Every single one of us has a vision, whether we are aware of it or not.

We all dream and aspire to something better in one area or another of our lives. And we are all capable of seeing ways of doing things better, achieving bigger sales, perfect customers, or creating an ideal organization.

That is all that a vision is. But what makes a difference between the true visionaries and the rest?

They act on their vision. They truly live it in every waking moment, and it shapes every step they take.

Do you want to leverage your vision to achieve more success? Here are a few tips to bear in mind.

• Get clear on your vision. The clearer you are, the easier it will be to stick to it when the going gets tough.
• Design your action steps. What needs to happen today to make your vision come true? And next week? Next month? Next year? Having a solid implementation plan will make the difference between a vision that comes true and one that remains wishful thinking.
• Surround yourself with the right people. Having a great vision doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to do it all yourself. But the great thing is that you don’t need to do it alone. Fill your dream team with people who compliment your skills, and you’ll go a lot further.
• Get your team behind your vision. If you’re aiming high enough, one thing is for sure. Not everyone will agree with you, and that’s fine. But you must make sure that the people on your team do share your passion and your fuel. After all, you depend on their skills and drive to help get you where you want to go.
• Bulletproof your mindset. You will face challenges on the road to success, but bulletproofing your mindset will help carry you through it. Keep your vision top of mind, revisit it daily, and look for mentors to help keep you accountable.

Related Tag: Mindset Coach Gold Coast

The post Vision leads to success first appeared on Leader House.

In this blog, I now expand further into the 5 broad plan categories I mentioned in part one.  As a reminder those are;

1. The Business WHY (Vision)
2. The Business WHAT (Mission)
3. The Business WHO (Stakeholders)
4. The Business HOW (Processes)
5. The Business WHEN (Forecasts)

This is in part a “how-to” for the business plan, and also it is a “what to” in the business plan and more importantly, “why to” do a business plan.

What you are doing with a business plan is creating permanency.  By giving your time and energy to documenting your business, dream, and intention, you establish the foundation.  And the deeper your foundations, the more stable and long-lasting your business.

And the reason you do your business plan is to have a clear guide.  It is like a map that will serve you through the emotional and mental challenges that you will experience.  It will remind you why you started and what you intended and will put you back on the right path.

As Benjamin Franklin put it, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”.  Now, let’s explore these a little deeper….

THE BUSINESS WHY – Vision

Starting with your vision, or the power of identifying your business WHY, is best summarised in Simon Sinek’s work “Start With Why”.  When you communicate your WHY successfully, you fully engage and inspire all who deal with your business, including your staff and clients.  That happens because in life and business, why we do things, is what connects us to like-minded others.  Build the following business plan headings

• The Vision Statement – What is the dream you are seeking to achieve?  What is the deepest reason for your business?  Think of Nike, “just do it” or Apple “think different”
• Client Outcomes from Service or Product – What do your clients get out of using your product or service.  Link that to your WHY.  What is the problem you solve for them
• Your Culture – What are the qualities that you will be known for by everyone your deal with.  What is the legacy that you leave
• Team Trademark – What are the behaviours that will be acceptable and honoured within your team

THE BUSINESS WHAT – Mission

Here you are describing your Mission.  What will be achieved through your business existence and how far a reach will you have.  Determine what will change in consumer habits because of your product or service.  Build the following business plan headings;

• The Mission Statement – Describe the intention you have with your business.  For example, “to be the leader in Australian luxury home construction”
• Product or Service Description – Simply define your main products/services
• Geographic Distribution – Where will you be based and where will you sell to

THE BUSINESS WHO – Stakeholders

The key to a successful business is the relationships you build.  Treat your customers, staff, suppliers, etc as you would your family.  Because it is this family that will be part of the journey, and it’s the moments you share with them that will create joy or difficulty.  Nurture these relationships and your business will blossom

• Ideal Clients – What do they look like, who are they, what do they like, how old are they, etc etc
• Staff and HR systems – Define your organisational Hierarchy, position descriptions and how the human resources will be managed
• Benchmark Competitors – Study your strongest competitors and note their strengths and weaknesses
• Advisors – Decide who will be on your advisory team, such as your solicitor, accountant, insurance broker, finance broker, and of course coach!
• Funders – Make a plan for how you will seek funding and from whom.  Will it be debt or equity?  Will it be banks or private money?

THE BUSINESS HOW – Processes

This is the nuts and bolts of how your business will operate.  Bring on your technical know-how and document it through manuals, checklists, instructions, guidelines, and protocols.  By systemising and documenting your business, you ensure effective and efficient operations, which in turn maximises profitability and impact.

• Marketing Systems and Processes – Detail your steps of how you will find clients and how those prospects will be converted from a lead to a sale.
• Sales Systems & Process – Detail what your actions will be when you have the opportunity to present your product.  Consider the sales techniques, the communications, the follow-ups, etc
• Production Systems & Process – Details of how you will create your good or service.  From raw materials into a finished good
• Distribution Systems & Process – Detail how you will connect your product to the customer. This isn’t just about transportation.  You may also consider here how you create alliances and partnerships with other businesses that can distribute your goods/service.

THE BUSINESS WHEN – Forecasts & Analysis

Nothing creates a clearer path than the numbers.  The universe is measured by numbers, and your visualisation to success becomes much easier when you clearly have a target.  Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.  These targets provide motivation, guidance, and feedback.  More importantly, it creates a very clear focus.

• SWOT – A study of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Project Time Lines – create clear deadlines for various outcomes.  The first project deadline should be this business plan!  Will you meet this?  Will you focus on this?  Will you put energy and love into this?  How you do one thing, is how you do everything!  And from there, create specific due dates for every other output required to realise the business
• Significant Events & Dates – This is a macro summary of the major business items for the first 10 years.
• Initial Formation Costs – A breakdown of all initial outlays required to get the business started
• 24 months Income & Expense Cashflow Forecasts – A detailed line by line breakdown of the monthly income and expenses expected. The first line is, how many sales units you expect each month.  And break it down from there
• Actual V Budget – measure monthly your actual results, against the forecasts you had made.  Assess the variances and investigate the key drivers that have caused the variance.
• Funding Schedule – Timeline your funding requirements, along with the source of funding and its related costs (such as interest or dividends).  Ensure that you plan for expansion, that way you are already gearing your mindset for success and growth.

