One mans quest to transform Mondays

Thriving in Chaos

Mon, 7 Mar 2011 08:36:48 +0100

I think most of us were brought up with the idea that some sort of stability was normality. That every so often an event would come along and things would become unstable for a bit, but then they would return to “normal”.

Perhaps that idea was a myth, perhaps there never was a normal, perhaps life has always lurched about, never quite finding a comfortable equilibrium.

Or maybe there was a post-war golden age when there was some kind of stability, from 1950 until the oil crisis of the 1970s. When communism was the enemy and all westerners had to do was go to work and shop and everything would be OK.

Today we seem to be perpetually on the brink of being overwhelmed by the level of change.

• The level of innovation and discontinuous change in almost every area of business from energy generation to retail and from publishing to automotive is astonishing. Any business that is not reinventing itself within a five year timeframe looks antiquated.

• The debate over whether oil is running out or not will run and run. Whether it is or not it is absolutely clear that political and economic reliance on oil is now extremely risky. No one working in the west today has any experience of a non oil economy, and yet if we want to keep western society moving we have to change to one - fast.

• The seismic political shifts in the Middle East are closer in parallel to Europe in the mid 19th Century than to the relatively quick and quiet Eastern European revolutions of the late 20th Century. It will take some time for them to play out. In the best case scenario we end up with an Arab renaissance, with pluralistic and representative governments guiding North Africa and the Middle East to prosperity, but the path may well be long and dangerous.

• Climatic events will affect economics and politics. Climate generated poverty will lead to unrest and migration as well as more localised effects of flooding, drought and costal erosion.

• The West has virtually bankrupted itself, the lifeline for European economies is currently China (last years growth in the Germany economy was largely due to sales to China).

To prosper in such complex, unpredictable and fast moving circumstances requires a pluralistic approach to leadership. Hierarchy can work when circumstances allow focus on a single challenge, but it is woefully inadequate in more dynamic situations.

In dynamic situations (read “the foreseeable future”) we need many, many more leaders than are typically found in hierarchies. We need everyone one to lead, we need everyone to take responsibility, when their skills, location or situation are appropriate. We can no longer afford to have people obediently waiting for instructions or simply doing what they are told.

We need everyone to be able to think for themselves and act responsibly, particularly when under pressure. In business, politics and in public service.

The opportunities exist in abundance, they always do in periods of change - we just need enough leaders to realise them.

In response to these challenges, this year I am teaming up with my good friends at LifeXperiences to offer the most powerful leadership development program you can imagine.

The program uses the inspiring scenery of Mallorca and tailored levels of physical activity to enable participants to develop and practice their leadership skills under pressure.

The physical and emotional (people being pushed to their personal limit) experiences are integrated with the intellectual challenge of training in Authentic Leadership.

The result is confident leaders at all levels, ready to take responsibility, ready to lead and able to keep their heads, even under extreme pressure.

If you are interested in such an outcome for your team or organisation we can put together an appropriate package tailored to your people and objectives. We can also offer a “public” version for individuals or smaller businesses if we can get a big enough group together.

Lets have a chat and see how it could work for you.

See the menu of activities available at www.neilcrofts.com

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nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Sharpen Your Axe

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:26:02 +0100

Last week I had the opportunity to deliver an Authentic Leadership session to a lovely team at Kraft Foods, at a very nice hotel in Oxford. I love the enthusiasm with which these sessions are met these days.

At the end of the session one of the participants came up to me and said that she loved it all but, that work kept her so busy that she had no time for thinking, no time for personal development, no time for reflection.

Many of us end up being so stretched coping with life that we never quite get around to thinking about where all our “doing” is taking us; if we actually want to go there and if we do want to go there, which bits of our “doing” are contributing most to getting us there and which bits are wasted effort.

I recently heard an adaptation of a quote from the movie Fight Club which illustrates part of this: "many of us spend our lives doing jobs we hate, to buy shit we don't need, to impress people we don't like."

Put this way, it is easy to see that fulfilment does not lie down this path - so where does it lie?

I think the first thing to say is that, in most cases, the job is not the problem. So changing the job won't change things very much or for very long. Our options for changing things are limited, so the first thing we need to change is ourselves.

So -

Step One

Get clear about where you are going…

Many of us are leading our lives at enormous speed, but not necessarily in the right direction. The longer we continue not going in the right direction the further away from fulfilment we get - until the gap turns into a crisis.

