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.

Your company is growing and has gained recognition and success.  Your culture and employees are thriving and you are so proud of everyone’s accomplishments.

Yet …

you feel something is missing.  You can’t put your finger on what.  After all, it’s been a challenging journey.  In many ways, you and your organization have arrived at its desired destination.

How could something be missing?

Guess what?

You are not alone.

That gnawing feeling of something missing is a positive thing.  It’s a sign your soul is stirring …

To something greater than your role and your company.  To a grander purpose.

You are becoming an awakener.

In today’s ever increasing complexity and change, you are being called to operate at a new level of consciousness.  To transcend your mission statement, competition and engagement practices.

Are ready to make that leap?

What Is a Leadership Awakener?

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.

Robert Frost

Most leaders’ roles and identities evolve.  Let’s take a look at one natural progression of a leader’s role.  Every role is important.

1.   Coach

Traditional coaching focuses on behavior.  The goal of a leader as coach is to improve the behavior of his/her team.

When leaders assume the role of coach, they are observing and giving feedback.  For example – coaching someone how to communicate more respectfully to teammates.

2.   Teacher

Teaching focuses on cognitive skills and capabilities.

A leader wearing the hat of teacher focuses on building  competencies and thinking capabilities – such as how to read a P&L statement or presentation skills.

3.   Mentor

Coaches and teachers focus on the external aspects of performance.  Mentors, however, focus on the internal aspects – ie., employees’ beliefs and values.

A leader wearing the hat of mentor focuses on influencing a person’s beliefs and values in a positive way – such as, believing in him/herself.

4.   Awakener

While awakening is definitely not a common term within organizations, leaders who operate at a high level of consciousness and being are the awakeners in the business world.

A leader as an awakener operates at the level of spirit or Higher Self.   Such leaders have the capacity to transcend their own mental maps (beliefs, values, identity) and connect with a greater Force within themselves and others.

Leadership Awakeners are the Game Changers of the World.

Are you ready to make the leap?

Leadership awakeners think differently. Perceive differently.  Decide differently.  Here are 3 (among many) distinctions.

As an awakener …

You View the Organization as a Hologram

What the heck is a hologram?!

A hologram is a 3 dimensional representation created with the use of a laser using a process called holography.

The fascinating property of holograms is that you can cut it up in tiny pieces and actually create the whole from a single part.

Not only does the whole contain all the parts.  Every part contains information about the whole.

WOW!!  Isn’t that mind blowing?!

The implications to an organization are huge!   The concept of a hologram says that every function … every product/service … every employee contains within it information about your entire company.

Nelson Mandela used this principle in transforming South Africa. He knew that the greatest chance of unifying the country was not through a top-down approach of sweeping changes.

Rather, that unity (the whole) would come from his relentless support of the country’s all white rugby team (a part) in the World Cup.  He rightly assumed that victory would unify the country.  The rest is history.

Applying the holographic property can accelerate success within your company.  Let’s look at 2 examples.

If you are like most leaders, you use a top-down approach in planning or envisioning your future.  That is, you take the whole and you break it into parts.  That approach has merit in certain contexts.

What if … with your next strategic plan, you instead take a bottoms up approach, using the holographic principle?

What if … you were to improve the weakest link in your organization (eg., competencies or efficiencies) and made that the focus of your strategic plan?

How would that one small change impact the performance of the entire organization?

How about applying the holographic principle to problem-solving?

What if … the next time your team solves a customer service or process problem, you focus on solving the bigger organizational issue – such as lack of cohesive teams? 

What would that do to your profitability, productivity and quality?

You See Competition as an Illusion

In our Western culture, we obsess about beating our competition and becoming the best.

That obsession shows in our love for “Best ____” lists and awards.  Fortune’s Top 100 Companies, 50 Best Places to Work for, Inc. 500/5000 and Top 40 Under 40 to name a few.

While competition can be a blessing, fueling higher standards and innovation.   It can equally be a curse.

