COMPELLING LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION How to make the leap from competent professional to compelling leader

by Kieran Flanagan @ThinkKieranF @TheBehaviourRpt #Communication #Brand #Leadership

What makes you great at your job isn’t necessarily what will make you a great leader. In fact, technical capability isn’t always necessary, nor alway an asset as you climb the ladder of influence and responsibility.

Of course, there are many facets to leadership, but perhaps the one that is most important and leadership-defining is communication. And yet, this capability is almost always the largest skills gap I find in teams of organisations, large and small, all around the world. And, anecdotally, it appears that the more technically skilled the professional, the less skills they possess in the various professional communications functions.

Now, I don’t want to complain too loudly about this gap, as frankly, closing it helps me pay my mortgage. However, what I do want to put a spotlight on is why it matters and what it looks like, because, while communication is a critical skill for anyone in business, academia or social enterprise, at a leadership level, it can be make or break.

So let’s start with a shared understanding and belief that leadership communication is a not-so-soft skill. The ability to engage, shift public opinion, navigate conflict and bring a vision and purpose to life is no small undertaking. It gives us access to funds for our work, helps us create engagement in the marketplace and our communities, attracts top talent and keeps them interested as well as helping us navigate times of discord and conflict. 

So what are the key leadership communication skills? Let’s call these, “The language of leadership."

Personal Brand

Your personal brand might best be thought of as a proclaimed introduction that announces your appearance in every room before you enter. It handles objections before they arise, elevates your authority in the room and amongst your peers and sets a clear agenda around who you are and what you are about.

Too often this is seen as a frivolous exercise or a “nice-to-have,” or worse, as a set and forget - like a resumé you bashed out when you left school or university and haven’t revisited in years.

At best, your personal brand should amplify your leadership, to ripple out through brand stories that help define values, behaviours and expectations. 

Presentation Skills

We’ve all either seen a train wreck of a presentation, or given one. And it doesn’t matter if it’s in a board room, at the AGM or as part of a team or industry conference, it just feels awful.

We’ve also seen it when it goes well and gazed in wonder (if not outright jealousy) at leaders who have a messianic ability to move a room to ascension, acquiescence and action.

Unfortunately, we often see this as an innate talent rather than as a learned skill, and nothing could be further from the truth.

This capability, the capacity to move people, lift them, inspire them and drive them through your words is a critical leadership capability that is far too important to be left to chance and the last moment.

Mentoring & Coaching

A friend of mine, Richard Hodge, asserts that “mentorship is leadership,” and he has the personal visage of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings to really make the point convincingly.

If we think about traditional models of leadership and people development, say the Master and Apprentice relationship, we can see how this has historically played out. A master of a trade would not only employ a young apprentice but would educate them, nurture their character, share life lessons with them to help them better navigate an often political and fraught world and ultimately, prepare them for leading and mentoring their own charges in the future.

In other word, there is a level of intimacy and care in every relationship - even those that are formed around leadership and professional outcomes.

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership might be thought of as communication in thought and action. Often times, when I’ve been asked to develop next generation leaders as part of a 6 or 12 month program, I’ll help them develop a thought leadership project.

What this amounts to, is helping them each identify a critical issue or breakage point within their organisations that is either costly in time and money, or else causes reputational damage. Then we’ll ideate a few solutions, prototype and test our hypotheses and ultimately, create a presentation and pitch to make to the board and the senior leadership team at the end of the program.

The outcome is, these young leaders become thought leaders in some aspect of the business, typically an issue that has significant bottom line or social implications, and it also helps elevate their influence with senior leaders and the board. In other words, it demonstrates their capacity to lead in thought and deed to those who they need to engage in order to “lead up.”

Strategic Clarity

MIT Sloan recently published the results of a study suggesting that fewer than 28% of executives and managers charged with executing strategy could name three strategic priorities. Their direct reports faired even worse and reported that they considered their leaders’ communication skills to be twice as bad as their leaders rated themselves. Ouch!

What this practically translates to, is organisations and teams who are busy running off strategy, or just as importantly, are frozen in indecision for a lack of clarity. Clarity of strategy only works if it leads to clarity of leadership communication.

Managing Hostiles

We all have people who are probably best described as “challenging,” either in our organisations, directly in our lines of reporting or else surrounding and hampering the work we do. These can be internal “hand-brakes” or environmental players such as people in the marketplace, the community or culture we operate in and even stakeholders who have a vested interest in our success.

No matter where we find them, it is communication that is the critical skill to making sure they are on board, or at worst, not sabotaging the work we do.

Three aspects of conflict-avoiding communication to consider in this are:

1. Inviting hostiles in to help us co-create our strategic solutions - it’s a lot harder to “white ant” a strategy when your fingerprints are all over it.

2. Align your values with theirs - in other words, learn to communicate in their palette or “language,” or through their personal values and frames of reference.

3. Developing self-awareness as a leader - which means being willing to look at why you may be putting people off and working on how you might correct this impression.

WHAT DRIVES OWNERSHIP & ACCOUNTABILITY How to drive autonomy & unconscious competence

by Dan Gregory @DanGregoryCo @TheBehaviourRpt #Culture #Performance #Change #Leadership

Quite often, when being briefed for a keynote speech or training program, a leader will share with me that they just want their people to have a greater sense of “ownership and accountability.”

Of course, they’re not actually giving their team any REAL ownership - there is no exchange of shares or a stake in the business. In fact, what they really mean is, “Can you make my people more obedient and self-managing so I don’t have to work so hard at making them work hard?”

I tend to sound out this little observation with my “inside voice,” as I’m not so sure this level of radical transparency is quite what they’re after in that moment of time.

All that being said, it is actually possible to develop a team and culture that does seek personal responsibility, that will have a sense of pride and ownership in the work that they do and can hold themselves accountable to high standards and expectations. However, it requires rather more than the occasional inspirational keynote speech (no matter how awesome 😂).

So, how do we create a culture of ownership, responsibility and accountability? And just as importantly, how do we make it more than just lip service or corporate rah rah?

Link it to culture

Perhaps unsurprisingly, influencing a culture starts with culture.

One of the great things about culture is that it provides us with a level of unconscious competence or autonomous performance and behaviour. When cultural expectations and conventions are well understood and believed to be important, congruent behaviour tends to show up quite automatically. People who’ve been raised in a particular ethnic culture, for example, don’t typically have to think too much about how to “act that way.”

So, rather than telling people what to do or how to behave, demonstrate who you are helping them to become in the process. In other words, “Start with WHO.” The more this aligns with who they already consider themselves to be, the more consistently they’ll show up with exemplar behaviours that support their cultural identity.

ie. Cultivate ownership by linking it to who they believe themselves to be culturally.

Link your values to their values

Leaders have long understood that simply telling people what to do is neither an effective leadership model, nor does it typically lead to self-sustaining engagement.

Research out of the Universities of Pennsylvania in the US and Bonn in Germany suggests that rather than trying to create a sense of purpose, or a WHY that your people are expected to buy into (an ego-based strategy), rather, link your organisational purpose to their personal purpose as individuals and a community (a people-focused strategy).

In other words, demonstrate how the desired behaviour or performance aligns with what they already believe to be true or else hold in high esteem. The truth is, it’s actually quite difficult to make someone care about something new, and far more efficient and effective to show them how something new is congruent to what they already care about.

Allow for co-creation (actually, insist on it)

The corporate world often talks about co-creation as a tool for amplifying creativity and innovation, however, it’s also a particularly useful tool for increasing ownership.

A top-down leadership style where team members are simply expected to adopt a leader’s new ideas and strategies is far less likely to generate a sense of ownership and accountability than a culture where team members work with leadership to co-author strategy and executional details and metrics.

It also reduces resistance to new ideas and initiatives. It’s a lot harder to throw a spanner (or wrench for my North American friends) into the works, when you’re a co-creator of the program and your reputation is linked to its success.

Guiding questions and stories

There are two famous stories of success that both owe their origins to the same question - one is New Zealand’s “giant slayer” strategy to win the America’s Cup from the far better resourced US team, and the other, that of the British Olympic rowing team’s preparation for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

Regardless of who holds the greatest claim to the question in question, the results produced provide a valuable lesson in cultivating ownership and generating autonomous decision making and performance.

The question both teams embraced was, “Does it make the boat go faster?”

This “guiding question” was used as a strategic sense check and as a source of internalised permission to act. If what you were doing made the boat go faster, you were empowered to move forward. If not, you were probably not acting in alignment with the team’s strategy.

This strategy of guiding questions allows you both to impact strategy by providing clarity and responsibility, but more importantly, it allows your culture to be self-correcting and empowering - meaning the team goes faster also!

Giving responsibility to get responsibility

One of the reasons leaders often fail to get responsibility from their teams, is their reluctance to give it in the first place. The metaphor that is often used is that of helicopter or lawnmower parenting - where parents undermine their children’s resilience and decision making skills by removing obstacles in their path and micro-managing their environment and behaviour. The same holds true in how we manage our teams.

Often it can be difficult to trust a new team with responsibility - especially in critical or high-pressure situations, however, in the same way that they will grow through discomfort, so too does our capacity to lead in discomfort.

What this really boils down to, is the fact that in order to build a sense of responsibility, we need to give it and trust it and to then use the results as an opportunity for learning and growth.

