We all want engaged employees who want to deliver, not just for the organisation but also for themselves. We are now seeing more stories about how organisations are getting very hands on about building a bottom-up processes, where teams of employees are working with managers at the customer interface level, helping individual employees work out how they can connect to the corporate purpose. Understanding the dreams of the people in the organisation and how they might be the key to motivating your employees. This will ensure that the organisations purpose is something that their employees can really engage with in a meaningful way, as this helps them as they decide to give their full effort at work.
This is one side of the coin
What does purpose really mean?
Purpose is one of the hot topics for the moment, just like mission and vision were thrown about in the 1990’s. Jonathan Knowles HBR article from March 2022 explained that different organisations use purpose in different ways; some are around competence, some are around culture, and some are around cause. I think all organisations really need to understand which type of purpose is most authentic to them, fits with their strategy and really aligns with their stakeholders. Organisations have to be really thoughtful around what really motivates employees and helps them with that alignment process as you are trying to implement strategy. Pursuing purpose is a good idea but you have to get the right purpose and ensure it’s authentic, sits with the strategy and serves stakeholders.
Moving away from servant leadership
There is so much uncertainty in the world right now so we have to make sure that there is an approach to both respond to change and anticipate what changes may be out there so we can keep re-orientating our direction. What is the D.A.C framework? The D.A.C framework is an alternative to the traditional follower > goal > leadership model. Central to the DAC framework for leadership is the group’s shared belief in how direction, alignment, and commitment can be produced. Direction is the overall group mission and goals; alignment is the necessary coordination of action within the collective group and commitment is the willingness of the group members to put personal interests secondary to that of the collective interest and benefit for your organisation.
Read the room
c/o New York Times
How can you improve the collaboration with your customers, internal stakeholders and colleagues?
The best storytellers, authors and speakers paint pictures giving the audience something they can visualise in their heads. They communicate the central issues of the discussion in a clear, fluent, and precise manner, and when they produce written material it’s clear, fluent, and easy to understand for the recipients. I think communication means both words and emotions, and what’s really powerful are words loaded with emotion. When communication flows with the right messaging, at the right time through the right channels, it can move nations, help people change directions, and establish an ideology for the good or bad.
You’ve got to develop your own style, become a student of style, and do this by not copying any one person. Everyone knows the old classic, “It’s not just what you say it’s also the way that you say it.” Your presentation will become more effective when you communicate with your heart and soul from deep inside with commitment and dedication. Contact me via e-mail to schedule a communication workshop for your team.
It's your presence not your presents
Great communicators all have great presence, 65% of the impression you leave on someone has little to do with your message, it has to do with your verbal delivery, facial expressions, and body language. It’s important to make eye contact 80 to 90% of the time, maintain an open posture and use hand gestures. Take your hands out of your pockets and be animated in your voice and body.
Never forget that you are selling dreams and products because your customers do not care about our company. They don’t care about your products and services, but they do care about themselves, their hopes and dreams, their goals, and ambitions. Your job as a sales professional is to inspire your customers and help them achieve their dreams. Think about how to communicate and articulate the vision behind your products and services, and then focus on your customer’s needs, hopes and goals.
Courage comes in many forms
Some have argued that courage should include overcoming a fear, while others have suggested that fear may or may not be present in the courageous act. Daniel Putnam in his book, “Psychological Courage” from 2004 stated that "courage involves deliberate choice in the face of painful or fearful circumstances for the sake of a worthy goal."
The 6 types of courage
Physical Courage
To keep going with balance, resilience, and awareness.Social Courage
To be yourself unapologetically.Moral Courage
Doing the right thing even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular.Emotional Courage
Feeling all your emotions both positive and negative without guilt or attachment.Intellectual Courage
To learn, unlearn and relearn with an open and flexible mind.Spiritual Courage
Living with purpose and meaning through a heart centered approach towards all life and oneself.
Throughout my life people with guts have been solving problems, so I think courage is the choice and willingness to confront uncertainty, intimidation, danger, and pain.
Motivational Monday
David Harold Fink (1894 -1968) was an outstanding psychiatrist and medical doctor, and he devised a 30-day programme that will help you realise success. By paying the price to become the person you’ve always wanted to become, you will be in that wonderful minority who lead calm, cheerful and successful lives.
Here are the 6-steps recommended by David Harold Fink:
1. Set yourself a definite goal.
2. Stop the negative self-talk.
3. Stop thinking about all the reasons why you cannot be successful, and instead think of all the reasons why you can.
4. Trace your attitudes back through your childhood and try to discover where you first got the idea that you couldn’t be a success if that’s the way you’ve been thinking.
