Building talent-centric organisations

 Keywords – Resilience – Communication Style – Leadership Alignment – Performance –Talent-centric

 In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Dr Russell Thackeray talks to Carol Schultz a talent equity and leadership advisory expert. Recognised for her proficiency in corporate leadership, Carol spent three decades helping executives gain clarity in their careers, make bold leadership moves, and create cultures of performance.

In this podcast Carol talks about her work helping companies build talent-centric organisations. She explains that leadership alignment is crucial to achieving this goal and that she often starts with discovery meetings to identify gaps in vision and communication. She also discusses generational differences in communication preferences, the importance of diversity for avoiding groupthink and the challenge of dealing with conflict as a leader.

Carol also discusses the importance of communication and coaching for effective workplace relationships. She believes that blind spot awareness is crucial for building a talent-centric organisation but acknowledges that not all successful organisations prioritise this. She also talks about the challenge of working with people who have different beliefs or backgrounds, and how to navigate personal issues in the workplace.

Finally, she mentions her book "Powered by People," which focuses on recruitment, retention, and revenue in talent-centric organisations.

Main topics

• discovering gaps in vision, business strategy, and communication

• the differences in communication between generations

• the importance of effective communication and understanding

• coaching to uncover blind spots and give AHA moments

• getting leadership teams aligned so they can take action on other matters

• the need for effective team communication

• understanding the preferred communication style of team members

• addressing personal issues that may affect an employee's performance in the workplace.

• why leadership teams should be open to conversations about improving organisational performance

Timestamps

1: Introduction and Guest Introduction (0:00-0:24)
2: Aligning Leadership Teams (0:50-2:58)
3: Communication Differences (3:06-4:37)
4: Effective Communication Strategies (5:20-6:35)
5: Coaching for Improved Communication (15:06-17:16)
6: Overcoming Personal Biases (18:10-20:47)
7: Addressing Organisational Issues (21:03-23:26)
8: Guest's Book and Interview (25:09-27:39) 

Action items

• Read Carol’s book Powered By People: How Talent-Centric Organizations Master Recruitment, Retention, and Revenue (and How to Build One) 

• Find out more about Carol at  verticalelevation.com.

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.  

Ambiverts as leaders

Generally, people are thought to be either introverts or extroverts although most us sit somewhere along this spectrum. Whilst introverts enjoy peace and reflection and may be happier working on their own, extroverts thrive on being around people, engaging with others and enjoying social connection.

If though you possess both traits and can naturally shift your behaviour depending on the environment you’re in then you might be seen as an ambivert. Ambiverts have a balance of both introverted and extroverted personality traits so they may enjoy socialising and being around people, but also need time alone to recharge their batteries. They can be outgoing and assertive when needed, but also reflective and introspective when required. They are comfortable in a variety of social situations, but may also feel drained after extended periods of interaction.

They can also make good leaders and managers as they are adaptable to a variety of situations and can communicate effectively with different types of people. For example, they can be assertive and decisive when needed, but also listen to and empathise with their team members. They can balance the needs of the organisation with the needs of their team members, creating a positive work environment that encourages collaboration and productivity.

Ambivert leaders can also leverage their ability to connect with people to build strong relationships with stakeholders, clients, and employees, which can lead to better outcomes for the organisation. Additionally, they can be comfortable in both leading from the front and delegating tasks to others, which makes them well-rounded managers.

The downside is that ambivert leaders can sometimes struggle with decision-making because they may weigh both sides of an issue equally and find it difficult to choose a course of action. This can lead to delays in decision-making and inaction, which can be problematic in a fast-paced work environment. Another potential downside is that they can  sometimes struggle with prioritising their time and energy and, as they enjoy both socialising and spending time alone, they may find it challenging to balance their work and personal lives. Finally, possessing both introverted and extroverted traits, means they may need to adjust their leadership style depending on the situation so they may struggle to find a leadership style that works for them.

Overall, whilst there are potential downsides to ambivert leaders, these can be mitigated through self-awareness, effective time management, and a willingness to adapt their leadership style if and when needed.

Intentional Leadership

 Keywords - Resilience – Leadership – Intentionality – Implicit Bias

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled Dr Kristen Albert. a leadership coach and podcaster with 30 years of experience in education, discusses her definition of leadership, the importance of intentionality and the aspects positively correlated to leadership effectiveness.

Kristen believes that everyone at every level is capable and responsible for leading within their sphere of influence and talks about the need to change the traditional paradigms surrounding what it means to be a leader. She also discusses how intuition can be misleading but that listening to one's body can provide valuable insight into decision making and her advocacy for diversity and equality in leadership positions.

Main topics

• the leadership circle profile

• hierarchy and leadership

• the need for intentionality in leadership

• the importance of personal work in recognising implicit bias and benefiting from systems that have been created over time.

• the need for leaders to remove fear from the workplace and create psychological safety.

Timestamps

1: Introductions 00:02--00:40
2. Defining Leadership 02:05-03:45
3: Details of Leadership 04:18-06:57
4: Harnessing Potential of Difference 14:30-16:25
5: Personal Leadership 22:10-23:08
6: Ways to Work with Kristen Albert 23:26-25:46
7: Conclusion 25:48-26:20

Action items

•  Find out more about Kristen's Turning Points program which offers leadership coaching, a community, and positive intelligence coaching.

• Listen to her Turning Points in Leadership podcast.

• Visit Liveworksatisfied.com to learn more about Kristen's coaching services.

   You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.  

Lyrical Leadership and the five-step path of transformation.

Keywords - Resilience – Leadership – Poetry – Control - AI

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Aneace Haddad, an executive coach and author based in Singapore who talks about his background as a former tech entrepreneur turned leadership coach and writer. He talks about his recently published book, "The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar," which explores the concept of lyrical leadership through the five-step path of transformation - entering the path, resilience, limiting beliefs, innovation, and mindfulness – to enable leaders to let go of limiting beliefs and labels to become more resilient. The book is structured as a fictionalised account of his experiences and draws on Eastern philosophy principles without explicitly mentioning mindfulness.

Main topics

• The importance of relinquishing control to create a new culture that can solve complex problems.

• The concept of lyrical leadership

• The value of letting go of rigid labels and authority while maintaining some control

• The illusion of self and mindfulness

• Overcoming contradictions and balancing innovation and results

Timestamps

1: Introductions 00:00-00:36
2: Aneace’s background and career 00:41-02:19
3: Aneace's novel and writing process 02:19-04:11
4: Lyrical Leadership and Aneace's approach to coaching 04:46-06:39
5: Aneace's Book "The Dream", Five Steps to Resilience, and Letting Go 06:56-09:49
6: Detaching the illusion of self and mindfulness 11:29-14:33
7: Overcoming contradictions and balancing innovation with results 15:04-16:43
8: Chat GPT and the future of writing 17:43-21:15
9: Contact information 21:52-22:39
10: Conclusion and Farewell 23:00-23:17

Action items

• Find out more about Aneace at aneace.com

• Read Aneace’s book The Eagle That Drank Hummingbird Nectar

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.  

Changing times. Leadership in the entertainment industry.

