Have you ever experienced in a meeting where a seasoned leader listened intently and then, with exquisite timing, asked one question that shifted the direction, focus and thinking of the entire team?

That is the magic and power of questions!

To move the needle in your organization in 2016, the first place to start is by asking thought-provoking questions.   The 7 questions below are by no means exhaustive. They serve as a starting point to stimulate your own questions.

These (or comparable) questions can make the difference between a successful 2016 and a disappointing one.

Let’s dig in!

7 Leadership Questions That Will Move The Needle in 2016

QUESTION 1: What is your BHAG?

BHAG stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal, a concept introduced by Jim Collins in his book, “Built to Last.” It is one of the characteristics that distinguishes great companies from mediocre ones.

The best definition that I seen is that a BHAG is a statement of strategic intent. A bigger, bolder, more powerful outcome than goals with a target timeframe of 10 – 30 years from now. It’s your ambitious Mount Everest that you want to climb.

Example …

Starbuck’s BHAG is to overtake Coke as the world’s leading brand.

While asking yourself the question … What is our BHAG? … may sound simple, it’s not always easy to answer.

To learn how to develop and test your BHAG, refer to Collin’s book, Built to Last.

QUESTION 2: For what purpose ….?

When I work with leaders, one of the first things I want to know is the underlying motivation for a particular goal, decision, behavior or even emotion.

This question can help uncover those motivations in 3 powerful ways:

• It forces you to chunk up, get out of the weeds and see your situation with a wider lens from a higher elevation.
• It can uncover your unconscious beliefs about cause and effect relationships which may or may not be true.
• It can uncover whether the underlying reasons for your goals/decisions are for healthy or unhealthy reasons.

With each 2016 goal, ask yourself … For what purpose do you want to achieve that goal?  With each response, ask … for what purpose? … again.   It will help shed light on the following.

• Are you choosing right goals for right reasons?
• If they are the right goals, are they for healthy or unhealthy reasons?
• Are there better goals for better reasons?

Oftentimes when companies decide on new goals, strategies or initiatives, they ASSUME they are the right ones. Challenge that with this question.

QUESTION 3: Is your ladder against the right wall?

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”      Stephen Covey

This is one of my favorite questions to ask at least once a year to make sure my goals, decisions and actions are always aligned with my greater purpose.

How do you know if your leadership ladder is against the right or wrong wall?

pixaby

Here’s some questions to ask:

• Do you wake up in the morning excited about your 2016 goals?

• Are your leadership and organizational goals primarily focused on moving up the ladder or do they also serve a greater good?

• What comes first when making leadership decisions – profits or purpose?

• What difference do you want to make in your role? Are you realizing that difference?

If you or your company are experiencing success without a sense of significance, it’s time to put your ladder against a different wall.

QUESTION 4: What’s at stake?

Defining your leadership or company goals is the easy part. Sustainable focus and drive to achieve them – no matter the challenges – is the hard part.

Goal success (or failure) depends predominantly on one thing:

Motivation

By continually asking the question — what’s at stake? – you will..

• Refuel your motivation when the going gets tough
• Create urgency for you and your employees
• Uncover what potentially can be at risk if you do achieve your goals

Below are specific variations of this powerful question to get you started.

What’s at stake …

• … to your company if you don’t achieve your goal this year?

• … to other stakeholders if you don’t achieve your goal?
  • Customers?
  • Employees?
  • Investors?
  • Yourself?
  • The world at large 

• … to your company culture/values if you do achieve your goal?
  • Will your culture possibly be compromised?
  • Will your goals compromise other company priorities?

QUESTION 5: Are you solving the right problem?

A problem well defined is half solved.        Charles Kettering

As a leader, you probably spend considerable time solving problems. Perhaps to the point where you get nothing else done.

Because leaders are action-oriented, the tendency is to jump right to a solution, ASSUMING you are solving the right problem. Yet doing so could cost your company significant resources, time and money. Plus you most likely have not solved the real problem.

I learned this invaluable lesson when I was an executive at US Sprint in the early 1980’s. The company was growing 200% for 5 consecutive years. I got a monthly report of all the key problem areas across the company.

One of the key metrics — # of customer complaints – was sharply increasing. The customer service department wanted to hire more customer service reps.

Yet after digging deeper and asking the question – what’s the real problem, it became clear that engineering’s challenge to install enough transmission capacity to meet the dramatic growth in demand was the real problem.

Next time a problem arises within your organization, take 5 minutes and ask …

Am I solving the right problem?

QUESTION 6: Is your timing correct?

Timing is EVERYTHING in business.

Timing can be the difference between success and failure. It can make or break a product launch, change initiative, new technology or even growing your company.

Yet, for even the best leaders, timing is often an afterthought.   I see it happen often.

Be honest with yourself. For this year’s projects, goals, decisions or initiatives, have you asked yourself … Is this the right timing?

• What will happen if you waited 6 months or a year?
• What opportunity will you miss if you don’t implement now?
• Might you be too early or too late?

If you want to learn more about how to discern right business timing, I recommend William Duggan’s book Strategic Intuition and Sun Tzu’s book, The Are of War. Both should be in every executive’s bookcase!

QUESTION 7: What are your blind spots? What are you missing?

Every one of us has blind spots. Our brains filter out over 99% of outside information because of its limited processing capacity. Such brain limitations create distortions in your thinking and perceptions.

At a leadership and company level, blind spots are costly and sometimes catastrophic. Even the best leaders are challenged by unconscious persistent blind spots.

Below are common blind spots from my work with leaders and organizations. Check how many of these blind spots are or could be true for you. Remember: You may have a blind spot about your blind spots :)).

Leadership (self) blind spots: beliefs and behaviors

• Not seeing your impact on others
• Unaware of your negative beliefs and how they are driving your decisions and behaviors
• Not learning from your past failures and recreating those mistakes over and over
• Assuming that your communications to another is interpreted as you intended

Team & organizational blind spots

• Believing your “once healthy” company culture is still healthy when in fact it is eroding as you scale
• Tolerating (and rationalizing away) mediocre or poor performance
• Avoiding conflicts and tough conversations
• Unconscious, unchallenged (and often erroneous) assumptions driving your goals and strategic plan
• Being overly optimistic

Environmental/external blind spots

• Missing emerging market trends and opportunities
• Assuming you know why your customers buy from you when they actually buy for different reasons
• Perceiving smaller competitors as a non-threat
• Not adjusting your company’s strategies to changing conditions in your industry or environment

BONUS QUESTION: What is YOUR overarching question for the new year?

Now it’s your turn.

What one question – if you asked daily — will help YOU move the needle in a key area within yourself and/or your organization?

For example, if you want to increase your personal productivity, perhaps the question is …

What do I need to stop doing?

Or if you want to increase company revenues, you may ask …

What values drive our customers’ buying decisions?

How can we craft our products/services to those values, thus creating repeat customers?

Questions are the ultimate leadership tool for moving the needle, regardless of the goal or challenge. Now it’s your turn to develop your own list of powerful questions.

Drop me an email if you have questions about how to develop powerful questions :)).

For other articles relating to the power of questions :

• The One Question Every Leader Needs to Ask
• 12 Strategic Thinking Questions That Yield Big Results

The post 7 Leadership Questions That Will Move Your Needle in 2016 appeared first on The Empowered Business.

The Secret Groundwork to an Extraordinary 2016

A new year is just around the corner.  Another year is about to end.

Be honest with yourself …

·      Are you feeling tired, stressed or depressed?

·      Are you feeling disconnected from what really matters to you?

·      Are you feeling like you have lost your way, not even realizing it?

In my experience, when December hits, many leaders are burned out and depleted.  They are running on empty.

And understandably so.  The demands on a leader’s energy and attention throughout the year are endless.   I’ve been there myself.  I know.

Since that time, I have learned to make December a transition month.  Not only to prepare for the new year.  Also to revitalize my spirit and reconnect to the fire within.

This article provides you with 3 critical leadership steps for transitioning from the end of this year to 2016.   Let’s first address what are transitions.

What Are Transitions?  Why Are They Important to Leadership Growth?

Think of a transition like the period at the end of sentence.  It’s a pause.  It ends one sentence and creates a bridge to the next sentence.

Transitions are a natural important part of leadership growth, whether you realize it or not.  Some are by choice.  Some come from natural endings – like the end of a year, the end of a project, etc.

The problem is that leaders are often such doers, high initiative individuals, that they ignore or avoid transition periods, even though they are essential to your next level of growth.