In the 30 years, I have been involved in business, whether as an advisor, accountant, CFO, CEO, or Director, I have seen a 100% correlation between success and planning.  How you do one thing, is how you do everything.  I warmly recommend you take your time to create a well-considered business plan.  From there you will find that your journey in business becomes an enjoyable and highly lucrative adventure.

The post Business Planning part 2 first appeared on Leader House.

When I was an accountant and business advisor, I would see the pattern repeat time and time again.  Excited and energy-filled clients coming in to request that I set up their business trading structure.  They have the idea, the belief, and the passion.  They are certain their product or service will sell.  And fast forward 24 months, they are back in front of me with money, energy, and passion spent.

Here’s the issue readers, as Zig Ziglar said, if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.  Sadly, planning is not sexy!!  And moreover, for many budding business minds, planning is an unknown element.  And the average SME commences through the technical knowledge of a particular skill related to a product or service.  And more often, the business skill is yet to be developed by the budding entrepreneur.

If I said to every entrepreneur that they should pause, and complete a business degree (3 years), they would all tell me to go jump.  Therefore that isn’t a realistic approach.  Instead, let me suggest that your likelihood of success can be increased from 10% to 70% if you do three things;

1. Create a business plan
2. Focus on working ON rather than IN the business
3. Have a mentor or coach, who can be objective(likely not family or friends), and who has walked the walk of business success

These are 3 fundamentals, and there are many others, but at least just do these 3.  And your chances of success will significantly increase!

In this blog (which is in two parts), I’d like to focus on the first element, the business plan.  This singular piece of work contains your entire belief system about your business.  It is effectively your dream put down in writing.  And one way to ensure that a dream comes true is to write it down.  Because those written words become a reality. That reality passes forward in time and doesn’t get lost.  Just think how successful The Bible has been!  Would Christianity have endured without that book?

There is a lot of literature about business plans, therefore it isn’t hard for you to find a list of contents to include in yours.  In this blog,  I’m going to share my view on the essential parts of the plan.

The 5 main categories I ask my clients to focus on are;

1. The Business WHY (Vision)
2. The Business WHAT (Mission)
3. The Business WHO (Stakeholders)
4. The Business HOW (Processes)
5. The Business WHEN (Forecasts)

These 5 categories represent the macro essence of your business.  They encapsulate the entire journey, philosophy, technical elements, and human side.  Therefore as a starting point, simply answer those 5 questions of why, what, who, how, and when in one paragraph.  That will be the basic charter of your business.

And within these five broad categories, I will break down the further parts that an entrepreneur should document before commencing the (ad)venture.  This will all be in PART 2 of this blog.

As an end note, aside from the fact that a business plan creates focus, which is essential for success, it also creates your first business asset.  The intellectual property you create in your business has value.  Plans, protocols, manuals, checklists, processes, flow charts, etc. are highly valued by astute investors and buyers.  And the banks love to see them when you are seeking finance!  And that’s what differentiates the average small business from the larger more successful enterprises.

Please send us a message with your email address and business details and we’ll send part 2 of the business planning blog through to you right away.

The post Business Planning part 1 first appeared on Leader House.

But before I get to that answer, let me preface this with my core belief about business coaching, and that is, we don’t business coach, we business-person coach. Like a sports coach, we work more with the business minds, rather than the business parts.  And our fundamental duty is to enable the business owner to realise their dreams, their vision, their why.

I say this because quite often coaching is confused with consulting.  And more often, there is uncertainty as to what coaching is, compared to mentoring, training, or consulting.  Hence, as a coach, it is imperative that we define the distinctions and ensure that expectations and outcomes are established and agreed upon early on, in the coaching relationship.

In brief, coaching is about bringing out the best in your client.  It is about enabling them to understand their deepest values and motivators, and then linking those motivators with their business vision.  Once that is established, the focus then moves to agree on specific business outcomes and goals, and then holding the client accountable to those goals.  We help empower them through specific techniques that enable the client to develop a high-performance mindset, influential leadership, and effective strategic communication.

In comparison, consulting is about actually completing specific work output required by the business or reviewing specific business processes and improving them. Training involves educating clients about specific processes or elements related to business.  And mentoring is simply passing down your experience in the specific area of expertise that your client requires.

An exceptional coach can often take on the mantel of mentor and trainer also.  In my opinion, it is best that coaching and consulting remain separate, because in my experience when you dive into the business as a consultant, you give up the objectivity and separation to be the most effective coach you can be.

Whatever the case may be, there is no doubt that coaching is an essential ingredient to all success.  Look into the world of the highest-paid athletes, actors and business people, and you will always find coaches, mentors, and guides in the background, helping them shine.  Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google explains it best “I had years of experience and was hired as the CEO, so I figured I knew what I was doing. Not only did Google make me realize I still had a lot to learn, but my coach, Bill Campbell, ended up being a tremendous teacher. In fact, one of my biggest self-critiques at the end of the year was not bringing Bill on even earlier to help me and my management team. Take it from me – everyone needs a coach. The sooner you find yourself one, the better off you’ll be.”

In light of that, let me list quickly what a coaching relationship seeks to improve;

• Planning
• Profitability
• Staff Retention
• Growth
• Productivity
• Efficiency
• Return on Investment
• Staff Quality
• Business Culture
• Business Communication

All that being said, let me zero in on the work that a coach specifically does.  And even though I do High-Performance Team Training or Success Culture Training etc, I won’t include these here because they relate to training, not coaching.  The list below is focused on pure business coaching elements of the work we do.

