The Adelaide Review - Leadership, sustainability and learning how to think

The Adelaide Review - Leadership, sustainability and learning how to think

August 12 by John O'Brien

The way businesses were managed last century do not apply today but how can a leader adapt to the demands of the 21st century?

Leadership for the 21st century is a very different beast to that in the 20th century. The world is complex, more interconnected, yet more isolated: employee expectations are rising, social networking is changing communication, we have information overload and, as people become richer, communities are becoming less connected and individuals more isolated.  

It is therefore no surprise that the way businesses were managed last century does not work today. Yet, big companies and many teaching institutions still rely on the theories that were developed in the US in the 1960s and churn out managers who are not prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.

Most management theories use linear, causal relationships to explain individual outcomes. In practice, outcomes are rarely so straightforward in the real world. The classic example of this is the setting of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to motivate employees. Whilst KPIs may motivate the achievement of targets, creating engaged, committed and productive employees is a much more complex problem. Issues such as ‘Do employees feel valued?’ and ‘Do they feel as though they are being listened to?’ are hard to capture with a KPI. 

The world has changed immeasurably since my parents’ generation. They faced the challenges of the Second World War and, for my father, the aftermath of the Irish civil war of the 1920s. These challenges were immediate and confronting and required strong leadership and strong community spirit to endure and overcome. I used to think that our current challenges were not so different, even if less tangible or immediately threatening.

However, we live in a world with seven billion people, vastly increasing average wealth and reducing resource availability. According to the Global Footprint Network, we now need 1.4 planets worth of land to meet our collective annual needs and, each year since 1986, we have been exceeding the earth’s capacity to produce. The management systems and corporate structures of the past have served us well to date by driving economic growth through utilising both human and environmental resources. However, in the face of the need for sustainability, the current systems are under strain – maybe suffering from ‘sustrainability’!

Companies that will thrive recognise the changing elements of a 21st century world. The sustainability of a company’s operations in terms of economic viability, employee relationships, community impact and environmental footprint is central to their strategies. It also becomes engrained into the company’s culture: ‘The way things are done around here’.  

How can a leader now adapt to the demands of the 21st century? Can the thinking of the past be sufficient to navigate a path towards a better future? 

Being a successful leader today requires learning how to think in new ways. Above all, there is a need to connect with individuals, whether employees, customers or other stakeholders, and to attract them towards common goals. This stands in sharp contrast to the old command and control attitude of telling and coercing staff to behave in particular ways. To me, the key aspects of learning how to think for a 21st century leader include the following:

Emotional Intelligence (EI) emerged in the 1990s as a form of social intelligence that allows us to monitor and shape both our own emotions and those of others. In studies, there is a far higher correlation between ‘success’ and having a high EI than there is to having a high cognitive intelligence or IQ rating. 

Systems Thinking is also being increasingly recognised as a core requirement to help manage in a complex, non-linear world. Donella Meadows eloquently describes how ‘to dance with the system’ to help guide its outcomes rather than the futile attempt to exert control over it.

Appreciative Inquiry is a way of driving organisational strategy based on appreciating the strengths of the organisation, envisioning the ideal outcomes and then working with staff and stakeholders to create this emergent future, all without fully understanding how it is going to be achieved.

Authentic Leadership underpins and provides the basis for great leaders. According to Bill George writing in the Harvard Business Review, the journey to authentic leadership has three elements: having an understanding of the story of your life; working hard to understand yourself; and focussing on long term outcomes. He writes, ‘the integrity of authentic leaders helps to sustain organisational results through good times and bad’.

Leadership has always been more of an art than a science, despite attempts to quantify and define its components. To be successful, leadership in the complex and interconnected world of the 21st century now requires new ways of thinking to harness strengths and influence positive outcomes for companies, employees, the community and the environment. Leaders that seek out these new ways of thinking will find that they are able to positively influence the future in ways unthought of by previous generations, and the world will be a better place as a result.

- John O’Brien

John O’Brien is Managing Director of Australian CleanTech. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer in the Adelaide MBA at the University of Adelaide Business School. 

The Meta-States of ADD – Another Look at “Attention Deficiency”

 L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Taken from: http://www.neurosemantics.com/meta-states/the-meta-states-of-add-another-look-at-attention-deficiency


Attention Deficient Disorder or ADD is a distressful and unpleasant state. What is it like? How would we create it? What things make up the disorder of the mind?

