Inspiring Your Authentic Week

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Wake up or die Posted: 28 Jun 2010 12:01 AM PDT 2000 years ago in Rome it was acceptable to spend a day watching men fight to the death, a few executions over lunch and contrived animal hunts in the afternoon. It was normal to have slaves working in your house and on your land. Today in most parts of the world these things are unacceptable. This an example of how, what is usually known as, the "level of consciousness" of a society evolves. Like most things it is not linear or universal, but, on the whole our society's level of consciousness does seem to follow a path towards greater awareness and care. It often takes us a while to work out how to respond responsibly to new innovations, like television or fast food. However if you look at the broader picture, with things that have always been around you can see the pattern. Women on the whole have greater opportunity in more parts of the world. Child abuse is recognised, deplored and is prosecuted more often. The death penalty is less acceptable in more parts of the world. The shift is from a way that deals with problems through conflict and aggression and towards one that deals with problems through negotiation and consensus building. Away from self serving individual greed and towards a more collective betterment. It is an archetype of fiction as well as history, the bad guys are aggressive, violent and ego lead (wearing black or red). The good guys are more open, participative and want peace, (but are prepared to fight for it and wear white.) We are facing unprecedented threats to our existence, far more serious that the second World War or the Cold War. I call these threats " the triple challenge" they are: Environmental: Pollution, species loss, water. Economic: Peak oil, massively unfair and broken economic systems. Spiritual: The war for the "ownership" of meaning. If we attempt to solve these challenges the old way, through aggression, violence and ego, any one of them could lead to a literal and traumatic decimation of the human population. No bad thing for the rest of the world, but we humans may consider it an undesirable outcome. In order to solve these problems without creating disaster we must evolve. We must learn to see that we are all part of the same whole. Humans are not separate or more important than each other or than animals. We are all vital to our future. Killing, controlling, demeaning or reducing another in order to improve our own position is ultimately self defeating. The alternative to disaster is not the current status quo. The alternative to disaster starts with far better education that focusses on creating confident, capable and balanced adults and delivers far greater global fairness. Our successful future refuses to deplete natural resources in favour of one group or generation, at the expense of another. Our successful future finds a way to embrace diversity and harness it for the dignity of all. We can create a positive, peaceful and sustainable future. We have the emotional and intellectual intelligence, we just need to use it. We need to grow up as a society and the more fortunate and mature among us need to empower and support the less fortunate, rather than exploiting them. To do this we need mature leaders in all walks of life, in business, in communities, in politics. Are you prepared to be that leader? To bring maturity and responsibility to your organisation. To create whole hearted alignment and to create a positive and sustainable future for your family, your business or your society? If you would like to find out more about authentic leadership please visit the dedicated Authentic Leadership microsite and lets have a chat. Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter With love nx Neil Crofts Neil Crofts authentic business +34 646391384 neil@neilcrofts.com www.neilcrofts.com Skype - neilcrofts

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

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The future is written by the victors Posted: 20 Jun 2010 11:32 PM PDT Churchill's version referred to history being written by the victors. It is also true that the future is written by the victors. With a few exceptions we humans create our future. Sometimes by accident, sometimes by inaction and sometimes by design. Whatever we do, whatever we think and whatever we communicate, is creating our future. If we act, think and communicate carelessly, or if we are passive we might find the future that we are creating is not to our liking. If we consciously design our future we have the possibility of success, fulfilment and happiness. It is this simple - if we identify and articulate what we want from our life, commit to it whole heartedly and open up about it, it can happen. Without the articulation the commitment is unlikely, without the commitment and openness the realisation is unlikely. If you have a vision for the future it is vitally important that you articulate it and open up about it. If you don't have a vision for the future, it is vitally important that you get one. This works at all levels. It works for individuals, relationships, communities, businesses and societies. As long as enough wholehearted alignment exists it can happen. If you have a vision for your relationship to be more harmonious and rewarding, articulate it. If you have a vision for your business or your employers business to be more fulfilling and successful, articulate it. If you have a vision for our society to be more peaceful and sustainable, articulate it. However, for the vision to be realised you will need the wholehearted commitment of enough people. In your relationship that may only mean one other person. For a business or society it will mean more. The strategy for gaining wholehearted commitment from more people is to start with those who are already most aligned. Create a common articulation and engage people wholeheartedly until there is enough commitment to open up more widely. In June 1940, Charles de Gaulle was a junior French General who had already escaped to England. On the 17th of June Marshall Petain called for the surrender of France. On the 18th of June de Gaulle made a broadcast on the BBC. In his broadcast (watch the video) he articulated a vision of France ultimately winning. Although few heard it directly, his vision was one that so many French people were wholeheartedly aligned with, that everyone heard about it. This vision galvanized the nation and focussed it on a brighter future. Are you prepared to be that leader? To open up about your vision. To create whole hearted alignment and to create a positive and sustainable future for your family, your business or your society? If you would like to find out more about authentic leadership please visit the dedicated Authentic Leadership microsite and lets have a chat. Feel free to forward this to friends, post to your networks and to republish on your website. Please include the link. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter With love nx Neil Crofts Neil Crofts authentic business +34 646391384 neil@neilcrofts.com www.neilcrofts.com Skype - neilcrofts

