Geoff Hudson-Searle

November 2, 2015

Do we know what we want?

I have been discussing the subject deeply with a very good friend of mine, ‘do people actually know what they want, the subject is actually deeper, do we know our life purpose?

“Know thyself” has been a dictate since the time of the ancient Greeks, but Thoreau’s statement speaks to the difficulty of such a task. As it turns out, there are some things about ourselves that are very hard to perceive accurately. In some instances, others know us better than we know ourselves

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything.

Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence but not everyone wants to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, without the sacrifice, without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship but not everyone is willing to go through the tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder “What if?” for years and years and until the question morphs from “What if?” into “Was that it?” And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, “What was that for?” if not for their lowered standards and expectations 20 years prior, then what for?

Because happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not.

People want a partner, a spouse. But you don’t end up attracting someone amazing without appreciating the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It’s part of the game of love. You can’t win if you don’t play.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

There is a great quote by Marla Gibbs “I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we’re all teachers – if we’re willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door

I think most people retain at least a glimmer of awareness of their life’s purpose within their inner being. It often feels like a leaning, an inclination, that continues to pull at you. Sometimes is right in front of your eyes but you don’t allow yourself to see it, like when you’re hunting for your missing keys and then discover that they’ve been right in front of you the whole time. For example, an investment advisor found himself doing more and more work with charity organisations. He finally realised that what he felt most in sync with was hands-on work helping people. That was the part he enjoyed about his work, not the money managing per se. Helping people was his true calling, and it was staring him in the face the whole time.

Those who experience a clear inclination but don’t pursue or fulfil it remain incomplete and dissatisfied. But it’s important not to confuse seeking happiness with finding your purpose. Happiness is what you experience in the daily flow of life the highs and lows that are the situation. They will fluctuate. But purpose is deeper. It’s more of an underlying sense of peace and fulfilment overall, a sense of integration and continuous unfoldment of your being. It transcends everyday ups and downs, the disappointments or successes, even. When you’re living in accordance with your life’s purpose, you view all of the above as part of what you encounter along the road. They don’t distract you from that larger vision, your ideal, which is like a magnet steadily pulling you towards it

In the end, figuring out what you want and your life purpose isn’t an easy process and no miraculous solution exists for doing it. The fact is, you need to think about it, and to do so you might need to push yourself through some mental challenges until you figure out exactly what is you’ve been looking for, and just maybe your life purpose will find you.

Finally, be careful what your dream for, it may just arrive into your life!

October 26, 2015

The Stock Exchange and Dating, is there a difference?

Like many things in this world, relationships form complex systems that are difficult to understand and almost impossible to predict.

However, there are general guidelines to complex systems that we can apply to relationships to make them easier for our simple minds to grasp.

The stock market is one of the more popular complex systems today, which we can use for this purpose.

Monitoring behaviours, movements and roles that occur in the stock market, we may be able to better understand why we are attracted to certain types of people, why certain people are attracted to us, how we can improve our strategies and who we are, hypothetically, best suited for in varying life circumstances.

We might even forecast with a certain degree of certainty the messy trajectory of our all-too-human hearts.

In each relationship, one person is predominantly the Investor while the other is predominantly the Stock. While both are investing in each other in some way, to a certain degree, the Investor has more to lose than the Stock.

Likewise, while both are proving their value to each other in some way, the Stock has more to prove than the Investor.

In general you are the Investor if you are more attracted to people based on their ability keep up with you and/or make you look better. You are the Stock if you are more attracted to people who have the ability to support you, better you or otherwise believe in you.

It is neither better nor worse to be the Investor or the Stock because both roles come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. You play these roles based on the cards life has dealt you and what you have done with them so far.

Stocks and Investors can morph into different types and even switch or play dual roles simultaneously throughout their lifetimes.

The success of each relationship primarily hinges on market circumstances when an Investor decides to invest in a certain type of Stock.

Disturbing environments breed disturbing relationships, smart environments breed smart relationships, unnatural environments breed unnatural relationships, rich environments breed rich relationships, lazy environments breed lazy relationships.

“Investors” put their money into stocks, real estate, etc., under the assumption that over time, the underlying investment will increase in value, and the investment will be profitable.

Typically, investors do not have a plan for what to do if the investment decreases in value. They hold onto the investment in hopes it will bounce back and again become a winner.

Investors anticipate declining markets with fear and anxiety, but usually do not plan ahead of time how they will respond to them. When faced with a declining (bear) market, they hold their positions and continue to lose.

We all know investors. In many cases it was us before we realized how dangerous buy-and-hold investing can be to our savings.