Develop self-awareness around your leadership

Once in an interview, I was asked what I believed was the most critical skill or capability for leaders to develop. Whenever I’ve been asked this in the past, I’ve suggested investing in understanding what drives the people around us.

However, more recently, I’ve changed my opinion and now advise first seeking self-awareness.

My reasoning is this - your past and your personality show up in every aspect of your leadership. Every relationship pattern you’ve adopted, based on your place in your family, the role you played in your friendship group at school and even how you approach, or have experienced, more intimate personal relationships, shows up in your leadership style.

So, if your people aren’t showing up with a sense of ownership and accountability, it might be useful to consider what it is in your personal leadership behaviours that makes proactivity, taking responsibility and innovating a risky proposition for them.

The truth is, leaders don’t shape culture, we simply influence the social and physical environment in which it emerges. In other words, a team that doesn’t act with a sense of ownership and accountability, might just be responding to what we’re not saying, as much as what we say.

HOW TO WIN THE REPUTATION GAME Why impressions are formed before you even say a word

by Kieran Flanagan @ThinkKieranF @TheBehaviourRpt #Communication #Brand #PresentationSkills #PersonalBrand #Leadership

We often think of communication as a moment of information transmission and of our personal brands as being linked to a particular piece of content or social strategy, rather than being something that lives largely beyond our control, and yet, that is precisely how reputation works. Our reputations enter every room before us, set up expectations and shape our brands even beyond our presence.

Now, the fact that we don’t have absolute control over our reputations should not be taken as an excuse not to manage them or indeed to create influence around our influence. Rather, it means we should spend some of the time we devote to the nuanced word-smithing of our communication (which, to be clear, is still important), and apply a little more of our time to developing “behavioural communication,” which has an ability to live on as reputation without the need for our micro-management.

So, what is behavioural communication and how might it work in practical terms. Here’s 5 tips for getting it right and winning the reputation game.

1. Practice Story-Doing

By now, you’re probably familiar with the power of storytelling in communication and for establishing a powerful personal brand and it’s absolutely critical. However, “story-doing,” can be far more powerful. So, what’s the difference?

Storytelling is when you tell a story, be it personal, professional or public, that conveys a message, moral or myth and shapes perception through its telling. 

Story-doing is when you behave or perform an activity in such a unique or exceptional way, that it is story-worthy. In other words, you move from being the teller of the story, to being the lead character in someone else’s.

The reason that this is such a critical difference really comes down to trust and believability. When you tell a story about how good you are, or about your message or purpose, that’s one thing. However, when someone else tells that story on your behalf, someone that might already have earned the trust of the story’s recipients, that is quite another thing.

So, what kind of behaviours might be considered “story worthy?”

2. Pick a righteous fight

Human beings love a bit of conflict, don’t we? The old newspaper maxim used to be, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Now, I’m in no way advocating for violence, aggression or even raised voices, what I am saying is that we can all advocate for positive change, and that the change we advocate for becomes all the more story-worthy when it is not a fight for personal gain.

A righteous fight might best be thought of as a call for justice on behalf of those you serve, those who may not be able to advocate as effectively on their own behalf, either through lack of necessary skills or access.

To choose your righteous fight, consider who you serve, what injustices or struggles they face and how you might make a contribution.

3. Lead by change and contribution

Over the years, I’ve helped many young leaders to become innovators and thought leaders in their fields by helping them develop projects, content and platform skills that have allowed them to shape the future of their businesses and industries.

• To do this, first consider the failure points in your business, where communication, performance or productivity breaks down. 

• Next, develop new systems, processes or products that either fix the problem or else offer an entirely new business or service stream to your offering.

• Finally, learn the art of the pitch and get the leadership team on board.

Not only does this create a story about how you changed the industry and contributed to the content canon of your field, it also creates visibility with your leadership team as a thought leader and strategic asset in the business.

4. Be inconveniently honest and vulnerable

Of course, being honest and truthful are important, but if we’re really going to engender trust and build a reputation worth sharing, we need to exceed expectations - and expectations are experiencing the kind of rapid inflation that would make an economist sweat.

What this means is, being truthful is not enough. To impress others with a reputation for integrity and count-on-ability, we must speak with vulnerable honesty. 

In other words, share a truth that puts you at some kind of reputational risk. 

Now, this sounds counter intuitive. Does this even make sense? You’re probably thinking, “C’mon Kieran, isn’t this whole article about winning the reputation game?” The answer is yes… and yes. In other words, though somewhat contradictory, both concepts can co-exist and even support each other.

One of the reasons that sharing a truth that puts you at small reputational risk can actually build your reputation is that it exceeds our inflated expectations. We hear the vulnerably in the unexpected truth and we’re inclined to be more trusting of anything else that you say. After all, you’ve already told us the inconvenient truth, why would you lie about anything else?

5. Get absolutely clear on you WHO

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, consider who your stories are for. If you’re going to win the reputation game, its rather important that you know who that reputation is for and what they consider important markers of trust and capability.

So before you embark on a campaign of story-doing and reputation building, take the time to first consider the values hierarchy of those for whom your reputation most matters and whether that’s a reputation you’re happy to live up to.

DESIGN BEATS DISCIPLINE How to drive consistent performance by design

by Dan Gregory @DanGregoryCo @TheBehaviourRpt #Culture #Performance #Change #Leadership

If you’re in the business of high-performance and culture development, you’re probably familiar with the maxim, “Discipline beats Motivation,” however, I’d like to add an amendment to this maxim and suggest that “Design beats Discipline,” when it comes to consistent and sustained performance.

The truth is, none of us is motivated every moment of every day, nor is anyone disciplined in every aspect of their lives. They’re both great things to have, but they’re short term strategies.

What’s more, they’re more based on 1980’s pop psychology than robust behavioural science. 

One of the conclusions we might draw from the work of the Situationist School of Psychology and from Behavioural Economists such as Kahnemann, Tversky, Thaler and Sunstein, is that context, or environment, is often a better predictor of behavioural outcomes than character. Now, environment might be physical, or social as well as contextual or conceptual, but this is where design comes into play.

The other important factor to consider is that often, performance and success (or the lack thereof) are not a function of what we do, or fail to do, but rather come down to obstacles, hurdles or impediments we fail to deal with in a sustainable way.

A bias towards success… and away from failure!

We often think of biases as being exclusively negative, however, we can also create behavioural biases towards success, and just as importantly, away from failure.

What this means in practical terms is that we design a behavioural “bridge” that helps us to ameliorate the performance failure or gap we might be experiencing either individually or as a culture and team.

So what are the elements of failure that cost us success and performance? Often times, failure comes down to four critical issues - Biases, Blocks, Blindspots and breaks.

1. Biases

Biases are often informed by our strengths (for more on this concept, see my article on The Weakness in your Strengths). Essentially what this means is that we have a bias towards solving problems based on our strengths - ie. When all you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail - good luck changing that light bulb.

Biases can cost us performance by blinding us to other opportunities or tools, but also by making us predictable and generic in our field, undermining any true competitive advantage.

1. Blocks

I define blocks as being linked to our emotional responses to feelings such as fear. Fear, of course, is a particularly useful physical response that is designed to help us mitigate risk and to stay alive. However, an over sensitivity to fear-producing stimulus can be debilitating and rob us of success.

The fact that public speaking is a bigger fear for most people than death, is testament to this.

However, we can also learn to shrink fear by first identifying its type and how it shows up - ie. Fight, Flight, Freeze or fawn - and also by learning to rate it in terms of severity and developing tools and strategies to “dial it up or down” where appropriate.

1. Blindspots

Blindspots relate to knowledge gaps - which are not always easy to identify. Sometimes, we just don’t know what we don’t know.

Of course, this is not always the case, occasionally we are aware that a knowledge gap is causing us to procrastinate or avoid a particular activity, and we also usually have some life experience that has taught us that “clarity equals velocity.”

So, what is the missing piece of knowledge that is costing your success (assuming of course that we can never have all of the information we might like), and more importantly, how much more do you need to know to get into action?

1. Breaks

Breaks are typically linked to our weaknesses and often the greatest opportunity for our performance uplift.

Sometimes, these can be delegated or outsourced to those with more specialist skills, or else augmented or improved until our weaknesses become assets, but they can also be “hacked” behaviourally with a work-around or a behavioural “bridge.”

How Behaviour Design works

So, once you’ve identified the performance gap or the source of your failure in a particular activity or skill, what next?

They key is to use what Thaler and Sunstein refer to as a “nudge.” Now, this is a broad term that refers to a number of behavioural interventions that drive a particular behaviour, usually without conscious effort. For the purposes of this article, I’ll simplify the concept with a formula for building a behavioural bridge>

1. BELIEF - Identify the behaviour do you believe should be showing up, but isn’t? eg. I believe I should wake up early in the morning to get a head start on the day.

2. BEHAVIOUR - What  behaviour actually shows up? eg. I actually don’t get up because I turn off my alarm and go back to sleep.

3. BEHAVIOUR FAIL - Determine the root cause of the behavioural fail. eg. The proximity and ease of the snooze button on the alarm

4. BRIDGE - Create a behavioural bridge that helps you to “hack” the fail. eg. You might set multiple alarms so the initial alarm has some “back up,” or you might set the alarm and move your clock to the other side of the room so that the proximity and ease issue is removed.

