Category Archives: Professional Development

Focus is what matters

Motorcycle riding is a great hobby of mine. Whilst, undoubtedly, it is a dangerous past time, there is an important secret to safe and effective motorcycle riding: focus on where you are going. One of the first principles taught by instructors is that motorcycles ‘go’ wherever the rider is looking.

This, however, does not mean that everything else should be ignored. Rather, as much as is plausibly possible, it is paramount for a motorcyclist to be as aware as possible of all their surroundings. If a bus is approaching quickly on your left – you must know that. If a car is recklessly changing lanes behind you – you must see that. If a parked car is just about to leave the kerb – you must be prepared for that.

Continue reading Focus is what matters

‘Edge Moments’ Interview With Rachael Robertson

Rachael Robertson was just the second female to lead the Australian Antarctic Expedition for a 12 month period. As you can imagine such extreme conditions require you to find ways to lead when there is literally nowhere to hide.

View this interview where Rachael explains how it came to pass that a woman without a scientific background found herself leading up to 120 people in the Antarctic. Rachael’s insights about leadership and ‘Edge Moments’ are nothing short of powerful.

 

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://planforpersonalsuccess.com/trial

Creating Winning Resumes – Video Sneak Peak

Below is a sneak peak of the interview I conducted with Pauline Bennett from the City of Whitehorse on Creating Winning Resumes.

Members of planforpersonalsuccess.com have access to the full version of this video.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Key Steps When Planning Personal Success

Last week I surpassed 5,800 participants of the OTM Plan for Personal Success® program. The program enables participants to identify exactly what they want out of life and how they are going to create that life.

plan for personal success, Gary Ryan, Organisations That Matter, Yes For Success

The program covers:

  • One Core Concept
  • Background Research – on yourself
  • Five Principles for Personal Success and Life Balance
  • Six Vital Strategic Areas for Success

The planning process always follows these four steps:

  1. Identify what you want to do
  2. Clarify your starting point
  3. Brainstorm the strategies/actions that will move you from where you are to where you want to be
  4. Prioritise those strategies/actions so that you identify their order and/or key strategies/actions that have the highest leverage for achieving your desired outcomes

You might wonder why you don’t start with Step 2 first?

No matter what planning you are doing whether it be for your organisation, your team or yourself, you should always start with what you want to achieve. If you start with where you are then you are at significant risk of being ‘blinded’ by your current circumstances. For example if you are in a job that you don’t like because it isn’t fulfilling, you aren’t challenged and not recognised for the value that you are providing, then this will make it hard for you to create a plan to achieve what you do want from a career if your starting point for your plan is your current situation. Quite simply your current situation will have very clear examples of why you can’t have what you want out of a career.

Your current situation often provides motivation for you to move away from it, but when you create your plan you must focus on getting as clear as you possibly can about what success really looks and feels like. You must focus on the outcome you want first.

What would a fulfilling career look like? What would your relationships with your colleagues look like? Would you be working more on your own, as part of a team or a mixture of both? What would ‘respect’ look and feel like up, down and across the hierarchy of your ideal organisation? Would you be travelling a lot or not all? What would your income be?

For each of your answers to these types of questions you must ask yourself why you want what you want and picture it as clearly as possible. “But what if I don’t know exactly what I want?”, I hear you ask.

If you don’t ‘know‘ exactly what you want then I urge you to find the questions that you would like answered. If you think about it, what you actually want is to have discovered the answers to your own questions. So discovering and exploring the answers to your own questions become the focus of your strategies and actions in Steps 3 & 4 of this process.

Fortunately we humans are amazing explorers. I’d argue that the world we have created has resulted largely from our ability to explore and discover the answer to our own questions, such as a famous question asked by Isaac Newton, ‘How can electricity give light?’.

When planning follow the four steps above, they are powerful and they work.

The OTM Plan for Personal Success® has just been launched on an online platform called Yes For Success so that anyone can now access this powerful process for creating the success and life balance that you want.

Gary Ryan enables organisations, leaders and talented people to move Beyond Being Good.

A view of leadership from the ‘other side’

Below is a dialogue between two colleagues. One of them Paul, is upset with his manager because he believes that while she preaches ‘collaboration’, she is in fact (to him) a hypocrite. His colleague Aiden provides a different perspective and eventually enables Paul to see that maybe his manager isn’t the hypocrite he thinks she is.

