I sometimes wonder if we as parents and our schools have gone too far in over-protecting our children, pandering to their whims, and being hell-bent on saving them from accidents or disappointment in their young lives. Remember that old saying from the fairground… “Every Player Wins a Prize!” But should they? We all know that’s not the reality in the real world and we may be risking future emotional harm by trying too hard to smooth out the bumps in the road for our children during their formative years.

Political correctness gone mad and ‘safety first’ may be responsible for breeding a generation lacking in resilience who throw in the towel at the very first falter or knockback. I remember days of falling on the hard ground and skinning my knee; cutting my arm on a nail sticking out of the billycart I and my brother had built; breaking a collar bone in a football tackle; and discovering that what I thought was a ‘best in class’ composition only gaining me a B-.  Yet eventually the knee and the arm healed; the collarbone knitted together and I knuckled down and tried harder on my next classroom assignment.

And yes there was the occasional schoolyard falling out between friends when lunchtime games went awry, but ultimately we sorted things out and made up again the next day without the need for adults to come in and impose their ‘play fair’ rules upon us.

So if you like me, feel that protection pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction here is a wonderful story about a radical new move to back away from over protection in the schoolyard. It originates from my old home town in Auckland, New Zealand.

I read this story on Australia Day and it is sourced from ONE News in NZ. The headline reads “School Ditches Rules and Loses Bullies.” Now that piqued my interest. Here’s the gist of it…
(Source: Television New Zealand Limited. www.Tvnz.co.nz )

…. “Ripping up the playground rulebook is having incredible effects on children at an Auckland school. Chaos may reign at Swanson Primary School with children climbing trees, riding skateboards and playing bullrush during playtime, but surprisingly the students don’t cause bedlam, the principal says.

The school is actually seeing a drop in bullying, serious injuries and vandalism, while concentration levels in class are increasing. Principal Bruce McLachlan rid the school of playtime rules as part of a successful university experiment.

‘We want kids to be safe and to look after them, but we end up wrapping them in cotton wool when in fact they should be able to fall over. When you look at our playground it looks chaotic. From an adult’s perspective, it looks like kids might get hurt, but they don’t.’

Swanson School signed up to the study by AUT and Otago University just over two years ago, with the aim of encouraging active play. However, the school took the experiment a step further by abandoning the rules completely, much to the horror of some teachers at the time, he said.

When the university study wrapped up at the end of last year the school and researchers were amazed by the results. Mudslides, skateboarding, bullrush and tree climbing kept the children so occupied the school no longer needed a timeout area or as many teachers on patrol.

Instead of a playground, children used their imagination to play in a ‘loose parts pit’ which contained junk such as wood, tyres and an old fire hose. ‘The kids were motivated, busy and engaged. In my experience, the time children get into trouble is when they are not busy, motivated and engaged. It’s during that time they bully other kids, graffiti or wreck things around the school. Parents were happy too because their children were happy,’ Principal McLachlan said.

But this wasn’t a playtime revolution, it was just a return to the days before health and safety policies came to rule.

AUT professor of public health Grant Schofield, who worked on the research project, said there are too many rules in modern playgrounds. ‘The great paradox of cotton-wooling children is it’s more dangerous in the long-run. Society’s obsession with protecting children ignores the benefits of risk-taking,’ he said.

Children develop the frontal lobe of their brain when taking risks, meaning they work out consequences. ‘You can’t teach them that. They have to learn risk on their own terms. It doesn’t develop by watching TV, they have to get out there.’

The research project developed into something bigger when plans to upgrade playgrounds were stopped due to over-zealous safety regulations and costly play equipment. ‘There was so many ridiculous health and safety regulations and the kids thought the static structures of playgrounds were boring.’

When researchers – inspired by their own risk-taking childhoods – decided to give children the freedom to create their own play, principals shook their heads but eventually four Dunedin schools and four West Auckland schools agreed to take on the challenge, including Swanson Primary School.

It was expected the children would be more active, but researchers were amazed by all the behavioural pay-offs. The final results of the study will be collated this year.

In the meantime Professor Schofield is urging other schools to embrace risk-taking….’

Isn’t it about time we took stock of what we are creating in our homes and schoolyards? I am interested in your comments.

Until next time… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a wonderful week and a prosperous New Year. – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your staff.

While creating happy customers is one aspect of Naomi Simson’s business (and an important one), creating happy staff and stakeholders are equally critical components.

RedBalloon’s founder, Simson draws heavily on her experience as a senior marketer, having worked her way up over a 15-year period from marketing officer to product manager, marketing manager and director with well-known companies such as Ansett, IBM, KPMG and Apple. After leaving corporate life to become a mother, other priorities took hold and she decided to build her own workplace that people genuinely looked forward to attending every day.  Simson believes this is vital for long-term success and it’s something she is well versed in.  RedBalloon has secured a place in the list of Australia’s Best Places to Work produced by BRW four years in a row now.

RedBalloon are considered the pioneers of experiential gifting in Australia and New Zealand.

Although a recent arrival on the scene, here are some of the awards that they have won over the past few years:-

2013 –     #8 in the Top 50 BRW Best Places to Work in Australia (an award they are well and truly used to receiving) and one of only 9 companies to make this award 5 years in a row

2012 –     Secured a place in BRW Top 50 Best Places to Work in Australia.
BRW Fast 100 list from 2004 to 2009.  Red Balloon have also been a regular on the Deloitte Fast 50 for Australia, beginning in 2006.

2011 –     Australian Human Resources Institute HR Practitioner Of The Year – Awarded to RedBalloon Employee Experience Manager Megan Bromley.
-    Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Award – Awarded to company founder Naomi Simson (2011 Eastern Region winner for the Industry category).

2010 –    Hewitt Best Employers – One of only six companies to receive recognition.

2008 –    Nokia Business Award for Innovation – Presented to Naomi Simson at the Telstra Business Women’s Awards.

There are numerous other awards too many to mention here, and they are all centred around training, culture, team building and innovation.

In her book ‘Five Thanks a Day,’ Naomi Simson has compiled a collection of stories on the ‘how-to’ and science of saying thank you, the concept of which she also attributes as part of her success.

The name behind Simson’s endeavour was inspired by the 1956 Oscar-winning French short film Le Ballon Rouge (“The Red Balloon”), which takes viewers on a series of journeys with a young boy named Pascal and a whimsical red balloon that begins to follow him through Paris. That red balloon, a vibrant symbol of fun and happiness throughout the film, laid the foundation for Simson’s dream venture.

“I wanted to test if a business could be successful by simply listening to its people and its customers, and focusing on what would get people talking: the giving and receiving of experiential gifts that create memories,” Simson says.