The point here is that performance and not entirely determined by what we are motived to do, or disciplined in not doing, but also by how we use behavioural design to work-around the obstacles and issues that get between us and success.

So, why not build a bridge… and get over failure?!

CHARACTER BEFORE DIALOGUE Before you communicate, know who you are

by Kieran Flanagan @ThinkKieranF @TheBehaviourRpt #Communication #Brand #PresentationSkills #PersonalBrand #Leadership

A friend of mine is a screenwriter in Hollywood, but before moving to the land of swimming pools and movie stars, we had worked together in the Advertising industry.

One evening, overlooking Los Angeles by the pool at his home just beneath the Hollywood sign, we got to talking about the similarities between developing a character and dialogue for a screenplay and communication and branding.

I spend a great deal of my time helping people all around the world develop their personal brands and communication and presentation skills, and it turns out, there is a lot of overlap with how a block buster movie is created.

Character and communication

People often struggle with communication - both 1:1 and 1:Many. In fact, Jerry Seinfeld once quipped that at a funeral, “most people would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy.”

One of the reasons people find communication so difficult is that we are so focussed on “what” we say that we pay no attention to being clear about “who” we are being. Cancel culture has only amplified this behaviour.

However, if I were to ask you to deliver a line that you might expect from a well known character from fiction - be it Darth Vader, Alice’s Mad Hatter or Disney’s Cruella de Vil, I’m sure most of you could deliver a line or two that would at least approach the essence of the character. But if I asked you to deliver a two minute message to your team on a critical issue, you might struggle.

The reason for this struggle is that “your character” is poorly defined. It sounds odd, but you just don’t know enough about yourself to communicate or “play” your character as effectively as a character from fiction!

Character and brand

This is equally true when communication shifts to 1:Market or 1:Community. In fact, brands and personal brands that have poorly defined characters struggle to stand out and be heard. They also suffer from the pursuit of fads and association with popular causes rather than building deep relationships and genuine connections.

In fact, a strong brand character should actually cost you customers - and people! However, it will also create a deeper sense of loyalty in the people that you truly want.

What’s more, it makes creating brand content and communication so much easier - you start to hear your brand’s voice in your head, and your brand character serves to guide your decisions and shape your culture.

You-nique share-ability

Using character to inform and drive the three functions of 1:1:Many:Market, allows you to build an easily referable and recommended reputation as well. Human beings are attracted to clarity and congruence and we tend to advocate for people and brands rather than their associated products or services - which may not have any functional advantage.

I call this your “You-nique-ness.” Your character is a function of what makes you… you!. Not only does this make establishing your character simple (not necessarily easy), it also makes consistency of communication more fluid and less contrived.

Creating your character

In the film industry, they use character mapping or character breakdowns to establish a short-hand reference for who a character is as well as what they look like, how they speak and how they behave. I do the same when I’m working with leaders and aspiring leaders on their communication, presentation skills and personal brand.

Here’s a few things I borrowed from the world of screen writing to consider:

1. How does your character look? How do they dress? Is anything about them visually distinctive? How do they walk and carry themselves?

2. What is your character’s personality? Are you cheeky, funny, a hero, an outlaw or villain?

3. What are your character’s behavioural traits? What behaviours or mnemonics do you want your character to be noted for? This might be something you always do, such as always starting with a question for the room, or else a physical quirk, such as Columbo’s last minute thought as he leaves a room, “Oh, ah… one more thing sir…”

4. What is your character’s motivation? How does your WHY show up in your WHO, WHAT and HOW?

5. What is your character’s back story? In other words, how does what you have done and who you have been both explain the character you have and shape the way your character communicates and behaves.

Developing situational dialogue

Finally, when you come to writing brand content or thinking about your personal communication, instead of becoming lost in what you think you should say or do, rather, consider how your character would behave and communicate in the situation you find yourself in - Vader was clearly a villain who led by intimidation, but he still found a moment to be a dad (albeit a bad one) when the situation presented itself.

THE WEAKNESS IN OUR STRENGTHS Why playing only to our strengths is not enough for performance & success

by Dan Gregory @DanGregoryCo @TheBehaviourRpt #Culture #Performance #Change #Leadership

In my early twenties, I worked in the advertising industry and I was pretty good at it, early doors. Within the first six months in the industry I had won the top creative award in the country and a few more besides - just to make sure my narcissistic ego was supercharged.

What made me good at my job was my strategic intelligence, a sharp wit and a knack for headline writing, having modelled my craft on the likes of Tom McElligott in the US and Tim Delaney and Richard Forster in the UK.

I’d played to my strengths and I’d had some quick wins. However, the success I craved still eluded me, and others (who I considered less talented than myself), were achieving gigs and goals that I coveted. What the hell was going on?

I soon realised that my strengths were not enough to reach the heights to which I aspired and that I’d probably have to take a look at my weaknesses (which I had been assiduously avoiding).

So why might playing to our strengths alone be a fraught strategy?

1. Strengths are non-binary

We tend to think of our strengths and weaknesses as being binary - strengths are good, weaknesses are bad. However, that is only occasionally the case as a change in the environment, or in cultural norms, can render what was a strength either inappropriate or indeed a new weakness. 

The “charge” attached to a strength or weakness can also change over time. For example. what was once funny can become desperately unfunny over multiple exposures - just ask any dad whose children have shifted from endearing giggles to withering eye rolls.

2. Strengths are contextual

This might seem obvious but it is often forgotten in the pursuit of performance. 

Sure, Aquaman is a super hero, but if you’re falling out of a multi-storey window, talking to the fishes isn’t going to be much use to you. 

This was perhaps demonstrated most shockingly in the experiments of psychologists from the Situationist School, such as Zimbardo and Milgrim, where diligence and conscientiousness can easily translate to cold-blooded compliance.

3. Strengths can be category generic

In a room filled with carpenters, being good with a hammer is generic in the field. A room filled with accountants finds no exceptionalism in being able to use a spreadsheet. And of course, all lawyers are ubiquitously evil.* 

So, if you want to stand out in your field, it’s unlikely to be found in your strengths and much more likely to be linked to an unrelated skill or factor, and perhaps, even a weakness. Weakness can actually equal uniqueness. Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” delivered terrible customer service (a weakness) but it was so bad it made a visit a “must do experience” (transforming it into a strength).

4. Strengths amplify cognitive biases

The truth is, the maxim of playing to your strengths is entirely unneeded. No one needs to be told to play to their strengths, we do it automatically, willingly, enthusiastically. Essentially, we want it to be true! So, we tend to lean on our strengths pretty heavily and it’s no surprise. They make us feel good. We feel competent. What’s more, people praise us for our capability. 

Of course, there is another maxim that warns us, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The problem is, our “hammer” isn’t much use when we’re trying to change a light bulb.

5. In solo pursuits, weaknesses cannot be delegated (or outsourced)

Imagine I’m an Olympic swimmer (this will require some creativity). The thing is, while I might be incredible at the swimming bit, I could be hopeless at diving off the blocks and it costs me critical seconds. You will never hear the announcer over the pool loudspeakers saying, “Representing Australia in the 50 metres freestyle is Dan Gregory - but he’s crap at the dive, so coming off the blocks will be Michelle, his VA from the Phillipines…” 

This notion was illustrated to me brilliantly while chatting with a friend of mine, world surfing champion Layne Beachley. Layne revealed that early in her career she had walked on her toes for a year to rectify a weakness that had been costing her the number one spot in global rankings. This “transformed weakness” was the missing piece to her later dominance and winning 7 world championships.

6. Strengths offer little performance uplift

This is perhaps the most critical argument for not playing to your strengths exclusively. You might be a carpenter who is a 9 out of 10 at swinging a hammer, but a 2 out of 10 with a saw - the opportunity to lift your total performance lies in sharpening your saw technique.

A friend of mine once shared that his daughter was an artist - that was her strength and he wanted her to lean in to it. We chatted about the cliché of the “starving artist,” and I suggested that while she should definitely lean into her art, she might do well by studying business and personal branding as, to the artistically-uneducated eye who might be buying her art, reputation was more easily understood than the aesthetics of her personal painting style.

Of course, some of these functions could be outsourced to other professionals, however, an understanding of them is critical for personal success and, let’s face it, for not getting ripped off.

Coming back to the personal story I started to share at the top of this article - my pursuit of ego-affirming success.

My weakness was presenting. Actually, to call it a weakness is rather to understate things. To be fair, my weakness was talking to people in general. I once had a former client ask my business partner Kieran if I was on the autism spectrum - within my hearing I should add.

The solution? Three and a half years touring on the global stand up comedy circuit as a professional comedian where I became bullet-proof on stage.

Here’s the thing, my strength - strategic intelligence, didn’t diminish. However, my weakness became an asset. So much so that I now travel the world working as a professional speaker with a reputation for making keynote speeches (which are essentially a lecture on psychology), entertaining, and for being able to bring a tough audience to life.

Here’s the rub:

By all means, play to your strengths when and where they serve you - this article isn't about ignoring or rejecting your strengths. But for true performance uplift and overall success, learn to also “work your weakness!”

