Insight from the Void - 1007

Winning

To win in any sport, especially in the domain that I have a liking for, ‘fighting’, you have to be invincible, and be able to defend that which cannot be attacked, and attack that which cannot be defended; to do this you must be strong. This holds true in the corporate arena; To win:

1. You must be strong

2. To be strong you need the strength of others

3. To have the strength of others, you must win people

4. To win people, you must win peoples hearts

5. To win peoples hearts, you must have self mastery

6. To have self mastery, you must be flexible in mind

Extract from the Art of War

I thought I’d share this because it has a parallel with Leadership. If leadership is all about people understanding and motivating people, then the search for True Leadership lies within Self Leadership & Self Mastery

Leadership Thoughts
5 Reasons why workers don’t perform effectively:

1. They hate their work

2. They derive no satisfaction or fulfillment from their work

3. They don’t have the domain skill and knowledge to feel confident and competent

4. Ineffective Leadership

5. They have Personality clash with the Leader


5 Ways to measure which team (who) will win:

How well:
1. do people share the same view

2. do the people understand the impact of season on their performance

3. do people understand the terrain

4. do people believe in the leadership

5. is discipline applied

Leadership Trouble Spot

As I travel, talking, training and consulting with clients, I always ask, ‘how do you create the time and space to step out of your head and stop thinking?’

I often get the usual reply, “I don’t have the time to stop”. But, get this; Top people take the time to stop.


IME (c)

Insight from the Void - 1006

Sometimes we hear the word success and make the misguided assumption that success or the meaning of success is the same for everyone. The first law of success is having a clear explanation of what our definition of success is, as well as our measure of successfulness.

Some Definitions of Success:
… “Success is the progressive realisation of a worthwhile dream”
– Napoleon Hill.
… “Find out what it is that you are about and do it to the best of your ability”
– Francis A. Nwofor.

Leadership Thoughts -'FAN Laws of Success'

1. Discover your true purpose in life, your reason for being and your means of expressing it.
2. Define what Success means to you, as well as your means of measuring success
3. Specialise in your chosen field of venture, acquire and hone the skill that you need to be highly competent.
4. Have a Mastermind Group, surround yourself with like-minded people.
5. Be Decisive, there is no such thing as a wrong or right decision – make the decision and make the decision right.
6. Be Proactive, you need to be able to notice change and anticipate what it will bring with it and then take actions to put you in a position to capitalise on this new change
7. Exercise the Body to Condition the Mind, integrating body, mind and spirit to act as one.

Leadership Trouble Spot

One area of leadership that I have found to be of constant challenge to organisation is that of achieving corporate success, maintaining corporate success or finding fresh ways to leverage (quantum leap) the success to a new level.

How can Leaders lead their people and organisation towards increasing level of success?

I would like to borrow from the coaching that I give to individuals who are looking to achieving personal success, and align it to business success.
As an organisation you could do with having a clear definition of what success means for you, as well as your means of measuring this success.

In the statement that encompasses your definition, you must touch on the following: The Vision of the Organisation, A Proclamation of the Vision. It is important that both the Vision Statement as well as the Proclamation of Vision Statement (some people refer to this as the Mission Statement) have enough emotional glue to buy-in and bind Acceptance from the employees, as well as facilitate Strategic Actions that will challenge, inspire, motivate and empower them.

In this New Knowledge Economy a major leadership challenge that will be faced by many leaders, would be how to retain, lead, inspire, motivate, and empower the Knowledge Worker. The divide, will be those organisations that are achieving world-class success and those that, well ...

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Insight from the Void - 1005

Last month I was talking with some of our Key Instructors, (Key Influencers) and I posed this question to them; 'when is the best time to motivate our students?'

It sounded like a trick question and the obvious answer (not correct) would have been ‘when they are down’. However the best time to motivate them is when they are on a high, i.e. when they have accomplished some sort of victory.

This I have found to work equally well in the corporate setting. As Leaders, Managers and Supervisors, in your respective fields, I am certain that you will have experienced similar, if not the same situation. It is near impossible to inspire and motivate an employee that is dejected, who feels unappreciated and unloved.

Leadership Trouble Spot

How do you motivate your key influencer?

A week before the December holidays, I was privileged to be in the mist of a discussion at an institution of higher learning. The crux of the matter was that everybody was feeling demotivated. The lecturers were demotivated because of the excess demand being placed on them by senior management, as well as the fact that management were going back on their promise of fiscal reward.

The Head of Department was also experiencing this feeling of low ebb. The thing that struck me as a lesson in bad leadership, was the Heads key motivational statement, the essence of it was, ‘… and it is high time you all stop your whining and get back to doing what you’re supposed to be doing’.

The frightening thing is that these people were then expected to go forth and create a positive learning atmosphere, as well as motivate their students to learn.


