Category Archives: Life Plan

Employability, Employability Skills, Leadership Development, Life Plan, life success, personal development plan, Personal Vision, personal vision plan, plan for personal success, yes for success

Power and management behaviour

 

Watching university students role play salary package negotiations is fascinating. Without question the student who acts as the manager negotiates from the perspective that they have the power in the negotiation. The student acting as the prospective employee, who is trying to negotiate the best possible outcome for themself also adopts the perspective that the ‘manager’ has the power.

Several minutes in to the role plays I interrupt and tell the ‘manager’ that their CEO has a memo for them. The memo informs them that, due to the war for talent, they must do everything they can to secure the services of the prospective employee while maintaining responsibility for their budget.

Gary Ryan, Creator Yes For Success personal development programThe negotiations continue with a changed dynamic. The power has shifted. No longer does the ‘manager’ see that they have control. While having adopted an initial distributive bargaining strategy, they quickly shift to an integrative bargaining strategy. Even their body language changes. As I said this is fascinating to watch.

What is also fascinating is that the students involved are yet to begin their professional careers. Many of them have part-time jobs and/or volunteer roles and the majority of them have never had a manager’s role. Yet they follow this pattern of behaviour.

The role play is conducted as part of a Communication For Business program. In it I teach the students about the power of their mental models; their theories about how they believe the world works and how these theories directly affect their behaviour. Their perception of having or not having power affects the mental models they adopt in the role play which in turn affects their behaviour. As soon as the power is ‘shifted’ by the memo, they adopt a different mental model and their behaviour changes.

I have conducted this activity over a seven-year period and the observed behaviours have been consistent over this period of time. The perception of power has a direct implication for behaviour. This is not right or wrong. The challenge is that your mental models often act at a sub-conscious level rather than a conscious level. Either way they will affect your behaviour.

Reflecting on the activity students report that they were aware of the position they were taking in the negotiation but not aware of the deep mental models that were ‘driving’ their behaviour. Their view of the power they had or didn’t have had a direct impact on their behaviour.

What lesson does this activity surface for leaders and developing leaders alike?

Let’s assume that you value talent. If you are not aware of the influence that power has on your subconscious mental models and ultimately your behaviour, you are unlikely to treat the talented individuals you are working with as talented people. You will treat them as people who have less power than you. You will not be equals who have different roles.

Raising your awareness of your mental models is a key element for success. What is your experience of mental models and how they drive your behaviour?

Learn about the Yes For Success Platform here.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented professionals to move Beyond Being Good.
Employability, Employability Skills, Leadership Development, Life Plan, life success, personal development plan, Personal Vision, personal vision plan, plan for personal success, yes for success

Innovation – value is the key

 

In its report New Concepts in Innovation – The Keys To Growing Australia the Business Council of Australia defined innovation as:

Innovation can be defined as the application of knowledge to create additional value and wealth. Innovation involves using knowledge to find new ways to create and bring about change for the better. This definition of innovation has implications for the types of activities within businesses that can be considered innovative.

First, innovation does not necessarily involve technology and technological knowledge. Successful innovation can involve the use of any type of knowledge, provided its application results in additional value and wealth.

Second, innovation is not invention. Innovation may not even require the creation of new knowledge – be it to the world or to the firm. What it does require is the inspired application of knowledge (old or new) to create additional value.

Yes For Success, Life balance, plan for personal success, Gary Ryan, Organisations That MatterWhat I like about this definition is that it makes innovation easier to understand. Value determines innovation. If you create something and it doesn’t hold value, then you haven’t innovated. In an earlier post Understanding Innovation I explained that innovation was as simple as taking something and adding it to something else. Providing the result creates value, then you have innovated. Your somethings can be anything. They can be something physical with another physical thing, such as wrapping paper and a brown paper bag that together created the Gift Bag.

They can be a concept such as portability which was added to music and you create the Sony Walkman. You can have selling white goods and providing people with access to finance for those goods and you create GE Money. You can have a passion for baseball and a desire for a large free wedding and you create a fully Sponsorship Public Wedding.

Given the Business Council of Australia advocates innovation as a critical skill for career success, take this concept and start testing the value that you create. You might just take your most successful live program and the desire to create a like-minded community and create the Yes For Success Platform!

Learn about the Yes For Success Platform here.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.
Employability, Employability Skills, Leadership Development, Life Plan, life success, personal development plan, Personal Vision, personal vision plan, plan for personal success, yes for success

Who’s in control of your development?

 

Handing over 100% control for your personal and professional development to your employer is flawed. In our current world it doesn’t work. Not any more.