* My little sister is a lawyer - this is a shout out to her 😂

WHY TRUST BEATS TRUTH How a post truth world makes trust more important

by Kieran Flanagan @ThinkKieranF @TheBehaviourRpt #Communication #Brand #Leadership

Let me preface this post by stating that I am not making the case that truth isn’t important or not valuable. Simply that it is getting harder and harder to identify the facts amongst the fictions, and therefore, truth is no longer enough to build trust in your communication, brand or leadership.

So, what happened to the truth?

Trust Decay

The past couple of decades have seen an incredible decrease in our trust in our institutions, of commercial organisations and even our communities, and a correlating rise in cynicism and even nihilism - and with good reason.

Politicians across the spectrum have been publicly outed as liars, cheats and criminals, financial corporations revealed to be corrupt and economically reckless, religious institutions found guilty of terrorism and child abuse, children’s entertainers exposed as paedophiles, celebrities have been cancelled, police have been implicated in systemic racism, our war heroes accused of war crimes and it turns out our parents - let’s call them Santa and The Tooth Fairy - lied about EVERYTHING! 

Distrust, is actually, the logical conclusion to life in the 21st Century! 

However, this trust decay is also being amplified by:

Black and White Thinking

Now, this has nothing to do with racism, although that is often an outcome, it is more to do with our belief that, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” In other words, it is our belief-based tribalism that sets us up in opposition with other members of our community.

We become more convinced by our own rightness (and even righteousness), as social media algorithms feed our own biases back to us as factoids, whilst devaluing dissenting views and opinions as flawed and even improper. 

Just look at any conversation between two people you used to consider close friends just a few years ago about the subject of COVID and vaccines - two words that are so divisive they attract fact-checker bots like they’re Taylor Swift tickets!

Consequently, we are becoming less good at entertaining views outside our own, or even in acknowledging their right to exist. Again, this manifests across the spectrum with tribal divisions stretching across culture, politics, race, religion and even what is considered funny (or in most cases, considered not funny - I’m looking at you Dave Chapelle & Jimmy Carr).

This mode of thinking makes finding agreement and consensus between opinions extremely difficult. 

Where there are no shades of grey and when compromise is seen as weakness or loss, the only alternative is distrust of the truth of the “other.”

Media Bias, Deep Fakes & False Narratives

This may be the defining trust-breaking factor of our time.

In a world where different media platforms are censoring free speech they (or regulators) disagree with, where one side shouts “fake news” while the other sites “false narratives,” we find ourselves in a world we’re information and intelligence is impressibly democratised and ubiquitous as at no other time in history, but simultaneously untrustworthy, and therefore devalued.

Complicating things further, is the rise of Deep Fake AI technology that can map a face (often that of Tom Cruise) onto someone else’s, sample a snippet of your voice from an online social post and create a fake message of such quality that it can fool a member of your own family. 

How long will it be before digitally-native school children can actually provide video evidence and convincing parental testimony of a dog digesting their homework.

Discerning the truth amongst the lies has become so difficult, it might well be considered impossible.

The Fragility of Trust

Finally, It’s a cliché, albeit an accurate one, but “Trust is built over years and lost in seconds.”

In other words, even though my argument is that “Trust beats Truth,” it is itself vulnerable to the same threats that truth is currently facing.

What this all means is that in a post-truth world, as we are constantly being told we are living in, trust is our greatest currency.

So, how do we establish, build and maintain trust?

1. Share The Inconvenient Truth - No Al Gore, this is not about you, it’s about vulnerability. It’s about sharing a truth so personal that it puts you at some kind of risk - even if it’s only reputational risk. This has always been a precursor to trust. In fact, it’s why gossip exists in human societies - we share intimacies with each other, so we have something “on” each other - and trust ensues. So, don’t just tell the truth, tell a truth that makes you a little uncomfortable.

2. Fight for a gain that is not your own - When you argue for a cause that you personally benefit from, establishing trust is difficult. However, when the case you’re presenting does not benefit you, or might even cost you, you become more worthy of trust. After all, why would you lie?

3. Mea Culpa - A latin phrase that translates as, “In my fault.” It's an admission of apology or remorse that usually manifests as a public declaration that, “I was at fault.” One of the most interesting facts about the psychology of trust, is that we are more likely to trust someone who has faltered, admitted their error and apologised, than one who has never been found with a fault.

CULTURES OF THE WILLING How engagement drives performance (and vice versa)

by Dan Gregory @DanGregoryCo @TheBehaviourRpt #Culture #Performance #Leadership

A number of years ago I was working with a military consortium on an innovation project. I could tell you what we were working on, but then I’d have to kill you.

Now, to set the scene, a military consortium is usually a group of 20-30 ex-military men (and it’s always just men). As you might imagine, when group of ex-military men get together in a room, there’s a lot of posturing goes on - Who’s the biggest… Who’s the toughest… That kind of thing. (Fortunately, I watched a lot of Jean Claude Van Damme movies as a kid, so I think I held my own!)

As this was going on, a door at the back of the room opened and an older gent in chinos and a polo shirt entered the room, and the posturing stopped. The bragging stopped. The BS stopped. 

It was immediately obvious to me that a real leader had entered the room. So, I said to the ex-special forces guy I was talking to, “Who’s that?” He responded, “That’s Maj. Gen. Jim Molan. He’s a legend.”

Before his recent passing, Jim Molan had served as an Australian Senator, but before that, he had been an Allied Commander during the war in Afghanistan working with troops from Australia, Afghanistan, Canada, Great Britain, Poland and the United States.

Later that day, we had a conversation about leadership and I asked him what it was like to lead an organisation of people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, values, religions and military disciplines. He praised his team stating that he had led the most highly trained, most well resourced and most disciplined workforce on the planet - and it had been his honour to serve with them. 

Then he looked me in the eye and asked, “What kind of people do you command!”

I said, “Creative people.”

He looked and me with eyes that said, “You poor bastard!”

Here’s the thing, Jim Molan knew that if he ever gave any of his people an order, they would snap to attention and say, “Sir. Yes sir.” If I was ever to give my people anything resembling an order, they would tell me to go and do something to myself that might be a little more enjoyable if another participant was involved! 

I think we all know what that kind of leadership feels like.

Today, leadership is less about command and control, or hierarchy, or even positional authority, and much more about how we create cultures of the voluntary, of the enthusiastic of the engaged.

What’s more, Cultures of the Willing also outperform those who are not engaged.

Engagement = Performance

If you’ve ever read one of Gallup’s Global Workforce Engagement reports, you’ll know that workforce engagement is pretty dire - roughly half of the global workforce is NOT engaged in the work they do, with a further 20-ish percent ACTIVELY disengaged. And this may even be a false positive, as though many may hate their jobs, they still need them!

However, what is often missed is the fact that organisations with a highly engaged culture are more productive, more profitable and even have customer satisfaction ratings much higher than the norm. In other words, not only does an engaging culture lift performance internally, it also drives market reputation and performance.

The other thing that people often miss is the fact that this is an equation - which means it works both ways. In other words:

Performance also equals Engagement

This means engagement and performance are a virtuous cycle where one feeds the other. 

So, how does this work in practice? Allow me to explain through a personal story.

I was raised in a very musical family. My mother was a former child prodigy who won the national eisteddfod (and many others in piano, cello, musicianship and theory). Consequently, she made sure my siblings and I all started piano lessons before we were even old enough for school. Once we had achieved a certain competency in piano, we were then allowed to add another instrument to our repertoire. I chose guitar.

Later at university, I earned some spending money working as a guitar teacher. However, I chose a very different method of teaching to the one I had learned by.

Usually, kids will be taught simple songs like, “Three blind mice,” or “Frère Jacques” that are easy to play but desperately boring and uninspiring. If you’re the parent of a child learning to play, you know how hard it is to love them while they’re playing that crap.

I thought, “Screw that!”

Whenever a young kid came to me to learn, I would ask what their favourite band and song was. For instance, I was teaching in Sydney’s Western suburbs during the early 1990s, and “Westie” kids love metal. One young man told me he was obsessed with Metallica and the song, “Master of puppets.” Now, any guitarist can tell you, this is not an easy piece to play and certainly not a typical place to start your guitar playing career.

However, without teaching him any theory or even what the names of the notes he was playing, I taught him where to put his fingers and which strings to strum - phrase by phrase, note by note - a tiny piece at a time, week by week.

Within a few weeks, his Mother approached me and said, “What are you doing to my child?” Which admittedly looks quite bad in print without context!

She revealed that with his former teacher, she had had to force him to complete even 5 minutes of practice (usually just before his lesson), but now she had to drag him away from his guitar to come to dinner at night.

In other words, his performance increased his engagement and his engagement increased his performance. 

He was more likely to practice and more interested in music theory, simply because I had created competence beyond his capability - which then increased his passion for his playing.

So, how might we create performance-lifting engagement in our cultures?

1. Inspire - Do more than simply telling people what to do. Demonstrate why you want them to do it, but even more importantly, show them who you are helping them to become in the process.

2. Invite - Allow your team to co-create solutions and strategy with you. When they help to create it, they feel greater ownership of it and they work the strategy harder.

3. Interest - Make sure that the work you perform is intellectually challenging and talent stretching. This means allowing your people to reach beyond their current beliefs and perceived limits.

4. Influence - Stack the odds in your favour by creating a behavioural bias towards success, and just as importantly, away from failure. In other words, create systems, contexts and environments that make performance (and therefore engagement), more easily achievable.

Human minds run on stories not facts.

