Tag: purpose

Start today

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

It is never too late to be what you might have been – George Eliot.

Time isn’t waiting for you.  Start today.

We all have laundry lists of things that we want to do and want to become.   Those items will remain simply lists, if we don’t act.  

In life there is always something more urgent to distract us from what is important.  Meetings can wait.  Email can wait.  Coffee can wait.  Television can wait. Gossip can wait.  You may well even find today’s crisis can wait.  

Make time today to take a positive step towards your goal.  Turn your future life into a project and tackle it stepwise.  Small steps can come first.  Leaps will come later.

Regret is a wasted emotion.  Leave it behind along with the feeling of lost opportunity.  Turn those emotions into an impetus to act on your purpose.  With action comes progess, with progress comes confidence and we all know that’s essential to continued success.

Create accountability.  Promise the steps to the future you to someone who matters, someone who will hold you to account.  Publish your plans.  Share your future and you’ll enjoy the ride more.

If you are going to start-up the future you, get going today.

The Purpose is in the Work

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Leadership is work with others to fulfil a purpose. From where does purpose come?

The work.

Many people want to find their personal purpose to guide their leadership work. For some, purpose is quickly evident with a little reflection. Often reflection will only take you so far. For others drawing out any strong sense of purpose is more of a challenge.

Leadership is work, not a status. Purpose is a strong personal impetus to action, not an abstract & perfect idea. You don’t need purpose perfect to act. Just as leadership gets better with experience in the mess of the work, so does purpose evolving to a clearer expression through interaction with others.

The best guide is that purpose is what compels you to act, to lead and to have an impact on others. So ask these questions:

– What do I enjoy doing most in my work? What drives that?

– What work do I keep coming back to do? What drives that?

– What kind of impact do I have? What kind of impact do I want to have? What makes me choose these things?

– What do others call on me to do? What is it about me that makes them choose me?

– What do I want to do next?

There is little value in endless reflection to perfect a purpose. Purpose is refined in practice. Purpose in leadership necessarily involves others. Demonstrate leadership in work, learn from interactions with others and see where your purpose is strongest.

Do. Focus on the work. Purpose is there. Purpose comes.

Enterprise Social fosters Social Enterprise

Posted on by simongterry in Collaboration

Two new trends are on the rise in business at the moment and they both use the words social and enterprise. Importantly these trends are often more closely connected than many realise. The trends are:

– Enterprise Social Media, the use of social media to foster connection and collaboration inside an organisation; and
– Social Enterprises, an organisation which exists to fulfil a social purpose by leveraging the approaches of the business world

Enterprise social media drives a more social outlook in any organisation where the culture will allow it. At the heart of the connection is that these trends force us to reflect on human concerns like purpose, community and our legacy – enterprise social media simply makes us social.

Enterprise Social Media fosters Purpose

Enabling your employees and other partners to connect and share their stories and experiences will quickly surface the themes of your purpose. Discussing and sharing these examples helps build a stronger sense of community in an organisation and deepens engagement. Importantly, the social network will also offer a forum to discuss, clarify and resolve of the conflicts of purpose that organisations face. Purpose is not a statement issued by management. Purpose is an ongoing dialogue with everyone in the organisation and it’s stakeholders.

Enterprise Social Media fosters Openness

Enabling your people to share their passions, interest, experiences and concerns is going to bring the surrounding community into your organisation. People now have a tool to collaborate on community and social issues. This can range from awareness building to forming groups of like minded employees to organising volunteering and activism. The more open your organisation the better it will be at responding to social needs and feedback.

Enterprise Social Media fosters Accountability

A highly engaged community can become a conscience for Purpose. If employees have a concern about delivery to Purpose or the wider social impacts, they have a forum to discuss and seek action. Importantly this is a public and transparent forum where they may have like minded colleagues. These conversations build accountability in managers across the organisation to explain the connection of their decisions to Purpose, to the creation of social value and to broader community impacts

Enterprise Social Media fosters Leadership

Organisations are full of people who have leadership potential but lack the impetus and a first follower. Social media offers a low risk environment for these first time leaders to connect with their personal purposes and to attract followers. It also offers an environment where leadership for the commmunity can be recognized by the community. Building the leadership voice, action & reward for leadership in your organisation will enable social value.

Enterprise Social Media fosters Innovation

Social value can be created in many traditional commercial organisations through adding a little innovation to everyday activities. Enabling your employees to make suggestions and work together to realise these ideas using enterprise social media can accelerate that process by bouncing unconventional ideas off traditional processes. Employee ideas can add social value by suggesting new challenges to tackle, a change in sourcing, to better ways to leverage waste and even debating where an organisation creates value for customers and the broader community.

Purpose+Openness+Accountability+Leadership+Innovation=More Social Enterprise

People crave purpose and to make a meaningful contribution to society. My experience suggests that given the chance people will leverage enterprise social media to seek to create additional social value in and through their colleagues and organisation. These conversations can generate deep pride and engagement.

The main barrier to this effect is a culture unwilling to allow the challenging conversations required. Our work in fostering more social enterprise is to get out of the way of our people, embrace the growing potential for more social value and do what we can to build stronger purpose and social impact.

Follow your heart

Posted on by simongterry in Life & Career

Keep following your heart and your biggest dreams, no matter how far away they might seem at times – Commander Chris Hadfield

Dealing with big career choices, or even little ones, can be a bewildering process.  There are always too many pros and cons, there is lots of helpful and unhelpful advice, there is too much uncertainty and often we don’t even well understand our own thinking and preferences.

Mentors can play a critical role in providing an external perspective in these choices.  They can also help straighten out tangled thinking and the influence of other’s views.

Most powerful of all is the question that a mentor can ask:

‘what does your heart tell you to do?’

For many people, when they put all the logic aside the answer is crystal clear.   Their heart knows what choices they have to make to move forward on their passions, to realise their career ambitions and to live without regret.
 

The voice of the heart can be muddied by all the complexity and pressure of a big choice.  Find the time or the help to listen to it, however quiet, and you will move forward with more confidence.

Follow your heart.

Posted on by simongterry in Life & Career

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands and you find yourself in a great and wonderful world. You discover yourself to be a greater person – Patanjali

Dent the Universe? You have

Posted on by simongterry in Change, Leadership

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. – Wener Heisenberg

I meet a lot of enthusiastic people who have ambitions to change some part of their world. They want to put ‘a dent the universe’. The energy and passion that comes from people who embrace change and a desire to make things better is extraordinary. I would happily spend all day listening to these people describe their passions for a better world.

But just talking about passion doesn’t make change. Right?

Many of the people think they are stuck at the first hurdle. They want to create change but they question whether they have the capability, whether they have the opportunity or influence and what it will mean for life and careers. Most of all they grapple with the issue of ‘why me?’.

In almost every case, I find the person has missed a key point. It has to be them. They have already made a dent in the universe. They had started driving the changes that they want. The force of their passion, values and the capabilities that bring them to this change have already pushed them over the line into becoming a change agent. What has started to happen is that they are now holding themselves back and holding back the change that they want to see.

Like the quantum physicist whose observations change the measurement, the fact that these aspiring change agents are asking the question about how to have an impact means they are already:
– All are involved in some kind of learning or awareness building activities on the issues
– Some are already influential role models to the communities that need to change
– All have seen the problem because they have some capability to contribute to a solution
– In many cases, they have missed that things have got better with the actions that they have already taken
– Usually people are so concerned with their personal doubts that they can’t see any of these things.

These conversations are some of the richest I have. The challenge is simple – releasing someone from constraints that they have put on themselves, showing them the impact has begun and helping them start to drive even more change.

Whether or not Mahatma Gandhi actually said ‘Be the change you want to be in the world’ there is enormous power in that idea. Most people focus on that phrase as meaning ‘Become the change…’. Too often that ignores that ‘Be’ could mean that they already are the change. It might just be a question of living up to their potential.

So what kind of change agent are you? Something prompted you to read this post. What is your potential?

Purpose endures disruption. Discuss.

Posted on by simongterry in Change, Future of Work, Innovation

We know what we are, but not what we may be. – William Shakespeare

In a time of disruptive change, an organisation needs a strong common purpose to unite & guide its people.  

Purpose is a product of the community in your organisation.  It is the set of beliefs that keep your community together, reflecting your values, impact on others and hopes for the future.

A strong purpose is one that grows out of that community within your organisation.  We are talking about deeply personal values and beliefs.  This is the realm of pull, not push. People will have selected and remained with your organisation because of purpose.   A purpose cannot be imposed without pushing people away from your organisation.

Purpose endures.  

Your product, your business model, your competitive position and your returns may all change.  Just look at the changes you face:

  • Every organisation faces continued change in Who does things.  Tasks move.  People come and go each day.
  • How you do things changes equally fast.  That is the point of continuous improvement.  We want this continuous betterment of our work.
  • When big disruptive change occurs, organisations need to change What they do too. If you haven’t moved from buggy whip manufacturer to delivering remote mobile acceleration control services, you might just have been left behind. 

What keeps your organisation together and focused when everything might need to change really fast?  