ESTABLISHING YOUR WHY

If you don’t know why, then you’ll struggle to work out how, when, and what.  This is where my work with clients begins.  Uncover their values and motivators, and ensure they are in sync with the business values and vision.  Once they are aligned, everything flows more efficiently

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

The key to success is clear communication.  And successful communication is one that is understood.  To achieve the outcomes, you desire as a business, it is key that your communication with others as well as to yourself is clear and links precisely to your values.  In order for that to happen, I help my clients identify how language is affecting their outcomes and ensure they reframe their communication positively

REMOVING UNCONSCIOUS BARRIERS

We are all a result of programming.  Whether it be our innate personal program that we were born with, or that from the various influences in our life such as culture, parents, schools, etc.  These influences impact how we view reality, and how we decide what is possible.  They become our beliefs.  Consciously and sub-consciously, beliefs and the rules around them, are playing out all the time.  As a coach, we can quickly identify these, and assist in removing the unresourceful beliefs and replace them with beliefs that will serve you

ENGAGE YOUR CREATIVITY

All greatness comes from a moment or period of creativity.  When something is brought into existence that wasn’t there before.  Whether it is a new technology, or a new way of doing things, or art or music.  These creations help humans evolve and grow.  As a business owner, creativity is your secret weapon to success.  And quite often, business owners get stuck in the “technical doing” and they don’t create.  As coaches, we focus on releasing their creative side, which results in true growth in business sales and profits

BUILDING YOUR COURAGE

A drain to all businesses is lost opportunities and wasted time.  Often these are the result of being stuck in “fear” related behaviours.  Your coach works with you to grow your confidence, certainty, and calmness.  Through this courage, clarity of mind is present, which enables the business owner to discover opportunities and solutions everywhere.

ESTABLISHING AND GROWING CONNECTION

A business coach does their most effective work when they connect with their client.  That connection allows him/her to work through those limiting beliefs of the client to ensure the business vision is met.  And so, it is with business owners.  They need to identify the importance of connecting with others, such as staff, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders.  And allowing that genuine connection to develop and grow so that positive results come from the interactions with those stakeholders.

WIDENING THE PERSPECTIVE

Our reality is a product of our perception.  And your success is limited to what you perceive is possible.  A coach can show you how and why anything is possible.  And more importantly, they can show you how to look at perspective not just from your view, but from the view of others.  That wider perspective allows for better strategic thinking, planning, and implementation.

HIGH-PERFORMANCE MINDSET

We are always engaged because the clients want better outcomes.  Perhaps their current outcomes are poor, or perhaps they are great, but they want greater.  Whatever the case may be, the client wants better outcomes.  And often, they seem to be stuck and can’t change the result.  Try as they might, they come back to the same result or worse.  In truth, the equation is simple, to get better isn’t always about doing more or doing things differently.  It is always about being different, being better.  And that means creating a high-performance mindset that will project you forward and upwards

AN ACCOUNTABILITY MODEL

Humans are by majority a better performer when they have someone or something holding them accountable.  For the very rare few, they hold themselves accountable to their values, and that drives them to amazing success, but for the other 99%, the accountability needs to be an outside source.  A great business coach will develop an accountability model to ensure that certain actions and behaviours are met, the ones that will lead to the outcomes and objectives agreed at the onset.

HAVING A CONFIDANT

A confidant is someone you can share things with, that you wouldn’t normally share with others.  In today’s western world, that person is becoming less and less evident as “independence and individuality” are favoured as a sign of strength.  And with families becoming less connected, it can mean that business owners find themselves alone, unable to share their fears and doubts.  That isolation can cripple decision making through anxiety and stress.  A coach can be that person on your side, have your back, and give you support and wisdom when you need it most.

There are other core elements that a coach will focus on, however, these are the fundamentals.  An International Coaching Federation (ICF) survey into client results returned the following data

• 70% believed business coaching is “very valuable.”
• 50% confide in their coach as much as their best friend, spouse, or therapist, 12% confide in their coach more than anyone else.
• 4% smarter goal setting
• 5% more balanced life
• 1% lower stress levels
• 4% more self-confidence
• 3% improvement in the quality of life
• 7% more income

Any business owner that experiences those improvements, will have higher profits, more growth, and more joy!

Returning now to my opening conversation with the prospective client.  After asking her more questions, I uncovered she was looking for a consultant.  A person that can implement the processes and systems into her business, including a CRM software.  And those are not my scope of works as a business coach.  Therefore, I recommended hiring an office manager experienced in system implementation in a medical practice.  That resulted in her getting an amazing employee who is now her right hand, who manages all things not “cosmetic” related.  She also decided to engage my service, and our work focuses on building a strategic mindset, as well as communication and leadership, which were not her strength.  Recently, she opened her second clinic and we are now making plans for expansion into Brisbane.

If you know that you would like to better your business, and you’d like to do that without throwing money away making solitary decisions, then hiring a business coach may be your best investment.

The post The Truth About Business Coaching first appeared on Leader House.

In this blog, I want to bring to the front the fundamental concept behind motivation.  How to have it, how to sustain it, and how to infect others with it.  Because through motivation, you get the spark, and from there creativity, clarity and confidence flow easily.  Allowing you to truly become an effortless leader and enabling you to become more resourceful and effective at growing your business.

The foundational forces behind motivation are steeped in the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) theory of Meta Programs.  Without diving deep on the science, I’ll simply explain Meta Programs as the core traits of a person.  The traits that are just part of their specific DNA.  For example, are you an Introvert or Extrovert?  Are you a Challenge Seeker or Challenger Avoider?  And so on.  These are meta programs.  And they combine with values, beliefs, environment and experiences to develop a person’s particular identity.