Keywords: Resilience – Leadership – Empathy – Entertainment Industry – Executive Coaching

In this episode of Resilience Unravelled, Dawn Kohler a writer and executive coach in the entertainment industry discusses how media and entertainment are going through cataclysmic change right now due to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon. This has kept her busy coaching leaders who struggle to develop themselves and their teams during times of uncertainty or turbulence. She discusses the evolution of leadership styles in the industry and the focus on empathy and accountability, and also touches on the importance of proper nurturing in parenting and how organisations can value the wisdom of elders while embracing diversity for growth.

Main topics

• How the media industry reflects our society and shows how it has moved forward.

• The evolution of leadership style and approach behind the screen.

• Why adults need to hold space for somebody and listen to the acknowledgment of somebody being hurt by something they unintentionally or intentionally did.

• A generational shift towards people who are resilient is happening because of leaders' great intentions with zero competence.

• Building resilience means having the ability to get things wrong and put things right.

• Why organisations should value the wisdom of the elders and have good mentoring programs.

Timestamps

1: Introduction to Dawn and her work as a writer and executive coach (00:00-01:34)
2: How Dawn found her path in the entertainment industry and her success dealing with the human dynamic during times of change (01:51-03:07)
3: The role of entertainment in reflecting society and representing different sectors of the population and emotional issues (03:38-05:56)
4: The evolution of leadership style or approach (06:01-07:01)
5: The power of communication and social media in giving viewers the ability to share their opinions and bring things to the surface (07:11-08:12)
6: The importance of empathy and acknowledging hurt when unintentionally or intentionally offending someone (12:07-14:11)
7: Dawn's work as an author and her latest book, "The Messages," which is a memoir that tells the underbelly of her own story (14:19-18:37)
8: The need for resilience and the importance of learning the ability to get things wrong and put things right (19:48-23:00)
9: The value of wisdom from elders in organisations and the importance of passing down corporate history (23:08-24:59)
10: The importance of escalation and having challenging conversations in organisations (24:51-26:14)

Dawn is also the author of three books, including her latest memoir "The Messages," which discusses her personal journey through severe abuse in childhood, which led to a shift in perspective and ultimately into the field of executive coaching.

Action points

• Learn about Dawn at dawnkohler.com

• Read Dawn’s book ‘The Messages. A Memoir’

   You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.  

Leading in the hybrid world

For large numbers of people working wherever and whenever they want is now a reality. However, whilst increased flexibility and reduced commuting times are a positive for employees, leaders are dealing with the reality of a hybrid working model.

Leading a hybrid team can be complex. Leaders have to create a collaborative, cohesive culture that merges remote workers with office-based teams. They need to maintain consistently high performance and productivity and deal with interpersonal conflict. They also need to engage and develop talent, lead and support change initiatives, establish goals and priorities and create a sense of inclusion and belonging.

Leaders need to focus on:

1.     Communication: In a hybrid workplace, communication is more important than ever. Leaders must ensure that all team members feel included, informed, and engaged, regardless of where they work. Regular communication channels should be established, such as weekly team meetings, daily check-ins, and virtual office hours. Leaders should also make an effort to communicate in multiple formats, such as video calls, emails, and instant messaging, to accommodate different working styles and schedules.

2.     Flexibility: The hybrid workplace requires leaders to be more flexible in terms of work schedules, work arrangements, and deadlines. Leaders should be open to accommodating different work styles and preferences, and be willing to adapt to the needs of their team members. They should also provide the necessary resources and tools to enable remote workers to be productive and successful.

3.     Trust: Trust is a key component of effective leadership in the hybrid workplace. Leaders must trust their team members to work independently and manage their time effectively, while also being available for collaboration and communication. This requires clear expectations, open communication, and a culture of accountability.

4.     Inclusion: In a hybrid workplace, it's important to ensure that all team members feel included and valued, regardless of where they work. Leaders should be proactive in creating opportunities for team building, such as virtual social events and team-building activities, to foster a sense of community and connection.

5.     Technology: Technology plays a critical role in the hybrid workplace, and leaders must ensure that their team members have access to the tools and resources they need to be productive and successful. This includes providing remote workers with the necessary hardware, software, and training to use technology effectively, as well as ensuring that in-person and remote workers can collaborate seamlessly.

6.     Feedback: Providing regular feedback is essential in the hybrid workplace to ensure that team members are on track and achieving their goals. Leaders should establish a regular feedback schedule and be proactive in providing both positive feedback and constructive criticism.

Overall, effective leadership in the hybrid workplace requires a combination of clear communication, building trust, flexibility, embracing technology, and creating a culture of inclusivity. With these key aspects in mind, leaders can effectively manage and guide their teams and achieve their organisational goals regardless of where they work.

The leadership journey

Lisa Marie Platske lives on an 86 acre farm in Kentucky and from there runs her own leadership and development company where she offers corporate retreats and works with leaders individually and in groups. Her belief is that most people want health, happiness success and meaning in their lives and that the meaning comes from contribution and the desire to make a bigger difference.

People talk about the idea of ‘bigger than myself’ and originally Lisa’s journey was thinking that leadership was very much tactical - you hire, you fire, you work in culture and change. She recognised over time that leadership is a very personal journey. When one doesn't take that journey personally and it is simply about the tactical there is something missing. When you ask about where does this idea of meaning and making a difference in the other and the group comes from, for her it came when she was interviewing leaders and asking what it was they did to be successful. She thought at the time it was about the tactical but came to recognise that each of the leaders took the journey themselves around planning and understanding their personality and creating partnerships.

Lisa also believes that sense of the collective and almost feeling an emptiness when the focus is solely on the self comes from recognising that we are part of the greater fabric of humanity. We are the behaviours we engage in; in how we think and in the actions we take. When somebody engages in their own leadership journey and comes to this awareness, there is more conversation as people move up that hierarchy of basic needs once those are met.

Lisa developed the 7 Pillars of Leadership from the interviews she did with leaders. Her career had been in Federal law enforcement and she didn’t have any background in business. When she started doing the interviews she wanted a short cut in business. What do the best leaders do?  How do they do it? Can this shorten my learning curve? The 7 Pillars came from themes and all start with the letter Plan, Personality, Partnerships, Priority, Presence, Progress and Personal and Professional Development.

You can find out more about Lisa Marie at www.upsidethinkinking

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions. 

Executive loneliness. Overcoming isolation in the business world.

Nick Jonsson was born in Sweden but he left in the 1990’s because he wanted to learn English. He moved to Australia where he played golf professionally for a few years before moving to South East Asia where he has lived and worked since 2004.  Mainly working in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, Nick took on a number of MD roles leading large international companies.  After a while Nick realised he was quite lonely and he can now see he was isolated perhaps because he had ‘elbowed’ his way to the top, something many executives do. He changed his life, leaving the corporate world five years ago and now knows many other senior executives find themselves in an isolation trap.

Nick tried to balance the stresses of his working life by playing hard. Initially he did this through exercise but life had its ups and down and he was divorced in 2015.  This left him feeling even more isolated both at work and at home so it was natural that he wanted to go out and meet people. It was a lot easier to go to the bar instead of going to the gym and having a couple of drinks was OK in the short term but it became a bad habit. He stopped his gym membership and became a regular at the bar, which in turn became a downward spiral. He realised a change was needed but this was very slow. At the time his friends were happy to see he was out and about, it was good to see him enjoying himself, they were worried about him just exercising and being on his own. It felt natural and he didn’t realise it before it was too late. He put on a lot of weight, his health deteriorated, he had hypertension and high blood pressure. He was only 42 years old and was in poor health.