Investors do have some knowledge of trading. But that knowledge is tainted by how it is all too often described in the financial press. “Trading” is risky, dangerous, foolish, bad, involves a great deal of work, etc. On the other hand “investing” is good, reliable and safe.

“2000-2002 Nasdaq Bear market – It will take a 250% gain to make up the losses in Nasdaq investments”

Investors had a taste of what “buy-and-hold” can do to their capital in the recent 2000-2002 bear market. But many do not realize just how far in the hole that bear market put them. The S&P 500 declined 50% and the Nasdaq declined 80%. How easy is it for the markets to regain those losses?

It will take a 100% gain to make up the losses for those invested in in the S&P. It will take a 250% gain to make up the losses in Nasdaq investments. When a powerful advance is measured in 20% to 30% moves, you can easily see how long it will take to regain those huge losses.

In the last several years of market gains, we have come nowhere near accomplishing this in the typical index fund. It is likely to take investors many more years to get back just to where they were in 2000.

Relationships are powerful. Our one-to-one connections with each other are the foundation for change. And building relationships with people from different cultures, often many different cultures, is key in building diverse communities that are powerful enough to achieve significant goals.

It is our connection to each other that gives meaning to our lives. Our caring for each other is often what motivates us to make change. And establishing connections with people from diverse backgrounds can be key in making significant changes in our communities.

As individuals, and in groups, we can change our communities. We can set up neighborhoods and institutions in which people commit themselves to working to form strong relationships and alliances with people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. We can establish networks and coalitions in which people are knowledgeable about each other’s struggles, and are willing to lend a hand.

Technology and The Internet of Things (IoT) is an amazing innovation. But even as it’s shrunk the world and brought us closer together, it’s threatened to push us further apart. Like any useful technology innovation, to make technology serve us well requires the exercise of good judgment.

October 19, 2015

Chats with cool cats!

I recently visited Sedona – Arizona in the United States of America, whilst this visit was a vacation I was pleased to catch up with my friends and in particular Maia Kincaid, PH.D and author.

We met at the ChocolTree Café on W.89A in Sedona, I have been fascinated by this café every time I have visited Sedona, ChocolaTree is a sanctuary garden café set in the beautiful Redrock of Sedona, so I was pleased to have the pleasure to meet Maia for a true author discussion over lunch.

Maia came to understand that fulfillment in life is generated primarily by an attitude or manner of relating with oneself – a way of being with oneself and in the world. This primary relation with oneself she discovered served as the foundation for well-being, contentment and relations with others, and the environment.

With Maia’s sincere desire to make a difference and her joy in encouraging others to their success she discovered her own sense of purpose and realised her talent as a mentor and coach in life. In addition to the delight she experiences communicating with pets and their people, Maia, discovered her absolute delight in people awakening to their natural ability to talk with animals and even more wonderful for her is when a new Animal Communicator emerges and talks with people and their pets, and gives classes too! Maia discovered that having great Animal Communicators out in the world doing the work is the fulfillment of her dreams.

Hence the creation of The Sedona International School for Animal & Nature Communication and Animal Communication University. Through her programs Maia is out to have every animal have their voice! With each new extraordinary Animal Communicator, Nature Communicator & Veterinary Animal Communicator successfully communicating with animals and their people that many more animals have their voice. The voice of animals is our access as human beings to the love and wisdom which transforms life for us humans, which transforms life for animals and the planet. We need their point of view, their love and their wisdom to help us come home to ourselves and compassionate living on the planet.

Her new book The Cat’s Meow is all about chats with cool cats, Maia explained have you ever wondered what your cat was thinking or why they do the things they do? The Cat’s Meow: Chats with Cool Cats is the most incredible adventure into the mind, heart and spirit of our feline companions, through actual telepathic communication with real cats. It’s an enlightening and inspiring account of the relationship between cats and their people. As you read the pages you literally experience the telepathic communication with cats and an invitation and guidance to talk with your own feline family members

As a child, Maia sought the wisdom of nature to find peace and understanding in being human. Today, as a contemporary author of animal & nature communication books and spiritual teacher, she guides people in conversing with animals, plants and the Earth as well as with their own body, mind and spirit.

An amazing story, I asked Maia if there was one thing that she was exceptionally proud of in her life, she replied “One thing I have learned for sure in my conversations with animals is that what I or another human may see as the limit to what’s possible is not the same as what the animals see. They continually amaze me with their request to simply open our minds and hearts. And when our minds and hearts are open, a whole new adventure begins – beyond what we can even imagine is possible!