Leadership breakthroughs can only happen in the pauses.   In transition periods.

These periods …

·      Provide the needed space for defining new directions in your leadership role.

·      Can revitalize your spirit and leadership fire

·      Reground you to what really matters.

·      Clears out the internal/external clutter that holds you back

3 Steps for Preparing for an Extraordinary 2016

Step 1:  Closures, Completions and Letting Go

Imagine a blackboard cluttered everywhere with writing. Not only will it be impossible to decipher the contents.  There will be little room for anything new.

The same is true with yourself and your organization.   Many leaders start the new year with excessive “energetic clutter” that will hold them back, if not addressed.

Below are 3 leadership areas for decluttering prior to the new year.

1.    Get closure on “unfinished business.”

“Unfinished business” is those items that consume your physical, mental and emotional energy and require closure to free up your wasted energy. For example,

·      What projects or goals have you started this year that you neither completed nor are working on?

·      What communications have you not delivered that needs to be completed– whether it be to a peer, employee, customer, etc.?

·      What clutter do you need to get rid of or file from your desk, office or email box?

2.    Eliminate “energy drains”

“Energy drains” are people, places, activities or procedures that undermine your effectiveness, violate your integrity standards or “cost” you or your company in some fashion.  For example,

·      What boundaries do you need to set with difficult customers costing you excessive time, your values (or company values) or resources?

·      What actions or projects do you need to stop doing and/or delegate to others?

·      Where are you tolerating underperformance or violations in behavior norms that needs to be dealt with?

3.    “What’s wrong with this picture?”

These areas include where you are out of integrity with yourself, your desires or your sense of fulfillment.  For example,

·      What strategies, behaviors, attitudes and/or beliefs that created success in the past are now obsolete and blocking your future leadership growth?

·      What things this year did you want to be that you’re not being?

·      What things did you want to do or start that you’re not doing?

·      What things did you want to change that you’re not changing?

·      What things have you done yet not acknowledged yourself for doing them?

December is a natural transition time to complete, eliminate or take inventory and action around current leadership “clutter” areas.

Whether you realize it or not, the unresolved past will not only weigh you down and undermine your leadership performance.  It is also the biggest contributor of your current stresses, internal conflicts and lack of motivation.

Whether it’s 20 minutes a day till end of the year or taking larger blocks of time away from the office, answer the above questions to start the new year clear, rejuvenated and at the top of your game.

Step 2:  Imagining a New Compelling Leadership Story

With each new year, leaders take time to look at their individual and organizational goals and visions.  There are many positive benefits to doing so.

Where most such efforts fail or are ineffective, however, is in 2 areas.

1.    Visions and goals are often extrapolated from the past and/or present (the known), rather than created from the future (the unknown).

2.    Developing visions and goals is often a forced intellectual exercise, rather than a creative, passionate and emerging exploration of new possibilities.

You will know you are ready for Step 2 when you feel connected to the part of yourself that knows your destiny.  When your mind’s eye starts to give you images, sounds and feelings of the leader you are about to become.

True visions emerge.  They pull your energy forward.  They are neither forced nor what you expect.

Your old way of being as a leader will simply seem wrong.  You are giving birth to a new vision of yourself as a leader.

To get your imagination going, fill out the matrix below for the new year as sequenced as follows.  Think in terms of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, qualities, accomplishments or whatever else is important to you for the new year.

Lower Left Quadrant:  What you don’t want and don’t have

These are your non-negotiables.

Example:  You don’t want to unethical and you currently are not unethical.

 Lower Right Quadrant:  What you don’t want yet have.

These are the things you want to eliminate or let go of.

The trick with this quadrant is to convert all the “don’t wants yet haves” to their opposites (or what you do want instead).  Why?

Because the brain reinforces the very thing you no longer want.  The brain is unable to process the word not.

Example:  You don’t want stress yet you have it.

So what’s the opposite of not wanting stress?  That is, what do you want instead.  Peace?  Calmness?  Focus?  Centeredness?

Incorporate these opposites into the last quadrant (want/don’t have).

Upper Right Quadrant:  What you want and have.

These are the things you want to keep/preserve.  This is your gratitude list.

Example:  I want to start my day with a plan and am currently starting my day with a plan.

Upper Left Quadrant:  What you want yet don’t have.

These are your desires.  Your BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).

Example:  I want to have strong accountability in my organization yet don’t currently have it.

Once you have filled out this matrix fully, imagine what your days will be like in the new year, having what you want (and eliminating what you don’t want).

This is a critical step.   Write out your new leadership story in present tense.

It should start with the words … “It is now December 30, 2016.  I am/have … (then write your new leadership narrative).

Step 3:  Testing for 100% Congruency.

At this point, you have completed all your unfinished business from the past year and have written a new leadership vision for 2016.

However, you are NOT done yet.  In my experience of working with leaders, Step 3 is the most critical (to realize your new goals and vision) yet rarely done.

The #1 reason why you did not realize your goals and vision this year is because you were not 100% congruent (on an unconscious level).  You wanted the goals yet …

You had your foot on the brake and accelerator at the same time. 

Denise Corcoran

Below are some questions to test for 100% congruency.

·      What might you lose if you achieve your vision or goals?

·      What are the possible benefits or secondary gains of not realizing your vision?

·      What might achieving your vision cost you?  Is it worth the cost?

·      On a scale of 1-10, how strong is your belief that you will achieve your vision?   Or that you have the capabilities to achieve it?

·      Do your new leadership goals conflict with other goals in your life?

·      When, where and with whom do you want to achieve your new goals?  (For example, if you want to be more assertive as a leader, is it ecological to do that in all situations and with all people?)

Without 100% congruency, your leadership vision will not only NOT be compelling.  You will unconsciously sabotage yourself from not achieving it.   Is that what you really want?

Bottomline:  Take time in December to follow these 3 steps to prepare for a groundbreaking new year in your leadership growth.

If you find yourself stuck in the process, click on the box in the right margin and sign up for a complimentary Leadership Strategy Session.  I have only 3 openings in December.  Sign up before it’s too late!

The post Re-Igniting Your Leadership Fire appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.   Gloria Steinem

When I was a little girl, my mother encouraged me to dream. She would often tell me … “Dream big dreams. It does not cost anything to dream.”

So as a child, I would imagine myself becoming …

possibility thinking

… A gold Olympic ice skater on one day.

… The first woman astronaut on another day.

… Then it was a toss up between a princess, a cowgirl or a Mickey Mouse musketeer on the other days.

Nobody ever told me that anything was impossible. I am grateful for those early days that shaped me to thrive possibilities.

Now that I work with leaders, I find the art of possibility thinking extinct in many companies. If you are a leader that …

• Rarely challenges the boundary conditions of your thinking
• Struggles in creating new visions that fire up you and your organization
• Freezes at opportunities and problems with no precedence,

it is time to thrive in possibilities again.

Before addressing the what and how of possibility thinking, let’s look at how over-focus on accountability is preventing possibility thinking in your organization.

Is Too Much Accountability Stifling Your Organization?

While accountability is absolutely essential to the health of your organization, from a brain perspective, it drives your focus and thinking in an opposite direction to possibility thinking.

Why?

Accountability is all about …

• Discipline
• Control
• Order
• Measurement and metrics
• Limit in focus
• Here and now
• Excellence in execution
• What is
• Stability
• Norms

Accountability actually trains your brain to think in terms of boundaries … to stay in the box … to limit your focus. That’s a good thing to a point. You need accountability to achieve your company goals.

However, for many organizations, over-emphasis on accountability stifles creative thinking, innovation and visioning. The key for leaders is to know how to intersect and integrate possibility with accountability.

If you are like many leaders, the likelihood is that possibility thinking is the weaker muscle. Let’s look at how you can change that.

What is Possibility Thinking?

The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the ‘buts’ you use today.     Les Brown

Interact with a child and you will know what possibility thinking is. For them, the world is filled with new things to discover. Their curious minds want to explore everything around them. Their imaginations fire up as they pretend to be their favorite heroes and villains.

As we mature as adults, we lose that creative spark. We lose our inquisitive thinking. We forget how to create the world around us.   We get stuck in our sense of reality and don’t dare new horizons.

We’ve stopped believing in what is possible.

From my experience, possibility thinking …

• Is a mindset in which, as a leader, you think beyond limits (yours and your company’s).

• Asks possibility questions.

