Kleenex lets it out

Kleenex has refreshed it image, its goodbye to stiff upper lip and yes to emotionally connecting with customers ... When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried ...

Music: 'Let it Out' by Starrfadu on Myspace

http://www.kleenex.com/Home.aspx

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Breakthrough Change

During change, one of the most important elements for success is management's ability to listen and communicate effectively. Leaders that can consistently challenge, motivate, and educate their people through change are successful. The toughest challenge of organisational leaders today is to manage at the speed of change.

“Change is not the problem: it's resistance; I want what I want when I want it. I will not be an expert anymore. I will be a senior beginner! ... As a result of experiencing growing pains of change.”

4 Keys to Navigating Successful Change ...

Sending clear and united messages
Managing the Journey: with a formal communication plan for change
Using tactics for systematically managing resistance
Never sugar-coating the truth

We live in a world where the technological advancement and knowledge explosion, leaders face tremendous pressure as they attempt to gain support for change. While resistance is always a problem, it is especially harmful during an economic slowdown. Regardless of how good or necessary a change may be, resistance should be expected.

Employees will onlywant to hear messages about change from only two people: the CXO / immediate boss (and these messages are not the same). Two reasons for employee resistance are:-

• 1. A lack of awareness about the change


• 2. Comfort with the ways things are and fear of the unknown

When you communicate well with your employees, you understand their fears and misgivings, you find ways to not only help them through the transition, but involve them in the process > building ownership for the change.

Attempt to change the things you can do. Our natural reaction to change, even in the best circumstances, is to resist. Awareness of the business need to change is a critical ingredient of any change and must come first. Employee resistance (at all levels) is the the top obstacle to successful change ... How well are your people equipped to manage the resistance to change, are you:

• Assessing your overall organisation and the organisational units affected by the change
• Defining a solid change management strategy,
• Identifying the impact of the change on the organisation,
• Developing and implementing a communication and corporate programme,
• Designing and describing the target jobs and organisational structure,
• Designing, developing, and implementing leadership and training programmes,
• Planning the change management implementation and implement the change,
• Monitoring and evaluating your organisation's performance once the change has been implemented.

What will change feel and look like, place your self in the future and look back what worked, what didn't work, what lessons have you learned, how far off target are you, how would it feel if you didn't succeed ...

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High-Flyers - Uber-Execs

How to spot your next batch of high-flyers and what sets them apart ...

“High-flyers really are better than the rest of us - at least when it comes to 'personality factors' and reasoning abilities.”

• Look for managers who challenge norms
  high-flyers think more broadly and creatively than ordinary mortals - and they're more open to doing things in new ways
• Let them express themselves
  they pay attention to communication in order to strengthen relationships and want others to understand them
• Ask them to feel your pain (joy, anger)
  'social functioning' (gregariousness, warmth) ie they're more capable of understanding colleagues’ emotions
• Don't ask for accuracy
  there were no differences in speed and accuracy of thought between fast-trackers and slowcoaches
• Let them imagine
  'sensing' and intuition are what they're good at

Source: British Psychological Society

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20 Best Kept Secrets

1. Open-Source Ad Campaigns
   Let your customers do the marketing.
2. Phone Shopping
   Become your own customer.
3. Extreme Benchmarking
   Compare everything you do against your rivals.
4. Bad News Folders
   Keep a constant eye out for trouble.
5. Strategic Strategy Reviews
   Turn going-through-the-motions meetings into no-holds-barred debates.
   
6. A New Office Pool
   Use prediction markets to tap hidden knowledge.
   
7. The Tech Box
   Create a lending library of ideas.
8. Outside-In R&D
   Bring in experts to help spark new ideas.
9. Office Graffiti
   Let workers speak their minds.
10. The Chief Shareholder Officer
    Head off shareholder trouble before it starts.
11. Always-On Board Members
    Get the directors out of the boardroom.
12. The Corporate Beehive
    Use office design to keep the queen in touch with the worker bees.
13. The Job Audition
    Turn the interview process into an all-encompassing tryout.
    
14. Peer-to-Peer Promotion
    Let employees choose their leaders.
    
15. The Shrink Shrinker
    Reward workers for keeping their hands off the merchandise.
16. The Anti-Star System
    Determine pay using just two factors: Profits and seniority.
17. The Pyramid Scheme
    Use kickbacks--the legal kind--to attract executive talent.
18. The Long Goodbye
    Knowledge Sharing, keep retirees in the labour pool and retain knowledge.
19. The Contra Team
    Appoint official devil's advocates to challenge the merits of deals.
20. "Just Looking" Badge
    Neutralise your customers' worst fears.

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Compete to win

How motivated are you to compete to win! ...

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to model success. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz used this powerful technique in the creation of his own company. Whilst on a vacation to Italy he saw how the coffee shop played an integral role in the social lives of Italians. It was a place where friends met, could spend hours at a time mingling. Howard Schultz put it

“Seeing this, I thought to myself, Why not open a coffee bar in Seattle?”

And with that he set the wheels in motion for the creation of what is now one of the most famous brands in the world, Starbucks. Modelling masters can help you achieve rapid success because you are implementing strategies that have been tried and tested, and work. Road to success is straight ahead, stay motivated.

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13 Reasons why Goals Fail

How do you know what to watch out for to avoid the pitfalls of missing expectations? It’s probably happened to you before. You thought you had the perfect plan for achieving your goals. You had no doubt that this time you’d succeed. And then, days, weeks or months later, you realised that somehow you’d gotten off track and never met your objective.

“How do you know what to watch out for to avoid the pitfalls of missing expectations?”

1. Don’t write the goal down.
2. Create goals that are not well-defined or lack specificity. ‘Save Money This Year’ is not the same as ‘Save£1,000 by July 31’.
3. No true personal meaning behind the goal. No driver for doing it.
4. Fail to define a reward for achieving the goal as well as a reward for achieving the intermediary milestones required to get there.
5. Don’t share the goal with another person for accountability, help and support.
6. Keep changing or switching goals as their focus or interest changes.
7. Never incorporate the goal into a realistic plan that includes measurements, timelines and resources.
8. Do not understand and plan for how pursuing the goal might affect their balance across the other Cornerstones of life.
9. Never set a date to actually start working toward the goal.
10. Because of the lack of accountability, they allow themselves to make excuses for not meeting the goal.
11. Reach an intermediary milestone, get comfortable, and never follow through to the end.
12. Don’t acknowledge the challenges of achieving the goal and when it gets hard they give up.
13. Do not think about the goal and the process of achieving the goal often enough.

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Detoxifying Toxic Leaders

Why do we tolerate 'Toxic Leaders' when we turn a blind this type of behaviour is it because we have a fear of retribution, or do we lack integrity and courage to do the right thing. Patricia Wallington President of CIO Associates wrote - The poisonous leader is arrogant; in her mind, she is always right, and she takes input only from a limited group of yes-men and -women. Her chosen few get information, but no one else does, and so there is no discussion about the work being done

“Here's how it is, its my way, or its the highway, you choose ...”

Do you have a strategy ? ... How and when do you decide to stay or leave, confront the behaviour or lie low

Recognise the signs ....

• Self-centeredness. An employee is willing to harm others in order to come out on top.
• Messianic visions. The employee’s vision seems impossible to achieve, or she positions misguided actions as attempts to achieve a noble cause, and she won’t take advice.
• Arrogance. He displays disdain for others.
• Blame-shifting. I saw one executive order a "take no prisoners" approach to setting and enforcing a technology standard, then disavow the "noncollegial" style of his employee, leaving her to repair her reputation alone.

Short-circuiting Toxic Leaders Careers

Make your expectations for behavior clear to everyone in your organisation. Investigate low morale, and attack its causes. Ensure that performance reviews document toxic behavior, and make sure offenders know that mistreating others is going to short-circuit their careers. Promote and recognizs those leaders who demonstrate nontoxic behaviours. Set an example.

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CEO's Worries in 2007

CEOs assess global challenges and potential Risk in 2007 include

• Regulation
• Retention of Key Talent
• Energy and Commodity Prices
• 40% CEO see global warming as a threat. Climate Change is a big issue (Asia 60%) (North America 18%)
• Non Business Risk: Terrorism (an issue we just need to deal with, or too big to manage

Global Winners

• Dealing with the things one can manage
• Opportunities in Asia
• Acquisitions of European Companies

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Learn How to Say No

Richard Branson Founder and Chairman, Virgin Group.

“Learn How to Say No ... (Even if You're Known as 'Doctor Yes')”

I turn people down with extreme difficulty sometimes, because the people I'm saying no to are people I don't want to discourage. And it should be difficult. Saying no shouldn't be an easy thing to do, and you have to be good at it. I often used to dodge doing it myself, and hide behind other people and delegate it, but if you're the boss, that isn't the right thing to do.

I remember when I was a 15-year-old asking Vanessa Redgrave or James Baldwin for an interview, and the fact that they took the time to respond meant an enormous amount to me. It inspired me. So it's extremely important to respond to people, and to give them encouragement if you're a leader. And if you're actually turning people down, if you must say no, whether it's for a job or a promotion or an idea they're proposing to you, take the time to do it yourself.

I met two big San Francisco entrepreneurs recently, and they said they get e-mail like this too, but they just dump it all in the dustbin. They don't try to answer at all. I asked them why, and they said, "The time we spend responding could be used to create something of value for our business." That may well be pragmatically right, but I still think it's morally wrong, and I suspect that anything that is morally wrong is ultimately bad for business.

Source: CNN

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Return of the dot-com IPO

Shares of Yahoo! (Charts), eBay (Charts) and Amazon (Charts) have all tanked this year. YouTube sold out to Google (Charts) in October for $1.65 billion. Private digital media firms like social networking companies Facebook and Bebo and online video companies Metacafe and Heavy.com are generating a lot of buzz. With all this in mind, should investors expect a new wave of Internet IPOs in 2007, especially from companies with a foothold in the whole user-generated media phenomenon?

Trends to watch out for ... Social Networking - a lot of interest around sites that incorporate video in a creative way, online photo services. In addition to Google's purchase of YouTube, Viacom (Charts), Sony (Charts), Time Warner's (Charts) AOL and General Electric's (Charts) NBC all bought online video or community-oriented sites in 2006.

Source: CNN . Dec 06

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Brainstorming Step 1

State your challenge correctly. In order to get the right ideas, you need to ensure that you are giving the brainstorm session participants the right challenge.

“Otherwise you could end up with a lot of ideas which do not actually solve your problem.”

Define your problem or issue as a creative challenge. Creative challenges typically start with: "In what ways might we...?" or "How could we...?" Your creative challenge should be concise, to the point and exclude any information other than the challenge itself. For example: "In what ways might we improve product X?" or "How could we encourage more ... ?"

Do's and Dont's

1. Avoid squelching or criticism someone elses idea


2. Encourage mixed participants to get combined creativity


3. Be an enthusiastic facilitator


4. Have a well stated challenge


5. Choose good environment free from disturbances

More tomorrow

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Reality shows are failing us

How many reality celebrity shows must TV licence payers watch. I was reading one of the free newspapers just the other day and read the same thing

“I will be very happy when Big Brother is off the screen and switch over to something interesting ...”

Are we turning into a nation of couch potatoe How To bods ... interested only in buying property abroad, becoming the next millionaire property developer overnight, or watch celebs exposure their linen in public. Why is that we are inundated with not 1 or 3 shows but a whole compilation of shows year in year out. What we really need is to send out positive messages.

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Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full

“Is this typical of you - positive and growth-oriented is your glass half full or half empty ...”

Glass is Half Full: Pros:

• Positive thinker.
• Views the world at what has been achieved.
• More satisfied.
• Thinks that you have filled half already and it is easy to fill next half.

Half full against Half Empty: >>> more of negative, never satisfied with the results.

Glass is Half Empty: Pros:

• Creative thinker, finds the gap to make existing system as legacy.
• Has good vision on what has to be done, thinker of, “Lots to do before going to sleep”.
• More optimistic and enthusiasts.
• Has no over-confidence, on what has been accomplished.

Half Empty against Half Full: Overconfidence on what s/he has done.

And on conclusion, it has been found whether you think the glass is half empty or half full, this say's more about your mood than your behaviour at a particular time ... draw your own conclusion on this!

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Maximise and Grow

Six Figure Mindset is an all-round return on investment that you cannot afford to miss out on. This mentoring masterclass will give you success & results-oriented tools that is often offered to influencial leaders from CEOs through to the entrepreneurs. And its also available to you.

“Are you ready to maximise your business advantage and achieve more success”

• Are you facing the same frustrating business issues day in and day out
• Not seeing any increase in your bottom line
• Is creating an action plan still on your to do list
• Finding it difficult to attract new clients
• Your work is taking over your personal life

You can change this, and maximise your business. It takes action on your part, and on my part the tools to make it happen. If you're ready to identify and execute the steps necessary to grow in life and in business ... Contact Enlibra

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Clutter blocks your flow of Thinking

From the moment you wake up in the morning, you want every facet of your environment working with you, not against you. How many times have you heard yourself say - oh I'll sort it out some other time, or I think about tomorrow.

“Some other time passes you by, and tomorrow's come and go”

• Clutter is stuff in your home or life which no longer brings you joy, creative inspiration, sentiment, or a reasonable measure of practical benefit.
• Clutter is whatever requires more of your time and attention than it is worth.
• Clutter is that which you don't need or use or want.
• Clutter is anything you keep out of a sense of obligation rather than because you love it.
• Clutter is anything you own that does not enhance your life on a regular basis.
• Clutter is unfinished business.
• Clutter is stuck energy that has physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual results.

Clearing clutter can transform your life - releasing negative emotions, generating energy, and allowing you to create space in your life for the things you want to achieve. So while you are putting your external world in order there are corresponding changes going on internally. Everything around you mirrors your inner self. By changing your home you also change the possibilities in your life. The flow of energy opens you up for more harmony and makes space for your hopes and dreams

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Absolute Alps

Boost your energy and escape the stormy weather we're having in England. How about skiing in France - I personally recommend right in the Heart of the Portes du Soleil - French Alps Chalet Les Trois Canards a new modern luxury chalet with 5 bedrooms, 3 en-suites and 1 shared bathroom.

“Absolute Alps Chalet Les Trois Canards, a lovely place for skiing”

Located in Petit Chatel it is a short stroll to Chatel center where the shops and bars come alive at night. I visited Chatel in 2000 with some colleagues and good friend Keilu, she loved it so much, Chalet Les Trois Canards is now her new family home.

Absolute Alps ... recommend by Julie Williams.

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CEO Seven Year Itch

Leaders are always tested and scutinised in one way or another, whether its externally or internally by your team. Its really hard for leaders to get honest feedback when they are in a position of power. People look to leaders for cues. But not every leader in a new job is aware of the kind of signals they are sending off. One of the lessons to learn and learn fast is you're always sending a signal, and you better send the right ones. Most people who first become a boss make mistakes whether its through (failing at something, your thinking is blocked, or bad habits)it happens. Ask yourself this ... If you were applying for your job today. What are the strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats ...

“Would I be the right person. Would I Hire me today, do I have what it takes, what skills do I want, should I past the baton to someone else ...”

.... or hire somebody who can give me the skills I need, what would be the 10 things on my accomplish list be, what news ones

Personal or Strategic reinvention is a test, and you're self test is to ask yourself and be completely honest. If you screw up, be honest with yourself, don't deny the reality, face the reality. Being honest and admit you made a mistake. Why did I make that mistake! and how do I move on from here. Followers only follow by consent, you really cannot afford to push people, great leaders work to get people on their side.

If you've been in your role for a while, now is the time to reinvent yourself. Being the leader means never underestimating relationships you come into contact with, leaders want buy-in, to be bought into the process with Peers and Subordinates, so its not alright to assume because you're the boss that YOU ARE THE BOSS!. Shifting out of the pattern of the old way and moving forward with effectiveness, stand in front of your mirror and take the time for introspection.

Enlibra . executive, corporate, life coaching inspiring people and future leaders tomorrow

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Prince flying to collect Green Award

Saying one thing, and doing the opposite .... Times News: Joss Garman, of Plane Stupid, a climate change action group, said:

“Flying to an environmental award ceremony is a bit like turning up to an Oxfam award ceremony in a stretch limo. Flying is the single most polluting way in which you can travel.”

David Miliband has made a rare ministerial criticism of the Prince of Wales for planning a 7,000-mile round trip to New York to collect an environ- mental award.
The Environment Secretary questioned in an interview with the Evening Standard why it was necessary for the Prince to go in person with a big entourage to collect the award. He said: “Was it a particularly heavy award? A lot of business can be done by telephone and video link these days.”

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Red and Green Foods are good for Men

Eating tomatoes and broccoli in the same meal could help men to fight prostate cancer.
A study suggests that when they are both present in a regular diet, the two foods — known for their cancer-fighting qualities — help to reduce tumours more effectively than when they are eaten separately.

Prostate cancer is the most common male cancer in Britain, accounting for almost one in four cancers in men. Each year about 32,000 cases are diagnosed and more than 10,000 men die from it. Researchers from the University of Illinois believe that different compounds in the vegetables can work together to attack cancer cells along different biological pathways.

Read the full story

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Oprah ranked #1 richest female in entertainment

Oprah Winfrey is worth ($1.5bn (£760m)) ranked #1 richest woman in entertainment above 9 other female entertainers: JK Rowling, Madonna, Martha Stewart, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston . Source: Forbes Rich List

Oprah's ... Quote of the Day

“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity”

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Motivation Life Plan

Motivation Life Plan - Your memory tells you how great you feel, and that motivates you more. Everything is at our fingertips in our life, but do you want to stay in your comfort zone and put up with your lot, or are you ready to get up and get out and enjoy your one life. Do you watch TV more than picking up a book and reading. As you get into a pattern and a system, your plan goes by the wayside ...
If you can put so much effort into planning a wedding like if your life depends on it, then your life plan is no different, be committed to yourself.
First 30 minutes and last 30 minutes of the our day our minds is most susceptible. One of the best things to do when you fall asleep is dreaming, thinking about our goals. It really crucial that we do positive things to keep the momentum flowing. Uber Coach best advice is - to have an elastic band and get into the habit of not tolerating negative thinking by pulling it, that way you get to associate negative thinking with pain.

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Law of Attraction - How To

You attract into your life whatever you think about. That's true. Your dominant thoughts will find a way to manifest. There are no coincidences. You will attract everything in your life and continue to do so, unless you change you're thinking. Every time you use the word Coincidence, Serendipity, Synchronicity, Fate, Karma is the Law of Attraction, a science, we need to learn to respond to the mood, vibes (vibration) we give off. In practical terms an example ... "Oh I should of stayed in bed syndrome" ever had a day when the morning starts off with bad vibes and then everything that happens during that day is falling apart and horrible. Our feelings are a result of the thought we are thinking. The three BAD words that cause you to send negative vibration are:

• Don't
• Not
• No

Why do we need to eliminate don't not and no, well because when you think of these words you automatically bring attention to negative energy by giving it attention. Remember the saying 'Like Attracts Like'. If you continue to do things in the same old way, you get the same results. Likewise if you keep choosing the wrong kind of relationships, make the same mistakes with money you create a pattern that becomes comfortable. Make this the year that you turn things around. Start thinking positive from this very minute.

So now you wondering

How do I Attract More of what I want
and Less of what I Don’t.

Well, when you shift you' thoughts and go from what you do want, the vibration changes sending a positive vibration. Law of Attraction responds to the vibration you send out. Remind yourself, about the things you don't want to show up in your life. What you want to do is build on the good vibrations. Say to yourself I will, I can apply this positive thinking principle to everything I do today and tomorrow and every situation from now onwards, by resetting your vibrations to positive ones. What you are doing is duplicating the good vibration you were just sending.

Let's set the energy in motion, by resetting the vibration, change the words and ask yourself:

• So what do you (I) want
• What do you (I) want to change
• What can you (I) reset

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64 Principles 6-10

Principle #6-10

6. The first Principle is to take 100% responsibility for your life and results.
7. Give up all blaming and excuse making. Give up blaming everything outside of us.
8. Events + Responses = Outcomes.
9. It’s the Response to the Event that produces the Outcome.
One is responsible for the choice of how one reacts to the event.
If you want a different outcome then change your response.
10. One can influence responses in 3 areas viz. one’s behaviour, thoughts and images.

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Change: The Only Constant

CIO Insight . January 2007 Research - Future of IT, outlines the top business, managerial and technology priorities for 2007. Customer Service levels drooped in 2006.

Strategic applications and technologies that can help boost service and revenues, such as business intelligence, will be especially important this year.

The report goes onto say there will be fewer graduates in IT, but the real revolution will happen as SOA (service oriented-architecture) and Web-services architectures bring new options. Here are the highlights of the research report:

1. Customer Service Surges as a Top Priority for 2007
2. Business Intelligence Tops the Strategic Technology List
3. CIOs Are Optimistic About Growth
4. The Business Environment in 2012
5. The IT Organisation in 2012
6. Security and Risk in 2012
7. Technologies in 2012

You may need to register on CIO Insight, link to full research

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64 Principles - 1-5

Principles #1-5:

1. Success is whatever you want it to be.
   For Jack Canfield it is to love and be loved and to give and receive joy.
2. Never give up. Keep playing till you win.
   ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ was rejected by 144 publishers over a 9 month period. Now it has sold over 100 million copies in 39 countries.
3. If one knows the combination of the lock of success it has to open.
4. If one implemented the Principles of Success then one could double one’s income and free time in 2 years or less.
5. You can’t hire other people to do push-ups for you.
   If it’s meant to be then it’s up to me.

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What are you in business for?

Are you clear about what you are in business for. Is it about profit, to create opportunities, deliver value! If you were to face the person next to you, eye-ball-to-eye start describing what your business product is and the type of services you provide in 2 minutes, then ask that person what they learned about you.

If you work at inspiring others to seek their full potential. Let someone you meet today inspire you.

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Great Ideas

Facilitation Session 17/01 - "Avoid selling ideas to managers/leaders who manager work they don't understand" ... the stakes are high if you're trying to feed someone elses ego. Golden rule is if you have a commercially viable product never alienate the user or you'll stifle innovation.

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Enough to spill your cornflakes

Something not so inspiring for everyone else except this lucky chap - Times Business News reported today that John Tiner, chief executive of the FSA (Financial Services Authority), will be paid £33,000 a month to do nothing for six months after he announced his surprise resignation yesterday. Mr Tiner was paid a total of £573,000 last year, including basic pay of £400,000. Enough to make you spill your cornflakes.

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Controversial ... C4 Big Brother

BBC News Headlines ... A row over remarks made to Celebrity Big Brother's Shilpa Shetty will be raised in Parliament after thousands of viewers complained to the TV watchdog. Housemates Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara have been seen making fun of the Bollywood star's accent. On Monday night's episode, O'Meara reportedly suggested that Indians were thin because they were always ill as a result of undercooking their food. C4 reported girly rivalry ... now the game show has forced a 'early day motion' to debate on the particular subject matter - maybe it will not put an end to the ( Jealousy, Bullying & Racism ) watched by million of Big Brother viewers but the publicity it brings with the so called girly rivalry may lower Ms Goody, Lloyd and O'Meara's celeb status. All three of these women are playing out their inhibitions, this type of behaviour is shocking in any situation, least said it might well be there last major acting role for a while.



... David Cameron on BBC News 24

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Impact of Leadership

Facilitation Session 16/01 FAQ - Leadership is not solely the responsibility of those who reside at the higher levels of the hierarchy. Instead, it’s an activity in which anyone who’s interested in the success of an organisation can take part.

Strategic leadership involves:

• Defining the overall vision and mission of an organisation
• Developing strategies, systems and structures to achieve the vision and mission
• Creating both technical and social systems that are effectively integrated, and which address the needs of both customers and employees

Operational leadership involves:

• Ensuring that organisational processes are effectively carried out on a day-to-day basis
• Monitoring performance
• Addressing constraints
• Ensuring that employees understand what is to be done and are provided with the authority, knowledge and skills to do it

The culture that results from how work is carried out shapes the way members of an organization relate to each other and to the outside world. The levels of employee motivation and empowerment, and how conflict is resolved, both shape — and are a measure of — organisational cultures. Leadership must effectively manage these issues because they also affect organisational performance.

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Inspiration in colour

Each and every one of us have days when you we can't wait to get out of bed, firing on all cylinders making our way to work, and then there are other days when you it raining, windy and you just wished yesterday was today ... hold that thought for one moment, so you're wet and the wind has given you a new hairstyle, in any case if each day was the same, how bored you would be. When you get home, kick off your shoes and just before you reach for the TV remote control go online and soak up some inspiration with Blaine Franger awesome photography, and say to yourself today was worthwhile, tomorrow another day.

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Why We Hate Off-sites - 5

Mission impossible

“There's no "I" in incomprehensibly impossible initiative. There are lots of if I had of known ...”

At an off-site for a recently acquired subsidiary of a major advertising conglomerate, attendees were tasked with figuring out how to double revenue in three years. Problem was, the agency already had big clients in every ad category, and conflicts with the parent company's clients made that sort of sales growth virtually impossible. So a group of frustrated staffers suggested buying the firm back. "That was the only way to do it," one employee says. Execs ignored the suggestion and focused on more "reasonable" ideas. They should have listened: A year later the subsidiary had lost a third of its staff to layoffs as sales slumped under the new parent.

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100 Ways to Succeed #82:

Tom Peters writes ...

Of Service!
Ask. Daily.

"What did I specifically do to be of service to my group? Was I fair & truly a 'servant'?"
Think on this (exactly!) for 5-10 minutes before you go to work.

As I reflect on the past 3, 6, 12 months, can I answer the following in a positive manner?* (*Be specific!) That is:
1. Do those served grow as persons?
2. Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?

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Why We Hate Off-sites - 4

Sleeping arrangements

“Remember, there doesn't always have to be a booby prize.”

Among the pitfalls of forced togetherness: the sleeping arrangements. Consider the episode in which a multinational advertising firm brought more than 350 employees from 12 countries together for a three-day meeting in Orlando to foster cross-border teamwork.

When employees arrived at the hotel, managers announced their clever plan: Everybody would bunk with a colleague from a different country. But when several Japanese women got to their rooms, they found that their suite mates were German men. Apparently the American planners had assumed that people with names like Jens and Tibor were female. "The Japanese women broke down in tears," one attendee says. "It just wasn't culturally acceptable."

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Are you ready to change

I was recently asked to explain what hybrid coaching-consulting could offer, well at the root of (consulting & coaching) for change examines not only what one does, and why one does what one does, but who you are, and who you want to be. More so to change/learn, people need to embed new insights into deeper, often automatic, thinking processes. This requires them to pay attention to how they think as well as what they think. To change, people need to turn thought into action.

In theory learning will only last if the underlying emotional commitment is there – ‘do I really want to change?’ ‘what are the benefits for me?’ As people engage with new learning they will need to listen to their emotions and look at their attitudes, beliefs and values. Coaching is a powerful tool, that can help you crack open your most pivotal business issues and dilemmas, to achieve a breakthrough. The question is "are you ready to change ... "

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Why We Hate Off-sites - 3

Climbing the walls

“Trust fall? You betcha. I trust that you're about to fall.”

An employee of a management consultancy dangled her higher-ranking colleague over the edge of a 25-foot-tall climbing wall. "I don't want you bothering me anymore," she told the man she held by the wrists. "And I'm not gonna pull you up unless you promise to leave me alone." Fortunately for the company that brought her and about 200 co-workers to the forest for a day of bonding, the male colleague did indeed promise to leave her alone. She even got a promotion a few months later - but the company hasn't scheduled another retreat since.

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Communication Excelerator

Executives lose their effectiveness or can even derail, not because they not smart enough, but because they fail to connect with or understand their impact on the people around them. Communication is our biggest point of leverage. It may seem simple enoughbut it's certainly not easy, communicating with stakeholders is difficult. We tend to underestimate its importance and the commitment involved. How many of us ignore consistent communication ... how often have you heard people saying he/she has a clumsy interpersonal style, perhaps arrogant. Does your organisation spend more time and money focusing solely on technical skills or strategy instead. Do you know how well you communicate with others? How clear are you about your impact on others?
Do you know what you do well and how to improve on it. If your communication is a knowledge engine for your company! Finally, ask yourself - how would communicating even better benefit both me and the organisations that I work in? What are the "hard" Wins/Profit that will result from developing this "soft" competency?

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What is process improvement?

Facilitation Session 11/01 FAQ - What is process improvement? ... Take Six Sigma, which is a fact-based, data-driven philosophy of quality improvement - its a method that ( values defect prevention over defect detection ). It drives customer satisfaction and bottom-line results by reducing variation and waste, thereby promoting a competitive advantage.

• Six Sigma is a philosophy - all work processes can be (defined, measured, analysed, improved, controlled) DMAIC methodology is not the only methodology used in Six Sigma but it is the one most widely used.
• Six Sigma is a toolset - using quantitative / qualitative techniques to drive process improvement.

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Why We Hate Off-sites - 2

Misery loves company

“It's her party, and she'll make you cry if she wants to.”

A former employee of a NY based publishing house recalls how a dream retreat - a four-day excursion for 45 people in Rio de Janeiro to bring the sales team together - was actually more stressful than being in the office.

The problem? The executive in charge managed the extracurricular agenda the same way she ran the 9-to-5 one: like a battalion chief. "She made us go out dancing with her until 3 a.m.," the ex-staffer says. "Then she was angry when everyone was exhausted the next day." Irritated by her troops' lack of enthusiasm, the boss ordered them all into their swimsuits after dinner for relay races in the hotel pool. "Of course, everyone was worried when her team lost," says the former employee. "No one dared beat her."

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Why We Hate Off-sites - 1

Sticks and stones

“Sticks and cornerstones won’t break their bones, but they just might break their spirit”

A dozen workers at a small international marketing company recently found themselves at a retreat run by experts from an "experiential learning" firm. "They came in talking about the seven cornerstones of teamwork," says one attendee, so each employee was given a pouch filled with seven colored stones that stood for concepts like sharing resources, defining roles, and communicating frequently. Whenever a participant violated a cornerstone during the exercise, others had to roll a stone at him across the table. "Not communicating? Here's a purple stone," says the attendee mockingly. "It was ridiculous. We've worked together better since that silly offsite, but it's probably because we sat around the bar afterward laughing."

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Janet Love - Spiritual Awakening

At a time when women of a similar age were settling into wealth and comfort, Janet Love gave it up to struggle as a student and pursue her dream of a career change

“I remember the moment I made my decision,” Janet Love says, her finger tapping the edge of her ever-present cup of steaming green tea.

“It was shortly after my divorce, and I’d just had lunch in Harrogate with my sister-in-law. I told her that I was thinking of moving to London to retrain as a spiritual psychotherapist. Well, she looked at me, her eyes narrowed, and she said: 'Don’t be ridiculous. You’re far too old'."

Love’s passion for psychotherapy had been percolating for a decade, since she read The Road Less Travelled [Scott Peck’s seminal work on love and spiritual evolution] ­and this is the moment it boiled over. She moved to London that September and by January she’d started her course.

Love’s sister-in-law wasn’t the only one who thought her decision was bordering on the bonkers. As a well-established interior designer to the northern moneyed, she was leaving behind financial security (and a covetable ab-fab lifestyle) for the uncertainty (and probable long haul), of life as a student in the capital city.

“Now, after eight years of training, I won’t say it was easy,” Janet continues, “Financially it was really tough. I don’t think you can be prepared for doing without at a stage in life when you had hoped to feel secure. In a sense I “stepped off the ride” in life, and it cost me friends. There were people who didn’t get what I’d done.”

Now 58, Janet is well-known in London as an exponent of spiritual psychotherapy, spearheading the breakthrough fields of autogenic therapy (a drug-free method of tackling anxiety and stress) and family constellation therapy (which works on the controversial proposition that aftershocks of trauma are passed down through generations).

During her years of retraining, Janet’s son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the process of caring for him whilst developing her career as a spiritual psychotherapist has informed two further projects.

The first is a book, Does Someone You Love Have Psychosis? and a charity, Loving Someone in Psychosis, the first of its kind dedicated to family members of those diagnosed with psychosis.

“In a way, I also have my choice of study to thank for having made it through the past few years,” Janet says. “As part of the training to become a psychotherapist, you’re in therapy yourself ­ looking at everything in a new way, and your reaction to challenges in life.

“I began to understand, too, why being 50 had brought me to this place: with a yearning to focus on the internal, rather than the external. As young women, we’re all focused on external values: getting married, having friends, getting the house and a car, having children.

"But, after 45, our values begin to turn inwards, to move towards self-examination and questioning. I was very much, without knowing it at first, tuned in to Jung’s course of psychological maturation.”

As popular thought would paint it Love’s generation lived what Jung calls the external life, with unprecedented panache. The postwar baby-boomers tasted sexual liberation and smudged Mary Quant pan stick as teens, and rode on a wave of dirty cash as Thatcher’s 30-somethings in the Eighties.

“I won’t deny that I delighted in all that ­ getting excitable about new dresses and beautiful things,” says Janet. “But were we a “wild” generation of women? I’m not so sure. It was more about snogging someone at the bottom of the drive in an old VB, which is hardly liberation. As young women we were more repressed and prideful ­and we couldn’t be straight with each other, or let it be known that we were nervous about anything.”

But, as Janet puts it, there’s always time to embrace the life unlived. “It’s not just the middle age of women of my generation that turns their gaze inwards," says Love, "It’s also the shock of the modern world. We’re bombarded with white noise, ­ too much choice, too many options. 'Do I go on a short weekend in Berlin, or do I go to Bombay?'.

“It’s debilitating, and I really feel for women in their twenties now. What do you do when you can do it all? I think we’ll see much more of a trend towards rejecting all of this, and looking inwards for answers.”

Love’s advice for other women thinking of a lock-stock life change in their fifties is to go for it. She says: "It will be difficult, but there’s nothing different in doing it in your fifties than your twenties. Being judged externally means very little, and inside we’re fundamentally the same women we were at age 20. That’s the little secret we keep from the world, isn’t it?”

Does Someone You Love Have Psychosis? will be published by Karnac Books in 2008 (karnacbooks.com). For information on the new charity Loving Someone In Psychosis, visit www.lsip.org.uk.

Story extracted from Times Newspaper

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Enlibra Coaching new website

Enlibra works with many intellectual stars delivering unique 3-dimensional Executve Corporate Life Coaching model with a difference. First the (executive) will experience essential aha moments discovering the solution to your problem, your coach brings out the best in you, raising your performance, enhancing skills and leadership qualities, modifying your attitudes, and working on issues related to EQ. Secondly, from a (corporate) perspective creating synergies that make organisations successful, and lastly (life) here we focus on the personal changes. Enlibra is the professional and personal transformation for CEOs, Leaders, Entrepreneurs, Organisations and individuals who want to function at their best, reach their potential, build solid business relationships, and be successful. You choose to work on all three areas or the most important one.

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Management Consulting top Career Choice

Top Consultants Survey ...Management Consulting still a top careers choice among MBA students McKinsey, meet Google, the new runner-up in the race for the most desirable place to work for MBA students.

McKinsey remains the most popular place to work for MBA students in the 2006 University Survey MBA Edition, but the upstart web-wizard Google shot top the ranking from 129th to 2nd place this year.

Google is now a serious threat to McKinsey's 12-year reign as the most desirable employer among MBA students. Goldman Sachs is a very close third - only 0.01 percent behind Google. General Electric and Johnson & Johnson - two consumer brand household names - retain their top 10 positions, landing on 8th and 9th respectively. Other, more traditional MBA employers round out the Top 10: Bain & Co. (4), The Boston Consulting Group (5), Citigroup (6) and Morgan Stanley (10).
Key findings of the survey include:

New Top Industry: Management consulting grabbed first place again after spending one year as the runner-up. Financial Services dropped to second place.

Moving West: The West Coast is regaining its position as a business hub. Nike (12) and Walt Disney (14) break into the Top 15 for the first time while Starbucks (22), Microsoft (16), Harrah’s Entertainment (40) and Intel (25) are among West Coast companies that moved up on the ranking this year.

Men want family: For the first time, work-life balance is the top career goals among male MBAs (48%). Moving up from fourth place, it passed build sound financial base (37%), influence corporate strategies (31%) and reach managerial level (27%).

− More than work: Overall, work-life balance is strengthening its grip on the top spot for career goals, some 50% of the respondents chose it as a major career goal followed by build a sound financial base (37%) and influence corporate strategies (28%). This global trend is picking up speed again as the economy is getting better and students enjoy more job security.

New Goals: Students were for the first time asked to rank "manage projects", "contribute to society" and "become a specialist" as career goals. "Manage projects" and "contribute to society" were the most important goals of the new alternatives, finishing 7th and 8th - ahead of more traditional goals such as "start a business" and "develop new products".

More Money: MBAs want $88,000 in annual salary at their first job after graduation - a $6,000 jump compared to last year. Expected annual salary five years after graduation rose to $167,000 - a $10,000 increase from last year.

Money-Makers: Venture Capital is back in the top spot as the industry with the highest salary expectations ($103,200). Investment management finished 2nd ($98,100) followed by management consulting ($97,600).

Focus on Health: Health insurance is the second most important factor when students decide to accept or reject an offer from employers. Only annual base salary is more important.

IDEAL Image: Industry leadership, attractive location and financial strength are the three most important characteristics that MBA students associate with their top employer. Innovation is more important to men, while women value a strong corporate culture more.

IDEAL Offers: Competitive compensation is by far the most attractive offer an employer can make. Women however, value flexible working conditions more than men while men value long-term compensation potential more.

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Blue Monday 22 Jan 2007

Dr Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University has christened January 22 'Blue Monday', when post-Christmas fatigue kicks in, resolutions fall by the wayside and spring seems ages away.What's more, the academic says the feeling will last all week as the lethal combination of miserable weather and astronomical credit card bills affects even the super-happy among us.

Dr Arnall formula - 1/8W+(D-d)3/8xTQMxNA.

It factors in the dreariness of the (W)eather, the arrival of Christmas bills or (D)ebt, minus monthly salary (d), (T)ime elapsed since Christmas and the failure to keep a New Year's resolution or to (Q)uit a bad habit, low (M)otivational levels and the need to take action (NA).

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Secret of Success

“The secret of success is to find out where people are going - and get there first"
Mark Twain

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