Amazing, it was great to meet Maia and hear about her new book and developments/successes with the animal world, Maia truly has an amazing gift to community and society, imagine if all humans could connect with each other the way Maia connects with animals, truly it would be profound for collaborating and communication.

October 12, 2015

Can you disconnect from the office on vacation?

While some business people avoid e-mail and mobiles during their time off, others find it tough to remain out of contact.

Anyone who has sat on a Caribbean beach this summer will be familiar with the trill of mobiles producing an instant response among supposedly off-duty executives.

Mobile phones, BlackBerries, WiFi and sub-miniature laptops make it all too possible to pack the office along with your luggage. But how in touch or out of touch should businesspeople be?

So what happens if you run your own firm?

You might have the big salary that comes with the top job, but little time to enjoy it.

Can CEOs ever release their grip and truly take a break?

It is true to say that people get stuck in particular patterns that need breaking, making the point that if a company cannot operate for a few weeks without one particular employee, then the other people on the team haven’t been hired well or trained properly.

Remember also that anyone can fall ill, or have a family crisis, at any time. They can be taken away from work by such things at no notice, for long periods of time.

High quality global journalism requires investment.

A Penna research study among 600 chief executives, managing directors and directors of FTSE 250 companies has shown that an overwhelming 10 per cent of these people are bordering on “derailment”. This is part of a study that was undertaken on EQ (emotional intelligence quotient), which is intended to help people better understand their emotional and social functioning – to be more successful with less effort and consequences. For leaders this is a useful tool, as it helps them to assess their ability to empathise and connect with staff, which in turn directly affects the productivity and morale of their employees, especially in a recession and in adversity.

When executives take their Blackberry to the beach they are fundamentally putting their health at risk. It also shows a lack of trust in their colleagues to handle situations while they are away. They are not allowing themselves to de-stress, which can result in the derailment of themselves and, potentially, their businesses.

The biggest obstacle to disconnecting isn’t technology: it is your own level of commitment or compulsion when it comes to work. If you work 80 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, you may find it pretty hard to get your head out of the office – and even harder to break the association between hearing the ping of an incoming email and immediately shifting into work brain.

That association is exactly why it is so useful to develop strategies that put your devices in vacation mode. You probably don’t leave Oreos in the cupboard when you are dieting; for the same reason, it’s best to put work out of arm’s reach when you’re on vacation. Instead of relying on sheer willpower to keep you from checking in on work, you can use your vacation tech setup – and a little up-front planning – to support your efforts to minimise work time.

With that setup in place, you will be able to enjoy the benefits of online connectivity and digital tools, it is even more important to get away on a very rare occasion even if it just to breathe and keep all of your personal relationships in order as well as the benefit of disconnecting from work. And instead of apologising for bringing a phone on vacation, you will be able to relax even with your devices in tow.

October 5, 2015

Is Strategy within Digital Transformation Important?

I have been invited to a very interesting conference next week called, Enterprise Digital Summit London the conference is aimed at digital transformation and driving business value with digital and social collaboration. The event is focused on business process and ROI aimed at people in business who want to find out how, as well as to listen from experienced practitioners and consultants.

The event will take place on Thursday 22^nd October at The British Academy for the humanities and social sciences, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace and the speakers include Stowe Boyd (Gigaom Research) other speakers include Professor Vlatka Hlupic (Westminster University and author of The Management Shift), Stanley Awaku (Vodafone), David D’Souza (CIPD), Kim England (Pearson plc), Belinda Gannaway (Belinda Gannaway Consulting Ltd), Björn Negelmann (Kongress Media).

This week’s Monday blog, I thought I would focus on some of the topics from the conference and provide some tips, advise and thought leadership on the following:

What are the strategic building blocks for Digital Transformation?

One of the greatest challenges for managers is persuading senior leaders to more fully embrace digital within their organisations. Many managers have a good idea about what they want to do, but need to argue or build the business case internally in order to receive funding. In many cases, this is the major barrier to moving towards digital transformation.

In those organisations where digital is not given much prominence, it is usually because the business has not yet been affected by a real negative impact on their revenues because of digital. Leadership teams have been forced to look holistically at their organisation and consider where digital can play a major role in improving performance.

In organisations where this is not a problem, digital is likely to be either a key revenue stream, an operational necessity or a key differentiator, so digital is the key part of the overall business strategy.

In both instances, it is imperative to have a clearly informed business case that helps position how digital can closely align with the goals of the business, and not on digital trends and fashions.

Barriers to adoption of a digital strategy

What will it take to break down the barriers to digital engagement, so that organisational leaders and other senior professionals will commit themselves to digital transformation? First and foremost, they have to make a mental shift, to recognise that it’s actually in their best interests to give serious consideration to how they and their organisations must adapt to Digital Era realities in significant ways.

