Tag Archives: young leaders

Three frogs

Here’s a riddle.
Gary Ryan, Organisations That Matter, Yes For Success

Three frogs are sitting on a log.

One decides to jump.

How many are left on the log?

Answer: Three.

Deciding to do something is not the same as doing it.

With regard to creating personal success, making the decision to take action is a critical step in the creation process for success. But it’s not the same as taking the action itself.

Success actions can include starting new things as well as stopping the things and habits that you need to stop doing to make room for the success that you desire. You must also keep doing the things that you are already doing that are helping to create success in your life.

When you make a decision to create success you must follow it up with action.

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

Making the impossible possible

This weekend my daughter and second son will be competing in the National School Aerobics Championships on the Gold Coast. This will be the third year in a row that my daughter has participated in the championships and the first time for my son.

Gary Ryan, Organisations That Matter, Yes For SuccessWhile my daughter is in Year 6, my son is in Year 4. He is the only Year 4 in the team and the only male which is a terrific achievement.

His involvement in the school aerobics team is part of the ripple effect of my daughter Sienna making the impossible possible back in 2012.

In 2011 Sienna was in Year 3 and competed for the first time in her schools aerobics team. Sienna was in the school’s third ranked team. They did very well for a team of first timers but didn’t make the State Championships. The school’s number one ranked team not only won the State Championship but also went on to win the National Championship later that year. All the girls in that team were in Year 6.

As a result of winning the National Championship, and despite the fact that all the girls who had participated in the team had graduated and moved on to high school, all the school’s aerobics team were promoted to a higher division for the 2012 season.

While having our family dinner during the first week of school for 2012, Sienna said, “Dad, I’d love to be in the top team for aerobics this year, but it’s impossible!”.

“Why is it impossible?”, I asked.

“Well, last year I was in the bottom ranked team and we didn’t even make the state finals. Because our top ranked team won the National Championships last year our whole school was promoted up a level. Plus, only Year Six girls were in the team last year and I’m only in Year Four. So Dad, as I said, it’s impossible!”

“Okay”, I pondered, “When are your trials for the aerobics squads?”

“March.” Sienna replied.

We worked out that Sienna had six weeks between the conversation we were having and the date of the trials.

“Sienna, let’s assume that it was possible for you to make the top ranked team this year. I know that it might be difficult, but let’s just pretend for a moment that it is possible. What do you think you would have to do to make the team?” I asked.

“Well, I’d need to practice.” She replied.

“How much practice would you need to do?” I inquired.

“Probably every day”. (A good response!).

“Okay, how long do you think you would need to practice?” I continued to probe.

“Hmmm, maybe ten minutes?” (A great response from a nine-year old girl).

“That sounds great. Ten minutes for every day equals seventy minutes of practice per week. What else do you think you could do?”

“Maybe I could ask my teachers what sort of practice I should be doing?” Sienna suggested.

“Excellent, that is a great idea. That way you’ll get the best value from your practice. Will you agree to do what you said you will do, at least that way you will give yourself a chance to make the top team.” I said.

“Okay Dad, it’s a deal!” Sienna exclaimed.

To Sienna’s credit she went and did what she said she would do. She asked her teachers what she should be practicing on and then she went and recruited two of her friends who had participated the previous year (they had also been in the third ranked team) to practice with her at recess and lunchtime. In reality she spent much more than ten minutes practicing each day, but it seemed more like fun than practice so she didn’t notice the ‘extra‘ work she was doing.

In addition, what do you think happened when the teachers who were responsible for the team did when they were on yard duty? Yes, they came over and provided more coaching. This is called the Law of Attraction. Sienna’s teachers who were passionate about their teams couldn’t help but be attracted to the area of the playground where the girls were practicing.

What do you think the Year Six girls were doing during this period? Were they training? No.

When the trials eventually came in March what do you think happened?

Not only did Sienna make the top ranked team, but so did her two friends!

