Henry Kimsey-House today discusses Leader on top vs Leader in front. Henry co-founded the world-renowned Coaches Training Institute (CTI) which has trained more than 50,000 people. He is also the lead designer of the thought-provoking Co-Active Leadership Model. Henry shares what a leader on top is, how to stop being one, and how to become a leader in front. What is Henry’s definition of leader on top? [1:09] Leader on top is the command-and-control, traditional, hierarchical leader. When most people think of a leader, they think of someone who is separated from everybody else and, once they’re in that position, must continuously show up as the one in control. It’s where most of our leaders are these days. The paradigm shift that we’re moving towards is moving leaders on top to leaders in front. Leaders in front learn how to hold a vision, see the distance between themselves and the vision, see the chaos that is in the way, and find a pattern through that chaos. “It’s not about commanding and controlling, it’s about holding a powerful vision and being connected to the people that you are moving towards that vision.” Once you start trying to control something, it becomes more ego-related than purpose-related; you have to play it safe, which causes you to avoid risks. Playing it safe and not stating what we think may be good for the organization will cost a lot of time, energy, and money.  What are some other limitations that Henry sees with a leader on top? [5:27] Usually there are personal, internal limitations. They start not knowing who they are or what they’re about anymore. They’re going after something that is no longer related to themselves. Another limitation is that they live their life in reaction. They control or manage things based on what they already know, and they’re not able to access the part of them that allows them to step into the unknown with courage.“If we are living soullessly at work, it’s going to show up in other areas of our lives. Who are we if we’re not living our life on our own edges, and looking off those edges to the next place?” What do people need to do to start leading from the front? [8:37] The two things that Henry would want any leader to start working on are:Having a really clear vision based on your purpose and who you are. Not just a goal, but something that’s coming from your heart.Bringing the people to the vision. In order to bring those people to the vision, you need to connect with them through your heart as opposed to just managing them. What’s your take on vulnerability and opening up? [11:57] Vulnerability means exposing the truth of yourself and your emotions.A lot of the time, people think vulnerability means crying but it doesn’t. It’s about letting people in. You are more powerful the more you can expose the truth of yourself.The first moment of vulnerability feels very unsafe. After you revel the truth of yourself to others, what inevitably happens is that such a powerful connection occurs that they pay attention to you in a way that they never have before.  “We build walls between ourselves and others. The more walls we build, the more alone we are.” How do you allow light to come into this dark place? [14:55] Henry says people need to ask for help. When you’re in a place of feeling like you have to be perfect, the last thing you think you can do is ask for help. You view it as a sign of weakness. But rather, it’s more like opening a door and saying, “come in, join me, let’s connect.” You need to be open to different kinds of help. Don’t create an expectation that it has to be an exact kind of help. That will prevent you from receiving any help at all. I have learnt that I have been wrong in not asking for help sometimes and I have learned to both show the way and connect with people. [19:50] Henry says that doing both is the courage of leading from the front. The word “courage” really relates to leader in front. The definition of “courage” that Henry loves is “throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow.” You need to “throw your heart over the fence” in the name of connection and vision. The bizarre paradox of it all is that leaders have no idea how to get to their vision, yet they must courageously tell people that they will all get to that vision with passion and clarity. The people also might now know if the leader knows how to get to that vision, but they are along for the ride; they are so excited to see if the leader and them can make it all happen. Henry, What is the best tip you can give to help people become a leader in front? [23:52] Open your heart and connect with people and get a crystal-clear vision. Don’t worry about the plan, just figure out where you’re headed. Keep growing your consciousness and stay awake to the wold. 