To create and experience the state of mind that we call Attention Deficient Disorder, we have to use some very special strategies. Only then can we structure consciousness in such a way that we experience it with all of the ADD symptoms: highly distracted, jumping all over the place, and unable to focus. And, of course, once we have a distracted state of mind like that, it sends commands to our body to create emotions of impulsiveness and hyperactivity and corresponding behaviors. Then we have an expert system for distracting, reacting, forgetting, procrastinating, and the like.

ADD does have a structure. It does makes sense. It doesn’t come out of the blue from nowhere. A person has to set several higher frames of reference (or meta-states) in order to create this experience that the psychological community has mislabeled a disorder. It’s only a disorder from the perspective of ordering consciousness so that it operates in a highly focused way that effectively encodes information in a way that makes sense (and so elicits the state of “comprehension.”)

• What frames do we need?
• What meta-state structures?
• What meta-level frames of beliefs, values, expectations, etc.?

Higher Frames or States of Mind

In its natural and untrained state, mind attends whatever stimuli catches its attention. That’s why we experience consciousness as so responsive and so reactive to the world when we first enter into it as children. We have no agenda, no intention, no focus, no purpose. We just free-float in such a way that the events, people, words, situations, etc. around us grab our attention. Attention, as what’s “on” our mind, simply responds to anything new, different, vivid, moving, threatening, dangerous, etc.

It is only later that we develop intentions. And yet we do so very early. We develop commitments, passions, motivations, expectations, agendas, etc. We set intentions in our mind at a higher logical level to our attentions when we want something, intend something, establish a purpose. When we do, these higher frames begin to govern and control things. At first, we develop very basic and primary type of intentions:

• We seek to move toward pleasure and away from pain
• We seek for satisfaction of hunger and dryness and
• we seek to move away from the discomfort of the basic biological drives (hunger, thirst, etc.).

Later we develop more layered and complex intentions: to win, to feel powerful, to be important, to show someone up, to be the first, to get the biggest cookie, to not have to exert effort, to find the path of least resistance, to avoid dad’s anger, to resist mom’s shaming, to not be viewed as dumb, to not feel embarrassment, to not stand out, etc.

When that happens, these become our governing frames of reference or meta-states and these higher intentions begin controlling our experiences. Suppose we don’t “get” something the first time dad or mom explains something, and out of their frustration, stress, or anger, they say something like,

“What’s wrong with you? Are you stupid or something? You never use your head. If you’d only think before you act. Why are you so dumb?”

When a child repeatedly hears words of this kind, it becomes seductively easy to buy into them. Then the child will more likely experience the state of “dislike of being scolded.” Eventually this becomes, “dislike and rejection of experiencing any mistake” that could be used as evidence “being dumb.” This then becomes more complex as the child learns to hates the “dumb” state, fear it, and so taboo it for themselves. “Don’t be dumb!” This state-about-a-state structure then means that the person will be operating from a frame of mind that could be summarized in such “belief” statements as:

“Its bad and painful to be reproved for being dumb.”

“Avoid using your brain, then you won’t be thought stupid.”

“I’m no good at learning, intellectual matters. I always do poorly with such.”

Then, with such intentions, no wonder the child would find him or herself turned off about learning and school, distracted, unable to focus, and so fidgeting and constantly moving and procrastinating. Why move toward something so loaded up with pain — psychic pain of embarrassment, inadequacy, and negative self-descriptions? Who would want to? I wouldn’t.

ADD as Driving a Brain in an Out of Control Manner

In actuality, people labeled “ADD” do not have any problem in the production of attentions. There’s no deficiency at that level. In fact, at that level there are too many attentions. Such individuals have a rich and varied world of attentions. Attentions are everywhere, and all at once, and moving very quickly. In fact, it is the out-of-control nature of attentions that causes one to feel overwhelmed, inadequate, and defeated. From a structural point of view, the “problem” we have here isn’t one deficient of attentions… The problem lies rather in the way all these attentions “have” the person rather than the person “having” them.

What causes that?

What factors, influences, structures, and frames contribute to that?
Intentions.

The individuals may suffer from negative frames (or dragon states) or from simply a deficiency of intentions. Structurally, the ADD experience arise from having too many negative thoughts and feelings turned against oneself and overwhelming oneself with fears about learning, fears about being dumb, fears about being embarrassed, making a mistake, etc., or from a lack of structure in directionalizing mind.