The impossible had become possible!

What a wonderful life lesson!

Despite having three of the team being in Year Four, the seven member squad became State Champions. They then went on to win a Silver Medal at the National Championships and they were the only team that included girls outside of Year Six.

If Sienna had not been able to challenge her own mindset about what was possible, she never would have given herself a chance to make the impossible possible.

There are no guarantees in life, but the willingness to focus on what you want to achieve, coupled by the desire to find out what work is required and to then go and do that work at least gives the impossible a chance to come true.

Sienna’s National Silver medal was a bonus. In my eyes she was a winner the minute she started to put her promise into action and started training.

How often do you let your view of the impossible stop you from giving yourself a chance to make whatever you want to have happen become possible?

Focus on what you want to achieve, do your research and work out what you need to do to make it happen, and then go out and do it. At least you’ll be giving yourself a chance.

Sienna’s success encouraged her younger brother to get involved in school aerobics. Due to his big sister’s experience he knew that it wasn’t impossible for him to make the top team. The ripple effect of Sienna’s willingness to maintain focus and to do the work required to create success is now into its third year. Irrespective of where the team places in the National Championships, the life lessons that they are learning highlights that they are already winners.

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

How a Servant Leader Manages Time

Dee Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus of VISA International which is arguably the most profitable business in the world, believed strongly in Servant Leadership. He believed that Servant Leaders manage their time very differently to the hierarchical, top down style of leaders that he abhorred.

Gary Ryan, Organisations That Matter, Servant leadership
Dee Hock

So how did Dee Hock believe that a Servant Leader should spend their time?

Fifty percent of your time should be spent managing yourself. This is how you manage your own continuous development, how you challenge your own thinking, how you manage your response to someone who says something that you disagree with, how you manage yourself when things go wrong and so on. Managing yourself is an activity that co-exists with everything else that you do with your time which is why the percentage is so high.

Twenty five percent of your time should be spent managing those who have formal authority over you. This is the classic ‘managing up’. You do this by challenging them, influencing them, providing them with data, respectfully questioning them, articulating possible futures grounded in purpose and values, being true to the organisation’s vision, mission and values among other methods.

Twenty percent of your time should be spent managing those over whom you have no authority, and they have no authority over you. These are your peers and colleagues. You manage these people in a similar way to how you manage up. Once again you do this by challenging them, influencing them, providing them with data, respectfully questioning them, articulating possible futures grounded in purpose and values, being true to the organisation’s vision, mission and values among other methods.

How much time is left for managing those over whom you have formal authority?

Five percent. Yes, that is correct. Five percent of your time.

How could you be an effective leader and only spend five percent of your time managing those people who directly report to you?” I hear you ask.

As Dee Hock says all you have to do is teach them the same model for how they should manage their time. That way they will be spending 25 percent of their time managing you. When they come to you with issues you will then know why they are coming and give them your undivided attention.

When I teach people these principles they are often stunned at these percentages. “They don’t seem right. I’m accountable for my team. I just can’t see how this could work!” are the rebukes I receive.

It is true that this is a different way of thinking and seeing the world and your role as a leader. But if it can work for the man who created the most profitable business in the world, then why can’t it work for you?

If you would like to explore how Servant Leadership can be introduced to your organisation please contact me here.

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

Buy1GIVE1 - Transaction Based Giving

The Ten Characteristics of a Servant Leader

In 1970 Robert K Greenleaf first published his essay, The Servant as Leader. This essay catalysed a world-wide movement for Servant Leadership. I was fortunate to have been exposed to the essay and many other resources associated with Servant Leadership from 1997. As such I have educated my clients about the power of being a Servant Leader ever since.

Throughout the essay, Greenleaf references a set of characteristics that need to exist for a leader to be a true servant. In total there are ten characteristics and each of them are explained below.

