Leaders in different organizations, schools, families and in the community at large encounter complex situations and so it is vital for leaders to understand patterns at work to make viral change.In this episode Alan Cardon, shares his insights on what systemic approach means.Here are the main points:Systemic approach to change patterns enhances management efficiency rapidlyIf you want change in organizations, you need to start locallyA successful change starts from the grassrootsWhat Is Systemic Approach Coaching?Systemic Approach is the recognition of patterns and reproduction of new behavioral patterns to yield better results in large complex systems. Patterns enable one to understand how situations are handled and give us information on how challenging situations can be addressed in the future.Look at the things in a holistic way to see what fractals repeat and make choices on how to evolve fractals. It is a less linear, less segmenting, with fewer expert orientation than what has been done in the past.[4:34] "] Listen to the example Alain provides about patterns in organizations.To make a viral change you need to start changing patterns locally. The real question is what kind of viral approach we can have that will spread throughout the organization in the shortest possible time. Catch patterns, extrapolate and see how you can inoculate viral change.To spread a systemic change, you can’t do something that has worked elsewhere, it won’t work. Look at patterns that most impact your organization. How would you scale up Systemic Approach especially when strategy needs to be rolled out in the organization?This can be done by working with the top 90 members of the organization in an offsite. This is where you can introduce patterns and disrupt patterns of how people behave and interact with each other. This has to be done repeatedly to get the new patterns registered in people’s minds, so they start to get a hold of it and see advantages of new ways of working. If you can change the top 90 in the organization that’s about 10 teams that manage other teams, you are massively inoculating a kind of virus that will spread down.Sometimes, it’s best not to start from the top where its most resistant.What challenges do people face in organizations when they are trying to make changes?People don’t understand when they are told to behave as partners who have ownership and then in the very next sentence, they are told top-down. Discrepancy in the double language in centralized control systems is one of the biggest reasons for resistance to change.The resistance is not to the quality of the change but to the way the change is pushed.When people’s opinions and ideas are included then they are more likely to embrace the change.What is ONE advice you would give organizations who are making big transformations?Nice talks and roll outs are basically push downs where top management wants to be applauded for their intelligent ideas, this won’t work.People applaud to new ideas and show business will not lead to cultural transformation.For cultural transformation, start with small steps from the bottom, where people know exactly what’s going on. Real transformation needs to be grassroots with a vision.What is ONE vitamin that will help Viral Solutions spread?[20:17] "] Change management is looking at all the processes like decision making, information flow, etc. Centrally driven change won’t work. Examine local patterns in different processes, find local solutions, experiment, measure the results and communicate the results with everyone!Change that brings excellent results excites people.  

What is conscious leadership? How can one build a more conscious style of leadership? Bob Anderson a true pioneer in the field of leadership development and research answers some of these questions.What is Conscious Leadership?Conscious leadership is only a matter of degree. Someone we call unconscious is operating at an early level of consciousness or a less mature level of consciousness. We are all conscious and the question is to what degree.Bob has been researching for the last 20 years the intersection between the inner maturity and how that translates into leadership effectiveness. He mentions there are three levels of leadership:Reactive levelCreative levelIntegral level80% of leaders are running at Reactive Levels of Leadership! A reactive leader operates from a mental conditioning formed by believes and assumptions that we accumulated in our early days. We have been doing it our whole lives; so, it is automatic.For instance, a reactive leader may not  speak their mind in order to be seen as a friendly person, or a reactive leader may be highly driven with a strong need to get it right that they become autocratic and critical. The reactive style of leadership always wants to play it safe.The reactive style of leadership only gets us so far and they are outmatched by the complexities of challenges we face in adult life: families, marriages, leadership, and so on, that we need do to work to upgrade our operating system from reactive to creative. This is significant work!This move from reactive to creative is what psychologist Dr. Robert Kegan from Harvard calls Self-Authoring i.e. we move from being authored by others to authored by self.