Conversely, the higher frames that govern a passionate state of learning and which enables a person to zoom in on information or experience, powerfully encode it so that it makes a powerful impression, and screen out every distraction leaves one in a state of excitement, desire, motivation, and commitment. It is when we lack that kind of higher frames of mind, that our attentions fling and dart all over the place. We don’t care enough about something. We don’t feel enough passion.

When I met Terry, he was nine years old and had been labeled “ADHD.” And he had all of the classic symptoms. He couldn’t sit still. He moved and fidgeted. He looked at this and then at that. He seemed bored in my office.

“Do you ever play computer games or Nintendo?” I inquired.

“Sure.”

“But I bet you get tired of playing those games. I bet you can’t even keep your mind on the computer screen!”

(Laughing) “No, I can. That’s easy.”

“You mean that you can focus on it and stay with it?”

“Sure.”

“That’s great! And of course, you know what that means, don’t you?’

“That I’m only interested in games?”

“It means that you got a great brain that can learn in really effective ways. It means that you can focus and concentrate and that there’s not a thing wrong with your brain.”

He was surprised. At nine, he had actually come to believe several things that were sabotaging his learning excellence. He believed that he was dumb. He believed that other kids were smarter than him. He believed that he could not control his brain. He believed that the learnings he was doing with Nintendo and baseball were not “real” learnings, but just play. He believed that there was nothing he could do to become better at school. He believed it was terrible to be laughed at or embarrassed. And the list went on.

The Meta-Levels of ADD

The “belief” frames above highlight and structure the meta-levels of Attention Deficit. These beliefs involve the checklist of beliefs that Dilts has put together in the so-called neurological levels, as well as the other logical levels.

Capabilities: Am I capable of learning?

Can I control my own brain? Is that possible?

Can I focus my attention?

Values: How valuable is it to learn? To study.

Identity: Am I intelligent or dumb?]

Relationships: How would changing my learning style affect my relationships? Would others accept or reject me?

Intentionality: What are my intentions?

What are the higher intentions above and beyond those intentions?

The Intention –Attention Dynamics

Attention refers to what’s immediately “on our mind.” And this constantly shifts, changes, and alters. And so it should. Attention describes our immediate conscious experience of the world as we move through it. Oftentimes we have to “lose our mind and come to our senses” in order to shake off trance like states that prevent us from being in the here and now. Sometimes we have to lose one of our older meta-level “minds” in order to free ourselves from old ideas and concepts that put us in a bad relationship to something like “learning,” “school,” etc.

Intention is a higher level of mind that arises from our orientation and that shows up in our everyday motivations and passions. The nine-year_old boy spending hours with a computer game obviously has great motivation and passion about that game and that motivation is precisely the higher mind that supports and enables him in his concentration and focus.

And there’s something else. As he becomes more and more skilled, as he finds delight and pleasure in succeeding (as we all do), he gets another meta-level pleasure: being able to define himself as successful in that area. This keeps him motivated.

We say in NLP that energy goes where attention flows. Our mental and emotional energies go out to attend, invest, care, etc. Attend to anything long enough and our skills and knowledge will increase. There’s no mystery in that.

In Meta-States we add another phrase to this line, a phrase that fills it out and makes it more true to the supporting higher frames of mind. We say_

Energy flows where Attention goes as governed by Intention.
If you want more focused mental and emotional energy to go somewhere, not only do we have to bring our attention to it, but we most effectively bring our attention to it when we align it with our higher intentions. That’s why finding, identifying, developing, and enriching our personal sense of intention so that we can take a strong and definitive Intentional Stance about something empowers us in activating our highest skills and potentials.

How can we apply this for the experience of ADD? Many people start merely at the level of attention. Typically we start by trying to “command” or order attention:

“Pay attention to this!”

“When I talk in this classroom, I expect that you listen to me!”

“You need to pay more attention to your homework.”

If that works at all, it usually doesn’t work very long. So we shift into getting or grabbing attention by using attention getting devices. We try to make the information more interesting, more dynamic, varied, colorful, dramatic, etc. We liven things up, we use different approaches, etc.