Then with the added stress of work it got to the point where he couldn't stop the drinking. He realised he was addicted. It had been secret and silent for a long time and he didn't want to admit he had an addiction and issues. He was at rock bottom but had to admit it to himself and to other people to get out of it. People had thought he was coping and didn't have a problem with drink and it's the same with loneliness. It seems as if everything is OK until you suddenly realise it’s a problem. Until you realise it's a problem you don't know its problem.

Once he was on his way to recovery, Nick wanted to know if he was the only one suffering in this way. He sent out a survey to other senior executives to find out how lonely they were in their roles. His first finding in 2019 was before the pandemic and showed that 30% of the senior executives he surveyed actually admitted they were suffering from loneliness in the workplace. He went back to the same group in 2020 during the pandemic and the figure had gone up to 59%. He was definitely not alone!

The senior executives Nick surveyed worked in the C-Suite in large multinationals based in Singapore. A number of them were European or American, working as regional directors in large companies so they were displaced from their home countries and often only had their immediate family with them. They needed a different type of support without knowing it.

Nick knew about the loneliness so the next question he asked then was whether this was something they would talk to HR or their boss to. The answer was that 84% wouldn't. The type of role they were in meant they were the people who needed to be seen as being the strongest and stereotypically not able to ask for help. Some people have external executive coaches but many people find it hard to trust internal bosses or HR so who did they turn to? When asked do you seek professional help 75% said no so they were coping by themselves. Nick feels that one of the few good things that came out of the was that psychologists and therapists could be seen online so people could start to reach out without being seen in a waiting room somewhere. Anonymity is there now so there has been some progress but people are still reluctant to talk about it and seem to deny it because the stigma is still there.

Many of these leaders are what Nick calls anxious over achievers like himself. He was not good at high school went overseas to study at university. Once he got a taste of winning scholarships and topping some classes he wanted to take it to the workplace.  What was important was getting to the top, getting power and getting promotions packages. What he saw when he conducted his interviews was that many were as anxious as he had been and thought the way to prove themselves was to achieve and get power in the company. There are many leaders walking around feeling very anxious.

Men tend to define themselves by their work about what they have rather than who they are. If the job is lonely then that's what you've striven for and your sense of achievement is linked to. The realisation that this can feel empty can have a real impact. Nick found that women tended to have a few close friends that they could be vulnerable with. They could share some of the challenges or issues facing them. If you are exposing yourself to a friend that friend will help and guide you but men often have good friends to play golf with, to have couple of drinks with or have a good time with.  Nick’s way of relaxing meant not bothering friends with issues he was having at work, rather it was something he left at the office. He went out and had a good time but then woke up in the middle of the night worrying about a problem that was still there in the morning. He was bad at having someone to talk to about his issues and it was the same with many of the executives he interviewed.

Men can be just as emotionally intelligent as long as they are skilled up to be but there may be a cultural thing around the acceptance that men shouldn’t talk to each other about difficult issues. The current generation breaking it down through and there is a new attitude. Some of this may come down to parenting. In Asia people are very quiet about what’s happening in their family and there is a lot of stigma about mental health and addictions generally.  People keep things to themselves a lot more than in the western world where we are speaking up a lot at the moment.

At work the leaders are often a parent substitute and need to create an adult culture where just deciding you don't like something isn’t OK because you still have to come to work and perform. If leaders are lonely they will find it hard to provide a positive adult culture with supportive mechanisms right through. Vulnerability has to start at the top. No one is going to knock the bosses door and open up about the issues or challenges they are facing if the leader has never been seen to be vulnerable. Why are we all so scared of admitting to others that we are going through a challenging time?

The world of work is changing and although styles of leadership before Covid weren’t working, they are still are being pursued. A new style of leadership may be needed going forward. Career limiting mistakes can drive leaders to loneliness. The easiest thing to do is make a mistake - it’s not about all the brilliant decisions you make, its how few bad decisions you make. This is what leads to the dumming down of the average.  It’s a sign of weakness to make a mistake. Admitting weakness is a sign that we are struggling and that is a mistake. We need to change that. If you have a leader who is lonely, ethical decisions start to be comprised as well because the leader becomes weaker.

There is some positive change though. In his own company Nick operates a fail fast policy so as soon as you make a small mistake people need to admit it and share it so everyone can learn from it. If there is a culture where people are comfortable sharing their mistakes and what they learned from it, people would not be so scared and mistakes will be dealt with and not be so costly. For example, in Nick’s company the marketing team have an additional budget called ‘Test and Trial’ which they can use to try new things so if it doesn't work out its ok and people learn from the exercise.

Nick’s networking organisation, Executives’ Global Network (EGN) Singapore providing more than 600 senior executives and business owners with a safe and confidential space where they can share their challenges, receive support, and learn from each other. It’s as if you have your own private advisory board or an external management team. You can put your problem on the table for the facilitators or moderators to discuss and the aim is that executives leave a session feeling the pressure has been lifted. Just talking can help because even if they don't get the answer, they get sympathy and support. It’s a shared experience. The perception that people at the top don't get lonely is a very dangerous one.

You can find out more about Nick at nickjonsson.com

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Approaching change

Joe Caruso is a leadership coach who advises CEOs and leadership teams to optimise what they do and how they do it to get what they what in the fastest most efficient way possible. Most of the time if we are left on our own, we do more and more things that are less and less important to the customer. We become lost on our own thoughts and it becomes hard to think objectively about ourselves.

Any time we define a problem, we’ve immediately defined all the solutions our mind can’t consider just by the definition we choose. This type of thinking usually requires a candid experience assessment and a candid exchange of ideas.

Joe feels we need to move away from problem orientated thinking to solution orientated thinking and be able to think back to what could this could be or what else could this mean. These are the kind of questions that once a CEO speaks and gives their definition, people it as gospel. People will tell you that they like change but don't change anything. We tend to become too static in a dynamic world especially in market places that are changing every day.

We’re changing all the time cognitively, mentally and emotionally so the problem is perhaps management practices. The process of being changed or managed through change. Change is a problem in itself but change by its very nature is something we are very good at. The problem is how we approach change. The way we define it is the problem. The last thing people or businesses want to do is change identity.

Any time we define anything in our external world we use ourselves as the foundational context. Who you are affects how you define something. We start with the mind and a simple question is who am I or what have I become. Everything starts with how we think. Narrative is the foundational understanding of who I am. The more we learn about our own narrative the more we can recognise the narrative of others.

It’s about creating a corporate culture based on a compelling narrative that allows us to make sense of the world.  The first thing you need to do to create compelling is Identity. Something that everybody can agree with. Who are we as a collective mind? What problem are we trying to solve? What is our process? A leadership team is the best of what their profession is. But that's not a team that's just the top of the different divisions in the organisation. There has to be a trust and candor where everyone is able to talk on all areas. The CEO job is not to create excellence, it’s to create an environment where excellence can thrive.

 Find out more about Joe at www.carusoleadership.com,

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Preparing the mind for difficult situations

Lt Col Brian L. Slade started as an enlisted man in the US Army as a diesel mechanic. After he got his commission as an officer he then stated flying Apache helicopters. Shortly after a very long and arduous deployment he decided to transition into the Air Force in an attempt to save his marriage.