“In Creative Leadership we are less focused on all the messages of how I am supposed to be from how past and current environment and much more focused on creating a vision that I believe in and create an organization that matters with outcomes worthy of our deepest commitments”It is not feasible to create an organization that is innovative and provides solutions to world problems under the reactive leadership style. Organizations need a minimum of creative level of leadership in order to perform in the face of complexities.What is the main difference between the reactive style and creative leadership style?Listen to the podcast where Bob shares his own story about a conflict he had with his partner while writing the book “Scaling Leadership”.In the reactive style, when you are less conscious your automatic patterns reach limits and you hit against a wall.Self-authoring perspective is: How do I embody a vision of myself asa leader? How do I embody the kind of culture we are trying to create? How do I embody the relationships I want? You ask yourself: How do I become that? In Self Authoring mode we develop the ability to see into our own operating system and examine how it supports our vision and we get to redesign it. For instance, I don’t have to be so threatened when my ideas are criticised because my ideas are not me.How do you move from the reactive to the creative level?Identify what is the one thing that will take me / my organization to the next level. Take steps to redesign the way you are working. Holding questions like:What is the vision?How am I operating?How do I want to show up?How do I interrupt the vision and cancel myself out?Holding all these will help you move from reactive to creative.Get Feedback. Years of research has been published in “Scaling Leadership”, indicates that people see you. People see you with more precision than we ever knew and if you can get feedback and harvest that and build trust to create a learning-rich environment, you can shift pretty fast.People can serve as your mirror. Their views about you are more precise than you see yourself. While getting feedback from people ensure that is a constructive one.You bring the weather as a leader into the team, into the organization, and what is happening around you is a reflection of you.There is a powerful poem by a Zen master:The hand moves, and the fire’s whirling takes different shapes, The hand moves, and the fire’s whirling takes different shapes, All things change when we do. It’s a universal principle – Start with yourself and take responsibility for the development effort, then the culture will shift.What are the things one should watch out for when moving from reactive to creative style of leadership?As leaders’ step into higher leadership positionsYou cannot not be in over your headAs organizations decide to grow 2x times, you put yourself in a development gap and that’s normal for everyone:You cannot not be in a gap.The Development gap is the mismatch between the complexity of the business context and the complexity of my mind and heart to meet that challenge. Its normal to be in a gap even when your business is flourishing. We all need to work on the gap.How do you see the difference between Creative and Integral Leadership?Time scales expand:Reactive is weeks to months, fighting fire, short term problem fixCreative is 10 -15 years, long term vision and strategy, self–authored vision and strategyIntegral is decades if not centuries.Integral Leadership shifts the perspective from being the author of my business to taking responsibility for the welfare of the whole system and becoming an architect of the bigger system.  Integral Leadership includes all the stakeholders like welfare, environment, etc.How can one move from creative to integral?Only 5 % of leaders are operating here. The 1st step is to upgrade to Creative Leadership before moving to Integral.Start to learn about Projection: When you are making someone your enemy, think about how does that live in you? Take the log off your own eye so you can see more clearly. When you start to hold inner tensions of the brighter and darker sides of you; you are better placed to hold the outer tensions. The more you can see your own complexity the more you can hold and heal the outer tensions.All things change with the leader. All things about an organization change when you as a leader change. Be the change that you want to see in the world, because all things change when we do.Want to know more how you can scale your leadership, reach out to Bob or write to us! Save Save

 What is stress? How does the stress level impact our businesses? When do you need to get proactive to keep stress levels at bay? What can you practically do to reduce stress?Steve Mitten is a Master Certified Coach with years of experience in coaching business owners talks on MeetMyPotential.There is a general feeling that a little bit of stress is good for you and there is strong scientific data to back that up. And according to medical surveys and documentation, the stress level is on the increase. This is mostly experienced and talked everyone at the workplace. Stress impacts work and relationships and one needs to proactively take steps to deal with this.Here are some key notes that I deduced from the conversation.If one neglects to recognize increased stress levels and take measures to minimize and manage, it can have an impact on:Your relationship with your co-workers/employees/employerYour HealthYour level