Inspiring Your Authentic Week

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Do you want a future? Posted: 22 Oct 2010 02:41 AM PDT We and our children will be paying the price of our greed based folly for decades. We have strip mined much of the globe and it's atmosphere in pursuit of wealth, entertainment and comfort. We have squandered billions of years of solar energy deposits on wars and commuting. We have created wealth distribution systems of such epic unfairness that in some countries parents end up selling their children. We have allowed one small group to rack up so much debt that governments have to bail them out, and they choose to do it by borrowing money from the same people. Clearly we have not figured things out yet. How do we learn from this trauma. How do we move on? The first step is to understand how we could allow such catastrophically bad decision making to be sustained in boardrooms, schools, homes and governments for long enough to get us to where we are. The answer is that we can only take good decisions when we are in a good place ourselves, when we are confident, centred and authentic enough to take decisions from a place of love. Even tough disciplinary decisions can be taken from a place of love, parents do it all the time. When we take decisions from a place of insecurity and fear they are likely to have damaging consequences. Sometimes intentionally damaging sometimes collaterally damaging. To create a sustainable society we need everyone to have the courage to pursue lives based on love and confidence rather than fear and insecurity. We need to train and educate a new generation of authentic leaders in business, politics and education. We need all children to have the opportunity to flourish pursuing their passions, rather than flounder, fleeing their fears. Everyone who reads these mails has a responsibility to lead this change in our approach. We all have a responsibility to run our lives, our businesses and our relationships authentically. We have a responsibility to continue on our own authentic journey, holding ourselves as closely as we can to our purpose and our values. Equally we have a responsibility to encourage others to embark on their own authentic journey, as soon as they are ready. When enough of the population are on their authentic journey peace and sustainability will be within our reach. Authenticity is genuinely the panacea for our troubles. It is not easy, but then what we are doing at the moment is not easy either. I have just completed training the first contingent in Authentic Leadership, for a group of high potential leaders at Microsoft. They are brilliant, it is massively heartening to work with these talented people who will define the next generation of business and leadership. The course ran as eight phone based one to one sessions and proved a great success for everyone. I am delighted to offer this course to anyone or any business who want to lead the transformation. More details here. Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST. This week we will be discussing "The Limit". 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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How much do you want to be paid? Posted: 18 Oct 2010 12:29 AM PDT Imagine a job where you decide how much you get paid, where you decide on your role, your title, how hard you work and your tasks. Does that sound like your sort of job? Perhaps you already have it. Most of us are so wedded to the conventions of hierarchy and authority that we accept the idea of waiting to be told what to do, what we will be paid and how much we must work without question. Neither side of this equation pauses to ask if this is the most efficient and effective way to do things. On the whole, even those who want to be paid more or work less accept the jurisdiction of the hierarchy to make the decision. The idea of going to those in authority and specifying your preferences is anathema, but why? Let's consider the reasons for employing people. Organisations employ people to contribute to the fulfilment of the organisational objectives. Ideally you end up with people doing work that precisely matches their skills and motivation and delivers optimally on the objectives. But who is best placed to match employee with activity? Is this a top down process or more of a conversation? Think of yourself as an employer and imagine the ideal employee. Would you prefer someone who sat on the bench waiting to be called and then did what they were told to do and then waited for further instructions; or someone who proactively proposed exactly where they would be most effective, delivered using initiative and then proposed where they would be most effective next? If you are asking people to fulfill repetitive and simple tasks then the former might be a suitable answer. If you are asking people to do things that require thought, creativity, discretion and intelligence then the latter will be more effective. So as an employee - why not take that initiative and make the proposal for your new job before you are asked? To make the decision easier you can cost it out in terms of money and hours invested, including your own requirements. In Authentic Leadership we teach people to be leaders in their own career as well as in their work. To plan their careers, ensure that there is alignment between their personal objectives, their team and their employers objectives to optimise, motivation, engagement and productivity. Interestingly a Professor of Management at the University of Notre Dame has been researching the link between meaningful work and employee motivation. His findings indicate that employees in "Green" businesses are more motivated than employees in more conventional businesses. Nothing new in this for followers of authentic business, the only difference being that from our research we see that these advantages are not restricted to "green" businesses, but any profound and positive purpose that a group of people can align around. Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST. This week we will be discussing "The Limit". 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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KISS! Posted: 11 Oct 2010 12:36 AM PDT Keep It Simple Stupid! The virtues of "simple" are not hard to grasp, so why does it take our greatest minds to truly live this principle, while the merely brilliant seem to do the opposite. Albert Einstein's advice was that "everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." Leonardo Da Vinci believed "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Antoine de Saint Exupéry held "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away". Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus Cars, sought to "Simplify, and add lightness". Steve Job's advised the new Nike CEO to " Get rid of the crappy stuff." In life, business, communications and relationships most of us endure unnecessary clutter and complexity. Clutter is like a drag anchor, holding us back, slowing us down and reducing our effectiveness. As individuals we carry around emotional and ego baggage. As organisations we expensively maintain cultural clutter. As teachers we add complexity and inhibit learning. Why? Four reasons... A lot of complexity is driven by ego, "simple" seems too easy. We need to impress, and complex seems more impressive. Who is going to be impressed by something short, small and easy to understand? Impressive requires a plethora of intricacy to engender an impression of imbecility in the audience juxtaposed with the sagacity of the author. We often to hang on to our complexity like a security blanket, "because we have always done it this way", "because it has always been there". We are reluctant to remove our baggage because we lack the self confidence to do so. It often takes courage to let go of "the crappy stuff". It takes self control and discipline to hold ourselves to high standards in what we do. To adequately think things through. To pare everything back to it's most powerful essence. To deliver value without varnish. The big one is lack of focus. Few of us really know what we seek to achieve, and even when we do, it is desperately easy to loose sight of it and become distracted (often by the baggage). The KISS recipe for success in any endeavor... Define your purpose and and your vision with absolute clarity. If you are a team, align around them. Your purpose is your overall direction - "heal the world through authenticity" for example. Your vision is the route you choose to take in pursuing it - "inspire and teach authentic transformation and leadership in business." Make both fully present in your mind, your life and your work space. Put key phrases around you, talk about it, explain it exhaustively until you have your pitch off pat. Work back from your vision and purpose to define your overall strategy. What is your key measure of success? What will have happened so that you know you have delivered? What happened just before that, and before that, and before that, right back to the present. Identify all of the jobs that need doing to deliver the first few bits, share them among your team and commit to them all. Articulate you values as an individual or a team. Rigorously weed out anything that does not fit with your values, or adjust it so that it does. Filter our everything else that does not contribute to your strategy. Get started and have fun. If you want help applying an authentic KISS of life in your life or business, give me a call. Join us on our Authentic Business Radio show every Thursday at 5pm UK, 6pm Euro or 12.00 EST. This week we will be discussing "The Limit". 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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