His first deployment was for twenty-three months and he had only been married for five months prior to that so for the first two and a half years of the marriage they were separated for two. The problem is often not the separation but when you come back together again and military personnel who are dealing with potential trauma in a very strong comrade type team often find it very difficult to go back to a routine husband, wife and children environment.

Brian’s ex-wife had also had a mental disorder borderline personality disorder so the relationship was really tumultuous. In some ways it was more traumatic than some of the things he was being asked to do in the military because he wasn't as prepared for the dynamics. The military prepares you for certain dynamics that you are going to experience. You are used to a certain regimentation and interaction that didn't work with the relationship.

Brian’s book is about trauma and the reason he wrote it was because when he was deployed as an Apache pilot there were crazy, traumatic, intense experiences that he was exposed to. He started asking why would he experience post-traumatic growth rather than the post-traumatic stress we always hear about. He looked at his peers and although they had the same stimulus they had different results. Brian felt he had grown from his experiences and that they increased his resilience and his ability to see things as opportunities rather than obstacles that would drag him down. Other guys on the alternative end of the spectrum were thinking about taking their own lives - that's a very big spectrum for the same stimulus

Brian’s book outlines seven principles. Things like growing a healthy perspective, how do you do that when you experience things that pull you into a myopic perspective but need to maintain that macro perspective?  How do you build a healthy support system and what does that look like. What are we talking about when we say we need to release hate? That's a big one that we don't really talk about. There are a couple of meanings to it. When you are at war, when you have to kill someone it makes it easier to de-humanise them and make them into something they aren’t. Harboring a hate for them is a coping mechanism but it’s not a healthy one.

As well as releasing the hate for the enemy you have to release the hate for yourself. As we start doing the things that the ugliness of war calls for we start painting ourselves as ugly to, that that's part of who we are. You need to remember that just because you’re there doing things other people wouldn't do it doesn’t make you an ugly person - it makes you a proxy for the people who aren’t suited to doing it or cant do it.

This is similar to a disassociation technique and it plays back to one of the other principals of defining and embracing your honorable mission. Brian’s honorable mission wasn't really to get Osama bin Laden, that was what got him on the plane but realised his honorable mission was to make sure that as many of his brothers and sisters in arms made it back. You are going to do ugly things at times to make sure that your honorable mission is accomplished,

How do we avoid festering, emotional wounds? If you're a banker and go to work and you have a transaction or something happens that's interesting you go home and talk about it. It’s so much harder to do when your job is blowing up twelve people but the fact still remains that your honorable mission is to make sure the ground guys make it home safely. It’s harder to talk about it but that’s how you avoid the festering emotional wound. You just talk about it in a matter of fact way.

Building resilience is never ending. With an honorable mission there’s a beginning and end. There are moments of high adrenaline and then lots of time doing mundane things. The mission allows you to compartmentalise things. There is the focal point that we are looking at and around that are lots of ugly things but when we pull the trigger we have just completed our honorable mission. We know there is lots of auxiliary stuff in there but that stays there because you’re in the ugliness because of your honorable mission. You don't have to take that home with you. Part of that is sharing it. You share it as matter of factly as you possibly can. You use humor because it makes it easier to share. Brian realised humor was his stepping-stone to talking about it seriously. In a way it’s doing the same thing with hate – you’re coping but it’s a positive emotion for coping not a negative one. It's a lily pad to being able to talk about it.

Brian also uses chair flying which is an aviation technique. He added the meditation and role playing pieces to the visualisation aspect. A lot of people will struggle with anxiety if they are visulising a very stressful event so you control the environment through meditation and create a safe space where you plant the things you want to grow and get strong. Breathing exercises help to get in the right headspace and then start to visulise an emergency procedure.

One exercise has a co-pilot and engine getting shot out. In a matter of seconds you need to react to the rotors going down. The co- pilot is screaming in the background and you automatically think that's the first thing to deal with but in fact its number three on the list. The rotor is most important. The flight controls are jammed so that’s the second action then the co-pilot but it all needs to happen in one or two seconds. You don’t get through that by thinking about it. In the leadership world they practice so they get it right, in the military they practice so they don't get it wrong. Things do go wrong but the risk reduction is there. The noisy drama is not always the first thing to do!

You can find out more about Brian at https://www.clearedhot.info/ or find his book Cleared Hot.

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Leadership skills for the smartest person in the room

Christian Espinosa is an entrepreneur, a cyber security engineer, a certified high-performance coach, a professor, and a lover of heavy metal music and spicy food. He’s also an Air Force veteran and Ironman triathlete. Christian used to value being the “smartest guy in the room,” only to realise that his greatest contribution to the fight against cybercrime is his ability to bring awareness to the issue through effective communication and leadership training. Christian is a speaker, coach, and trainer in the secure methodology, helping to make the smartest people in the room the best leaders in the field.

Christian has spent almost 30 years in cyber security, initially in the military before forming his own company in 2014.  He found that most of the problems he had in his company were not because his staff lacked technical skills or processes, frameworks or procedures, it was because they didn't have people skills. He was hiring staff because of their technical aptitude and not looking at the cultural fit or their interpersonal skills and this opened him up to the problem or challenge that faced the whole industry. He realised that this was a recurring problem and one he needed to solve in his organisation - to bring back people skills to compliment his staffs already high IQ.

Christian feels that a lot of people want to proliferate the idea that if you are super smart, rationally smart with a super high IQ that you don't have any people skills. This idea has been tolerated for so long that it has become mainstream and acceptable but like any other skill it is something you can learn. A lot of people who are super high IQ will brag about how smart they are but, if you are super smart, you should be able to learn people skills. Somehow though they are resistant to this, perhaps because it is outside their comfort zone

When he looked back at his own career Christian realised he was trying to be smarter than other people. He realised that he was part of the problem and thought that if he could improve people skills or emotional intelligence it would help him go further in his career. Additionally, when you own your own business you have to also manage your team and use a different skill set than just hands on the keyboard. With your own business you need to be very practical, show empathy and insight, be able to explain and communicate and deal with conflict. These are often referred to as emotional intelligence or soft skills but they are not soft skills, they are fundamental to leadership.

Christian feels there should be a programme around developing leadership skills that tie into people skills and emotional intelligence.  A lot of companies will take their best engineers or technicians and promote them to a leadership position without giving them any training  - they assume that because they were good in a technical role they’ll be good in a leadership role.

They are however two dramatically different skillsets. If you are going to promote someone to a management or leadership role there should be a lot of training and awareness that just because someone is good as an operator it doesn't mean they'll be good as a leader.  Christian feels there is a difference between leadership and management. Leadership is about leading yourself first and then leading and influencing others to accomplish something whilst management is about keeping everything on track and less about influencing people.