An example of a company that practices Servant Leadership
An example of a company that practices Servant Leadership

Listening

True leadership starts with the ability to listen for understanding. This is different to listening for argument. When you listen for understanding you are genuinely interested in understanding where the other is coming from. This does not mean that you have to agree with their perspective, just that you are genuinely interested in understanding it. When you listen for argument, you are listening from the perspective of finding holes in another’s arguments so that you can shoot them down. You are right and they are wrong. Period. A Servant Leader works hard at developing their skills so that they can listen for understanding.

Empathy

Listening for understanding enables leaders to have an increased capacity to relate to those with whom they are interacting. While they might not completely understand the perspective of the people they are working with (there are times when it is not genuine to say I Understand when your life experience is so different from the person’s with whom you are speaking), a Servant Leader has empathy for them and considers the serious impact of their decisions on the people they serve.

Healing

Michele Hunt said that Leadership is a serious meddling in other people’s lives.

Servant Leaders need to be able to both heal themselves and the people they work with. Organisational life can create emotional hurt for people and leader’s need to have the ability to help people resolve their relationships with colleagues, customers and the organisation itself. Often healing is represented by the leader treating all the people they come into contact with in a respectful way. Too many employees have not been respected because of their position in the organisational hierarchy. A Servant Leader treats all people with the same level of respect irrespective of their role. In doing so a Servant Leader helps the people they serve become more whole themselves as they build respect for themselves.

Awareness

Each of the ten characteristics of a Servant Leader is interdependent. A Servant Leader is self-aware, aware of what is happening for the people they serve and aware of what is happening outside their organisation. Being aware does not guarantee a sense of peace for a Servant Leader. In fact it is the opposite. Awareness means that the leader is sharply awake and keenly disturbed at the same time. Through awareness the Servant Leader knows that the world is a not a perfect place but that it can always be improved.

Persuasion

The Servant Leader is able to persuade through genuine listening and dialogue. They use facts, the picture of the future they are creating with others and a clear and shared sense of purpose to help the people they serve to find and create the future they desire. Persuasion is not coercion. Positional authority is not the power that a Servant Leader uses to get their way. Instead a Servant Leader is able to influence those they serve through their genuine practice of the ten characteristics of a Servant Leader.

Conceptualisation

A Servant Leader is able to communicate what possible futures look like. They have the ability to see beyond the day-to-day realities of organisational life to the possible future that they and the people they are serving are striving to create. Most importantly this characteristic is not one where the future they describe is the one that they dreamed by themselves, rather it is the possible future that they are able to articulate on behalf of the collective view that emerges over time.

Foresight

Foresight is the ability to see multiple consequences of both action and inaction. A Servant Leader is acutely aware of the ripple effect of errors of omission. They understand that they have an ethical responsibility to take action when they have the freedom to take action, even if that action is difficult.

Stewardship

Organisations and institutions do not exist to make heroes of their leaders. Servant Leaders understand that they have a duty to serve their organisation so that it is in better hands for the next generation of leaders. The organisation and the institution are bigger than the leader. This mental model is essential if you wish to be a true Servant Leader.

Commitment to the Growth of People

A Servant Leader aims to have the people they serve become more autonomous or at the very least not to be worse off as a result of their leadership. They strive to help people to find and develop their talents and celebrate in their success, even when this may mean (at times) those people leave the organisation.

Building Community

A Servant Leader is acutely aware that humans require a sense of belonging to help maintain their mental well-being. To this end Servant Leaders work at bringing people together and fostering a sense of community and understand that building community is created one person, one-act at a time.

Servant Leadership is not confined to community, not-for-profit and government agencies. Quite the contrary. Many successful for profit organisations are explicit in their application of Servant Leadership. Three explicit examples include Vanguard, Southwest Airlines and TDIndustries.

If you would like to explore how Servant Leadership can be introduced to your organisation please contact me here.