It conditions you to think in terms of winning and losing or a zero sum game.  Those leaders who operate from a win/lose paradigm can’t see another way.

The truth is …

Competition is an illusion.

You will never win long term with this paradigm.  However, there is a more optimal paradigm from which leaders can operate.

John Nash –- behavioral economist and Nobel Prize recipient – is best known for advancing game theory and the equilibrium principle.

In simple terms, his work showed that …

the best result comes when everyone in a group (team, market, etc.) does what’s best for themselves and for the group.

His findings say that when your company works TOGETHER with — not against – your “competitors,” you ALL will be better off than if you worked at cross-purposes with each other.

Example:  Toyota and BMW have collaborated to create an environmentally friendly luxury car.  They shared costs and knowledge for electric car battery research.  BMW supplied diesel engines to Toyota.  Everybody won, especially the customer.

How might collaborating with a competitor reduce delivery times and costs, open up new markets or strengthen your position rather than weaken it?

Below are additional resources and examples to delve further about collaborating with competitors.

Collaborate with Your Competitors … and Win, 

Friendly Competition:  Competitors Collaborate  (video)

You Know That Perceived Limitations Are Wake-Up Calls

Stop for a moment.  Take inventory of ways you and/or your organization …

·      Struggle or effort

·      Feel fear when your customers or the economy slow down

·      Have hit a ceiling in growth, profits or performance

·      Don’t have money or time for critical projects

Your perceived limitations are your own creation.  Not consciously though.  You are stuck in the limiting confines of your own thinking.

Attribution: Canstock.com

When you hit such limits, you tend to panic at the edge between the known and unknown.  You fight for certainty and control.  Yet more knowledge, analyses and busyness are NOT the answer.

To transcend these limitations, you must awaken to another reality.  The world of Potentiality.  The world of unbounded possibilities.

In this new awakened state, you tap into a greater Force within yourself and beyond yourself.  You fear no challenge.  You are immune to criticism.  Self-power – or knowledge of Self — becomes your true source of power.

The question is … how do you awaken that part?

Here are 2 ways:

1.  Practice “not knowing”

Exploring the unknown opens the door to unlimited creativity and possibilities.

Start with a question or concern.  Let go of all knowledge, assumptions and ready answers.  Adopt a beginner’s mind.  Openness, curiosity, inquiry, reflection and learning are essential.  Take time to explore what you don’t know.  What new possibilities emerge from “not knowing?”

When practicing “not knowing,” you transcend fear of the unknown and engage in new possibilities.  You are excited about opportunities the unknown presents.

2.  Transcend your own mental maps

Your mental map are unconscious filters – beliefs, values, identity, etc. – that drive focus and perception.  These maps ARE the boundary conditions of your thinking.

When I work with leaders, my first goal is to uncover their mental maps.  Then change them to expand possibilities within themselves and then within others.  Because there is no set procedure, there are no steps I can give you for that change.

However, even if it is for a few brief moments initially, you can learn to transcend your mental maps.

Get quiet.   Go to that place within yourself where there are no fears.   No limiting beliefs.  No internal conflicts.  Trust your higher Self to take you there.  You will know you are there because you feel a sense of peace and ultimately pure silence.  It’s from that place new possibilities emerge.

Summary

The ultimate calling of a leader is to awaken the grander purpose and possibilities within themselves and then their employees.

Becoming a leadership awakener is the highest level of consciousness from which you can lead.  You transcend the mental maps, knowledge and expertise that limit your potential.  You lead from a level of spirit that knows no boundaries.

Life and work take on new meaning.  Struggles become a thing of the past.  You are at peace even in the midst of turmoil.

The question is …

Are ready to make that leap?

The post Real Leaders Become Awakeners 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.

Can your body language …

• Make a difference in commanding leadership authority?
• Create trust or mistrust within an organization?
• Change your emotions after a stressful day?

Absolutely!!