of IntuitionYour CreativityAnd finally, you get locked in circular thinkingWhen does one start to get proactive and stop denying the effects of stress?If you do not deal proactively with your stress it is going to deal with you.When you are busy running around, making plans and channeling efforts into your business and leading a family you are so close to the forest and you certainly don't see the trees and you get stuck in the boiling frog syndrome where everyday the water temperature increases and you find yourself getting boiled alive.People usually do not realize the drastic effect the stress level is having on them until people point it out to them. The normal reaction is to keep on working and working even harder.When the stress level increases, the stress hormone, Cortisol, increases and turns on the sympathetic nervous system. When you get older the body takes longer to process and it degenerates our productivity.The problem is when something is not working people saw harder and harder instead what's needed is to STOP and SHARPEN the saw. Worrying breathes air into stress accumulationOne of the contributing factors of increasing stress levels amongst business owners is to worry about the past and future. Most dwell in thoughts and regrets about the past and worries about the future. This goes further to stress accumulation in the body and the accompanying side effects.How can one proactively reduce stress?The good news is it doesn't take too much time to stop and dedicate 10 minute twice a day to any activity off forward thinking, working thoughts and focus on what's happening NOW and this will turn on the relaxation system in the body.Here are few things you can do:Go outside and pay attention to the natureTake your dog for the wayEnjoy music or a cup of coffeeMeditation / yogaDancingWalk around the office blockMost High Achievers have a lot of energy and for them its easier to do activities like running, yoga and Tai Chi, i.e. any activity that focus on the body rather than sitting and meditating. Put your attention on your body, breadth and redirect your attention to whats here and now. When your mind's attention goes to planning or worrying just keep coming back to the present, its okay if thoughts come.There are many practices - Try and see what works for you for 10min twice a day. Your energy and interpersonal skill set increases over time with practice.How do you go from a state of I know this is good for me to doing something?Unless there is 4/5 level of interest or motivation don't bother. The first step is to do whatever is needed to get interested or fired up. So picture a better life, for instance: what would it look like if you could sleep at night without waking up, what if you could go home earlier from work, what if you are more creative in problem solving.Get a vision that is meaningful for you that you are prepare to work on and get company to work with you. 

 In this podcast, Katrina Burrus explains: Who is a Brilliant Jerk? What are their destructive behaviours? How does it impact people, teams and organisations? What can you do if you report to a Brilliant Jerk?Who’s a Brilliant Jerks?A Brilliant Jerk is motivated to having outstanding results and is interpersonally blind. Take the metaphor of driving a car, a Brilliant Jerks has a very clear 2020 vision along with blind spots of their interpersonal behaviour which are very destructive. They are people who are very brilliant, sharp and they bring valuable competence to the organization.What is the cost of such managers?Individual level: People get less creative as they start reacting to the Brilliant Jerk’s mood instead of what’s best for the company as they are scared of their outburst. So, they become wary of what problems they can share with this manager based on the mood of the day. So as leaders brilliant jerks don’t know there is a problem before there is a crisis.Team level: Especially junior people don’t dare to share new ideas as they are afraid to be humiliated, so ideas don’t surface in a team. Katrina has seen managers who bang on the table and say “They are not bringing any ideas”. Brilliant Jerks don’t realise that being aggressive is not going to help others express themselves to share ideas or problems.Organizational Level: Often there is a higher turnover. Especially talented people who are not well utilised by such managers leave as they can be ostracized because the Brilliant Jerk see him/her as a competitor. So talented people who are unable to bring out their talent leave. Some others who are aggressed fall sick and there are absenteeism.What are some behaviors of the Brilliant Jerk?In the podcast Katrina shares very interesting scenarios and examples, do listen to them at [4:25] seconds.In her 1st example the Brilliant Manager made humiliating remarks and made others feel insignificant.In the 2nd example the Manager was Micro Managing to the extent that it removed any kind of motivation and interest from the person to do a productive job.In the 3rd example, the Manager humiliates other people in the meeting in front of the big leader to stand out as status is important.They have a strong drive to perform and be recognized. Competence and Status are very important to them.They cause stress to people.The difference between misbehavior and a Brilliant Jerk is that their behavior is repetitive, over and over again and