Getting to the tipping point, when digital engagement and transformation are considered the norm, is going to take:

Time- Change of this magnitude is going to be slow, especially in industries and organisations where there is not much precedent for the potential value that new technologies and ways of working can offer. It will take time to shift perceptions of Digital Era technologies from novelties to utilities, and from short-term fads to long-term trends.

Increased media exposure – A year ago, little was written in the mainstream press about topics like digital currency and cybersecurity. More recently, ideas like digital transformation and cognition as a service are still being introduced. The more subjects like these move from technical and niche publications to more widely-read outlets, the more likely their importance and implications will be understood.

Education and training – Both formal and informal approaches to learning – especially programs targeted to leaders and experienced professionals – will help accelerate the necessary shifts in knowledge and understanding, and ultimately behavior. Academic institutions, private service providers, and employers themselves need to make digital literacy a strategic imperative for workers at all levels in a all types of roles.

Relatable market leaders – The more examples there are of organizations that have successfully undertaken digital engagement and transformation initiatives, the less resistant later adopters are likely to be. These examples have to come not just from the consumer space, but also in business-to-business enterprises, the public sector, higher education, non-profit organisations, and more. As we emerge from the economic doldrums we’ve been in for years, organizations with stronger appetites for risk will take chances and start to reap visible rewards. When they do, others will start to follow.

Driving employee engagement

Employee engagement is the key to business success. It is the result of the psychological contract plus the experience that exists between employee and employer. The foundation of employee engagement is respect, trust, and performance. Engagement is dynamic because it changes over the course of an employee’s tenure at a workplace and overall career as a consequence of multiple events and factors.

Engagement is intrinsic and individual. In conclusion, engagement is all about “I.” It is a voluntary connection to the business and to its purpose; it includes an emotional component to the workplace in order to achieve its desired outcomes.

Employees decide if they want to be engaged. Thus, even though employee engagement entails an emotional connection, it also involves a rational component as the employee decides whether or not to be engaged given her individual circumstances. We have concluded that, even though many workplaces may seem to be similar, they are as unique as the individuals who belong to them, which in turn affects what it means for employees to be engaged with the organisation.

As you may expect, the definitions and explanations of employee engagement are as varied as the authors who have proposed them; however, they have some similarities. These definitions include emotional, rational, and practical features that are connected to engagement’s impact on businesses as well as on employees. In general, these definitions refer to engagement as voluntary. Each well-known definition includes these important components; in addition, there are other factors that contribute to move employee engagement in a particular direction. These factors are typically known as drivers of engagement.

Driving ROI

The benefits to strategic planning are intangible and show hard bottom-line return on investment (ROI). Every day, your work impacts aspects of your business. Following these tips can help you realise the true day-to-day impact of having a strategic plan in place:

Spend more time on high-impact, high-growth activities. These activities are where you want to spend as much time as possible. With these maneuvers, you spend less time going around in circles.

Identify true opportunities versus false starts. If you know what you’re best at and where you want to go, you can more quickly identify true opportunities. Strategic planning helps you put the boundaries on your business. When you ignore extraneous distractions, you use your resources more effectively and more quickly to grow your organisation.

Internal advancement, such as in your career as a leader, can come from being involved in strategy development and using it as a true guide to your work.

Achieve your vision for success. You started your organisation for a reason. You likely have a vision for your business. If you want to achieve your vision for success, you have to specifically figure out how you’re going to get there. Having a strategic plan makes success intentional.

Increase employee commitment. Strategic planning increases employee commitment — especially in this tight labour market. Helping your employees see the vision that you have for success and growth helps you work toward that goal.

Culture change and leadership required to transform

Changing an organisation’s culture is one of the most difficult leadership challenges. That is because an organisation’s culture comprises an interlocking set of goals, roles, processes, values, communications practices, attitudes and assumptions.

The elements fit together as an mutually reinforcing system and combine to prevent any attempt to change it. That’s why single-fix changes, such as the introduction of teams, or Lean, or Agile, or Scrum, or knowledge management, or some new process, may appear to make progress for a while, but eventually the interlocking elements of the organizational culture take over and the change is inexorably drawn back into the existing organizational culture.

Changing a culture is a large-scale undertaking, and eventually all of the organisational tools for changing minds will need to be put in play. However the order in which they deployed has a critical impact on the likelihood of success.

In general, the most fruitful success strategy is to begin with leadership tools, including a vision or story of the future, cement the change in place with management tools, such as role definitions, measurement and control systems, and use the pure power tools of coercion and punishments as a last resort, when all else fails.