Yet that is the place that many of you are in. You rely 100% on your employer to develop you.

According to Mark McCrindle you are likely to have at least three different employers over the next decade. The reasons will be varied but will include you deciding to shift jobs and/or your employer no longer requiring your services. This is the world we now live in. Jobs for life are a rarity. Just ask the folk at Shell, Ford and Target in Geelong in regional Victoria, and Ford in Broadmeadows in the Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Over the next two years more than 1,900 people will be losing their jobs, many of whom will have worked for those companies for decades.

plan for personal success, Gary Ryan, Organisations That Matter, Yes For SuccessImagine if you were one of those workers. In good faith you had trusted your employer to develop you. After all you were part of their ‘big family’.

When the economy tightened, what was one of the first budget items to get cut? Traditionally, the budget item is training and development. Let’s consider some logic.

The reason the budget is getting cut is because the company is earning less money through sales. Should that trend continue then people’s jobs will be cut at some point in the future. This isn’t rocket science! Yet, if you were one of the employees in these circumstances, the writing is on the wall – at some point in the future you will be looking for a new job. It is with some irony that it is under these circumstances when you, the employee needs to be developing yourself more than you ever have before. Yet, when you have handed 100% of the control of your development to your employer you are getting less. Does this seem like a good formula for security and success?

If you, the employee have handed 100% of control for your development to your employer, then you are facing a situation where your employability is going down, when you should be aiming to have it go up.

Some more logic. When you are a job seeker is it safer to be more employable or less employable? Not a hard question, is it!

“My organisation provides wonderful training and development Gary, this isn’t relevant to me!” you might say. I’m sorry, but this is relevant.

Treat the training and development that your organisation provides as a bonus. If they are a decent employer they will understand that it is in their interests to keep developing you. That said they’ll limit their development to what they think is good for you, not necessarily what is good for you, your talents and your future. I’m not suggesting that companies are bad for having this view. It is understandable and reflects how the world actually works. The important thing is that you need to understand how the system works and you need to be in control of your development.

My message is simple. Keep your development 100% in your control. Don’t hand that control to your employer. Use whatever development opportunities they give to develop your talents. Be the best employee that you can be. But don’t limit your development to what your employer provides. Do online courses, join Toastmasters (as an example if you need to improve your public speaking), do whatever you need to do to keep developing yourself.

Right at this moment what are you doing that indicates that you are in control of your development? Your security and future depend on it.

Learn about the Yes For Success Platform here.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.
Ball of Light, Customer Service, Denis Smith, Employability, Employability Skills, Leaders, Leadership, Leadership Development, Life Plan, life success, OTM Service Strategy, Passion, personal development plan, Personal Vision, personal vision plan, plan for personal success, Professionals, Service Excellence, Success, What Really Matters, yes for success

Passion and Success

 

Passion is the first principle that underpins the Yes For Success Platform. Several years ago Denis Smith held a high pressure sales job, was drinking too much and suffering from depression.

His life lacked passion despite all the trimmings of a successful sales career.

Published with permission

Fortunately he knew ‘something’ was missing from his life and he went on a search to discover his passion. He quickly found photography and realised that he was somewhat of a natural with the camera. Upon uploading his photos to sites he discovered that his ‘good’ photos were the same as everyone else’s. But he didn’t want to be the same as everyone else.

So his evolving passion took him on a journey of discovery where he came across the concept of ‘light drawings’ through photography. With passion comes innovation and he decided to ‘play’ with the concept, creating surreal ‘Ball of Light‘ images in his photographs.

Today Denis has turned his passion into a business. More importantly he is living a life full of positivity and energy. View this short video to learn more about Denis’ story.

Personally I feel energised when I hear about stories such as Denis’ and I thank my good friend Andrew Scott (an amateur photographer himself and a friend of Denis’) for sharing the story with me.

How present is passion in your life?

Learn about the Yes For Success Platform here.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.
career, career plan, Life Balance, Life Plan, life success, midlife crisis, personal plan for success, Personal Vision, Vision, yes for success

Change Perspective To Create Success

A member of the Yes For Success community shared his struggle with ‘getting the word out‘ about the great work his NGO was doing.

“How should an NGO get the word out so that people know about what we are doing?” he asked.

 Jock, an extremely successful consultant, author and illustrator who is one of the members of our community asked, “Michael, if you were a retail organisation, how would you approach this situation?“

“Oh! That’s easy. I’d use testimonials from happy customers, ask them to spread the word, use traditional advertising and social media to highlight these points, share ‘good news’ stories, invite key people and media to events…”

As it transpired I was able to learn that Michael had a view that because an NGO has limited financial resources it would be difficult for it to spread the word about what it does.