Sometimes that helps. But we’re still at the level of attention. It’s really not until we step back and go upward to the higher levels of awareness, that we can activate a person’s intentions. Here we connect the primary attentions with higher level reasons, understandings, values, identities, etc. Then, when we have a big enough “Why” or “How this is important to me,” we will find our attentions quite willing to do serve for our intentions.

In this, it is never a question whether a person has enough or sufficient attentions, it’s always a question of having sufficient and powerful enough intentions. When Bob Bodenhamer works with ADD children, he frequently asks,

“What are you attending that your teacher or parent doesn’t want you attending?”

He knows that mind is forever attending something. What we attend, well, that’s another question. The ability to become riveted to a TV show, movie, video-game, cards, book, drawing, love making, climbing a mountain, etc. comes with being a human being. Riveted R Us. Csikszentmihalyi studies in Flow as The Psychology of Optimal Experience show that we have the ability to enter into a focused flow state with a very wide range of things from walking, gardening, running, meditating, to vertical wall climbing, intense research, to even the mundane things: washing dishes, doing chores, etc.

Getting lost in something that elicits focus states, concentration, perseverance, passion, etc., primarily involves our neuro-semantics-higher level reasons and meanings.

Mastering the Deficiency in ADD

All of this describes the first step in the process of mastering ADD. First we need to go after intention. We need to develop it, expand it, enrich it. We need to get it to become strong and intense and powerful.

We then need to meta-detail that intention into many specific attentions that will translate the intention into real-life and real-time experiences. Meta-detailing combines global thinking with specific thinking, it creates a unity and integration of moving up the levels of abstraction that occurs when we generalize and moving down the levels when we precisely specify something. To meta-detail, move up or down until you find a specific larger level frame of mind that’s critically important to you… then detail it out into tomorrow’s life.

With this in mind (the meta-level principle), how will you act tomorrow? What one thing will you do? What will you say? How will you say it?

Meta-Detailing also helps us to add specific attention aligning behaviors to our repertoire of activities. With it we can look around our room to check the environment in which we read or study and check it out in terms of supporting our attentions. A great study environment reduces the distractions and outside noise. It assists us in focusing. It helps us relax. It allows “the world to go away” while we get lost in the study. Via meta-detailing, we can chunk down from feeling overwhelmed by information coming at us too hard and fast. We can chunk down to learning in steps and stages, taking on one thing at a time knowing and believing that “given some time and exposure, we will learn it.

This illustrates the importance of treating ourselves and the learning/ misunderstanding/ correcting/ refining process in a kind and gentle way. Stress, pressure, and tension undermines effective learning. It de-accelerates the learning, sometimes even bringing it to a stand-still. By adopting a relaxed and yet alert state of interest and fascination we set the kind of frames wherein we feel safe to experiment, explore, learn from mistakes, etc.

We can further master ADD by setting the kind of meta-frames or meta-states that support the experience of accelerated learning.

“I can learn anything I set my mind to.”

“Learning is a fun and playful way of encountering the world.”

“The more I learn and become skilled in running my own brain, the more I accelerate my powers for learning.”

Summary

Forget any so-called Attention deficit and focus instead on Intension deficit disordering. The over-prescribed condition of ADD and ADHD serves as an excuse for far too many people and a belief that sabotages their own personal genius. It takes a set of very special conditions in order to create the ADD. Knowing that structure now enables us to play with it and mess it up. It gives us the ability also to leverage the system at just the right places so that all of the mental and emotional energy wasted in worry about our labels can now be re-directed into new and more exciting focuses.

References:

Blackerby, Don A. (1996). Rediscover the joy of learning. Okla. City: Success Skills, Inc.
Dilts, Robert B.; Epstein, Tood A. (1995). Dynamic learning. CA: Meta Publications.
Hall, L. Michael. (1997). Secrets of Magic. Wales, UK: Crown House Publications.
Hall, L. Michael; Bodenhamer, Bob. (1999). The structure of excellence: Unmasking the meta-levels of submodalities. Grand Jct. CO: NS Publications.
Hall. L. Michael (2000). Meta-States: Managing the higher levels of your mind. Grand Jct. CO: Neuro-Semantics Publications.
Hall, L. Michael. (2000). Secrets of personal mastery: Advanced techniques for accessing your higher levels of consciousness. Wales, UK: Crown House Publications.