Now, twelve years later, the company Simson founded in her family home has flourished into a six-time BRW Fast Company that has garnered many more accolades for its work environment, gift offerings, and employee engagement.

In an effort to bring RedBalloon into the business sphere, a corporate incentive service was created that offers employees reward points that may be redeemed for cash credit on the RedBalloon website. There are approximately 3,000 clients involved in this innovative program including such corporate heavy hitters as Qantas, Virgin Mobile, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and Origin Energy.

The work in this sector is not only rewarding for participating companies, but also for the RedBalloon employees coordinating the programs. “I have found my home in a business where they practice what they preach and ‘mix business with pleasure’,” says Matt Geraghty, General Manager of Corporate.

People Management

The work atmosphere at RedBalloon is just as upbeat and invigorating as the experiences they offer, and this is largely due to the high spirits of the employees.

“We believe that our people are our biggest competitive strength and, as a result, have shaped an award winning culture of fun, appreciation and recognition designed to attract and retain top talent,” says RedBalloon’s current CEO Kristie Buchanan.

A great deal of emphasis is placed on structuring the employees’ daily experiences to ensure that every work day is engaging and fulfilling.

“The framework – ‘Welcome. Tools. Grow. Flow. Appreciate’ – covers our approach to recruitment and on-boarding; what productivity tools we provide; how employees are kept connected to the flow of information; and finally, how they are recognised and challenged,” says Buchanan. “Our growth plans involve continuing to find more innovative ways to deliver meaningful experiences to our customers, our corporate clients and our employees. This could be in the form of products, in service delivery, in our marketing or technology.”

Check out for yourself why RedBalloon is one of Australia’s most sought after companies to work for and why it is also one of the fastest growing start-up brands in business today. I am sure it will give you food for thought. RedBalloon is another of the amazing companies we will be showcasing on our week long study tour in February of organisations that are changing the shape of the way we do business.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to discuss further how to join our February study tour and create the environment that attracts and retains the young leaders of the future for your organisation.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Across the globe executives are realising that we need to change the way we are running our businesses, because the old ways don’t serve society and its people effectively any more. The current model has served us well for the last 150 years but the world is changing faster now than we have ever experienced at any other time in our history.  Businesses lose their relevance at the same rate that internal change lags behind the pace of external change.  We’re now at a time when we are facing the option of change or become irrelevant.

There is a global movement to redefine success in business from a much broader, more inclusive social perspective and it is happening everywhere we look.

So what do we do about it?  There are so many opinions out there (everyone has one) and there are plenty of consultants ready to share their well-rehearsed advice, but it’s all so confusing and who’s to say that the advice they have is going to work for you? Who’s actually already doing it successfully here in Australia, within our own unique culture and working around our own issues that we in Australia specifically face?

ROI+I* study tours have been designed not to tell you how to run your business, but to showcase successful businesses that are making waves and making a difference. These types of businesses are generally around 120% more profitable than standard S&P500 businesses within 3 years of operation and being nominated for all the best employer awards. They all live the principle of ‘doing good is good for business’ and it bursts at the seams in everything they do.

Attracting fully engaged, top talent is a major part of this new paradigm. It’s becoming one of the biggest challenges for employers today.

This study tour is about observing first-hand what is working for other businesses who are thriving and embracing this change as part of their daily existence, and deciding for yourself what will work for you and your own culture as it continues to evolve to remain relevant.

Don’t just be told about it.  Come along with us early in the new year and see for yourself how these businesses are redefining the way we operate in Australia and getting the incredible results that they are (in some cases even against insurmountable odds).

*R.O.I.+I. (“R.O. double I” – Return on Investment and Integrity)

For more information email me direct at  brian@precisionprofiling.com.au

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

I must admit I got caught out recently when I thought I was doing the right thing by this young tradesman. I needed some landscaping to be completed at the front of my property and it just so happened that at the same time I was considering my options, a young man (around 25 years) happened to drop by with a business card offering to quote me on the job. He had been doing some work in the area and noticed that I had been preparing my front yard for a major facelift. He seemed knowledgeable about his craft (landscaping and concreting) and was personable enough in a rough ‘tradie’ kind of way. Once I had seen his handiwork on some previous jobs, I felt comfortable he could complete the work to an acceptable level, so I decided to give him the opportunity. So far so good…

Given I did not know him personally, I wanted to make sure that I would receive fair value for money so we came to an arrangement that I would pay directly for any of the material needed (machinery hire; sand and soil supply; concrete delivery etc.), and he would charge me at a daily ‘labour-only’ rate for him and his mate which would allow me to keep within the budget I had set aside for the project. He told me in advance what the daily rate for the two of them would be and it seemed reasonable enough so the project commenced with me confident that I had covered all the bases and that we were both on the same page with our mutual expectations.

The first couple of days I needed to be off site in meetings so I didn’t get much opportunity to observe what my contractor and his mate were doing. Each day there was evidence of progress in the right direction albeit slower than I expected, so I assumed that things were on track and I paid him as I had agreed to do at the end of the first two days of work. By day four I was beginning to get concerned that the project did not seem to be progressing as fast as I had hoped but I put that concern down to me not being knowledgeable in the ways of landscaping. Whenever I raised my concerns with my young friend, he assured me that things were progressing well and his super confidence seemed to allay my fears enough for me to question myself and my expectations rather than him and his abilities. By now I felt we were two days behind where we needed to be if I was to keep within my budget, so I decided to remain around for the next day to observe first-hand the work that was being done for me by our landscaper and his helper.

At the end of day five, the penny had dropped for me.

Here’s what I witnessed. The general theme of ‘a days work’ by my young landscaper….

Arrive around 8.30-8.45 am. Take the next half hour preparing site works (i.e. unpack the ‘ute’ while chatting about the night before with his mate). Set tasks for the mate to complete while answering mobile phone calls for another half an hour. Do some work for about an hour before taking a break. Complete the morning break and work for another hour before leaving the site together at around 11.30 am to have lunch. Come back an hour later, and work until around 2.30 pm when it was time to clean up. Leave at around 3.00 pm (sometimes earlier I later discovered) to go and quote on other jobs.

As you (and I) will discover from this scenario, a day of work for two tradesmen consisted of probably only five to five and a half hours of actual work. The rest was made up of late arrival, long meal breaks and early finishes interrupted constantly by mobile phone calls and a lot of watching by the tradie’s mate while the tradie did the skilled work.

That evening I quizzed my young contractor what a ‘fair days work for a fair days pay’ meant to him, and much to my surprise he answered that if he is on site for four hours or less it is charged out at a half day rate, but anything over four hours was a full day regardless of how much time was spent on site working. When I mentioned that it seemed like I was actually paying for a full day for two of them for only 1.5 hours more that his half day rate he shrugged his shoulders and said ‘this was what we agreed on.’