5. Change the image you have of yourself by writing out a description of the person you would like to be.
6. Act the part of the successful person you have decided to become.
Repeat, and repeat it over and over again. Each time it will become more a part of you until you will wonder how you could have ever lived any other way.
Humans are amazing
I don’t think that lazy people exist, laziness can be caused by a lack of knowledge to complete the task at hand, procrastination, feeling too comfortable to have the job done, and lack of motivation to get started. A man who is self-reliant, positive, and optimistic usually undertakes his work with assurance of success and this draws to himself the creative powers of the universe. It’s a fact that the person who thinks with positive self-reliance and optimism does magnetise his condition and this releases power to attain a goal. Over and over again, we have seen what the mind profoundly expects, it tends to receive. Here, I define success as something that helps others and at the same time makes you feel happy as you are working at it.
You can lead without a title
Leadership is no longer about your position, it’s more about your passion for excellence and making a difference. It’s the execution that takes focus, effort, discipline and patience. In business, if you take care of the relationship the money will follow. If you obsess about giving customers 10 times the value they expect, they will beat a path to your door. That’s what this rule you mention is all about; remembering to wow customers, and teammates, every time you have the privilege to encounter them.
“To have the results that very few have, we must be willing to start doing the things that very few are willing to do.”
An important subject for leaders to study is rationality, I mean being able to correctly conclude a rational, sensible course based on information. As a leader it’s also important to let everybody around you be helpful, but then put that through your own mental computer and make sure what you do is the product of what you’ve concluded based on all the input. I think developing rationality based on all the input is a true sense of leadership.
Courage is a choice
No matter the risk or failures, keep going and never give up, if you never give you must succeed. I think the first part of courage is the courage to start, to face failure and rejection with the great possibility that it will not work out and you will feel embarrassed and upset. And the second part of courage is persistence, it’s the power to keep going, to keep pushing and driving yourself.
Don’t be afraid to disrupt the status quo, and to me, status quo means mediocrity and lack of ingenuity. We are all one action or one decision away from creating a better future and changing an outcome for ourselves. Contact me via e-mail when you’ve muscled up the courage to stand for something bigger than yourself and mean it.
Being aware and open to change
Your brain tells you that you are safe with people who look, think and act similar, this is one of our many and various unconscious biases. These learned stereotypes are very powerful as they are so deeply ingrained into our persona, for example, the biases we all hold around race, religion, gender, power, and privilege structures. Playing on our unconscious biases and fears is the bread and butter of both political and marketing campaigns. In order to ‘judge’ without undue fear, you need to look at your own biases and the fears that sit under them. I think we can overcome our unconscious biases by becoming aware and being open to change.
“Life is too short to worry about stupid things. Have fun. Fall in love. Regret nothing and do not let people bring you down. Study, think, create and grow. Teach yourself and teach others.”
Yesterday morning, I asked a woman if she needed help in carrying her pram (a four-wheeled baby carriage) down the stairs – I have to admit that I would not have asked a man if he were in the same position. I know that my actions were not a problem, they were courteous and friendly but underneath I may have unexamined bias about the difference in roles and capabilities of men and women. Contact me via e-mail and let me know how you deal with your implicit biases.
Life is what you make it
How do I become a better version of myself on a daily basis?
Life isn’t fair, and if you think that it is fair then you are in for a rude awakening. Life is a competition and those who are willing to make the supreme sacrifice often win. Some people get off to a difficult start and have incredible obstacles to overcome. I’m hard on myself, trying on a daily basis to become a better version of myself. I am constantly pushing myself to become a better human being and when I am in front of my clients, they can feel that energy. I think everyone is driven by a selfish drive of reputation and the ones who are open to this understanding have a unique opportunity. When working in sales, you can command a nice compensation package because it’s nothing to do with your education and everything to do with your communication skills.
The why behind the why
Most salespeople are product pushers, I think you have to stop acting like a seller and start thinking like a buyer. In other words, spend more time discovering their problem and then use this knowledge to solve their problem. The ability to uncover problems that the buyer already has becomes much easier when you detach yourself from the outcome. All salespersons can find out the buyers’ problems, but only the best salespersons can find out their why. And only the greatest salespeople can find out what’s behind their why. It doesn’t matter what industry; you have to learn the right questions to uncovering what’s behind the buyer’s why.
TIP: Ask questions slowly, as it will give the buyer time to be a little more reflective in their answers.
