Behaviours that create Business Advantage
By Bernard Chanliau, Friday 21 April, 2006
Personal Alchemy: Behaviours that create Business Advantage
It seems perfectly logical that business objectives should be linked to individual goals and behaviours if we want to keep everybody focused on where the organisation is going. Ultimately, business is about achieving goals and harnessing the collective force and skills of people. To do what it needs to do, theory says, the business will need a systematic plan of action to reach its goals and the plan should be cascaded down into meaningful elements to every level within the organisation. All very well, but this still proves to be an elusive holy textbook grail for many companies who find the plan usually falls down somewhere in the inconsistencies of human nature.
Mastering group behaviour is a fundamental challenge that goes well beyond HR and even good management because of the complexity of people. It comes down to personal behaviour and motivations at its core, which is affected by the degree to which the workplace environment identifies, encourages and coaches appropriate behaviours. Master it and you are on an alchemic track to huge competitive advantage.
However, the process of creating behavioural advantage is a journey of experience and learning rather than a clearly boxed group-training course with an exam and certificate at the end. This is one reason why it has taken time for companies to grasp and take on board. Once dismissed as ‘fluffy soft skills’ and in the domain of people’s life outside of work, behavioural personal development in its widest sense is now being heralded as a powerful route to personal and business success.
Traditionally management approaches could be compared to shepherds herding sheep from A to B – and this is where things fall down, because it’s very task orientated and assumes clone-like behaviour. Modern styles, based on coaching, by comparison are more individualised, akin to horse whisperers transforming foals into champion racehorses. Whilst the first – the shepherd - achieves a goal, it cannot travel great distance, win great riches, or produce innovation. The second is more complex and a greater investment because it involves a much more individual approach; however, the benefit is that it produces winning magic.
Specialists in the field of human behaviour, XenerGie Consulting helps a number of companies and individuals master behaviours through coaching. We anticipate that successful companies in the future are going to be the ones that demonstrate outstanding behaviours across the organisation – people committed to personal development, stretching their potential and being the best they can at home and at work. Moreover, it is about much more than just great customer service – it’s proactive, entrepreneurial attitude in every pocket of the organisation. That is our vision, and the journey is both a group and an individual one – groups are, after all, made of individuals.
It’s not just what you do, it’s how you do it Setting goals is quite straightforward. People, overall, do not need a coach to help them set goals. They do, however, need a coach to travel the distance and the coach provides them with their own personal alchemy toolbox – lifelong skills to unlocking their own potential. Here are six tools from the XenerGie alchemy toolbox:
1. Tackle your Fear and Negativity – Become Yourself.
The degree to which fear blocks us is insufficiently understood or recognised by most people. Every negative thought or belief about an occurrence or task has its root in a personal fear held by that individual. That personal fear links back to previous experiences or beliefs that have somewhere created a doubt. The fear may also have created a value by which you live – fear of financial ruin may create a life value of always seeking out security, which may prevent you from taking risk. You may not know exactly what that fear is or how it got there, but discovering these missing pieces of information is the step to changing the patterns that are happening inside you. Learning to turn fears on their head, look for the silver lining in every cloud and learn from the experience is a fundamental life skill that keeps you moving forward, that can jettison you right over hurdles and challenges. It’s what gets that race horse over the water jump. Letting go of fear also releases you to be who you really are and want to be, rather than who your parents or others wanted you to be, or who you have become through holding onto fear.
2. Observe and Master your Thoughts – the World is as you Dream it
Our thoughts create realities. The way we see something in our mind is the reality we create for ourselves. The alchemist sees everything as possible and everything positively, so that he finds it easy to think laterally around challenges and find renewed energy to effect the desired outcome. Self-fulfilling prophecies emerge from the way you think. By daydreaming and thinking about what you want and where you want to be, you start to create that reality, slowly but surely and when you download your thoughts onto paper, in discussion or other physical form, the alchemic process starts. Positive thinking is also expansive thinking – it creates abundance and progress. Negative thinking hinders progress and diminishes resources.
An office full of positive, expansive thinkers is a very special place to be. It also pays to consider how many of your friendships/colleagues are positive people who give you good energy and good thoughts, or negative ones that diminish your energy and self esteem….