And he was right!

In my eagerness to engage him and cover what I assumed was all the bases, I left out one very important aspect of our communication. At a daily ‘labour-only’ rate – what constituted a days work? I wonder if you have you ever been caught out like this as I was.

And here is the valuable lesson I learned from this recent episode. When giving freedom to people without framework built around that freedom, what you are actually doing is giving them licence not freedom. This is because freedom and autonomy without proper framework takes away accountability, and without accountability freedom for the individual is a fairly hollow experience for all concerned.

This recent experience of mine translates directly across to the workplace, especially with our fast changing workforce where we are attempting to create cultures filled with the young Gen Y whizz-kids of the future whom we want to attract and retain. In our rush to engage with them and their self belief that anything is possible for them (instilled into them via parents; schools and the media), we need to be very careful that we do not give them licence without framework in the name of self determination and autonomy. It is a fine line between the two but it can be a slippery slope if we are not more careful as their employers.

I guess you may be wondering what was the final outcome for my landscaping project? Instead of it being an enjoyable win-win experience for both of us, once my trust had been broken I believe it developed into a lose-lose experience instead. My project took double the expected amount of time to be completed and henceforth my budget blew out significantly, and the extra work that I had agreed my eager landscaper could do once the main project was completed was given to someone else to complete under tighter and more specific guidelines as a result. So my young landscaping friend got less work in the end and I paid more than expected.

Here is an excellent link to a blog written by a young and eager Gen Y achiever Kejia Zhu, an employee of Facebook. He’s a 29 year old guy who was born in China, grew up in the UK and now lives in America. Kejia wrote a blog this week which received a lot of attention worldwide because it speaks to the heart of the overblown expectations of the Gen Y generation and their search for instant success before they reach thirty. In his blog Kejia talks with a fair degree of insight about the value of patience and the wisdom that comes with age and years of experience in a world bludgeoned by stories of overnight fame and success.

When I read what Keija says about his 92 yo grandfather’s achievements and his own new-found insight into the meaning of success, it gives me heart that there is a place in this world for every generation if we are prepared to step back and honour the unique perspective that people of each each decade of learning and discovery brings to the table.

http://kzhu.net/does-life-end-at-35.html

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to discuss further how to create the environment that attracts and retains the young leaders of the future for your organisation.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

Photo Credit – ‘Grandpa stealing wifi for his beloved iPad’  – Keija (@Kzhu)

When you think of some of the world’s most admired brands, there have been precious few who have lasted the distance remaining consistently near the top of all the “best” lists for the whole of their corporate life since inception. We have witnessed many burst on to the scene from nowhere only to disappear from view within a decade or so. And quite a few have remained in the public eye as product/service innovators one year; top financial performers another; employers of choice at other times; and maybe even good corporate citizens on other occasions.

But to be recognised as consistently high achievers in the triple bottom line of Financial, Social and Environmental performance takes a special kind of company with a special kind of culture and ‘servant leadership’ who understand the true meaning of ‘stewardship’ and all that it represents. In my opinion there is one company in the USA that has remained the stand-out performer for almost all of its 42 years in an industry littered with failures, and it continues to outperform on its “R.O. Double I” to this day. And no, it is neither a hi-tech nor an IT based company. It plies its trade in a brown fields industry that has been around for decades.

If I told you that this company has managed to maintain a special place in the heart of its millions of customers and the community at large every year with a workforce that numbers over 40,000 then its achievements become even more amazing given that this gives it 40,000 opportunities every hour of every day to ‘get things wrong.’ Invariably it gets it right 99% of the time.

This company continues to gather awards and accolades in all of the triple bottom line measurements that matter most year-in, year-out with a consistency of performance that is unsurpassed. I am talking about one of the World’s Most Admired Companies according to Fortune Magazine’s annual survey of corporate reputations (on the ‘Most Admired’ list every year since 1994 and all but twice in the ‘Most Admired’ Top 10); which is consistently awarded as ‘One of the Best Places to Work;’ ‘One of the Most Respected Corporations in the Community;’ a consistent ‘Green Leader’ on sustainability measures; a Positively Outrageous Service provider (that title is a clue); and a record holder for the longest running profitability streak in its industry with an unprecedented 40 consecutive years of profits and sustained operational excellence. It therefore comes as no surprise to learn that when Forbes completed its exhaustive market research in 2012 of the USA’s most desired brand, according to both men and women, this brand won the coveted #1 position.

The amazing brand that I speak of is none other than SWA – Southwest Airlines.

The low-cost (not ‘cheap and nasty’) airline universally recognised and feted for a plethora of “bests” across the whole gamut of Key Performance Indicators:–

• Best on-time performance
• Best baggage handling
• Fewest flight cancellations
• Fastest gate turn-around
• Lowest employee turnover rates in its industry
• Fewest industry customer complaints/highest ratings
• Over 60% market dominance in every city-city route it enters
• One of USA’s safest airlines and newest fleets
• Stock value consistently rising decade after decade
• Most worker/shareholder millionaires
• Growth of 20-30% pa in an airline industry littered with failures
• Standard and Poors rating that is one of the best in its industry
• Innovations in operational procedures, initial web design and on-line ticketing that turned the industry on its head.

And over those forty years of unabated profits it has all been achieved without the need to resort to lay-offs or pay cuts. That is a remarkable feat unmatched in US aviation history.

So how does Southwest Airlines do it? What makes its business model and its brand recognition and reverence so successful one might ask?

The most obvious answer is often found with the spiritual head of an organisation – the CEO. And Southwest Airlines had both a CEO and a 2-ic who almost reached mythical status during their time at the top over 35 of those 42 years. The co-founder, one time lawyer Herb Kelleher (President) and his 2-ic, one time legal secretary Colleen Barrett (Director of Culture) have created a culture built around fun and love (NYSE moniker – LUV) by never taking themselves seriously, hiring people with a sense of humour, and espousing a theory of delivering Positively Outrageous Service whilst achieving it all at the lowest possible operating costs, in the fledgling years out of necessity and ultimately as an industry game-changer. You can’t do that unless you engage your people and all of their diversity at a level of productivity and service where they are the difference that makes the difference in a ‘no- frills, low-fare, high-frequency’ airline with their good-natured attitude and ‘can do’ work ethic. To top it off, Southwest Airlines has always been a fully unionised workforce, so there are no corners cut through contracted or underpaid labour. I had the undoubted pleasure of witnessing this culture first hand over a period of seven years in the mid 90s when I led my world best practice study tours to the USA and Europe.