its not linear. They can be absolutely charming with clients to get what they want and then all of a sudden they can did, dig and dig and this causes confusion.The question to really ask oneself is – How to you feel after the interaction?What is the difference between a Brilliant Jerks and a Demanding manager?When such managers feel that the other person hasn’t done the best they can or has not done well; they attack the person. In comparison to the animal world of  flight, fight or freeze reaction, the Brilliant Jerk's preferred reaction is the Fight strategy. Because they are afraid that it will show badly in their results!On the contrary the Demanding Manager analyses why the person is not performing. They analyse the performance – they check if it is a problem of motivation or skillset.A Brilliant Manager attacks!A Demanding Manager analyses!A Demanding Manager demonstrates empathy and sees why the other person didn’t succeed. They provide support and mentoring and look for the success of the other.How do you manage a Brilliant Jerk?Animals see other animals as predator or prey. With a Brilliant Jerk you don’t want to be seen as a predator as they will get the fighting mode out. You don’t want to be perceived as a prey because they will start playing with you or attacking you. It’s a fine line.Sometime you need to confront them and say: “Look I see you are not in the right mood to have this discussion I’ll come back at a later day.”What’s important is not to be perceived as a prey. Come in as an equal.If your customer is Brilliant Jerk, they need to be reassured that they are great, but don’t become prey. Don’t be frightened by them as they like to feel power over a person.If your boss is Brilliant Jerk, you’ve got to be careful. Because it's like poison, if the poison stays at the top of your skin it's ok, if it starts to get into your system its going to make you weaker and weaker and weaker.Stand up and try different strategies and if its really getting to you and affecting you physically, you get a specialist in the case or get out of the place.Want further support – get in touch or read managing Brilliant Jerk – How organisations and coaches can transform Difficult Leaders into powerful Visionaries

 How do we ensure that hard work is paying off in our lives? What impact will you make as a leader of a team to make sure that objectives are realized?In this episode, we will be dissecting on the topic “When does hard work not work” with Ben Dooley. Ben is an amazing life coach. Business vector created by FreepikWhen Does Hard Work Not Work?In life, more often than not, we reach the point where we find ourselves doing so much work and yet the desired outcome seems to continually elude us. And yet, there are some easy and practical ways of discovering when we are not making progress while working hard.Hard work is not working when we are putting in so much effort and it feels as if things are not moving or you’re not getting the results you want. When that happens, we often keep on doing what we’re doing and hope that something magically will change. This is not the best approach to take to ensure that our hard work yields a satisfying and accomplishing fruit. We need to have a clear-cut and well-defined goal and pathway to how we are going to achieve it. Sometimes we may have a realistic goal but are unclear as to how we are going to achieve it.Signs that show that Hard Work is NOT WorkingThe stress levels that we are subjected to when our hard work is not paying off keep us in survival, making us ignore the symptoms of hard work without fruition.When we are in a survival mode, we are thrown into the panic state and every other thing becomes irrelevant. Our ability to become creative and notice whats not working becomes weak and our hard work goes unnoticed.We can respond to situations by working from a calm state looking at the different layers of our needs. When you are in the state of fear, you cannot see this; you will end up doing the wrong things and hit the cul-de-sac trying to survive.If we can get clear of our fears, then we are aware of values that are being compromised and that may give us a choice of how we want to respond.In a team, every member has to come together, put on their thinking caps and conjure a strategy to make their hard work yield results. The blame games should be disposed and every member engaged and brought on board to the ideas and strategy. Every effort of the team players should be recognised and acknowledged. This is regardless of their attitude. The positive sides should be looked at and this is not possible when we are in the survival mode.In Organisations How Should People Move Out Of the Survival Zone into Creating a Team Spirit?The team members can come together and make agreements on how to handle conflicts and disagreements as a team and not as combatants. These agreements creates a spirit of love and trust in the organization and increases productivity. Every team should have team agreements.We should not live our lives out of fear. We should live getting creative and enhancing the society and ourselves.Create values, strategies and agreeements to make your hard work pay you.Save SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave Save