The meta-program which affects motivation greatly is the trait of Away and Towards.  Are you an away personality, or a towards personality?  Defined concisely, an away personality tends to make life decisions about “what do I want to avoid”. A towards personality tends to make life decisions about “what do I want to achieve”.  We all have a tendency to live somewhere on that Towards and Away scale.  Both have positive and negatives.  However, to experience abundance and success, it is essential that you have more Towards focuses, rather than Away.

Let’s take an example, and this based on a client of mine.  Alex has been in business for years in their hairdressing game.  She had in the past a chain of salons and would like to get back to that.  However, her experience back then was that when she grew, her hairdressers would leave and take clients.  Therefore, she was forever in a cycle of getting quality staff and re-growing her client base.  So, as she now moves to expand into multiple salons again, it seems that a significant amount of strategy and decision making is based on her need to “not have the same issue of unethical brats stealing from me” as she had put it.  Hence, although the concept is commercially reasonable, and in fact, it is important in business to create legal protection for your Intellectual Property and clients, she was highly focused on this.  And guess what she has been attracting!  Hairdressers that keep doing it again.  To put an end to that, we have been focusing on creating a goal of what she wants, rather than what she doesn’t want.  And to do that, we have focused our attention on building a coaching culture in the salon, which is the basis of high performing teams.  This involves her investing time and money into training her staff technically, and also in getting coaching for her staff so that they achieve their life goals.  The result is that the hairdressers just don’t want to go anywhere else, because they LOVE where they are too much and that attracts more high-quality individuals to her business.  That also has resulted in a wonderful amount of quality referrals and positive community support for her salons.

Let’s break down that example into chunks to explore the theory behind it all.

When Alex was focusing on what she didn’t want, she was dedicating energy on Away from thoughts.  When a person is in that zone, they experience the following;

• Think of the negative
• Feel unhappy
• Guided by fear
• Lost and without direction
• Often stressed
• Lack of motivation
• Disconnected with their values
• Fatigue because you feel like your pushing

Why do they experience all this?  Fundamentally, it’s because they are so focused on what they don’t want, that they keep getting it again and again.

When we shifted Alex’s focus to what she wants (which we did by getting her to unveil her “why” in life and business, which meant reviewing her values), this is what Alex began to experience;

• Clarity and focus fuelled by motivation
• Excitement and happiness
• Positive vibes and communication
• Courage and love
• Reconnected with her vision/mission
• Growth, opportunity and connection
• Mojo and energy because you are being pulled

Simply put, when she shifted to Towards, Alex became re-aligned with her goals and desires and focused on those.  She started to see in her mind what she wanted in life and business and therefore attracted those outcomes.

Now, I don’t want you to think that Moving Away is always bad!  Because you do need to MOVE AWAY FROM THE TRUCK COMING AT YOU! That’s right, we do have to make decisions to move away from things that will harm us.  It is often the first step in a new and better pathway.  Relationships, jobs, food, books etc that are bad for us, have to be left behind.  However, it’s extremely important to combine that with a Move Towards objective.  Once we have moved away from something, it is then time to begin to create the “move towards” ambition.  That’s right, ambition is a key emotion that is common to all Towards personalities.  They are ambitious people.

As an example, you may think and say, “I want to leave my job because it stresses me out”.  OK, leave your job, that’s good.  However, if that is where you leave your motivation, then that becomes your focus.  And you’ll end up finding another job that gives you stress again.  Instead think and say, “I want to leave my job because it stresses me out, and I want to find a job that brings out my passion and gives me growth”. With this motivation model, you have a target that you’re moving towards, and that is much more likely to succeed because you have a clear ambition.

There is another reason that Towards results in success, while Away often results in less quality of life.  Imagine this, when you move away from something, the further away from it you get, the less you notice it and your motivation to keep moving eventually ends.  And at that point, you become lost and most possible you will feel STUCK. And may even slide back towards it.

In contract, when you are moving Towards a target, the destination is getting bigger as you get closer.  Just like when you have driven for a long time, and then you can see your destination on the horizon.  At that point, you get excited and your energy lifts and you can’t wait to get there.  Your motivation grows and grows until you reach your destination.  So much more positivity and spark in this focus.  Effectively, your target will pull you along

As a leader in business, it is fundamental that you communicate from a Towards mindset.  And it is just as important to help nurture your team to achieve the same focus.  In doing so, you create high performing individuals who are ambitious and positively directed.  Hence why, the most successful businesses and leaders always communicate their big “why”, their highest visions and goals.  Because that inspires their customers, their staff and their stakeholders to also make this goal come true.

All that I ask now, is that you take stock of what you often think about and say.  What you communicate.  And note whether you are communicating in a Towards or Away mode.  Write down what you notice and begin to reframe your unwanted Away communication with more positive and resourceful Towards language.  And remember, communication isn’t just what you say, it is also your body language, your behaviour and the environment you create.

I enjoy working with my clients to shift their business to a TOWARDS model and culture.  By going into their business and assessing the conscious and subconscious communication within it, we work to make the changes needed to create success.  This is part of the High Performance and Culture coaching programs that we do.

If you’d like to discover more about business coaching and leadership coaching, reach out and we can get you on the right track towards the outcomes you are seeking.

The post The Key To Motivation first appeared on Leader House.

On one hand, every day I think and feel that I have the opportunity to develop and grow, because we cannot be living the same way now, as we were pre-COVID.  The simplest of our usual routines and tasks have to be approached differently.  That means, adapting, growing, changing, re-prioritising, re-valuing and re-thinking.  That makes me excited.  I see opportunity, I feel energised.  And this is how I feel, despite the fact that I am suffering, as everyone else, through the economic effect of COVID.

Which brings me to what saddens me.  It’s not the economy and it’s not the loss of income we are facing.  It is simply the death toll, and the tragedies that some people are living through. That hurts.  And I look forward to seeing that end as soon as possible.