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

Gary Ryan

The Ten Characteristics of a Servant Leader

In 1970 Robert K Greenleaf first published his essay, The Servant as Leader. This essay catalysed a world-wide movement for Servant Leadership. I was fortunate to have been exposed to the essay and many other resources associated with Servant Leadership from 1997. As such I have educated my clients about the power of being a Servant Leader ever since.

Throughout the essay, Greenleaf references a set of characteristics that need to exist for a leader to be a true servant. In total there are ten characteristics and each of them are explained below.

An example of a company that practices Servant Leadership
An example of a company that practices Servant Leadership

Listening

True leadership starts with the ability to listen for understanding. This is different to listening for argument. When you listen for understanding you are genuinely interested in understanding where the other is coming from. This does not mean that you have to agree with their perspective, just that you are genuinely interested in understanding it. When you listen for argument, you are listening from the perspective of finding holes in another’s arguments so that you can shoot them down. You are right and they are wrong. Period. A Servant Leader works hard at developing their skills so that they can listen for understanding.

Empathy

Listening for understanding enables leaders to have an increased capacity to relate to those with whom they are interacting. While they might not completely understand the perspective of the people they are working with (there are times when it is not genuine to say I Understand when your life experience is so different from the person’s with whom you are speaking), a Servant Leader has empathy for them and considers the serious impact of their decisions on the people they serve.

Healing

Michele Hunt said that Leadership is a serious meddling in other people’s lives.

Servant Leaders need to be able to both heal themselves and the people they work with. Organisational life can create emotional hurt for people and leader’s need to have the ability to help people resolve their relationships with colleagues, customers and the organisation itself. Often healing is represented by the leader treating all the people they come into contact with in a respectful way. Too many employees have not been respected because of their position in the organisational hierarchy. A Servant Leader treats all people with the same level of respect irrespective of their role. In doing so a Servant Leader helps the people they serve become more whole themselves as they build respect for themselves.

Awareness

Each of the ten characteristics of a Servant Leader is interdependent. A Servant Leader is self-aware, aware of what is happening for the people they serve and aware of what is happening outside their organisation. Being aware does not guarantee a sense of peace for a Servant Leader. In fact it is the opposite. Awareness means that the leader is sharply awake and keenly disturbed at the same time. Through awareness the Servant Leader knows that the world is a not a perfect place but that it can always be improved.

Persuasion

The Servant Leader is able to persuade through genuine listening and dialogue. They use facts, the picture of the future they are creating with others and a clear and shared sense of purpose to help the people they serve to find and create the future they desire. Persuasion is not coercion. Positional authority is not the power that a Servant Leader uses to get their way. Instead a Servant Leader is able to influence those they serve through their genuine practice of the ten characteristics of a Servant Leader.

Conceptualisation

A Servant Leader is able to communicate what possible futures look like. They have the ability to see beyond the day-to-day realities of organisational life to the possible future that they and the people they are serving are striving to create. Most importantly this characteristic is not one where the future they describe is the one that they dreamed by themselves, rather it is the possible future that they are able to articulate on behalf of the collective view that emerges over time.

Foresight

Foresight is the ability to see multiple consequences of both action and inaction. A Servant Leader is acutely aware of the ripple effect of errors of omission. They understand that they have an ethical responsibility to take action when they have the freedom to take action, even if that action is difficult.

Stewardship

Organisations and institutions do not exist to make heroes of their leaders. Servant Leaders understand that they have a duty to serve their organisation so that it is in better hands for the next generation of leaders. The organisation and the institution are bigger than the leader. This mental model is essential if you wish to be a true Servant Leader.

Commitment to the Growth of People

A Servant Leader aims to have the people they serve become more autonomous or at the very least not to be worse off as a result of their leadership. They strive to help people to find and develop their talents and celebrate in their success, even when this may mean (at times) those people leave the organisation.

Building Community

A Servant Leader is acutely aware that humans require a sense of belonging to help maintain their mental well-being. To this end Servant Leaders work at bringing people together and fostering a sense of community and understand that building community is created one person, one-act at a time.