 In this episode we welcome Robin Coghlan, Head of Operations at Coaches Training Institute. He loves helping people in making better decisions and is here today to talk about conditional decision making. Robin also tells us about the system he uses to determine his clients’ conditions and how we can utilize it ourselves.What is a conditioned decision maker? It’s based on the idea that human beings are highly susceptible to influences from our environment and, therefore, the decisions we make are not always in alignment with what’s correct for us. Some people are more susceptible to certain condition than others. Every human that is interested in self-development wants to understand this about themselves because we are that conditioning force. We can put more attention on areas that we are more susceptible to.Robin works with clients on determining their susceptibility to certain conditions. He then explores those conditions with the client to see how they show up in the client’s life.“Just because of one conditioning factor, you could end up somewhere thinking ‘I’m not happy where I am.’”What is an example that someone can face due to their conditioning? Two behavioral tendencies of Robin are:Not knowing when enough is enough.Always rushing to free oneself of pressure.Those two things are separate, but you can see how they play together. The pressure Robin feels from his environment is immense, and that is fundamentally hardwired into his design. Because he is aware of this, he can feel it happening day-to-day and then gets to choose. He can recognize it and then tell himself that he doesn’t have to rush, but rather pause and let the pressure rub off him. He can also form agreements with friends, family, and colleagues that help him validate when enough is enough. “If you do not face this and understand it, where this leads eventually is burnout.” You may think this is common for everyone, and while that is a huge conditioning factor in our world, some people are better adept to working to that pressure than others. ‘We’re not yet fully aware of the intriguing uniqueness of individuals, and this is what I love about the system that I work with. It really points, in such detail, to the uniqueness of the individual.” How do you know what people are conditioned to?Over Robin’s years of experience doing many versions of personality tests, he has begun to see issues with any system that asks him to answer questions to be able to tell him who he is. He does not trust that he is always connected with what is most correct for him. “If I have a conditioning element, the answers I’m giving in to any system are going to mirror back a report of my conditioning.” The system Robin prefers is called Human Design. It’s based on birth data (specifically time of birth) and is a science of differentiation. What Robin has come to appreciate, through years of skepticism, is that he doesn’t get to choose what happened at his time of birth. There are energetic systems in our world, and this system speaks to that. Humans are complex, and this system has revealed things that Robin has not come across anywhere else. How did Robin choose a path of less resistance and what does he suggest for our listeners? If the resistance is so strong, then you’re going to be striving so hard for an outcome that is just not correct for you. To live a life of less resistance:Become deeply self-aware.Develop a community of friends and colleagues to support you on your journey.Design into your life the discipline and courage to say “no, that’s not correct for me.” For example, Robin believes based on everything he has learned that he does not belong in a typical two-person relationship for life. He has had to accept that he can’t be in one. This doesn’t mean he needs some crazy open relationship, but his complex knowledge has shown him that relationships are not for him. “People who want to talk to me about it come with this conditioned script about ‘what’s wrong with you that you can’t hold a relationship? It’s not right. You’re going to be alone. You need someone in your life.’ That is the most common conditioning in our world. That’s just so not true for me. It takes courage to stand up to that, take action, and design your life appropriately.” What’s a tip Robin can give to help people break free from conditioning? Find out your birth time, that’s usually the most difficult thing to find. Then, you can go to https://www.humandesign.info/and receive your chart for free. Regardless of what impact this has had on you, just be curious. We need to devote curiosity and self-compassion to look at the patterns in our lives to transcend them.

 Monique Valcour joins us for this episode. She is an executive coach, a management professor, and a frequent contributor of Harvard Business Review. Monique discusses what burnout is, the symptoms it brings, the effects it has on an organization, and how to prevent it.What is burnout and how does it manifest itself?Burnout is an occupational stress syndrome that consists of three primary categories of symptoms:Exhaustion: feeling that you just don’t have any more to give and drained.Cynicism: a loss of meaning that was previously felt now showing up as a negative attitude towards your workplace.A sense of reduced personal efficacy: struggling to do the core elements of your job which used to be relatively simple.How can you tell when a person is in real danger of burnout?It’s important to think to yourself about how you are feeling and what you are excited about in the upcoming week. If you feel like there are dreadful feelings or a lack of excitement, that’s a good sign that you have burnout. If you’re finding that you’re always tired, that may be another sign.“One way to think about burnout is that your demands are outstripping the resources you have to meet those demands.”What are some of the consequences for an organization when people face burnout?At the organizational level, we see:Lower levels of employee engagement.Lower levels of retention.Higher turnover.Higher manifestations of stress.More absenteeism.Lower commitment.A negative impact on performance.How can you prevent burnout?Monique often does an audit that asks questions of an individual’s energy resources and makes changes accordingly. These questions include:How well are you taking care of yourself physically, including your mental resources?What is the quality of your interpersonal relationships within the team or organization?What is the sense of purpose that you are enjoying in your work?As an individual, it’s crucial to regularly ask yourself:“What are the things I’ve accomplished?”“What are the key objectives that will help move my work forward?”“Do I have people I collaborate with who are energizing for me?”“Are there some relationships I should reduce my exposure to?”The most common ineffective strategy is spending more time working to get ahead in order to not fall behind on work.What’s one message Monique would like to share?Although careers are long, life is short. It’s always good to be able to step back and ask yourself “If the amount of time I had on this earth was suddenly much more limited than I anticipated, is this what I would be wanting to do with my time?"