The Southwest operation and its head office at Love Field in Dallas, Texas, was always a favourite destination of mine because walking into their head office and touring their group departments for the day was like walking into a combination of an evangelical revival meeting and a Disney theme park all rolled into one, especially if one visited during Halloween.

The joy, the fun and the sense of camaraderie was palpable every single time. It literally jumped out at you off the walls of the place and was replicated in every personal story, every piece of written material, and every wall covered in photos and plaques and newspaper clippings and wacky stories everywhere you looked. This was not a contrived scene, it was organic. I know because I and my tour guests experienced it consistently year after year and I still have the photos and videos to prove it. What’s more, we never witnessed anything quite like it in any other best practice company elsewhere in the world in all of the fifteen tours I led over that seven year period, and certainly not in a ‘corporate’ environment with over 30,000 staff at that time. And remember – it was consistently profitable and consistently outperforming its competition in all of the industry benchmarks that mattered.

I once mused on one of my many visits back then whether this amazing environment would remain so special once its much loved co-founder Herb Kelleher and his ‘keeper of the culture,’ Colleen Barrett, finally retired and exited the scene. I was assured by anyone at SWA whom I happened to ask that there was ‘never any chance of the culture of love, fun, self sacrifice and passion abating,’ and they were right. Both Herb and Colleen have been gone from the scene for over six years now, and by all available measures the culture and the achievements – financial, social and societal – continue to this day. I believe this is because between Herb and Colleen, and their many thousands of colleagues, they not only led by example from the front, but they crafted a corporate architecture that focused on the highest aspirations of love; fun; service; humility and self deprecating humour that left no room for arrogance or false pride in its make-up. And they selected, hired, and trained accordingly.

From my observations, way back in the late 80s and early 90s, Southwest Airlines was the only company which could boast a company director at the highest level of seniority who was responsible as chief custodian of ‘culture.’ Ms Barrett headed up the committee whose sole focus was to ‘spread, keep and enrich the company culture and family spirit.’ I wonder if even today there are that many public corporations as significant as SWA who venerate and resource culture as a specific focus separate to their HR department or things of that ilk? As Colleen Barrett said herself back then, “Basically we hire attitudes. People don’t think of working for this company as a mere job. It’s a cause.” They actively seek out fun loving people who think outside the box in an industry where strict governance and uncompromising rules of safety must apply, and yet this does not detract from their enviable record of efficiency, safety and productivity, it enhances it.

In the words of Gary Kelly, the current Chairman of the Board, CEO and President, “With a Warrior Spirit, a Servant’s Heart, and Fun-LUVing Attitude, our nearly 46,000 employees create the unique Southwest culture that continues to maintain the excellence we have built up over four decades with our brand (in the form of Customer Service, Operational Excellence, Community Engagement and Consecutive Annual Profits)… We are committed to our purpose – to connect people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable and low-cost air travel. It is that purpose that will guide us forward in pursuit of our vision to become The World’s Most Loved, Most Flown, and Most Profitable Airline.”

Southwest bonds its employees to one another by shared values that include such traditional virtues as integrity, trust and altruism. For the worker ‘evangelists’ at SWA, it isn’t just a job it’s a crusade. And if the key to a highly successful brand is the level of trust that it engenders in the community then Southwest Airlines has turned trust into an organisational art-form through consistently Aligning the Attitudes; Being the Behaviours and Managing the Message.

What are the three elements that drive that intrinsic brand trust? I believe that it can best be described as:-

•    Trust in one’s Competence (organisationally this may be represented by operating efficiency and safety)
•    Trust in one’s Commitment (organisationally this may be represented by service, pricing, and customer experience)
•    Trust in one’s Character (organisationally this may be represented by community engagement and support)

Southwest Airlines doesn’t just strive to achieve outstanding results in the triple bottom line of Financial, Social and Environmental performance. Nor does it lay claim to winning various awards in these areas while it hides anything less than optimal from its public. It actively and transparently engages in measuring its results in these three areas each financial year in the form of its ‘Southwest Airlines One Report’ which lists all of the good, bad and the ugly KPIs under the triple headings of:– Performance (financial and operational); People (cultural and social); and Planet (environmental and societal).

R.O. ‘Double’ I

In the work that I have been doing in this area of R.O.I.+I. (Return on Investment and Integrity) or ‘conscious capitalism’ as it has also been termed, I have begun to notice that companies are finally beginning to have quite a unique approach to key areas of business that until this millennium, were almost non-existent. (The old paradigms of R.O.I.; growth for growth sake; command and control; headcount on a balance sheet; and a focus on ‘giving back’ only after the shareholder returns and executive bonuses have been fully accounted for, and where corporate citizenship fell under the banner of public affairs/PR, are still widely in evidence as the main order of the day, but thankfully this is slowly changing.)

In no particular order, these changes in thinking with a differentiated approach fall under the general headings of:- Innovation; Engagement; Environment; Servant Leadership; Culture and Mythology, and are built around a Noble Cause as the new sustainable model of business (Financial and Operational best practices assumed). What I have been discovering is that companies that are changing our world and the way we do business, are coming from a much larger paradigm of heart-centeredness interwoven into the hard edged fabric of sustainable financial results. Such things go hand in hand. They are no longer mutually exclusive. Many (but not all) of these leaders are coming out of the ranks of business entrepreneurs who have only entered the workforce since 2000. They are a new breed of leader and they want to make a difference to all lives, not just their own. What’s more, they have the technological means and the social media street smarts to do so.

Logos, Pathos and Ethos

If we go right back to the time of the Greek philosopher Aristotle we will see evidence of this thinking as the source of influence, in the form of Logos (Intellect); Pathos (Emotion) and Ethos (Character). For too many years now we have witnessed only the Logos or rational approach to business sustainability. During the 90s, we began to see evidence of the Pathos or emotional appeal becoming part of the fabric of business in the form of customer service, employee engagement and cultural values as a focus. But now I believe that with the turn of the millennium we are beginning to witness the third critical element come to the fore in the form of Ethos or ethical behaviour in its broadest sense as an integral part of the new business model.

Back in the 90s, Southwest Airlines was one of the pioneering few profit-generating organisations that was doing the unthinkable…bringing ‘fun and love’ into the boardroom.

Some people view this idea of ‘conscious capitalism’ (or R.O.I.+I. as I call it) as idealistic and impractical. In their view the business world is a tough and brutal ‘dog-eat-dog’ world. To them, this is just a pipe dream – wishful thinking for the woolly headed idealists. In fact this way of doing business not only creates wellbeing for all stakeholders but it also creates sustained high performance. Traditional businesses that compete against an authentic socially conscious business soon discover just how strong, resolute and resilient these enterprises can be.  Just ask any executive of some of the now bankrupt or defunct airlines in the USA who marched to the beat of the older drums, what it was like to compete against Southwest Airlines in its own backyard for the last 40 years.