How can we enhance our conversational skill and relate better with other people? In this podcast of Meet My Potential, we will be discussing and provide deep insights into how to build a co-constructed conversation with Matthew Hill. Matthew is a renowned global coach, author, and public speaker. He talks on the benefits of a co-constructed, conversation and how to develop it.What is a Co-constructed Conversation?Co-constructed conversation according to Matthew takes three forms, namely;This can be described as the identification of one’s preferences during a conversation.During co-constructed conversations, parties involved attempt to identify with factors that they have long been associated with.These values have been formed consciously and subconsciously over the years, right from infancy to the present stage.Co-constructed conversation starts from knowing more about the other person.Co-constructed conversation starts with who are you, who am I, where do we come from?These values predict your actions, feelings, and behavior. When two different people meet for the first time, they look towards identifying their self-perception in the other. Mr. A may look to see if Mr. B looks like any of the people, he knows. It is about comparing our new encounter with what we already know and experience. Should I trust or should I not trust? Should I trust or should I not trust? It is about conscious and subconscious bias.Through a million conversations and observations, conscious and unconscious we form mind values, preferences, the bias, the predilection, and we can actually predict your feelings, actions and behaviours. Can Co-constructed Conversation Go Wrong? How?Yes, this method of conversation can go wrong. Co-constructed conversation makes people leap into conclusion based on experiences latched onto their memory. It makes one dwell in the past experience while analyzing the present situation. This makes one to wrongly describe and conclude on the nature of the new event.How Can One Make the Dream Come True?One can start to build co-constructed conversation by not judging the other based on the conscious and subconscious bias. The KLT (knowing, Liking and Trusting) three pathway of finding real-time information about the other person can be used. Start from scratch to find out their stories.How can I find out about their values? You can through listening and absorbing what describes them. Many people are engrossed with the values that they have acquired over the years that they fail to listen to the other person to absorb what makes them.You can only learn about the other person if you actively listen to their stories. You can only know, like and trust them if you give them an undivided attention rather than jumping into conclusion based on your conscious and subconscious values.Repeat their last word with a rising intonation. This will give them a feeling that you have been paying attention and they will speak more.Ask them to speak more using paraphrase such as “please do speak more” and they will speak more.Be curious, kind and loving with them and most especially, give them the room to open up themselves and you will know more about them.TakeawayPeople's actions are tied to their acquired values. Everything that they do is because of one value or the other that they believe in. You can show empathy and respect their decisions if you should have this in the back of your mind. With empathy, the strongest communication, and learning tool, you will make progress in co-constructed conversation.Save Save

 Our guest on this episode of the MeetMyPotential podcast is Jolanda de Ridder, a specialist and practitioner in the area of guiding people through organizational change.Adaptive processes relate to changes in peoples behaviour that arises due to a technical change in the organization. For every technical change timeline there needs to be a timeline for adaptive processess that address behavioural change.How are adaptive processes different than technical processes?While technical processes follow established know-hows, procedures and timeframes under the constraints of the organization’s budget to reach specific goals. Technical processes solve technical problems. Adaptive processes are about the behavior of the people on the technical process. Adaptive processes lack structure and require the leader to be very engaged. Adaptive processes are crucial to the healthy functioning of the accompanying technical process, but they are often overlooked or postponed because of perceived time and budget constraints.However, when organizations underestimate the guidance of behavioral change during a technical change process, they face what is called an Adaptive Challenge.Adaptive Challenge is the gap between the behavior of the people of the old way of working to what is expected in the new situation of change.Experience has shown that addressing these adaptive behavioral shifts during the time of the technical process shift is more effective and less costly than addressing these issues after the full implementation of the technical process, so it is counterproductive to wait too long.An adaptive process follows a path of experimental learning. With every step of the technical process, the behavior of people is guided by the adaptive leader. What does it look like to be an adaptive leader?The implementation and practice of adaptive leadership is the only way that adaptive processes will be successful. An adaptive leader must be open and willing to