  In this final segment of a three-part series, I talk about the 7th and 8th reasons why change is hard for organisations. I share real-life examples from organisations who face these problems and provide advice to overcome these obstacles.The 7th reason why change is hard:It’s hard to deal with negative commentsLet’s say you make a suggestion and people say “that’s too risky,” “we don’t have the resources to do that,” or “That’s completely unrealistic.” “Have you thought about the consequences?” You would probably react thinking “not again… Why do I have to deal with this?”I spoke to a manager a few weeks back, lets call him “Tom.” He said that his company had a very inspiring and great product that’s losing money in the market every year. Every time he proposed a new idea, the team just talks about how the idea will not work.“If you apply the same recipe, you’re going to get the same results. If you want a new result, you need to apply a new recipe.”Every time his team mentioned that this was not a good idea, Tom was providing counterarguments of why his idea was a good one. He was looking at the positive aspects of the change, but his team was looking at the negative ones. Additionally, Tom was looking at the negative aspects of the old way while his team was looking at the positive aspects of it.Tom and his team were having a completely tangential dialogue. When people have a tangential dialogue, it creates a conversational deadlock. Ideas don’t go further, and business results stay the same. The first thing to do is to learn how to have conversations that focus on the same aspect rather than having a tangential dialogue. Barry Johnson talks about this aspect in his book Polarity Management. And before we apply the concepts of Barry Johnson we need to shift the mindset to keep a soft focus on the results.TIP: Keep a soft focus on results. Tom was focused on moving forward and achieving goals. Having a conversation about the negative aspects of his idea was completely draining for him. He avoided exploring this, and this caused him to also avoid the positive aspects of the current recipe.“When you get too narrowly focused on the results, you fail to see what’s in the periphery.When you have a soft focus on the goal, you start to see people as people and you start to build from WHAT IS present rather than from how people SHOULD BE.”The 8th reason why change is hard:People are doing a 2nd job at workA second job is when people are covering up their mistakes, covering up their weaknesses, and spending a lot of time and energy managing how other people see them. They may do presentations just to make an impression on other people, show only their good side, or filter information flow so that they have control over the situation.Very clearly, we can see that employees are paid to do a second job. People who do the second job do not evolve because when you don’t look at your mistakes, you don’t grow.“When we allow people to have a 2nd job, we somehow create a culture that is working around in circles, spending a whole lot of time and money not meeting goals.”There are certain industries where, of course, we can’t afford failure such as when it comes to safety and the lives of people. Let’s say we’re not looking at those black-and-white cases; there are many grey areas where safety is not an issue.Lets talk about Digital Transformation where Agile principles are used so that, we can :☞Learn from failure soon to reduce time to customer☞ Bring learning early in the cycle to reduce costs of big failures☞ Try more new things as more failures mean more learning to steer the project in the right direction.A senior manager in that organisation mentioned to me, “I have no idea how a small failure will affect my career. I’m not willing to jump off the cliff”.Are organisations creating career/job for people to be more agile?“We need to take care of people in the organization if we want them to take risks, fail, and reap the benefits of early failure.”Two tips so that people don’t spend too much time and energy doing a second job are:Create a culture where it is completely unacceptable to not analyze and learn from mistakes. The more painful the mistake, the more we need to love them. When you don’t love the most painful mistakes, that is when you lose the big learning experience that can help you move ahead faster and better.If the organisation provides safety for its employees and encourages failure, be sure to receive feedback.