We can pre empt the crisis by doing something about it now. This is the foundation for all of my work. Helping people to articulate their life's purpose and after years of practice and development I have honed the process down to the point where it can be articulated as a DIY process from a short e-book. If you have not done the exercise already, do it now. I have done two life purpose e-books - the free one and the new one called Living on Purpose which I wrote with my lovely Friend Dawn Waldron. The new one is MUCH better. Get it here - now!

The book will help you articulate your purpose, vision and values, it will also give you guidance on how to allow it to happen.

The key thing once you are clear on your purpose and vision is to ensure that the life you are leading is the right platform to deliver on your purpose. In most cases people do not need to change their job, but we do need to change our approach. We need to stop compromising, stop emotionally, physically and financially subsidizing our employers and make use of the platform they provide to find fulfilment.

At first glance, this may sound like a recipe for anarchy. It is not. Think of it this way:

If you were running a business - would you rather have a team of passionate, aligned, engaged and responsible people committed to something they believe in wholeheartedly OR a group of people with hidden agendas, reluctant to take responsibility and looking for a way out?

The second option is pretty normal, the first option comes through people finding a sense of purpose and making their work the platform for achieving it, by aligning things in such a way that profit for the business is the outcome of their pursuit of purpose.

Step 2

"Get rid of the crappy stuff" (As Steve Jobs said to the incoming CEO of Nike last year)

OK - you are clear about your direction so now you can evaluate everything in your life on the basis of whether it is contributing to fulfilling your purpose or not.

Look at what is really adding value to your life and your fulfilment and what is not. If there are things, people, activities, roles, jobs or anything that is taking your energy and not delivering value - sort it out so that it is, or move away from it.

In doing your de-clutter, allow for longer term projects that will deliver value, but also be conscious of the moment when it turns into banging your head against a brick wall.

My mantra: “It is OK to settle and it is OK to compromise, it is just not acceptable to settle for compromise.”

Be courageous and have those conversations. Challenge the things that are not adding value if you have to or simply drop them and see if anyone notices. If someone does notice, be prepared to have the conversation with them about why you dropped it.

Step 3

Sharpen your Axe - this is a reference to the story of the woodcutter who had so many trees to cut that he didn't have time to stop and sharpen his axe.

You may be extremely busy - and however busy you are, it is always worth it, when you step back and reflect on whether you are busy doing the right things and if you are doing them the best way.

You might find you can save yourself a great deal of time, by finding better ways to do things.

Also - get a coach or a mentor.

Just imagine that you were given the job of running a sports team and your objective was to get the team to perform at the highest level they could. Would you expect them to be able to figure out how to do that and how to stick to it on their own or would you also hire a coach to devise training programs and track performance?

Why would you not do that in business too? For yourself and your team.

With a clear and aligned sense of purpose, vision and values, no crappy stuff getting in the way and abilities honed to the max we get the most out of ourselves, our team, our business and we start to feel fulfilled in our lives and work.

Both political and business transformation seem to be becoming more popular. So I am working on offering a range of options for transformational leadership and teamwork courses here in Mallorca this year. Offering varying mixes of physical, intellectual and emotional challenge to suit the preferences of the group.

The courses will use the wonderfully diverse and spectacular geography and facilities in Mallorca to challenge individuals to find the limits of their leadership, their courage, their persistence and their authenticity.

The physical, emotional and intellectual experiences will be unpacked and discussed to extract the maximum learning against the framework of authentic leadership.

More information will be available next week and if you are interested we can have a chat about what would work best for your team.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

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nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Transformational Leadership

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:11:41 +0100

In business and politics we tend to refer to the people at the “top” of the organisation or government as “leaders”, whether they are or not, whether what they do is leadership or not and regardless of whether or not they have any followers.

The simplest definition of leadership is: someone others choose to follow.

If we look at the extraordinary turmoil currently in the Middle East, we can see that the nominal heads of state are not leaders at all. They may have their hands on the levers of power and they may have sufficient self serving cronies to keep them there, but what they are seeking to exercise is control, not leadership.

We can see analogous situations in businesses where a hierarchy becomes more focussed on protecting it’s hegemony than in leading the organisation forwards.

Protest is just a form of feedback. The feedback comes in the form of protest precisely because authoritarian regimes dislike critics. And many authoritarian regimes dislike critics because they are insecure in their roles and as individuals.

True leaders have the inner confidence to make positive use of critics to help form strategies and communication.

'If two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.' ~ Winston Churchill

Leaders are individuals prepared to stand up for what they believe in, sometimes with incredible courage. Leaders use their courage to inspire and empower others to step forward and have their say.