Servant Leadership is not confined to community, not-for-profit and government agencies. Quite the contrary. Many successful for profit organisations are explicit in their application of Servant Leadership. Three explicit examples include Vanguard, Southwest Airlines and TDIndustries.

If you would like to explore how Servant Leadership can be introduced to your organisation please contact me here.

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

Be aware of your employability skills

Recent research by Mark McCrindle and his team has indicated that a current school leaver can expect to have 17 employers throughout their career. This equates to three different employers every decade.

iStock_000009570322SmallWhat some of you may find surprising is that the current data for people 45 years and older is that your job tenure average is six years and eight months. This means that more experienced people find themselves out looking for work more than ever.

In this context, conscious development of your employability skills is not just for young people. It is also critical for more experienced people to continually develop your employability skills, given you will also be looking for work at least 1.5 times every decade (and that number is predicted to climb over the next decade).

The challenge for those of you who are more experienced is that while you have experience, you haven’t consciously developed your employability skills. In fact, you are unlikely to know what they are!

If you would like to learn about what employability skills are and how to capture stories that show how you have developed them (which is vital for successful interviews) you can download the first two chapters of my successful book What Really Matters For Young Professionals! for free here. The first chapter explains what employability skills are, and the second chapter teaches you how to capture examples of how you have developed them so that you can recall these stories in interviews.

Once you understand how you have developed your employability skills it is critical that you keep developing them. Your reality is that as more and more people enter the job market with the same skills that you have, the key differentiator between you and someone else is not your skills but how well you have developed your employability skills. In fact, well-developed employability skills are much like a parachute for your career. So check out the free chapters from my book and get moving on protecting your employability.

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

Schools and Universities are NOT Businesses

Simon Sinek clearly articulates the power of purpose in his book Start With Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action . He explains that when you understand Why you do what you do, then you have more power to take actions that are consistent with living your purpose.

When you start with why, people follow leaders for themselves. They do not follow leaders for their leaders.

Question Mark SkyWhat is the purpose of our schools and universities? Do they exist to make money? Is that their purpose?

Or do they exist to help children and adults learn how to learn so that they can contribute to creating a better world to live in?

Imagine a school whose purpose was to make money. Business people would be invited on to the school board and no doubt astute business decisions would be made to make sure that the school did indeed make money. Intuitively, what do you think that school would be like to go to? Sure, there would be talented teachers there. But would a talented teacher be 100% engaged with the idea that what they were doing was first about making money? Yes they would receive a nice pay-cheque, but would that make that teacher fully engaged with why the school existed?

What is your intuitive response to this scenario?

Imagine, on the other hand, a school whose purpose was to help children to learn how to learn so that they could contribute to creating a better world. Imagine that same talented teacher working in that school. Intuitively, how engaged with the school do you imagine that teacher would be?

Which of these two teachers would be more likely to go above and beyond the call of duty on a regular basis because of the purpose of their school? The one whose actions will help the school make more money, or the one whose actions will help children learn how to learn so that they can contribute to creating a better world?

If you are reading that I am suggesting that business people should not be on school or university councils then that is not what I am suggesting.

Schools and universities need to be rigorous in their financial practices and learn from the business community about how to make the best use of their money. But the reason for using business principles should always be in the context of serving the purpose of education. Education should not be used as the context for serving the purpose of making money.

Schools and universities require soul and a sense of belonging. The purpose of education must always drive their use of business principles, else they risk serving the wrong purpose and will diminish the education experience of the children and adults they serve.

Based on your experience, what is the purpose of your school or university?

You can view Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk here.

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

Two Types of Errors

There are two types of errors that we make. The first type is public and can be easily reviewed.

The second type is not obvious and are not easily reviewed so they are nicely tucked away ‘under the carpet‘.

Gary Ryan, Yes For SuccessThe first type is errors of ‘commission‘. These are errors when we do something that should not have been done. We plan poorly. We execute poorly. We review poorly.