Author:

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., cognitive psychologist, international NLP trainer, entrepreneur; prolific author and international training; developer of Meta-States and co-developer of Neuro-Semantics. (P.O. Box 9231; 81501). (970) 523_7877. www.neurosemantics.com

The Power of Choice

Taken from: Meta Reflections 2012 #22 by L. Michael Hall, April 16, 2012

Empowerment Series #9, www.neurosemantics.com

From the four fundamental powers of your personality and your power of response-ability arises another power—your power of choice. You can choose. And choose you do. Consciously or consciously, intentionally or by default, you choose. In fact, you make lots of choices. You may love this power or hate it; you may delight in it or seek to avoid it. Yet this power is yours and if you handle it aright, you will be more fully able to take charge of your life and be the architect of your future.

 Some years ago I began using the term choice point as I worked with people, I might say: “You are now at choice point about what you want to do, so what will it be?” Later when I found this phrase several times in Maslow’s writings, I began to realize just how powerful the phrase is. And especially the impact it has when it is brought to a person’s attention — You are now at choice point. In terms of the Crucible, this is right in the middle of the heat of a fierce conversation (The Crucible, 2009).

 What is the power of choice? How can you more fully experience this power in your life? The power of choice begins with your four fundamental powers of personality because you have the power to choose what to think, believe, remember, imagine, etc. And when you make those choices, you are exercising the power to choose the emotions that you want to give yourself to. Your power of choice includes the words that you choose to use and the behaviors you choose to engage in.

So how is it then that so many people talk and act and feel and think that they have no choice? “I have to do this or that, I have no choice.” And yet they do have choice! Just because there may be a consequence to a certain way of thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting doesn’t mean that you have no choice. It means that you are choosing to not even consider that alternative. Sure you can stand up to your boss who may be doing something unethical or illegal.

“But then I may get fired.”

“Yes, that may be the price you would pay for the courage to speak up. So what is your choice? What will you do?”

 Where there is a form of helplessness, hopelessness, or playing the victim, there is a human being choosing these responses. And that human being is more than likely also choosing to not know that he is so choosing. By keeping oneself blind and unaware, the choice seems to belong to others, to the world, to the markets, to external influences and forces. I heard it the other day when during a conversation someone responded to an idea I suggested by saying:

“I could never imagine even thinking of doing that! I’m just not the kind of person who could ever go there.”

“So you are choosing to not make an movie in your mind about doing that, is that what you are saying?”

“Well, no, not really. You see I can’t imagine it. I’m not that kind of person.”

“So that’s your choice. Hmmmm. So you are choosing not to imagine it and you are choosing to not identify yourself in a new way so that you become the kind of person who would do it.”

“It’s not about choice, it’s about inability.”

“So you are choosing to frame it as inability rather than choice. ... [pause] ... It’s okay. It’s your life and you can do whatever you want ...”

“But you don’t understand, I can’t even imagine being that way...”

“That’s a good one. I had not thought about that choice— to choose to be a different kind of human being, one that eliminates that choice! So your choice is to think of yourself and define yourself as a choice-less human being. Hmmmmm. Very interesting.”

I’d like to report that there was an immediate Eureka! movement, that the heavens opened, that the blinders fell of his eyes, that he suddenly claimed his power of choice ... but alas, it did not happen that way. My guess is that there were too many vested interests, but the person is a friend and what he reported was that he didn’t sleep very well that evening and that I “had bothered him with that disturbing conversation.” I smiled and said, “Yes, I’m so very powerful I can control your sleeping!” He smiled and said that yes, he knows that is one of his powers. Ah, he was beginning to move to choice point!

The power of choice is the power to decide about direction— what direction do you want to go in? What direction would you like to send your brain? What would you like to believe? What frame of mind would you like to live from? What kind of language would you like to use in framing problems, solutions, innovations, etc.?

The power of choice also is the very power by which you truly become the author of your life and of course, as you become the author of your life, you develop your own internal authority. You are the one in charge of writing the script and carrying out the story. You are the author. So what script are you writing and delivering?

Here’s to your power of choice! Make it a good one.

To learn more about how to develop your power of choice click on this link NOW!

Creating NLP Magic! Making the Invisible Visible, Seeing the Structure and Enriching the Map

Creating NLP Magic, Seeing the Structure and Enriching the Map
Snapshot of a presentation at the ICF South Australia, NLP Special Interest Group

What is the difference that makes the masters of NLP use their craft artfully, seamless with ease and create MAGIC? They see structure. The structure of the map of the human experience!