• Thinks BIG

• Challenges status quo

• Creates breakthrough solutions

If you want to see possibility thinking in action, watch this inspiring 90 second video clip.

Noah Galloway – an army veteran who lost both his right arm and leg in the Iraq War – was a contestant on last season’s Dancing with the Stars. He defied the odds in both what he could accomplish (with a metal leg and a missing arm) and how far he could go in the contest.

It’s a must watch video.   It will inspire you to eliminate excuses and reach new heights.

7 Ways to Cultivate Your Possibility Thinking

What we can do or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of true capability.  It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.  Anthony Robbins

Possibility thinking is a brain muscle. If you let yours get flabby, it needs to be strengthened again. Here’s 7 ways how.

Ask Possibility Questions

Possibility questions are critical in your leadership role because they break through the boundary conditions of your (or some else’s) thinking. They transform disempowering beliefs to empowering ones.

Here are examples of possibility questions to get you started.

• What if you could achieve ‘x’ (a seemingly impossible) goal, what would be the first step you would take?

• What leader inspires you the most? What would they do in this situation?

• How do we need to lead differently to double our growth in the next year?

• How do you know “that” (such as belief) is true? Are there any other possibilities?

• What is the ideal outcome you seek?

Find Who and What Inspires You

In NLP, one of the foundational principles is — if one person can do something, anyone can do it (through modeling).

Find the leader who inspires you. Someone whose success and excellence you would like to model. As Isaac Newton said,

“The reason I see so far is because I stand on the tall shoulders of those who have come before me.”

Once you have identified someone, the next question is: what specifically about this person would you like to model?

Externally, it could be his/her behaviors, habits, physiology, etc.  Internally it could be his/her beliefs, values, character traits and more.

For example, if Richard Branson inspires you, you might want to model his beliefs (such as, business is fun) or personality traits (such as, resilience) or values (such as, adventure). The person you pick can be someone you know or don’t know, someone alive or dead.

In a future article, I will address the process of modeling at greater length. The first step is to decide who and what to model.

Creative Destruction 

In 1942 Austrian economist and ardent capitalist, Joseph Schumpeter coined the phrase creative destruction – his theory about what drives busts and booms in the economy.

Creative destruction is the process in which new technologies, new kinds of products, new production methods, etc. made old ones obsolete, forcing existing companies to adapt or fail. Kodak is a good example of a company that failed because of creative destruction.

Given the pace of change in today’s business world, modern leadership must learn to embrace the concept of creative destruction within their companies to create new possibilities. Such as:

• What ways of thinking from your past should you obliterate to make room for a brand new future?

• What systems and structures should you destroy to keep up with change?

• How must you destructively and disruptively instigate change (before needed) to stay ahead of the competition?

“Dream One Size Bigger”

In his book, How Successful People Think, John Maxwell addresses 6 ways that possibility thinkers think. One of those ways is to dream one size bigger.

Are you a leader that tends to dream small? Do your visions and goals fall well below who you can be and what you can achieve?

Challenge yourself to dream more expansively. Push your team to set bigger goals. Ask your peers every time that you get trapped in impossibility or “realistic” thinking to step up your game. Get into the habit of dreaming one size bigger.

Change Your Beliefs

The biggest obstacle blocking your possibility thinking is your beliefs.

• Beliefs about what’s possible
• Beliefs about yourself and your capabilities
• Beliefs about the effort required
• Beliefs about the risks

and more.

Because I have covered the topic of beliefs in great detail in other articles, I recommend that you check out:

• How Leaders Break Through Sabotaging Beliefs … Rapidly
• The Secret to Rapid Leadership Breakthroughs
• Real Truths That Fuel Real Leaders

Cultivate “Out of the Box” or Lateral Thinking

My favorite expert on creative, “out of the box” thinking is Edward de Bono.

My two favorite tools of de Bono are:

• His book, Whack on the Side of the Head
• His creative brainstorming deck of cards, Creative Whack Pack.

Next time you get stuck in your thinking, I recommend the above resources to recharge your creative juices to a whole new level. They are always my “go to” tools for out of the box thinking.

DECIDE Your Leadership Future

While you may not fully embrace this one truth yet,

you are the creator of your leadership future.

 The clearer you are about who you want to become and what difference you want to make in your future, the more power you have to achieve it.

However, knowing what you want is not enough. Deciding your future – even without knowing how – is the catalyst that transforms bold dreams into reality.

Are you ready to give up your old stories that say you can’t?

Are you ready to decide your future story?

In Summary

While possibility without accountability is wishful thinking. Accountability without possibility is a dead end street.

The new frontier in leadership is knowing how to intersect the two.

What are you doing to make that leadership leap?

If you’ve enjoyed this post, I’d be grateful if you’d share it with your friends and network on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook. Thank you!

The post Accountability to Possibility: The Next Frontier in Leadership Growth appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Even though I did strategy development for billion dollar corporations in the early days of my business 30 years ago, I had no idea that there were 3 different approaches to strategic planning.  I learned alot from this article.  I know you will too!

Time is Money: The 3 Different Approaches to Strategic Planning

“The marvelous thing about lack of planning is that failure comes as a complete and utter surprise.”
– Peter Green

One of the biggest challenges organizations face is making the commitment to develop a well thought out strategic plan. “Are you kidding me!” they’ll say. “Who has the time do a strategic plan with so much work to do?” Instead they wander into the work place and react to crises. And ironically, most crises are a result of their failure to plan! So why don’t more organizations engage in strategic planning? Lack of time is one reason. Another may be confusion over the strategic planning process itself.

Even if your business commits the time to develop a strategic plan, you may be unaware that there are different approaches to Strategic Planning. Depending on the size of your organization and the desired outcomes for the planning process, there is a strategic planning process that is right for you.

“Strategic planning is the strategic thinking process whose outcome is clarifying the purpose of the business, where the business wants to be in the future and the choices the business will make to get there.”
– Najera Consulting

What exactly is Strategic Planning?

While there are countless definitions as to what strategic planning is, Najera Consulting defines strategic planning as the strategic thinking process whose outcome is clarifying the purpose of the business, where the business wants to be in the future and the choices the business will make to get there.

The following are the 3 most common approaches for Strategic Planning, ranked in order from least to most strategic:

• Goals focused
• Issues focused
• Systems focused

Goals Focused Approach to Strategic Planning

This approach is the most common form of strategic planning. It is also the least strategic of the three common approaches to business planning. This approach calls for a heavy emphasis on establishing clear business goals. Action plans are then developed to achieve these goals.

A Goals Focused Approach is Right for You, if….

• You are confident on how your business creates, delivers and captures value.
• You are confident that you can identify goals into the future.
• Your business has very limited resources in terms of people, time and money to devote to a more comprehensive strategic planning process.
• You have established clear mission, vision and values statements that are understood by your entire business team.
• There are very few, if any, critical issues facing your business.
• The internal and external environment of your business is somewhat stable.
• Decisions are made often in a top-down, hierarchical fashion.
• Your business has successfully implemented a strategic plan within the last two years.

Issues Focused Approach to Strategic Planning

This approach is sometimes referred to as Critical Issues Planning and is somewhat more strategic than the Goals Focused Approach. This approach places a heavy emphasis on a situational analysis of the business.

It then moves on to identifying issues impacting the business. Action plans are then developed to address said issues. The organization’s mission, vision and values might be developed afterwards, however it’s not the main focus of this planning process. Future business goals and strategies may be established, but only after issues are identified and addressed.

A Issues Focused Approach is Right for You, if….

• You are confident on how your business creates, delivers and captures value.
• Your business faces several critical issues that need further clarity.
• Your business has very limited resources in terms of people, time and money to devote to a more comprehensive strategic planning process.
• You expect or foresee major changes in the internal and/or external environment of your business sector over the next year or so.
• Your management team struggles to identify and reach consensus on key issues and clear goals for the future.

Systems Focused Approach to Strategic Planning

This is the most strategic and comprehensive form of Strategic Planning. It is also the approach most used by our clients. This is a non-linear, organic, iterative, intuitive approach to strategic planning that is best suited to entrepreneurial minded organizations.

The value of this approach is that it provides the business a big-picture perspective cause and effect relationship of its business model. In this approach an equal emphasis is placed on the business’s mission, business model, situational analysis, current and potential customer base and the business’s core value proposition. The resulting strategies are viewed as the highest-level organizing principles for the business.

A Systems Focused Approach is Right for You, if….