If we do not believe in the direction our company or country is going, in many cases we have a choice. We can leave or we can transform it. Transformation
means engaging others in identifying a better alternative and a strategy for making it happen.

The moment we decide on transformation and engage others in our project, we become a transformational leader.

If we want to transcend the mundane, we have to make the choice to stand up for what we believe in, to stay and to lead the transformation at some point in our life.

Transformational leadership is also a team sport. Transformation is only sustained when it includes empowering others to be their best and creating the space for them to step up and lead in their moment and in their talents.

Transformational leadership requires finding the solutions and the language to unite, the courage speak and to act, the will to persist in the face of disappointment and challenge and authenticity even under extreme pressure.

Both political and business transformation seem to be becoming more popular. So I am working on offering a range of options for transformational leadership and teamwork courses here in Mallorca this year. Offering varying mixes of physical, intellectual and emotional challenge to suit the preferences of the group.

The courses will use the wonderfully diverse and spectacular geography and facilities in Mallorca to challenge individuals to find the limits of their leadership, their courage, their persistence and their authenticity.

The physical, emotional and intellectual experiences will be unpacked and discussed to extract the maximum learning against the framework of authentic leadership.

More information will be available next week and if you are interested we can have a chat about what would work best for your team.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

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With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Leaving "The Matrix"

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:10:16 +0100

In the 1999 film Morpheus says to Neo "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."

One interpretation of the film is that it shows the journey from unconsciously living as part of our pervasive societal machine to consciously living beyond it.

If we take that interpretation, The Matrix is analogous to western society. We work and consume, violence and aggression are part of human nature and there is no alternative to our society story. Failure to conform leads to exclusion in the form of prison, homelessness or worse. We feel as if we are always competing for attention, success or approval.

For those living inside "The Matrix", the film is a slightly odd sci-fi movie with some new agey dialogue.

In the film there is an alternative to living in The Matrix. That alternative is, to be unplugged and to live in the "real world", in this case a rather uncomfortable and hostile environment, from where it is possible, with the right equipment to plug back in and have "super powers".

Back in the "real world" of our society, does this analogy refer to leaving our metaphorical Matrix?

I think it refers to the experience of living unconsciously in our society, the experience of trying to be what we think other people want us to be, of constantly having to conform to some nebulous idea of normality, of being alone against the world, of buying into the status symbols, ego props and consumerism that define western society.

Outside The Matrix is conscious living. It is both very similar and very different, at the same time. It is similar in that we can continue to live broadly the same life (unless we consciously choose to change it). It is the "why" we do things that changes, more than the "what".

For example the reason why we work might shift from - "promotion and paying the mortgage" to "delivering on our purpose". Nothing changes, and yet everything changes. We still get paid, we still pay our mortgage, what is different is that our motivation comes from the core, from a place of love, rather than from outside and from a place of fear. In fact the additional motivation might actually mean we are more likely to get promoted and more likely to get paid more.

We have the opportunity to shift relationships from being alone trying to make it in spite of everyone, to being a collaborator in an interconnected network of teams and communities.

The journey from one to the other begins with a belief that what is obvious is not all there is. It is the same with any of the many breakthrough experiences on the way. Protesters in Egypt and Tunisia, believing that there is a realizable alternative to autocratic dictatorship or individuals realising that they don't have to be in a state of paranoid competition with everyone including their boss, their co-workers, their parters or even their kids.

In that moment of belief the alternative is hazy and unclear. In the movie: Neo: "Why do my eyes hurt? Morpheus: You've never used them before."

With persistence and support the path becomes clearer. Without persistence and support the Matrix closes back around pushing us back into "our place", it's pervasive messaging crushing hope, as Morpheus explains "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

Support helps us to find the language and the confidence to understand what we are experiencing and to realise that it is real. As our path becomes clearer we experience euphoric moments of serendipity when our experience of life shifts from antagonism to alignment.

Within The Matrix everyone is potentially an agent to be feared. Outside The Matrix, everyone a potential collaborator.

"You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

Which do you choose?

Magic Monday - the compilation of six years of the best of these Monday morning e-mails is available as an e-book. (There will be a print edition when I can make the time).

Also, working with my wonderful friend Dawn Waldron, we have written a new, thorough and really easy to use Life Purpose work book.

You can get your copies here.

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

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With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Dependence to Loyalty

Mon, 7 Feb 2011 08:56:01 +0100

We are all familiar with the disempowering feelings of dependency and the prices and poor quality that go with it. The food on a cheap flight, restaurants or hotels in a tourist area, train tickets and petrol prices.

