagues how your answers will be integrated with what is already working well for you. Then I suggest these actions:
Upgrade your processes and practices and role clarity statements where appropriate.
Upgrade learning and development materials.
Should you like some help with any of the above please consider my one-off service.
Susan Furness and myself created a unique process called Strategic Heartistry which Susan facilitates. Learn more here.
Kind regards
Ian
Friday, 10 December 2021
3 key ways wise leaders are leading for the common good
- Corporations rule the world.
- Many of their CEO's are addicted to greed.
- Most politicians are beholden to corporate leaders and others who donate to their parties. See a great documentary 'Big Deal' by Christiaan van Vuuren for some hard evidence about this.
Philp Kotler
1) Corporations, and businesses in general, have the capacity to lead the way in solving our climate crisis
sub-title Governments should not be leading rather supporting those who are
(people with three - five year terms are not leaders, they are managers at best.)
I took photo above recently at one of my local supermarkets. Wise leaders are climate change action leaders. ALDI, another one of my local supermarkets, have their stores, warehouses and offices powered by 100% renewable energy.
Please read a most excellent article by Annabel Crabb "Morrison's climate 'plan' reveals a spectacular new model of political leadership in Australia.'
Climate crisis inaction and hyperbole by LNP politicians in Australia, and the money being donated by fossil fuel companies to the LNP (and Labor and other parties too) can be contrasted with exceptions like Mike Cannon-Brookes. and LNP supporter Andrew Forrest's who has a hydrogen deal happening with Queensland government in Australia.
Corporate and business leaders have the wherewithal to lead the way in solving our climate crisis, and are in fact are leading us. In my view governments need to support those leading and stop leading themselves.
THE ANZ CLIMATE TECH 100 list makes interesting reading.
How are you solving the climate crisis?
2) Well-being not financial growth or profit is actually the objective
In much of the world right now I perceive a crisis of mental health that could have far wider consequences than the COVID-19 pandemic.
Is your workplace a role model in these areas?
3) Using technology to help us rather than we being slaves of technology
Yanis Varoufakis suggests in this article that capitalism is bring replaced by techno-feudalism. I agree.
There are alternatives.
I recommend 'Another Now' by Yanis
and 'Technology v Humanity The coming clash between man and machine' by Gerd Leonhard
as places to kickstart or progress your feelings, thoughts, behaviours and actions about how you are using technology personally and professionally.
Is technology primarily enhancing the human experience in your life and work?
Who will you become?
What will you do next?
Kind regards
Ian
Wednesday, 8 December 2021
Don't die with your music locked in you
Music is a great metaphor for our essence (unique personal wisdom).
Seeing, unearthing, and then magnifying and enhancing our essence, and being alongside others as they do the same, is for me the heart of real leadership.
Listen to my story about this metaphor in this 4 minutes and 42 seconds podcast.
Watch my story below.
You can read my story, and ways you can apply it in your own best way, in my chapter in this book.
Get the book here.
This was the greatest collaboration that I've been involved in with sixteen of my colleagues from The Right Company.
You can begin anywhere you choose in the book.
Terry McGivern, Regional Managing Director (CEER ME APAC) Kingspan light +Air captures this book well:
"If people interest you, and the distilled wisdom of peoples' experiences fascinate you, then you will cherish this collection.”
I was thrilled to have a longer conversation with Cat Preston (also one of the authors) about essence in her 'Collective Wisdom' podcast.
It's one hour and three minutes and you will find it here.
A few times a year I offer a complimentary version of The Wise Leaders Workshop which is my signature experience for helping you to discover and live your essence. The next of these is in February 2022. To receive an invite learn more and subscribe to my newsletter here.
Kind regards
Ian
Monday, 6 December 2021
Sparkenation conversation with Sue Heatherington about the role of Quiet Disruptors in the new world of work
Sue Heatherington's book is a game changer for me.
Before and since reading this book it's been wonderful to get to know Sue.
The recording below is our conversation about the role of Quiet Disruptors in the new world of work.
Part of this new world is the re-humanisation of the workplace and therefore a letting go of the command and control and divide and conquer hangover from the Industrial Revolution.
Thursday, 2 December 2021
Keith Abraham on Abundance in a post pandemic world
I was thrilled to have my colleague of 25 years Keith Abraham as my very special guest in this sparkenation conversation.
If 2020 was unprecedented and 2021 unpredictable, then could it be that 2022 is uncharted?
What an opportunity. An "ocean of opportunity" as Keith says.
Many gems from Keith and guests in this conversation.
My favourite from Keith is "Are we starving our distractions and feeding our focus?"
Kind regards
Ian