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

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Lessons from Roman History Posted: 14 Jun 2010 12:24 AM PDT I was in Rome last week working with a wonderful leadership team from Microsoft. Part of the brief was to use Rome and Roman history in the learning for the session. There is an overwhelming wealth of stories from Roman history that could have been relevant, but the one that felt most significant was the story of two buildings. The Domus Aurea is now almost completely invisible, as it has been for nearly 2 millennia. Only 40 years after it's construction it had been completely obliterated. It's marble, gold and jeweled ornamentation stripped. It's elegant state rooms buried and built over. It's enormous artificial lake filled in and replaced by the Flavian Amphitheater (better known as The Colosseum). The Pantheon on the other hand has stood for over 2000 years, it was rebuilt twice after fires in the first 150 years of it's life, but is one of the most complete buildings from the Roman period anywhere. Both buildings were ambitious. The Domus Aurea was described as "ruinously prodigal" by Suetonius, built on a vast scale it filled the valley between three of Rome's seven hills. The Pantheon's concrete dome is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built. Why has one building lasted 2000 years and the other barely 40? The Domus Aurea was built for the glory of a single person, the emperor Nero. It's entrance was marked by a colossal 35 meter high bronze statue of Nero (which, after it was moved and altered to represent the God Sol gave it's name to the Colosseum), the name of the house reflected the lavish use of gold decorating the facade. Nero only had four years to enjoy his folly, construction began after the fire in 64AD destroyed the previous mansions on the site. Nero committed suicide in 68AD after the Senate declared him a public enemy. The Pantheon on the other hand was built to the glory of all of the gods of Rome, as the name suggests. The building you see today was completed under the Emperor Hadrian, but still bares the inscription to it's originator Marcus Agrippa. The lesson is that any human endeavor founded on ego and self glorification is highly unlikely to be sustained by others - why would they? On the other hand an enterprise build to serve with humility is likely to be supported and sustained. We can see this pattern repeated again and again at all scales, from individual to imperial. It seems to be a very hard lesson for us to learn. The team I work with at Microsoft are firm believers in this philosophy and work hard for the greater good, you can see a video of their leader, Paul Norris describing the work that we have done together over four years here. If you would like to ensure the lasting success of your organisation, give me a call. Are you ready to train the next generation of leaders? If you would like to find out more about authentic leadership please visit the dedicated Authentic Leadership microsite and lets have a chat. If you would are interested in helping to solve these kinds of challenge, you might like to join Authenticis as a consultant. Lets have a chat about that. The next round of training starts in mid June. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter With love nx Neil Crofts Neil Crofts authentic business +34 646391384 neil@neilcrofts.com www.neilcrofts.com Skype - neilcrofts

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

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The vital importance of followership Posted: 03 Jun 2010 11:43 PM PDT A leader is someone others choose to follow, this is the simplest definition of leadership. It follows that who and how we choose to follow is a vitally important, and that followership is a powerful and influential role. When we follow we endorse, support and empower. We create leaders simply by choosing to follow. By choosing to follow we turn a lone voice into an inspiring agent of change. By ignoring them we can condemn them as an isolated nut. If we choose to follow those whose purpose and values we align with, we enhance that meme. (Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to describe how ideas can follow a similar kind of evolutionary trajectory to genes.) We follow through our work, our behaviour and our conversation. The choices we make in whose work, ideas and products we follow makes a difference. Whether we see ourself as a leader or not, we are also a follower. We are at a time of pivotal change in our society. It is evident that many aspects of the old model have completed their useful existence and are now dying. No where is this clearer than in oil, banking and religion. Who we choose to follow now will determine the future of our society. Just as those who chose to follow Brunel, Faraday, Darwin, Ford, Gandhi, Hitler and others shaped the last century. Here is a very simple example of the dynamics of followership. Changing the way that we behave is hard. Changing damaging habits is hard enough when it relates to our personal health, it is so much harder when it is abstracted to a level of societal or planetary health. Harder still when the vast majority of people do not have the life circumstances to allow them to devote energy to considerations wider than their personal or close family challenges. Further, a recent study has shown that we are prone to "change fatigue". Our brain operates through a network of neural pathways. The ones we use most frequently (our habits) become clear and easy to navigate. Learning anything, like a new way of doing things, is a process of opening up new neural pathways. Like a pathway in a forest, if we don't keep using it, it will become overgrown and hard to navigate. Learning or relearning anything is a process of getting a machete out and clearing the pathway. It is hard work and tiring. If we want to effect change we need to support and encourage each other through this process. This is the nature of leadership AND followership. If you know someone who is doing something that you believe in follow them, support and empower them. Tell their story to everyone you know, help them shift from lone nut to inspiring leader. Equally if you are following someone whose values you are not aligned with, change that situation, change their values or change who you follow. It is not just your personal wellbeing I am concerned about, supporting a damaging meme is potentially very dangerous for us all Are you ready to lead the way to better business and a better world? Are you ready to train the next generation of leaders? If you would like to find out more about authentic leadership please visit the dedicated Authentic Leadership microsite and lets have a chat. If you would are interested in helping to solve these kinds of challenge, you might like to join Authenticis as a consultant. Lets have a chat about that. The next round of training starts in mid June. You can subscribe for free at www.neilcrofts.com Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter With love nx Neil Crofts Neil Crofts authentic business +34 646391384 neil@neilcrofts.com www.neilcrofts.com Skype - neilcrofts

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