I would welcome your comments on your management experiences.

To book your place on The Enterprise Digital Summit London, visit http://www.enterprise-digital.net/london.html

September 28, 2015

Leadership: do investors invest in leadership’s ability to execute?

Leadership undoubtedly has an impact on the value of the business, especially from an investment perspective. Companies have always been indexed with a market value based on a measure of their finances. And, while the finances of a business are important, potential investors may seek to base their investments on intangible metrics like brand, strategy and leadership.

A recent debacle after decades arming American soldiers, first with the Vietnam era M16 and later the modern M4 rifles carried in Iraq and Afghanistan, famed gun manufacturer Colt lost its contract with the military in 2013. It never recovered. Colt Defense LLC filed for bankruptcy after 179 years in business.

The downturn for Colt seems to have started after the company, which had relied on sales to the government, lost a multimillion-dollar bid to arm the military, Colt’s chapter 11 filing came after earlier, failed attempts to restructure its $350 million debt were rejected by the company’s bondholders. Last November, The Wall Street Journal reports, Colt borrowed $70 million from Morgan Stanley in a bailout loan to allow the company to pay down interest on its debt, but was this a leadership issue?

Here’s an interesting contradiction: According to a survey from executive team consultancy Gap International, executives overwhelmingly agree that talent can make or break a company; yet only a minority actually say they invest in leadership development programs.

How important is maximizing a company’s talent? Very, said 85 percent of execs surveyed. In addition, 83 percent said the same of empowering employees to succeed. The problem: the “maximisation” bar is set too low.

Only 37 percent of leaders surveyed said they believe their employees can become top performers. What’s more, less than half said they would “invest innovation efforts” in leadership development or employee performance training this year

That data points to a disconnect between how employers think and how they act regarding talent development. If it’s really that important, why aren’t more companies investing in leadership training programs?

Leadership brand is a reputation for developing exceptional managers with a distinct set of talents that are uniquely geared to fulfil customers’ and investors’ expectations. A company with a leadership brand inspires faith that employees and managers will consistently make good on the firm’s promises. A Nordstrom customer knows that the retailer’s employees and managers will give her white glove service. Parents who take their kids to a Disney theme park assume that ride operators and restaurant personnel will be upbeat, friendly, and gracious. McKinsey clients understand that smart, well-educated consultants will bring the latest management knowledge to bear on their problems. A leadership brand is also embedded in the organization’s culture, through its policies and its requirements for employees. For example, the tagline of Lexus is “the pursuit of perfection.” Internally, the Lexus division translates that promise into the expectation that managers will excel at managing quality processes, including lean manufacturing and Six Sigma.

Previously, there had been no index of how companies’ leadership affects their value. Harvard Business Review, however, has developed a leadership rating index, created from a number of studies based on the effects of leadership.

Their index is broken down between individual — personal qualities of top leadership — and organisational — systems created to manage leadership throughout the organisation. Below is Harvard Business Review’s index on leadership.

Individual:

Personal proficiency: To what extent do leaders demonstrate the personal qualities to be an effective leader (e.g. intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and ethical behaviors)?

Strategist: To what extent do leaders articulate a point of view about the future and accordingly adjust the firm’s strategic positioning?

Executor: To what extent do leaders make things happen and deliver as promised?

People manager: To what extent do leaders build competence, commitment, and contribution of their people today and tomorrow?

Leadership differentiator: To what extent do leaders behave consistent with customer expectations?

Organisational:

Culture capability: To what extent do leaders create a customer-focused culture throughout the organisation?
Talent management: To what extent do leaders manage the flow of talent into, through, and out of the organization?
Performance accountability: to what extent do leaders create performance management practices that reinforce the right behaviors?
Information: To what extent do leaders manage information flow throughout the organization (e.g., from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side to side)?
Work practices: To what extent do leaders establish organization and governance that deal with the increasing pace of change in today’s business setting?

In the end, successful leaders are able to sustain their success because these individual and organisational traits ultimately allow them to increase the value of their organisation’s brand – while at the same time minimize the operating risk profile. They serve as the enablers of talent, culture and results driven people.

September 21, 2015

Can a Blue Moon’ really affect our behaviour and emotions?

I personally just love Blue Moon’s. I was excited by the Blue Moon that occurred on July 31^st this year, the moon’s vibrancy, mystical movement and amazingly strong energy, apparently and according to the astrologers this year’s Blue Moon was in Aquarius which explains a lot about my excitement, but exactly what is a Blue Moon and how does it affect us in everything we do?