• You would like clarity on how your business creates, delivers and captures value.
• You would like more clarity on your mission, vision, and values statements before attempting to make major decisions impacting the financial future of your business.
• You have struggle conform to any type of strategic planning process.
• You are unsure of your desired competitive position and/or social impact.
• The external environment of your business is constantly changing.
• Decisions are made often in a bottoms-up, organic fashion.
• You have struggled in the past to adhere to any type of business planning process.
• Your business has never before developed and implemented a complete strategic planning process.

Some of us may think we’re too tight on time and money to start on any course of strategic planning. But according to The Law of Planning by Brain Tracy, every minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution. And if you believe in the saying that “time is money,” according to my calculations this is a 1,000 percent Return on Investment!

Who can pass this up?

Written by Gabriel Najera, Founder, Najera Consulting Group

Gabriel Najera is president & founder of the Najera Consulting Group. The Najera Consulting Group assists corporate and nonprofit organizations in developing, clarifying and implementing high objective strategies that will allow them to outperform their competitors. Gabriel is a frequent speaker to organizations. And, is a highly sought after advisor to corporate and nonprofit executives looking to develop a strategic thinking mindset.

The post Are You Aware Of The 3 Approaches to Strategic Planning? appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Influence is not something tangible, physical or material.  Yet it’s real.  You know when you are in the presence of it.  Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Steve Jobs just to name a few.

The Power of Words

There is no leadership without influence. You can have a leadership title, yet have no  influence.  How influential are you?  Does your team listen to your every word with attention, openness and trust?  Is your team inspired to take action simply by what you say and do?

Influence comes from the latin root “influere” meaning to flow in.  When you are an influential leader, your words and intentions flow into another’s unconscious mind without resistance.  Your words are not just accepted.  Your words motivate.  Your words change minds, attitudes and behaviors.

The BIG question is … How do you develop and increase your leadership influence?

This big question has a big answer.  In this first of 3 articles on this topic, let’s look at the easiest and quickest way to increase your leadership influence.

The Power of Language and Influence

What makes certain words or language particularly persuasive or influential?

Influential words bypass the reasoning or critical mind and into a person’s unconscious mind.  When using these words, you avoid a person’s resistance or defenses to what you are communicating.  You are speaking directly to the part of the brain that houses his/her memories, emotions and creativity.

When you gain such powerful access to one’s mind, you can lead people to where you want them to go.  Because of such power, these words should be used only for positive intentions and never for manipulative reasons.  Use these words wisely and only to help a person change and grow.

Given that caveat, let’s take a look of 5 power words that can change your capacity to lead.

1.  “IMAGINE …”

Anyone who has ever worked with me knows I use the word “imagine” often to help my clients achieve breakthroughs that once seemed impossible or improbable.

As children, we lived our lives through our imaginations.  And it all seemed so real.

Whether we wanted to be a monkey, or fly to Paris, or find hidden treasures of gold, our imaginations could create a whole new world in our minds in a single moment.  A world where there were no limits.  A world where we could be or do anything we wanted.  A world where the possibilities were endless.

When I use the word imagine with my clients, my intent is to take them beyond the boundary conditions of their thinking and create new realities, new possibilities that are not accessible through the conscious mind.

Leaders who know how to tap into the imaginations of others can move mountains in their organizations without much effort.  The more you tap into others’ imaginations, the more successful you and they become.

Are you ready to increase your leadership influence … right now?

Then close your eyes and …

Imagine how good it feels as you tap into your employees’ imagination, creativity and inspiration with one simple word … imagine.

Imagine how good you will feel as you prove to yourself that you can be an influential leader simply with practice of one simple word … imagine.

Don’t wait till tomorrow.  Start using this one powerful word now.  Have fun with it!

2.  “BECAUSE”

Think back to those times when you were a child and you attempted to negotiate with your parents for extra money, or to stay out later, or to have a snack before meals.  Do you remember what mom or dad said?

After 2-3 times of your mother/father turning you down, you probably said in a pleading tone …

But why, mom?

To which your mother said …

Because  I said so.

If you were like me as a kid, you backed down after that.  Why?

The word because assumes a cause effect relationship.  For this reason, when the critical factor of your mind hears that word, it treats it as a cue to let the speaker through to your unconscious mind.

It’s been found in various studies that when you make a request followed by the word because (with a phrase), doing so will increase responsiveness to your request by as much as 50%.

That has huge implications to the business world In sales, negotiations, customer relations and, most of all, leadership.  Let’s take a look at a few scenarios.

Delivering Corrective Feedback

Most leaders when giving corrective feedback simply make a request for a new behavior, like …

“Tom, you need to turn your cell phone off during meetings.”

Some employees will adhere.  Others will resist, rebel or ignore.  Let’s replay the conversation.  This time using word because.

“Tom, you need to turn off your cell phone during meetings because others find it disruptive and a distraction. Please watch it going forward.”

Explaining why the behavior needs to be changed (because) causes the recipient of the feedback to see the damage caused.

Goal Buy-in

“Our goal is to answer all customer calls within 60 minutes.”

VS.

“We will always answer all customer calls within 60 minutes because we have found that doing so, increases customer retention and that will increase the frequency of bonuses.”

That is persuasive. Just stating your goals does little for employee motivation.  Helping employees to see the why behind the goal – for them and the company – does.

Motivation

“We’re going to have an awesome month, team!”

VS.

“We’re going to have an awesome month because we have the best company culture in the industry, our customer returns are at an all time low, and our sales team is on the fast track to closing more business.”

It’s great to believe in people.  It’s more motivating, however, to tell them why you believe in them.

3.  “AND”
(always use in place of “but”)

And – when used with intention – is one of the most powerful, persuasive words in the English language.

Let’s look at one specific leadership application of this word that can eliminate all resistance, even in the toughest of conversations with your employees.  That application is using and in place of the word but.

It’s a leader’s responsibility to give honest feedback – even corrective feedback – to its employees.  Unfortunately, many leaders use the word but in delivering their corrective feedback.

“You did a great job with this report, but it was filled with many misspellings.”

But is one of the most dangerous words to use in any conversation.  It negates everything you said before the word but.  In the above examples, it means – you did not really think that person did a great job.

Now eliminate the word but and replace it with and.  Notice the difference in tone, the ability to receive the feedback without resistance, as well as the ability to add a follow-on.

“You did a great job with this report and it was filled with many misspellings.  So let’s get started in cleaning up those misspellings to make it even better.”

4.  “AWARE”

This is one of my personal favorite power words because simply saying the word will cause the listener to mentally process what you brought up.  Aware … and related words like realize or experience … are important additions to your influence arsenal because everything that follows those words is presupposed to be true.

Let’s take a look at some powerful leadership examples.

“You are probably already aware of the fact that when you practice our company value of respect, you will create comradery with your teammates.”

“Are you starting to experience  how easily you can use these words to become a more influential leader?”

5.  “NOW”

With the word now, you direct one’s thinking and focus to the present time.  In your leadership role, let’s look at some examples where you are implanting, at the unconscious level, a thought of positive change in the here and now.

“As you take a few minutes to collect your thoughts, notice how effortlessly solutions come to you NOW.”

“By NOW, you may be wondering what other changes can you make with the power of words.”

While, by no means, are these the only power words that leaders can use to influence.  The above words, however, are unique in their ability to bypass resistance and create positive change easily and naturally.

The most influential people know how to use words and language intentionally to inspire, motivate and win the hearts and minds of others, even their biggest opponents.

The next time you give feedback to your employee … the next time you want to inspire your team to follow your vision … the next time you negotiate a big deal with a potential customer, imagine how good you will feel because you used your power words and achieved your desired outcome.  You can start experiencing those good feelings now.

In part 2 of this article series, we will look at 3 little known, yet powerful techniques to unleash your influential leadership potential, even before you speak a word.  A must read!

_________________________

Denise Corcoran helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive double and triple digit growth … by design. Her company — The Empowered BusinessTM — is one of the few companies providing whole brain, strategic solutions for unleashing leadership and organizational potential that conventional methods can’t achieve. Learn how to master your Inner Game of Leadership, by downloading our free report – Wired to Win Big. Connect with Denise at her Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter or contact her via email.

The post How to Unlock Your Leadership Influence Instantly appeared first on The Empowered Business.

• Do you know how current trends will change the face of leadership in your company?
• Is your company ready to meet the new leadership challenges in the coming years?
• Are you aware of how leadership is evolving to respond to those trends?