experiment, understand the values of the organization and be able to mentor and coach their employees and colleagues, and know how to motivate those around them to change behaviors.The keys to successfully maneuvering adaptive processes are:Be open, able to manage and mentor peopleBe an adaptive leader to guide your peopleAllocate time and budgetGet proactive to envision the adaptive changes and challenges in the project from Day 1. Otherwise it is going to catch up with a huge budget later on.What are benefits of adaptive leadership?By employing adaptive leadership through adaptive processes, you avoid the unnecessary additional expenditures of having to start the process after the conclusion of the technical process. Also, the leader is able to establish personal and organizational vision and mission, which allows them to motivate the workers to succeed and alter their behavior as needed. A motivated and successful workforce will lead to a thriving and successful organization, which increases shareholder value, exceptional customer service, and high workforce morale, leading to positive social and environmental impacts.What is Jolanda’s tip for us?The successful and effective adaptive leader takes a step back to assess questions such as:What was your roles?What were other roles?How did you interact with each other?What was your goal? Did you reach it? Why or why not?Are there things you want to change now for next time?What is your gap between your current situation and the necessary change?How do my changes fit in with the organization’s?Jolanda highly recommends the book “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership” by Ronald Heifetz for those interested in further information.

 In this episode of the Meet My Potential podcast, we are joined by Dani Poch  Managing Director of AddVenture and a faculty at the Coaches Training Institute to discuss aerodynamic leadership. He shares with us his input based on his experience and that of his clients, providing us with valuable perspective in our professional and personal lives. Being an aerodynamic leader expands from individual impact to affecting everyone the leader comes in contact with, improving the overall well-being of their world.Here’s a summary of the episode. Listen to the entire podcast at:What does “aerodynamic leadership” mean?Being an aerodynamic leader means managing your energy, being agile, passionately serving others, and genuinely enjoying the opportunity to lead. When you are experiencing these feelings as a leader, you likely feel very light and empowered, easily handling any challenges that come your way and recovering when things might not go your way. This also means that you are leading from the lightness within you and are self-aware, managing your emotions to avoid being visibly angry or frustrated despite the circumstances.How can we make daily choices to be aerodynamic?5 Practices of an Aerodynamic LeaderShow passion in what you do by connecting to your true longings. Bring a sense of easiness, lightness and playfulnessin what you do, this is very critical in today’s environment.Make choices based on what brings aliveness to you and others.See yourself as providerse. Ask yourself the question: What is the contribution I need to do to create a better life for me and others?Manage your emotions:That’s why leadership is very connected to mindfulness. Put your energy where needed and don’t get trapped negative feelings, anger or frustration that we can experience at work.Recover Fast:by bring compassionate with yourself. Forgive yourself and forgive others.Every day, an aerodynamic leader will spend some time in a mindfulness practice to remain self-aware and connected to their true values, focusing on the present moment. All of your choices will then be based on what will keep you in line with your true values, no matter what happens that might try to derail you.Leaders are great in serving others and what they need more is to create space for themselves. Journaling is an important practice that gives you feedback and helps you to reflect. Journaling about your experience, where you succeed, where you fail creates space for greatness within.Find your lightness and greatness inside to put it at service of others.What are potential barriers to being aerodynamic?It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish how to keep a healthy tension between your purpose or passion and the need for safety, which may lead you to not provide feedback when it is merited or hold back when the opportunity is presented to be vulnerable.Questions you can ask yourself are:How am I managing the dilemmas of purpose and safety in my everyday work?How am I making choices between purpose and safety?We face these challenges at work and at times at home.A concrete example from Dani on the challenge’s leaders face. Sometimes executives find it hard to give feedback to CEO’s when they feel the CEO is not doing the right thing. Giving feedback to the CEO is choosing authenticity and serving in a good way for themselves and for others. Sometimes executives are trapped in the “Move Up” the pyramid and so they choose to comply and not speak about that. This damages the energy, the relationship and the organization in the long term. Executives usually have a high pressure on their back, their families, their people and it’s not easy to be authentic and open