I will end this longer-than-usual article with the words of Herb Kelleher in his ‘Message to the Field’ back in the 90s in one of his famous addresses to his Southwest employees:–

“When you’re sitting around with your grandchildren, I want you to be able to tell them that being connected to Southwest Airlines was one of the finest things that ever happened to you in your entire life.

I want you to be able to say, ‘Southwest Airlines ennobled and enriched my life; it made me better, and bigger and stronger than I ever could have been alone.’

And if, indeed, that happens with your grandchildren, then that will be the greatest contribution that I could have made to Southwest Airlines and to its future.”

What are your thoughts on ‘R.O.I.+I.’ and the amazing SWA story? I’d love to hear them.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to discuss further how to create the environment that attracts and retains the young leaders of the future for your organisation.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

So at last the election is over and we can get on with our lives. We have a new conservative government  and a new Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott. Once again I would like to draw your attention to the language used by our outgoing Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, as he delivered his 30 minute concession speech. From what the pundits are saying, it seems I may not be the only one who wondered whether he had achieved a marvellous victory, rather than a resounding defeat. It seems to me that Mr Rudd was attempting to “reframe” the loss as a victory of sorts, but in my opinion it falls short for a number of reasons.

To begin with I would like to explain what is meant by a ‘reframe’ in the context of communication. It is often used by counsellors, trainers or personal coaches to assist their clients to see their current situation in a different light, so that what they might perceive to be a limiting belief becomes a more positive or empowering belief if viewed in a different context or if  ‘framed differently.’ An apt description might be… “To look at, present, or think of (beliefs, ideas, relationships, etc.) in a new or different way. To change the perspective for the person or people listening.”

So how, in my opinion, did our outgoing Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd get it wrong in his concession speech?

1.    He was speaking in his official capacity as the outgoing Prime Minister to the Australian population at large, not as the Parliamentary Labour Party Leader. But all we heard was the wonderful success that he and his party had achieved in saving some of their Members of Parliament from defeat. Not once during his speech did we hear about the honour it had been for him to serve as his country’s ‘first amongst equals.’ (He even commented that “in a couple more days we might have got there.” Hardly likely given the significant number of seats lost by his outgoing government.)

2.    Once again his language gave away his self-focus. I counted twice the number of personal pronouns used by Mr Rudd (“I, me, and my”) than those used by the incoming Prime Minister, Mr Abbott in his victory speech. Mr Abbott’s speech was focused on the people of Australia and what they deserved from their government in response to the trust they had placed in it through the decisive election result. His was a speech of grace, dignity and humility with a strong reminder of the awesome responsibility that his party had been handed to live up to its promises of good government. By contrast, Mr Rudd’s speech was filled with pride for the campaign accomplishments he had achieved in defeat. (I counted his direct use of the words “I’m proud” on at least five occasions plus numerous other times when his pride was implied due to him proving the pundits wrong, in his opinion. It is interesting to note that when Kevin Rudd was replaced as PM by his own parliamentary party the first time around some three years ago, his resignation speech on the steps of parliament house back then was also filled with all of the achievements he was personally proud of, as if he was keen to remind people of the legacy of his leadership, lest they forget.)

3.    Mr Rudd’s undisguised excitement in being personally re-elected to his own seat, sounded more like the enthusiastic declarations of a first time candidate, than the sober assessment of an outgoing Prime Minister, who had just seen a major clean-out of many valued members of his own parliamentary party. To compound  the self indulgent nature of his ‘personal victory’ Mr Rudd went on to say of his Liberal opponent in his own electorate… “Bill Glasson, eat your heart out.” Hardly what one would call being gracious in victory, and certainly not Prime Ministerial.

4.    Mr Rudd’s list of personal “thank you’s” almost became an extended version of a self indulgent Oscar winning speech (26 and counting). I was beginning to wonder if his local butcher, baker  and candlestick maker were also going to get a mention in the course of his delivery, such was the length of the list of names he had lined up for us to hear about. There is a point beyond which personal acknowledgement of others when in the spotlight  becomes the self indulgent meanderings of someone wishing to milk the moment for all it is worth.

If you think that in writing this post my political bias might be showing, I would like to point out that the Prime Minister who Kevin Rudd replaced from within his own party just a few weeks prior to the election campaign, Ms Julia Gillard, has kept a respectful silence in my opinion, and has shown much dignity in the two comments she has made to her defeated parliamentary colleagues and their successful opponent Mr Abbott and his team (via Twitter) since the election result was handed down. My comments here are based purely on my observations of Mr Rudd’s and Mr Abbott’s respective election night speeches and the indications that show the make-up of each individual from the style and content of their respective communications.

If you would like to form your own judgments on the respective speeches and what they tell us, I recommend that you Google “Mr Kevin Rudd’s concession speech” and “Mr Tony Abbott’s victory speech” for your own perception of the merits and personal focus of each.

And now back to the point of my blog today – the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of a well-formed “reframe.”

I think the above points give a fairly accurate picture of what not to do if you are attempting to ‘reframe’ your audience’s perception of a significant event. Get it wrong, and they not only won’t accept the premise that you are asserting but worse still you may create the opposite effect to what you intend. You certainly won’t be able to effectively re-write history in the eyes of others through the poor use of reframing in your concession speech once the election result has been handed down.

So what are some of the keys to effective ‘reframing?’

1.    Always remember the context in which you find yourself, when you attempt to reframe the significant event, situation or strongly held belief. If you are speaking in the context of a resounding election defeat, it is important to use that context as the foundation for your reframe. To deny it or to refer to it in no more than passing terms, runs the risk of creating a disconnect between what is so, and what you wish others to perceive it to be. Do that and the credibility of your argument is lost on those for whom it is meant.

2.    Always remain acutely aware of the audience for whom your reframed message is meant. It is important to pace the experience of the audience from their point of view in order to gain rapport and therefore their willingness to accept the new ‘frame’ or point of view that you are leading them to consider and accept. For example, if you are speaking to the Australian public at large, then only appealing to the perceptions of a small proportion of that constituency puts you at risk of seriously alienating the rest.