Whether you believe astrology, it has guided life for 5,000 years. I say guiding because the ancient Babylonians, and later the Greeks used the star filled Mediterranean sky to navigate and bring their ships safely home. Over time the ancients began to notice patterns on earth that corresponded to heavenly patterns and planetary movement. Eclipses were particularly significant. Imagine the effect of seeing the sun darken mid-day (solar eclipse) or the Moon’s beams dimmed (lunar eclipse).This was surely a message.

So this brings us to the Blue Moon. This occurs when there are two full moons in a single month.

There was a full moon July 1 and there was one on July 31. This calendar occurrence does not happen every year. There were blue moons in 2011 and 2014; the next series will be in 2017. When the lunar energies are so concentrated we can expect heightened emotions, agitation and dramatic actions. It is true. The full Moon brings out all of our emotions. We howl. Ancient doctors avoided surgery at the full Moon because they observed an increased chance of haemorrhage. On the other hand, it is said that those wanting to start a family can use the power of the moon; it is supposed to be a very good time to conceive.

Experts say, all full moons bring us in touch with our emotions, our sensitivities and our inner-selves.

When we are in tune with the natural energetic currents of nature, we can combine our own energy forces so that we have an extra surge, which helps to push us in the right direction.

Apparently and according to experts, everything from our past is about to be illuminated and areas that desperately need focusing on will be brought to our attention and during this blue moon, there will be no looking away.

We will meet with certain issues that have haunted us face-to-face and rather than being fearful, we should see this as an excellent chance for growth and transformation.

So with all this extra energy, we will deal with all our current issues, not fear the unknown, progress with confidence and our dreams and intentions will become reality– amazing!

Can something so powerful as the Blue Moon, really be the catalyst for so much change, transformation and success?

There is a famous quote:

“You have no control over how your story begins or ends. But by now, you should know that all things have an ending. Every spark returns to darkness. Every sound returns to silence. Every flower returns to sleep with the earth. The journey of the sun and moon is predictable. But yours, is your ultimate art.”

~ Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

The legend of the full moon’s effects on human behaviour has existed for centuries, popularised by the myth of the werewolf. The words “lunacy” and “lunatic” are derived from the same Latin root that gives us the word “lunar,” as people often attributed intermittent insanity to the phases of the moon. While many people believe the full moon influences behaviour, scientific studies have found very little evidence supporting the “Lunar Effect.”

So with all the world’s scientific research, what makes the full moon lunacy theory still so popular?

Perhaps it’s the media, who know people are more likely to read a good story, as one of my colleagues said we can always blame it on the moon?. Or maybe people just want to hold onto an ancient legend that’s been around for hundreds of years?

A more scientific answer may be selective memory. If some bizarre change in behaviour across emotions, work or family caused a confidence occurrence, people are probably more likely to remember it if it happened during the night of a full moon.

What are your stories around the Blue Moon, I would love to hear if something miraculous happened on Friday July 31^st?

September 14, 2015August 2, 2017

Do we embrace fear or fight fear?

A very good friend of mine was discussing films with me a few weeks ago, whilst I am not a huge digital streaming guy for films, I still can be quite old-fashioned and be known for ordering the occasional DVD from Amazon, after some time. My friend convinced me that I really should see the film Peaceful Warrior.

The story is about a young gymnast Dan Millman played by Scott Mechlowicz, and his struggle to make sense of his life in which he is successful but still unfulfilled. By chance he meets his “Yoda”/Shaolin priest/Boss Paul who helps him “git his head straight” after which he goes on to be comfortable with his athletic prowess albeit not exactly Olympic caliber. When one is successful, one does not have the time and patience to look back or forward. Dan is leading his life in chase of a dream – to get a gold in the Olympics. He and his coach knows that he is the best, but still inside he too knows that something is missing. It was in one of his sleepless nights that he meets a petrol pump attendant who changes his life – step by step. He also realizes the change but he is not ready to let go the garbage within him. As the petrol pump attenders says “I call myself a Peaceful Warrior… because the battles we fight are on the inside.”

The movie takes a u turn when Dam meets with an accident – where his leg bone just shatters, it is not only the leg that breaks but also his heart to go forward for his only love, the Olympics.”A warrior does not give up what he loves, he finds the love in what he does.” Socrates(as Dam calls him), the petrol pump attendant teaches the guy to find his long-lost love and dream. But towards the end he finds the hard truth that Socrates was a illusionist character – whose sole purpose of life was to take Dan to his dream and make him prepared to win the battle within him. This is almost a “Rocky IX” type movie with a wonderful happy ending.

Have you thought that through within your own life?

