Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

The Obama approach to change 2

Posted: 25 Aug 2009 05:50 AM PDT



http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

ed to be imposed from the outside and it tended to signify extreme danger, in the form of famine or war. For most people change only occurred when the risks of not changing were clearly greater than the risks of change.

From an evolutionary perspective we are also programmed to prefer more modest short term certainties over more generous longer term risks. Hence "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

We tend to be tolerant of significant discomfort, before we take the plunge and decide to make a change, even when the alternative is obviously and logically better. We will even defend a compromised system or situation simply because it is the one we are used to. As Morpheus said in the Matrix "These people are so hopelessly dependent on the system that they would fight to protect it."

At an individual level most of us were educated primarily to be obedient. We were educated out of our creativity and our confidence and into conformity and doing what we are told. However it is not always obvious who, or what, we are being obedient to.

As a result of both our evolutionary and our cultural programming many of us prefer a seemingly safe, if slightly uncomfortable, predictable life to change.

There are also times when we embrace change. We marry, change jobs, have children, move house and even move country. In many cases these changes are inspired and positive changes towards a perceived, and sometimes even long term improvement.

Even these changes can be coerced, but in many cases they are associated with a feeling of empowerment. There are also, clearly changes most of us want: Most of us want to be paid more, to feel safer and so on.

From the anthropologists evidence we can see that there are two approaches to change.

1 - The Coercive Approach.

2 - The Empowered Approach.

The coercive approach assumes that someone knows the answer. It uses fear or force to motivate people to change.

The weakness of this approach is that the change is often grudging or poorly understood by many of the participants. The change is likely to be resisted and half hearted for many.

The empowered approach requires those who are driving the change to have the confidence to trust others to be able to understand the evidence and make the right decisions based on it.

The weakness of this approach is that the evidence can be manipulated and not everyone has the wisdom to make decisions in the best interests of all involved.

The reality is that whenever we are contemplating change, in our own lives, in our organisations or in society as a whole, we probably need to use a combination of coercion and empowerment to introduce effective change. The mix we need will depend more on the nature of the audience than our own preferences.

We can demonstrate that the change has positive results, at the same time we can show the negative effects of not changing.

We can engage in a co-creative process to determine the nature of the change and at the same time create penalties for failure to change.

Those who believe in authority (Spiral Dynamics Red and Blue) will respond better, on the whole, to the strength shown by the coercive approach - even if they don't agree with it.

Those who believe in self determination (Spiral Dynamics Orange and Green) will respond better to empowerment and involvement.

If you want some help introducing change in your life or organisation give me a call.

These messages are now available as a Podcast. This means you can download and listen to these messages on your iPod or iPhone. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Also available for free at www.neilcrofts.com is a audio visual slideshow of my "10 Leadership Lessons from the Tour de France" message from a couple of weeks ago. If you want to use this with a group, let me know and I can supply a higher resolution version.

Become a fan on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

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Monday, August 24, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

The Obama approach to change

Posted: 23 Aug 2009 09:58 PM PDT

We have a complex relationship with change.

On the on the one hand we desperately want it, on the other we desperately resist it.

If we want to motivate change in our organisations or in our society we need to look at it with an anthropologists eye. We need to understand what has shaped our attitudes to change.

For most of our evolutionary and historical past change was definitely regarded as a bad thing. Centuries passed where the life of the one generation was not significantly different from the previous one or the next one.

When change came it tended to be imposed from the outside and it tended to signify extreme danger, in the form of famine or war. For most people change only occurred when the risks of not changing were clearly greater than the risks of change.

From an evolutionary perspective we are also programmed to prefer more modest short term certainties over more generous longer term risks. Hence "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

We tend to be tolerant of significant discomfort, before we take the plunge and decide to make a change, even when the alternative is obviously and logically better. We will even defend a compromised system or situation simply because it is the one we are used to. As Morpheus said in the Matrix "These people are so hopelessly dependent on the system that they would fight to protect it."

At an individual level most of us were educated primarily to be obedient. We were educated out of our creativity and our confidence and into conformity and doing what we are told. However it is not always obvious who, or what, we are being obedient to.

As a result of both our evolutionary and our cultural programming many of us prefer a seemingly safe, if slightly uncomfortable, predictable life to change.

There are also times when we embrace change. We marry, change jobs, have children, move house and even move country. In many cases these changes are inspired and positive changes towards a perceived, and sometimes even long term improvement.

Even these changes can be coerced, but in many cases they are associated with a feeling of empowerment. There are also, clearly changes most of us want: Most of us want to be paid more, to feel safer and so on.

From the anthropologists evidence we can see that there are two approaches to change.

1 - The Coercive Approach.

2 - The Empowered Approach.