Dan Gregory   @DanGregoryCo

Most of us like to think of ourselves as making educated decisions, based on evidence and using critical thinking skills developed over time and with experience.

A more accurate description might be that, “We respond intuitively, then look for anything that sounds vaguely “sciency” to support our assumptions.”

Part of the reason for this is that during our physical evolution, over-thinkers tended to get eaten or speared to death. However, it’s also because during our social and behavioural evolution, stories came to be more influential and binding than accurate data - of which, there was often very little.

So how might this understanding be useful to us today?

1. All cultures are essentially values codified in stories

Cultures are defined by many traits and aspects, but perhaps what defines them most is their stories.

Think of the parables and myths from all of the religions around the world and throughout history. Each of them was designed to instruct and advance a particular moral code in a way that might be easily understood, accurately remembered and handed down from one generation to the next.

A more contemporary and commercial example of this can be found in the customer service training by Nordstrom the department store. Rather than giving customer service staff rote scripts or vague notions of what great customer service might look like, they share stories taken from their own history, that demonstrate what amazing service looks like.

One such story describes the customer service clerk who, on serving a customer who was buying a business shirt for a job interview later in the day, took the shirt out back and ironed it for him so he’d look the part.

2. Stories are portable and pass-on-able

In an age of hyper-connectivity, largely defined by the social media revolution of the past decade and half, stories, which have always been important, have taken on powers and abilities that should earn them their own Marvel Avengers franchise.

Indeed, stories have become the superheroes of the communications world, not just because they are personal, relatable, memorable and powerful, but precisely because, today they are unbelievably portable and pass-on-able.

3. Stories can be drawn from many parts of life and used to drive different outcomes

My business partner, Kieran Flanagan, segments stories in a memorable palette. She describes the 3 P’s of Stories as:

•              Personal

•              Professional

•              Public

Personal stories are incredibly useful for establishing a sense of intimacy, trust and for making vulnerability and truth more acceptable and culturally safe.

Professional stories, such as the Nordstrom example above, are ways of demonstrating not just where the boundaries of acceptable behaviour lie, but also serve to venerate ideals.

Public stories can include examples from sport, popular culture, from other organisations and even other nations. They’re a way of expanding points of view and diversifying input and behavioural examples.

So, if you want to lead, to create a culture of the willing and build engagement with your team, your customers and your community, maybe rely a little less on facts and data and invest a little more in your story-telling capabilities. 

And while you’re at it, spend a little time curating the stories that other share on your behalf.

Feelings are feedback not facts.

Dan Gregory   @DanGregoryCo.

OK, upfront confession, I’m not a particularly emotional person. In fact, when tested for traits such as empathy, I tend to produce the kinds of results that should put me on a watch list next to “Dexter.”

However, not being especially emotional or emotive by nature, doesn’t necessarily mean that I lack emotional intelligence. In fact, in many ways, it offers an opportunity to better understand emotions, how they manifest and how to manage them, than a perspective and perception that is more ruled by “feelings.” This is simply because, it can be a little easier to observe them objectively.

In fact, a tendency to “intellectualise” emotions rather than “feeling” them has allowed me to spend my life learning how to be people smart and to help others do the same in the process.

Part of intellectualising emotions is an ability to perceive them as feedback rather than fact. But this skill is not unique to me, nor does that limit its application by others. In fact, high performers and athletes regularly do the same and the more we train ourselves to filter feelings as feedback, not fact, the more power we can exercise in our responses.

Much of this thinking has been explored by Cognitive Behavioural Therapy drawing on the work of Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, however its application stretches well beyond the clinical and in fact, this post should be considered as performance and mindset enhancement and not as therapy for those whose mental health is considered at risk (I’ll leave that kind of advice to others).

So how might we apply this approach to our own emotions and what kind of questions increase a sense of control rather than one of challenge?

1. Is what I’m feeling contextual rather than true?

In other words, rather than seeing a problem as a “universal” feature of yourself, your organisation or your team, ask whether it is actually an issue that is limited to a particular context, environment or time frame?

If you find yourself thinking, “Oh this always happens,” or “I always do this,” it might be worth challenging that assumption to see if it is in fact true, or simply just how you’re feeling in the moment.

Additionally, question whether your response isolated to one incident or one part of your life rather than being symptomatic of some kind of character failing?

The more you train yourself to question emotional feedback, the more you learn to understand its accuracy and efficacy.

2. Am I exaggerating the scale of the problem?

Those who work in the behavioural sciences like to call this, “catastrophising,” a name which, in many ways, is an example of what it explains. It essentially means the we are exaggerating the implications of an event or taking the specific and giving it universal significance.

Examples of this are, “This ruins everything!” or “Now I’ll never be able to XYZ!”

Rather than reducing a challenge or making a problem bite sized, it transforms the issue at hand into an all or nothing event. Which lead to question three:

3. Am I evaluating life in a binary way?

This can be understood as good/bad thinking or on/off processing. Which is great if you’re writing computer code, however your human processor is rather more nuanced and capable of far more complicated distinctions.

We’re frequently told that compromise is a sign of weakness and that we should fight (usually metaphorically) until our opponent is laid out on the canvas, however, this kind of thinking can be particularly destructive and often doesn’t lead to a successful outcome.

To overcome this, expand your vocabulary and describe outcomes with greater accuracy and in more detail. Also, be conscious of what a win actually looks like. I’m always amazed when working with leaders who do not have a clear vision of what a win looks like let alone what an acceptable compromise or accomodation might be. This makes success rather more difficult.

4. Have I surpassed similar challenges in the past? Or have others who are like me?

One of the things our brains tend to do quite effectively is to source support, research and case studies to justify our intuitive responses. The moment you screw up, that little voice in the back of your head will often just straight to, “Wow, this is just like that thing you did back in high school.”

So, try to arm it with better, or at least more expansive and current, evidence. Treat your emotions like a witness on trial. Ask them hard questions but also present evidence that might catch them out in a lie.

Of course, none of this is to say that your emotions are irrelevant or some form of weakness. Rather, it’s about being conscious that our emotions rule our rational brains, but they do so only to the extent that we can regulate them.

In the same way you might filter feedback from those you trust versus those who mean you harm, you can likewise train yourself to treat your emotional feedback as input rather than as “the truth.’

Engaging two levels of identity.

Dan Gregory   @DanGregoryCo

As much as we like to think of ourselves as being intelligent, educated, rational and capable of reasoned decision making, that is scarcely what shows up in practice. We are far more likely to act and react intuitively or emotionally and then to post-rationalise our decisions with whatever evidence or justification we feel is necessary.

Sure, I can tell you all about Porsche’s racing heritage, the science of aerodynamics and sing the praises of German engineering, but that’s not why middle-aged chaps like myself buy a Porsche.

In fact, marketers, advertisers and sales people have long understood this. Unlike idealists, academics and social rationalists, their goal is not to deal with human beings as they wish they were, nor even to be too concerned with the origins of human behaviour and psychology, but simply to make a sale based on who they truly are and how they actually make their decisions.

This, rather unexpectedly, requires a more nuanced understanding of human behaviour than many research methodologies can reveal at a surface level. In focus group research, we all go to the gym regularly, exclusively read quality non-fiction books and only ever order a salad at the drive-thru.

Successful politicians and business leaders have also come to understand this dissonance between who we say we are and who we actually are and have learned to speak first to the heart before engaging the mind. 

So, what really is driving us and sits behind our decision making?

All behaviour is identity driven

Human beings fundamentally act out of a sense of identity and more particularly to maintain a sense of identity congruence. This is largely unconscious behaviour that is anchored in our childhoods, socially reinforced and largely self-correcting. It’s one of the reasons that escaping one’s past can be so difficult.

Few of us need to be reminded how to act our age (despite the protestations of our parents). A more accurate reprimand might run more along the lines of, “Act more responsibly than your age is currently demonstrating.” The same holds true for our national, ethnic, religious and even sporting identities. These codified beliefs and behaviours are so intrinsic to who we think we are that we rarely, if ever, question them

When you challenge identity… it challenges back

One of the greatest barriers to making change stick or in persuading someone to change their point of view is that, you’re not simply asking them to change their mind or adopt a new behaviour or practice, you’re essentially undermining their existing identity. This will immediately cause your identity to rise, however irrationally, to its own defence.

Just think of any argument you’ve had at a family BBQ over politics, sport or even preferred music genres. The more you tell me I’m wrong, the more I’ll defend my identity and that of my “team”.

This is often referred to in psychology as the “backfire effect”. The more you try to rationalise your position and brow beat me with facts, the more likely I am to stubbornly hold the line on my identity.

So, if we do want to drive change, to persuade others and even change our own behaviour, how might the science of identity help us?

Firstly, consider “Who am I?”

The first level of identity is the self, or who you see yourself as.

People reveal their identities in everything they do - how they dress, the words they choose when they talk, how they carry themselves, what makes them laugh and what drives them to anger. In other words, if you want to know what’s driving someone’s decision making, you need to get good at watching and listening.

People tell you how to increase their influence with them by demonstrating who they think they are and who they wish to project to the world that they are.

Despite this, walk onto the sales floor of most industries or eaves drop on most management meetings and, typically, the wrong people will be doing the talking and not a great deal of influencing.

Secondly, ask “Who are we?”