Old school business logic declares that a business model that locks customers in is a good one, and so it may be, but there are risks associated with it too.

With customers locked in for reasons of geography or facility, a lack of alternatives can easily lead to complacency. While the money rolls in, where is the incentive to develop products, streamline systems, build strong relationships or get the best from people?

Over time a business that creates a success from dependency can become disconnected from customers, arrogant and sloppy.

Business is at it's best under the scrutiny of competition with rivalry demanding the best from all involved. For customers and employees the effect of competition is invigorating and engaging.

Dependency easily leads to relationships that are exclusively transactional on both sides. There can be little care, passion, engagement or fulfilment in a transactional relationship. Think of the last time you made a purchase because it was the only option available; how did it feel? If you told anyone of the experience did you report it positively or negatively?

The reality of transactional relationships is that they are only ever as good as the last transaction. Transactional relationships do not lead to loyalty.

Loyalty emerges in a space beyond the transactional.

Loyalty is not only rational, it combines rational with emotional. A product or brand that evokes loyalty fulfills customers by exceeding expectations, delighting and thrilling them. The expectations created by this level of service, shift the relationship from transactional to an unconditional space. Mistakes will be forgiven.

Loyal customers will take the time and the energy to feedback supporting the process of learning and improvement. Even if they don't feedback, they will remain willing to engage with marketing materials. Loyal customers become ambassador. “Viral marketing” the Holy Grail of marketers is only comes from loyal relationships.

Without loyalty mistakes result in silent departure.

Let me contrast two hotel experiences one in Hamburg one in Denmark. The middle size Hamburg hotel was near the airport and clearly had not had to put in a big effort to serve customers for some time. The other was a small boutique hotel in Aarhus a medium sized town in the middle of Jutland. The Hamburg hotel was a transactional experience with some specific problems with the room I was in, when asked how my stay was at check out of the Hamburg hotel I said "OK" I didn't even feel strongly enough about the experience to bother to help them improve it. I won't recommend the hotel.

By contrast the Danish hotel was an engaging experience, and in spite of my usual grumpiness when staying in hotels on business I was charmed. When I noticed a problem, I volunteered the feedback and it was promptly resolved. I recommend the hotel entirely.

Many businesses manage to exist their entire lifespan without ever engaging customers at a deeper level. What happens to those businesses when, because of competition or other changes in the market, they have to shift from being able to rely on dependency to having to generate loyalty?

Assuming the leaders of the business correctly diagnose the problem, the treatment is significant, especially for a larger business.

Loyalty describes a relationship that goes beyond transactional in a mutually positive and supportive way.

Transactional describes the logical and functional benefits that underpin any business relationship. Loyalty is the space beyond transactional, where the emotional benefits exist and the relationship is less conditional and less about the specific results.

This is distinct from a dependent relationship where most of the positive value flows one way and the binding force in the relationship is more like addiction than loyalty, in that it is ultimately destructive. Cigarettes are probably the most extreme example.

Loyalty is created by people and it follows that a company seeking to engage loyally with customers must start by engaging loyally with staff.

To transform any relationship requires the actor with intent to model the relationship they would like to experience unconditionally. As Gandhi put it: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

For a business to enjoy an honest, loyal and rewarding relationship with their customers, for example, they must offer that relationship to both customers and staff. And they must offer that relationship to staff first, because it is the staff who will be the ones creating and holding the customer relationships. And staff will only represent the relationship they themselves have with the organisation.

Fortune Magazine have just published their annual survey of the best places to work in the US, as a cool info graphic. If you drill down into it, you will see the key words staff use to describe their work experience. If you compare the words staff use to describe their experience, you can easily translate them into the brand as it is experienced by customers.

Delivering this requires what I call Authentic Leadership. It is the highest level of leadership yet identified and it is what businesses require to create loyal relationships.

More on Authentic Leadership.

Magic Monday - the compilation of six years of the best of these Monday morning e-mails is available as an e-book. (There will be a print edition when I can make the time).

Also, working with my wonderful friend Dawn Waldron, we have written a new, thorough and really easy to use Life Purpose work book.

You can get your copies here.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Control OR Creativity?

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:50:12 +0100

What are the business lessons from events in Tunisia, Egypt and other restive Arab countries?

Fundamentally: Education + Connection ≠ Obedience

The illusion of control can only exist in a population while that population are uneducated and disconnected.

And obedience diminishes with education and connection. Obedience is not replaced with disobedience, so much as it is replaced with personal responsibility.

As people are better educated and more connected they become more willing and more capable of taking responsibility and less willing to submit to authority.