powerful conversations. Executives need to consider what is the cost of not being authentic. How does this impact their level of energy?This can sometimes be related to fear of being misunderstood or overlooked for a promotion or fear of losing your job because you provided constructive criticism, but you must remember that being clear about your intension and being honest is always more aerodynamic than mincing words or not being authentic.What is Dani’s tip for listeners?4 Practices to develop Aerodynamic leaderDiscern your purpose and values. Why are you here and what matters to you most? This is needed to resolve the dilemma between purpose and safety.Use your purpose and values to create a complete and clear visionKnow your fears, shadows, and doubts.Engage yourself in courageous conversations every week. Make a list of pending conversations you know you need to have so it is easier to engage in a weekly conversation.“We create our world together every day.” – CTISave Save

 Have you ever been a Dirty Achiever? What makes an achiever dirty? How can we come out clean?In this podcast Jonathan Reams answers some of these and other questions.What is a Dirty Achiever?We all like to achieve things. As infants, we learn to control our body, crawl, walk etc., big achievements in our little worlds! This process of learning is driven by trial and error, experimentation and learning, and is linked to neuroscience, how dopamine makes us want to achieve a goal, and when we succeed, we get a rush of opioids that gives us pleasurable feelings. This is a natural brain chemistry cycle, so its natural to want to achieve. This desire to achieve can get hijacked. For example, underneath our drive for achieving tasks, there can be another kind of drive, which is more of a need, unconsciously attaching itself to the success of our task accomplishment. It might be that somewhere in our childhood, rewards, love, positive parental inputs to our self-esteem and so on became conditional upon achieving certain things, like good grades, sporting achievements, etc.In our adult work life, this pattern becomes unconscious and automatic. We’re internalizing the need to be in control of the outcomes in order to have self esteem.This need to control outcomes – to win the contract, to get a promotion, to win the race, etc. controls us and distorts are natural drive to achieve. It makes it dirty. We became our achievements, instead of having them.A very practical example of a Dirty AchieverI remember one manager who always needed his team’s success to be about him. It is need for personal recognition to be seen as the one who made it happen. It was based on a deeper need, where he believed that he was not ok as a person if it was not his idea, his inspiration to the team, his ability to motivate the team that drove the achievement.He described his inner world as having a bunch of flies buzzing around in his head so that he actually could not see what was going on outside of him and around him. Each fly was a feeling or thought that came in and distracted his attention. There were flies like:I good enough?Will I come out looking good to the boss?Who else might get recognition for this idea? If I don’t win, I’ll be a loser.This left little time for seeing the needs of his team members clearly. It also created an underlying anxiety that just made him push harder, and be more and more driven to achieve.What is the impact of having Dirty Managers?It is a big enough problem for ourselves to manage us and all these distractions. What is really hard for these dirty achievers, is to see the impact they have on others.Because they are too occupied with all these flies distracting their attention. What they see is justifications for their opinions about others.For example, with this manager, he was annoyed by his team members because they seemed to ignore his requests for action, didn’t take responsibility for outcomes, they were lying to cover up their incompetence and worst of all for him, didn’t seem to acknowledge his competence. So he interpreted their behaviors and formed the opinion that his team was useless, ignorant, incompetent cowards. And because he held these opinions about his team members, he would document everything they did or didn’t do, take his concerns to his boss or anyone else who would listen to him whine about his team.Now, how do you think his team members interpreted his actions? They saw him as over dramatizing everything, nagging them too much and wasting their time, and that he was arrogant. Now each of these incidents might be very small, not enough in itself to be worth taking action on or even really being annoyed by. But each instance left a little mark, or put a stamp in their stamp collection book about this manager. And over time, this would accumulate a history of resentment towards this manager. And from that accumulated resentment, they would find themselves unwilling to take action on his requests, or take responsibility for outcomes and certainly filtered out any of their manager’s actual competences, preferring instead to focus on his shortcomings to reinforce the opinion they had now built up about him.Achievement, or productivity was only coming at higher and higher costs to trust, motivation and goodwill. What are some typical challenges that these managers face?Learning to manage your own inner world is the first