In light of that, and despite the tragedy, I chose to focus on the positive.  As a leader in crisis, now more than ever, you need to be aware that choice is key.  What you choose to experience now, will determine your ability to lead during this crisis.  Because choice creates intention, and intention is the foundation of everything.  Whatever you intend, becomes.  And if you intend on nothing, you get that also.

Therefore, if you do anything right now as a leader, do this.  Intend on being an exceptional leader in crisis.  Because your role is crucial during these emotional and tense days.  You can choose to create a safe and positive environment for your teams, which will enable them to better manage and process what is occurring.  As a friend of mine reminded me, being able to hold space for those around you, is a fundamental quality of an effective leader.  The positive and powerful intention creates that space that you can hold and share with others.  A space in which growth, development, and healing takes place.

During crisis, the team is looking at you more than ever before.  They look at you consciously, and also sub-consciously.  They also feel you at those two levels.  Which means that they are processing your behaviour and making decisions about it on one level.  And they aware of that.  And on a deeper level, your behaviour and your energy (or aura or vibration) are triggering within them emotions and responses that they are unaware of.  These, all put together manifests in the behaviours that will be experienced in your business and towards your business.  This in turns decides if your business/operation will fail or succeed.

As a consequence, in order to have a business and team that get through this, or even better, the catch-phrase of this crisis is “not just survive, but thrive through this”, your role as a leader is to ensure that your behaviour, and that of your team is calm, decisive and effective.

Now, I’ve decided to write this blog from the “negative” perspective.  So I’m not going to list what you should do to achieve this, I’m going to list what you shouldn’t do.  The reason for that is that often if you get a “how to do” list, you may very well do that, but you may also continue to do the very things that are damaging your leadership and business.  Therefore, this list is about becoming aware of what NOT TO DO as a leader in crisis.  That will ensure you are not dynamiting any good work you are doing.

Let’s explore that DO NOT DO list.  This list can help you choose better behaviours which in turn will make your intention more positive and attractive to others.  Furthermore, it will enable you to hold space for others, which in turn will open more doors for you and your business;

DON’T IGNORE THE FACT THAT IT’S A CRISIS

It is important to recognise this, its magnitude, and scale.  Its human effect and its toll.  That doesn’t mean you are focusing on the negative, it just means you are aware of the facts.  And more importantly, be aware of its impact on those around you, so that you can communicate with empathy and compassion.

More importantly, acknowledging a crisis allows you to explain to your team the science and theory behind the stages of crisis.  For example, I love this article by Morela Hernandez (writing for MIT Sloan Management), who says “Effective leadership can make crises manageable instead of overwhelming. Leading through crisis typically involves adopting a systematic approach to problem-solving: Stages of crisis include issue detection, response, recovery, and learning”

When you explain this to your team, they start to see that “this too shall pass”

DON’T KEEP THE SAME OBJECTIVES, TARGETS AND GOALS

Let’s face it, whether you have been affected directly or not, the landscape has changed.  Therefore it is important to shift your goals, whether they be personal or professional, in order to match reality.  Our goals tend to be linked to the outcomes that we desire.  And when we set those goals, it creates an instruction to the sub-conscious mind, which then helps to manifest the outcomes.  Our behaviour and intention will be linked to that.

If you don’t shift your goals, your behaviours become erratic and somewhat disconnected from the new reality.  That, in turn, creates a sense of confusion and disassociation from your team.  They will feel somewhat unsafe and uncomfortable in your presence.  Clearly, that is not the feeling you desire.  So, shift your goals now.  Make them realistic.

DON’T KEEP DOING THE SAME THING

If it’s broke, fix it. Don’t operate through this crisis with the philosophy that if it worked in the past, it will continue to work.  This is the time to look at your business.  It’s the opportunity to re-assess and re-examine.

Certain parts of your business will not work during this crisis.  They will either need to be eliminated or restructured.  Whether it’s how you operate, what you sell, how you communicate to clients, or how you distribute your product, you need to examine it and make a decision.  If it’s bleeding your cash flow, make that decision now.   It is not the time for analysis paralysis or procrastination.  It’s also not the time for excessive meetings and communications about the same matter.

An effective leader in crisis will make the tough decisions, in a timely manner.

DON’T BELIEVE IT’S YOUR DOOM

Hey, it’s quite simple right.  However, truly check in to yourself.  Are you seeing this as the end?  Are you seeing this as the straw that broke the camel’s back?  You might not be saying it out loud, and you might not be acting on it, but regardless, it will affect your results and it will affect how your team responds to you.

If you are being fatalistic, shift that perception immediately now, and say to yourself, now it’s time to find ways to make my business better than ever before.

DON’T OVERREACT

All eyes are on you, boss!  And guess what, they are judging.  In order to make the most of that opportunity, ensure that your behaviour is calm and constructive.  The killer of that is just one outburst, one overreaction.  It immediately saps your credibility.  And while most will understand that this is normal under duress, it doesn’t reduce the fact that your leadership impact will be dented.

Overreaction manifests in many forms.  Excessive meetings and communications, impulsive strategic shifts, micro-managing, becoming stoic, blaming etc.

And guess what is behind your overreaction?  Well, it’s simply the fact that you have lost control (fear is the emotion).  And you can only lose control if you try too hard to keep control.  So during crisis, be comfortable that you will have less control.  Be flexible and as Bruce Lee said, “be like water my friend”.  Water fits into any shape and gets through any obstacle.  As a leader, be like water and go with the flow more during crisis.

DON’T CLOSE YOUR MIND

One of the key survival instincts is to minimise everything so that you can focus on what is important.  In itself that is a great strategy.  However, it can take over and I hear my clients say “let me just get through this and then I’ll…”.  And they freeze everything else in their lives and act as though the only thing left, is to survive.

Well, if that is your behaviour, then that is the outcome you will get.  Just survive.