His mindset had blocked him from taking action because his mindset had predetermined what was possible and what wasn’t possible.

When Michael reviewed his answer to Jock’s question he was able to ‘see‘ that the majority of his suggestions, while requiring effort, didn’t need a lot of funds. A change in perspective enabled him to see his problem in a different light which opened up possibilities that had previously been impossible.

This is a major strategy that successful people use. When you are stuck, find a way to see your issue from a different perspective. Look at what that perspective suggests and carry out what you can.

If you struggle to imagine a different perspective because you are so close to your own issue, then find people who genuinely want to help and are ready to propose a different perspective. Ask them what they think. Their answers could be worth their weight in ‘gold‘.

How are you accessing different perspectives? Visit our community to see how you can join an ever-growing community of like-minded people who are all striving to create their own version of Life Balance and Personal Success.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.
career, Career choices, Career Success, Employability, Employability Skills, Interview, interview skills, Life Plan, life success, Resume, Storytelling

Your Stories Matter For Career Progression

If you are looking to prepare yourself to take on a new career challenge, how do you capture your experiences in a useful way?

Your stories are important in the context of both creating your resume (The Essay Expert’s specialty!) and preparing for an interview.

Are you the right fit?
Once you are in front of your prospective employers, your goal is to communicate that you are the right fit for their organization. The interview is largely about testing your personality. The interviewers already know that you have the right technical skills or a demonstrated ability to learn them. What they don’t know is whether or not you will fit in their company culture.

This is where your stories about your employability skills kick in.

95% of interview questions are behaviorally based. This means that you will be asked questions that require you to provide an example about how you have demonstrated your employability skills in the past. If you haven’t prepared your answers, you will likely fumble your way through your interview.

Tell us about a time…
As an example, imagine being asked, “Please tell us about a time when you had to work with a difficult person.”
This question is meant to elicit how well you will interact with your fellow employees. Will you be a good team member to have around the office?
If you have prepared stories about teamwork, communication, leadership and problem solving, you will quickly be able to modify one of your existing stories to provide a succinct and coherent answer to this question.

If you haven’t prepared your stories, your face could turn white, the blood draining from your brain: “I’m not sure. I can’t think of one right now. I know that I have worked with difficult people before but I can’t think of one right now. Sorry.” It is not unusual for these sorts of responses to be heard in an interview.

How do you think the interviewers will judge your organizational “fit” with this kind of response?

A structure to rely on
Now here’s the good news: Interviewers have formulas that they listen for with regard to how your answers are structured. If you know the formula, you can prepare so you don’t get caught off guard.
One common formula is the CAR (Challenge / Action / Result) method. When answering a question such as the one above about working with a difficult person, you might choose a CAR story that you had prepared.

Let’s break down the components of a CAR story so you can create some of your own:
‘C’ is for Challenge or Circumstance. What situation sets the scene for your story? What was the context? Who were the players? What goal were you (as a team or individually) trying to achieve? What roadblocks stood in the way?
Although the first place to look for CAR stories is in your work experience, some of your best examples might come from family, recreational, or other extracurricular activities. This is especially true if you are a new graduate, but might be relevant even if you are a seasoned professional. If you planned a wedding, for instance, you learned skills that will apply in any paid position where you might be asked to organize a project or event. And if you get along well with your family, that’s a great sign that you will be a great person to have in the workplace!

‘A’ is for Actions. This is where you differentiateyourself. What did you do that made a difference? Be specific and include the most pertinent actions that you undertook. In the example above, you may have recognized that part of the reason for the “difficult” person’s behaviour was that you hadn’t been clear in your communication. So you may have stopped talking and just listened. Perhaps you discovered that they had misunderstood what you said—enabling you to communicate your message in a way they could comprehend.

‘R’ is for Results. This is the “So what?” part of your story. The results you have produced are some of the most important employability skills you can demonstrate. In the above example, your effective use of communication through improved listening may have resulted in a clearer understanding for the entire team of what it was trying to achieve—which in turn created a high level of focus and ultimately a successful project. You might even add that a big lesson from this experience was that through effective communication, you realized that the “difficult” person in question wasn’t that difficult after all. By sharing your results, you emphasize the positive impact you can have on an organization.

Reap the benefits of preparation
Preparing your CAR and employability skills stories, complete with results and lessons learned, provides you with flexibility when answering questions. You will be able to simply listen to the question and then select the most appropriate story to answer it. Your answers will be well-thought-out and evidence-based, and will make your interviewers engaged and favourable toward your application.