Leadership authority is a by-product of 2 related aspects of yourself – your physiology and your emotional state. Call them the yin and yang of leadership authority.

The purpose of this article is NOT to give you a list of gestures, postures or leadership do’s and don’ts to communicate authority. Your emotions and your body language are both driven by your mind. And your mind is too complex for such generalizations.

An effective gesture in one context may backfire in another context. A smile may uplift people in certain situations. A smile when someone is angry however may escalate more anger.

The goal of this article is to teach you how to use your body language for communicating leadership authority, building deep trust and even changing your emotional state. Your body language can enhance or destroy your business relationships and influence on others. Let’s look at why.

The Mind Body Leadership Connection

A physiology of confidence is different than a physiology of worry. Your emotions follow your physiology by responding to tension levels, breath rate, speed of movement and your focus. On the other end, scientists now know that different emotions have a clear physiological response shown through your body language.

For example, anger can be detected through such body signals as leaning forward, flushed face and invasion of someone else’s space. Fear often triggers a dry mouth, holding one’s breath, lack of eye contact and other “fight or flight” signals.

You can also intentionally alter your emotional state by altering your physiology. For example, taking a few deep breaths can transform anxiety and stress to relaxation and clarity in an instant.

Create your physiology of leadership.

Have you ever attended a Tony Robbins’ event? If you have, you know that Tony Robbins is Mr. Physiology himself.

Firewalk Steve Gamage (flickr)

He is a master at energizing thousands of people for long 18-20 hour days non-stop. He is a master at teaching participants – scared out of their minds — to walk over hot coals by putting “mind over matter.” His magic?

He builds into your neurology a new physiology to change your state of mind. All that dancing on the stage is for a reason. Pumping your fist in the air … yes, that’s intentional too.  From my involvement in a number of his programs, I learned I can change my emotions in an instant by changing my physiology.

Want to feel more passion? Move more rapidly. Speak more rapidly. Model the physiology of the most passionate people you know.

Want to interrupt anxiety or fear? Look up at the sky, smile and say the made up mantra “cool moss.” The latter is just to distract your mind from thinking fear thoughts.

Want to show authority? Stand tall with feet shoulder width apart and weight equally balanced.   Because authority is nonverbally communicated through height and space, the taller you appear and the more room you occupy, the more you look like you are in command. Remember also to own your space as addressed in Unleashing your Leadership Presence.

The work that Tony Robbins has been doing for decades is now backed by science.

According to researchers at Columbia and Harvard Universities, body language symbolizing power can actually affect leadership decision-making. Those who stood in power poses not only felt more powerful and in control. They were 45% more likely to take risks.

Purposefully expand your posture and you will alter your hormone levels – decreasing cortisol and increasing testosterone. A lower cortisol means lower stress. Higher testosterone means higher energy and an improved mood.

Takeaway: One small change in posture can trigger significant changes in how you feel and what you do.

Create instant trust and influence with your body language.

When you look at charismatic leaders, they have one skill in common – the ability to create deep rapport. Rapport is essential for any meaningful communications to take place — whether between a leader and a peer, between a boss and employee, between a leader and the entire organization.

Anything is possible in the presence of rapport.

Nothing is possible without it.

Dr. Milton Erickson

There is no leadership influence or trust without rapport. Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone and sensing disconnection when they did not respond? It’s uncomfortable not to have rapport with someone. Now you can change all that with rapport building skills, as outlined in this article.

First, however, we need to define what rapport IS and IS NOT. Let’s clarify the common myths about rapport.

Rapport IS …

• Deep unconscious connection with another that creates understanding and trust.
• Appreciating (not necessarily agreeing with) another’s perspective.
• Understanding and accepting another’s feelings.
• A form of influence

Rapport IS NOT about …

• Liking someone
• Small talk
• Similar interests
• Accepting what someone says or does. 

The above means that you can have rapport with someone and not even like them. You can have rapport with someone while disagreeing with them. You can have rapport without needing to create small talk.