Be prepared
What can you do to prepare yourself for success?
It depends on how you define success. If you are talking about a prestigious titles, huge salaries and big houses then I’m not the right person to ask. On the other hand, if you are speaking about developing skills,influence, and personality then here I am.
One should always well prepared before serving in our professional and personal lives. The decisions I have made in my preparation time are the decisions that will last for the entirety of my lifetime. I think the key to speaking well and excellent communication is preparation, so I choose to be well equipped with language, temperament, and influence in order to be valuable. I have studied people from different ages who have different opinions, personalities, and temperaments. I study life with all of its twists and turns and one of the most valuable skills I’ve learned is organising and getting people to work together, preparing for those steps and stages is all part of life.
Being alert for the inevitable
Most of what Peter Drucker mentioned in his book, “Managing For The Future” is more of common sense, at least from today’s perspective. Practicing them consistently is difficult. I think the leaders first task is to be the trumpet that sounds a clear sound. Here are a few excerpts from the book that I particularly enjoyed:
“And nothing is noticed more quickly – and considered more significant – than a discrepancy between what executives preach and what they expect their associates to practice.”
“The Japanese recognize that there are really only two demands of leadership. ONE is to accept that rank does not confer privileges; it entails responsibilities. The OTHER is to acknowledge that leaders in an organization need to impose on themselves that congruence between deeds and words, between behavior and professed beliefs and values, that we call ‘personal integrity’.”
Knowing the scenario
I came across a book from Peter Drucker titled “Managing For The Future” which was first published in 1992. The power of great writing is that it is timeless. I read this old book and still enjoyed reading it because ideas presented in the book (specially on Leadership) are still very relevant today. The shape of corporate organisations has changed between 1992 and now. The nature of work has changed drastically too – we are out of factory model and into the knowledge oriented one, but the core principles of leadership have not changed. I think awareness, sensitivity and understanding are essential leadership skills required to lead in the 2020’s.
“Essence of leadership is not ‘leadership qualities’ or ‘charisma’. The essence of leadership is ‘performance’.”
It's much deeper than that
In sales, the person who has the solutions has the power. And what we ask is infinitely more powerful than what we say in sales situations, as salespersons are usually placed on the low trust end of the scale. When you want to dig in and get to know the buyer, it’s a good strategy to use questions to get them talking. I think the magic always happens when the other person is talking and the secret to unlocking other people is to be interested in them and not your verbal vomit.
Our job as sales professionals is to go out and create some curiosity and interest without doing dumb things like spamming buyers. Life-long learners will remain curious and they never settle on thinking that they know it all – and that’s what sets them apart. As sales professionals we need to start conversations and get business meetings. Invest in yourself, take what you have right now and make the best of it. Contact me via e-mail to book a 1:1 session in October.
Become a better listener
Active listening is different from hearing or even paying attention, hearing is something we do without thinking and without consciously trying to. I think a deeper level is when we listen for context, so here are some tips on how to improve your listening skills:
1. Talk less
2. Do not interrupt
3. Maintain direct eye contact
4. Put your phone down
5. Listen with your eyes and look for the unsaid
6. Remain interested
7. And if you are waiting for a pause, so that you can speak, then you're not actively listening
Generosity is a boomerang
Life gets so much better when you expect less as I think time generosity is grounded in empathy and emotional labour. In my world, generosity does not mean free; generosity does not mean lowering the price of what you do or giving it away. Generosity means showing up with emotional labour to do difficult work that some people think you might not need to do. This means that when someone is truly generous, they are bringing extra effort into something that may not work.
According to research from scientists at CalTech and Harvard who tried to figure out why giving feels harder for some than for others, and they found that the decision to give or take simply comes down to how much importance you attach to your interests versus someone else’s. Therefore, if you’re the type of person who considers other people’s needs as much as your own, self-sacrificing tends to be automatic. On the other hand, if you typically place more value on yourself, then giving feels more onerous.
Athletes don’t crack under pressure
Working in sales means that you are speaking to people every single day and just like in sports not everyone is going to like you. I think sales is a great career for sportspersons and competitive minded individuals who are continuously looking to grow themselves. Sportspersons know how to work together as a team, we know how to take coaching, we know how to communicate, we know how to prepare, we know how to lose and bounce back from that loss and have another win. You may not get it all these things if you haven’t played elite sports. Once you have played elite sports then you understand how to get through challenging moments and I’m convinced that you have gained that resilience and toughness to make it through tough times.