3. Getting a Balanced Life – Less velocity More vitality = More Productivity
Energy creates more energy. Work expends energy and we need to ensure that we know how to maintain and keep our mental and physical ‘engines’ running. Just like cars, our minds and bodies need the fuel tanks filled, tyres changing, bodywork cleaned and polished and a regular service and oil fill. Without it, the car’s life is reduced and worse still, it breaks down. Would you turn up to meet a client in an old banger with the exhaust hanging off and running out of petrol? Well, take a look at yourself. I see many executives turning up to meetings in that kind of state with the current levels of exhaustion in executive life. Organising and balancing oneself is critical before we tackle our work – clearing the clutter to allow great thoughts and extra energy to come in. Going to the gym twice a week is not enough – how much time to you spend rejuvenating your mind and spirit too? Five minutes meditation once a day – to music or walking in nature, can change the shape of your day.
4. Learn to Listen, Observe and Communicate
The map is not the territory. The way you see things is not necessarily, how it is. In fact, how it is, varies according to whom you are: ‘it’ does not exist in itself – it is the perceptions that count. Learning to recognise the filters that you have on the world and the filters of others will open up many possibilities to you; it also helps to let go of rigid ways of thinking, to enjoy healthy conflict and to release negativity and grudges when you see that the world is not black and white. Consider, too, what is not said, but what is observed in the silence and space.
Creating an open environment where people can communicate honestly, freely and healthily is critical. It starts at the top.
5. What are the values that you live by?
Have you identified your needs and motivators? How many of them are yours, or just inherited from parents? Are they serving you? Do your friends have similar values or are the friendships compromised by value clash? In the organisation, are the values meaningful at an individual level, or merely lip service with real no application?
6. Find your Passion
Passion is the seat of our motivation. When we are passionate about something, we find it easy to put everything into pursuing it – we find the energy to overcome obstacles and stretch to new distances. The excitement of passion is addictive and expansive. How many times do you find yourself thinking lofty thoughts in passionate moments? If we can learn to create and use passion in business, we produce huge fuel tanks of energy. Sadly, the passion bag often gets lost on the road of the 20 something and by the time you hit 30 something, you can have to look the word up in the dictionary to remember what it means. When was the last time you got really passionate about something in your life? A question I ask new coachees – the hesitation and blank looks are very telling! Rediscovering what makes them passionate is part of the great coaching adventure!
Bringing passion into your life makes you feel alive and fully of energy. When you feel like this, you achieve great things. You know the way when you are in love; everything just seems to swim with you!
7. Discover the Science of Blind Faith
Blind faith is the ultimate and most important tool of the alchemist. When you cannot see how you are going to reach lofty goals, you have to rely on ‘blind faith’. A metaphysical state, blind faith is about continually pushing forward with a clear eye to your goal; harnessing passions; creating energy; breaking mountains to molehills; absolute belief that those dreams are possible and with every step you take that you are moving closer to the mountain. It is a spiritual feeling of being ‘in the flow’, staying positive, being open to synchronistic events, feeling alive, and feeling connected to the macrocosm. However, it is more than just a feeling, it is indeed a science - an engagement of mind, spirit, physical and social relationships and maintaining momentum, commitment and balance in all these.
As you liberate your body and your mind from the shackles of your fears, your personal alchemy begins.
“We believe the principles of really getting the right people on this team--not only at headquarters but also inside the stores--got us to our goal. For example, we do not interview our crewmembers; we audition them. It takes a certain level of energy, enthusiasm, and outgoing personality to create this ultimate ice-cream experience. We bring in five, six, seven people at a time and audition them for jobs. And you quickly learn which ones do or do not have the personality, charisma, and can-do attitude to work for us”
Doug Ducey President and CEO
Cold Stone Creamery
About XenerGie Behavioural Advantage Coaching
XenerGie provides 1-1 and group coaching to review and enhance personal behaviours. Programmes last 3-6 months with sessions usually two hours twice monthly. A range of psychometric assessments are used to assess coachees and measure performance including Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Belbin Team Roles, Lore Leadership Style, Lore Survey of Influence, Firo B and BarOn EQ. A coachability assessment will also indicate the likely ease or difficulty the coachee will face in transitioning behaviours.
We also run the following programmes with public and private coaching groups:
Cross Cultural Communication – Behavioural advantage in multi-national teams
Winning Behaviours for Selling – What the smartest companies do differently to win the deal
Behavioural Advantage for Leadership
Footsteps to Positive Living – Life skills for living in balance and achieving potential
For further information call info@Xenergie.com or 091 782 826