People in rapport experience a resonance with each other. They adopt the same posture, gestures, head tilt and rate of breathing. When one leans, the other leans too. All of this body language matching is happening below their conscious awareness.

Step 1: Set an intention of win/win.

The first step is to set an intention for a win/win outcome with someone you would like to build rapport.  Because matching and mirroring physiology (or even written communications) is so powerful for building rapport, it should never be used for manipulative reasons.

Step 2: Match physiology.

Pick at lease one aspect of that person’s physiology you would like to match until you sense rapport.

Below are a few options.

• Smile
• Arms or legs crossed
• Siting back or forward
• Source of breath – chest, under the diaphragm or in the belly
• Rate of breath
• Eye contact
• Eye brows raised
• Tilting of head or body
• Sitting slouched or upright

Credit: PA Photos/Landov

By matching someone’s body language, you put yourself in sync with the other person’s behavior and meet them in their model of the world. It’s magical when it happens! 

The secret to successful rapport building is to match and mirror outside the other person’s conscious awareness. When you match someone’s body language, you would not do so simultaneously with the other person. Instead, you would wait till it is your turn to speak and then use a similar gesture or aspect of posture. This way they become aware of your connection on an unconscious level.

Matching and mirroring is not just a physiological phenomenon. When you are in rapport, you activate the same thinking and feeling circuitry – called mirror neurons – in your brain as in the other person. You think similar thoughts. You feel similar feelings. Doing so creates an instant connection and trust.

Step 3: Test your rapport level.

After you have been matching and mirroring for 5 – 10 minutes, check to see if you have rapport with the other person.

To do so, stop matching and intentionally shift some aspect of your physiology — such as, crossing your legs or leaning back in your chair – and notice what happens.

Does the other person’s body language start to mimic yours?

If so, you are in rapport. Once you have successfully matched, you create an environment in which you can lead the other person where you want them to go.

For a leader, that’s power! The possibilities are endless how a leader can use rapport to influence an individual or an entire organization, such as …

• Getting emotional buy-in from employees for your company’s vision.
• Leading change within your organization without resistance.
• Creating alignment with your peers around a common decision
• Relaxing nervous job candidates during an interview
• Introducing a new way of doing things when a person or team has become fixed in their ways.

Takeaway: Matching and mirroring physiology is one of your most powerful, yet under-utilized, leadership tools for creating rapport and trust.  And you can learn it in minutes.

Final comments

Your body language can make or break your leadership influence, emotional state and trust within relationships. While it’s easy to use your physiology to increase your leadership effectiveness, it does take focus, intention and practice.

Decide right now what situations in the coming week – a meeting, performance review, customer negotiation, etc – in which you will use your body language to communicate authority, build rapport or just feel good for no good reason.

Then email me and let me know the outcome.

The post Top Leaders Communicate Authority Through Body Language. appeared first on The Empowered Business.

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.

The post Brain Science Secrets to Increase Leadership Willpower appeared first on The Empowered Business.

As a leader, how often do you find yourself …

• 

  Thinking Behind Strategic Thinking

  Overwhelmed by an overload of demands, not knowing what to respond to first?

• Continually fighting for certainty, paralyzed by fear of the unknown?
• Blind sighted by unforseen events that jeopardize your company’s stability and bottomline?

I’m guessing what you really want is to stop your perpetual busyness.  You want to focus on the critical few.   You want to navigate your company, amidst constant change, to its ultimate destination.

In my decades of working with leaders, I have found that the above are symptoms that a leader lacks the capacity to think strategically.  Let’s look at how to turn those symptoms around.

The 3 Most Important Things You Need to Know About Strategic Thinking:  What It Is AND Is Not

1. Strategic thinking is an exercise of the brain muscle, not the wrist muscle.

Despite what many leaders believe, strategic thinking is NOT quantitative analysis – eg, generating sales forecasts – nor quantitative goals – eg,  $100 million in revenues.

