Reason number one why the UNESCO considers a construction to be part of the world heritage is that it represents a masterpiece of human creative genius. Why are they just built in the past and not today? Why is disengagement rampant today? Why do we have a financial crisis? Because we don't pay attention! We act without any intention. We go to the office to warm the sit and countdown the minutes to Friday. We sit in boring meetings and we make them even more meaningless by discussing means without any clarity or agreement on the ends. Why do we have that meeting? Why do we have that project? Why do we need that business trip? Even that customer? Is that a proof of human creative genius?
During the middle ages in Europe, people spent their entire lives devoted to build cathedrals. It was a communitarian endeavor with the full commitment of each one of the participants. At that time the concept of the "disengaged employee" was unexistent. They did not carry stones or painted glass or shaped wood. They were building a Cathedral! There is an immense difference between isolated activities without purpose and concentrated purposeful action. The big difference is the combination of attention and intention.
Nowadays we miss them both: attention and intention. Many times we "think" that being free of attention and intention means relaxing. We sit in front of the TV set and zap channels for hours. What are we doing? Relaxing? Wasting our human creative genius potential! That is what we are doing!
When we pay attention with an intention, wonders happen with the added bonus of tremendous joy. When "simple" tasks are given meaning and purpose, they are transformed. When you clean the kitchen with the intention of building a good family life, a memorable childhood for your children, you are no longer cleaning the kitchen. You are carrying culture forward, you are building a family: you are changing the world. When you challenge one of your subordinates to perform closer to his capability, you are not being unkind or bossy. You are stimulating human growth: you are changing the world.
Attention without intention doesn't work. Intention without attention doesn't work. They need each other. Without a vision your efforts would be fruitless. You need an intention! On the other hand, remember that hell is paved with good intentions. Having good ideas is not enough. You need to take action, even more perfect action: action with attention and intention. That way you will liberate your inner human creative genius and get the great bonus of joy and satisfaction.
When we connect action to our reason of existence, when we connect action with our childhood dream, when we take action looking for something greater than ourselves; we no longer simply do, we create. Creating is a divine act. No matter what your believe system is, creation is something that connects us with something more powerful than ourselves, that connect us with each other, that connect us with who we really are.
Liberate your human creative genius!
Monday, 13 July 2009
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Women are the solution to the recession
The global financial crisis was generated grid and fear. Women can heal the corporation and the whole financial system with honesty and courage.
Our fear is based on the perception of being independent, having the need to have more and being afraid of the enemy. We are afraid of the boss, of the neighbors, of our partner and most importantly, of ourselves. We are prisoners of this nightmare fear cloud. Fear does not allow us to cooperate, as in fear it is not possible to trust the other. In fact, fear also drives us to dishonesty and fraud. Have you noticed how people lie to meet the target? And how this is an “undiscussable”? In this fear framework, all outcomes tend to end in lose-lose outcomes. Does Enron ring a bell? Lehman Brothers maybe?
In the current context our identity is defined by what we have and what we do. We are our cars, houses, titles, professions, spouses…. No wonder why we buy, buy, buy… No wonder why we work, work, work… No matter why we marry, divorce, marry, divorce, marry, divorce…. We derive our worth as individuals from what we have and what we do. In this context, it is not enough just to be. Grid is the name of the game. In this context, being is not satisfactory. No wonder the high number of suicides around the financial crisis: people who lost their job, their title, their (company) car, feel that they have lost themselves. They lost the reason to live. They lost themselves.
Fortune 500 companies
with 3 or more women on the Board
gain a significant performance
advantage over those with the fewest
+ 73% return on sales
+ 83% return on equity
+ 112% return on invested capital
Catalyst
The leadership challenges of this historical moment are paramount and can be better met by women. The best leaders to guide us out of this crisis are women. The age of disregarding female perspectives and feminine success attributes needs to be over. The age of promoting/hiring women because it is politically correct needs to be over. The age of promoting/hiring women through quotas needs to be over.
We need to understand that there is a strong business case behind it. It is a win-win-win deal! The woman benefits, the company benefits, the community benefits, the staff benefits, the customers benefit and yes indeed men benefit as well. Study after study, it has been demonstrated the clear correlation between women in the corporate world and corporate performance: financial performance, corporate governance, staff retention etc. What is the cause of this overwhelming reality? The leadership challenges of this historical moment can be better met by women.