For governments this means that repression is inconsistent with a society where there is a requirement for a critical number of “knowledge” workers. A small number is manageable as a privileged elite, once that number gets too big it is no longer manageable.

Ergo - if a government wants to retain control of it’s people, it cannot also seek modernity on any scale, because it cannot educate enough people and still maintain control.

For business it is the same, just at a different level. Businesses requiring a high level of personal responsibility, creativity, connectivity and intellect cannot also expect to control or incentivise staff with carrot and stick type approaches.

Ergo - if a business wants creativity, innovation and responsibility from it’s staff it has to trust them, empower them and ensure that the work they are doing is meaningful for them.

For example; few businesses at the leading edge of innovation today, clock work hours, restrict internet use, operate repressive HR policies, count holidays or tightly control expenses. Staff are simply asked to achieve their team goals and given the resources, alignment and the freedom to do it.

For this to work requires a higher level of leadership than is common in control based environments. It requires a level of leadership that is comfortable in it’s own skin, has the confidence to encourage everyone to be the best they possibly can, even if it means surpassing the leader and critically has the courage and confidence to do the right thing, to truly lead, to take responsibility and criticism when appropriate.

This is what I call Authentic Leadership. It is the highest level of leadership yet identified and it is what our businesses and our society requires to create the kind of society we want - one that is peaceful, sustainable and fulfilling for all.

More on Authentic Leadership.

Magic Monday - the compilation of six years of the best of these Monday morning e-mails is available as an e-book. (There will be a print edition when I can make the time).

Also, working with my wonderful friend Dawn Waldron, we have written a new, thorough and really easy to use Life Purpose work book.

You can get your copies here.

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

On The Shoulders Of Giants

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:03:53 +0100

Last week I was back in Denmark for my annual “lecture” at the KaosPilots business school. I love these trips, they are intense, but the students are great to work with; fun, interested, passionate - and always asking the best questions.

The school is thriving, with more students than ever and many improvements and developments under way.

It is students like these who show us most clearly the reality of evolution today in our society. The physical signs are less obvious, but intellectually and emotionally the process is accelerating.

The combination of minimal national boundaries, internet age access to information and an inspiring curriculum means that these students understanding of the world, our society and of business is far in advance of previous generations.

Many of them will go on to teach the next generation, whether in businesses or in business schools, and help them to take the story a stage further.

The multiple crises we experience compound the motivation to find new and more sustainable responses and solutions, to our challenges.

Our job (the previous generations) is mostly to get out of their way, and where possible, to offer opportunities and resources to allow them to pursue their dreams and ideals authentically.

What is happening in the world is very far from all bad, in spite of the way it is portrayed in the mainstream media. Actually human society has made incredible progress in many areas. Hans Rosling communicates our progress brilliantly.

If we can focus our energies we will also make progress in other areas. Humans have incredible energy, creativity and potential to do good for the world. Destructiveness in not human nature, it is the product of a confused and frightened minority.

The vast majority of people want peaceful, loving and meaningful lives that do as little harm to others as they can. Given the damage that has been done, we also need to focus on restoration and we can do that too.

We are already standing on the shoulders of giants. Great thinkers, doers and leaders, both those who have been celebrated and those we know personally clearly show us the way. We can learn both from the successes and the traumas and allow them to guide us towards the future we seek.

Magic Monday - the compilation of six years of the best of these Monday morning e-mails is available as an e-book. (There will be a print edition when I can make the time).

Also, working with my wonderful friend Dawn Waldron, we have written a new, thorough and really easy to use Life Purpose work book.

You can get your copies here.

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

It is your time and your responsibility

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 20:47:26 +0100

Last week Barak Obama went to Tuscon to commemorate the victims and survivors of the previous weeks shooting. His speech was moving and inspiring, it was also a profound call to action for all of us.

Referencing 9 year old Christina Taylor Green, who died in the shooting, Obama said:

“I want to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.”

Unsurprisingly given the context, Obama specified America and children, but if we broaden it out, isn’t this the truth:

We should do everything we can to make sure our society lives up to our own childhood expectations and those of the next generation.

What are the implications of this?

We should avoid any actions we are not proud of.

AND

When our moment comes to make a difference and a contribution we MUST take it.

We must not be deterred from our course by other people’s fears.

We must not fall short because of our own unwillingness to step up.

We must find the courage, determination and communication to lead. To embolden ourselves to perform at our best and inspire those around us to their own greatest endeavour.

When enough of us are willing to step up to our full achievement, to go beyond what we might rationally consider possible, we change the world.

