Craffies Coaching

Steve Job’s  share a few thoughts on: How to live before you die. He share some of his own life experience.

I attended a leadership talk last week by Prof. Rija and these are some of the thoughts and insights I had:

He talked about how to create organisations that evolve, grow and dominate the market..

The key is to unlock the energy of the people in the organisation and the community!

How can leadership unlock this energy?

Herb Keller said the following: “The main role of leadership is to continuously energise the people.”

The question then is: Am I as a leader putting on the lights “energy”, or turning of the lights? Secondly am I energising (influencing) my team/group towards effective results?

The processes must be efficient and sustainable.

How can a company create a competitive advantage?

• Add value
• Product/service must be difficult to imitate or duplicate
• Keep on innovating to stay ahead of competitors.

With a constant changing environment, the company must have the energy (attitude) and ability to continually ensure alignment to be able to execute effectively. The company must have people that is committed, have the talent(Ability) and Attitude(energy) to execute.

To be able to create this there must be a legal contract of employment but also a contract of accountability that can only happen if there is employee engagement/belonging.

Key to sustainability is the company’s ability to be responsive to change. The agility to change (ability to anticipate change, to respond to change, to be able to change) is determined by the learning culture of the organisation. The  quicker the learning curve the bigger the change of the organisation moving from change, to survival, to success, to sustainable results, to significance in the market space. It is also important for the company to create a learning environment for individuals to learn / experience.

The individuals in a group or team will form the group intelligence.

Each member of the group is a leader as such.

To conclude the Leader and the learner make the difference. Leadership must be intentional and not accidental at all times.

A study done by Dr. Micheal Cavanagh revealed the following behaviour between Low performing and high performing teams:

What is the language that is that is being used in your team? Remember the conversations of today create the stories of tomorrow!

So make sure that the conversations in your team are creating a legacy that you and your team can be proud of !!!

Most probably 90% of all problems can be traced back to trust. The oxford dictionary describe trust as follow:

• noun 1 firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. 2 acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation. 3 the state of being responsible for someone or something.

Personally I do believe trust is like the old story of what comes first the egg or the chicken, meaning that trust starts with own trustworthiness.

Know what must I do to be trustworthy, I do believe firstly one must be consistent, secondly one must be dependable and lastly competent.

Consistent: There must be congruence between one’s personality and personality, so what people see everyday will be authentic to how we feel inside our bodies. That will lead to us to be consistent in our behavior.

Dependable: What we say and what we do is the same thing. We would rather say no, than yes, and never do it. This also reflects a part of really caring for people and also respecting other.

The above talks for me to character, I do believe in abundance, I want to serve other, I want to contribute to other with my gifts. I can offer something unique to the world.

Competence: I can not do something, if I do not have the skill, ability or the resources.

I blogged on exercising the mind on Friday. One of the thoughts was on playfulness. The part of being like a child had me thinking…

As children can also be very cruel or is it honest with each other and the impact of that on their community and the productivity of the environment.

So I had a discussion with my kids and quickly a few themes emerged:
Negative kids draw negative kids.
Positive kids need to avoid this energy or they are drawn in.
Positive kids, make constant long term contributions on all levels.
Short-term illusions is sometimes created that the Negative kids get results, which the positive kids do not get. However how Steven Covey puts it, Principals will always rule over the long-term.

So in future if I refer to being playful like a kid, it is with reference to the pure form of being like a kid.

Regards.

It is easy said that leadership is not about position but about serving other. In tough times it easy to forget this and the focus can shift to production. Now the question arises how do I get the production from my team while still maintain my character of servant leadership?

The following is central to the above according to “my world”:
It is said to be trust worthy one needs to be consistent in all circumstances, one need to be competent and lastly dependable.
One’s choices must be reflecting that one has all stakeholders at heart and not making choices to cover one’s own ass or playing for the crowd.
One must give recognition to the team members that contribute to even the small successes.
Did one realise that credibly is a victory and not a gift? I takes continues effort to build.
Lastly the above is in my mind all part of character. Now the question can be asked do I work on these elements of my character or am I building my image that I want the world to see?
Just as afterthoughts never forget good honest communication and feedback so that everybody knows what you think and do?
Best wishes on your journey of growth.

This morning I heard an interesting way The “Kleipot Gemeente” run their way of interacting as a Christian community, based on values, with the following metaphors:
1 : God is central with, God’s massage of love,
Clock : God is 24/7 Central to each members life,
Plug : Time spend with God, to connect with God and get his message and power for one’s life. Prayer and “Being quite” before God.
Bread: Community with people, to share with the people one like and do not like.
Puzzle: Accept all people for their unique gifts they can contribute.
Shoes: Carry out the message of God, but also putting yourself in the shoes of other, to really understand their world.
Downward slope: Move away from the EGO, and always ask what Jesus will do in the situation.

This was a beautiful message that I will take with me on my journey through life.

I pray that your week be blessed, with God’s graze.

The “Kleipot community” blogspace is: http://www.kleipotgemeente.org/

Leadership…

Sometimes things do not want to turn out as we want it, what can then be going wrong?

If we do not get out plans to execution we need to look at the following:

The hard stuff:
Do we have clear goals, not more than three crucial drivers, and everybody in the company is clear on it?
Roles. Who is responsible for what?
Processes. How must things be done? Are the tools to do the job in place? Is the process effective?
Soft stuff:
Process
Thinking = Climate / Culture / Attitude of employees and company
Who is responsible for decisions? Empowerment?
How is problems handled? Active or Reactive?
Communication.
Leadership style. Is it relevant to the cycle of the business? Is it adaptable for different scenarios?
Conflict, how is it dealt with?
Interpersonal
Diversity. To create innovation. To value people for what they can contribute.
Personality differences.
Trust???

Enjoy jour week.

At the Ken Blanchard Presidential Leadership summit during May 2008 the panel consisting of some of the world’s most influential leadership guru’s determined the following four broad leadership competencies as the most important:

Self Awareness.
The ability to create and manage highly effective teams.
The ability to listen to diverse opinions.
Having a strong set of core values.

Interesting… again looking at these competencies how integrated they are and all starting with the self. Self I define as a conscious/mindful contributor, in this context.