A purpose that is shared by the community of your organisation is a centre of focus and consistency.  Importantly, the purpose is something consistently worth the investment of your people’s time, passion and effort over time.  Purpose is the core around which your organisation must build its agility to survive.  Purpose is the reason for which your organisation must survive and why it must prosper.  The more things change the more you will come back to your purpose to choose what to do next.

Discovering purpose

Start an ongoing conversation in your organisation around your purpose.   Seek to discover the beliefs that are shared and guide your organisation into the future.   Build a consensus and educate those who are new.  Social tools are fantastic ways to share and deepen this conversation.  

Ask purposeful questions of each other.  What is the purpose of strategies, changes and major initiatives? When is your organisation at its best?  What beliefs and ideas bring out the best in your people?  

The conversations are more powerful when they are not be dictated from the top of the organisation.  The best conversations on purpose will be those that surface the beliefs of those who deliver impact to customers every day, who make decisions in the middle of the organisation or potentially by asking your customers to reflect on your purpose. Discuss these points of view.  You will find that these conversations contribute to trust by building common ground.

Be prepared to be surprised, but most of all be prepared to find a new focus to the why at the heart of your organisation. Clarity of shared purpose will speed the agility of your people.  After all, your purpose is why you are and the best guide to what you may be next.

The One Characteristic of Great Leaders

Posted on by simongterry in Leadership

One characteristic makes great leaders stand out. The characteristic is not their performance. All leaders, good and bad can drive performance.

So what defines a great leader?

Great leaders make you better than you are. Great leaders make you better than you think you can be. They connect people with purpose, provide context and grow capabilities. They lift people up and help them realise potential.

The best leaders in my career helped me understand the context, challenged me to live my purpose and the organisation’s purpose, coached continuously and shared their experience, wisdom and lessons. They were also the most ruthless in providing feedback and setting stretching targets. They expected more and trusted you to deliver.

If you are a leader, don’t put up the drawbridge, drop down a ladder. Focus on how your people can stretch and grow. Build a strong pipeline of successors. Become an engine of talent for the business.

If you aren’t yet a leader, look out for the leaders who develop their people and grow their opportunities. Who you work for can be more important than the role in advancing your career. Ask yourself if you can begin to develop others in what you do now.

Adaptability – Purpose, Context and Enablement

Posted on by simongterry in Future of Work, Strategy

The traditional models of leadership focus on clear instructions and measurement of specific actions. Hierarchical command and control was developed in military organisations intent on bring order to the disorder of large numbers of people on complex battlefields. In a rapidly changing world, there’s a danger that this command and control model completely breaks down – too slow, too rigid and too ineffective to achieve its goals. In many cases, the first people to change their thinking have been the military

Years ago, I heard a talk by Lieutenant Colonel James McMahon who was at one time commander of the Australian SAS forces in Afghanistan. His advice to a group of aspiring business leaders was always explain what was known of the situation and be clear on the purpose, but never dictate how the mission should be achieved. Highly engaged, skillful and creative teams will find ways to deal with complexity and change that will achieve the mission and surprise you. His stories of the resourcefulness of Australian troops in a complex and changing environment were remarkable.

The role of leaders is to set a purpose and a context and to enable people to act fast and effectively on their own decisions to achieve success. US Air Force Col John Boyd described the concept of the OODA loop. The OODA loop highlights that there is strategic advantage in being faster than competitors at observing, orienting, deciding and then acting. Organisations that are quicker round this loop will be harder for their competitors to predict, have a better view of competitor’s actions & intentions and be better at execution.

Clarifying purpose and context accelerates teams through the Observe and Orient stages of the OODA loop. Activities like briefings, induction, Scenarios and role plays are great to help people to build understanding and skills in anticipating what might be encountered. They know faster where they are and where they want to go.

Building enablement will accelerate the ability to Decide and Act. However, you need to choose and skill people for their ability to decide and act to achieve success on their own. You also need to leave decision making in the hands of the individual to act and respond to the changing circumstances that they see.

There are always trade offs. Maybe the observation and orientation won’t be perfect on the ground, but it is rarely better at a distance. Maybe the decision making and action won’t be as sophisticated as it could be, but speed and adaptability is usually more important than perfection.

Give up a little command and control. Focus instead on providing purpose and context. Then enable your teams to adapt with maximum speed and effectiveness.

Why do your customers buy?

Posted on by simongterry in Strategy

Great comment from Maria Ogneva in this overview of collaboration with customers:  

Your customers don’t buy your product for the sake of buying your product; they buy it because it makes them feel or be in a certain way.

My experience is that this comment is spot on.  Get to the heart of what feelings or solutions your product enable for a customer and your business will thrive.