There is also a feeling that as we skill leaders up to be more sensible and rounded, somehow their rational side diminishes as we improve one the other falls away.  In the past technical staff wouldn't want to take a leadership role because their technical skills would reduce and they would become obsolete. This needs to change. The technical skills will still be there because they maintain the high rational intelligence but they are just adding the people skills. You can pick up the technical skills again if you need to but if you add well developed people skills you will be an awesome leader because its rare for someone to have both skill sets

There has also been an idea that if you promote your best technical or sales person and put them into a management role, it’s somehow seen as a lesser career. Perhaps this is because those skills are more transferable or easier to acquire but you can always fall back into your technical side if management doesn’t work out but these things are massively important in themselves

Cultural, life and people skills and emotional intelligence has an infinite shelf life. Technical skills though have a finite shelf life because there will be new technology and updates. From a investment of time perspective, it makes more sense to learn skills that are always going to be applicable in a broader spectrum, skills that will help you across everything otherwise you are pigeon holing yourself into one specific thing.  If you develop people skills then they will applicable for the rest of your life. Dealing with conflict or having crucial conversations will be situations that will play out for the rest of your life. That’s why they have an infinite shelf life. If you get better at a specific cyber security tool or a specific technical aspect at some point that thing will change and the skill set become obsolete.

The first thing Christian learned about emotional intelligence was the awareness that he was part of the problem. We all want to be understood, appreciated and significant and in the past he felt significant by knowing more, being faster and by achieving more but he realised once he had the awareness that he was causing conflict with relationships by always trying to outdo somebody. He was never able to belong to anything because he was always trying to achieve more than everybody else. Reflecting back on his own journey was pretty sobering but he now has awareness but the awareness needs to be actionable or it doesn't really matter – knowledge is not power unless you can do something with it.

We all have unique skill sets and the goal of a leader is to work harmoniously with those skills. A lot of this requires a baseline level in people skills. We don't need to develop everybody to the maximum but if you are going to collaborate, communicate and deal with conflict it helps if we have some tools especially if someone isn’t used to having these sort of conversations. If we can communicate effectively, we are working on the solutions to the challenges, which in turn help the overall organisation.

Christian’s book ‘The Smartest Person in the Room’ is available here or you can find out more able Christian at https://christianespinosa.com/

  You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.
 

The positive side of conflict

The word “conflict,” generally conjures up negative associations. It’s seen as hostile, frustrating, negative and uncomfortable with a “win or lose” outcome. Many people fear it, seeing it as something to avoid when in fact it’s a normal and natural part of our lives which, when handled correctly, can be very beneficial.

In the workplace conflict is almost inevitable when people with different goals, opinions, and attitudes work together. Feelings of insecurity, clashes of personality, misunderstandings, breakdowns in communication and competition for limited resources will all emerge in an environment where people care about the outcome. But whatever the reason for it, a sharing of differing viewpoints shows an organisation that has diversity, innovation and risk at its core and a vibrant culture where people are actively interested.

Unresolved though, conflict can quickly escalate and lead to the disintegration of relationships and teamwork, the removal of goodwill and the loss of areas of common ground or agreement. There is also a detrimental financial effect with increased costs in employee turnover, time wastage, increased absenteeism and health or stress-related claims.

Conflict needs to be resolved but it needs to be dealt with so the passion people feel about their work is harnessed and the work environment remains vibrant and healthy. Management fear and a lack of skills in this area means many managers are more focused on avoiding conflict rather than the benefits it can bring. The key to unlock this is to empower managers to see conflict as a core part of a vibrant culture and give them the skills and support needed to recognise and address potential conflict and then to positively manage it.

Handled correctly in the right setting, conflict can be very beneficial and produce new and creative solutions, improved teamwork and a better understanding of the situation and the people involved. There are definitely positive outcomes from conflict - it’s just a case of learning to manage it and harness its potential.

The Role of Psychological Safety

Stephan Wiedner is a psychological safety expert whose career has focused on developing sustainable high performance leaders, teams, and organisations.

Stephen’s interest in psychological safety spans twenty years and is based around his interest in psychology, technology and how to bring them together to help people live fulfilling lives and make teams and organisations more sustainable and effective over time.

Psychological safety is also important in schools as well. They are workplaces and places where its important for people to speak up because you want different opinions to be shared and debate and discussion to expand learning and knowledge. Reportedly there is currently an agenda to close down free speech and remove the ability to debate and disagree to protect us from ourselves. People often don’t realise that psychological safety isn’t about not talking about things - it’s about being safe to talk in a way that is acceptable to everybody.

The definition of psychological safety used by Stephen is from Amy Edmondson – ‘that psychological safety is a belief that you can share ideas concerns, mistakes etc within the work environment without the fear of reprimand’. That gives a subtle distinction that is critical and informed because its happening all the time. We’re constantly trying to manage our reputations and will refrain from speaking up because we don't want to look as if we’re going against the grain or by asking a question that we fear will make us look ‘stupid’. We are constantly protecting ourselves by withholding information.

There is a difference between explicit criticism and an inferred or implied reprimand. This is one of the challenges because we need resilient people and organisations who are able to have adult conversations where conflict creates the diversity you need to get innovation and energy flowing. Sometimes the organisation takes the rap for having people who aren’t resilient enough to have these types of conversations.

When we think about these challenging conversations our desire is to move towards politeness. Where there is a rupture within a team or where people don't necessarily agree, there is often a tension to get to a place where it is a little less uncomfortable, where it’s ‘nice’. We need to move not to ‘nice’ but to a place where we can generate fresh and new ideas, where we can have discussions that move the organisation, the team or a group of individuals to a new place, a new solution or a new way of doing things. This is what psychological safety is facilitating. It’s learning within a group environment - that is how we overcome any change in the world

The research Stephen is involved in shows that psychological safety is built on respect. The area he is focusing on is that of interpersonal skills - what are the specific interpersonal that lead to psychological safety within a team. Respect is very high on the list as is empathy and the desire or willingness to put yourself in someone else's shoes.  To start to consider how other people are looking at the world needs a certain level of curiosity and from a leader or manager and is also a demonstration of respect.

Respect is perhaps something we have forgotten how to do. There is a focus on self-care, self-respect, self-organisation and self-awareness and the Mecentric culture means we have forgotten how to collaborate well. The constant push for connection online is a completely different form of communication to that in the past and the immediate and long-term impact isn’t really known. A lot virtual relationships seem to be rather tenuous and seemingly not built on a sold foundation of respect or care but on transaction through the sharing a mutual dopamine hit so are they that meaningful?

Psychological safety is a very powerful thing but people can mistake it. It isn’t about agreeing. There is a need to foster psychological safety by getting peoples opinions and sharing what’s going on but leaders and managers some leaders seem to think that by asking you need to agree. What psychological safety is about is having the courage to speak up and the confidence that you know you’ll be heard. It's the job of the leader to give the confidence that they will be heard and listen to their input but it's the leader that still needs to make the decisions.

In high performance teams there is pressure and it doesn't always feel rosy and can be uncomfortable especially when people provide competing ideas. It’s fast moving, rigorous and challenging, an environment for growth, development and expansion on what exists. It’s all about an adult culture - treating people as adults and expecting to be treated as an adult. People can say what needs to be said because no-one is treating you like a child, patronising or over-parenting you. It’s about establishing an adult contract between people.

Stephen feels that in order to really be able to speak up you need to have the courage to have that conversation – to be disagreeable or to give critical feedback and have what it takes to get the words out. It might feel challenging but if you flip the script it’s not about being disagreeable, its about being respectful. You provide the opportunity to improve, to hear the feedback and action it.  Some leaders feel they are babysitting people at work, they feel it’s their job but don't realise the correlation between the way their team performs and their actions.