The coercive approach assumes that someone knows the answer. It uses fear or force to motivate people to change.

The weakness of this approach is that the change is often grudging or poorly understood by many of the participants. The change is likely to be resisted and half hearted for many.

The empowered approach requires those who are driving the change to have the confidence to trust others to be able to understand the evidence and make the right decisions based on it.

The weakness of this approach is that the evidence can be manipulated and not everyone has the wisdom to make decisions in the best interests of all involved.

The reality is that whenever we are contemplating change, in our own lives, in our organisations or in society as a whole, we probably need to use a combination of coercion and empowerment to introduce effective change. The mix we need will depend more on the nature of the audience than our own preferences.

We can demonstrate that the change has positive results, at the same time we can show the negative effects of not changing.

We can engage in a co-creative process to determine the nature of the change and at the same time create penalties for failure to change.

Those who believe in authority (Spiral Dynamics Red and Blue) will respond better, on the whole, to the strength shown by the coercive approach - even if they don't agree with it.

Those who believe in self determination (Spiral Dynamics Orange and Green) will respond better to empowerment and involvement.

If you want some help introducing change in your life or organisation give me a call.

These messages are now available as a Podcast. This means you can download and listen to these messages on your iPod or iPhone. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Also available for free at www.neilcrofts.com is a audio visual slideshow of my "10 Leadership Lessons from the Tour de France" message from a couple of weeks ago. If you want to use this with a group, let me know and I can supply a higher resolution version.

Become a fan on Facebook

Follow on Twitter

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

The shape of things to come.

Posted: 17 Aug 2009 12:04 AM PDT

We have already bet our future on a technical fix.

There is a vague "green" vision that sees a return to a "simpler" life, but this is based on a very idealised vision of the past. The reality is that "self sufficiency" is not far removed from subsistence farming. And subsistence farming is a cripplingly hard way to live.

What climate change really threatens is our lifestyle and our population size. The planet and most species would, benefit enormously from our demise.

A return to subsistence farming wether intentional or enforced, would end our lifestyle anyway. It means back breaking physical labour, limited innovation, reduced social connections and a narrowing of world view.

For our society to flourish we need the opposite vision. We need to see the whole of humanity as a team, collaborating on the great project of learning how to live sustainably and peacefully.

Technology is key to achieving this.

One of the biggest challenges to peace and sustainability is communication. Partly the challenge is intercultural communication between cultures at vastly different levels. Partly the challenge is about language.

In Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy, Douglas Adams imagined the "Babel Fish". It was inserted into the ear and translated speech into brain waves so that anyone could understand anything in any language.

Internet translation software from Google and Yahoo/Alta Vista is already incredibly sophisticated, fast and free. It is not perfect, but it is certainly understandable. You can try it out on my home page at www.neilcrofts.com.

It is easy to imagine that the next level of this software will be a smart phone app that will translate phone calls from one language to another in near real time.

You speak into your phone as normal, speech recognition software works out what you are saying, translation software turns it into a different language and the receiver hears it in their native tongue a few seconds later. When the other speaker talks the same process will translate back into your preferred language.

We may initially find that we are phoning people while standing right in front of them when we are on holiday, but pretty soon this software will evolve into a hearing aid like device that will do the translation face to face too.

The initially clunky translation software will quickly evolve through "crowd sourcing". As more and more people use the software, they will rapidly correct anomalies and interpretations of colloquialisms leading to better and better translation.

Once the language barrier can be overcome, it will be far easier to overcome the cultural obstacles. The key to this is education. When translation is virtually free, accurate and easy all the great culture of civilisations can be shared.

Education needs to, and is moving from the industrial/information based model we have today to a far more personalised model based on skills and confidence.

Technology already enables instant access to virtually all knowledge. So what is important for the future is to give the next generation the skills to access the information they need and the confidence and ability to use it wisely.

Again technology will play a huge role in this. www.amentorforeverychild.com is an example of an initiative that will use technology to empower children all of over the world to become confident contributors to society.

Part of the cultural transformation required to evolve to peaceful and sustainable society requires an end to exploitation of people and the environment.

Exploitation was the fuel of the industrial age. The industrial model of education is designed for exploitation. Once the basic learning stage (literacy and numeracy) is over, it's focus is to teach obedience and conformity.

Obedience is what makes people suitable factory and battlefield and cult fodder. For the next phase we need people to be brilliant, creative, caring and confident in themselves - not obedient. We need people to know who they are and to be it, without fear or compromise in all situations. We need people to be authentic.

One of the concerns that industrial age thinking has over truly educating people to be confident is "who will then do the shit jobs"?