While numbers are important in planning, true strategic thinking is qualitative.  It is about HOW you think as a leader, and less about the contents of your thinking.

 2. Strategic thinking is NOT the same thing as strategic planning.  In fact, many strategic plans have little strategic thinking behind them.

For most companies, strategic planning focuses on breaking down a goal into action steps and connecting those steps to resources, timelines and budgets.

While strategic planning is an important activity for implementation, a plan, without strategic thinking preceding it, has little chance of success.  While strategic planning defines the steps to move up the ladder, strategic thinking (in the words of Covey) defines whether your ladder is against the right wall.

 3. Strategic thinking is more about the structure of one’s thinking, NOT the content of one’s thinking.

While most strategy development efforts focus on content – or what one thinks, strategic thinking is driven by how one thinks – ie., the thinking behind the thinking.   We call this metacognition.

For example, assessing a competitor’s strengths focuses on content.    While the structure of your thinking may view competition at a higher elevation, such as the changing forces in one’s industry and impact on the competitive landscape.

How Great Strategic Thinkers Think:  The 6 Core Characteristics

Essentially, strategic thinking is a mindset.  It is the art of making the right decisions for attaining future success in a complex, uncertain world.   

Although there are many books about strategic thinking, my focus for this article is on the structure of strategic thinking … the Core 6 characteristics.

To uncover a leader’s strategic thinking capacity, I utilize a tool called the Inventory of Workplace Attitude and Motivations (IWAM) to assess a leader’s strength in the Core 6, as well as dominant mental patterns blocking a leader from thinking strategically.

Below are my Core 6 characteristics of strategic thinking.

Global (or Holistic) Thinking

Global or holistic thinking combines the cognitive abilities of:

• Big picture thinking (ie, seeing the overall landscape from a 10,000 foot level … such as your organization or industry. 
• Systems thinking (ie., ability to see the interrelationships between elements … such as, how decisions made in engineering impact other functions)
• Patterns recognition (ie., seeing cause and effect patterns within your environment, peoples’ behaviors and even within yourself  … such as “when I take 5 minutes to plan daily, I have a more productive, focused day.”)

The purpose of holistic thinking is not to accumulate knowledge, but to create new mental maps that unleash greater thinking possibilities for the future.

Example of Holistic Thinking:  Bill Gates and Paul Allen did not invent anything to start Microsoft. The personal computer revolution was started by putting together existing technologies in a way never done before. They could see from a 10,000 foot elevation how seemingly unrelated technology trends intersected, eventually disrupting the computer industry in a completely new direction.

Future Oriented

Strategic thinking leaders view their company’s past and present through the eyes of the future.  Strategic thinking requires strategic foresight and asking such questions as …

• What new emerging trends will shape our company’s future?
• What new possibilities may exist 10 years from now that don’t exist today?
• What unmet needs will our customers have in the future, not even visible on their radar screen today?

Strategic thinking requires a mindset that anticipates rather than reacts.  A strategic minded leader is seeking out opportunities through a “future” lens rather than merely responding to today’s problems and customer needs.

Example of Future-oriented Thinking:  According to Dr. W. Edwards Deming, management expert, the “principle of anticipation and innovation — driven by the producer, not the customer — is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

Henry Ford, a leader with great strategic foresight, understood that principle.  He said if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would’ve asked for a faster horse.

Options Thinking

Options thinking is nothing new.  Our whole lives consist of endless options –  what will we eat for dinner, where will we invest our money and so on. The same is true for organizations.

To achieve strategic success, leaders must develop their options thinking capabilities on two levels:

1. Defining multiple options for reaching goals and choosing the “best”;
2. Identifying a wide range of possible future states (aka environmental scenarios) to uncover and exploit emerging opportunities.

To understand why, imagine, if you picked a random path up a mountain – rather than finding the easiest among multiple alternatives.  Or that you did not consider various conditions in your climb – like snow, dangerous animals or equipment failure.  What would be your chances of success?