The second level of identity is one of group or tribe or association. 

This runs deeper than loyalty that exists across family lines - that’s to be expected. We’re biologically designed to feel some sense of loyalty to and a desire to protect those we are related to (even if we wish that were not the case).

However, social identity is what has allowed human societies to evolve to nation status that far exceed any notion of tribe in the traditional sense of only a few hundred at most and is what allows human beings to collaborate and make personal sacrifices out of a kind of “social selfishness.” Put another way, this is where our gain becomes internalised as my gain.

This might be as mundane as standing in the rain to cheer on our sports team or as significant as the sacrifices soldiers make for each other in combat.

If we want to be influential and to be more persuasive, trusted and position ourselves as leaders in our teams and thought leaders in our industries, we need to communicate with those we wish to lead at both levels of identity.

So, who do you help us to be?

Psychographics are the new demographics.

Dan Gregory @DanGregoryCo

Understanding communities used to be easy. In the past, communities were largely homogenous where most people knew their neighbours and friendly communities would even acknowledge those they didn’t know well with a nod in the street.

But today, many of us struggle to recognise, much less name our neighbours, and choose instead to walk at pace, head down and headphones in, in a desperate attempt to avoid eye contact lest we initiate human interaction.

A practice brilliantly portrayed in The Mash Report’s “Northerner terrifies Londoners by saying ‘Hello’” skit, seen here.

In fact, communities and even the very concept of community are today far more likely to be found online that offline.

So, what happened?

One of the appeals of online communities is that it allows us to reach out to those who share our opinions and values, even if they do not share our geography or even demography. It allows us to feel connected and understood, especially when we feel like outsiders in the company of those around us. This is, of course, a tremendous positive to those who might have felt isolated in times past.

Compounding this is the fact that the internet and social media amplify that effect, creating filter bubbles where our own opinion is justified and repeated back to us (how reassuring). This leads to downsides too - increasing polarisation within communities, a reluctance to find common ground as well as questions we’ve never had to answer before.

For instance: In a world where communities are built online and threats to that community come from our geographic neighbours (eg. home-grown terrorists), who should the military protect? Where should our loyalties lie? And how might borders need to be defined in the future?

So, what does this all mean?

Firstly, if we want to be better informed, we need to explore opinions beyond our own, to actively cultivate diversity of opinion in our online activity and a little open-mindedness in our conversations. In doing so, we reduce the risk of biases and blindspots clouding our thinking and strategies.

Additionally, it makes a capacity to foster alignment as critical as any effort to build engagement in our communications strategies.

It also means that if we want to build communities, to reach new customers and to lead change in the world, we had better learn how to look beyond demography and get a little psychographic!

Performance is largely determined by our internal communication,

Dan Gregory   @DanGregoryCo

Whether you’re a leader or manager trying to motivate your team, or a professional trying to lift your own game, there is no shortage of advice on how to inspire and drive peak performance. Common factors include: clear goal setting, fair remuneration, professional development, a sense of purpose or meaning beyond money, a collaborative team environment, autonomy and reduced micro-managing, as well as non-punitive feedback in the face of failure and an avoidance to pointless meetings.

All of these are critical factors in motivating performance, however, the concept of motivating for performance is somewhat flawed in itself. Few people actually want to perform poorly in their work, in fact most people want to feel a sense of accomplishment and capability in what they do, so perhaps performance is as much about what we take away as what we add.

If you consider traditional sales training and methodologies for “handling objections” as a metaphor for performance, it might be worth thinking of how we handle obstacles to performance before we beat ourselves, or our teams, up for not hitting our targets.

Following are four obstacles that get in the way of our performance and motivation and a few ideas for how we can hack each of these issues.

1. How we perceive - Blind spots, opportunities and what we ignore

The truth is, “One size doesn’t motivate all.” 

Seeing team motivation or encouraging performance as a single skill is a mistake. We all filter the world through a unique frame of reference and different individuals are motivated by different core motivators. For instance, once a certain level of survival-based safety has been achieved, different people with have widely varying attitudes to risk and adventure based on their own personalities and personal experiences and backgrounds.

Some professionals are motivated by the new and shiny and they’re easily bored, others seek the rewards of teamwork and being part of an organisation that has shared goals and ambitions, some seek the intellectual challenge of solving complicated problems, whilst some professionals are driven by commercial outcomes (occasionally at any cost).

The point is, trying to motivate each of these types of people will require a nuanced approach.

What’s more, where these professionals will often fall short of their performance targets is that they are often so distracted by their own interests that they fail to see opportunities. If you’re always motivated by the next customer or sale, you might miss the opportunity to build a deeper and more rewarding relationship with an existing customer.

2. How we feel - Blocks, mindset and what we avoid

Our emotional state is fluid and how we feel on a particular day may not be how we feel the next or even typically. This may manifest as procrastination or avoidance behaviours as if we’re not “feeling it” we’re often reluctant to do it. 

It’s useful to understand the psychology that sits beneath the emotion if we’re to move past our blocks and embolden our mindset.

For example, a fear around a particular challenge or workplace activity might not have any basis in rationality or reality but be fuelled by a pre-existing definition of self that we had very little to do with creating.

A fear of sales may be motivated by a belief that “I’m not a people person,” which may be true, or it may simply be anchored in a single past experience.

It’s critical here not to ignore or dismiss the belief, but rather to shift it by aligning preferred behaviours with other existing beliefs. In other words, align behaviours with beliefs.

3. How we think - Biases, knowledge and what we prioritise

Despite all we’ve been told about playing to our strengths, our weakness is our greatest opportunity for performance uplift and increased confidence.

There are a number of problems in “playing to your strengths.” Firstly, it reinforces existing biases - when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Secondly, our strengths are often category generic - in a room filled with carpenters, being good with a hammer is essentially worthless and hardly differentiating. Thirdly, it also offers the least opportunity for performance uplift - You might be 95% efficient with the hammer, but have loads more upside when it comes to running the business of carpentry.

This means our existing knowledge often biases our behaviour, whereas exercising our weaknesses can often change the game for us and lead to exponential growth.

4. How we behave - Breaks, skills and what we do poorly

In the long run, design beats discipline and motivation. Not that motivation and discipline are bad, they’re simply short-term strategies. No one is disciplined in every area of their lives and no one is motivated every moment of every day.

However, by using systems and process design, and by hacking human nature, we can create a bias away from failure and towards success.

Consider where your breakage points are in your profession or when they occur during a particular day and then design a system that increases the chances of success. Many of us already use this thinking in our daily lives - we set an alarm for 6:00AM and another for 6:05AM, knowing that we can’t be trusted to wake up and stay up. A friend of mine goes to bed in his train clothes so that when he wakes up, he has to train or else face the shame of taking his gym gear off without training.

The point here is that rarely do we, or our team seek to underperform and often adding metrics and techniques on top of what we’re already doing, can be counter-productive. A better starting point might just be removing the obstacles from our path before we hit the accelerator.

How Creative Mindset helps fuel resilience.

Kieran Flanagan   @ThinkKieranF

Two trends that are increasingly shaping workplace and leadership conversations in most developed economies. The first is the increasing incidence of burnout, mental health concerns and a desire for greater resilience within our teams, and the second, is the rise in the need for creative problem-solving skills, touted by future of work research conducted by organisations such as IBM, EY and the World Economic Forum (research that mirrors the findings of my research in Forever Skills, which I co-authored with Dan Gregory).

It occurs to me that both of these trends are ultimately influenced by how we view “mindset.” As we move from a fixed mindset to one of growth and creativity, we also provide ourselves with the mental tools and strategies to not only be more resilient, but more engaged also.

So, how can Creative Mindset help you move beyond simple resilience to enthusiasm?

Creative mindset helps you see new possibilities

It is the very nature of creativity to produce new ideas, either challenging fixed modes of thinking or else opening new opportunities as others close down. This is a critical function of resilience.

Traditional definitions of resilience seem to have more to do with a stoic acceptance of hard graft rather than seeing it as a joyful process of progress. Limited mental bandwidth tends to see only one path to success whereas creative mindset sees or creates multiple roads.

This limited bandwidth often leads to a narrowness of focus, rather than one of being open to and creating new approaches, opportunities and of moving forward, and leaves us mired in struggle which can become exhausting.

Creative mindset gamifies persistence

Persistence is often depicted as a grinding effort rather than a series of experiments conducted with an attitude of play. Consider the difference between how many adults approach a problem (“Oh great!!!” spoken with a downward inflection) compared to how children approach a problem (“Let’s try this!” “Oh great!” with an upward inflection).

Of course, it’s easy to minimise the problems of a child and to amplify the very important problems we face in adulthood, but a critical difference is also one of mindset.

Creative mindset encourages a plethora of ideas, hypotheses and possibilities with a zen-like non-attachment to outcome. In other words, the more we contextualise solving problems as a form play, even intellectual play, the more likely we are to remain enthusiastic and engaged throughout the process.

The focus of the creative mindset is multiple solutions, not the problem itself.

A creative mindset is collaborative and sees external contribution as useful

The myth of solo success pervades our cultures and can be especially damaging in a business and organisational context.

We constantly hear stories of “self-made entrepreneurs,” who built their fortunes by the sweat of their own brows. Of course, the fact that they benefited from infrastructure such as the internet, international trade agreements, an educated workforce, distribution logistics and so on is rather overlooked.

The truth is, none of us achieve very much at all without the input of those around us and who work with us or for us. And when it comes to bringing creative endeavours to market, be it as a new product or service or even a completely new business model, this is especially true.

The myth of solo success actually costs us resilience as it encourages us to think of help or collaboration as some kind of personal failing. “I should be able to do this on my own,” is a mental frame that is not particularly helpful.

So rather than trying to “tough it out” on your own, seek shared success and support through creative collaboration.

Problems and challenges actually fuel creative mindset

Every creative endeavour in some way solves a problem or rises to a challenge. This is true of every piece of art that elevate the soul and every commercial innovation that transforms how we live and work.

In a previous article, I wrote about the 6 R’s or Resilience - Reframe, Regroup, Rethink, Rework, Reward, Reinforce. What’s key in these stages of resilience is that they are part of a creative mindset, creating new ways of seeing a problem, of thinking about it, approaching it and shaping it.

The goal isn’t meek acceptance or tolerance of challenge, it is engagement, even in the face of great pressures and expectations. 

My dear friend, Dr Jason Fox, often describes games as work that has been well designed. This rather elegantly captures the essence of creative mindset.

Growth mindset is a Creative Mindset.

Kieran Flanagan  @ThinkKieranF

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you’ve probably heard of Carol Dweck’s work around mindset and the concept of 'Growth Mindset.’

What struck me most when I first read her book, rather conveniently titled ‘Mindset,’ was just how much the concepts she outlined overlapped, almost completely, with how those who work in the creative industries are trained to think about challenges, overcoming obstacles, seeing creativity as a discipline not just a talent, being able to seek out and utilise feedback (sorting the Green Hats from the Black Hats - to borrow a metaphor from Edward de Bono) and to see collaboration and the success of others as critical to personal success.

So, I thought I’d outline some of the nuances that I’ve observed to exist between Dweck’s Growth Mindset and Creative Mindset - even though, I often use the concepts interchangeably. If anything, a Creative Mindset might be thought of as Growth Mindset ‘turned up to 11.’

Love problems

There’s a saying amongst the creative industries, “If it ain’t broke, break it.”

Not only do those with a Creative Mindset not avoid problems, they thrive on solving them. In fact, almost all creative endeavour requires some kind of tension, or challenge, or unresolved problem to push against, and in doing so, to fix, transform or revolutionise.

Truth be told, giving a problem or challenge to someone with a creative mindset is like setting a ball of wool down in front of a kitten. They can’t not play with it.

My dear friend and founder of Thought Leaders Business School, Matt Church, will often drop a problem into a conversation like an unfinished Rubik’s cube and then smile and walk away, knowing I won’t be able to leave it alone.

With a Creative Mindset, rather than avoiding a problem, or even embracing it stoically, challenges are seen as what makes the game interesting and engaging.

Try multiple ideas until solved

Creativity, amongst other things, is a numbers game.

We often imagine the stereotypical creative type staring out the window, waiting for inspiration to strike, for the muse to arouse a new thought or for a moment of genius. But in fact, creative problem solving is more discipline than talent.

Beyond not giving up, or persisting in the face of failure - trying again and again without losing enthusiasm, a Creative Mindset doesn’t just seek an answer to a problem, it seeks answers, plural.

A Creative Mindset finds joy in trying to go around a problem, over it, under it and through it, etc…

Which leads us to point number three.

See effort as play

And the game we play is called, “What if…?”

One of the joys of working in the field of Commercial Creativity, is that, the work itself is the reward, the process is intrinsically motivating. (For any clients reading this post, I still expect my invoices to be paid.)

It would not be stretching the truth too much to say that creativity is the original gamification of process. There is a lightness to creative problem-solving, even when the problems being solved are of critical, political and even moral importance.

The distinction here again is that the journey to mastery is as interesting and nuanced as the achievement of mastery itself.

Seek useful criticism

Commercial Creativity might be thought of as a capacity to withstand rejection and the killing of your babies - as for every idea that is designed, prototyped, tested, modelled and commercialised, hundreds, if not thousands will fail.

But that might be too narrow a view of how criticism is used by those who embrace the Creative Mindset.

Creativity, by its nature is fluid and malleable. Often, when running innovation workshops or issue hacking facilitation sessions, I’ll use a tool called ‘Wet Paint.’ The rationale is, as long as the paint is still wet the idea is still in flux, so let’s see where it can go.

Rather than simply being a process of negative criticism or of finding as many ways to say, “No!” diplomatically, critiques are seen as opportunities to build on the ideas and as new problems to be solved creatively - almost like increasing levels of challenge in a video game.

Collaborate to help others succeed

Few endeavours of any significance are solo events, and yet our culture has chosen to idolise the idea of the lone warrior, the solitary artist and the ‘one man against the world’ story line. As compelling as these tales can be, rarely do they fit with the reality of Commercial Creativity.

Every innovator has a team around them, every director a crew, every entrepreneur some professional service advisors and every change agent a community of followers.

A Creative Mindset sees collaboration as a critical part of the process and the success of others as dragging us all up rather than elevating a few and demising others. "A rising tide lifts all boats,” as the saying goes.

So, is it worth making a slight distinction between Growth Mindset and Creative Mindset?

In my opinion, yes. Not because different roles, tasks and industries require different mindsets or skills, rather, it’s simply because, should you feel the need to ‘turn it up to 11,’ it’s nice to know it’s there!

How creative thinking builds resilience.

Kieran Flanagan  @ThinkKieranF

#Resilience is often seen as an exercise in endurance, a heroic struggle against the odds and a stoic acceptance of “life as challenge.” And this can certainly be one aspect of resilience.

However, a useful reframe might be to see resilience as a facet of creative problem solving.

In other words, rather than running at the same obstacle again and again and failing repeatedly without losing enthusiasm (to paraphrase a quote from Winston Churchill), it might also be seen as an ability to create new and various options, approaches and opportunities while gaining enthusiasm - which draws more on the world of gamification than self-flagellation.

Given this reframe, how might we use creative problem-solving skills as tools to increase resilience?

Creativity puts your focus on solutions, not problems

Creativity thrives on challenges, problems, issues and breakage points. In fact, creativity in the absence of a problem to resolve or a inefficient process to reinvent can often struggle. Creative thinking flourishes when there is some form of resistance to push against.

What separates creative problem solving from struggle, however, is mindset and mental focus. Those who struggle tend to be entirely focused on the problem they face, even to the extent that they amplify its importance and impact, whereas creative problem solvers are more obsessed with solutions, asking “What if” and the “Have we tried this?”

Creative problem solving also looks beyond the one immediate answer and usually produces answers, plural!

Creativity looks for multiple solutions 

Creativity, which is really a capacity to move beyond default thinking patterns and reflexive solutions, is ultimately a numbers game. The most talented of your team holding only one solution is statistically more likely to struggle that an average team member with hundreds of possible solutions.

This understanding is critical in helping you and your team lose your attachment to a particular outcome and be more vigilant, aware and receptive to different lines of thinking and alternate possibilities. In fact, creative problem solving might be thought of as possibility generation.

Creativity opens new possibilities and other close

We’re all familiar with the phrase, “When one door closes another opens,” and it’s many variants including, “Open a window,” and “Open the door again, that’s how doors work!”

The central question in all creative endeavours is the phase, “What if?” But it might just as well be served by the question, “What else?”

When facing challenges, leaders and teams will often move too swiftly into convergent or critical thinking mode before adequately exploring opportunities and insights using divergent creative thinking techniques.

This is one of the reasons that it can seem so devastating when a possibility or desired direction closes down. It is seen as an ending rather than one of a series of possible options. Again, this is very much about shifting your mindset.

Creativity changes how you see problems and issues

One of the great challenges of resilience and of its opposites burn-out and cynicism, is the frame of reference we choose to use. This is partly driven by our often-obsessive attachment to the result we were seeking or expecting, but also because of our infatuation with the methodology used to achieve it.

A consistent practice of creative problem-solving skills, tools and techniques broadens our cognitive bandwidth, making us more open to opportunity and more flexible, agile and adaptable under pressure.

A sense of resilience becomes difficult to maintain when the options in front of us seem limited or much diminished. This can often be a false reading of reality especially when we lack the mental resourcefulness to imagine a new reality.

All of this is not to say that a healthy discipline and a little stoicism are a bad thing, simply that they might also be well served by inviting your brain to take Apple’s advice, and “Think Different.”

The 6 R’s of resilience.

Kieran Flanagan   @ThinkKieranF

In an age of unprecedented change, reports of change fatigue, burn out and increasing disengagement are rife in the organisational world. Add to this a shift in generation values that have left us all feeling more “fragile,” to borrow an observation from Nicholas Taleb, and you have the environmental elements of a perfect storm with the potential to undermine productivity, performance and commercial agility.

In this environment, it’s hardly surprising that one of the corporate buzzwords of the moment is, “Resilience.” 

Interestingly, in the research for my latest book “Forever Skills” with my business partner Dan Gregory, we discovered that the concept of resilience is not quite as straight forward as it initially appears. Among the many leaders and industries we interviewed across different continents. definitions of resilience ranged from grit, to determination, to mental agility, to behavioural flexibility and, of course, a desire to instruct team members to, “Suck it up precious!”