The answer is either they won't happen any longer (like fighting in trenches) or robots. Already the military are making increasing use of robots to do dangerous jobs. Military innovation has a habit of being game changing when technology developed with effectively unlimited R&D budgets finds it's way into civilian life.

Robots that are both autonomous and remote controlled will increasingly take on the dull and unpleasant tasks and people will be freed up to learn and be creative. You can already buy domestic robots to do the vacuuming and to mow the lawn. Increasingly robotic factories and agricultural machinery will change the nature of labour.

To ensure this liberation results in peace and sustainability rather than conflict and degradation we also have to follow through with excellent education and renewable energy.

It is our choice and we make it every day when we turn on the lights, buy anything or interact with anyone?

What do you choose?

If you want some help in adapting your business to the future give me a call.

These messages are now available as a Podcast. This means you can download and listen to these messages on your iPod or iPhone. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Also available for free at www.neilcrofts.com is a audio visual slideshow of my "10 Leadership Lessons from the Tour de France" message from a couple of weeks ago. If you want to use this with a group, let me know and I can supply a higher resolution version.

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

The next big things

Posted: 09 Aug 2009 11:01 PM PDT

Society is changing fast. Economic uncertainty, technology, climate change, extremism and the internet are all accelerating the pace of change.

For many well established business models the writing is on the wall. Now more than ever constant innovation is the only route to sustained success.

Here are some predictions for the next five years I have synthesized from the evidence:

Zero Carbon Transport - It has already started with a massive growth in cycling in many developed countries. Climate concerns and government policy (as well as military investment in electric robots) are going to accelerate the development of batteries and fuel cells.

These in turn will lead to the development of truly practical electric and fuel cell cars. The state of the art are cars from independent start ups such as Riversimple, Aptera and Tesla. The more innovative of established car manufacturers will catch up quickly.

Expect to see brakes that generate energy, solar battery recharging, one electric motor per wheel, super efficient ancillaries such as air conditioning. I expect 30% of cars to be electric in 10 years.

Air travel is also under a great deal of eco-pressure and will be keen to avoid carbon taxing. Bio fuels made from waste and from algae seem to the the most obvious options.

Look for growth in cycling, electric car tech, home charging and biofuels. Look for contraction in fossil fuels.

Zero Carbon Home - Solar water heating, Solar PV (direct electricity generation), Solar Thermal and Ground Source heating/cooling are all technologies that are rapidly heading towards market readiness.

Initially the take up will be individual, but as the prices drop expect to see local collective schemes, both by communities and through local authorities. Solar Thermal and Ground Source heating and cooling in particular are relatively low tech solutions that work better at a collective scale.

Look for growth in green tech.

Tele Tech - Congestion, security and climate concerns make physical travel increasingly unattractive. Physical travel will be reserved for valuable experiences and connections rather than the mundane.

Home offices, high speed internet, sophisticated hardware and software will all make home working, shopping and virtual meetings more and more attractive. Internet telephony and video conferencing will become more reliable and easier to use making "tele-presence" and "virtual teams" much more plausible reality.

Look for growth in software and hardware and home delivery subscription services for regular products. Contraction in commuting and business travel generally.

Going Mobile - The iPhone has shown us just what mobile computing power can mean. The do anything, anywhere device is already redefining what is possible, what "at work" means, where we find our entertainment and how we interact.

As the technology develops, speeds increase and more developers get involved in creating applications for every conceivable purpose, we will find that our need to be in specific places and at specific times diminishes.

Expect growth in personal flexibility, bandwidth and software capabilities.

Going digital - When I was at Razorfish in the late 90's we had a slogan "Everything that can be digital, will be".

We are increasingly becoming used to the idea that digital changes the rules. Although there are still plenty of business people in denial. Only last week Rupert Murdoch responded to losses at News Corp by saying that they plan to charge for access to news web sites!

The basic rules of digital still apply, and with new devices and greater bandwidth even more so. Everything that can be digital, will be and digital will tend towards free.

Music, TV, film, books and news will all have to find business models that work with minimal or no cost to end users. In the end piracy will not be controlled in spite of the amazingly heavy handed tactics of the old guard.

A new generation of content creators will use strategies more similar to software companies, looking for long term relationships, massive and very low cost, direct distribution.

Expect internet based marketing and sales to become much more sophisticated and important. Expect direct band/author/film maker to customer relationships.

Experience Retail - A new generation of retail outlets where theme park and shop collide with authentic advice takes retail to a whole new level. The Globetrotter adventure travel stores in Germany where visitors can actually test diving equipment in a pool, climbing equipment on a wall and outdoor gear in a rain and cold chamber, all with advice from experienced adventurers, show the future of retail.

The Apple Stores, among the most successful retailers per square meter, are another example of experience based retail.