I would love to read your thoughts and comments here now that our election race has been run and the dust is settling.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to discuss further how to understand the people who work for you and how to leverage that knowledge for the benefit of them and your organisation.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

Two young fish were swimming in one direction when they happened to meet an older fish heading the other way. The older fish nods at them and says… “Morning boys. How’s the water?” The younger fish swim on for a bit and eventually one of them turns to the other and says… “What the hell is water?”  Even though this story told by award-winning novelist David Foster Wallace is all about ‘missing the obvious’ it also a salutary lesson about context and how it defines meaning. Fish are defined by their water environment. Without it they wouldn’t exist, but as the story goes, it is so pervasive in their lives that they remain blissfully unaware of it even though they exist only because of it. And so it is with people. We are who we are because of the context in which we find ourselves, and that can have a huge impact on the type of profiling assessments organisations use in recruitment, and why I believe it is wise to steer clear of ‘personality profiles.’

Based on my research, I believe it is wrong to assume that ‘personality profiling’ is an accurate indicator of performance. You may not have heard of the ‘Broken Windows’ theory, but it is an excellent example of how context defines meaning and motivation, and how its application during the 90s dramatically arrested the crime epidemic in New York City. Broken Windows was the brainchild of criminologists James Wilson and George Kelling. They both argued that the crime epidemic was the inevitable result of environmental disorder. For example, if a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by it every day in that community will conclude that no one cares and that therefore no one is in charge. Soon more windows will be broken sending a signal that anything goes leading to other ‘minor’ crimes such as aggressive begging, graffiti proliferation, minor misdemeanours and so on until there is a major breakdown in law and order. This theory says that crime is contagious and it starts with a broken window and spreads to an entire community.

In the early nineties when William Bratton, a disciple of the Broken Windows theory, was first appointed as the Transit Police Chief and charged with the responsibility of cleaning up the crime epidemic on the New York subways, he focused first on cleaning up the graffiti and the estimated 170,000 daily fare evaders rather than the more serious issues of violence confronting the subway system. Arrests for misdemeanours for the kind of minor offenses that went unnoticed in the past, went up fivefold between 1990 and 1994, and as a result the Transit Police began to turn around the experience of citizens being safe on the subway.

After the election of Mayor Giuliani in 1994, Bratton was appointed head of the NYPD and he applied the same strategies to the city at large. He instructed his officers to crack down on the minor ‘quality of life’ crimes that bedevilled the city such as public drunkenness; public urination; littering; graffiti vandalism; aggressive window washing at intersections etc. and before long, crime in the city fell as quickly and as dramatically as it had on the subways. Even though Bratton and his likeminded peers were originally told to focus on the things that really mattered such as violent crimes and murders, they had the courage of their convictions and eventually their approach laid the foundation of the vibrant and relatively safe city that Manhattan is today.

I know this from first-hand experience because during the mid 90s when I was leading my World Best Practice Study Tours, our weekends in the USA were often spent in New York, and on many occasions I walked the streets of Manhattan after midnight feeling totally at ease and safe, plus I also took a few very late night rides on the subway and never felt intimidated by the experience. I can’t say that I would feel as safe walking around the streets of my own city, Melbourne after 10 pm on a Saturday night as I would in New York.

I was so impressed by my personal experience that on subsequent study tours I led my groups of Australian executives to other police departments which had applied their own version of the NYPD strategy. In particular we undertook visits to the inner sanctum of the Chicago Police Department to study their Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy universally known as CAPS which has been recognized as one of the most ambitious and successful community policing initiatives in the USA.

So what is the point of these examples that I am sharing with you here? Well this week we have finally heard the details of the allegation that one of our most respected AFL football clubs had been running a programme of systematic testing of supplements on their team of elite footballers over the previous couple of years. An internal investigation by the club itself resulted in findings that were damning of the club’s governance in allowing a “pharmacologically experimental” environment (their words) to occur within its organisation.

This regimen included weekly injections of multiple substances off-site from the football club without proper medical oversight from the club’s medical staff, all in the name of cutting edge ‘sports science.’ To compound the issue, the poor quality of record keeping and lack of proper protocol was such that it has been difficult for the authorities investigating the matter over the past six months to determine precisely what was given to whom over the period of time in question. The club leadership has since acknowledged officially that, “…(there were) mistakes in terms of governance and people management, and we apologise for them.” I definitely do not intend to comment any further on the pros and cons of what went on at that football club because I am sure that it has been well and truly ‘sliced and diced’ from every possible angle in the media this past six months since the story first broke. What has brought the whole sorry saga to a head, I believe, is the anonymous talk-back call from a concerned mother of one of the younger players involved, wrought with distress over the possible long term side-effects on the future health and well being of her son. After hearing her sobbing call on the radio late last week, I am sure no caring parent could avoid being moved by the genuine fear that these young men may be facing in the future with regard to their physical and emotional health, and the issue of workplace health and safety and informed consent that seemed to have been missed in the rush to gain a competitive edge on the field.

This brings me to the point of my blog – the amazing power that ‘context’ or environment holds over one’s individual motivation and how it could be that professional athletes at the peak of their careers would allow themselves to be experimented upon, week in week out, in clinics and locations away from the open and transparent environment of their football club. These are highly motivated young men spanning in age between late teens up to late twenties and early thirties and while some of them may be young and naive and at the beginning of their careers, others would have been around the professional football environment long enough and of a mature enough age to question in more detail what they were being subjected to. The reason why such highly professional athletes with highly tuned levels of motivation and self preservation would be prepared to subject themselves to being uninformed ‘guinea pigs’ in a climate of experimentation without due consideration given to their own health and safety tells a lot about the power of environment on individual motivation. i.e. “If all of my peers and fellow team mates are agreeing to this regime of weekly supplement injections, and if our coach whom we revere and  cohorts of his are leading the way in this experimentation to give us the edge on the football field then it must be okay for me. Besides – who am I to buck the team ethos of doing ‘Whatever it Takes’ to win the ultimate team prize – AFL Championship glory at the end of the season?”

If you or I were to be faced with the same decision to be injected with unknown (and in some cases unproven and highly experimental) substances on a weekly basis in order to improve our performance at work, I know what the answer would be. A big, fat, “You’ve got to be kidding me -  NO,”  I expect. And if we were pressed on the issue we would probably go running to the authorities screaming about the employer’s right to play ‘Big Brother’ and put us into this situation. In the cold hard light of day, I imagine that not one of those professional footballers would agree to such a preposterous idea, if indeed they were faced with the same request to give uninformed consent to their employer to experiment on them as an isolated individual. I assume that their motivation for self preservation would take precedence over their motivation to win at all costs.