It is those who make these choices who change the world and make it live up to the dreams of children.

When your moment comes, don’t hesitate. It is your moment.

At last, another book - Magic Monday - the compilation of six years of the best of these Monday morning e-mails is available as an e-book. (There will be a print edition when I can make the time).

Also, working with my wonderful friend Dawn Waldron, we have written a new, thorough and really easy to use Life Purpose work book.

You can get your copies here.

Best of TED this week: Birke Baehr with the brilliant clarity and wisdom of youth about our food systems. Watch his TED talk, put it on your web site, link to it and talk about it to everyone you meet. I have put it on www.neilcrofts.com

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Metaphysics and the Past

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:55:16 +0100

I am almost completely unsentimental. I find the future and the present exciting and fascinating, I find the past complicated (in a way that may be related to my lack of sentimentality). I am, however, fascinated by history, mainly for what it can teach us about the future.

Is life a series of unconnected coincidences, or is there something more powerful at work?

Whatever, it is rare to truly escape our past. Unfinished business, must be completed before we can move on. If we somehow skip ahead and find a way through, that unfinished business had a nasty habit of dragging us back.

We have to learn the lessons of the past, to complete each step of the training, before we can move on.

In my drawing of the year I drew love and peace as my key experiences for 2011 and immediately, wallop, I got the message. “You cannot forget to learn those lessons of the past that you have been avoiding!!!”

It is not always easy to tell if it is a test or a reminder, perhaps it is both.

It seems that to get to the peace and love experience, I have to go back and unpick bits of the past I have happily left behind. Learn the lessons that they contain and then I can move on fully.

It is not that I believe life is controlled by a higher power. But life does seem to have an intelligence. It is not just random coincidences, but there is something clever at work. Not God in the sense of a man with a beard, God in the sense of the collective whole, the hive to our bees, the body to our cells.

Not just the collective but our changing individual responses.

There is a story in the news today about a policeman who worked undercover in the “Green” movement in the UK for seven years. At the beginning it must have seemed reasonable and he clearly didn’t consider the potential for emotional attachment. Seven years later he appears to have discovered just what a painful thing he has been part of. It will be a challenge to move on from such a story, if he succeeds he will be a better and stronger person for it.

The intelligence of evolution is that we have to develop and learn, to get better, to remain fit to survive.

The survival of the fittest; and who is the fittest to survive in our world?

What makes us fit to survive?

As individuals?

As a species?

The greater the wisdom, the greater the responsibility, the tougher the standards, the tougher the lessons.

If we aspire to live in peace and love then the standards are pretty high and if those lessons have not been learned already, we will get the opportunity to learn them soon and it may not be all that comfortable.

Perhaps we can take comfort in the idea that the tougher the challenges feel, the closer we are to a breakthrough.

Finally Magic Monday - the compilation of six years of the best of these Monday morning e-mails is available as an e-book. (There will be a print edition when I can make the time).

Also, working with my wonderful friend Dawn Waldron, we have written a new, thorough and really easy to use Life Purpose work book.

You can get your copies here.

Best of TED this week: Birke Baehr with the brilliant clarity and wisdom of youth about our food systems. Watch his TED talk, put it on your web site, link to it and talk about it to everyone you meet. I have put it on www.neilcrofts.com

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

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With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Fear Free Future

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 08:54:09 +0100

Fear is a complex emotion, it can protect us and limit us, it can make us timid and it can make us aggressive.

Fear evolved for practical reasons. We assess external stimulation for risk, if a situation appears to represent a threat our whole body reacts.

The limbic part of the brain (the oldest, most primitive part closest to the spine) takes control and shuts down access to the cerebral (thinking) part of the brain.

Blood flows to the muscles and heart and away from the brain.

Powerful stimulants and pain-suppressors, endorphins and adrenaline are pumped into our body.

We are ready to fight or escape.

In some ways our emotions struggle to evolve fast enough to cope with our rapidly developing lifestyles. We often appear to struggle to differentiate between situations which require fear as a response and those that require a different and more evolved response.

This misapplication of fear is what limits us or makes us aggressive when we could respond more appropriately and effectively.

Fear in work situations might make us cautious missing opportunities for creativity or innovation, it might make us insecure preventing us from speaking out, it might make us conform rather than challenge an error.

Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi observed:

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

Fear occurs when we lack the confidence to deal with a situation. This might be perfectly reasonable when we are confronted by a Tiger, but something more subtle and nuanced is required when we are confronted with a challenge that we need to think our way out of rather than fight or run.