   This is the second of this three-part series on why change is hard. I talk about three more reasons why change is hard. Providing meaningful ways to overcome these challenges and with examples I came across with my coaching clients.The 4th reason why change is hard:Change management bodies fail to engage in a deeper dialogueManagement has a very clear vision. They have the right analytical data in front of them, they see the capabilities, they see the future and make decisions based on these. This might be the same kind of change that the people want, but when it’s comes forced top-down, there is a resistance. This happens because the people are not treated like adults; their opinions are not sought after, and they are not engaged in a dialogue.Imagine yourself with your fist closed and having all your ideas within it. Very often in conversation, we hold onto our ideas and opinions with our fists closed. We are afraid to open our palm to allow new ideas or opinions to come in in fear of not going in the direction that one would like to go. It holds us back from having richer, deeper conversations. Recommendations:Question the mental model that you’re coming from.Be curious about opinions and judgements of other people.Remember that the dialogue is always an infinite loop between the self and the other.The 5th reason why change is hard:We don’t seek feedbackAs we saw in Part 1, adaptive processes are a necessary part of your change timeline. Mindsets need to shift in order for a technical change to happen. For a person’s mind to shift, we often come with a strong conviction that we know exactly what we need to change. People can see us with more precision than we ever knew. If you can get feedback, harvest it, and build trust, you can shift pretty fast.Use feedback mechanisms like The Leadership Culture surveys or an ASK questionnaire. In the ASK questionnaire, you can have 3 simple questions:What do you think is my greatest single challenge to achieve this goal? (Where “this” is the goal that you want to achieve.)What is the one behaviour that you think I need to change?If there’s one area that you’d think I should focus on, what would that be?Fill this questionnaire by getting feedback from at least ten people. This will be much more precise than you deciding for yourself the one thing that you need to change.The 6th reason why change is hard:We reject the feedback that we receiveI often hears statements like “you don’t understand me,” “I used to be that way, but that’s not me anymore,” or “these respondents don’t like me, and that’s why they responded in this way.”“If only we can think of feedback as a gift. As a gift that is going to enhance our leadership ability; as a gift that is going to grow us; and as a gift that is going to help us to achieve and be more peaceful, we can grow faster than we imagine.” 

 Host Deepa Natarajan is solo in this episode to talk about why change is hard. In this first part of a three-part series, Deepa presents the three biggest reasons why change is hard, provides examples that she has witnessed, and shares how to overcome these obstacles. The 1st reason why change is hard:We have an Immunity towards change.Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey from Harvard University have done a large amount of research on this. An immunity is when there is a part of us that moves towards a certain goal, and at the very same time, we are unconsciously driven to go in the opposite direction.The first example from their study is with heart patients. They found that when heart patients were told that their lives were at risk if they didn’t change their lifestyle, only one in seven made the changes they needed. The other six patients had an immunity towards change. Some felt that if they took medication then it means that they are old; they wanted to deny that fact.A coaching client, lets call him Pascal, had the goal to ask open questions and be more receptive with his team members. What came in the way was a very deep assumption that because he came from a modest family and didn’t go to a great school, he needed to prove himself. His mental model was that in order to show that he was a strong, capable leader, he needed to have answers, opinions, and speak about those in meetings. These things got in the way of him asking open questions and being more receptive with his team members.You might say that if he understood and discovered his immunity, that knowledge alone may be sufficient. Sometimes just knowing is sufficient, but a lot of times we’re so committed to our old beliefs that it requires time, compassion, and patience to test out those assumptions. Pascal was so focused on his own opinions and was holding on strongly to them.Immunity is something we can reason out with our rationale, but at the very same time, we are unconsciously so committed to that goal that it comes in the way.The 2nd reason why change is hard:Motivation and determination are not sufficient to make change happen.Looking back at the heart patient example, we can see that of course they were motivated and determined to live longer. Yet, they weren’t able to make the changes needed.The very same thing happens in organizations. When people aren’t able to make change happen, they start blaming each other for not being motivated and determined. People start pointing fingers, because when one fails to make the change happen in their organization, it is a cumulative effect on other people who are waiting on this person’s success to actually do their job.This collective finger pointing makes the one who is trying to make the change happen feel so low that they start having mental conversations like: “Am I capable? Am I not capable? What’s right with me?” They then start resisting the people who are doing the finger pointing. This causes a snowball effect of people who are blaming this person.  “Blame does not help the person to grow, and it also makes the person resist the change even more because they have anger towards people who are blaming them.” The 3rd reason why change is so hard:We treat adaptive challenges as technical challenges.A technical challenge, for example, is that your car is broken, you need to fix it, so you call an expert and ask them to fix it. You need to find the expert, you need time to take the car to the garage, and you need money to fix the car. A technical challenge is when the challenge can be solved by technical means:ExpertiseMoneyTimeOn the other hand, an adaptive challenge is something that requires mindset shift and can’t be changed with just technical expertise.Deepa was once observing a team meeting with sixteen people and noticed that in the first thirty minutes of the meeting, only three people spoke. The question was, “Are the other people required in the meeting? If only three are speaking, what’s going on?” When Deepa asked them this question, the first answer they came up with was:“We don’t talk to each other much because we talk to people locally. Maybe we can have a chat system, so we can communicate more with each other.” That was a technical solution to an adaptive challenge. When Deepa looked deeply and what was happening, she found that people didn’t feel co-responsible for each other’s goals. They didn’t speak up because they felt it wasn’t their job. They have valuable opinions and input they can give, but they didn’t do that.Here’s an adaptive solution: they need to work on feeling more co-responsible with each other. Therefore, having a technical solution such as putting in a chat system is not going to help them. They need to work on the mindset shift of being co-responsible for each other. “Look deeper at what is happening and pay attention to patterns in the system. When you question the patterns at play, that will reveal to you something deeper of what needs to really be addressed.”

 Dr Paul Lawrence author of the book coaching in three dimension talks about the importance of dialogue in making change happen in organisations. He is an expert on coaching and making change in organizationsWhat is Dialogue?Dialogue is very particular type of conversation. Dialogue happens when you suspend judgement and contributions build on contributions and new insights emerge in a diverging kind of conversation. In a debate people toss opinions at each other. Skilled conversations are more difficult to differentiate from dialogue and that’s what we do most of the time. Two people come to a conversation very respectfully and respecting each other’s non-negotiables and the conversation might be really productive and useful. A full dialogue on the other hand very concise is defined by William Isaac as shared inquiry. It’s a way of thinking and reflecting together.You often, make a choice before any conversation if you want to engage in a dialogue, or not. You choose to suspend judgement or defend, and if you choose to not protect and uphold a particular position or perspective, and if you choose to suspend then you are more open in dialogue. What are the challenges to engage in a dialogue?[3:46] Dialogue requires effort because we are programmed to make assumptions.Few Mental Models of leadership that come in the way: Over privileged positional powerAssumption that I as a leader say what happensAssumption that I as a leader control outcomeAssumption that I as a leader knows all the answersAssumption that it’s not my job to engage in dialogue with everybodyWhat is the role of Dialogue in Change?[6:00] People don’t like to do what they are told to do. They like to make meaning by talking to other people. So if you give someone an instruction, they may or may not verbally agree to comply, but you can be absolutely sure that they will talk to someone that they trust to make meaning of what you just said and from that conversation emerges a new intention and it may or may not be what you as an authority figure intended. That is just how change happens and it’s very frustrating.So, authority figures who believe in the sanctity of positional power express frustration by blaming other people using phrases like resistance to change. Actually, to get things done requires an understanding of how change happens, and how change emerges from dialogue. To make change happen, dialogue is needed and what comes in the way is, the way positional power comes into form.The capacity to step back and see who I need to engage with in dialogue because I can’t engage in dialogue with everyone, is important. And who else needs to engage in dialogue with who else and see systemically through the lens of patterns that are at play.Dialogue require time.Sometimes you have to go slowly to go quicklyCan you give a concrete example of what dialogue would look like in a change process between people?