This is the key to motivation in the workplace and why the profiling that I do focuses on motivation within the context of a given role and environment and not on the reliance that some organisations have on ‘personality profiles’ because that type of testing just doesn’t have validity. To assume that anyone would have the same motivation or behavioural style within all contexts is a fallacy. Current research says otherwise, and so does common sense in my opinion. Next time, as an employer, if you hear yourself saying, ‘why can’t we find motivated staff?’ or your recruitment people write those employment ads that ask for ‘motivated, self starters,’ you need to take a dose of the reality pill and ask yourself this question… “Motivated to do what and under what context?”

There is so much more I could write about this topic of motivation in the workplace, and certainly today our more enlightened leaders are learning the lessons about creating the right environment for people within their midst to flourish, rather than succumbing to the illusion that it is their job to lead from the front of the parade as if being a champion is all that it takes for others to follow. A colleague of mine, Anita Kropacsy, has been researching this topic of ‘Strength-Based Leadership’ where the creation of a values-driven environment that encourages creative people to channel their motivation towards doing meaningful work is the key to the sustainability of our companies of the future, and I must say, her discoveries on the essence of modern day leadership in this rapidly changing world  dovetails exactly with the work I have been doing on how to uncover and assess individual motivation in the workplace.

If all it takes is a heroic ‘champion’ leader leading from the front, then I would remind you of the saga currently facing the football club that I am referring to in this article. This is because the coach that has led this ill-advised lurch to the very edges of experimentation on its players is indeed a modern day, well respected ‘champion’ of the game and celebrated hero of the club whom I believe had reached almost mythical proportions in the eyes of some of his football playing peers – a recognised champion for whom winning was the only prize worth having I suspect, and whose point of view no one had the temerity or strength to override.  If the coach who was driving this programme of supplement experimentation was your average ‘Joe’ who didn’t come with the aura of success surrounding him, I wonder if all of the players would have fallen quite so quickly into line?

When it comes to motivation – everything is contextual, including the culture of leadership that is in play. We ignore this fact at our peril.

I would love to read your thoughts and comments here on this subject of motivation vs context.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to discuss further how to create the right environment for your people so that their motivation is channelled in the most appropriate way for all concerned.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

To complete that famous question… ‘If a Tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it actually make a sound?’ Although this is a philosophical question regarding the nature of reality and whether it actually exists without the existence of the observer to witness and judge the event, I would like to hijack that question and move it to another context that I believe concerns us all…

For example… What if you had inside knowledge of a looming takeover which would quadruple the shares of a target company, and you had the opportunity and the funds to purchase a major shareholding in that company two days before the takeover bid was about to be announced, would you do it? What if you could do it with no chance of your insider trading ever being discovered?

Or… If, while parking late at night, you slightly scrape the side of a Lamborghini; and the damage is significant enough to require repair but just below the $500 excess which means the owner would have to pay for the damage personally, would you leave a note with your contact details? What if you were positive that no one else witnessed the event?

Or… What if your bank account suddenly received a deposit of $500,000 through a banking error and it didn’t get reversed out of your account after a week, would you draw out the funds and close the account? What if you were a highly skilled IT professional who was 100% certain that there was zero chance of the error ever being discovered as having been deposited in your favour, either now or in the future?

Or… What if you were to discover immediately after exiting a restaurant that you had just received $20 more in change than you were due and you knew the error would go unnoticed, would you walk back inside and correct the error? What if you also knew that the friendly waiter who served you all night and who made the error would not be held accountable for the discrepancy?

And finally… What if you had access to performance enhancing substances that would give you an unfair advantage over your competition and lead to you winning public accolades for all of your years of toil, followed by financial rewards that would set you up for life, would you go ahead and take the chance? What if you were 100% certain that your use of them would go undetected by both current and future testing regimes?

Whether the temptation is large or small, I feel the question remains the same…. what would you do?

Unfortunately this is the revelation we seem to be faced with every day in our media, particularly in the realm of elite sport, whether it be athletics, or cycling, or even our beloved football code here in Australia. It is amazing how quickly once revered sports people and respected sports administrators are rushing to retirement and resignation; declarations of shame and sorrow; belated feelings of guilt and conscience and new-found honesty, the moment that someone has finally uncovered their previous acts of folly. And it isn’t confined to our sports brethren either, if the latest discoveries of political rorting of expenses; developers doing secret deals with elected officials; dodgy business practices being revealed; governments eavesdropping on our electronic communications; church hierarchy cover-ups; law-breaking journalists and the cult of leadership with a ‘win at all costs’ brand of politics are to be considered.

‘Where does it all end?’ I feel compelled to ask, especially given I am not describing the social and political environment existing within failed societies where the rule of law has broken down. I am talking about the UK and Europe; North America and good old ‘true blue – dinky di’ Australia.

Has our headlong pursuit of winning at all costs and the accompanying fame and celebrity and financial riches that go with it become the new religion… the altar at which we now worship? Are the new heroes we admire today only those people who stand on the winner’s dais, or make the most money or accumulate the most prizes… as if winning was the single most important factor in the definition of success? If so, I propose that we start re-examining our understanding of the meaning of success before it redefines us and our society.

My late father once said to me as a young boy… “Whatever you do in life Brian, do your best and enjoy doing it. If you want to be a street sweeper… be the best damn street sweeper you can be and find enjoyment in doing it every day so that each night you can come home to a family whom you love and cherish, happy in the knowledge that they are a witness to what you say, what you do, and who you are. Let the contribution you make at whatever level in life, be one you can look back on with pride and a clear conscience that leads to self respect.”

I openly admit there have been times in my past when I have been tempted to take short cuts on the way to achievements and as I look back on those moments I realise that it didn’t matter whether they were major or minor opportunities to gain an unfair advantage while going unnoticed in the process, ultimately it was all the same. Every opportunity that was presented to me was another a chance to grow in character or to chip away at my sense of self worth little by little, until I would no longer be the person I could believe in. I wish I could say that I always chose the right path, but if I am to be honest with myself, with some of the smaller indiscretions, that was not the case every single time. In hindsight I might have made different choices knowing what I know today, but luckily those minor indiscretions have been very few, so for that I am thankful… although interestingly, I still remember them to this day.

Perhaps the only battle worth winning in life is the battle between character versus compromise when one’s personal integrity is at stake. Whether we believe in the law of Karma, or the judgment of our Creator; or just good old fashioned conscience with a capital ‘C,’ maybe these are the disciplines worth teaching in our schools if they are no longer being passed on in our homes and our sporting clubs or our local communities. Maybe the teaching of knowledge and skill and the emphasis being placed on personal achievement needs a healthy dose of ethics, and integrity and the pursuit of inner wisdom, to balance the ledger.