Paul: “Amanda is a hypocrite!”

Aiden: “What do you mean?”

Paul: “Well, she says that she wants us to collaborate, so I gave her my opinion about the Seymour incident and she’s pulled rank on me. I’ve been told that it’s her decision and that if I do what I said I was going
to do, then I’ll be in trouble.”

Aiden: “Hmmm. You’re saying that Amanda has asked you for your opinion, you’ve given it and she’s made a decision that is not what you want. Is that correct?”

Paul: “Yes. That is exactly what has happened. She’s a hypocrite!”

Aiden: “Paul, let’s slow down for a second. What behaviour does Amanda display when you believe that she has listened to you?”

Paul: “Well, that’s easy. She does what I want. That proves that she has listened. After all, that’s what collaboration is, isn’t it?”

Aiden: “Well, not exactly. If we slow down and listen to what you’re saying it sounds like Amanda has to do what you want otherwise she isn’t seen to be listening to you. Is that what you mean?”

Paul: “No, not really. But she asked me to give my opinion and then she didn’t take it. What’s the point of asking me what I think?”

Aiden: “The point is that Amanda is seeking more information by getting your opinion. Think back over the past few times that Amanda has asked your opinion, have there been any times when she has appeared to listen to you?”

Paul: “Yes, a couple. There was the Monroe issue and the Pothole issue where Amanda’s final decision was very close to what I thought we should do.”

Aiden: “So, from your perspective Amanda does listen sometimes?”

Paul: “Yes, sometimes.”

Aiden: “What’s your definition of when Amanda isn’t listening to you?

Paul: “That’s obvious. When her decisions are different to what I want.”

Aiden: “Paul, Can you hear what you are saying? It seems to me that you’re saying that unless Amanda’s decisions equal what you want, then she’s being a hypocrite because she hasn’t listened to you. Yet you agree that there have been times when her decisions have been very similar to what your input recommended.”

Paul: “I’m listening” nodded Paul.

Aiden: “Look at it this way. When you’ve been a boss in the past, don’t you expect your positional authority to count for something from time to time?”

Paul: “Yes”

Aiden: “In that case, isn’t it possible that Amanda really has listened? In taking your opinion on board she has decided to do something different. She has then used her positional authority, which she is entitled to use, to make the decision. What’s wrong with that?”

Paul: “Okay. I suppose that you have a point. In fact she did say that she was using her positional authority to ‘make the call’. I took offence to that for some reason, but I’m not sure why”.

Aiden: “Great. I’m glad you’ve been open to having this chat.”

Paul; “Yeah, so I am I. I was going to go and do something that probably wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. In fact,, I probably would have undermined Amanda if I had continued with the action that I was planning to do. I suppose there are just times when I’m not going to fully understand Amanda’s decisions. I suppose I’ll just need to trust her and keep asking questions. That can’t hurt, can it?

Aiden: “Of course not. And my experience with Amanda is that she does listen and does try to explain why her decisions are what they are. I think that sometimes we don’t listen to her because we’re so focused on what we want. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for us all to have a chat about these issues at our next meeting.

Paul: “You really think that she’d be up for it?”

Aiden: “Yeah, I do.”

This dialogue highlights how powerful mental models (see How what you think affects what you see) can be and how they can influence what we see and don’t see. In this situation a manager who collaborates with her team is seen as being a hypocrite simply because she at times, makes decisions that aren’t exactly what her team members want her to do.

Collaboration exists when people work as a team. Teamwork requires members to perform their role from both a technical role and team role (see What Makes People Tick Personality Profile & Job Fit Assessments) perspective. In this context it is fair and reasonable for a leader to exert their positional authority from time to time when making decisions. Providing the leader is constantly seeking and absorbing input from team members, there may be times when the leader has to make a decision and that decision may not be popular with the rest of the team. The nature of a leadership role means that leaders are exposed to information that other staff are not able to access. (at least not in the same timeframe). This means that sometimes leaders have access to information as an input to their decision-making that other team members may not yet know. This can create a paradox for the leader who wishes to be known for their collaborative style because there are times (such as employee disciplinary processes) when a leader is not able to share all the information with their team members.