Often the novice and even some more experienced practitioners get lost in the techniques of NLP. NLP is much more than just a bunch of techniques. At the core, NLP is a modelling and communication model. The key question here is “How does something work?” The secret to how something works lies in the structure of how a person has mapped and organised their inner experience about their outer world. This shows up in the way they think, feel, speak and behave.

Learn to see and play with this structure, perform MAGIC! Being able to pay attention to the infra-structure of the mind-body-emotion system - how it is organised, how it inter-relates, its dynamic and energy flow and where the NLP domains live and interact - will allow you to see a person's inner landscape. This will make it much easier for you to determine what questions to ask and what NLP patterns and techniques to apply that helps them to enrich that landscape. And more importantly help your clients’ live a richer life and perform at their fullest potential.

Creating NLP Magic! Making the Invisible Visible, Seeing the Structure and Enriching the Map

ICF SA NLP Special Interest Group
6.45pm to 9pm Monday, 2 April 2012
“The Upstairs Room” Wakefield Hotel, 76 Wakefield Street, Adelaide, South Australia
Fee $10, RSVP to president.sa@icfaustralasia.com by Friday March 30

Interactive Session facilitated by Mike Schwarzer, Neuro-Semantic NLP Trainer

What is the difference that makes the masters of NLP use their craft artfully, seamless with ease and create MAGIC? They see structure. The structure of the map of the human experience!

Often the novice and even some more experienced practitioners get lost in the techniques of NLP. NLP is much more than just a bunch of techniques. At the core, NLP is a modelling and communication model. The key question here is “How does something work?” The secret to how something works lies in the structure of how a person has mapped and organised their inner experience about their outer world. This shows up in the way they think, feel, speak and behave.

Learn to see and play with this structure, perform MAGIC! Being able to pay attention to the infra-structure of the mind-body-emotion system - how it is organised, how it inter-relates, its dynamic and energy flow and where the NLP domains live and interact - will allow you to see a person's inner landscape. This will make it much easier for you to determine what questions to ask and what NLP patterns and techniques to apply that helps them to enrich that landscape. And more importantly help your clients’ live a richer life and perform at their fullest potential.

Come along on the journey to the core of NLP. This session is highly interactive. Expect to participate and have fun learning and developing your NLP skills. If you are a seasoned pro at NLP or an absolute beginner this session caters for all. All you need to bring is an open mind and lots of playfulness, curiosity and glorious fallibility.

In this session we will explore:

• The dimensions and domains that make up the structure
• Your state to elicit and to see the structure
• How to play with the structure and enrich the map
  

About Mike Schwarzer

Mike is a Performance Strategist & Modeler and an Internationally Certified Trainer in Neuro- Semantics and NLP with the International Society of Neuro-Sematics ISNS. The ISNS is a global NLP community, operating in over 40 countries, dedicated to helping people actualise excellence by transforming Meaning into Performance. He is also a leadership team member of the Institute of Neuro-Semantics Australia the Australian branch of ISNS. An experienced facilitator and coach, with an ability to connect and align people and organisations, he helps them to fine tune their performance wizardry to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to go!

For more information about Mike visit http://www.mikeschwarzer.com/
and http://www.thoughtleadingpeople.com.au/.

Why bringing out the best in people makes your undesired problems go away and your customers jump for joy?

Food for Thought from Mike Schwarzer’ Perls of Wisdom, March 2012

Let’s begin at the end. What is the core purpose of your business or organisation? Helping someone else solve their problems, the problems they can’t or don’t want to solve themselves, right? Generally this someone you may know as a customer or client. Do you agree on this so far? Great! If not, that might ‘cause’ a problem … for you, your hip pocket and most likely for your sleeping patterns, but that’s another story and another problem to be solved.

Problems come in all sizes, shapes and forms. Some are simple and many are complex and require out of the box thinking. Helping your clients solve their problems makes you what? It makes you INDISPENSABLE … to Them! And that generally means return business, referral business and more money in the kitty! Not to forget the reputation that your business reflects that sets itself apart from the other players in your industry.

Here is the problem!

Many organisations are selling themselves short in operating at their full potential. And why is that you ask? Because they are trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s thinking. Top down and linear (Newtonian style). They talk about the importance of staff engagement, yet the way they interact encourages to disengage, to switch off and to simply not care. They are stuck in the status quo and mechanical thinking and acting.

How to take the problem out of the problem?

To help your clients solve their problems in today’s world, you need what? A workforce that is capable and focused on solving problems. Problem solving in today’s world, one that is complex, ambiguous and interconnected requires collaboration, curiosity and mental & behavioural flexibility. It requires ‘Environments where Engagement and COLLECTIVE Learning can occur’. Where people … see meaningfulness in their work, have a voice, interact with each other from a place of learning, have engaging conversations, ask great questions, explore together, express their ideas, share knowledge, etc. It will provide your organisation with a greater flexibility and capacity to respond to changing environments, perform in and through challenging conditions, generate new ideas and innovate, and thrive on solving your customers’ problems, And how is that important? Well, think about it … the rest of the world and your competition don’t sleep nor do they stand still ... Do they?

Yeah, yeah, yeah … I hear you saying, we’ve heard it all before! Well, I hope you have. The question is … what have you or what are you actually doing about it? I know, talk is cheap … action speaks louder than words. Many organisations live in ‘talk’-land and not in ‘do’-land. Why is that? Because they don’t actually know ‘how to’ move from ‘thinking’ engagement to ‘doing’ engagement. Because they are missing the wherewithal, the ability to create and take a thought or a matrix of thoughts, a mental model, and manifest that thought matrix into the neurological fabric, the body, of a person and the organisation where it shows up in a natural way of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting.

Where from here?

Where do you start developing this capability and creating environments where engagement and collective learning can occur?

Make a decision!

It all starts with the intention and a commitment to achieving it. If you are serious about creating an environment where your people thrive on collective learning, being creative and solving your customer’s problems than simply make a decision and start walking the talk!

1. Show up in the world in the way you want it to be!
As Ghandi said, “Become the change you want to see!” You mental state is crucial. Your mental state is actually a mind-body-emotion state. Those three can’t be separated, we are beings that can create thoughts and meanings, generate emotions and experience those thoughts and emotions through our body. Our states generate a dynamic energy around you, an energy that can attract or detract. I see many people underestimate the quality of their states. It can open your mind to enormous possibilities and make people swarm to you like bees to honey or work against you, blind you and make people avoid you like the plague! Become the master of your state and not let the state be the master of you!

2. See the world through multiple lenses
The world doesn’t just revolve around you! It also revolves around other people, your organisation and your marketplace. Poor communicators can have a limited perspective and only view the world through their own eyes. Skilful influencers have a fine-tuned perceptual & situational awareness of their surroundings and can see and experience the world through multiple lenses. Through that awareness they can assess situations and gain greater insights on those situations, the people involved, the dynamics of the relationships between those people, the implications of those relationships, and then make better informed decisions based on those insights and position their language to that of the people they interacting with.

3. Meet and connect with others in THEIR world!
Rapport, Rapport and Rapport! There is no resistance only lack of rapport. Rapport is crucial for any engagement and influence to occur. Rapport is not necessarily about liking each other rather than being receptive to each other what we have to say. To build rapport, you want to meet and connect with others in their world, their map. Rapport can be established at multiple levels
and is facilitated by reflecting others’ physiology, holding their energy, speaking their language, supporting and valuing their views, values and beliefs, and speaking from their perceptual position (i.e. self, others, environment, etc). By the way, rapport begins with YOU! To be in rapport with someone else, you want to be in rapport with yourself first. That means showing up in a state and energy that is conducive to creating an environment that others want to be part of.

How do you develop those skills?

These are skills that can’t be learned intellectually. They have to be practiced and honed to be mastered. They are honed by ‘applying these skills to self’. To make a state a state it has to be experienced in the body so it becomes a flow state one that you are fully engaged in. To see a situation from another person's point of view through their eyes it has to be experienced not just thought through. When building rapport you have to experience the connection and notice the difference that makes the difference, in yourself and in the other person. And then you keep refining these skills so they become part of your fabric and daily beingness in the world.

Start practicing these skills and mindset, pass it on to your people and see the energy and dynamic in your organisation transform where undesired problems go away and your customer jump with joy!

Want to learn more about how to develop these skills and bring out the best in people then click on this link!

People come into your life for a reason