Many people are afraid of the thought of change without having change in their life. We all have our own examples of how fear can be such a huge, impenetrable barrier. Fear…some would rather bury it, walk around it, build bridges over it, cover it with medication or another substance, stay busy to deny it, ignore it, avoid it by staying within a box rather than name it, or even embrace it joyfully.

As children we were told to always fight. Always resist ‘bad situations’. Shake them off. Be happy. Always feel good, taking the positive from everything we do.

That is impossible, although Audrey Hepburn did once say ‘impossible is I’m possible’. We all feel the negative end of emotions. And that’s just the way things were supposed to be as humans. Without the negative end, we wouldn’t be able to feel the positive end of emotions. No one wants to float in the neutral zone all the time, life would lose all meaning and we would all be walking aliens.

Anxiety is one of those negative emotions. It stems from fear and then leads to stress. Usually fear of the future. And fear stems from the mind, from our thoughts.

Imagine what would be possible if you embraced fear and considered it to be one of your greatest teachers in adversity? If you resist fear or react when you feel fear, then you cannot learn from it or even recognise any lessons that would contribute to your continued evolution. And if you are not learning from it, then you can’t look at the fear as something that can be reframed into a positive opportunity to grow and change.

So, if you want to accelerate your success and make better choices in your life both personally and professionally, embrace your fears rather than avoid or ignore them. Only then are you able to distinguish between the facts and the negative assumptions of what may be. Now, compound this with embracing your vulnerability. I am not referring to being vulnerable as in putting yourself in harms way but being vulnerable is in being authentic and human. And if you start embracing your fears, your worries and your vulnerability that every person’s ego has tendency to shy away from, then what else can stop you? Nothing. You have broken the fear based paralysis that keeps you stuck in one place and the grip that fear had on you. This is your success formula for becoming unstoppable.

Key tips for overcoming fear:

Make fear your ally rather than your adversary so that you can learn and grow from it.
Top executives have learned what average executives fail to learn; to embrace their fears and do what needs to be done anyway.
Things rarely happen the way we worry about them.
That you fear is not real.
Identify the indisputable facts surrounding every situation so that you can make an objective decision based on what truly is, rather than what you think is true but is not.
Determine your healthy and pleasurable fuel source to ignite your passion and drive your activity and efforts.
You are the greatest gift you can give to your prospects/customers and team, as well as the best-kept secret, so let it out!
Fears and dreams are only possibilities that are constructed in your imagination.
Bring yourself and your thinking back into the present moment. Since that which we fear lives in the future, the fear can’t get to you in the moment.
Shift your focus to the outcome that you do want to create or manifest instead of what you don’t want or what you want to avoid.

In human terms, this is what we call healing emotional trauma. Coming to grips with what makes our perceptions distort certain dangers to the point that we experience helplessness, and healing this. Fortunately, it is possible to do so. It is possible to undo fear conditioning and to unlearn learned helplessness. But this can only happen once we face the actuality of the problem, instead of dismissing it as something we should be able to easily deal with, just as the film Peaceful Warrior demonstrated, if only we put a little more willpower, determination and conviction into it.

September 7, 2015

Can unforced errors happen in tennis and business?

I recently watched the recent Wimbledon men’s tennis final between Federer and Djokovic, I enjoyed the final immensely. The final triggered memories of a book that I read many years that totally inspired me by W. Timothy Gallwey, called the Inner Game of Tennis.

The Inner Game of tennis is that which takes place in our mind, played against such elusive opponents as nervousness, self-doubt and lapses of concentration. It is a game played by our mind against its own bad habits. Replacing one pattern of behaviour with a new, more positive one is the purpose of the “Inner Game”.

Peak performance at tennis, like any sport, only comes when our mind is so focused that it is still and at one with what our body is doing. The key to the “Inner Game” and better tennis is achieving this state of relaxed concentration so that we are playing “out of our mind” and therefore no worrying about how, when or where to hit the ball.

Whilst the Inner Game of Tennis explores how to overcome mental obstacles, improve concentration and reduce anxiety for better performance at every level. There is no physical reason why this cannot be applied to business. The Inner Games of sport approach makes all the difference.

I personally enjoy tennis with a passion, tennis is a challenging sport, which can really test your fitness and skill levels, it requires:

Skill and knowledge
Patience and tolerance
Movement and varying levels of power
Perseverance and determination
Strategy and a game plan

How Business and Tennis are similar…

In an article entitled “7 Worst Career Mistakes You Can Make”, Jeffrey A. Krames, author “The Unforced Error: Why Some Managers Get Promoted while others Get Eliminated” quotes Tim Gallwey and on of the principles of The Inner Game. Here is the quote:

“Tennis and business have a lot more common than you may think. In 1982, a tennis professional coined the term “unforced error” to describe what happens when one player who is in position to return the ball makes an error by hitting the ball out of the field of play — or missing the ball altogether. That same kind of error happens all of the time in the business world.”