How would you handle this situation? Or how did you handle this situation when you faced it?

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Insight from the Void - 1004

I was reading a story “The Doomsday Machine” in Steven Pinker’s book Hothead I present an extract on his conclusion on Emotions
‘Long-distance phone service, electronic mail, faxes, and video conferencing should have made the face-to-face business meeting obsolete. But meetings continue to be a major expense for corporation and supports entire industries, like hotels, airlines, and rental cars. Why do we insist on doing business in the flesh? Because we do not trust someone until we see what makes him (her – my own addition) sweat.’

I thought I’d share this because it has a parallel to Leadership.

The enigma called leadership is fast gaining accelerated exposure, to the point that the flavor of the month leadership models is starting to appear. Have I considered patenting a Francis A. Nwofor 7 Cycles for Effective Leadership Model? ‘No!’


Of cause I have, but then I thought, with respect to what Steven Pinker was expressing in his conclusion, a new leadership model is not what we need to lead effectively. What we need to learn is how to understand our fellow human being, because Great Leadership and with that Great Followship comes from People understanding People; it is ironic that this message as been repeated more than once in our history as a race, yet we have not taken heed.

Leadership Thoughts
1. Once a Leaders always a Servant

2. To get the job done right the first time around, send in your best men/women

3. Are you teaching your People to be Teachers of Teachers of Leaders?

4. Continuity occurs when people are made equal participants in a process

5. If you don’t want to lead, be careful who you follow – Wayne, January 2006

6. The person chasing you is your best advisor – Isaiah, March 2006

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Insight from the Void - 1003

In my work I was privileged to observe an organisation for a period of 2 months, in those 2 months I noticed that they had quite a high staff turnover, since I was on first name bases with the people there, I spoke to the non-management staff to get a gist of the real picture.

As it turned out, these people had no clear direction as to where they were going as a company, they did not have somebody, in position to perform 1 of 4 key roles of a leaders, the role of providing a clear direction. Leaders have four distinct roles:

1. To Provide a Vision
2. To Provide Clear Direction for realising the vision
3. To Resolve Challenging Trouble Spot
4. To Provide answers to Big Hairy Audacious Questions (BHAQ)

If you take the time to survey, you’ll be amazed at the fact, that most people are happy working within an organisation, frustration only sets in, when it appear that the organisation has no direction or when they feel that they have been unfairly treated, at this point they leave to joint your competition, the former was the crux with the organisation that I’d observed.In any successful organisation, big or small, it is worth remembering, that it is, ‘the People that make it work!’

IME (c)

Insight from the Void - 1002

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In my writings and talks, I like to refer to the old adage, ‘Leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less’. Hence if you examine the process of leadership, you will find that leadership, as we know it is a combination of Motivational Theories and Personality Traits of the Leader.

It is interesting to note that today’s Leaders and most Schools of Management still practice and adhere to Motivational Theories and Theorists of the old, the likes of Schein – Rational and Economic Man of 1770s or McGregor - Theory X on human behaviour from the 1960s.

In my workings with different organisations, especially those at management or senior management level; it is shocking to observe that the culture and attitudes of the leaders foster the views and belief of Douglas McGregor on employees.

Douglas McGregor Theory X
“Employees are inheriting lazy, requiring coerced and control, avoiding responsibility and only seeking security”

With this sort of assumption about their people, I find it strange that management should wonder why it is that they can’t seem to inspire and motivate their employees.

Leadership Thoughts

1. Leaders are naturally honored when their words are taken seriously.

2. When you are honorable, your employees’ will obey even if you are not stern.

3. When your employees’ are impressed, things get done even if no order is given.

4. The astute and the dense each naturally put across their minds. Small and great each exert their effort.

5. As a leader it is essential to be generous towards your employees’ while being prudent with oneself

Fojian Zen Master

IME (c)

Insight from the Void -1001

Leadership Thoughts

The heart of Leadership is Trust & Trustworthiness. There can be no Leadership without Trust & Trustworthiness. Without Trust & Trustworthiness there is no Respect. Without Respect there is no Loyalty.

'An effective leader must build Trust, Loyalty and Respect in the heart of every one of his or her followers, and this will be stronger than any material incentive.' - Francis A Nwofor

Effective Leaders develop their people, as is evident in this Chinese proverb, “If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for twenty years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men.”

Leadership is an Art in People Management; whatever a Leader does, he or she does it as a person and towards People.

Leadership is all about influence, your people buy-in to your leadership based on your words and deeds.

Baiyun, a Buddhist Monks says, “What can be said but not practiced is better not said. What can be practiced but not spoken is better not done. When you utter words you should always consider their ends. When you establish a practice, you must always consider what it covers. Speech and Action is the pivot of ideal people, the basis of governing one’s person.”

Transformational Leadership starts with the Leader changing his or her mindset.

Ghandi says, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

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