Stephen’s research project is looking at the interpersonal skills of leaders and psychological safety - that leaders who naturally possess these interpersonal skills will foster psychological safety and an environment where people can be more adult-like and contribute and communicate in a way that moves the organisation forward. He calls this Management Faciliative Interpersonal Skills. The starting point is to assess leaders and managers interpersonal skills then, through training and development, these skills can be improved.  Because these skills can be identified they can be made more tangible. Interpersonal skills are often described as soft skills but because they can be identified they can be assessed and then improved and measured through deliberate practice.

You can find out more about Stephen at zarango  A free psychological safety assessment for a team at zarango/freepsi

Stephens research study is about measuring the psychological safety of a team and the interpersonal skills of the leader of that team. If you are interested in volunteering to participate in the study please go to the Zarango contact page.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

From ladder to leader

Ryan Larson has been a fire fighter for 21 years for the city of Phoenix. When he left high school he didn’t really know what to do with his life so he joined the fire explorer programme. He now feels that not only did it introduce him to the fire service, it also helped to mold him into being a good citizen and human being. Ryan had had some issues when he was growing up. His upbringing had been pretty tough and he wasn’t the best kid .He got involved in street fights but the fire explorer programme helped him to develop into a good leader and a good advocate and voice for his clients in his second career, the financial service sector,

In the emergency services sector people often talk about the physical requirements, the structure, the sense of clarity and knowing what you have to do and your role. But you also have to use your brain. Being a firefighter isn’t just about running into a burning building, it’s about knowing your environment, knowing the structure and what you’re going into. You’re trained to use all your senses  - if you go up to a door and its really hot your senses tell you not to go through it so you have to change tactics. It develops you into someone who is able to use their skills to see the dangers. You’re planning, plotting, analysing and doing major risk management in your head as you walk through a building.

There are other skills the fire service provides in terms of being a leader. Getting out into the community and speaking about fire safety needs good communication skills. When Ryan started out as a young firefighter he didn't have these skills. He had struggled at school and the fire service helped him to articulate his words in both his professional and personal life.

As a firefighter you see a lot. On average there are 10- 15 calls per shift. You can be up all night, suffer from sleep deprivation and then when you come home you have to take care of your family and maybe juggle another career. There is the mental aspect of ‘how do I cope with things’. You can’t just tuck everything under the bed. When you see a lot of traumatic things over the years you can become a little desensitized but you need to talk to people because if you don't lower the wall you put up and show your true feeling that's where the mental struggle is going to happen. You need to talk to people. You see a lot of stuff and you need to share it. If you don't share it you lock it away and then you become a little bitter or angry. As a firefighter you see the worst of people sometimes as well as the best.

Nowadays there is a big push about sharing your feelings but this works differently for men. They talk about things in a different way – when Ryan is talking to his workmates they sometimes use dark humour to get them through sensitive issues. Making fun of things becomes a coping mechanism. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect them, it hurts to see people in their worst moments but you have to have some sort of dialogue. Many conversations take place at the table and are very intimate but they don't go outside the walls. You need to bring some light heartedness to the profession because it’s such a stressful profession especially in these days where a lot of things are going on in the world.

Many firefighters have a second income because being a firefighter does not pay enough.  They make a modest income but there a stability in the fire department with a guaranteed income coming in every two weeks and a pension that be accessed after twenty years service. Even so a lot of firefighters have side hustles because ultimately they are hard workers and just want to supplement living expenses and their lifestyle with more money.

It makes sense to transition into second career whilst you are still involved in your first career – it’s sensible to be getting started earlier rather than later. Ryan took the decision to move into the financial services area – moving from one of the most respected careers to one of the most disliked. Ryan realises there is a shadow over the financial world, that some salespeople are looking out for their best interest rather than their clients. Ryan had always looked after his own investments so his plan was always to exit the fire service and move into the financial sector. Initially he had conversations with his co-workers about his own investments and they became interested and started to ask him to look at their finances so he always had a lot of people watching him. He wasn't your typical salesman who comes in and sells you a mutual fund and then walks out the door and collects the fees. Had an obligation to accumulate their wealth so they could achieve their goals.

Ryan’s started writing his book in 2020 during the pandemic. He wanted to share his story of being resilient and the steps he took to achieve his goals. He hadn’t been a good student but that didn’t limit him from achieving all his goals.

You can find out more about Ryan at http://www.laddertoleaderbook.com where you also find his book Ladder to Leader: My Journey from Failure to Fire to Financial Freedom

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Lean in and learn. Finding the purpose to change.

David Richman is an author, public speaker, philanthropist and endurance athlete whose mission is to form more meaningful human connections through storytelling. He wrote Cycle of Lives, which shares the interconnected stories of people overcoming trauma and delves deeply into their emotional journeys with cancer.

David was on a quest to try to find out from real life experiences what are some of the difficulties people are encountering, how they navigate those conversations and what we can learn from them and bring to our own lives. He found that when many people try to navigate the emotional facets of the journey, they are not well equipped to have hard conversations or have deep authentic connections with people even their closet loved ones.

When David was at a super low point in life in his mid to late 30’s. He was overweight, a smoker, miserable, stressed and in an abusive marriage with an alcoholic wife.  He was also the father of four-year old twins. It was a destructive lifestyle going nowhere when he got the news about his sister ‘s terminal cancer diagnosis. He realised he had chance to change his life and live for the better but his is sister didn’t.

It wasn’t that easy to make changes. It was tough especially as he set out to find answers without little context – you can hear something fifty times but its not until you hear it the fifty-first that you get it. David heard his inside and outside voice as well as other people telling him that he needed to stop trying to find people to fix and to create problems to get out making changes. He knew he had no self-awareness or self care but he was aware of who he was and didn't like it. He saw himself for the first time and then he saw himself in reflection to his sister and their potential journeys. He had choices but she didn’t.

Someone then said something to him that didn’t make the transformation any easier but it did make the realisation that he had a lot of work to do easier. He was at a low point in his life, complaining about being tired, angry and having to watch his sister die. A friend told him that he’d been listening to him complaining for years and that he should look in the mirror and fix himself, that he needed to realise he was the problem not everyone else. It didn't make it easy but it opened his eyes about what he had to do and that he had to do it fast. The fact he needed to do it fast helped. He felt he didn’t have that much time and he wanted to live on purpose, to see himself for who he really was, to free his mind and forgive himself for his bad choices, the wasted time and the problems he had created. He wanted to lean in and learn. 

He didn't know what a sense of purpose was but he wanted to figure it out. He knew he was a good dad and a hard worker but what gave him purpose was to be present, to be in each moment, to spend time, make a choice that you want and are aware of and be open minded so you can live on purpose. You need to free your mind and let it go. This is your day one now so what can I lean in and learn?  David started with athletics – if he started by becoming healthy where would that lead him? What it led David to do was athletics, triathlons, ironman, 100-mile runs and a 5000-mile bike run. It has given him a lot of focus and purpose and helped solve problems that have crossed over into other areas of life.

In his book, Winning in the Middle of the Pack, he discusses how to get more out of ourselves than we ever imagined. Many people spend too much time thinking about winning or leading or being the best. Sometimes its enough to be yourself and be in the middle of the pack and make the best of yourself rather than being the best of the best or the best against anyone else. There are a lot of people who grow up looking for approval, thinking that other people see them in a different way or do they do things to please people because they think that’s who they need to be. When you think of people at the top such as Roger Federer they don't really care about what anybody thinks they care about what they think. They aren’t driven by outward approval they are driven by what they want to achieve. 