Women’s aspirations are one of the core answers why they are the solution to the crisis and the best leaders of this age. According to the Women on the Verge of the 21st Century, white paper from Grey Advertising, the women aspirations that received an importance higher the 80% are
• Make the world a better place
• See kids become really successful
• Having enough time to do what I want
Women’s aspirations are reflected in their behavior. This way it is very easy to understand their business choices, particularly when they contradict the old power based paradigms. This way it is very easy to understand why a woman would more easily turn down an unethical contract, even if it generates short term profit. Interestingly enough, there are more and more men who are also choosing for these “feminine” aspirations.
The behavior and views of women defer from those of men. Understanding the main differences can help us to appreciate how women do business, how women lead. Table 1. Gender preferences, reminds us that empathy, creativity, intuition, connectedness, meaning and play are very strong in women. It reminds us that women are best suited to deal with living systems. A corporation is a living system. Our financial system is a living system.
Women can become powerful in business (and everywhere actually!) when they learn to appreciate and embrace these innate characteristics that for a long time have not been regarded as world changing. Women need to wake up to the fact that these characteristics are necessary for humanity at this point in history. Building community, carrying culture, healing relationships are by no means unimportant. They are crucial and indeed what we need now the most.
It is easy to blame men for many things: from not helping with the children to the financial collapse. Blaming is not going to take us anywhere. Now women have to take on the challenge and step in the leadership shoes.
Leave your comfort zone to become a “She-Leader”!
The global financial crisis was generated grid and fear. Women can heal the corporation and the whole financial system with honesty and courage.
Our fear is based on the perception of being independent, having the need to have more and being afraid of the enemy. We are afraid of the boss, of the neighbors, of our partner and most importantly, of ourselves. We are prisoners of this nightmare fear cloud. Fear does not allow us to cooperate, as in fear it is not possible to trust the other. In fact, fear also drives us to dishonesty and fraud. Have you noticed how people lie to meet the target? And how this is an “undiscussable”? In this fear framework, all outcomes tend to end in lose-lose outcomes. Does Enron ring a bell? Lehman Brothers maybe?
In the current context our identity is defined by what we have and what we do. We are our cars, houses, titles, professions, spouses…. No wonder why we buy, buy, buy… No wonder why we work, work, work… No matter why we marry, divorce, marry, divorce, marry, divorce…. We derive our worth as individuals from what we have and what we do. In this context, it is not enough just to be. Grid is the name of the game. In this context, being is not satisfactory. No wonder the high number of suicides around the financial crisis: people who lost their job, their title, their (company) car, feel that they have lost themselves. They lost the reason to live. They lost themselves.
Fortune 500 companies
with 3 or more women on the Board
gain a significant performance
advantage over those with the fewest
+ 73% return on sales
+ 83% return on equity
+ 112% return on invested capital
Catalyst
The leadership challenges of this historical moment are paramount and can be better met by women. The best leaders to guide us out of this crisis are women. The age of disregarding female perspectives and feminine success attributes needs to be over. The age of promoting/hiring women because it is politically correct needs to be over. The age of promoting/hiring women through quotas needs to be over.
We need to understand that there is a strong business case behind it. It is a win-win-win deal! The woman benefits, the company benefits, the community benefits, the staff benefits, the customers benefit and yes indeed men benefit as well. Study after study, it has been demonstrated the clear correlation between women in the corporate world and corporate performance: financial performance, corporate governance, staff retention etc. What is the cause of this overwhelming reality? The leadership challenges of this historical moment can be better met by women.
Women’s aspirations are one of the core answers why they are the solution to the crisis and the best leaders of this age. According to the Women on the Verge of the 21st Century, white paper from Grey Advertising, the women aspirations that received an importance higher the 80% are
• Make the world a better place
• See kids become really successful
• Having enough time to do what I want
Women’s aspirations are reflected in their behavior. This way it is very easy to understand their business choices, particularly when they contradict the old power based paradigms. This way it is very easy to understand why a woman would more easily turn down an unethical contract, even if it generates short term profit. Interestingly enough, there are more and more men who are also choosing for these “feminine” aspirations.