In a similar fashion, many strategic plans fail within organizations due to lack of options thinking.

Example of Options Thinking:  In 2006, Mike Jackson, CEO, AutoNation, challenged industry assumptions by asking “what if buyers replaced cars every 5 years, not 3 years?”  By looking at a low probability, high consequence event, AutoNation experienced profitability and positive cash flow, while many dealers went out of business.  That’s the advantage of options-thinking.

Differences–Oriented

When a leader is a high differences-thinking person, it tells me two things:

1.  His/her brain is wired to sort for differences. These leaders are innovators.  They love to change the rules of the game.  Think Steve Jobs as a “high differences-oriented” leader.
2. They thrive on change.  Not only can these individuals respond easily to change.  They can “see” possible changes in the future that others may dismiss or think impossible.

Such leaders have the ability to see and capitalize on hidden opportunities that others don’t have the thinking capacity to spot.

Example of Differences-Thinking:  Billy Beane, General Manager, Oakland A’s, shattered conventional baseball beliefs that big payrolls translate into big wins. His unconventional use of statistics in identifying undervalued players led the A’s — one of the worst teams in baseball with one of the lowest payrolls — to three American League West division titles.  This is hallmark of a differences-oriented thinker.

Achievement/Success Thinking

An achievement-thinking leader is an individual who is motivated by success and by being the best.  Achievement-thinking leaders choose strategies that exploit an advantage. Their only goal is to win.

To develop this thinking muscle, leaders must address fundamental achievement-oriented questions, such as …

• What defines success?
• What are the factors that drive success?
• How will we measure success?

Example of Achievement-Thinking:  Olympic athletes are the quintessence of achievement-oriented thinkers.  Their whole focus is on winning the gold medal.  For many, even a silver or bronze medal is considered failure.  They seek every possible strategy to get the advantage: the choice of a coach, equipment, mastering the fine points of technique, etc.

Proactive Balanced with Reflection

Most leaders by nature are highly proactive and take little time for reflecting.  Yet, to solve the increasing unfamiliar problems facing businesses today, a leader must learn to balance (proactive) action with reflection for new insights to problems with no precedence.

This balance requires leaders to take regular time for reflection and cultivate a sense of right timing for action guided by one’s own intuition.

True reflection is not about thinking hard, but rather a presence of mind.  A state of mind in which you view a situation from not knowing … a beginner’s mind.  (see Strategic Intuition, William Duggan)

Example of Proactive Balanced With Reflection:  Napolean was a master at strategic insight.  What he lacked in size of army, he made up in precision and reaction rate. Napoleon said it best: “Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in.”

Building your own strategic thinking muscle

A small amount of consistent time and practice is all it takes to build your own strategic thinking muscle.  For example …

1. Learn chess.  It is one of the best ways to develop the strategic thinking characteristics described above.
2. Subscribe to the Futurist magazine published by the World Future Society.
3. Track the BIG, new things the smartest people & organizations (regardless of industry) are doing.  Then adapt them in your company.

If that seems too much now, just remember …

Do less.  Reflect more.

Problems less.  Possibilities more.

“Play not to lose” less.  “Play to win” more.

The post How Great Strategic Thinking Leaders Think. appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Accountable Leader

Today’s most successful companies all have one trait in common.  Their high performance organizations are driven by a strong accountability culture.  Yet despite many companies’ well-intentioned efforts to create strong accountability, leaders still struggle to make it a reality.  Mediocrity, lack of execution and operational breakdowns are hallmarks of poor accountability and an out of control, under-performing organization.