If you’re in the middle of the pack nobody is watching or cares because they are more focused on their own stuff. The only thing that matters is that you care and that you’re doing the best that you can do and that you make good choices – the only one who cares is the one you look at in the mirror.  

David is now leading very moving and transformative Expressive Writing Workshops geared towards people affected by all manner of trauma. He combines traditional expressive writing techniques with elements of both narrative and creative writing so that the participants will be well equipped to continue their expressive writing practices well beyond the workshops. Mental health is such an important topic and David brings his passion, skills, and unique approach to help people connect with their emotions in a whole new way and begin a healing journey.

You can find out more about David at https://david-richman.com/

In his book Winning in the Middle of the Pack, David discusses how to get more out of ourselves than ever imagined and in Cycle of Lives, he shares the interconnected stories of people overcoming trauma and delves deeply into their emotional journeys with cancer.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions. 

Afraid of change?

Generally, when leaders want to introduce radical change to their organisation, it’s to respond to new threats or opportunities. Large numbers of business transformations still fail though and, although many reasons can be put forward for these failures, one of the major ones is simply a fear of change.

The possibility of change can create a huge amount of uncertainty for the people who are going to be affected. They are taking a leap into the unknown with no certainty that the grass will be greener on the other side. They aren’t sure they will still have a job or that their existing skills will still be needed. This can make people anxious and even question the entire purpose of the organisation.

The reality is that most people find it easier and safer to stay exactly where they are and intentionally or unintentionally resist change. Leaders therefore need to ensure there is transparency and that the change is communicated widely, frequently and to as many people as possible. If conditions of safety and trust are created and the resources needed to cope with any uncertainty provided, employees will feel supported, the fear of change minimised and the change itself embraced by more people.

No matter how extensive the consultation and communication strategy is there will always be some level of uncertainty but developing a relationship of trust can provide employees with the resources to help them cope during times of uncertainty.

Feedback – why leaders need it

The ability to give and receive feedback is an important part of the leadership role. Today’s fast-changing and challenging workplace with its competitive labour market means its not only important that employees use it to get help in their development, but also that their leaders get the feedback they need to continue to grow in their role.  Some large organisations such as Amazon and Google are even using regular anonymised employee feedback surveys to ask employees for feedback on their managers’ style and performance!

Many employees though are often reluctant to criticise their leaders because they fear repercussions but if leaders are not aware of issues within the organisation it can damage employee engagement and productivity.

The idea that somehow leaders aren’t meeting employee expectations can be damaging to the ego and at times will be even be unwarranted but its essential that criticism isn’t taken as being personal. Input from colleagues can help in building a constructive plan to move forward and identify any weaknesses that can be improved

Feedback is a skill that needs to be developed. If leaders are open to it and act on it, feedback can help to create a healthy work environment with increased transparency, improved productivity and engagement and better results through the adaptation of new knowledge and skills. It can also help managers improve and grow as much as their employees.

Growing a business to give back. Critical lessons in love and leadership.

Revanti “Rani” Puranik is co-owner, EVP and Incoming CEO of Houston-based Worldwide Oilfield Machine (WOM). Over 15 years ago, she joined WOM, an oil and gas equipment manufacturing firm, and has since implemented the framework for communication standardisation operations and business development. As a result of these frameworks, the company grew to more than $350 million in annual revenue. Rani has been named one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Women in Energy 2022” by Oil and Gas Investor and Hart Energy.

Rani grew up in Houston, Texas for the first nineteen years of her life. For the next nineteen she lived in Pune, India were she founded and ran a dance company for leadership and empowerment. In 2007 she moved back to Houston where she joined WOM and in 2014 she graduated with a MBNA in Finance from Rice University. In 2016 she became the global Global CFO at WOM before becoming the incoming CEO. A different part of her life is that she is the Chair for her family foundation. The Puranik Foundation operates a residential school in Pune India for under-resourced children with 250 children currently living on campus. Three generations of Rani’s family are involved with the foundation, her mother who set it up, Rani who is very active in multiple programmes across the globe and Rani’s eldest daughter who is the managing director for all of the US based foundation projects. Rani also has a third hat, with her first book due to be published in November 2022.

The oil industry is still heavily male dominated so Rani has needed to be resilient.  She feels that there have been a number of women ahead of her who paved the way and allowed her to be stronger in the business. She also believes that the industry goes beyond gender and is more about merit. If we show up as human beings, are dedicated, committed, understand our skills and talent, are open minded and able to collaborate with a variety of people it goes beyond what your gender is. When people start to look at you in a meritocracy you are taken forward and that is what has helped her to stand her ground.

There a lot of women in senior positions who feel they are more talented than their male colleagues because they've had to fight twice as hard to get where they want to be. Rani would give these voices credit because they have had to fight a little harder, been stronger, showed up a bit more, been more resilient and had to give the benefit of the doubt. It has happened in the oil industry but it is easing up a little bit and Rani has seen a change with a push towards hard work and merit.

Rani’s family has always had an ‘earn and return’ philosophy. WOM was started by father and he was always focused on business growth but her mother is more about what can we give back to society. Rani can understand the views of both parents and the way she sees is that we are not immortal. With that in mind she is building and growing the business to really give back. The goal for the next five years is to be a $1 bn company but in tandem with that is the life goal – the company wants to positively impact one billion lives around the world. This is more than a company philosophy, its the culture and fabric of who they are as a company and team.

By wrapping meaning into the working day people can see that they are there to achieve not only a financial goal but that they also have a goal of purpose. When things get tough you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Their customers are not just clients who pay - they are every life they can touch. This can be the lives of people working in the company though employee programmes and benefits or the career ladder but also by impacting positively and making life better for the end customer. What keeps the company going is innovation and efficiency. If they can bring the overall coast down that gets handed over to the customer so their expenses come down and the end user eventually gains the benefit.

The company is also very clear on its impact on the environment. They do provide equipment to drill for oil and gas but use technology to minimise the disposal, the materials used and the overall harm to the environment. In operations they consider the people out on the fields to make their life safer, better and easier as well as produce at a more economical rate. Their philosophy is about people.

The nature of business is to innovate and many businesses in the sector are getting into more renewable alternative energy. At WOM they consider themselves to be a vertically integrated manufacturing company with their core competences being in bending and molding steel with very specialised coating processes. They are primarily an engineering and manufacturing company who can cater for any heavy industry requirements out in the field, for example rail, defence or shipbuilding, so that is the type of expansion they are looking at in addition to renewables.

Being the founder and CEO of a dance company in India and now CEO of a multinational, Rani has realised there are 4 stages to leadership.  Stage 1 is listening, Stage 2 is acting as the bridge, Stage 3 is providing inspiration and Stage 4 is letting go, which Rani feels is the best part of leadership. Employees have gone through the different stages and now have the inspiration, confidence, and know how to lead.

The idea of legacy is important to Rani. This hit her when she lost her brother in 2018. He was 8 years younger than her and his sudden passing made her realise that we are not immortal.  She feels that if she can make conscious and mindful decisions today she will have the potential to make the next life better and her efforts will pass on from one life to the next. To Rani the effort and intension of making a life better are a legacy. This can be linked to her creation of meaning. When things get tough there is a sense of purpose and legacy in both the organisation and the foundation.