and most important challenge.What is feeding those flies? What is their source of energy?We all have blind spots. We all dont see the log in our own eye. Instead we try to take the splinter out of somebody else. Instead we try to take the splinter out of somebody else.The challenge for these type of managers is that they can’t see the source of all these distractions buzzing around in their head. They believe they are seeing those things in others, when really it is in themselves. This is called self-deception, and it affects all of us to one degree or another in some aspect of our life.What is one TIP that will help Dirty Achievers become Clean achievers?One thing to do is something called ‘humble inquiry,’which is where you actually make use of your ignorance about the source of this self-deception and humbly ask others to help you see what you can’t see yourself.A simple way you can do is to notice when you have a strong opinion about something. Ask a colleague, especially one who sees things different than you do, but who has your best interest at heart, if they have another perspective on your opinion. Then listen to them without interrupting! Notice not only what they say, but also what automatic judgments come up in you as they talk. Do your best to put those judgments to one side.If you do this in a genuine way, you will find that you gain some perspective on your opinions and end up with more options to consider using in making judgments and taking actions. You might even find that you can ‘clean up’ some opinions that had gotten ‘dirty,’ and see your team a bit clearer.Save SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave Save

 In this episode of Meet My Potential, we have an enlightening conversation with Sam House of the Coaches Training Institute about a leader taking responsibility for their world. Different industries may have different opinions about leaders’ areas of responsibility inside and outside their areas of authority, but Sam provides us with a practical way for all industries to think about this topic that can be beneficial across the board. A leader may also feel like they can segment their responsibilities to work responsibilities and family responsibilities, but Sam presents a compelling argument for viewing every single interaction as an opportunity to practice responsibility to all of mankind.What Is Responsibility? What Isn’t It?Taking responsibility means owning your part of the effort by co-creating to reach your common goal. On the other hand, neglecting to take responsibility for your world often manifests as finger-pointing or claiming of victimhood by those who have been wronged by others or blaming others for things not going as expected. Not taking responsibility is like blaming others for the state of your experience rather than steping forward and owning your part of the responsibility of your experience.What would taking responsibility look like?For instance when one walks through their world, they are more conscious of their thoughts, their way of expression, their actions and ultimately aware that they are having an impact on their world. So one takes a more conscientious approach to the expression of their behaviour. For example it can show up in practical ways like, when you checks out of a grocery store you might engage with the cashier in a way that you see the other person as a humans (someone who has important and valuable contribution) and not as an object.What Does It Mean to Be Response-Able?Being response-able means being conscious of others and able to provide a thoughtful response to their thoughts or behaviors. By being aware of the impact leaders and those around them can have on each other, both parties can create an appropriate response based on these ideals of consciousness and thoughtfulness. Engaging with your world in this way removes from you the feeling that you need to control your environment, which can feel burdensome and lead you down a path of overvaluing your own ego at the expense of your view of others.What Is My “World”?Sam spoke about a book by Lynne McTaggart entitled “The Field” in which he unpacks the concept that no matter how much quantum physicists study, they cannot understand the aspects of time and space. Simply, this means that everything in the physical world is immediately available and accessible to everyone and the thoughts and actions of leaders can have influences far beyond the “world” that they feel is theirs.How Do We Differentiate Control from Responsibility?We must come to understand that we can be responsible for our world while not thinking, acting, or feeling as if we must control it.By accepting that you are able to control very little of your environment and removing control from your definition of responsibility, you are free to focus on caring and concern rather than feeling the pressure to bring about your desired outcome. In a sense, we are all co-creating the world that we are living in, so our responsibility to ourselves and others is to be self-aware and intentionally recognize others for their contribution to the world. A great way to be in touch with this self-awareness is through prayer or meditation, to be in touch with your true self and understand your ability to reach others.Relevant links:Being Fully Responsible but Not in ControlSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave Save