The REAL Truth Why Your Leaders are Struggling with Accountability and Under-performing Teams:

• As a leader, you can’t develop strong results-driven accountability with your team unless you have strong personal accountability with YOURSELF.  This capability is part of self leadership.  You can’t hold others accountable if you don’t take responsibility for your own actions, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, choices and results.  Because employees model what leaders do, a leader’s weak personal accountability perpetuates a cycle of poor  organizational performance.
• As a leader, you lack critical “soft,” people skills — such as addressing interpersonal conflict, and engaging and motivating employees — that drive organizational accountability and performance.
 Employees follow you and are motivated to perform for their reasons, not yours.  For this reason, weak leadership “soft” skills cripple employee engagement and performance and is a costly epidemic in today’s business world.
• Most leaders lack the necessary mindset, capabilities and practices to drive strong accountability – a “must” for high achieving organizations.  Strong accountability starts first with the right mindset.  No performance system, set of metrics or people practices by themselves can make up for a lack of understanding what healthy accountability is and is not.  Lacking the right mindset perpetuates accountability breakdowns and a low performing organization.

The Accountability Mindset Your Leaders and Employees Need Instead to Drive Growth and Profitability

Your mindset is your mental map, cognitive filters and internal glasses that color your view of yourself and the world.   These mental filters drive your thoughts, feelings, motivations, behaviors, communications and, ultimately, results …  without your conscious awareness.

From a leadership standpoint, I call these mental filters your inner leadership game.   As a leader, the most important game you will ever play is the game within your mind. 

Let’s look at the components of your inner leadership game for building strong accountability and a high performance organization.

Grand Purpose/Vision

Often organizations treat accountability as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end. Such organizations narrowly focus on the how of accountability and forget the why. 

Grand Mission

Accountability means more than achieving performance goals.  To motivate your employees to deliver results, accountability requires a profoundly deep understanding why and for whom your employees perform.

Zappos credits its multi-billion dollar success and organizational passion because every employee knows his/her significant role in keeping the Zappos vision alive.

• As a leader, for what grand purpose does your organization exist?  
• To what extent do your employees know that purpose?  
• To what extent are you reinforcing  each employee’s vital role to that purpose?

Values

Values are the qualities and principles you most value.  Your top 3 values drive 90% of our focus, decision-making, time usage, behaviors and outcomes.  If accountability is not amongst those, your attempts will be undermined and lack sustainability.

Important values considerations as a leader for cultivating a strong accountability culture  include:

•  Is accountability an explicit core or operational value for your organization?  is it a top personal value for you?
•  Do you have an agreed upon definition as to what healthy accountability is and what critical behaviors will drive it?
• Are there other values that are perceived by you or your employees as conflicting or competing with accountability in your organization?  If so, how will you resolve that conflict?

If any of the above are not addressed, accountability efforts will suffer.

Beliefs

Beliefs are thought patterns, convictions or judgments about yourself, others and the world around you.  They make up the boundary conditions of your thinking and the parameters of your inner game rule book. 

Most organizations struggle with accountability because of the unconscious negative beliefs their leaders and employees hold about accountability. Those beliefs are often the byproduct  of past negative experiences with accountability during upbringing, with a former employer, etc.  To assess the impact of these beliefs on accountability, ask yourself:

• When you think of  accountability, what associations, emotional reactions or thoughs come up?  Are these associations positive, negative or neutral? 
•  If any negative associations about accountability, how can you redefine it so there is emotional buy-in, organizational alignment and it motivates employees to drive their own results?

This article covered 3 out of the 6 factors of your inner game and its relationship to accountability.  Part 2 will cover the remaining 3 factors: your leadership identity, motivational patterns and emotional state.  Part 3 will cover leadership practices and culture changes critical for a strong accountability organization.

The single most important takeaway is to understand that your inner leadership games drives 90% of your performance and results, including accountability.

If you would like more details about your inner leadership game, I invite you to download a complimentary report:  Wired to Win Big;  7 Inner Game Leadership Strategies for Rising to the Top and Staying There.

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 orwww.empoweredbusiness.com.

The post The Accountable Leader: Developing the Right Mindset That Ignite Performance (Part 1) appeared first on The Empowered Business.