People often see large companies with huge resources and wealth but whether it’s in good times or bad, Rani feels we are all just stewards. She has always been spiritually inclined and has looked for a larger purpose and meaning in life. This isn’t just because she is part of a big family business but because she feels very responsible and that has made her look for that meaning. There are always situations when we have to dig in our heels, stay determined and keep going but there are also times when we have to surrender and say I’m not in control here. Not everything goes our way and that's when it clicks and you realise you are just a steward, a bridge to connect one generation to the next. If you give your best then everything else will come together and when you give with a good heart in some shape or form it does come back.

Rani’s book Seven Letters to My Daughters (Morgan James Publishing, Fall 2022), pulls together different threads and strands of her life. The motivation to write it came from her girls who said she should write her story so her message can become her legacy. She dug into the science of ourselves and found that conceptually we regenerate ourselves every seven years so as human beings we are new people every seven years. She wrote a letter for every 7 years and each contains a critical lesson of love and how to lead. What is it to be a leader How do you lead? What does legacy mean and how do you build that? They are things she believes has made her successful, satisfied and peaceful in this day and age.

For more information, please visit https://ranipuranik6.wpengine.com/

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions.

Are you connected?

In today’s turbulent business world, an organisation needs to be adaptive, agile and resilient. It needs to be able to build change, structural resilience and process improvement. In short, it needs a resilient culture.

To achieve this, leaders need to be connected to their teams and to their organisation to drive maximum resiliency. When team members work together, they can solve problems, rise above setbacks, provide innovative and agile solutions and draw strength from each other. They understand their place in the organisation, have the confidence that they know where the organisation is headed and understand how they and their role contributes to its overall success.

If employees take care of their physical, mental and emotional needs so they don't suffer from stress, the organisation benefits through improved productivity, job performance, staff retention, engagement and reduced absence.

Building a resilient culture will result in trust, accountability and flexibility. It will also enable an organisation be better placed to deal with change, so when a crisis or disruption hits, they are better able to adapt and pull through.

How resilient is the culture of your organisation?

A practical approach to leadership. The Zen Executive

Jim Blake is the CEO of Unity World Headquarters, a spiritual, non-denomination, non-profit founded in 1889 in Kansas City, Missouri. It helps people of all faiths and cultures apply positive spiritual principles in their daily lives. He had previously held numerous executive positions in the corporate world, including as Director of Customer Operations for Landis+Gyr, a global leader in the utility industry, and Vice President of Products and Technology for Rhythm Engineering.

Jim is based in Missouri which is known for its weather threats including tornado’s and recently the state has been experiencing 95 - 100 degree heat. There is an on-going threat from nature whether its fire, snow or storms and you need resilience to deal with these sudden changes in weather. Part of being resilient is acceptance of where you are and what may or may not happen. Establishing the proper mind set for being prepared is important, as preparation is the key to eliminating fear. If we accept the risks and prepare properly then you can reduce the fear and anxiety that might come with threats from the weather and from anything else.

Acceptance is a vital skill of understanding. Taking the stoic approach when things happen - what you do about them is the thing that makes the difference. Some people come out of adverse events well whilst others are completely defined by it, sometimes for the rest of their life. Acceptance is also an important part of healing. Our emotional posture and thoughts about these things dictate our experience of it. Something happens in your life and its how you handle that through your thoughts and emotions that determines your experience of that event. Accept and move though it and you’ll still have the rest of the day to be fine or hold on to it and let it impact your decision-making and how you interact with people for the rest of the day. It’s an important self-awareness skill.

Jim’s undergraduate degree was in IT coding but although he enjoyed it he found it to be isolating. In the early 1990s IT companies were moving away from main frames and mid ranges to PCs. With new devices and the Internet coming on line Jim took the opportunity to move into network communications. It was more social and more big picture and so he took his career in that direction. Since then he has led teams in general IT, application support, coding and network development until in 2016 he joined Unity World Headquarters as CEO.

Leading a non-profit is a very complex role perhaps more so than a commercial organisation. Jim’s background in programming and project management work formed a great base and he had learned huge amount from the leading global organisations he had worked in. The main things he had taken away were their commitment to innovation, their dedication to new product development and their focus on bringing on talent. That innovation served him well at Unity and gave him a really powerful way to use his experience and apply a whole new set of thinking in how it does it does its work.

Unity sits under an umbrella of teachings called new thoughts from the late 1800’s. These ancient principals that were mainly taken from the east and are traditions based on spiritual principals related to emotions, thoughts and how these create the experience you have as your life unfolds.  All of these new thoughts, areas or traditions work on a practical level not as a lot of dogma. Unity didn’t want to be classified as a religious organisation because it wanted it’s teaching to continue to evolve over time. Through its website it provides a lot of resources that are practical with sections on healing, grief, addiction and other everyday problems but looking at them from a spiritual perspective that takes its truths from all of the major traditions from the east.

Jim’s book, The Zen Executive, is based on the experiences he had during his corporate career. The first section is about self care - getting in touch with how your feelings and emotions impact your experiences and why and how you can better care for yourself. The better we do this in mind body and spirit, the better we perform and the better we show up.  When we show up stressed and angry, it affects our decision- making and the relationships around us.

The second part of the book is about the intersection between business and life and the practices that make people feel that they cannot combine their spiritual and work lives. Jim feels they can be combined so you can bring your whole self to work. The last part is about leadership and understanding leadership from a new perspective so you bring compassion, empathy and wellbeing for yourself and those you serve with to bear. There is the idea that you cant be good to people and that you have to treat them with fear intimidation, command and control. Jim thinks that if you do it the other way the results are even better. When a person feels safe, heard and appreciated, they are far more productive than if they are in fear and stress around their work.

Some people confuse the message about being safe, heard and appreciated as being soft, woolly and non-accountable but those things are not true. People still need to be measured, to show they are doing a good job. They need to be encouraged and have their potential understood and maximised. Leadership is not just about letting people run riot. One of the major points in the book is that you can still hold people accountable but that you can do it in a way with compassion, respect and transparency so you bring out the best in their performance. People know when they are doing a good job and what they are capable of so it's the job of the leader to hold a lens up and say ‘you’re doing this and that's great but you could be doing more’. Some people find this threatening, challenging, bullying or patronising. That's their choice. The job of the leader is to see the potential and then help their employees to see it to.

Jim feels we need to bring our whole self to work and advocates that some of the things we do at work are in alignment with things that exist in our spiritual life such as compassion, empathy and deep listening. The idea that work just has to be work and that `I can t bring some of what I believe in terms of my own spirituality’. You don't have to put it on blast but Jim suggests we can bring a spiritual approach to our work and posture of service to what are doing and how we are doing it. We don't need to share the reasons and motivations that inspire us with everyone but we don't need to exclude them from the workplace either. Jim feels the way to do this is to bring the same spiritual posture we feel in our most comfortable setting to the office in how we treat people how we approach our work and how we endeavour to inspire others. By finding the why and then giving context you understand the meaning of the work you’re doing. You are linking work to meaning.

You can learn more about Jim at www.1amjimblake.com where there are details about his book “The Zen Executive”. You can find out more about Unity at http://www.uinty.org

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