Indeed the fear response specifically inhibits our ability to think our way out of a problem. Intense physical activity mimics a lot of the physiological elements of fear - try doing mental arithmetic while exercising hard.

We need to learn to manage our emotions to the extent that we can keep fear under control and maintain our capacity to think, even under stress.

For much of our evolutionary past winter was a fearful time of year. The shortest day was celebrated as it meant the light was returning. The animals were slaughtered providing fresh meat for the celebrations and avoiding the need to feed them during the famine months from January to March.

Many of us are experiencing a dark period in our society. We can choose to respond to that darkness with fear and the consequent aggression or timidity or we can choose not to.

As we celebrate the passing of the darkness this year, let’s make a conscious decision to move from fearful reaction to loving response as much as we can.

We have the choice to move from darkness into the light or into further darkness. Lightness requires us to replace our fear with love. Further fear will lead to deeper darkness.

If you are afraid of the dark, live with light and love, not fear.

Best of TED this week: Shimon Shocken talks about the transformative effects of mountain biking on prisoners in Israel. Watch his TED talk, put it on your web site, link to it and talk about it to everyone you meet. I have put it on www.neilcrofts.com

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link.

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

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With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Transformers

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:34:39 +0100

Last week I was facilitating a corporate leadership and teamwork event. As is usual in this kind of event there are, as one of my colleagues describes them, three types of participant - explorers, vacationers and prisoners.

Explorers are those who come to find out whatever they can to learn, connect and develop. Vacationers see it as three days out of the office and an opportunity to kick back. Prisoners feel that they are not there through choice and will just endure.

Our objective as facilitators is to engage all three groups to such an extent that the event becomes transformative, in terms of their leadership and team working capabilities, in this case.

Part of the way we do this is to set ourselves a daily “brand” benchmark. For the first day our brand included “fun”, for the second “inspiration”, for the third ‘transformation”.

Fun, because when people are having fun they are engaged and engagement is required for learning. We are inspired when some input has personally relevant value to our life. We are transformed when we can embed the learning to the extent that it becomes a permanent change in behaviour.

Here is the key though, as facilitators, to make the first day fun, we need to be inspiring, to make the second day inspiring, we need to be transformational and to make the third day transformational, we need to be transcendent.

This is the challenge, the test and the opportunity of transformational teaching and communication.

With good materials and a good event design, inspiring should be reasonably easy. Transformational is altogether more challenging. Being transformational means that through the exercises, conversations, materials and experiences participants are able to re-wire their brains. They do this by opening up neural pathways that may have lain previously unused, to the extent that they become habits.

Transformational teaching is interesting across multiple learning preferences (kinesthetic, intellectual, emotional, auditory, visual etc), repeated often enough to land without getting boring and has enough distraction free time around it to be processed into habit.

Transcendence is another whole level. It requires a level of authentic immersion in and passion for the subject that enables the teacher, facilitator to maintain a state of transcendence. Perhaps like an artist, musician or athlete, getting into the zone and being at one with their medium and their audience.

My own experience is that working at other levels is transactional, there is a contract that offers a certain value in exchange for attention. Transcendence is captivating, it draws people in, even the vacationers and prisoners. It is compelling, even those who are highly resistant to the messages find it hard to counter.

I aspire to do my teaching from a transcendent space. To make that profound connection with myself and the audience that helps them to fully connect with their authenticity and apply it wholeheartedly to their work and their organisation.

Best of TED this week: Shimon Shocken talks about the transformative effects of mountain biking on prisoners in Israel. Watch his TED talk, put it on your web site, link to it and talk about it to everyone you meet. I have put it on www.neilcrofts.com

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link.

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

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With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

Transparency

Mon, 6 Dec 2010 09:11:33 +0100

Back in the innocent, febrile days of the dotcom boom in 1998/9, we at Razorfish and others like us were touting transparency as an inevitable side effect of the internet.

I am not sure our clients really knew what we meant, I am not sure we knew what we mean, but it seemed like a logical outcome of digital.

Now we know.

When you put recording devices into everyones hands and connect them to a global distribution network - secrets, of any significance,cease to exist.

Whatever the nuances of the Wikileaks diplomatic download, this is transparency in action.

Our advice to our clients in 1998 was to only do things that were fully aligned with their brand and brands had to be fully aligned with their market place.

In a transparent world; Do NOTHING of which you are not proud.

Politicians, diplomats and businesses have had plenty of warning to get used to the idea of transparency. It was inevitable as soon as Tim Berners Lee let the World Wide Web genie out of the bottle, and so it has happened.