The behavior and views of women defer from those of men. Understanding the main differences can help us to appreciate how women do business, how women lead. Table 1. Gender preferences, reminds us that empathy, creativity, intuition, connectedness, meaning and play are very strong in women. It reminds us that women are best suited to deal with living systems. A corporation is a living system. Our financial system is a living system.
Table 1. Gender preferences[1]
| He | She |
| People +things + theorems | People first, last and always |
| Soloist | Ensemble player |
| The top: May the best win | The collective: The more the merrier |
| Pyramid | Peer group |
| On-off | Details, details, details |
| First workable answer | The perfect answer |
| Key points | Full context |
| Establish status | Build connections |
| Connect through competition - Rank | Connect through affinity –Link |
| Facts and features | Stories and personal details |
| Linear thinking | Network thinking |
| One thing at a time | Multitasking |
| Facts and features | Appreciate and use intuition |
| Orientation to power | Orientation to empowerment |
Women can become powerful in business (and everywhere actually!) when they learn to appreciate and embrace these innate characteristics that for a long time have not been regarded as world changing. Women need to wake up to the fact that these characteristics are necessary for humanity at this point in history. Building community, carrying culture, healing relationships are by no means unimportant. They are crucial and indeed what we need now the most.
It is easy to blame men for many things: from not helping with the children to the financial collapse. Blaming is not going to take us anywhere. Now women have to take on the challenge and step in the leadership shoes.
Leave your comfort zone to become a “She-Leader”!
Friday, 13 March 2009
| Beyond the Financial Crisis Wake up your inner hero |
| September 2008, Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt. That headline called my attention. The Financial crisis really kicked in. Many headlines have been accumulating since then. Governments have fallen, resigned, tremendous financial loses, suicides, It's a tremendous event. Maybe the financial crisis has also arrived to your life. Maybe the rumors of layoff have started to circulate in the he halls ways of your office. Maybe the rumors have become reality and you have suddenly become unemployed. Many people coincide that this financial crisis is unprecedented. For moments like this we need heroes. Heroes just exactly like you imagine. Those ones in the fairy tales, or maybe those ones in the comics. Yes, heroes, heroes that give us hope. There is a hero sleeping inside each one of us and crises just like this one are built for that, for waking them up. This global financial crisis has the added benefit to wake up all our heroes. Many of us when we think of this tremendously big event financial crises feel helpless. We feel that nothing we do, nothing we could say could change anything. This is a great delusion. The believe that our actions, our words, our dreams don't have power to change the universe is a great delusion. The true reality is that we, each one of us, are the actor of history. Right now! As you dream, as you think, as you ask, as you do, you are waking up your hero, you are waking up our heroes, you are making the impossible, possible. Imagine that each one of us will actually deeply connect with his or her inner power. This global financial crisis demands from us to act in a different way, demands from us to think in a different way, demands from us to ask different questions demands from us to wake up to new possibilities. This is the way I see our heroic nature: to have the courage to ask questions that were unspeakable; to come up with proposals that were unbelievable and finally to act in ways that would transform the world. |
Friday, 6 March 2009
Build the life you want to live
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately
at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. Abraham Maslow
Every day we write the story we want to be the main character in. Every day we do something that builds, invents, and confirms our identity. Everyday we have the opportunity to start fresh and every second we have a brand new chance to create who we are. That is certainly not very clear to us all the time. We hurry from one meeting to the other, we check our blackberries, we answer phone calls, take the children to school, organise our homes. We rush, rush and rush! Without a chance to make sense of what is happening. One fine morning we wake up and ask ourselves: “Who is this person looking at me in that mirror?”
Let’s make today a special day! Let’s make today a brand new beginning! Let’s start fresh today! Why wait? Let’s start today!