The power of telling your stories through a structure such as CAR is that it enables you to shine and reveal your personality, in addition to demonstrating how well you prepare for important meetings (yes, an interview is a meeting!). Your interviewers are then in a position to objectively judge how you would fit in the organization.

If you’d like to learn more about how to prepare yourself to be a successful interviewer and Young Professional, including another powerful formula for creating your stories and examples, then access What Really Matters For Young Professionals!

Gary Ryan is the Founder of Organisations That Matter, author of What Really Matters For Young Professionals! and creator of the Yes For Success online platform for creating and executing a life of balance and personal success!

Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Life Plan, personal success plan, personal success planning, plan for personal success, Russell Ackoff, Systems Thinking, Wharton Business School

Do the right thing – even if you are doing it wrong!

The following quote comes from one of my heroes Russell Ackoff, Professor Emeritus of the Wharton Business School. Among the many reasons why I like Russell so much, none the least was that he wasn’t afraid to make up words!

“Doing the right thing wrong is better than doing the wrong thing right. If you do the wrong thing right you just get wronger and wronger and take yourself further away from wherever you want to be.”

I don’t believe that I need to add much more to Russell’s statement, other than to suggest that you stop doing any ‘wrong things‘ that you may be doing ‘right‘.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
career, Career choices, Creating a Plan for Personal Success, job success, Life Plan, life success, Personal Success, strategy for success, Vision

Do you really ‘Have’ to do that?

“I have to submit this project tomorrow.
I have an assignment I have to complete tonight.
I have to go to a dinner with my partner.
I have to attend my child’s performance.
I have to prepare for a meeting tomorrow.
I have to. I have to. I have to.”

Guess what. You don’t.

You don’t “have” to do anything.

Sure there are consequences for not doing these things. There are also consequences for doing them too.

Which brings me to my point. Think about how differently you would apply yourself to the above activities if you actively chose to do them or decided that you are doing them because you want to do them rather than you “have” to do them.

Think about all the things that you are doing because you believe that you “have” to do them. What would happen if you didn’t do them?

Maybe the consequence would be that you would miss out on something that you really want, such as your partner feeling that you really do love him/her. Or maybe you would miss out on a promotion that you really want.

What if you were to switch from the perspective of “have to or else…”, to “want to because…”?

When you understand why you are doing what you are doing in the moment and how it will help you to achieve what you really want, it is amazing how much happier you are right now when you fully apply yourself to the activity whatever it may be. This also increases the chances that you’ll also be happier in the future.

This is one of the key success strategies when you plan and action personal success.

Try it out and let me know how you go. I’m confident that you will be positively surprised.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
energy for success, Life Balance, Life Plan, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Development, personal energy, Personal Success, Personal Vision, yes for success

Addressing The Challenges Of Going Back To University

The Australasian Survey of Student Engagement identified that 27% – 34% of university students intend to drop out of university prior to completing their degrees.

Reasons for dropping out include:

  • Stress
  • Workload difficulties
  • Preference for current employment over study
  • Boredom

I know what it is like to have the strong desire to drop out. I took 7.5 years to complete my first degree which was supposed to take 4 years. The last 3 years of my program seemed to drag on forever. Every semester I would seriously consider quitting. My partner (now wife) kept urging me to stay course. “You won’t regret it!” she urged.

Truth be known I wasn’t the greatest student back in those days!  ‘P for pass’ was my mantra. Hardly a mantra for success!

When I finally graduated I did two things:

  1. I swore I would never go back to university; and
  2. Got a job in a field related to my studies because there weren’t any jobs available and unemployment had reached 11%.

The fact that I had completed my degree definitely mattered when it came to getting my first job because I was competing with other folk who also had degrees. My part-time work experience in the fitness industry also mattered.

It was this experience that taught me that my partner was right. Completing my degree did matter even if I didn’t get a job as a teacher. I learned that, to a large degree, my qualification was like a bus ticket. There are certain buses that you just can’t get on if you don’t have the ticket.

For a number of years I continued to swear that I would never go back to university. However as they say, you should never say, “Never!”.

Toward the late 1990s my career had taken off and I had reached the senior levels of the organisation for whom I worked. But I had hit the glass ceiling. Unless I continued my education and gathered some more tickets then my career options would be limited. At the end of 1999 I decided to enrol into my first post-graduate program and commenced that program in July 2000. As a Distant Education student who was working full time it was a real challenge. Balancing work, play and study was difficult. To add to my challenges I had become a first time father in January 2000. I had bitten off a lot! Maybe this story resonates with you?