[09:35] Facilipilation is an example of how dialogue does not happen. i.e. when the leaders have a predetermined direction and facilitate in the name of collaboration, workshops, that is actually manipulation. It’s never deliberate, but it’s that piece that says, if I’m the leader, so what extent am I really clear in my mind about what is open for invention and what is not.For real dialogue to happen you have to be very honest and self-aware about your own intensions. That’s when you can create a safe space for people to dialogue. That is genuinely a space in which people can say whatever they need and it's a space in which everyone in the room is absolutely authentically curious about what everybody else thinks. So, dialogue is about listening and seeking to really understand the other person and what it is they’re saying and it’s that feeling free to say that thing that needs to be said because I know when I say others are going to listen to me. You know, if we’re in a space where we don’t feel we’re going to be listened to, most of us don’t bother saying anything.Why is Dialogue so important?[14:13] The more complex the organization the more important is the role of dialogue.It’s a fallacy nowadays that as the leader of an organization, I know everything that’s happening in my organization and the traditional strategy has been to rely on data.Data won’t tell you everything you need to know about the experience of people in customer services to product division. What is one advice you’d like to give leaders to support change through dialogue?[15:16]Go talk to people and genuinely listen. Listen, without an agenda, listen solely to understand.Have the courage to say what needs to be said respectfully.As a leader of an organization, look at what’s happening through that lens of dialogue, who needs to be talking to who, who is talking to who and how much of that is dialogue.The fundamental driver of dialogue is curiosity.Paul Laurence would love to connect and share loads of readings material, references and stories for those interested, so do connect!

 James Routledge, founder of Sanctus showed up on MeetMyPotential podcast. The mission of Sanctus is to change the perception of mental health, and James is here to talk about this mission. He shares his experiences with mental health and how Sanctus has improved workplaces.What is mental health?It’s your state of being; not just your state of well-being. Your emotions, feelings, thoughts, and identity are all wrapped up in mental health.People’s perceived definition of mental health is that it just means mental illness or mental health issues, and I don’t believe that’s the case. Mental health is all-encompassing the full range of mental health, just like physical health isn’t about disease and illness, it’s about fitness and strength.There is a stigma in talking about Mental Health at work, what challenges do you face when talking about mental health in organizations?Stigma in Latin means scars. The stigma around mental health is people’s individual fear, reticence and uncertainty of talking about it. This culture is changing, but it’s still the case in many workplaces.A healthy, functional workplace isn’t created by oversharing. However, trust in functional teams is created by a certain level of vulnerability.What made you personally interested in this space?Five years ago, James never really used the words “trust,” or “vulnerability,” or “connection.” James left university and went directly into the high-pressure world of start-ups, which caused him to feel anxiety towards all the uncertainty in the business. James thought that as a leader, you shouldn’t show any emotion and you are a rock for everybody else.Eventually, the business shut down. He felt lost, and this was when he was hit by all the feelings that he had suppressed for a long time.Eventually, James ended up coming out about his anxiety. He wrote a blog post and shared it with the world. This was the start of a period of change and transformation. It gave birth to Sanctus.What has been the highest point for you at Sanctus and having mental health conversations in organizations?Sanctus coaches are placed into the workplace to create a safe space where employees can talk to someone impartial and confidential about mental health. In many businesses that Sanctus has worked with, the perception of mental health has changed. The conversation around mental health has become normalized.The highlight is seeing the change in the perception of mental health. I feel like we’re at the forefront of that and we’re one of the protagonists leading it.Can you give an example of what mental health conversations brings to people at work?In one technology business Sanctus worked with, one of their senior engineers came to HR and said that he had planned to leave, and if it wasn’t for his Sanctus sessions at work, he probably would have.The value to the business is creating an environment where people feel like they can be their whole self. Then, they will feel:Like they belongThat they want to workCared forLess likely to leaveMotivatedMore trust and connections within teamsOne of the biggest challenges I’ve seen with my customers is that “We don’t have any time.” How have you managed to get around that?The most important set of people to make any change in an organization is the leadership team. If the leadership team have bought in the idea and they want to make something happen, they will find the time. It has to start at the top; they will set the tone.What’s one TIP that people can implement to feel healthier and have more healthy conversations?The best advice is to start where you are. Just follow your intuition. That’s quite vague, but three practical things that people can do are:Have an open conversation with someone about your mental healthMeditating – it’s a way to raise your own awareness of how you feel.Journaling – taking the time to connect with your thoughts and feelings by writing them down.Every single one of us has mental health, and that is the perception that needs to change.