This is a touchy subject I know, and one which I hope you will turn your mind to as you reflect on the times in your life when you could have chosen a more self affirming course of action, especially if it was one of those times when whatever course you chose would go unnoticed by others. And hopefully too, it will cause you to think of the example you set for those you hold dear in your life from this point on. It’s a thought I ponder on when I hear yet another example of celebrated heroes who have fallen short, and it reminds me that if I don’t like the world I see and what it is becoming, then the change has to start with me, not them. Do you agree with me?

If there was one piece of advice I could share the next time any of us is faced with the temptation of gaining an unfair and undisclosed advantage in our lives, it would be this… “Would the action I am about to take today stand up to scrutiny in the front page of the national daily newspaper tomorrow?” If not, then maybe it is incumbent upon me to think long and hard before choosing to proceed.

Obviously if some of our previously admired sporting, political, religious and business leaders had lived according to this personal rule, we would not be confronted daily with these revelations about those whom we once held in high esteem.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic, especially given that moral dilemmas such as these aren’t always just viewed in black or white.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to discuss further the amazing power of promoting values-driven leadership within your organisation.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

For all of those people who woke up to the news this morning that the Wimbledon men’s singles drought has finally been broken after 77 years by Briton Andy Murray, spare a thought for the message he shares. I feel it teaches all of us something about the true meaning of success and what it represents.

What was most telling for me when I heard that Andy had been struggling to deal with the immense pressure of feeling that he was carrying the weight of the nation on his shoulders, was his acknowledgment that he could not have done it without the support of a very special person. The Scot dedicated his victory to coach Ivan Llendl, an eight-time grand slam winner who had never captured the Wimbledon title himself, losing twice in the final. Since teaming up with Llendl last year, Murray says he has matured both on and off the court, and the success of that relationship has certainly born fruit, because he has reached the final of the last four grand slams he has entered, winning two of them.

In Murray’s own words… “For the last four or five years, it’s been very very tough, very stressful  – a lot of pressure… Ivan believed in me when a lot of people didn’t. He stuck by me through some tough losses the last couple of years. He’s been very patient with me. I’m just happy I managed to do it for him.”

We all love to hear about the lone hero who overcomes insurmountable odds to win through in the heat of the battle and we know that without total commitment to the cause or the objective, a well thought out plan, combined with unrelenting application to the task and consistent practice, winning may remain a distant or unfulfilled dream.

The Often Understated Value of Support

But I want to touch on another aspect of the winner’s armoury which I feel is a major part of their strength and their resilience, and that is support. In a society where so much emphasis is placed on competition and the accumulation of trophies or ‘toys’, regardless of whether the field of success is in sport, business or life, I sometimes wonder if we miss the value of the support we give and receive along the way…  such as the right words at the right time from someone who believes in us when our own self belief has taken a battering…  or the opportunity to work together and share the bouquets and the brickbats as we strive in concert towards meaningful shared goals.

In a world where competition and accumulation seems to be driving so much of the current thinking, spare a thought for cooperation, and character, and care for each other, and cast your mind back to the time when you last felt you were a winner. I guarantee that the joy of winning and the feeling it engendered in you would have been a hollow feeling if you did not have special people around you to share it with at the time. And what about the journey towards that success? Would you have achieved it without the help and support and belief of others?

I know that in all of my business endeavours over the years, the experiences which I remember most fondly are the ones where I was part of a collaborative team of likeminded people who believed in each other and their desire to make a difference. So please spare a thought for all of those people who support you in your endeavours, especially the unsung heroes in the background like the Ivan Llendls in the life of Andy Murray, and when you do that ask yourself who in your life would benefit from your support and your encouragement and your time?

Too often we strive to make a difference on a grand scale, whether that be through the accumulation of ‘material evidence’ of our success, or saving the world in an altruistic way, and we forget about the difference we could make to the lives of the people whom we touch every day, such as our children, or our partner, or our business colleagues… or the next person we meet on the street.

Cooperation not Competition

My wish for you is that you don’t look back on a life filled with ‘busy-ness’ and stress and mindless accumulation, and regret that you lost sight of those you met along the way. Surely Cooperation, not Competition should be the legacy of our generation? Otherwise we face an increasingly disconnected world and one where the gap between the haves and have nots becomes a huge divide that threatens all of our existence and safety. But that is a topic for another day.

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to know more about how together, we can help you to achieve your goals and dreams.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.

Photo Credit: Susan Mullane, USA TODAY Sports

Now that you have set a well designed goal and you know where you are heading, here are six steps to keeping on track.

If the barriers are not ecological in nature, then consider what you have to do to overcome them. Are you willing to do whatever it takes?

Step 2: Assessing Your Options
Have a closer look at all of the options you have to overcome these barriers and how will you go about them. What other options or alternatives might you have to achieve your goal or goals? How broad and creative is your behavioural flexibility to try those other options, if what you try does not move you forward towards your goal?

Step 3: Actioning Your Plans
Now that you have outlined your options, you need to choose the most viable ones that you will actually put in place. What specific steps and actions do you need to implement to make these options a reality?
•    What will you need to do?
•    When will you do this by?
•    How will you know you are progressing?
•    How will you measure this?
•    What impact will your actions have on others?

Step 4: Reviewing Your Progress
You need to review your progress while you are on the journey to achieving your goals. Do this at regular intervals – maybe weekly or even daily – depending on the goal or goals you have set. This is known as Critical Path Analysis on larger projects. If you are making progress, excellent! If not, then you may need to look at changing your actions, or in some cases even, reassessing your goals. In doing so, ask yourself… “Is this goal too big?”  If so, then break it down into smaller chunks that make achieving your end goal more manageable.  Remember, you take a thousand mile journey one step at a time.

Step 5: Celebrating your Success
Always remember to celebrate your progress and your successes along the way. No matter how small an action may be, it all contributes to the end result – which is your ultimate goal. This helps to keep your confidence ‘spiral’ going up, and drives you to continue on the journey. And remember, obstacles along the way are only signs that you are moving towards your goal. If you weren’t moving towards it, nothing at all would be happening.

Step 6: Dealing with Unplanned Obstacles  With regard to unplanned obstacles that you meet along the way, know that this is just part of the journey and that your ability to bounce back while you keep your eye on the main prize is what will set you apart from those who are less resilient than you. When faced with “No,” I always like to say to myself… “It’s never No until it’s No and then it’s never No, because N.O. = Next Option or Next Opportunity.”

Drop me an email to brian@precisionprofiling.com.au if you would like to know more about how to set and achieve the goals that matter most to you in your life.

Until then… Let’s seek to understand more and judge less. Have a great week – Brian

Precision Profiling – What Makes You Tick? Through ‘Motivational Fingerprinting’ we uncover what you do, how you do it and why you do it, and most importantly, the hidden patterns that lead to your success, and that of your team.