However between graduating from my teaching degree and commencing my first postgraduate studies I had become a student of leadership. I had been doing a lot of reading about leadership and success and had discovered that I had far more control over my success than I had realised. And I put what I had learned into practice throughout my postgraduate studies. After graduating from my Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management I immediately enrolled into a Master of Management program. My grades averaged a High Distinction and I loved the learning experience. All the while I was working full time and by the time I completed my Masters program we were about to have our third child (I now have five children!).

I understand what it takes to complete a degree when working full time and having significant family commitments. I also understand how managing your energy contributes to your ability to ‘manage’ when you have competing demands on your time. Which is why I want to share my ebook “Energy For Success – Seven Steps For Generating The Energy You Need For Success.” with you.

My complimentary ebook walks you through a simple seven step process where you will be able to quickly identify the key elements that generate energy for you, and which elements in your life drain your energy. You will then be able to create a re-enforcing cycle for energy that will enable you to have the energy to be a success throughout your postgraduate program.

One of those steps involves identifying the times in your life when you have felt full of energy and been able to perform at your best. What factors were present when you felt like that? What was it about those factors that seemed to really matter?

For me, I know that feeling fit and healthy gives me the sense of being able to tackle any task, no matter how big or small it is. When I don’t feel fit and healthy it is amazing how challenging even the smallest task can seem. So, it would seem that being fit and healthy is a key factor for my energy. And it is. What are your examples?

Once identified these factor often relate to each and provide you with amazing insights about what you should and shouldn’t do to ensure that you have the energy to complete your program.

If you’d like to learn more and be able to create your own cycle for generating your Energy For Success simply click this link and follow the prompts.

Gary Ryan helps individuals, teams and organisations move Beyond Being Good.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com
Life Plan, Mental Models, mindset, OTM Plan For Personal Success, Personal Success, Personal Vision, Success, Vision

Mindsets Matter

plan for personal success, Gary Ryan, Beyond Being Good

Over the years of helping my clients create more success, one cause that stands out more than any other is your mindset.

Your mindset matters. A lot.

Think about it. Right now, are you as successful, across all aspects of your life as you desire?

If you are, terrific! Keep doing whatever it is that you are doing that has created your success.

Most people are not as successful as they would like to be.

So what’s stopping them from being as successful as they desire? Better still, what is stopping you from being as successful as you wish to be?

Logically if you are not as successful as you desire, then your theories, or mindset for creating success is not working, at least not completely. It might be working in some areas of your life, but not all areas of your life. In fact, if you really think about, you have multiple theories about success. You will have theories about how to create successful relationships, how to create a successful business, how to create a successful career, how to be healthy etcetera. Some of these theories will be working. Some won’t be, but you’ll still be using them. And then you wonder why you aren’t as successful as you desire.

Here’s the kicker. Some of your theories for success used to work. So you keep using them. However the world changes. You change. Yet you keep using these old theories that used to work.

These theories are embedded into your mindset and stop you from creating future success. Yes, that is right. Your old theories that once created success are no longer valid and new theories must be adopted. The evidence is as plain as the nose on your face, especially if you’re not as successful as you desire to be.

When did you last consider your mindset? Are you even aware of your theories for success? How do you know they still work?

One mindset that many employees have is that it is their organisation’s responsibility to develop them. This mindset is akin to abdicating your responsibility for your continued development. Why would anyone consciously make that choice? The issue is that people don’t consciously make this choice, they subconsciously make this choice. The outcome of such a mindset is that the person loses. Big time. If your organisation doesn’t invest in your development then, with this mindset you are screwed.

To be brutally honest an organisation that doesn’t prioritise or invest in your development isn’t a high performing organisation and probably isn’t worthy of your full talents. But if you don’t develop yourself under such circumstances then your full talents won’t be worth much either. Not to prospective employers anyhow. And then you’re stuck. You’re stuck with an employer who isn’t developing you and because your mindset is that it is their responsibility to do that, you don’t improve yourself. And then you can’t get a job anywhere else. Not a very secure strategy if you ask me!

When did you last consider your mindset? Are you even aware of your theories for success? How do you know they still work?

At the same time, your mindset is the most important factor for creating the future success you desire. If you don’t change your mindset or keep up a strong and proactive one, you’ll keep doing what you’ve done and you’ll continue to be dissatisfied with your level of success.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Improve yourself and take control of your development. Use whatever development your organisation offers as a bonus and take charge of creating the success you desire.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.
Commence a complimentary trial of the Yes For Success Platform here.