 Liberto Pereda has been the managing director in several big organizations. He has lead international teams successfully and recently made the shift in his carrier to bring collective effectiveness to all teams.In simplicity lies the answers to all complexity and with that theme Liberto gives simple answers to bring vitality at workWhat is Vitality in organizations?Vitality is the capacity to have a meaningful and purposeful existence, of self and organisations.In the complex world we cannot just depend on data and plans, we need to sense of what’s happening around us, in our markets and respond effectively in order to survive. Therefore, everyone in the organisation needs to feel vital to respond to complexity.Profitability, the way people hold conversations, the way behave are some ways to identify the level of vitality in organisations.However, if we look into the last hundred years, we see that we have been asked to be profitable in a hard way, in a very focused way. And that has in instances resulted in low vitality.Why is Vitality important?We need to move from organisational development to human development because humans develop organizations.In order to develop our organisations, we need to focus on the development of people who make up part of the organisation. As Robert Kegan speaks in one of his books, creating organisations that are deliberately developmental helps people grow, change and improve and eventually help organisations thrive.When organisations exist to develop humans and the human race, we come together to deliver a higher purpose through real cooperation and authentic relationships.What does low vitality look like in a team?Whenever there are conversations of US vs THEM in the organisation, it is a clear indicator of low vitality.Whenever the profitability is down, despite chasing the markets for a while, or when performance over time has been flat, delivery, maybe between 2%-5%. The bottom line is holding the same results over a period of time, is most likely an indicator of low vitality and a lack of creativity in the company. So profitability can also be an indicator of low vitality. What’s your secret to bringing more vitality in organizations?[11:16] The answer is quite simple.Listening to people. Gathering your people, having a conversation, listening to the questions people don’t bring to the main stream conversation.Engage with people in the front line of business because they know what’s going on, they know the challenges and they may even have solutions and ideas on how to overcome challenges.I realised in my role as a Managing Director I actually didn’t need to have all the answers. That’s a belief that was really limiting me.What challenges do leaders face to engage in a real dialogue?[13:35]Leaders need to unlearn:The belief that I have the right to speak firstThe belief that I need to always be right and always have the right answersThe believe that I have to make the final decisionThe belief that I need to control everythingThat’s impossible for a human being and this is very limiting.Leaders need to:Develop othersHold the purpose and vision of the organisationConnect the organisation with the entire ecosystemKeep questioning themselves, keep challenging status quo.Be authentic and act with integrityHow can leaders engage in dialogue?[16:24]Before starting a meeting, take a minute of silence and don’t jump into the meeting. Allow people to check in and share how they feel. Especially when agenda’s are full, stress levels are high and many things need to get done. We need to create a space for what matters most.Reconnect your purpose. Ask yourself the question repetitively: What am I doing this for?Statistics shows that in the next 40 years we are going to spend about 10 years in front of a screen. What if we removed some of that time to sit with people, real people, actual meetings, face to face, where we can have conversations connecting with what matters most to us. Can you give one TIP that brings more vitality at work?[19:49]Enter the office with an intension to LISTEN and OBSERVEThink about how people FEEL in any given momentSit with your team and have a conversation about trustLiberto believes that children have a lot of teach us, so whenever you face a challenge, step into the perspective of the grandfather or grandmother and ask yourself, what would a grandfather or grandmother do in this situation?Then you will realise that it’s not about you or me and and that it is about about all of us being well.

Lisa Lahey, a faculty member at Harvard Graduate School, talks about immunity to change. She explains how conflicting goals can keep individuals stuck. Teams also face immunity, hindering progress despite motivation. Overcoming immunity involves recognizing and addressing internal conflicts.