The reality is that we have become so completely used to the idea of saying one thing and doing another, to deceit, to lying that it is culturally hard to shift. To be fair to them, many businesses have already got their acts together - now it is the turn of governments.

These are evolutionary lessons. Evolutionary lessons are hard. If you are at the leading edge they are hard because as Schopenhauer said: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

If you are behind the curve they are hard because the sensibility of the community has moved on and you are seen as vulgar, out of touch and embarrassing. Watching the writhing, self serving, finger pointing of the embarrassed you can see where they lie on the curve.

Once again, the only answer is authenticity, to be true to our own brand. For every one of us, in business and politics. That way, even in a transparent world there are no embarrassing skeletons to be divulged over the internet.

I was really hoping to be able to launch “Magic Monday” today, my anthology of six years worth of Monday messages, sadly the technology has delayed me and I have too much on this week, to be ready by next Monday. Many apologies to those who are waiting - I still hope to have it ready before Christmas.

RA Mashelkar talks about the transformative effects of low cost design, why not apply these principles rather than implement austerity measures? Surely it is only fear and self serving to do otherwise?. Watch his TED talk, put it on your web site, link to it and talk about it to everyone you meet. I have put it on www.neilcrofts.com

If you would like help in finding your authenticity, give me a call.

Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link.

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

“Know Thyself”

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 08:57:23 +0100

Up to 2,400 years ago, if you were entering the temple of Apollo at Delphi, you might have noticed this inscription - in Greek, of course. A latin version made a cameo appearance above a door at the home of a more modern Oracle in the film “The Matrix”.

Delivering a leadership training program last week I had a powerful example of the power and value of this apparently simple recommendation.

One small but significant piece of self knowledge proved to be transformative for one participant. It explained, precisely, years of misunderstanding and provided the opportunity for a new and more positive way of being.

Over the years since the Oracle at Delphi was the ultimate arbiter and authority, we have developed some brilliant tools to help us to understand ourselves. These are evolutionary tools that help us to stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and take each generation to a further level. They often go under the slightly intimidating name of “Psychometrics”.

We use a number of these profiling tools to help us understand ourselves and our clients and to give an objective view alongside our more subjective assessments. Very often the diagnostic provided by the profiling tool is so insightful that with a minimum of support, the knowledge can prove transformative.

We all have deeply seated preferences and behaviours. Some of us prefer a lot of attention, others prefer to be left alone. Some of us prefer to feel in control others prefer to be free from responsibility. Some of us prefer to narrow things down and deliver, others prefer to open things up and explore.

None of these differences are good or bad in themselves. Some lend themselves more to particular lines of activity than others, but mostly they just provide the diversity that any team needs to be optimal. With my preference for finding new ways of doing things, you would not want me as the pilot of your passenger plane, for example.

The opportunity, for individuals and teams, lies simply in the awareness. Once a particular need or behaviour becomes conscious we can be open about it. It moves from being a confusing misalignment to being a distinct quality that can be positively applied to any situation.

None of this understanding exists in isolation, it is all relative to others and particularly those around us. Our partner at home and our team at work. Knowing that one colleague has a preference for always coming up with ideas and not focussing on the deliverable like the rest of the team is enormously valuable and liberating. Immediately we can stop trying to get them to conform and value their ability to come up with new ideas.

At Authenticis we particularly use two tools (there are plenty of others) FIRO-B and Pathfinder.

FIRO-B was originally developed for the US military to profile submarine crews. It is essential to understand people’s preferences and behaviours so that a a team can complement one another rather than conflict.

FIRO-B helps us to understand how we prefer to relate to others, specifically in terms of what we want and what we offer in terms of interaction, control and affection.

Pathfinder Profiler is a contemporary business based version of the much more ancient Enneagram. Pathfinder helps us to understand our personality type our strengths and our weaknesses. Being conscious and transparent about what we tend to be better at than others at means we can valuably offer it to our team. Being conscious and transparent about what we tend to be less good at than others gives us the opportunity to improve or to compliment ourselves with others who have our weakness as their strength - the essence of team work.

RA Mashelkar talks about the transformative effects of low cost design, why not apply these principles rather than implement austerity measures? Surely it is only fear and self serving to do otherwise?. Watch his TED talk, put it on your web site, link to it and talk about it to everyone you meet. I have put it on www.neilcrofts.com

If you would like help taking your team from good to great, give me a call.

Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST. This week we will be discussing “Know Thyself”.

Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link.

You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Become a fan on Facebook

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With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+34 646391384
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts