Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-09-08T02:08:00.001-07:00

Posted: 07 Sep 2009 01:06 PM PDT

How does our own behaviour influence our organisations, our society and our family? Can we expect any of them to be functional if our own behaviour is not?

In her amazing speech to the UN, when she was 12 years old, Severin Suzuki challenged the delegates by asking:

"At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us to behave in the world. You teach us:

* not to fight with others, * to work things out, * to respect others, * to clean up our mess, * not to hurt other creatures * to share – not be greedy.

Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do?"

Gandhi challenged us to "Be the change you want to see in the world".

The "Golden Rule" common to all major religions demands: "do to others what you would like to be done to you"

It follows that if we want our families, our organisations and our society to be functional we must start by cultivating our own functionality.

So what is functionality - how do we know how functional or dysfunctional we are? I recognise in myself that my own functionality, moment to moment, is related to my sense of inner peace.

Do I feel a sense of inner conflict around an issue or relationship or do I feel peace? Do I have an inner conversation going on that is different to the conversation I am sharing with others?

The challenge I find is to continuously seek to bring the inner and the outer into the closest possible alignment.

If this is a challenge for us as individuals - imagine how much greater that challenge gets when we seek to collaborate with others? When we have one group taking a degree of responsibility for another group? For example, in a family, or a business, or in government.

In these cases the challenge is not just to find our own inner alignment and peace, but to create alignment and peace with others.

Just as whatever conflict we experience internally plays out in our lives, so any conflict within a couple or a team plays out in their family or organisation.

Let's have a think about some simple guidelines that might help our teams to function more effectively and be the example we would like others to follow:

• TEAM stands for Together Everyone Achieves More 
• Your job is to do your job AND help your teammates do theirs 
• We are all responsible for motivating each other and creating a good atmosphere 
• Learn to say, "I don't know" 
• It is OK to make mistakes - your teammates are there to help you 
• Speak your mind, without criticizing and encourage others to do likewise 
• Discourage sycophants - we need the truth not reassurance 
• Speak up. You are here because your opinion and ideas matter 
• Be brief, clear and accurate - shorter is usually better 
• Decide quickly, act promptly - nothing goes under the carpet - ever 
• The best way for you to look good is for your teammates to look good 
• Know what level to involve each other in decisions - inform, consult or approval and apply it rigourously 
• We can never know enough, seek and share learning continuously 
• We are all responsible for enforcing these rules

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

If you are a coach or consultant and would like to be trained to deliver Neil Crofts Authentic Transformation methodology and be part of a community of like minded practitioners 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

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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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-08-26T02:07:00.001-07:00

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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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-08-24T02:05:00.001-07:00

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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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-08-18T02:10:00.001-07:00

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-08-11T02:05:00.001-07:00

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-08-03T02:04:00.001-07:00

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-07-27T02:07:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

“It’s so obvious”

Posted: 26 Jul 2009 11:11 PM PDT

I gave a talk to a fashion industry audience recently. I was explaining my research and work around authentic business and why authentic business is simply a better way to do business.

One of the people in the audience came to me afterwards and said "it is so obvious, and yet so few businesses do it."

EXACTLY! and this is my mission.

Many of us have been so blinded by the pursuit of money as an end in itself that we forgot what we were doing it all for.

It is as if we got confused somewhere along the line, and believed for a time that business was somehow separate from being human.

Not only that, when we remember that business is also a human activity, the business is actually more successful, more profitable and more fulfilling.

Let me summarise quickly:

Authentic businesses generate profit through the pursuit of a profound and positive purpose. (unlike regular businesses which simply seek to redistribute wealth from the population and environment to a few senior executives and shareholders).

Because the purpose is something the people in the business believe in passionately they are more motivated, caring and committed to their work than people in regular businesses.

Because people in regular businesses are working exclusively to make someone else rich, it is much more difficult/expensive to motivate them.

Not only that but because there is a purpose beyond profit staff, customers and suppliers who feel aligned with the purpose can also align with the business and support it.

Whereas in regular businesses, the business is competing with everyone, including their own staff and customers, for profit.

It is really quite simple.

Virtually all people have, at their core, a positive sense of purpose. We all want to make the world a better place, to make our lives and those of others around us better. If we fail to do this, it is because we are confused and frightened, not because we are bad or uncaring (except for the few genuine psychopaths).

Most businesses are made up of people. Therefore - if we have the courage to uncover their personal purpose, most businesses can also be authentic.

My mission is for all businesses to be authentic. I believe it will make the world a better place. If you can work out that it is a better way to do business, a better way to live and better for the world - why wouldn't you? It's obvious.

If you need some further persuasion take a look at Ray Anderson speaking at TED this year. (Please bear in mind that sustainability happens to be the purpose at Interface Carpets - not every business purpose is even related to sustainability). Ray Anderson is the Founder and Chairman of Interface Carpets - the largest commercial carpet tile business in the world. The company is hugely successful, public quoted, has a petrochemical based product AND is authentic.

If they can do it, so can anyone.

Helping businesses find their authenticity and become authentic is what I do. If you would like to find out how give me a call.

Over the summer I am offering my usual "summer sale": Three for the price of two on coaching sessions held during July and August. If you would like to find out more about how my style of authentic coaching can benefit your leadership, work and your life give me a call.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-07-21T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

10 Leadership lessons from the Tour

Posted: 20 Jul 2009 12:14 AM PDT

As many readers will know, I am passionate about cycling. I love the complex interplay of personal discipline with teamwork. I love the combination of brutal effort and chess like strategy. I love the epic scenery and the cool gadgets - I love it all.

This week the 2009 Tour de France enters it's final, decisive week. So in a blatant bid to get more people interested in cycling - here are my 10 leadership lessons from the Tour...

1- More collaboration equals more progress:

In cycling the more people you collaborate with the faster you go. The more people who share the work at the front, offering others their slipstream, the faster and further you will go.

It is common for a group of riders to get ahead at the beginning of a stage. If this group is big enough and gets far enough ahead they might be able to stay in front. But when the "peleton" (the main group of riders) gets organised they will probably go faster.

So avoid making enemies among your competition you never know when you may need them and learn how to motivate others to work with you.

2 - Sometimes leaders have to follow:

Cycling is both a team sport and an individual sport. Team members sacrifice their individual ambition for that of the team and the team leader. However, if the leader does not have the strength to win, or if they are so far ahead that they don't need to, they gain more credibility with their team mates for next time by helping one of them to win.

Whenever you are the leader - look for opportunities to share the glory and support your team mates in achieving it.

3 - Leadership is emergent:

Cycling is brutally meritocratic. The team may nominate a "leader" for the tour, but if that leader looses time on a team mate, leadership moves to where it is most relevant. For a leader to stay the leader they have to perform.

In hierarchies "leadership" is appointed, in teams it is emergent and dynamic. Every member is expected to take responsibility and contribute what they can - sometimes that means leading, sometimes that means following.

4 - Remember to look after yourself:

Riding a tour stage consumes about 4,000 to 6,000 calories. Riders need to be constantly eating and drinking to make sure they have enough fuel for when it matters. Running out of fuel means a slow and painful end to the stage. After the stage they need to take care to rest, make time for massage, eat the right food, hydrate, stretch and get a good nights sleep so that they can recover for the next day.

We all perform better when we are well fed and rested. If we want to lead we need to be in top condition as much of the time as possible. We need to look after our bodies and stay energised.

5 - Equipment matters - team matters more:

It is easy to get seduced into the kit and the gadgets. Carbon fibre bikes with light weight components and mini computers that can tell you every detail of your ride. But the kit will never differentiate your performance for long, the way a team works is far harder to copy and is what sets winners apart from runners up.

Getting the people issues right too often goes into the "too hard" box and gets ignored, while investment is poured into equipment or other easier to understand areas. If you want your team to flourish you will need to invest in it.

6 - Train, train, train:

A cyclist wanting to win the Tour de France will have started regular training and competition in their early teens. They will have built up their endurance base over 10 to 20 years (Tour winners in their early 20's are rare). They will have started their specific training the previous November and will have had a tailored programme over the the spring, riding thousands of kilometers before they even get to the start line.

Riders will work with coaches, strategists, psychologists, doctors, nutritionists, physiologists and masseurs to ensure that they are in peak mental and physical condition for the race.

If we want the best from ourselves and our team we need to take responsibility for our training. In today's world there is so much that a leader needs to know - not just about their specialist subject, but also about psychology, marketing, communication, technology, the market, finance, motivational speaking and more.

Cyclists say about recovery - when you don't have to stand, sit, when you don't have to sit, lie down.

Leaders might say - when you don't have to communicate, learn, when you don't have to learn, rest.

7 - Protect your star riders:

In cycling the star rider is usually a specialist who can climb or sprint better than the others. The team will ride to protect that rider and save their energy for the key moments of the race, when they can make the difference. The team will fetch them food and drink from the team car, pace them back to the front if they stop for a pee or a mechanical problem and spend hours riding in front of them to protect them from the wind.

Most organisational teams also have a star, the best designer, sales person, technologist or whatever. To make the most of that skill the rest of the team needs to rally around and ensure that the star player can focus time and energy on doing what they do better than the others. The team also needs to treat the stars carefully to avoid "divadom".

8 - Energy management is more important than time management:

In the race it is the relative time to other riders that matters - not the absolute time. The rider who wins over three weeks is the one who manages their energy best. They avoid wasting energy by riding in the wind or attacking when they don't have to.

Time pressure is often an illusion. We all know that when we are working on something we are passionate about time is rarely a problem - it is when we are working on things that bore us that we run out of time. The ideal team will have specialists who are passionate about all areas that need to be covered, so that everyone can stay as energised as possible.

9 - The last 1% makes all the difference:

In the Tour de France you might lead any of the competitions by a crushing margin right up to the last kilometer of the last stage. But it is worth nothing if you don't finish.

Whatever we do in life, persistence is often worth as much, if not more than brilliance. Whatever we do, it is worth very little if it is incomplete. No matter how brilliant the rest of it is.

10 - You have to love it:

To be a pro cyclist takes an incredible level of dedication and commitment. Even in their teens the aspiring cyclist lives monastically in pursuit of their passion. No rider can achieve greatness if their goal is financial reward or celebrity - they have to love it, they have to have a passion for what they are doing.

Everyone who aspires to success and fulfilment in life needs to find and focus on doing what they love. It is the only way.

If you want some help in making your team perform brilliantly give me a call.

Over the summer I am offering my usual "summer sale": Three for the price of two on coaching sessions held during July and August. If you would like to find out more about how my style of authentic coaching can benefit your leadership, work and your life give me a call.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-07-13T02:08:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Love, Leadership and business

Posted: 13 Jul 2009 10:00 AM PDT

Love is still a deeply unfashionable expression to use in business. But I believe that it is the only thing that really leads to sustained business success.

I have delivered the "love" message to quite a few business audiences so far and the response varies from disbelieving sniggers to relieved acceptance. You won't be surprised that sniggers still out number acceptance - at the moment.

First, lets be clear about what "love" is. We are talking about the love of an activity, a thing, a person or a place. We are not talking about romantic love, but the experience we all have when our feelings for something go far beyond the practical.

For example: there are all sorts of practical reasons why I like cycling - I like the fitness, the gadgets, the feeling of freedom and the countryside. But my feelings for cycling go way beyond these practical elements - this, the bit beyond the practical - is the "love" bit.

We also have to be careful to distinguish between this kind of love for something and addiction. To my mind the distinction is one of long term health. A loving relationship is always a healthy relationship. An addictive relationship is always unhealthy.

The jobs that will work for us are the jobs we love. The relationships with colleagues, clients and suppliers that work are the ones with love involved. The best kind of marketing is word of mouth and the products customers talk about most, and most positively, are the ones they love.

Perhaps part of the reason that so many people are afraid of love in business is that it is not something we decide on. It is not something we control. It is not predictable. Love pounces or slips in unannounced and then changes all our plans.

As Steve Jobs says: "The only way to do great work is to love what you do". What is the point of investing our time and energy in anything less?

Marketers know this, for years they have tried to synthesise "love" for products to get us to buy them. But of course, you cannot fake love for long.

So what makes a person or a business lovable?

In a word the answer is authenticity.

Unfortunately for marketers, authenticity does not make a product, a business or a person lovable to everyone - but it does make them lovable to enough people.

It is not easy to truly love anything we feel uncomfortable about or find hard to trust. It is not easy to love anything that is shifty, insincere or manipulative.

We respect those who are honest, transparent and open. But we might love those who also align with us passionately, in some way.

It is not predictable, or controllable, but if we work with passion and love ourselves, it is likely that our work will connect with others who feel the same way and some of them will love what we do.

When love enters the relationship, suddenly we are working on a whole new level. Suspicion and doubt are replaced by support and commitment. Searching and disappointment are replaced by loyalty and contribution.

However unfashionable it may be in business, love is the answer that we are all looking for. Look for the love in your work, your business, your colleagues, your products and services and you will also find success and fulfilment.

If you want some help finding the love in your work - give me a call.

Over the summer I am offering my usual "summer sale": Three for the price of two on coaching sessions held during July and August. If you would like to find out more about how my style of authentic coaching can benefit your leadership, work and your life give me a call.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-07-06T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Team work and leadership

Posted: 05 Jul 2009 10:46 AM PDT

Individually we can make a difference, together we can
change the world.

Sadly many of us find true collaboration and team work difficult. The need for personal recognition of 'our' idea or 'our' work gets in the way.

Our education was largely an individual pursuit, at school collaboration is known as cheating. Equally signs of leadership among the pupils are frowned upon (I was expelled from one school specifically for showing signs of leadership!).

Our culture promotes the ideas of fixed hierarchy and appointed leadership, another two things that limit the opportunities for team work. The effectiveness of hierarchical systems is limited because, by definition, they do not have the most appropriate leader most of the time.

When we truly work as a team we notice that leadership is not static, it is dynamic. Leadership flows around the team to where it is most relevant in the moment. It vests temporarily due to skills, knowledge, relationships or whatever is important in that moment. When that moment passes it moves on.

WL Gore the manufacturers of Gore Tex fabric, who perennially feature at the top of lists of most innovative companies and best places to work, have a rotating hierarchy. Managers have fixed term appointments and are voted for by their teams.

However team work is compatible with the more rigid hierarchies found in most organisations, it just requires the appointed leaders to have the self confidence to be part of the team. To recognise that the answers come from the team (not from them) and to be prepared to follow as well as lead. Their leadership space is specifically in taking responsibility for relations with the rest of the organisation, which is probably why they got the job.

In my own career I remember the shift from feeling the terrible responsibility of solving every problem, to the relief of realising that I didn't have to.

I have worked largely solo for the last 10 years, with occasional informal partners and teams. I have been looking, unsuccessfully, for long term partners - but perhaps I was not ready.

True teamwork and partnership requires a level of trust and love most usually found in a more romantic relationship. It requires us to transcend our fears and accept that our self interest is better served by collaboration than by individual effort and control.

Today, perhaps, I am ready. I am now working in three different partnerships on three different projects: A Mentor for every child, Authenticis 2.0 and Stratum Social Value Partnership. In all cases it is wonderful to share the thinking, the responsibility, the credit and the work.

All of these projects deliver on my life purpose, "to heal the world through authenticity", and on the life purpose of the other partners involved. We are all passionate about the success and effect of our projects.

Technology facilitates all of these partnerships brilliantly. All are based in more than one country and we use a mixture of instant messaging, Skype, e-mail, iwork.com, Ning and Powwownow to collaborate as effectively as if we were in the same office - it is remarkable.

Over the summer I am offering my usual "summer sale": Three for the price of two on coaching sessions held during July and August. If you would like to find out more about how my style of authentic coaching can benefit your leadership, work and your life give me a call.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-06-29T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Business Leadership 3.0

Posted: 28 Jun 2009 10:25 PM PDT

A few years ago I was discussing business leadership with an experienced business consultant and psychologist. He suggested that the next evolution of business leader would come from an HR background.

His hypothesis was that the first generation of big business leaders in the industrial revolution was the idealistic, entrepreneurial and philosophical. They created great enterprise by solving the social problems of the day. Henry Ford is perhaps the icon of this form of leadership.

This form of business leadership continues, but is no longer the dominant style.

These leaders were followed by what Robert Reich calls "Supercapitalism" and the financially focussed CEO. Here everything is reduced to the binary simplicity of "does it make more money in the next quarter or not?" As competition for shareholders and customers increased the time horizon for this attitude grew shorter and shorter until, in the autumn of 2008, it imploded.

Being cynical you might say that Kenneth Lay (Enron) or Fred Goodwin (RBS) are the icons of financially focussed leadership.

We are beginning to see the dawning of a new generation of leadership and the "HR based leadership" thinking is only part of it. Will it become the new dominant form of leadership? Was the shock of the credit crunch enough to move us on to the next era of business leadership?

This depends to some extent on whether we; as consumers, will continue to demand cheapness over value. As shareholders, will continue demand the greatest short term financial over enduring performance. And as voters will continue to allow lax regulation of business.

The reality is that for business leadership to evolve it will need to do it all. Deliver on short and long term financial objectives, be financially competitive, deliver on environmental standards and deliver on a "spiritual" level.

My view is that the new level business leaders will start from a base of brand and culture and radiate out from there.

The short term financial returns we all understand, but the new level CEO will need to think 5-10 years ahead, as well as the next quarter profits. This means planning the wider direction of the business and being far more in tune with social priorities.

The environment will be one of the greatest social priorities of the the next 10 years and also the one of the key dynamics for cost control. Using new technologies to drive down energy consumption and develop "in house" generation will be key strategies for driving cost out of business.

Technology will be another key social dynamic as internet and mobile technologies will define how social and commercial relationships are mediated. Technology will also change the cost dynamics of production, transport, communication and administration.

The "spiritual" level was not very fashionable with the "financially focussed" CEO, but it will make a comeback with the brand/culture focussed CEO. Spirituality is all about meaning and in the new era long term profitability will depend on a business being meaningful to both staff and customers.

In today's networked, hyper-connected, media saturated marketplace attention is golden. Holding the attention of customers and media requires something considerably deeper than discounts and TV ads. Offering "meaning" to customers creates connections and long lasting loyalty that is far more valuable than discounts.

Apple are the meaning masters creating and distributing fantastic products at or below cost to make their core products more meaningful. Most Apple software is given away or sold very cheaply because it generates sales and loyalty for the hardware products. For meaning to be truly valuable it has to go beyond mere utility to create "love" for the product or brand.

Love is the bit beyond the logical reasons for any relationship, the part of our commitment that is not necessarily rational, and is therefore more powerful. Long term business success will depend on customers loving our products and our brand. Love depends on trust and delivering value over and above the rational.

Meaning for staff is the other part of the "spiritual" equation. We no longer live in an industrial world, few businesses want employees who just do what they are told. We need people to feel inspired, motivated, engaged and responsible. To do this they need to "own" the ideology of the business, to feel passionate about it's objectives, it's products and it's effect on customers, community and society.

To summarise - the next generation of business leader will be brand and culture focussed with creative and excellent financial discipline. They will also be technically savvy enough to understand how to use it to innovate to reduce environmental impact and costs.

The businesses they create will be loved by customers and staff alike. They will be trusted because of their authenticity and deliver emotional as well as practical value.

Would you like to help others and organisations to be reach this level? For the first time I am ready to offer training in the Authentic Transformation methodologies I have developed. From the 1st of July (repeated on the 7th of July) and over the summer I am running a distance learning course to train consultants and coaches.

Subjects include, authentic business, life purpose articulation, team purpose articulation, Spiral Dynamics and Authentic leadership. If you would like to know more, give me a call.

The course starts with a one to one phone session which needs to take place before the 7th of July. These sessions have been so popular that I will repeat each session to make it easier for people juggling holidays, time zones and other commitments.

I am redefining my businesses - getting more clear, more authentic about who I am and what I do. www.neilcrofts.com has become the focus for my authentic business consultancy and coaching business. www.authenticis.com is evolving into a matchmaking website that will help authentic businesses and individuals find each other.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-06-22T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Comfort Zones

Posted: 21 Jun 2009 09:56 PM PDT

"You are either learning or dying" the saying goes.

We meet some remarkable people in life. People in their 20's and 30's who are confident in who they are. People in their 40's and 50's who are alive with passion and commitment. People in their 60's,70's and 80's who are fascinated, open and learning.

What these people have in common is that they are evolving. Continuously becoming more conscious, more aware of how life works and at the same time becoming more capable of influencing it.

Far more "normal" is to stop developing at some point. A big chunk of education for most us was about learning to be obedient. Many of us learn this lesson so well that if there is no one to tell us what to do, we simply do nothing. Apathy is disturbingly common.

When I first started running workshops I was surprised at the way some sessions were resisted and how the feedback on those sessions was often negative. After a time I realised that very often the reason the feedback was negative was because people were out of their comfort zone - and they didn't like it.

The only way we expand our consciousness is by being outside our comfort zone. Learning is a process of opening up new neural pathways in the brain. Neural pathways are like pathways in a forest, the paths that are used frequently become clear and easy to navigate. Paths that are not used become overgrown.

Learning anything is like going through the forest with a machete, opening up new pathways. By definition it pushes us out side our comfort zone. By definition it is uncomfortable.

These days I start workshops by telling participants this analogy, and I ask them not to judge the workshop by the level of discomfort they feel.

It could be argued that during the industrial era,that it was the role of individuals to be obedient. To work in factories obediently, to fight in trenches obediently or to work in the public sector obediently.

Today this is emphatically not good enough. We need EVERY member of society who can to take responsibility. We need responsible politicians, we need responsible bankers, we need responsible teachers and doctors and nurses. We need responsible business people. We need responsible teenagers, community members and citizens.

Being responsible does not just mean doing what we are told, it means knowing what is right and doing it. We can only know what is right by knowing ourselves, our values, our purpose and our intuition. Morals, ethics and values do not come from further obedience to a book or dogma, but from being in touch with our inner self.

Most of us were not fortunate enough to come out of our formal education with deep self knowledge - so we need to learn it now.

Once we are willing to go outside our comfort zone and make learning and expanding our consciousness a lifelong habit and pursuit, we immediately open up our potential to being exceptional.

Do you choose to be exceptional?

Would you like to be exceptional? Would you like your colleagues and your workplace to be exceptional. It can happen, it just requires a willingness to go beyond what you already know.

Would you like to help others and organisations to be fabulous? For the first time I am ready to offer training in the Authentic Transformation methodologies I have developed. From the 1st of July and over the summer I am running a distance learning course to train consultants and coaches.

Subjects include, authentic business, life purpose articulation, team purpose articulation, Spiral Dynamics and Authentic leadership. If you would like to know more, give me a call.

The courser starts with a one to one phone session which needs to take place before the 1st of July. These sessions have been so popular that I will repeat each session to make it easier for people juggling holidays, time zones and other commitments.

I am redefining my businesses - getting more clear, more authentic about who I am and what I do. www.neilcrofts.com has become the focus for my authentic business consultancy and coaching business. www.authenticis.com is evolving into a matchmaking website that will help authentic businesses and individuals find each other.

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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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-06-15T02:01:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

The only way is up

Posted: 12 Jun 2009 04:38 AM PDT

In so many ways our society reached rock bottom over the last six months. There are clear signs now that we are no longer going down and therefore we are going up.

What I mean is that in most dimensions, environmentally, politically, economically, socially and spiritually we are on the way up.

The bottom was characterized by: The previous US administration, reckless financial speculation, baseless conflict, greedy politicians, irresponsible business and government.

The evidence of our ascent is:

The election of Barack Obama and his speech in Cairo. Barack Obama is the first global level leader

The shift in attitudes to things like corruption, cheating, environmental damage and attempts to control people (except in North Korea).

In the UK members of parliament had been abusing the expenses system forever, but in 2009 that level of petty corruption shifted from acceptable to unacceptable.

In professional cycling tacit acceptance of cheating has shifted to a widespread "clean cycling" movement.

Chinese politics has moved a long way since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The lesson that was learned was that the old fashioned violent coercion of people could no longer be relied on to control people. In the last week the Chinese government announced plans to "go green" by producing 20% of their electricity from renewables.

In my own experience there has been an amazing upsurge of interest in authentic business. I have been writing, consulting and coaching about authentic business for nearly 10 years. When I started the concept seemed very "out there".

Today I am having conversations with bankers, fashion designers, accountants, oil companies, software companies and more, seeking to bring greater integrity and authenticity to their organisations.

I am not saying that everything is exactly as we would like it, but the progress we are seeing is very significant.

The time is right for me to step up my work to the next level. For the first time I am ready to offer training in the Authentic Transformation methodologies I have developed. From the 1st of July and over the summer I am running a distance learning course to train consultants and coaches.

Subjects include, authentic business, life purpose articulation, team purpose articulation, Spiral Dynamics and Authentic leadership. If you would like to know more, give me a call.

The courser starts with a one to one phone session which needs to take place before the 1st of July.

I am redefining my businesses - getting more clear, more authentic about who I am and what I do. www.neilcrofts.com has become the focus for my authentic business consultancy and coaching business. www.authenticis.com is evolving into a matchmaking website that will help authentic businesses and individuals find each other.

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-06-09T02:02:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

It all comes back to confidence 2

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 12:27 AM PDT

I wrote about confidence last week and I am going to write about it again this week, because it is so important and it is such a big issue for so many of us.

Firstly, let's define confidence. Confidence is an emotion, it is something we feel. We feel confident when we understand what is going on and when our abilities match or exceed the challenges we face.

If we polarise it we can see two extremes strategies to confidence. One is to stay within our comfort zone - avoiding exposure to unfamiliar or testing situations.

The other strategy is to continually expand the comfort zone to remain comfortable even when exposed to challenge and difference.

As a strategy the first example has it's risks, firstly it is likely to involve living a very sheltered life and secondly there are no guarantees, no matter how carefully we plan, that we will not be exposed to challenge.

It is worth remembering that when we are pushed outside our comfort zone we all react in different ways. Some will hide in their shell or run away, others will become aggressive or defensive.

It is clear that in almost every situation confidence is a prerequisite to achieving our full potential. Self development is what we call the process of learning about who we are and building our confidence.

My own personal development, and the business and personal coaching I offer to others focusses expanding the comfort zone to encompass the broadest imaginable range of possibilities.

Of course part of confidence comes from experiencing lots of different things and becoming used to them. And this is also an effective mode of personal development.

However, I believe the foundation for a really broad self confidence starts within. It is the challenging, unexpected or misunderstood emotion rising from inside us that most often shakes our confidence.

In order to feel confident we need to experience, understand, interpret and learn how to respond to (not suppress) these feelings.

To do this we need to truly know our own emotional foundations. While we will already be well aware of these the more conscious we are of them, the more clearly we understand them the more confident we will be.

We need to know:

Our life purpose - this gives us direction and helps us understand what motivates us.

Our values - What we believe in and what is important to us, this helps us know our boundaries and our decision making criteria.

Our tastes - knowing who and where we prefer to direct our energy towards,

Our talents - knowing what we are good at and where we are better off getting help from others (teamwork).

Our vision - where we are going with our life.

Our strategy - how we are going to put all of this together in our life.

Our personality - how we behave in relation to others and how that affects them.

We can learn these things through a combination of experience, introspection and the wisdom of others through reading, courses and coaching.

What is critical is that we do it, both for our working and business lives and for our personal and love lives.

If you want some help in your authentic journey give me a call.

I am redefining my businesses - getting more clear, more authentic about who I am and what I do. www.neilcrofts.com has become the focus for my authentic business consultancy and coaching business. www.authenticis.com is evolving into a matchmaking website that will help authentic businesses and individuals find each other.

We are looking for associate consultants to join Authenticis and be trained in the authentic transformation tools - for more details visit the authenticis 2.0 page on www.authenticis.com

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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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-06-02T02:08:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

It all comes back to confidence

Posted: 01 Jun 2009 12:24 AM PDT

I define personal authenticity as knowing who you are and having to the courage to be it in all situations without fear or compromise.

This is not always easy.

In "Authentic - how to make a living by being yourself" I wrote about a "dysfunctionality epidemic" where all sorts of damaging and negative behaviours can be traced back to individual insecurity.

At school most of us learn how to read and write and the capital cities of the world, but we learn precious little about ourselves or psychology. What we do learn we mostly learn in the playground.

1 - Don't stand out.
2 - Don't have an opinion
3 - Defer to anyone who seems physically or emotionally stronger
4 - You are not special

Of course we are not all equally affected by these lessons. How they affect us will depend on our underlying character, our appearance, support from friends and parents, the school we are at and so on. But most of us will, at least, recognise these lessons.

These lessons play out in a variety of ways in adult life, but always based in insecurity. Some will compensate for their insecurity by bullying and demeaning others in order to look better themselves. Some will seek to remain invisible by saying and doing as little as possible. Some will always try to say what they think other people want to hear - never expressing their true opinion. Some will be permanently defensive, taking everything as a personal attack. Some will just do what they are told even if it goes directly against their beliefs.

The global consequences of these childhood lessons are significant. Many cases of crime, violence, abuse and even war can be traced back to lessons learned in the playground. Even if the results are not so extreme they can play out in unfulfilled lives and unfulfilled potential.

While we are living in this insecure world it is difficult to recognise it, because we don't know any different. It has been our life. How would we know that different is possible. Even if we can see the potential the journey can look terrifying and immensely challenging.

If you recognise any of these experiences in your own life let me assure you that the journey is more than worthwhile - it is essential. The discovery that their can be emotional peace, that there can be love, there can be fulfilment is liberating, empowering and inspiring.

If you recognise these fears in others you can help to reverse the lessons of the playground with praise, generosity and love.

The day that enough people in the world have the confidence to authentically be themselves is the the day that there is no more war, no more crime, no more violence, no more corruption.

We can all contribute to making it happen.

If you want some help in your authentic journey give me a call.

I am redefining my businesses - getting more clear, more authentic about who I am and what I do. www.neilcrofts.com has become the focus for my authentic business consultancy and coaching business. www.authenticis.com is evolving into a matchmaking website that will help authentic businesses and individuals find each other.

We are looking for associate consultants to join Authenticis and be trained in the authentic transformation tools - for more details visit the authenticis 2.0 page on www.authenticis.com

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-05-26T02:07:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Love Marketing

Posted: 25 May 2009 06:49 AM PDT

Love is not yet a word commonly used in business, but then neither was "authentic" a few years ago.

Going forward I believe that love will come to be recognised as THE key influencer and therefore vital to business thinking.

Think about it from your own perspective. Out of all of the things you own, experiences you have, or people you work with there are a few that stand out.

There are a few whose value is transcendent, a few you will happily lavish time and attention on.

In terms of things, for me, it would be my bike and my Mac. For others it might be cars, clothes, music, gardens or whatever.

What these products have in common is that we love them. Now - can you imagine loving a service, like a bank, a phone company or a rail service?

Think of the opportunity of taking the products of your organisation from "tolerated", or "convenient" to "loved".

The "bar" in many market sectors is set quite low, so while the overall challenge is significant, there are likely to be benefits just by being more popular than the rest.

A few years ago ANZ bank in Australia found that they were one of the least popular employers in the country. This lead them to initiate a "values lead" transformation, over the course of the project ANZ became one of the most popular employers and trebled their share price.

What we are all looking to do as individuals or businesses is to attract more energy. We want some of that energy to be in the form of human energy: creativity, care, time, recommendations and so on. We also want some to be in the form of money.

Again think about it from your own perspective - where do you direct your energy?

On the whole we direct our energy towards a mixture of what we love and what we fear. We buy food partly for the love of eating and partly because we fear hunger. We direct time and money to our favourite hobby for the love of it. Most of us pay our taxes for the fear of the consequences of not doing so.

In this way we can see that there are two ways in which we can attract more energy to ourselves or our business, either through fear or love. We can frighten people into sharing their energy with us or we can be lovable and attract energy that way.

The "fear" strategy has two issues, the obvious one is that for most of us it is uncomfortable, beyond that my observation is that it is not a long term strategy because much of the energy that is attracted is negative and ultimately destructive.

So, I prefer to focus on the "love" strategy - how do we get to be more lovable?

Again think of your own experience. Who and what do you love? Do you love the bland, the equivocal and the anodyne or do you love the clear, full flavour, full value, full strength?

I have asked a lot of people this question and the response is always the the second.

So - the way to attract more energy into your life or your business is to be more lovable and the way to be more lovable is to be more clear, more full flavour - more authentic. Not everyone will love you or your business, but enough will and those who do will really love you and shower you with positive energy.

It is time to get over the playground lesson that the best way to get along is to avoid being noticed. It is time to stand up and stand out, to attract love and energy into our lives, our businesses and our societies.

If you want some help attracting more energy into your business or your life give me a call.

I am redefining my businesses - getting more clear, more authentic about who I am and what I do. www.neilcrofts.com has become the focus for my authentic business consultancy and coaching business. www.authenticis.com is evolving into a matchmaking website that will help authentic businesses and individuals find each other.

We are looking for associate consultants to join Authenticis and be trained in the authentic transformation tools - for more details visit the authenticis 2.0 page on www.authenticis.com

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Neil Crofts
authentic business

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

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-05-18T02:09:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Consciously Creating Culture

Posted: 18 May 2009 12:02 AM PDT

Who designed the culture of your organisation?

Most organisations don't give a thought to it. Other aspects are tightly controlled and whatever culture emerges as a byproduct is tolerated.

Targets are set, training is offered, recruitment or redundancy is managed - all of this affects the culture, but who makes sure that the culture that results is the desired culture?

I have come to understand that a brand is only ever the external expression of the internal culture. Whatever branding and marketing agencies and directors might like to think or say - it is the culture that defines the brand.

If the culture is confident, responsible, secure, loving and caring, then so is the brand. If the culture is nervous, insecure, fearful and greedy, then so is the brand!

So - who takes care of the culture?

In most organisations large enough to have one the biggest influence on the culture (and therefore the brand) is made by the HR department. They end up managing recruitment, training, redundancy, rewards and possibly discipline.

The culture is also influenced by the behaviour of managers, whose behaviour in turn is influenced by the leadership.

To take conscious control of the culture of an organisation branding and HR disciplines need to be connected at the hip. And crucially the leadership need to be prepared to accept training and adjust behaviour if necessary.

In the start up phase the culture and the brand and the founders personalities are of a piece. As the organisation grows the start up culture will be diluted by recruitment. Early recruitment will be done by the founders, who are likely to recruit in their image, which will maintain the culture.

As the organisation grows, so more functions will be delegated away from the founders and to managers. With growth it is also necessary to adjust from entrepreneurial to organisational culture, but if this process is not carefully managed the result could be accidental rather than intended.

Success in a challenging market will depend on cultural attributes such as responsibility, team work, integrity, creativity and commitment. How would you describe the culture of your organisation?

lf you want to discuss redefining the culture of an organisation, give me a call.

I have started a Facebook page where you can comment on these messages and on all of my books - come along and share your thoughts and observations.

We had our first "focus group" workshop for A Mentor For Every Child on Saturday. The results were very encouraging. We had a group of about 15 young teenagers - the feedback was absolutely positive and they came up with some great names for the website.

www.amentorforeverychild.com

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-05-12T02:09:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Absolutely Positive

Posted: 10 May 2009 11:40 PM PDT

Fear of failure haunts many of us, but what is failure in this sense and how does it happen?

As Lance Armstrong says "Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever."

There are two sides to "failure" the most obvious is to try before we give up. The most pernicious is when we give up before we try.

Lets take the obvious one first. When we try before we give up - giving up is mostly a decision. A decision we take when we get to a point of pain, discomfort or recognition that what we are doing is not working.

We might decide that we would prefer to do something else, or we might find that there is another way, that we could not have foreseen before we started. It is not easy to really describe that as failure. It is just a decision.

Making a decision is a learning process, it is a recognition of changed circumstances that alters the strategy. It is not failure.

When it is not a decision, it is force majeure. Some outside element crashes into your strategy and you have to change strategy, but this is still not a failure. It is still a decision, albeit one where your choices are reduced.

I often find this when cycling. If I am climbing up a hill with another rider and I find myself going into the red zone for too long, I might recognise that the other rider is stronger and change strategy, back off and hope to catch up later. Or I might keep pushing and just run out of steam. I don't see either option as failure, they are different strategies for doing my best, if neither works it is force majeure.

The pernicious one is where we give up before we try, a sort of self censorship that is usually based on a fear of "failure". And as we have seen above failure is a phantom. It is not real.

When we test this notion of failure, we usually find that it has more to do with some one else's idea of what we should or should not, can or cannot do. It is not our fear it is someone else's we do not own or need to own that fear.

Whatever action, project or decision you might be struggling with put it to that test. Is it really your fear of failure or is it someone else's?

If you are not prepared to "own" the fear then it is time to commit and move forwards. Belief precedes reality - not the other way around. Someone always has to believe that something is possible before it can happen - even if they are the only one. You can always adjust or change your strategy later.

The outcome may not be exactly what you expected, in fact it is very likely to be different. The outcome will be exactly what you need it to be, to learn whatever you need to learn to take you to the next stage of your journey.

I hope that this is helpful, if you want a more detailed or personal analysis - give me a call call.

I have started a Facebook page where you can comment on these messages and on all of my books - come along and share your thoughts and observations.

There are those who describe A Mentor For Every Child as "ambitious" which is usually code for "you are mad to even attempt it." I am not sure I see it that way. Whatever happens progress will be made and the experience will be interesting and valuable for me personally. The more who believe this, the more likely it is to prosper - come and join us:-)
www.amentorforeverychild.com

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-05-06T02:06:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Authentic Business Recession Busters

Posted: 05 May 2009 12:19 AM PDT

Authentic businesses, those which generate profit through the pursuit of a profound and positive purpose, have fundamental advantages over more conventional businesses.

The key advantage is motivation and in my research I found that they typically spent up to 80% less on motivation, both inside and outside the company, than conventional businesses.

However the normal disciplines of business also apply, no matter how authentic you are.

The most basic premise of business is that you sell something for more that it costs you to buy and supply. Authentic businesses need to add passion and value to that equation. The passion is their own passion for what they do, the value is the commitment to giving value to customers AND to society as a whole.

Of course many businesses that would not consider themselves authentic also provide value to customers. With authentic businesses it is the additional personal and emotional quality of the value that makes it special.

It is this unquantifiable emotional value that makes authentic business so difficult for others to emulate. For example it has been interesting to watch Microsoft try to hit back at Apple's "I'm a Mac" advertising with price comparison adverts.

However, many authentic businesses are also experiencing falling sales and finding finance harder to access than before. So here are six suggestions for staying profitable in a challenging market.

1 - Sell What People Want When Money Is Tight. How can you adjust your products or your service model so that you can reduce your customers overall spending without necessarily reducing your own prices?

2 - Renegotiate Your Own Costs. Now is a great time to get into more of a partnership with your suppliers. In many cases it will also be in their interests to keep your business successful. Can you offer them a lower fixed price plus some kind of bonus or profit share that helps both of you?

3 - Communicate Value. Adjust your communication to help your customers understand ALL of the value you represent - especially the emotional value. How do you help your customers feel better about themselves and their lives?

4 - Focus Your Staff. Don't hold back on engaging your staff with the challenges. They are a big part the solution. Define the cultural change you seek and find fun ways to train and incentivise the change.

5 - Get Out There. Most entrepreneurs start by networking furiously, but as the business becomes more established their focus ends up being more internal. Now is the time to get back out there and engage with people to find new ideas, solutions and opportunities. The secret to success in most creative fields is to tap into the zeitgeist of the time. The only way to tap into it is to be in the flow of it. Find the flow and step inside.

6 - Stay positive. Changing markets are also opportunities for change and innovation. Negativity creates a downward spiral. Stay aware of the challenges, but focus on the positive and use it to build up your energy and that of your team to make the changes and move forwards.

I hope that this is helpful, if you want a more detailed or personal analysis - give me a call call.

I have started a Facebook page where you can comment on these messages and on all of my books - come along and share your thoughts and observations.

Help us to create a sustainable and peaceful world:
www.amentorforeverychild.com

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-04-27T02:07:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

World Class

Posted: 27 Apr 2009 12:13 AM PDT

Human communities evolve and today there are many communities and individuals at different levels of evolution.

Some are focussed entirely on their "tribe" and maintaining it's integrity. Some are focussed on expanding the reach and influence of their particular culture. Some seek to nurture and develop everyone they can. All are legitimate and essential.

As individuals we go through the same growth process as our understanding and awareness expands. Most stop developing slightly ahead of their parents and roughly inline with their peers. Over time this leads to a general broadening of scope in terms of thinking, ideology and care. This process can also be reversed.

Occasionally a particularly enlightened individual can inspire a community forwards - Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Da Vinci, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Obama. Sometimes these individuals are sacrificed because their message is too advanced for other sectors of the population.

In the past religion and politics have been the platforms on which these individuals have stood. Today business has joined religion and politics as a potential platform for social leadership.

In the past business has been a relatively primitive platform, largely choosing, like tribal peoples, to focus on feeding itself. As business evolved into the era of globalisation some businesses sought world domination by their particular culture.

The internet and the global financial collapse are helping us move on to the next stage, where the most advanced businesses are seeking to empower and enable - not just their staff, but everyone. I call these Authentic Businesses.

The next generation of super successful businesses will be the ones that are able to find clever ways of profiting from giving the greatest value to the widest possible community. The most obvious example of this is Google, who give away huge value by enabling people to find stuff they want for free - and then find clever ways to generate profit off the back of it.

However your business has been affected by the credit crunch, when you are thinking about your next strategic move you need to focus on offering the greatest possible value. Focus on empowering and enabling people to feel genuinely happier, more confident and more able to pursue their passions.

Whatever your business sector - whether it is fashion, technology, design, energy, training or transport. If you want to grow and prosper focus on how your organisation can create the greatest value for the largest number of people.

Help people learn, facilitate connections, help people feel good about themselves, give people ways to contribute to society, always look for a win, win, win, win as the minimum threshold. A win for you, a win for the business, a win for your customers and a win for society as a whole.

These organisations define the new level of World Class. If you would like help creating and implementing your world class strategy - give me a call call.

I have started a Facebook page where you can comment on these messages and on all of my books - come along and share your thoughts and observations.

Join our embryonic world class organisation:
www.amentorforeverychild.com and help us make it happen.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-04-20T02:03:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Change the World

Posted: 20 Apr 2009 12:01 AM PDT

Received wisdom is not always all that wise.

One particular piece of received wisdom is that people don't like change.

I think this is rubbish.

My experience is that people are desperate for change in all sorts of areas. What they don't like is imposed change that they don't really understand.

I have asked thousands of people what they are angry about it terms of the way that we run our society. Although some claim "not to be angry people" almost all do experience genuine anger at some of the choices that are made: war, homelessness, abuse of children, exploitation and damage to nature, especially.

As a famous piece of Clerkenwell graffiti puts it: "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."

Anger is not necessarily a negative thing. Anger has energy. Anger shows that we care. The key thing is to direct our anger positively, productively and passionately.

There are, perhaps, four categories of response to anger:

1- Grumbling - we all know this. Whether it is "water cooler whining", "pub protest" or "mate moaning". The key is to complain to someone who both agrees with you and is equally likely to do nothing about it.

2 - Protest - This is a more public version of grumbling. Protest has some positive aspects, in that it raises awareness of an issue and may connect with someone who is prepared to do something about it. The less positive aspect is that protest inevitably involves blame and most of us resist being blamed.

3 - Conflict/competition - This takes protest to the next level, often by adding aggression. While this is often disastrous, it is not always. Competition is a softer form of conflict, the new generation of electric cars are a competitive response to climate change - for example. However conflict/competition is always a bet on one version of the future over another.

4 - Complement - perhaps the highest level of change strategy that we currently understand. Adding in a complementary tool or approach actually strengthens the very thing causing the anger, but in a positive way AND adds an element that transforms the outcome.

Of course all of these categories have their place and their role. The questions are always - which is most suitable? And can it be taken to a higher level?

www.amentorforeverychild.com is an example of a complementary strategy.

The anger is that children invest so much time in education and yet too many come out of 14 or 15 years of school with no idea of who they are, what they are great at or what their contribution is to society.

Education and schooling, to learn various modes of communication and skill is essential, and in itself transformative. And today many societies have evolved to a level where there is a further element required to enable the greatest potential in people.

That further element is to take the necessarily generic and communal value or schooling and make it personal and individual. To give every individual the clarity of identity and purpose that will enable them to add value to society. Mentoring can provide that value.

Look at it this way: Virtually every challenge we face, as a society, is the result of human decisions. This would indicate that there is a problem with our decision making processes.

If you examine the decisions that cause these challenges, you can see that the problem lies in a too narrow approach. Perhaps some mixture of short sight, fear based, greed based and over rational.

To move beyond these narrow approaches to decision making people need self confidence, they need to trust not just the left side of their brain, but the right side and their body intuition too.

I saw an interview with a man who was described as the most successful bond trader in the world - he was asked what made him so successful. He explained that it was all down to trusting his intuition. He said that the rational stuff was just the minimum benchmark to be in the game. What made the difference was intuition.

If the next generation leave school truly knowing who they are, truly believing in themselves, truly trusting their intuition, with confidence both in their strengths and their weaknesses the world will be transformed.

In fact it is our only chance.

If you would like help in bringing complementary transformation to a challenge that you face - give me a call.

If you would like to help us change the world - visit:
www.amentorforeverychild.com and help us make it happen.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-04-14T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Survival of the Fittest

Posted: 13 Apr 2009 11:35 PM PDT

We have had a lot of Darwin in this, his anniversary year. So here is a little more.

Darwin's theory of evolution has two main themes.

1 - The fittest for purpose will be the ones that survive through natural selection.

2 - Adaptations and variations will help some to become fitter for purpose and survive better than others, a process of evolution.

As a species we have been involved in the 'natural' selection part of the evolution equation for some time. We have artificially selected on behalf of numerous animal and plant species.

This 'artificial' selection has also extended to humans. Medicine and conflict have both contributed to the process of selecting which genes reproduce successfully.

Of course, given that we are also part of nature - who is to say where the boundary lies between 'natural' and 'artificial' selection?

Not surprisingly, the evolutionary imperative is hard wired into our thinking. We find it difficult to think of anything; business, politics, education, religion except in competitive, win/loose, Darwinian, evolutionary terms.

But is this the only way? Is this the "fittest" way?

The focus of evolution is for a particular gene to survive. Some humans have evolved a level consciousness, today, that enables us to understand the interdependence of all life.

Uniquely in the history of evolution, we are capable, both, of understanding that it is not just about our own genes, but about all genes, AND of destroying all life.

This knowledge means whatever we do next is a choice.

Do we choose to continue the narrow pursuit of the genetic success of our 'own', leading to the ultimate failure of all.

Or do we choose to evolve to the next level?

At the next level ALL human institutions; commercial, political, educational, social, scientific and religious - have peace and love for all as core tenets of their existence.

At the next level ALL of these institutions and their leaders actively engage in connecting each of their members with their fullest individual potential.

At the next level there is an absolute recognition that we know far less than we don't know about life, the universe and everything and therefore there is only open mindedness.

If you would like help in adjusting your organisation to the next level - give me a call.

Join us in connecting children with their fullest individual potential:
www.amentorforeverychild.com

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-04-06T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Lead like Obama

Posted: 02 Apr 2009 05:15 AM PDT

The benchmark for leadership has shifted.

If you lead or aspire to lead in politics, business or the public sector you really need to understand the paradigm shift that leadership and peoples expectations of leadership has undergone.

The emergence of such great leadership is a challenge and an opportunity to all who would choose to lead. It gives permission to a new generation of leaders to step up from wherever they are and champion real solutions to the great challenges we face.

We need these solutions and this leadership to come from all sectors. Not just from government, but from business, from education, from health care, from the military, from charities, from campaign groups from all ages and levels.

Some of the key differences are:

1 - Obama level leaders need to be able to communicate in a way that connects positively with ALL at the same time, not just their own constituency.

2 - Obama level leaders are not driven by their ego. They will actively promote the recognition of others and never seek it for themselves.

3 - Obama level leaders bare responsibility for past, present and future, avoiding blaming others. They do not pass the buck, they accept the lessons with humility and use them to move on.

4 - Obama level leaders radiate integrity, authenticity and confidence. They truly know themselves and have the confidence to be equally open and candid about their strengths and their weaknesses. They are always guided by their their values and purpose.

5 - Obama level leaders focus on the greatest possible good and inspire and motivate all to their greatest potential in serving that good. They are positive, optimistic big picture thinkers who are also well aware of the detail and are undaunted by it.

Leadership is something that is learned. It can be learned by anyone and can be practiced at any level from self leadership to world leadership.

Leadership is emergent; being appointed to a leadership position does not makes someone a leader. A leader is someone other choose to follow.

We need leaders who can move beyond factionalism, criticism and ego politics to truly serve. To move beyond protest to solutions, beyond self service to the greater good and beyond fatalism to choice.

As a society we urgently need these leaders in business, in politics and in the public sector. Not just at the top, but everywhere.

Are you ready to lead like Obama?

Are you ready for this level of leadership in your organisation or community?

I am ready to mentor a small number of clients to their ultimate leadership potential. If you are interested in such an opportunity for yourself or your team lets have a chat.

If you believe that school leavers should know what they are great at, you may want to support www.amentorforeverychild.com - please join us and help change the world in a generation.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-03-31T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Can we start now please!

Posted: 30 Mar 2009 12:00 AM PDT

OK - enough protests, enough negatives, enough rubbish strategies.

Let's be clear about what we want:

We want - a safe, sustainable, peaceful and loving world.

We want - a reasonable amount of resources to live a comfortable life.

We are - OK working for this, we just want to be involved in the decision making and get reasonable reward for our contribution.

We want - opportunities and safety for our kids.

So let's create it and let's stop doing things that prevent it.

Let us understand that "war" does not take us to where we want to go. Whether it is a "war on drugs" or a "war on terror" it will not get us to where we want to be.

Let us understand that conflict, fear and insecurity will not help us create the world that we want to live in.

The revolution we need is not on the streets, in the board rooms or even in the governments. It is in our own heads.

We need to pursue our own positive strategies now. We need to take responsibility. As soon as enough of us are doing it - it will already have happened.

You want peace in the world - make peace in your own life and engage with the peoples of warring nations.

You want an end to drug related crime - help people stop taking or getting involved with drugs by offering them hope and more positive alternatives.

You want an end to the abuses of the banking system - get involved in an alternative currency scheme like LETS or Time bank.

You want an end to climate change, inspire investment in alternatives - like electric cars, solar energy and water conservation technologies.

Whatever platform you have or can have do what you can to use it to resolve the challenges you care about. Your platform might be your blog, your neighbourhood or your employers business - whatever it is - use it.

My purpose? To heal the world through authenticity. I believe that the moment that enough of us are fully confident in who we are, the world changes - overnight.

I do this by working with businesses and organisations to help them be more successful by being more authentic.

I do this by working with individuals to help them to be more confident and have the courage to follow their purpose.

I am now starting "A Mentor For Every Child" to help to ensure that people are able to start out in life knowing their authentic direction and having the confidence to pursue it.

Want help with your own confidence - join me for a Complete Confidence session.

The next phone session is 5pm CET, 4PM UK on the 1st of April. The next physical session is at 9.45 this Wednesday the 1st of April in Mallorca. This is a Complete Confidence sessions, focussing on personal confidence. There is also a Life Purpose session in Palma on the 3rd of April at 11am.

Book your Complete Confidence phone session now:

Or come along on Wednesday to:
Onda Vital C/Martin Boneo 31, bjos  07013 Palma de Mallorca (Son Dameto)
+34 606 204 994

For more details and to book your place for the phone sessions please go to www.neilcrofts.com

If you believe that school leavers should know what they are great at, you may want to support www.amentorforeverychild.com - please join us and help change the world in a generation.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

2009-03-24T02:04:00.001-07:00

Inspiring Your Authentic Week

You are fabulous

Posted: 23 Mar 2009 01:13 AM PDT

It is difficult for most of us to admit just how wonderful and fabulous we are.

I have done my "Life Purpose" session, in which I ask people to say what they are great at, with over 3000 people. Out of those 3000, about 3 have felt truly comfortable expressing their talents!

Most of us are infected by the Victorian disease of modesty. A form of dishonesty that helps no one.

Being able to be honest about our talent is important, not just for us but for those around us, our colleagues and our friends. On the whole younger people find it even harder than older people to know what they are great at.

If we know what we are great at and can tell our boss or our colleagues, we can save so much time.

The next problem is that most personal development plans focus on improving "weaknesses" rather than developing strengths. This can only lead to mediocrity when applied at this stage.

Working with weaknesses is helpful only when it comes to fine tuning an already great talent. If you are a Tour de France cyclist and you are already a brilliant climber and time trialist, then it will pay to work on descending skills, if that is a weakness and as long as it is not at the expense of your existing assets.

The essence of your fabulousness is what you are great at. And what makes a great team is when everyone plays to their strengths, with each members strengths supporting the weaknesses of others.

By focussing on what we are great at and getting better at it we become more confident. As we become more confident, we become more motivated and passionate. And as we become more motivated and passionate we have more to contribute and are more valuable and successful.

How do you tell what you are great at?

First; notice the things that come easily to you, things where you notice others might struggle and you find easy. Write a list.

Second; poll your friends, send an e-mail to your closest friends and family asking them to tell you what you are great at.

You now have several lists of things you are great at. Firstly notice anything that crops up consistently. Secondly look for the themes that runs through all of the lists.

The themes are likely to be related to the types of intelligence you work best with. The specific talents that crop up most often are the things you are best at.

If you are responsible for the effectiveness of a team, get all team members to articulate their talents. Then get all of the team members to be explicit with each other about what they are great at and what they struggle with. Using this information leadership can begin to flow dynamically to where it is most relevant.

The "out there creative who is slack with delivery" can be supported by your' eats shoots and leaves, detail junkie" and so on.

If you want more help with this either for yourself or your team - get in touch or join the Complete Confidence sessions:

The next phone session is 5pm CET, 4PM UK on the 25th of March - This is a LIFE PURPOSE session. The next physical session is at 9.45 this Wednesday the 25th of March in Mallorca. This is a Complete Confidence sessions, focussing on personal confidence.

Book your Complete Confidence phone session now:

Or come along on Wednesday to:
Onda Vital C/Martin Boneo 31, bjos  07013 Palma de Mallorca (Son Dameto)
+34 606 204 994

For more details and to book your place for the phone sessions please go to www.neilcrofts.com

If you believe that school leavers should know what they are great at, you may want to support www.amentorforeverychild.com - please join us and help change the world in a generation.

With love

nx

Neil Crofts
Inspirer
authenticis
inspiration innovation motivation

+44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authenticis.com
www.authenticis.com

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