Every leader knows the importance of being strategic.  Being strategic means looking into the future and identifying trends, opportunities and threats.

Below are my 2015 leadership predictions – threats, trends and opportunities – that will change the world of leadership as we know it today.

1.    Complexity is the new normal.

The intensity of change is increasing at an alarming rate. Such changes will pressure leaders to lead agile organizations, while attempting to do more with less in an already over-taxed work environment.

To succeed in this new normal, leaders must become master delegators, change agents and futurists.  They must oversee strategic planning as a dynamic process, not an annual event.  They must become laser-focused on the critical few while filtering out the less important many.

2.   A rising shortage of good leaders and leadership capabilities spells disaster for future growth.

With the continued exit of baby boomers, millennials have become the largest segment of the workforce for the first time.  As a result, millennials are being pushed into leadership roles before they are ready.

Also, many qualified managers are choosing entrepreneurship, rather than continuing to climb the corporate ladder. This trend will exacerbate the shortage of capable leaders.

To deal with this shortage, companies must invest in growing their own leadership talent.  They must develop a continuous pipeline of potential leaders and groom early before undertaking those roles.

3.    The 3 most critical leadership skills to navigate the future will be:

• Advanced “people skills”

Of all the skills a leader develops, the capacity to lead and influence people is ranking higher every year amongst CEOs.  The most important of these leadership skills needed for the future will be:

-   Building a culture of self responsibility and accountability

-   Coaching and developing new leaders

-   Hiring “best fit” talent – in terms of motivations, values and competencies – to drive a high performance culture

• Problem predicting (over problem solving)

Most strategic plans are not really strategic.  Many leaders create annual plans that extrapolate from the past and focus on eliminating current problems (aka “problem solving”).  If such a plan is successful, all that has been achieved is an absence of problems.

On the other hand, a true strategic plan focuses on what you want your company to become in the future, the results you want to create and the unexpected problems you anticipate along the way.  The focus is on problem predicting and the actions necessary to prevent the problems.

• Change leadership (over change management)

Change will only accelerate in the future.  To thrive in such an environment, leaders must know how to initiate and respond to strategic change.

While change management still is important, its main focus is on following plans, creating responsibilities and measuring results. Change management is about things.

Change leadership, however, focuses on leading change – ie., making things happen that would not normally happen.  It’s about inspiring employees to participate and “own” their contribution in future company direction.  Change leadership is about people.

4.      Higher cognitive impairment, burnout and stress amongst leaders is escalating due to information overload.

The rise of mobile communications, social media and web 3.0 have their dark impact on leadership performance, despite the benefits.

• Leaders’ brains are being hijacked due to an addiction to information.

The constant bombardment of information provides leaders with a feeling of new and exciting — triggering the neurotransmitter dopamine and a sense of immediate gratification.

Repeated exposure – in this case, to “information pleasure” – hijacks leaders’ brains to continually seek more information.

The end result is confusion, avoidance patterns in tackling challenging tasks and reactive decision making.

• Leaders are jeopardizing their companies with decision-making fatigue.

Research has shown that, to deal with this constant influx of information, your brain assumes that the latest news is the most important.

Behavioral economist George Lowenstein of Carnegie Mellon University calls this the “urgency effect.” The urgency effect means that your brain tends to overvalue immediacy over quality of information.

The implications of this brain bias are that leaders will feel compelled to make quick (often poor) decisions over right decisions.

• Information overload is inhibiting your leadership creativity.

Leaders’ brains need “space” to synthesize new with existing information and identify new connections and hidden patterns.  With information overload, leaders are less likely to make those crucial creative connections. 

5.    The third evolution of leadership intelligence – what I call Transcendent Leadership — is now emerging.

Leadership styles evolve over time to meet the changing needs and values of business.

Transactional leadership – dominant in the 20^th century –emphasized disciplinary power, the smooth flow of daily operations and rewards/punishments to drive performance.

At the start of the 21^st century, Transformational leadership became the new leadership style — focused on long-term vision, team-building, collaboration and employee engagement.  At the heart of transformational leadership is the development of awareness with such capabilities as Emotional Intelligence and Conscious Capitalism.

What’s the next evolution of leadership?

I call it Transcendent Leadership.  A Transcendent Leader has a level of super-consciousness that transcends the physical world (including time and space) and drives exceptional results through the quantum world — ie., the world of energy, thoughts and spirit.

Photo: Robert Couse-Baker

Transcendent leaders go beyond emotional intelligence and focus on energetic intelligence.  They know how to tune into others’ energies and ignite their deepest motivation and potential.

They have mastery of mind, imagination and energy — pushing the boundaries in what is possible and achieving what is impossible.  They have the ability to “rise” above their thinking mind (aka metacognition) and disconnect from their own perceptual biases and limiting beliefs that hold them back.

6.    Increased time starvation and anxiety will create more crises. 

Many leaders believe that more is better.  That saying yes to everything creates more success.  That going to more meetings feels more productive.  That having a packed calendar is what good leadership is all about.

The truth is … more is less productive.  More creates more crises and escalates stress to levels beyond what leaders know how to control.

Doing more drives an even bigger problem amongst leaders …

Time Starvation. 

Time scarcity amongst leaders is NOT a time management issue.  It’s a mindset issue and a company culture issue.

The drive for more and a leader’s addiction to busyness prevent them from pulling back and reflecting on core issues and strategies for the long term. 

7.   Leadership brain training and coaching will become the new paradigm for developing leaders.

To prepare leaders adequately for the future, companies will need to change how they develop leaders.

Much of today’s leadership development methods focus on building external capabilities and changing behaviors.  While those are needed, both areas are a byproduct of how a leader’s brain is wired.

Leaders’ brains are overtaxed, hit with a level of complexity and information unlike any time before.  Behavior changes nor skills development won’t solve these problems.

The solution requires a new type of executive coach or consultant.   It requires experts in brain training and reprogramming.

Those companies who utilize brain training technologies to develop their leaders will increase performance in days and weeks, rather than months and years from conventional methods.

Summary

Not only will companies need to prepare for a shortage of leaders.  They must also train their leaders with a new generation of leadership skills to succeed in the future.

Companies must also find innovative ways to protect and expand a leader’s most important asset – his/her cognitive brain capacity – in the midst of increased information overload, complexity and time scarcity.

At the same time, experts in brain training and energy leadership are emerging.  These experts can provide leaders with the necessary capacity to think on higher and more complex levels to handle future challenges.

The question is … what are you doing to get ready for these trends?

Remember:  “Fortune favors the prepared.”

_________________________

Denise Corcoran helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive double and triple digit growth … by design. Her company — The Empowered BusinessTM — is one of the few companies providing whole brain, strategic solutions for unleashing leadership and organizational potential that conventional methods can’t achieve. Learn how to master your Inner Game of Leadership, by downloading our free report – Wired to Win Big. Connect with Denise at her Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter or contact her via email.

The post 2015 Leadership Predictions: appeared first on The Empowered Business.

I learned growing up, however, that not lying is NOT the same thing as admitting and telling the truth.  The former prevents us from making false statements; the latter has the generative power to change individuals and organizations.

In my decades of working with business leaders, I have found that there is one trait — above all others – that transforms mediocre leaders to extraordinary ones.   That one trait is …

Rigorous truth-telling

Real leaders have backbone.  They admit the uncomfortable truth that others are not willing to even see.  They have a passion to want the truth and confront reality head-on.

It’s not just the responsibility of a leader to see and tell the truth.  It is part of their soul, their moral fiber.  Any compromise destroys trust, respect and credibility with themselves and from others.

The most important person to tell the truth is to Yourself.

We often think about the importance for leaders to tell the truth to others within their organizations.  Yet the most important, yet hardest, aspect of leadership truth telling is being rigorously honest with yourself.

Why?

It takes guts, personal awareness and humility to tell the truth about yourself to yourself.

When I work with leaders, my first goal is to help them get rigorously honest with themselves.  I have found that when leaders are willing to look at how they they avoid or deny the truth, that mirror of truth will liberate them to become the authentic, powerful leader they are meant to be.

Not sure how to uncover your truth as a leader?   Take inventory of the following 7 truths to get real about the present and to fuel your leadership changes in the future.

7 Real Truths That Fuel Real Leaders

Truth 1:  Either you are fighting for reasons or fighting for results. 

As a leader, there is no middle ground in what you stand for. You can stand for reasons or you can stand for results.  You CAN”T stand for both.

Real leaders fight for the results they want.  They are bold, committed and persistent about their desired outcomes.