Good operators review these errors and make adjustments so that they do not happen again. They learn.

The second type is errors of ‘omission‘. These are errors when you don’t do something that you should do. You don’t call-out unacceptable behaviour. You don’t speak up at a meeting when you ‘know‘ that the decision that has just been made is going to fail. You see an opportunity to improve yourself but you let it slip by.

Please note that errors of omission are not errors that you judge in hindsight. They are errors caused by not taking action that you knew you could have taken at the time the error occurred.

Errors of omission are just as important as errors of commission to review. If you keep repeating the same errors of omission then you will reduce your capacity to learn and to become the very best that you can be.

Asking yourself, your team or your organisation to identify actions that you knew you had the opportunity to take but you didn’t take provides an opportunity to review the thinking that stopped you from taking the action when the time was ‘right’. Exploring these examples will provide you with real learning that will better position you the next time similar situations arise.

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

Control your development

On the surface it may seem a little odd that I am suggesting that you should maintain 100% control over your personal and professional development.

running person on white background. Isolated 3D imageThe reality is that too many people hand over the responsibility for their development to their employer. They have a parent-child view of their relationship. Their employer ‘the parent’, will look after them and make sure they are properly developed.

The problem here is two-fold.

1. What if the employer doesn’t develop you? and

2. What if they don’t develop you properly?

The answer to both of these questions is that you suffer. No doubt the organisation will suffer too, but the organisation can get rid of you and then you really suffer. The risks associated with handing over 100% of the responsibility for your development are far too high. Yet that is exactly what most employees do.

Even if your employer is a ‘good‘ employer and provides lots of opportunities for you to develop, be prepared to go outside your organisation to develop the things that you need to develop. Be prepared to invest in your development. Treat the opportunities that your ‘good’ employer provides as a bonus.

This way you’ll continue to develop your talents and you will continue to be the best that you can be. Your talent won’t be at risk of being reduced over time.

Not developing your talents is guaranteed to cut your employability and long-term security. Not an outcome you want!

What I find interesting is that I spend about 30% of my time working with talented undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD university students. These students give of their time to get access to the various development programs that I facilitate. They don’t have to attend these programs. They are in control of their development.

Yet when they get a job, these very same students then hand 100% of the responsibility for their development over to their employer. It sounds crazy because it is!

My message is simple. Maintain control over your development.  Forever. Period.

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

Focus on where you are going

One of my hobbies is motorcycle riding. No doubt it is a dangerous past time. A secret to safe and effective motorcycle riding is to focus on where you are going. Motorcycles ‘go’ wherever the rider is looking.

This doesn’t mean that you should ignore everything else. Quite the contrary. In fact, as much is reasonably possible, when on a motorcycle you must be as aware as possible of everything 360 degrees around you. You have to know that there is a bus coming at you from your left. You have to see the car recklessly changing lanes in your rear vision mirrors. You have to see the parked car that is just about to move away from the kerb.

Photo by David Collopy - Photfit
Photo by David Collopy – Photofit

You must be fully aware of the dangers around you. However, you must not focus on them. If you focus on the dangers your motorcycle will go toward them which is not an outcome you want.

For me riding my motorcycle provides a real and genuine metaphor for life. In my life I must maintain focus on where I am going, while being aware of the dangers around me and taking evasive action as required to steer clear of them so that I can stay on track to where I want to go.

Too often people get focussed on what they don’t want and by doing so they draw it into their lives. Poor relationships. Poor bosses. Never having enough money. Being overweight. This list could go on. By focusing on what you don’t want you bring it to life and actually create it.

Traveling the journey of life requires that you maintain focus on where you want to go, all the while maintaining awareness of what is going on around you. When danger comes, take evasive action and focus on where you need to be to get away from that danger.

This simple principle will help you to create more life balance and personal success. Keep it in mind the next time something negative draws your attention. Maintain the discipline to stay focussed on what you really want.

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