Research shows that even the smartest managers make the worst career errors. Once again, the same is true in tennis. Even the best players in the world make unforced errors in every match. In professional tennis as in business, the player with the fewest unforced errors usually wins.

Research also shows that at the top levels of corporations unforced errors have taken a greater toll than ever before. For example, CEO turnover is up 60 percent between 2005 and 2014 and shows no signs of slowing down (that according to a Booz Allen). However, you do not have to be a CEO to make a costly unforced error.

In my international career of 20 years I have seen numerous unforced errors and from some of the smartest executives in business, what are your experiences?

August 31, 2015

Do all the roads lead to Rome?

Every year, I travel to Oregon to visit my business partner to discuss cross border challenges US to Europe and the effects on business and personnel who hold office. This year’s trip coincided with Independence Day. I did not have the most of desirable starts when Springfield-OR experienced its first earthquake in 15 years, but it certainly set the day with a bump and even before we had a fireworks fest for the evenings celebrations.

Mark and I had an aperitif of fine Pinot Noir from the region. One of the amazing things I always learn from Mark is the fullness and wonders of Pinot Noir from Oregon. We started to discuss a recent project that Mark had undergone with one of his clients on employee engagement, the employee survey was particularly significant to the subject matter of employer trust, values and vision and covered many issues connected to employee satisfaction.

I questioned with Mark; is it not a company or manager’s dilemma that the organisation is not being made accountable or responsible, surely this is the route to the problem… all roads lead to Rome right?

Mark explained executive commitment aside, we frequently get asked this by managers: “How can I keep my team it engaged in the face of policies that put the company’s interests ahead of those of the employees?”

This is a very common exasperation among managers who are told to hold tight and ‘engage the troops’ in the face of blatant adversity imposed by senior management. Executives expect the managers to somehow bring team members along and even protect the integrity of the employer’s reputation while asking more from every employee on their team.

A manager cannot alter reality. If the company’s leadership team decides to push through a policy that will significantly impact the satisfaction of a large number of employees, managers cannot prevent the damage. This is especially true when the managers themselves are part of the affected group. But like all factors that are out of a manager’s immediate control, there are ways to soften the blow.

Often an organisation will work hard to attract a specific workforce only to impose policies and procedures that indicate they do not understand – or value – what really motivates that particular population. Examples might include hiring technical professionals who value autonomy and imposing onerous project-tracking processes. It would benefit the company to go back and ask, “If we are going to mandate part-time flexible shifts, what employee population would be a good fit?”

Ensuring the right job fit and aligned interests from the beginning is half the battle won.

On-boarding is a necessary first step in introducing new employees to the organisation and familiarising them with the company’s culture, practices, and values. However, for many, on-boarding remains a very paper-based procedure. Indeed the general consensus from our recent HR Transformation Forum was that organisations are striving to achieve innovative, exciting, and engaging on-boarding practices. However, with this comes the challenge of ensuring that on-boarding remains effective and valuable for all involved, from employees and managers, to the organisation itself.

Even if employees have no say in the unpopular policy decision that gets rolled out, managers can – and should – have them involved in identifying possible solutions at a local level that might alleviate the impact. If a manager has developed a strong working relationship with direct reports they will have the option of working together, to discuss the impact of the changes and how the team might adapt to these new parameters.

So what is the answer…

There is no doubt that organisations that repeatedly impose unpopular changes on their workforce will be driving down engagement over time, and there is only so much a manager can do to help individual team members remain engaged in the face of adversity. At the end of the day organisations need to carefully weigh the long-term effect a new policy will have on engagement against the short-term impact it will have on the bottom line. The trend of over-reliance on part-time staff in retail, for example, may backfire if companies don’t rethink their hiring practices and attract employees for whom part-time is not just the norm but the expectation.

According to Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor at the Financial Times, companies need to take an approach that is “less paternalistic than it has been in the past. […] It is going to take give-and-take and both sides need this. The employees need this as well. […] On the optimistic side I think there are moves on both sides to try and make this work.” [See video here ]

This may be true with regards to higher-educated staff working in ‘knowledge worker’ and expert roles. The leadership challenge of bringing along hourly workers – who often bear the brunt of organizational policies and have fewer options than highly skilled employees – remains great, especially if senior leadership is not prioritizing engagement.

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