Unfortunately, many of these definitions are neither reassuring nor particularly useful. So, I’d like to propose a new definition of resilience that is far more useful and practical in the context of change and transformational leadership”

Resilience is ultimately a “creative mindset.” It is the ability to create new possibilities as existing opportunities or options close down.

So, what does that mean specifically and how might it work in practice?

Critical in this definition is a shift from “running at the same obstacle and failing over and over again without losing enthusiasm” to “being hard on objectives but flexible and adaptable on approach.” 

In this context, I’d like to outline 6 R’s of Resilience:

1. Reframe

Reframing is all about getting clear about what is actually going on versus what you are making it mean. Often, we attach a meaning or filter to a problem that is neither accurate, nor helpful - the latter being the more important.

Even the language we use can transform our experience of an event for the better. “Experiment #1” is a far more useful frame than, “Yet another failure.”

2. Regroup

Ask yourself, “Is the situation or challenge you find yourself in something you can actually solve on your own?” Or, is this issue something that might be better solved collaboratively or with a systems rather than an individual approach?

Those of us who suffer from “Superhero Syndrome” (you know who you are), will often leap into action and set ourselves up for failure when a little more strategic thinking, and accessing the wisdom of our networks and teams, might be just what is called for.

3. Rethink

Rather than simply trying again and again or simply increasing your work-rate, it’s worth considering if your approach is actually valid and relevant in the context of the challenge you’re facing.

Instead of thinking, “How many attempts will I try before I quit?” perhaps consider how many different approaches and tools you could throw at your problem.

4. Rework

There’s no way around it, at some point, you need to face down your challenges and do the work.

However, drawing on the Reframe part of the process, consider how you might engineer work as play and gamify the process so that it is intrinsically motivating rather than requiring constant self-discipline.

In other words, how might you change work into play in much the same way exercise is far more enjoyable when it is experienced as sport.

5. Reward

Breaking your challenges into achievable pieces, with relevant milestones and motivating rewards, is a well trodden and oft repeated strategy - this doesn’t make it any less relevant. 

Clearly there is a sense of achievement in overcoming a problem or in achieving a goal, however, given the previous stage’s encouragement to gamify the process, consider how else might you make progress both visible to all involved as well as personally rewarding.

6. Reinforce

Finally, any kind of change or achievement is made all the sweeter if it is sustainable.

This requires a “design mindset” rather than one of discipline only. Consider how the solution to your problem, your new habit or organisational transformation might be systematised with a bias towards success and away from failure.

The truth is, change and challenge are not going anywhere, which means we need to cultivate resilience within ourselves and in our teams, however, the kind of resilience we encourage and the tools and techniques we employ to do so will be a critical factor in just how successful we are.

Why purpose matters for innovation.

Kieran Flanagan   @ThinkKieranF

Purpose has become quite a complicated word in today's economic environment. It is layered with meaning as for some it connotes a willingness to be more environmentally, socially and politically conscious, where for others, it is more about pursuing greater personal and professional meaning and transformation in our work and in how we choose to spend our time.

The truth, as is so often the case, probably borrows a little from each of these definitions, but what does this mean for us working in the worlds of commercial creativity as well as those engaged in social innovation.

Maximising profits is no longer the only business mantra

Accenture Interactive CEO, Brian Whipple, in a recent FastComany article quoted Global Consumer Pulse Research (2019) as indicating that 62% of consumers now want organisations to take a stand on current issues such as sustainability, transparency and worker welfare, with 47% prepared to walk away if they’re unsatisfied. 17% suggested that they would be unwilling to come back having been disappointed.

Additionally, shareholders are now evaluating their investment options for both meaning and money, which makes a single bottom line focus an increasing risky strategy.

So, if both our customers and our investors are actively seeking purpose in how they spend their hard-earned, how might this shape and guide innovation strategy?

It means doing work that is worthwhile, not simply doing good

Of course, there is nothing essentially wrong with simply doing good, however a more useful filter for innovation might be doing work that is worthwhile. Work that satisfies those engaged in it, that contributes to those it serves as customers, clients and communities and enriches us all socially and environmentally as well as economically.

In other words, we don’t necessarily need to sell all our possessions and go and work for a charity, but rather we should seek to understand where we can make the greatest contribution and add the greatest value.

In this regard, value created, in the broadest sense of the word, should be our innovation filter or lens.

Purpose and innovation must be part of your organisation's DNA

To do this effectively, purpose and a culture of innovation must start at the top. Which is not to say that that is where all the best ideas will come from, simply that it is a leader's responsibility to both lead by example and also to create space for important decisions and the status quo to be questioned and challenged.

With CEOs and executive teams being held to greater account than the single bottom line, new metrics, behaviours and strategic directions must be implemented.

However, rather than constraining innovation, it is an invitation to work that is more impactful.

Innovation must be linked to value & contribution

This means that innovation must be far more strategically directed and less a function of a lucky discovery or random advancement in technology or experience. 

Fundamentally, we should view innovation through the lens of transformational leadership, asking, “What is the change we seek to make in the world?”

The changes we lead, invent and commercialise must align with our organisational purpose, advance its progress and be congruent with the expectations of our community - both internal and external.

A shift from “company man” to community member

Organisations often talk about the triple bottom line including People, Profit & Planet. And this can be a valuable filter for making strategic decisions at a leadership and executive level. 

I have found making the following distinctions useful for fuelling innovation strategy and shaping the questions we should ask to ensure we are driving Innovation on Purpose:

1. Commercial - Is it economically sensible and sustainable?

2. Contribution - is is work that is worthwhile and makes the lives of those we serve better?

3. Community - Does it serve our people and the communities and environments they inhabit? (The distinction between the two can often be artificial and prejudicial.)

Ultimately, purpose should sit at the centre of all of your innovation initiatives. This just seems logical and practical. However, it is in the defining of this purpose, and the value lens you create from it, that determines your success as an innovator and the impact you are able to achieve.

Resilience is no longer enough.

Kieran Flanagan @ThinkKieranF

Resilience has become the word of the moment.

How many times have you heard this conversation?

We’re facing a lot of change. We really need our people to be more resilient.

Resilience is so hot right now. (Best read with a Beyoncé flourish and finger snaps)

Yet I wonder if it is enough.

Is it sustainable?

Undoubtedly resilience is handy when you are going through a period of challenge.

Essentially, it means, “Suck it up, hold on and get through the tough time however you can.” Although "be more resilient" is probably a little easier to hear from a leader.

The problem is getting through is not really an option when you consider the amount of change we are about to be hit with. Some experts say we are about to experience more change in the next 10 years than we experienced in the hundred preceding them. i.e. a lot. When it comes to that much change your team can only 'suck it up' for so long until they will, eventually, break!

That is why resilience is not enough.

We need something more. So what are these skills that will future proof our workforce?

Agility and Creativity.

Agility is the ability to change, to bend and alter our points of view and approach. It's about re-thinking, un-thinking and out-thinking.

Creativity is ability to develop new thinking and ideas. Ultimately, it's a capacity to drive change rather than being driven by it.

Reframe time: You don't have all year

Kieran Flanagan @ThinkKieranF

I am pretty sure  Xmas just happened and somehow it’s April. Hilarious. IT IS APRIL! Just 263 sleeps until Xmas again. Perhaps it's time to "reframe time".

Not that I am a Griswald kind of girl who counts down the days in eager anticipation, (although I am partial to a fairylight or two thousand). But because I think most of us are constantly surprised at how fast time passes. We sport shocked, but trying not to be, expressions, (think Michelle Obama accepting Melania’s gift), and utter inane things like; 'It can'tbe Xmas again already!', 'Didn'tI just have a birthday?’ and'What on earth happened to summer?' 

Unless of course we are kids, then it seems to take for-evvv-errrr for it to be your birthday, holidays or Xmas again.

When you grow up it seems you enter a time warp and time speeds up right?

Scientists have been trying to figure out this phenomena and whilst there are a number of theories from relative experience, to amount of stuff you need to fit in to life, there is no real agreement. We just know that it certainly feels that way.

So until these scientists figure out how to extend time or bend time, we'd do well to learn how to reframe time.

Perhaps because in reality a year isn'tlong at all. It is a meagre 52 weekends. That's not even one and a half lined A4 pages of ideas (I counted 38 lines on mine) of things you want to do or books you want to read or extreme haikus to write, the last one’s just me right? Do you feel my panicpeople?Breathe in... breathe out.

I like to reframe time when I am working with businesses and people.

52 weekends or 4 quarters of thirteen.

52 Mondays to make those calls. 52 weeks to try that experiment, learn that skill or ask for that business. 52 chances.

I like to remember I will only have my daughter Darcy as an eight year old with all her eight year old curiosity, creativity and cleverness for 52 precious weeks (particularly when she is having one of her I am a teenager in a child’s body moments)…  52 weekends for eight year old adventures.

A year isn’tlong. Yet most of us are stuck in our childhood perspectives of time thinking we have all year. Our thinking needs changing.

We need to think differently about time.

You see folks, this year we are a quarter done. This is the first month of the second quarter of 2017. Which means we are almost down to just one A4 page of stuff to achieve if you do just one thing a week.

Not one year… just one page left this year.

(Or 37 Wednesdays until Xmas for you festively minded.)

Make sure the stuff on your list is meaningful.
Go.

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