1. WRITE YOUR OWN EULOGY
Eulogies are speeches of praise of a person. However we don’t need to wait for any special occasion. We don’t need to wait for someone else to write it for us after we pass away. We can write a letter of appreciation to ourselves: list our blessings, our talents, our strengths, our love for people…. Seeing life through these lense will allow you to be more appreciative of what you have at this moment and what you want more off. This will allow you perspective to take decisions with the end in mind: my perfect life! Then you will not be overwhelmed by the day to day hurry. Take your time and appreciate what is NOW, right NOW!
Our identity is show by our choices: by the books we don’t read, by the things we don’t do,
by the people we are no longer with. Blanca Vergara
2. WRITE YOUR “NOT-TO-DO LIST”
If you are starting a new self, you better travel light. Make a spring cleaning of your life. Take a white piece of paper and list the “things” you no longer want in your life: the people you don’t want to be with, the projects you do not want to finish, the customers that are more annoying than productive, the clothes you don’t want to wear anymore, the food you don’t want to eat anymore… Once you list them, you will start acting accordingly, they will vanish and you will see how life opens for new people, new projects, new clothes, new dreams…
3. DO SOMETHING NEW
Do something that you've never done before. Go see a play, or a hockey game, or walk through your local museum. Draw the trees of your local park, walk around a neighbourhood you’ve never been or cook/bake something you never thought you'd be able to. If it's fresh and new to you... give it a go!
4. DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU
If every day, during the coming year, you confront one of your fears: cycling in Amsterdam; public speaking; cutting your hair; writing; painting; quitting that unfulfilling job / relationship; then you will become a stronger person capable of anything - capable of becoming who you are.
5. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF
Did you make a mistake? Forgive yourself and have a laugh! Biting yourself down for an error will not solve it and will not allow you to see further. Making mistakes is the best way of discovering how something does not work. It is a process of learning and growing. Long live mistakes! Bounce back and try again!
6. MAKE A PLAN
Nothing is quite as comforting as having a plan for the coming season. It is like having a map of the future, of your own future. It is like inventing the future. It gives you something to shoot for and gives you direction. Spend some time thinking about what you'd like to accomplish in the next 3 months, and then develop an outline of how you'll make that plan a reality. Be bold!
7. DO A "TO DO"
Small steps bring you to where you want to go. Take ONE small step towards your goals, towards your future. Take a look at your current "to do" list and pick one project (just ONE) and GET IT DONE! Big or small, it doesn't matter! I promise you when you’ll be in bed tonight, you’ll have a very good feeling about yourself. You will be proud of that ONE accomplishment.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately
at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. Abraham Maslow
Every day we write the story we want to be the main character in. Every day we do something that builds, invents, and confirms our identity. Everyday we have the opportunity to start fresh and every second we have a brand new chance to create who we are. That is certainly not very clear to us all the time. We hurry from one meeting to the other, we check our blackberries, we answer phone calls, take the children to school, organise our homes. We rush, rush and rush! Without a chance to make sense of what is happening. One fine morning we wake up and ask ourselves: “Who is this person looking at me in that mirror?”
Let’s make today a special day! Let’s make today a brand new beginning! Let’s start fresh today! Why wait? Let’s start today!
1. WRITE YOUR OWN EULOGY
Eulogies are speeches of praise of a person. However we don’t need to wait for any special occasion. We don’t need to wait for someone else to write it for us after we pass away. We can write a letter of appreciation to ourselves: list our blessings, our talents, our strengths, our love for people…. Seeing life through these lense will allow you to be more appreciative of what you have at this moment and what you want more off. This will allow you perspective to take decisions with the end in mind: my perfect life! Then you will not be overwhelmed by the day to day hurry. Take your time and appreciate what is NOW, right NOW!
Our identity is show by our choices: by the books we don’t read, by the things we don’t do,
by the people we are no longer with. Blanca Vergara
2. WRITE YOUR “NOT-TO-DO LIST”
If you are starting a new self, you better travel light. Make a spring cleaning of your life. Take a white piece of paper and list the “things” you no longer want in your life: the people you don’t want to be with, the projects you do not want to finish, the customers that are more annoying than productive, the clothes you don’t want to wear anymore, the food you don’t want to eat anymore… Once you list them, you will start acting accordingly, they will vanish and you will see how life opens for new people, new projects, new clothes, new dreams…
3. DO SOMETHING NEW
Do something that you've never done before. Go see a play, or a hockey game, or walk through your local museum. Draw the trees of your local park, walk around a neighbourhood you’ve never been or cook/bake something you never thought you'd be able to. If it's fresh and new to you... give it a go!
4. DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU
If every day, during the coming year, you confront one of your fears: cycling in Amsterdam; public speaking; cutting your hair; writing; painting; quitting that unfulfilling job / relationship; then you will become a stronger person capable of anything - capable of becoming who you are.
5. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF
Did you make a mistake? Forgive yourself and have a laugh! Biting yourself down for an error will not solve it and will not allow you to see further. Making mistakes is the best way of discovering how something does not work. It is a process of learning and growing. Long live mistakes! Bounce back and try again!
6. MAKE A PLAN
Nothing is quite as comforting as having a plan for the coming season. It is like having a map of the future, of your own future. It is like inventing the future. It gives you something to shoot for and gives you direction. Spend some time thinking about what you'd like to accomplish in the next 3 months, and then develop an outline of how you'll make that plan a reality. Be bold!
7. DO A "TO DO"
Small steps bring you to where you want to go. Take ONE small step towards your goals, towards your future. Take a look at your current "to do" list and pick one project (just ONE) and GET IT DONE! Big or small, it doesn't matter! I promise you when you’ll be in bed tonight, you’ll have a very good feeling about yourself. You will be proud of that ONE accomplishment.
Monday, 15 September 2008
Leadership evolution, the Age of Creativity
"Thank God it’s Friday" is the mantra of the disengaged workforce. Worldwide hordes of employees are unhappy in their jobs. According to Gallup (Gallup Poll, 2005) the annual financial loss in the
Research on the happiness in the workplace shows there is direct correlation between employees' happiness and the financial performance of the corporation. When the employee derives meaning out of her job, her happiness and performance rise.
Aligning the objectives and values of the employees with those of the company has alchemic effects: employee's productivity and overall well-being improves, as well as that of the corporation. Can your company jump start this virtuous cycle?
Age of Disengagement
Attracting and retaining talent is the common corporate challenge in the new millennium. Cyclical and structural factors are now aligned in a new and alarming way, creating clear conditions for a talent war:
· The first baby boomers are retiring and the working population is shrinking
· Productivity improvements are flattening out
· The big surge in workforce participation for women seems to be over. Indeed, for new mothers, workforce participation is actually going down
· Unemployment is very low
· Imported talent and outsourcing grows by the minute
Not surprisingly, employers are growing concerned about these increasing talent constraints. A talent war has been declared!
Without disregarding the profound negative impact of high staff turnover (recruitment cost, opportunity cost, brain drain, drop on productivity), there is another less obvious challenge to the talent war. It is not enough to only attract and retain talent, but also to retain engaged talent. When employees are actively or partially disengaged, their productivity drops and the whole culture around them becomes negative, preventing innovation and growth. The companies that find the means to engage the enthusiasm and professionalism of their people will undoubtedly supersede their competitors. That is their edge in the global economy. These companies recognize that talent is not only important, but is the key competitive advantage in today's marketplace.
Today's new breed of professionals has little to do with the previous one. New hires cannot be managed without understanding them first. They are highly educated, independent thinkers, with unlimited access to information across the world. They are extremely creative individuals, with less regard for authority and a powerful world-wide network. It is expected that people of this new generation will experience up to 7 career changes in their lifetime. To attract, retain, engage and develop this new breed of professionals will take many of us out our comfort zone.
The Gallup Management Journal conducted a study among US employees. They studied the perceptions of the effect that happiness and well-being had on job performance. According to James Clifton, CEO and chairman of Gallup Organization, in the
- Just 25% of all employees are actively engaged
- 55% are disengaged
- 20% of these are actively disengaged
Disengaged employees are not necessarily negative or positive about their employer. They are passive. They attend, they participate...they are passionless timekeepers. A new term has been coined to describe them: bored-out. They could be engaged, if their personal purpose were aligned with that of their employer.
The actively disengaged employees show their disagreement with their work, employer, colleagues, the entire world… They criticize, destroy and undermine the accomplishments of their engaged colleagues.
Engaged employees are builders. They want to build their careers and their company. They are aware of their talents and strengths and want to use them at work every day. They consistently perform at high levels. They work with passion, and they are emotionally connected with their employer: it is their company. They are creative and transformational.
Taking the
| In the second half of the 20th century a new society of individuals emerged—a breed of people unlike any the world has ever seen. Educated, informed, traveled, they work with their brains, not their bodies. They do not assume that their lives can be patterned after their parents' or grandparents'. Throughout human history, the problem of identity was settled in one way—I am my mother's daughter; I am my father's son. But in a discontinuous and irreversible break with the past, today's individuals seek the experiences and insights that enable them to find the elusive pattern in the stone, the singular pattern that is 'me.' " —Shoshana Zuboff & James Maxmin, The Support Economy |
Trends to explain the now and build tomorrow
The latest technological changes have brought dramatic transformation in the global economy, in our organizations and in our lives. Some years ago, companies used to portray the concept of globalization. Now, globalization is each one of us. The individual is the owner of his own brand, his own talent and the limit of his own imagination. To be a leader today is to lead free-agents, to lead CEOs of the Me. Inc. This is extremely challenging. It would be easier to herd cats!
The personal computer has allowed every soul on the planet to generate content in a digital format. Now we can express our creativity, knowledge and insight on a public platform. The web allows us to manipulate content like never before.
After Netscape IPO, the Internet exploded. With the massive investment in Internet companies around the turn of the millennium, the world became wired. The dotcom boom generated a massive fiber optic wiring of the world. The burst of the dotcom bubble did not kill the Internet; it created a new world, an interconnected world.
The last factor in the Internet evolution was telecommunication protocol and standards. They created the computers inter-operability that we now enjoy. The combined ability to generate and share digital content worldwide has changed everything: the way we do business, the way we learn/teach, the way we think, the way we live.
From download to upload
We used to be passive receivers of information. We were handed encyclopedias. Now, it is time to actively generate our content. We share our insights by writing, blogging and vlogging. Prime examples of this active behavior are Wikipedia, the encyclopedia of the world. People around the world are sharing their knowledge. Another example of this is YouTube. From ‘good old days' videos to political videos, from educational to humorous videos, we upload and share our interests. The foreign correspondent job is almost extinct. Now locals are uploading their view on current affairs on diverse websites, including BBC and CNN. We are now the content creators.
From command and control to full transparency
Uploading tremendous amounts of information has generated a transparency unimagined before. Take Google Earth as an example, now you can see your house and that of your friend in
From business rule to the world of the free agent
Before, companies sold a locally-manufactured product or service using a local workforce. Now, individuals can sell to anywhere in the world, a product/service produced from somewhere else, using a workforce composed of employees, outsourcers and clients. A Mexican housewife sells handicrafts that are made in
From money to trust, respect and admiration
We still use money, but we are seeing an increasing number of moneyless transactions. Some of these transactions are based on talent exchange. Some of them are facilitated by the Internet, with house-swapping and bartering of public speaking services in exchange for graphic design services.
Purposefully building the Age of Creativity
The world has changed around us. We were sleeping. We did not notice. We were busy with our to-do lists and reacting to the way things have always been. Now it is time to wake up to the reality that, in order to be a leader in the 21st century, we need to unlearn the behaviors and practices that used to be effective. The old systems for staff retention and growth no longer work; they no longer inspire talented people to put their creativity at the service of the corporation. These systems are not only useless, they are hazardous.
1. From top-down to organic / gain respect by giving it
Now the leader is not the almighty one. The leader is an inspiration, a context builder. The new leader knows that she cannot legislate a high-performing culture with just mission statements. She knows that engagement grows organically, one person, one team, at a time. The employee engagement strategy should be shared with other managers and leaders, enabling the level of engagement to grow in an organic manner.
The new leader is not an expert; she connects the dots for the experts. She puts together the expertise of her team to the service of her company, her customers and her entire network. Her team respects her, because she respects them. People recognize genuine respect; they cannot be tricked by a utilitarian pat on their shoulder. The new leader must authentically respect and admire her staff. She will do so because she's focused on their strengths. She sees the strengths of each one of the members of her team, of each one of the members of her network.
2. Focus: learn the art of selective action / Wow projects
Busyness is dangerous. Doing too many things has brought us stress, heart attacks, ulcers, divorces, suicides. A stressed leader is not inspirational, because she cannot listen. When a leader cannot listen, she cannot connect to the desires, ideas and intentions of others.
Busyness is useless. We don't need to do all that we think we need to do! Some actions don’t have to be taken. Some e-mails don't have to be read, let alone answered. Some meetings do not have to happen. Some projects should not happen. So many reorganizations have brought less and less efficiency, increased staff turnover and destroyed company's value. They can be a cumulative waste of time/life to all participants.
Busyness is laziness. We need to make a conscious effort to clean up our to-do list. We need to ask ourselves can that action could be eliminated completely…can it be outsourced, delegated, automated? Outsourcing stimulates the global economy and global entrepreneurship. Delegating develops skills by presenting challenges. Automating increases efficiency.
You are a leader. Your mission is to inspire, to motivate. It is time to develop beautiful systems, WOW projects, and meaningful products! In the new economy, success is about Inspiration! Creativity! Imagination! Beauty! Choose your projects carefully. Chose your actions carefully. Choose just one action per day that will support this objective. Make sure your do it and forget about time management.
4. Passion and talent-oriented
It is impossible to engage people with money, courses, corporate dinners, corporate parties; these ways are all rather cosmetic ways of trying to instill a deeper meaning. To really engage people, the leader has to understand what makes them tick. The leader must be very aware of the needs and capabilities of her team.
A disengaged employee is a liability for the company. Any investment in them is pure waste. To engage them is critical. The leader should strive to align the passion and talent of each individual to that of the company. Usually people are good at several things, they have several talents. However, they are only passionate about some of them. When talent and passion comes together, you have magic! When you can assign your team members to positions/roles where their talent and passion meet the job requirements, you will have full engagement, full commitment, innovation and creativity!
5. Mash expertise / bring something extra / weird is good
This age is not for experts. This age is for people who are able to connect the dots. Leonardo Da Vinci was actually built for today's environment. He is the perfect example of connecting the dots. He had many titles: painter, sculptor, musician and even scientist and engineer.
Unlikely combinations are the name of the game. Let's take Steve Jobs. After dropping out of college, he took calligraphy lessons. He loved the different fonts and appreciated the details – the small differences between each font and the beauty of the closeness between characters. Appling his previous knowledge of calligraphy to personal computing was what made Apple computers so successful.
To be a leader in this new age, we need to bring something extra. We need to nourish our imagination through art and creativity. We need to add value by mashing unlikely specialties.
6. Learn how to learn, teach how to learn
All the changes that we have been experiencing in the past 100 years are nothing in comparison to what we will be experiencing in the coming 100 years. The speed of change will only accelerate. We can no longer stick to our old knowledge, our old patterns, and our old paradigms. We need to continuously update our knowledge and our behaviors. Learning is the solution. We need to learn to observe and connect the dots, without outside input. We need to learn to think for ourselves and not be overwhelmed with the massive amount of data we have at our disposal. The only way to deal with this is to learn how to learn.
7. Be a good collaborator
The transactions of the future will rely less and less on money. We will buy and sell trust. We will buy and sell admiration. The only way to survive in that environment is to learn how to collaborate, to share, to connect with others. Join a non-profit organization or a club. If there isn’t an organization that you would like to join, create one! A simple cooking club can teach you the recipe on how to collaborate. This is a network economy; you need to be connected, both locally and globally.
8. Develop the art of selective hearing
In today's world there is a tremendous amount of data available. It is not easy to distinguish between information and white noise. A new leader must be able to identify the difference between the two. Fasting from the TV, newspaper, radio and e-mail are my favorite recommendations for distancing ourselves from white noise before we select what we want to pay attention to. The ability to focus our attention is liberating and inspiring and is an extremely useful quality in today's leaders.
The world of business is rapidly evolving and we have to pick up our pace in order to stay ahead. Our willingness to disregard the ways of old, to adapt to the new and to offer creative solutions for the future are what make us valuable leaders to our company and our team.
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