A way to manage this situation is for the leader to declare when they are expressing a view from the perspective of their formal position and authority, compared to when they are simply expressing a view. For such a system to work the leader will need to conduct a series of conversations with their team about how such a system should work. The intention of the system is to enable team members to be able to speak candidly with their ‘boss’ (see the video Transparency – How leaders create a culture of candor).

If conversations such as the ones just described had been conducted throughout Paul and Aiden’s team’s history, it is unlikely that Paul would have been so convinced that his manager, Amanda, was a hypocrite.

What have been your experiences with regard to the challenge of having a collaborative leadership style, with making decisions when required?

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Passion Matters If You Want Success – Audio

http://orgsthatmatter.com/desired-futures.html
Gary Ryan from Organisations That Matter explains the power of passion and how it impacts your ability to create the success you desire.

This episode is part of the What Really Matters For Professionals Development Podcast.

Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

Insights for Senior & Developing Leaders ebook released

What Really Matters! Volume 4, Number 1, 2012 complimentary edition released.

What Really Matters! Volume 4, Number 1, 2012

This complimentary ebook is for Senior & Developing Leaders who share our view that organisational success is created through enabling people to be the best they can be, was created from a selection of articles published on the OTM Academy from January 1st 2012 through to April 30th 2012.
Please feel free to join the OTM Academy – it’s free!

In the ebook you will discover:

* Why you should know what is on your corporate website

* How to conduct ‘Meetings That Matter’

* How clutter detracts from your service levels

* A great opportunity that results from Changing What’s Normal

* How to use illustrations to create Conversations That Matter®

*Why you should use the What Makes People Tick personality profile tool
* Why thinking like a chicken is not useful if you are an eagle
* How four extraordinary women have inspired many other people to contribute to a higher purpose

*And much, much more!
Order this free ebook to download here.
Contributing authors include:

  • Gary Ryan
  • Ian Berry

    Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
    Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

    Kindle version of ‘What Really Matters For Young Professionals!’ released today

    Today I have some exciting news to share with you.

    A Second Edition of What Really Matters For Young Professionals! How to master 15 practices to accelerate your career has just been released on Amazon Kindle.

    In the book you will discover:

    • How to capture your stories that reflect your employability
    • How to identify your personal values
    • Why behaving in an aligned manner with your organisation’s values matters
    • How to communicate effectively with email
    • Why Dee Hock, the founder of VISA International recommends developing Servant Leadership skills
    • Why having mentors in your life is crucial for personal and career success and how to find them
    • How to stop yourself from jumping to conclusions so that you communicate effectively in the workplace
    • What Systems Thinking is and how to use it throughout your career
    • And much, much more!

    Even more exciting is the price – just US$4.97.
    The timing is perfect for anyone who has just finished their university year or degree.

    However, the book isn’t just for people who are at the start of their career – seasoned professionals have found the content of the book extremely useful for helping them to do the little things that help them to continue their success.

    The book isn’t just for Kindle Readers either – if you have an iPad or other tablet you will easily access apps that will allow you to read your Kindle books on those devices.

    You can access your own Kindle version of What Really Matters For Young Professionals! here.

    More information regarding the book, including a short video can be accessed here.

    I am confident that you will find this version of the book even more value than the first. Enjoy!

    Til next time, please keep learning and be the best leader that you can be!

    Gary Ryan Founder – Organisations That Matter

    Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
    Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

    Mastering ‘Effortlessness’

    My good friend and colleague Jock MacNeish has recently written a short article about effortlessness. He describes the scene of an old solo sailor manoeuvring his way out of a Flemish seaport.

    Jock describes the important role that practice and experience have in enabling people to work out the best way to do what they are doing. I’d also add an openness to learning because without that you won’t keep looking for better and more effortless ways to do what you are doing.

    You can read all of Jock’s article here.

    What would you add?

    Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
    Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com

    Expert Tip – Motivation Factor 9

    In the tenth of the short videos in the 11 part series on how to create motivated employees, I share the ninth of 10 key factors that when present will collectively enhance the motivation of your team members/employees.

    How do you rate for this factor? How does your employer rate for you?

    Gary Ryan enables individuals, teams and organisations to matter.
    Visit Gary at http://garyryans.com