To get better than that, be prepared to do the survival work, but don’t let that drain all your energy.  Meaning you go home, and just think about the problems.  Instead, keep looking at growth, keep learning about what’s possible, keep engaging in adaptive and constructive conversations.  If you just become defensive, you will act defensively, and that is not effective in a crisis.

DON’T SACRIFICE YOUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Following the point above, it is easy to think about deferring your healthy routines in order to spend more time on dealing with the changes needed for survival.  The key to being a great leader is the ability to maintain clarity, energy, and positivity.  Eating well, exercising, meditating, and surrounding yourself in nature are more, therefore, more important during crisis that ever before.  In which case, keep doing them, and more so, do those more.  You will find the time when you use time effectively.

DON’T FORGET TO BE GRATEFUL

I don’t need to say too much here.  In crisis, and especially during COVID, be grateful you and your family have shelter, health, and food.  Anything over and above that is a blessing.  Be grateful for your team, be grateful for your clients and suppliers.  Appreciate all those in your community and circle.

And where possible, contribute by helping those who need it and be generous with what you have as others may have much less.

Because the list of what not to do is so extensive, I’m not going to go into detail on each of these here.  I will share some videos on the many of them, and you can get in touch if you want to chat about them further.  But I do want to list them here, just so that you become aware of the behaviours you don’t want to do;

DON’T;

• Lose sight of your long-term mission
• Fail to communicate
• Fail to be transparent
• Aim for perfection
• Be inflexible
• Let stress overtake you
• Point fingers
• Freeze
• Act too slowly or too quickly
• Fail to delegate
• Be untrusting or untrustworthy
• Keep information from your team/s
• Speak negatively or discouragingly
• Be too relaxed, or not urgent enough
• Have a fixed mindset
• Stop training your team
• Solely money focused
• Manage based on reaction to the present only
• Forget the power of visualisation and affirmations
• Forget the greater good

I invite and encourage you to use this list, and you’ll find that you will better filter the developments that are occurring daily, ensuring you are being more calm, collaborative, transparent, and effective.  I often say that success is not measured by how high you climb, it’s better measured by how many you take with you along the way.  Now, more than ever, your focus on others and lifting them, will help you shine as a leader.

The post What NOT To Do As A Leader During Crisis first appeared on Leader House.

Investing in your leadership qualities can generate huge benefits.  Not only do you experience higher self-esteem and genuine satisfaction from your work, but so will your team members. The success of your business will, of course, be the real icing on the cake for everyone.

See the ‘qualities of a good leader’ and ‘an effective team’ below, but first I’ll cover the qualities of a ‘bleeding team’ and ‘an ineffective leader’.  Which camp do you see yourself and your team in?

Qualities of an ineffective team (bleeding team)

• Low morale
• Time wastage
• Work duplication
• Unproductive
• Conflict
• Blame game
• “I/me” focused rather than team and company focused
• Low quality work
• Lacking initiative
• Fearful
• Tired

Qualities of an ineffective leader

• Indecisive
• Disorganized
• Micro-manager
• Ego driven
• Unapproachable
• Authoritative
• Task focused
• Divisive
• Short-sighted
• Poor listener
• Emotionally disconnected

Qualities of a good leader

1.     Outcomes focused

People are all different and while many may want details on ‘how’ to generate the outcomes, a lot of self-motivated people will want to adapt and work out the best ways for them to reach the desired outcomes.  Being a leader who focuses on the outcomes and allows your team to work out the best way to get there allows team members to become creative, explorative and adaptive.  This leads to greater satisfaction for team members.

2.     Strategic

Being strategic in leadership requires the ability to plan for long term growth while maintaining short-term financial stability.

3.     Inspiring

A good leader is able to inspire passion within their team.  It is not enough to just be passionate as a leader, a good leader is able to inspire the whole team to similarly feel and enact on the passion for the business vision and mission.

4.     Effective communicator

A good leader is an effective communicator.  You’ll be an active listener, be generous with your time and be present, build trust and rapport – relationships, be clear and succinct, good at asking questions and providing feedback and most of all, be empathetic.

5.     Emotionally intelligent

Emotional intelligence is one of the most important qualities of a good leader.  Most successful leaders are skilled in this area.

Emotional intelligence is about having personal awareness around your own emotions and behaviour and having the self-management skills to positively manage your behaviour and tendencies.  It also includes social awareness around other people’s moods, behaviours and motives and being able to respond effectively to improve those relationships.

This article gives a good overview of important habits of highly emotionally intelligent people.

6.     Highly organised and systematic

Systems are essential for time, quality and efficiencies management.  They save time and provide for continual improvement and updating.  Without them, you’ll be continually covering old ground and fail to move forward.

As a leader, you’ll be in high demand.  Managing your time and being highly organised around your tasks is imperative.  Otherwise, you will be thrown from one fire to the next and drift away from your most high value and strategic tasks that you should be focused on.

7.     Consistent

A good leader maintains consistency around actions and behaviours within the business and relationships.  This is particularly important when dealing with individual team members.  All team members are treated the same – consistently.

8.     Has an open door policy

A good leader is approachable.  An open-door policy is essential for team mentoring, skill-building, systems improvements and relationships.  A good leader is also mindful of how to manage their open-door policy, so it doesn’t interfere with their own productivity.

9.     Confident

Being seen as confident provides a calming effect on your team.  You may not always feel confident, but your team needs to feel that you are.

A confident leader is decisive and even if those decisions turn out to be wrong decisions, you’ll confidently admit to your mistake and go about making new decisions to move forward.

Building self-confidence will help you become a more confident leader.

10.  Informed

As a good leader, you’ll stay up to date with facts and information and feed it through to your team.

If you are demonstrating the qualities above, then you are an effective leader and your team should reflect the qualities of an effective team, below.

Qualities of an effective team

When your team is no longer running around leaking time, chasing their tail, unsure of their role, etc. they become a much more effective team and these are the qualities that you can expect them to be demonstrating:

• Proactive
• Collaborative
• Confident
• Supportive
• Productive
• Motivated

How do you shape us a leader?

After assessing yourself and your team against the qualities outlined for a bleeding team, an ineffective leader, an effective team and the qualities of a good leader, how do you stack up? Where could you focus to improve your qualities of a good leader?

If you are unsure and would like more information on becoming a better leader, please contact us.

The post What Type Of Leader Are You? first appeared on Leader House.

As leaders, our primary task is to ensure that the team is performing at it’s best.  That way, the results are achieved for the team members and for the club, household or business.  Simple right!? Of course not, as most leaders know, this is a challenging journey that requires the combination of technical, emotional, logical and spiritual skills in order to achieve high performance. 

Before I continue further, let’s define the main term here, High Performing Teams (HPT).  What does that look like? To keep it simple, let me bullet point some of the characteristics of a HPT, and you can then gauge whether your team is ticking the boxes;

• Communication flows easily and openly
• Goals and targets are clear and often met
• Values and beliefs are shared, and commonly agreed
• Trust and support is felt by all
• Conflict is accepted and resolved without toxicity or damage
• Acceptable behaviour is agreed and respected
• Non negotiable deliverables are set and respected
• Self-regulating and autonomous behaviour is the norm
• A strong feeling of energy, creativity and positivity is present
• Everyone is accessing their strengths, and getting training to overcome their weaknesses
• There is an excellent balance between technical and emotional intelligence
• Leadership traits are based on mutual encouragement rather than dominance

As you read this list, your either thinking “great, we’ve got this” or your now calling someone to get some help.  Because without these characteristics, the goals and outcomes you desire as a leader, business owner or parent, are going to be very hard to achieve.  

And here’s the interesting part readers, most business owners and leaders focus on targets, skills, tasks and processes.  Many companies fail to train their leaders on this subject matter, and choose instead to focus on training which relates to product output, rather than human behaviour. A 2016 Gallup poll found a shocking 82% of executives aren’t very good at leading people. Gallup estimated that this lack of leadership capability costs corporations up to $550 billion annually.  The good news is, the solution is simple.  Focus on having a training program within your organisation or even for yourself which teaches you about leadership and how to create high performing team members.

To give you a little head start, here are some of the techniques I train the leaders that work with me or how to create a HPT culture.  Through workshops I run, and through the one on one Effortless Leadership Program , I teach them the following;

• Understand how people create reality and interpret events differently
• Learn the different ways people communicate 
• Learn about emotional intelligence 
• Master influential body language 
• Be aware of what rapport actually means 
• Create a coaching culture within your organisation 
• Have several simple goal setting and decision making models that you use consistently with your team
• Communicate in a manner which is Towards goals rather than Away from issues 
• Implement systems and techniques for conflict resolution and trust creation
• Getting buy-in for your ideas and strategies
• Building relationships based on helping others grow and develop 
• How to get consensus on targets and non-negotiable deliverables

Quite often, when they begin, the leaders feel anxious and often fearful of their role.  Even experienced business owners and managers will express that they hate being the boss or leader.  They feel it’s lonely, unappreciated and grinding work. Once they learn, implement and master these behaviours, they find that achieving goals and targets becomes easy and enjoyable.  They become energised because they are no longer trying to get people to do something. Instead they are helping those around them find their strengths and develop fuller and happier lives at work and at home.  Let’s face it, we all perform at our peak when we can see how it makes our lives better right?

The post High Performing Teams first appeared on Leader House.

Guess what… that’s OK and that’s exactly what you should feel and think. You may or may not know that we all must travel through 4 stages in order to become competent at anything. And then after that, mastery becomes a possibility. The four steps are (and I’ll just list them here, and will talk about them more in a future workshop);

• Unconscious Incompetence – You don’t know what you don’t know
• Conscious Incompetence – You know what you don’t know
• Conscious Competence – You know how to do it but have to think about it
• Unconscious Competence – You know how to do it without even thinking about it

Back to the 10 pillars, some of us may be at any of these 4 steps above. And some of us may be at different stages with each pillar. However, to become effortless, you need to be in stage 4 for each pillar. And even better, you would have been at stage 4 for a long time, and therefore you are at a mastery level! And what’s the hurry? This is a journey, not a race.

For example, many leaders are at mastery level when it comes to the Pillar of “knowledge”. Having the technical skills & knowledge in their job. For example, the General in an army has the technical know-how on how to read terrain, etc in order to develop a strategy of attack or defense. They would be a master at it. However, is that same General a master at the Pillar called “Bring in The Heart”? If not, then they will struggle to get the same results compared to the General that can get the troops behind them because they connect on a heart-felt level.

Some of you may read this and think “I don’t have time, or patience or the personality to master all these traits”. Well, let me assure you that you do and you must. Otherwise, your leadership efforts will always be much harder, more stressful and less fruitful. Which means you’ll love the hard-fought life everybody does. Instead, if you’d like to achieve immense success and happiness with relative ease, and become effortless, you have to master these traits. It’s not negotiable. And it’s not easy at the start but it is when you know-how! And guess what, this is what we are going to do together. Because remember pillar 9, this is what coaching and mentoring is for!

Now, the first step is to accept that you need to master each trait. The next step will be to break it down and focus. Because like any skill, you can’t master it just by doing it ALL at once. You have to break it down. For example, if you think about Tennis, to become a master in this field you have to be exceptional at serving, volleying, groundstrokes, smashes etc. And then there’s racquet knowledge, crowd management, emotional management, etc. Consequently, a great coach will have their player focus on one skill at a time, and then break that skill down into further micro-skills, and create drills to perfect those. Therefore, they look at the serve and perfect the toss, the backswing, the up-jump, the follow-through etc.

And that is precisely how getting great results in life and in business is done. It all becomes much more achievable when we break down what we have to do into smaller chunks, and focus on that chunk for a period of time. And then move on to the next. Be aware, the only rush you have is the choice you make to stay average. So make the choice to be great, and perfect each sub-skill. That is the single biggest secret to success.

As you can see, this blog ties into a video I posted in January about “what is your torch pointing at?” Because if you are shining a very wide beam, or your beam is jumping around from this to that, then you will struggle to make headway. However if your beam is narrower, almost laser-like, then you will have more success and forward momentum. And also be sure that your beam isn’t pointing backward because that makes getting ahead very arduous indeed!

Now, let’s make this happen. Let’s become effortless leaders. In order to do that we will turn these pillars into traits that you possess naturally. They won’t be an act or a performance, they will be you. And hence you will have the beliefs that will give you the attitude of an effortless leader. And when you get into that space, you will have a mindset that is heart-felt. Because that is effortless leadership, it’s a mindset that is heartfelt and results in attracting opportunity and growth everywhere. That is what teams follow!

So ask yourself, are you ready to become an amazing leader and influencer and enjoy success, wealth and happiness? If your answer is yes, then you will enjoy the next steps of working with me.

As of next month, I will begin to break down each pillar into sub-skills. And then from there we will build a framework of how to practice and implement those skills into your daily life and business routines. And we’ll do that through monthly blogs and videos. In addition, we will also be launching an online membership opportunity wherein you’ll be able to get more lessons on how to master effortless leadership. Once you achieve that, you will be able to lead teams and your organisation to the results you have always desired, whilst having some fun along the way!

The post The Single Biggest Secret To Success first appeared on Leader House.

Working on the greater good means that instead of focusing all our actions and time on our own advancement, we should be also focusing on how our actions will improve the greater good. The greatest leaders and influencers that we think of all have contributed to the betterment of how humans think, act, feel and behave. They have improved or elevated us in some way or another and more importantly, they have changed what we thought was possible.

For example, we all identify Steve Jobs as a fantastic innovator of technology. He brought about the most elegant and sophisticated advancements in computer technology that we have seen in the last 30 years. And he made a fortune from it. However, the reason he was an immense success and amazing leader isn’t because of this ability to invent computers that look and work great. Instead, it was his passion and drive to help humans experience life in a way that is better. Now, there will be counter-argument here for how much better we have become as humans on the advent of the iPhone etc. However, the same could be said for cars, planes etc. Technology and advancement will always bring with it a perceived and real adverse effect. However, overall, it is my belief that the creations of Steve Jobs were always intended to make our life better, our experiences fuller and our abilities higher. And that’s what made Apple and its products such a success. Their WHY was always about understanding how they can make it better for the world.

And you can quickly see how most readers will then shrivel and think “I can’t do that!”. It seems like a HUGE task to compete with the likes of Steve Jobs on making the world a better place. However, working on the greater good isn’t always about making an immediate global impact. It’s about the attitude and focus on ensuring that everything you say and do (or don’t say and do), is for the betterment of yourself, your family, your business and your immediate community. That is enough.

Simply put, if everyone behaved and acted in a way that lifts the standards of their environment, it will lead to their community becoming better, which in turn means better cities, countries, and world. If instead, the attitude is “my actions make no difference”, then instead everything remains status quo, “not better”.

And here’s why this leads to effortless leadership. When your focus shifts to being the best you can for your community and beyond, then everything you do beneath that will succeed with relative ease. Why? Because the subconscious mind identifies with your beliefs and it gives you what you believe is possible. Therefore, when you start to believe that your actions can change the world, then you will start to attract higher and more meaningful results in every part of your life.

The magic here is shifting from the mindset of “I have to do what it takes to survive and make money” to “I have to do what it takes to build strong values, resourceful beliefs and better people”. Once you move from the view of just self, to also thinking more widely about others, you will attract higher calibre people into your life and business. And that too facilitates better results more easily.

Having said that, let’s explore some actions you can take to shift your beliefs and focus so that you can have a contribution-based ethic;

• Consistently review what you are valuing and what you are needing and ensure that you are coming from a place which is humble and fair
• Focus on having a state of empathy and compassion
• Every day, list what you are grateful for
• Find those in your community that have less than you, and give to them with your time and skills
• In your business, create a culture of contribution to community needs
• When creating services and products, think about how they can uniquely improve our quality of life
• Teach your kids this belief and focus from a young age
• Set aside time every week for “helping others”
• Learn to forgive and accept others
• Donate a fixed percentage of your “disposable income” to charity every year
• Become a member of charitable organisations such as Rotary Club or The Salvation Army
• Hold pro-bono seminars within your community where you can share your skills and knowledge

Now, please don’t feel that I am saying that we all need to be monks and saints. Nor am I saying that we have to live a minimalist life serving others only. As an example, Oprah Winfrey is an amazing human being that is highly focused on bettering all those around her. That focus is communicated in everything she says and does, including her contributions to charity and the greater good world-wide. However, she is always very well off and lives a life of luxury because she has balance.

And that’s the key to this pillar. In general, we are highly focused on self-gain and our own little bundle of tasks, issues, challenges etc. For some people, this is so much the case, that they suffer anxiety and depression. To contribute to the greater good, you just need to shift to a more balanced approach. Continue to focus on growing yourself, your wealth, your health and that of your family and business. However, it also includes a balanced approach to contributing and working on the greater good.

Once you include this approach to life and business, add that to the remaining pillars I have shared with you, you will truly experience effortless leadership. In that zone, my clients tell me that they always feel calm, focused and motivated. They have abundant creativity and energy. And they are able to connect deeply with those around them to create long-lasting friendships and teams.

I have enjoyed sharing these 10 pillars with you and going forward from here, I will be re-addressing these pillars each in more depth and holding workshops with you on how to achieve each one, a step at a time. So, look out for this in the months ahead in 2020. However, if you would like to work one-on-one or have me talk to your team to create an effortless success culture, then please get in touch for a complimentary discovery session.

The post Working On The Greater Good first appeared on Leader House.