Fair Finance - Banks have managed to be one of the least innovative sectors, at least in a social and customer perspective. Right now the banks are expecting a return to business as usual, but the fundamental flaws in the system have been exposed and it won't be long before new models emerge.

Banks have a service that can be entirely digital. Low cost, peer to peer models will emerge mainly from new players - not from among the incumbents. Zopa, Paypal and Grameen bank all point to the future.

Pensions based on passive income rather than annuity policies, that allow people to stop work as soon as their earning threshold is reached, if they want to.

Financial management software that automatically maximises passive income from credit and minimises costs from debt to the accountholder.

Zero cost fully electronic transactions using existing mobile devices (such as phones).

All based on a partnership between bank and customer aimed at maximising the customers financial security with the banks financial security coming as a by product.

What all of these developments have in common is that they require businesses to operate with a level of authenticity and transparency.

The car manufacturers, retailers, banks and computer companies that succeed in this new transparent, hi-tech, low carbon market will be the ones that seek to generate their profits BY benefitting both society AND customers.

Their staff will be passionate and motivated BECAUSE they are doing something that matters and because they care about personally.

Their profits will be higher BECAUSE they are authentic businesses

If you want some help in finding strategic and authentic innovations give me a call.

These messages are now available as a Podcast. This means you can download and listen to these messages on your iPod or iPhone. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Also available for free at www.neilcrofts.com is a audio visual slideshow of my "10 Leadership Lessons from the Tour de France" message from a couple of weeks ago. If you want to use this with a group, let me know and I can supply a higher resolution version.

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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Monday, August 03, 2009

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Strategy - or how to get what you want

Posted: 03 Aug 2009 06:59 AM PDT

There are three different approaches to getting what you want:

Toddler tantrum, "Realistic" and Strategic.

We have all come across the Toddler tantrum approach. When an individual or a group feel their desires are being thwarted they stamp their feet until someone else sorts it out for them.

This behaviour can be seen in actual toddlers and adult toddlers. Adult Toddlers have a spectrum too, from relatively harmless tantrum throwing divas to terrorists and certain political "leaders".

The bomb that went off in Mallorca last week illustrates this. Just how does anyone imagine that obliterating two random, innocent, young policemen furthers the cause of independence for a region on the other side of the country?

Apparently this was done to mark the 50th anniversary of this particular Tantrum. But, if an approach fails to achieve it's stated objective for half a century, it is time to find another approach.

Of course the Toddler does not really have or recognise any other approach, which makes dealing with them quite a challenge. Fundamentally, like all Toddlers, they need to "grow up". Unfortunately the Toddler approach can also be successful in a selfish and limited kind of way.

The Realist goes entirely the other way. Realists approach say "we need to be realistic" which is code for "we don't believe we can do it, so we are not even going to try."

People using the "realistic" approach self edit their lives down to only trying what they know they can achieve.

Luke: "I don't believe it."
Yoda: "That - is why you fail"

Realists often feel a sense of superiority over both Toddlers and Strategists. They often see strategists as "unrealistic" which, for them, is the greatest possible insult.

The strategic approach simply asks "how?"

If a business has a target to double revenue in a single year. The Toddler will throw a hissy fit. The Realist will bury their head in their hands and claim that it is not possible. The Strategist will work out what resources will need to be deployed, in which order and how much it will cost. If it ends up costing too much they will look at the plan again and see how it can be made cheaper.

The Strategist will analyse the situation, look at it from every angle, see what resources are required and how they can be accumulated and get on with the job.

It is not a question of "if" a business can be more profitable by being fulfilling to those involved and sustainable, it is a question of "how?"

Strategists are significantly less common than Toddlers and Realists and so will need develop strategies for dealing with both.

In dealing with Toddlers, Strategists need to be strong and never give in to the tantrum, whilst engaging them positively and encouragingly in the non tantrum phases. The Strategist needs to build the Toddlers confidence in their ability to think, negotiate and develop. (In much the same way that parents need to deal with real toddlers).

In dealing with Realists, Strategists need to provide a depressing (for the Strategist) amount of reassuring evidence and detail that will give the Realist the confidence to move forwards. The ambitious Strategist can also coach the Realist into edging beyond their comfort zone and taking a few "risks".

If you want some help in finding strategies to deal with Realists and Toddlers in your organisation give me a call.

This week I am launching a new experiment myself and making these messages available as a Podcast. This means you can download and listen to these messages on your iPod or iPhone. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com

Also available for free at www.neilcrofts.com is a audio visual slideshow of my "10 Leadership Lessons from the Tour de France" message from a couple of weeks ago. If you want to use this with a group, let me know and I can supply a higher resolution version.

With love

nx



Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@neilcrofts.com
www.neilcrofts.com
Skype - neilcrofts

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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