Mediocre leaders fight for reasons why they don’t achieve them. When they say “yes” to reasons, they are essentially saying “no” to results.

Which are you fighting for right now?

Ask these questions to reveal your truth:

• Are you tolerating under-performance?
• When you lead a meeting, to what extent do team members give reasons why they did not keep their commitments or reach their goals?
• Have you created an organizational culture of strong accountability?

Truth 2:  Either you are creating your future or reacting to it. 

Real leaders are masters at creating their future because they are internally driven and decisive about what they want.   They take responsibility for all their outcomes and see themselves as the doers of the world.

Mediocre leaders are externally driven and at the effects of their environment.  They believe that they have little control over their outcomes and that things happen to them.

Ask these questions to reveal your truth:

• Does your organization find itself in perpetual crises?
• When a negative event happens – like loss of a major customer, do you find yourself in panic or do you seek new options to achieve your goals?
• Does your organization have a clear vision in which every employee knows how he/she contributes?

Truth 3:  Either you are playing to win or playing not to lose.

Underlying this truth, there is a pivotal assumption that realleaders get and mediocre leaders don’t.

What is that pivotal assumption?

It is that you have a clear understanding of what winning is.  Mediocre leaders never even ask themselves questions like … where do we want to win?  Where can we win?  What does winning look like?  

Once you have a clear concept of winning, how do you know if you are playing to win vs. playing not to lose?

The answer is: your identity.

Ask these questions to reveal your truth:

• Do you see yourself as a winner even when you fail?
• Does the thought of risking to win trigger fear in you?
• Do you have a winning strategy to reach your company’s goals?

Truth 4:  Either you are growing or you are stagnating.

For your company to grow, you must grow as a leader.  When you stagnate, so will your company.  It’s that simple.

Real leaders do the things that others think they cannot do.   They continuously “push the envelope” in what is possible.

Mediocre leaders avoid discomfort.  I mean really avoid it.  Discomfort for them triggers fear and threatens their sense of safety and survival.

Ask these questions to reveal your truth:

• Do you push yourself out of your comfort zone daily?
• Are you comfortable with discomfort?
• Do you thrive on challenges or shrink from them?

Truth 5:  Either you embrace conflict or you avoid it.

Conflict has become a dirty word in the business world.

Mediocre leaders avoid conflict at all costs.  It’s viewed as painful, scary and a win/lose situation at best.  As a result, their organizations become homogenous and filled with “yes” people.

As Jim Collins, author, Good to Great, concluded from his extensive research, the #1 difference between good and great companies is that the leaders of great companies fostered healthy conflict to set direction and create innovative solutions for the future.

Ask these questions to reveal your truth:

• Do your employees ever disagree with your decisions or viewpoints?
• Is there pseudo-harmony within your team?
• Do you tend to placate others whose viewpoints are different than yours?

Truth 6:  Either your actions are moving you “toward” or “away from” your goals. 

All behavior is self-motivated.  Your actions are motivated either to move toward something positive or away from something negative/painful.

Real leaders are “toward” motivated.  There is always the next horizon to reach.  Mediocre leaders tend to be “away from” motivated, driven by negative beliefs or secondary gains.  Their primary focus is on what they don’t want, rather than on what they want.

Ask these questions to reveal your truth:

• Are your actions mainly focused on reaching your goals or eliminating problems?
• Are any of your actions (such as, checking emails, going to certain meetings, etc.) really a distraction and taking you off-course?
• Are you focused more on what you want or what you don’t want?

Truth 7:  Either you are truly leading or merely following.

Real leaders understand that leadership is a way of thinking and a way of engaging with others.  They take bold steps into the future and hold themselves and others to high standards.    They see themselves as a leader of leaders and their job is to develop other leaders.

Mediocre leaders seek recognition from their team over respect, decide through consensus and deflect responsibility for results and problems to others.

Ask these questions to reveal your truth:

• Do you tend to focus on solutions or problems?
• To what extent are your employees “rowing the boat in the same direction?”
• Is most of your day spent on completing tasks or growing your people?
  

The Greatest Truth of All

The greatest truth of all … is that,

Truth is power.

I know that admitting the truth about yourself can sting in the moment.  And avoiding the truth may seem like the easier route.

In reality, hiding from the truth is like having a 10,000 lb. weight on your shoulders that drags you down.  It holds you and your organization back.  It keeps you in stress and struggle.

Are you ready to dump the baggage?

Start by using the above 7 truths to get honest with yourself:

Are you …

• fighting for results?
• focused on creating the future?
• playing to win?
• growing and getting out of your comfort zone?
• leveraging conflict to create innovative solutions?
• taking actions that move you “toward” our goals?
• truly leading?

Only when you admit reality can you seize your true leadership power and take charge of yours/your organization’s fate.

Which of these leadership truths is holding you back the most?  What support do you need to have a breakthrough?

The post Real Truths That Fuel Real Leaders appeared first on The Empowered Business.

That’s what your limiting beliefs are like … large brick walls that prevent you from reaching your destination.  These mental brick walls paralyze you.  They block you.  And above all else, they seem impossible to move.

In the companion article to this one – The Secret to Rapid Leadership Breakthroughs, I addressed …

• Necessary conditions of any inner leadership change
• How changing leadership beliefs changes company results
• 3 core types of limiting leadership beliefs
• Client example of how a leader’s sabotaging belief was impeding his growth to become President of the company.

If you have not read that article, click here to learn how leadership beliefs can impact your performance.

Detect Your Sabotaging Leadership Beliefs Before They Do Damage

As mentioned in the companion article, you can think of your sabotaging beliefs as internal terrorists – those voices in your head that hijack you … you are not worthy … you can’t do something … it’s impossible, etc.

Most of those sabotaging beliefs exist at the unconscious level – that is, below our awareness – and they are running your show.  Because beliefs exist at the unconscious level, asking yourself what they are doesn’t work because you truly don’t know.

The BIG question then is …

How can you detect your sabotaging beliefs to achieve a breakthrough?

The answer is … Your Language.

Beliefs follow their own linguistic structure.  Think Sherlock Holmes.  You have to be a linguistic detective and pay attention for those structures.

Remember the 3 types of beliefs – covered in the companion article — that every leader needs to be aware of.  Let’s take a look at examples of how each type of belief can be reflected in your language.

Beliefs about Cause/Effect

Possible belief language: “ If/then,” “because,” “the reason is …”

Leadership examples of “cause beliefs”: 

• “If I assert myself, they won’t like me.”
• “If I don’t do this job perfectly, they will fire me.”
• “I fear taking risks because I will fail.”
• “Just when I start to succeed, everything turns to garbage.”

Beliefs about Meaning

Possible belief language: “x” means “y;” “is” (“x” = “y”)

Leadership examples of “meaning beliefs”:

• “Company growth is stressful.”
• “Holding people accountable means I will have to deal with conflict.”
• “Being a leader is hard.”
• “My boss’ high pitch tone means I’ve done something wrong.”

Beliefs about Identity 

Possible belief language:  “I am …”  or other types of “I” language

Leadership examples of “identity beliefs”:

• “I don’t deserve to succeed.”
• “I am a perfectionist.”
• “I am worthless.”
• “I will always be this way.”

Identity beliefs are the deepest and hardest to uncover as they are rarely worded as above.   Detecting them requires probing questions and listening to the language and context.  Yet change at the identity level is profound and typically a crucial area in leadership change work.

Let’s look at one quick way to change your limited beliefs into empowering alternatives that move you forward.

Change Your Sabotaging Beliefs.  Unleash Your Leadership Potential.

Achieving a complete leadership breakthrough around beliefs most often requires 1-1 work.  The reason is that each individual stores a belief in their mind with different internal representations – ie., the sounds, feelings and the pictures you associate with that belief.  With each individual, I have to “unpack” the structure of his/her belief below the surface in order to “rewire” a new belief.

With the following technique, however, I can help you loosen the grip that a belief has on you in this moment so you can move into action.  The belief may not be completely gone although this technique will start the change process.

The ultimate goal of any belief change work is to transform the old disempowering belief into a new empowering belief … at the neurological level.  Beliefs are commands to your nervous system and it is on that level that the change needs to occur to be permanent.

Here’s how to shift your sabotaging beliefs in 1 minute or less.

Let’s say that you have the following disempowering leadership belief …

“I can’t coach my team because I don’t have the time.” 

The new empowering belief that you want is …

“I find the time to coach my team and complete all my other priorities.” 

With your disempowering belief, you have 100% certainty.   In your mind, it is fact.  With your new empowering belief, you have 0% certainty, or 100% uncertainty. In fact, it will seem impossible.

The goal of belief change work is to flip flop those numbers, so your empowering belief has much greater certainty than the disempowering belief.

This technique revolves around the following 5 words in the given sequence.  The words will be bridged together shortly in a couple of sentences to open your mind to new possibilities.

NOTE:  Keep in mind the sentence will confuse your conscious mind … and that is intentional.  New possibilities are being planted as your conscious mind – which resists accepting the new belief — goes into confusion.  Such confusion starts to break down the neurology around the old belief.

1. “Can’t”

(disempowering belief – certainty)

            2.  “Could”

     (possibility)

            3.  “Can”

                  (capability)

                        4.  “Maybe”

                             (probability)

                 5.  “Won’t” or “Will” or “Want”

                                          (empowering belief – new certainty)

These 5 words are essentially moving you from certainty that “you can’t do something” to different degrees of uncertainty about your new belief, then back to certainty but this time with your new belief.  This process is based on Rob Ballantine’s principle of certainty.

For our example disempowering and the new empowering belief, here’s one way to bridge the words to create a shift.

Possible Belief Change Verbiage:

“I know you can’t find the time to coach your team (plug in your disempowering belief) yet.  If you could, how can you think about this so you may be able to do this in the future.  Won’t you begin to wonder how to do this now?”

That’s all there is to it!  Now it’s your turn.

Step 1:  Identify a sabotaging belief (beginning with words “I can’t …)  and the empowering belief you want instead.

Step 2:  Find a partner and say your disempowering belief to that person.

Step 3:  Have your partner say the above belief change verbiage, plugging in your disempowering belief as indicated.  Ideally, your partner’s pace should start slow and then speed up as he/she recites the second sentence.

If you can’t find a partner, you can do this process with yourself.  I suggest going through this 3 step process a few times to deepen your sense of new possibilities.

At the end, notice the difference in your state … the difference in your experience of the old belief … the difference in your openness to a new outcome.

To summarize, start to detect your sabotaging leadership beliefs through your language. Then run one of those limiting leadership beliefs through the 5 word chaining process, as scripted above.

Voila! You are on your way to moving through the big brick wall in your mind … with no effort.   Relish in the new possibilities for yourself with this new technique.  They are endless.

___________________________________

Denise Corcoran – CEO, The Empowered Business^TM – helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive and sustain profitable growth by design.   Denise can be reached at denise@empoweredbusiness.com or www.empoweredbusiness.com.

The post How Leaders Break Through Sabotaging Beliefs … Rapidly appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Does any of these sound familiar?

• You aspire to achieve great things, yet stay “small” for fear of failing.

• What about the thousands of dollars you’ve invested in leadership books and training, yet still find yourself stuck in the same rut and don’t know how to get out?

• Are you continuously swamped by the endless hours that your role demands, yet get diminishing returns from all your efforts?

You are not alone.   Most leaders harbor fears, negative thoughts and emotions that seriously undermine their achievements.  Here is one such story.

How One High Performing Leader Was Sabotaging His Own Potential 

About 10 years ago, I worked with a leader being groomed to become President of a fast growing company.  He was ambitious, smart and a quick learner.  He thrived on achieving big goals and was the high performing potential that every CEO dies for.

From outside appearances, there was nothing stopping him to take the company to the next level.  Or was there?

The CEO asked me to coach this new leader around becoming a team player.  His behaviors at executive meetings gave the appearance that his personal agenda was more important than the team/company agenda.

The truth was …  his personal agenda was more important at that time. In his mind, sacrificing his desires for team goals meant not achieving personal success.  He was stuck in “either-or” thinking and that was preventing him from gaining the trust and credibility of his team.

While your limiting leadership beliefs may be different, what you do have in common is that nothing will change unless you change on the inside first. External change by itself – ie., behaviors, actions or skills/knowledge — is never the solution.

While change is a multilevel complex process, this leader needed to change on the belief level to realize a rapid breakthrough. 

Because beliefs are powerful thought patterns that drive your emotions, behaviors and action, this article will focus on belief change, although it’s not the only type of change that may be needed.

No leadership or organizational goal can be achieved without the right beliefs in place.   First, let’s take a quick look at the basics of the inner change.

A Simple (but not easy) Formula for Leadership Change

When addressing limited beliefs, the goal is to move you from your present state (problem) to your desired state (goal).  However, inner interference – your internal terrorists — hijack your best efforts to achieve your desired outcome.

Present (Problem) State  +  Resource  =  Desired Change

  ↑   ↑   ↑

Interference

                               (Limited Beliefs or Inner Conflicts)

For you to achieve your desired state/change, the following conditions must be present:

• You must want to change.  

This condition relates to desirability and confidence.  You must be 100% congruent with the change or goal you are seeking.

• You must know how to change.

You must believe that you have the capability to produce desired results.

• You must believe it is possible for you to achieve your desired state and that you deserve to achieve it.

You need to be willing to give yourself time for the change to happen and to integrate the learnings.   You must also believe you are worthy of achieving this outcome.

When these 3 conditions are present, leadership breakthroughs can happen … in an instant.  When one or more conditions are absent, then  you must change some aspect of your mental map to achieve a breakthrough.  That’s where belief work comes in.

How Changing Your Leaders’ Beliefs Changes Company Results

Beliefs are not innocent things.  They are unconscious strongly held convictions that you believe are true and fact, yet they are neither.  They are judgments about yourself, about others and about the world.  They are the lens through which you view everything.  They …

• Influence your perception
• Skew your perspective and decision making in positive and negative ways
• Direct an/or limit your actions
• Shape your character in effective and ineffective ways
• Create the boundary conditions of your thinking
• Drive all behaviors, emotions and subjective experiences

“If you want to uncover your beliefs, just look at your results. “

Your leadership beliefs are the power source for your company’s results and for the culture you’ve created in the present. 

The question is: are those the results and culture you really want?

You say you have a compelling vision.   Do you believe it is possible?

You say you have core values.   Do you have beliefs conflicting with those values that drive different choices and actions?

You say employees matter.  Do you make them feel appreciated, recognized and heard?

You say that you put customers first.  Do they believe it?

 Are your results matching what you say you want?   If not, it may have nothing to do with the words you are saying; it could be that your employees may not believe them.

In the end, you have one of two choices.

Either you can keep going as you are and live with your current problems OR you can kick those sabotaging beliefs to the curb for good.  If you chose the later, read on.

Types of Beliefs Every Leader Needs to Know About

All beliefs can be categorized into one of three types.  Knowing how each type effects you and your organization is crucial to the change process.

1. Beliefs about Cause

We all have beliefs about cause.  They are reflected in your goals, plans, actions and decisions.

Beliefs about cause are implied in the form … “X” causes “y.”  Let’s take a look at examples.

What do you believe …

• Are the traits of great leaders?
• Drives high performance in an organization?
• Motivates employees?
• Is the reason for your unrealized goals?
• Makes your company successful or not successful?

Whether you realize it or not, these are all beliefs.  Not facts.  Not truth.  Simply beliefs. 

They may not even be your beliefs.  Many of your leadership beliefs, especially about cause, come from books, workshops, other leaders, etc.   Taking on those beliefs may or may not serve you and the results you want.

The point is … as a leader, you must challenge every belief about “what causes what” to realize different outcomes.

2.  Beliefs about Meaning

Our brains are meaning-making machines.  We give meaning to past and current experiences, behaviors (ours and others’), communications (words and non-verbal), etc.

Beliefs about meaning are implied in the form … “x” means “y.”  Let’s take a look at examples.

• What does it mean that your profits have declined for the last 3 months?
• Does it mean you have to cut staff?
• Does it mean you’ve failed?
• What does it mean that an employee has not met your expectations?
• Does it mean they are unmotivated?
• Does it mean you did not communicate clearly?

Beliefs about meaning result in behaviors congruent with that belief.  For example, if profits fell and you believe it was from a bad decision, you will hold back in future decisions or taking necessary risks.

3.  Beliefs about Identity

Beliefs about identity include cause, meaning and boundaries.  When you change beliefs about your identity, it means that somehow you are/will be a different person.

Changing beliefs at the identity level is one of the most profound breakthroughs you can experience. It transforms who you are at your core and every aspect of your life.

Let’s look at examples.

• What causes you to do something as a leader?
• Do you see yourself as competent leader?
• Do you believe you don’t deserve to succeed?
• To hold your employees accountable, do you believe you have to become a dictator or control freak?
• Do you fear that you won’t be liked by your employees if you take tough actions or make tough decisions.

To summarize … beliefs may be beliefs of cause, meaning or identity.  They may be about the world around you (eg., experiences or other people) or about yourself and your identity.

Beliefs are unconscious habitual thought processes that either undermine you or enhance you and your desired outcomes.

Nest step … Read the companion article — How Leaders Breakthrough Sabotaging Beliefs … With Velocity –  to learn how to detect limiting beliefs and simple ways for changing them to experience a rapid leadership breakthrough.

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Willpower Exhaustion

Because of my exertion-exhaustion approach,  my world came crashing down with life threatening illnesses that cost me everything in my life.  While I wished I had learned the lesson in a less traumatic way, there was a gift in that experience.

It catalyzed me to seek mindset tools and technologies to create results with ease and less effort.  It motivated me to learn how the brain works and its impact on our thoughts, emotions and behaviors.  It taught me how to live and realize inspiring work and life.

While my details may be different than yours, how many times as a leader have you:

• Used brute force and over-efforting to achieve goals?
• Mustered every ounce of your being to power through what needed to be done?
• Berated yourself for not making the changes and vowed to try harder?

Willpower is one of the least understood concepts, especially in the world of leadership.  To make tough decisions, manage never-ending changes and handle the demands of their roles, leaders rely heavily on willpower to make things happen.

Leaders also often pay a heavy price when they hit the willpower wall and spiral downward on both personal and company levels.  Let’s take a look at why.

Myths & Realities:  What Willpower Is and Is Not

Psychologists now understand that willpower is defined by 5 specific characteristics:

• Delaying gratification and resisting short-term temptations to meet long-term goals
• Overriding an unwanted thought, feeling or impulse
• Employing a “cool” cognitive system of behavior rather than a “hot” emotional system
•  Effortful regulating of self by the self
• Limited resource capable of being depleted

According to Kelly McGonigal PhD, author of The Willpower Instinct, willpower is an instinct that comes from both the brain and body.

The prefrontal cortex houses our decision making and behavioral control functions.  Self control, or willpower, is directed by this part of the brain.

Brain science tells us also that the prefrontal cortex can be easily depleted from cognitive and emotional tasks (such as, regulating our emotions).  The same tasks that leaders are required to perform non-stop in their roles.

The fact that we have just so much willpower before it runs out is a critical, yet seldom addressed issue in the world of leadership.  Willpower-depleted leaders have a tendency to push the envelope even harder until they crash and burn.  The ultimate risk for leaders is suffering from serious willpower exhaustion.

When leaders hit this danger point, the company pays a high price in irrational decision making, addictions, low productivity, out of control emotions, a toll on personal lives and the list goes on.

The key is for leaders to learn the right use of willpower to lead their company to higher levels of success and growth.  In my experience in working with leaders, below are examples when willpower is used for the right reasons:

• Delaying immediate gratification in your decision making

Doing so builds a leader’s strategic thinking capacity – ie., focusing on long term company gains, rather than reacting to “short-termitis” or immediate gratification.

• Living your purpose, vision and values

Living your company’s purpose and values takes daily leadership discipline and self-control. This right use of willpower requires leaders to respond to unexpected events through the lens of  purpose, vision and values, rather than go into crisis mode.

• Pacing change and growth

Most leaders have high initiative.   This quality is typically a leadership asset.  However, when it comes to change and growth, leaders must learn to utilize willpower to pace both at a rate their organization can handle.  A leader’s urge to go full force will cost the company the very outcomes it seeks.

How Do Leaders Exhaust Their Willpower?

The factors below are just the tip of the iceberg.

• Inability to Right-Size Stress

Under high levels of stress, the fight-or-flight response floods a leader’s body with energy to act instinctively rather than being utilized by the prefrontal cortex for effective decision-making.  High stress drives a leader to focus on short term survival outcomes, rather than the big picture, due to depleted willpower.

•  Trap of Excellence

Striving for excellence can be a trap for perfectionism.  Perfectionistic leaders have a mindset … “if I am not perfect in performing this task, then I am a failure.”  Expecting a perfect outcome takes its toll on a leader’s willpower and puts him/her into over-drive.  Such perfectionistic tendencies show up in  micro-managing, “analysis paralysis” or unwillingness to delegate, thus further depleting a leader’s energy reserves.

•  “Away From” Motivated Goals

“Away from” motivated goals are stated in terms of what you don’t want —  eg., “I don’t want to procrastinate anymore.”  “Away from” goals actually reinforce the outcome you don’t want.  They also take enormous willpower to overcome and, doing so, depletes that scarce resource.

•  Deficient Brain Fuel

Given the on-going demands on time and energy, leaders often neglect exercise, diet and sleep to cope with their workload.  Yet ignoring these basic necessities for brain functioning further depletes a leader’s blood sugar needed to fuel willpower, resulting in decreased performance.

The key is to recognize your willpower’s limitations – in quantity and effectiveness.  The next step is to learn how to strengthen your willpower for when you need it most in your  role.

7  Simple Strategies to Strengthen & Conserve Your Leadership Willpower

According to Kathleen Martin Ginis, assistant professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, willpower is like a muscle and needs to be challenged to build itself.  At the other end, just as an over-trained athlete needs rest and recovery, balancing the active use of willpower with downtime is a must.

Below are my 7 favorite strategies for conserving and strengthening leadership willpower.

1.     Empty Your Mind

Quiet Mind

Today’s leaders find themselves driven by a fast paced agenda, often denying themselves critical downtime to replenish their minds and bodies to be effective.  A daily 5-10 minute meditation is your best strategy for reducing stress, improving emotional and physical wellbeing, as well as tapping into your intuition for your next right actions and decisions.

2.     Leverage the Power of Oxytocin

Peer support helps strengthen a leader’s willpower. Doing so makes reaching goals easier, while using less willpower to do so.  A bonus benefit of peer support is an increase in your bonding neurohormone — oxytocin — that lowers stress, increases relaxation and amplifies trust among the team.

3.     Increase Willpower with the Right Fuel

Willpower is not all in the mind.  It is critical to supply your body with the high quality fuel it needs.  Reduce sugar and carbs to avoid energy dips, which can further deplete your willpower supply.

4.     Anticipate Problems

“What if” strategies are critical for both strengthening and conserving your leadership willpower.  Such strategies require you to figure in advance how you will deal with obstacles and make a plan for dealing with such obstacles.

5.     Ask Bigger Questions to Unleash Motivation

Rather than depend on willpower to reach your goals, ask yourself bigger questions to unleash motivation such as … “Who do I want to become as a leader?” … “WHY are these goals important to me?”  Tapping into your deepest  motivations fuels an energy source that pulls you toward your goal, rather than pushing through willpower.

6.     Frame Challenges as Pleasure

Recently I asked a leader to write a one year vision of what he wanted to achieve.  He originally wrote what a struggle it was to overcome his challenges around organization.  I asked him to reframe the challenge as a learning process and a series of small wins that he celebrated, rather than a struggle.

How you speak to yourself can determine success or failure.  The key is to reframe challenges by describing the resourceful state, not the disempowering one, you want to experience to achieve your desired outcome.

7.     Chunk Down to the “Critical Few”

Conserve your willpower for what really matters.  Set priorities and stop doing the things outside the critical few   Schedule time in the morning while you have a full tank of willpower to progress on your critical few.  Then give yourself a break to rebuild your willpower reserve.

The Most Important Point … Are you really ready to change?

Are you really ready to let go of your exertion – exhaustion cycle and experience an easier, more rewarding leadership path, starting TODAY? 

Your challenge with this change is rarely an issue of not knowing “how to’s.”  In fact, seeking out more knowledge can be a trap.

The truth is … change can happen in an instant … almost appear magical to the outside world.

The secret is to ask yourself  3 simple questions: 

What’s the greater motivator right now regarding making this change … to avoid pain or seek pleasure?  Ie., Do you perceive making this change as painful or pleasurable?

What will you gain if you keep using the “white knuckle” approach?

What will you lose if you keep using the “white knuckle” approach?

When you can honestly say that making the above changes is the greater motivator than sticking with old behaviors, the change has already started.  Practicing the “how to’s” just reinforces that desire and you are on your way to a different leadership experience.

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