The beauty of leaders with a beginner’s mind

You are about to read an article that’s been created for a true leader like you. For a person with significant experience and hundreds of success stories – big and small. For someone responsible for a group of people, maybe 10 maybe 1000. It’s an article for people, who are used to making decisions based on what you know and the information you get from your direct reports. This is for senior people in any organization, who get asked by many next-generation leaders for being their mentors because you seem to know how business works.

But what if things are needed upside down? What if you had to change perspectives completely for continuing your success story as a leader? What if your perception of how much you “know” and how much you “don’t know” has a tremendous impact on your performance as a leader – tomorrow more than today? This calls for the need to try a different approach. 

There is an ancient story about a ZEN-master I was told lately by a very wise woman: A long time ago, there was a wise Zen master and many people would seek his advice and guidance because they valued his experience and wisdom. Many would come and ask him to teach them the way of Zen. One day an important man came to visit this Master and asked to teach him about ZEN. His voice was very direct and decisive, like the voice of a man who used to get what he wanted and get things done “his” way. The Zen master smiled and offered to discuss this over a cup of tea. Whilst the Master was preparing the tea, the important man started to brag with all his knowledge about ZEN and all his experiences, all his success stories and how everyone valued his skills about ZEN. Finally, the tea was ready, and the master poured his visitor a cup. He poured and poured and didn’t stop, the tea rose to the rim of the cup and began to spill over the important man’s trousers and shoes. The visitor got angry and said “He stupid ZEN-master, don’t you see what you are doing? You are spilling the tea all over me – don’t you see the cup is full?” The Master smiled, stopped pouring and answered “You are like this cup of tea, so full and convinced of your own expertise, that nothing more can be added. Come back when your cup is empty because only an empty mind is ready for filling.”

The moment you say “I know” you stop your ability to learn more.

The idea of an empty brain is neither something that’s been valued in the past in any leadership position, nor does it make a leader feel comfortable. Whether you are a baby-boomer or a young millennial in a leadership position, chances are high you have never been incentivized for saying “I don’t know, I need to find out”. You’ve probably been hired for or promoted to your current position because of all your experience and expertise and not for asking so many great questions. That’s not a bad thing at all, it just won’t pay the bills for navigating any organization in the complex future, where any great leader must feel comfortable taking on a beginner’s mind. 

Children, for example, are masters in asking the big Why-questions: Why is the sky blue? Why are birds able to fly? Why is it dark at night? As adults, we most likely pretend to know the answers in any given situation. Even if we don’t, we make sure nobody finds out. We try to come up with a quick solution rather than taking time to investigate, trying to find out what’s truly going on or what results in the best possible future outcome. 

Especially as a leader, you are always expected to know the answer. You are expected to get things done and not waste too much time because hey, we are in a hurry! There is no room left for trial and error, for scenario planning, for making mistakes and learning from them, for discussion with your teams which options are available and then taking the time to try a few before deciding for the master-plan to move forward with. 

Maybe it’s time to try a different approach. It is perhaps the time to change perspectives. Maybe it’s okay if you start saying more often “let’s think this through for a moment”. Maybe it’s time to reward teams and people who try out new things rather than giving them kudos for repeating what they’ve done well in the past. 

Maybe it starts with YOU, emptying your very own “cup of expertise” as a leader for a second to allow for some “new tea”….? Where can you take on a beginner’s mind right now?

Can You Lead the Age of Agile?

In this age of agile, all companies seem to be embarking on their digital transformation journey. When I talk to clients on C-level, most of them proudly present their latest automation-project and they talk about starting to look at AI or big data analytics stuff. Many still proudly present their industry 4.0 project they are doing in the production plant right now….but only a handful are truly aware of the importance to prepare their talents with equal attention and effort for the digital change. 

The digital transformation journey with all its corresponding technologies are difficult for most people who grew up and were educated in an industrial-age-type setting. There are 2 dimensions that can be observed these days, where great leaders have an eye on whilst bad leaders just ignore them successfully.

The first dimension is Vision and Clarity: being at the starting line of the digital era, it’s time to focus less on the organization’s but finally more on the individual talent’s vision and clarity. When organizations look at their market and their customer avatars, it’s crystal clear to address their needs and pains on an almost individual level. You would never say “the people in the Chicago metropolitan area all need xyz”. Rather you would cluster them in different buying groups according to their fears, frustrations, wants and desires. But inside the organization itself, we barely look at the perspective and the vision for each individual but we tend to “just” define the big picture on an organizational level and treat all employees – regardless of function, hierarchy, educational and cultural background – more or less the same. We don’t break down the big picture vision into their personal north star!

The second dimension is on mindset: to succeed in the digital buzz, we need to have an entrepreneurial mindset and most importantly a growth mindset. The challenge though is, that we are neither used to nor trained for that! Just taking my daughter as the perfect example here: she is in primary school and every time she gets an exam graded, she has 1 mistake, she never has 19 out of 20 right. So she’s been trained in early days on a fixed mindset but we need talents with a growth mindset, willing to learn and willing to get familiar with all the new technologies over the course of their life and career. 

So which skills do successful leaders need in order to navigate the organization of the future and lead the age of agile?

One would assume the educational system, especially in the western world, should equip us with the needed skills to succeed in our business world. But it doesn’t. Even worse, the skills needed to succeed in the organization of the future are so basic, that we all initially had them, we were born with them, but over the course of our “education” we were taught how to get rid of them. So let’s have a joint look at the top 5 skills needed to lead in the age of agile 

1) visioning – we need to understand that we do not derive from the past what will happen in the future but being able to construct some new future on a canvas and focus your mind on that. Everything starts with a thought but hardly anyone is strong enough to understand the power of that, nor turn that thought into words and these words into a first draft of a vision. And this visioning work has to be done on company, team and individual level.

2) growth mindset – we need to train ourselves, our kids and our co-workers on a growth mindset according to Carol Dweck. It’s about being willing and hungry to learn and to see a challenge as an opportunity to grow, rather than a judgement about yourself. Some refer to this skill as the often-quoted “trial-and-error” or “fail-fast-and-fail-forward” skill

3) collaborative problem solving – we need to learn strategies how to solve problems, how to approach them from different angles and how to solve them collectively with others. I teach at an Austrian university and every time I ask my students to collectively solve the exam questions they are absolutely puzzled – and sometimes they struggle more with the challenge of how to collaborate successfully than with the question itself! 

4) agile way of working – The age of agile means acknowledging that most of us were raised and trained in an order-and-command type of world where we were given a task or responsibility over a process and were expected to stick to the rules, the handbook, the process guidelines. Now it’s time to be incentivized not for 100% compliance but for challenging the status quo, for adopting quickly, for short development cycles, for agile way of working, for changing our mind and procedures if the market changes. This is what will make or break the team success in the digital transformation.

5) business model thinking – we need to foster the skill of thinking like an entrepreneur, constantly looking at what’s going on from a business model perspective and potentially identify new ideas quickly. Many R&D people or innovation department people are used to this type of thinking, but it will be critical that it is installed in every department – from HR to sourcing and all the way to finance as well. 

Being in a leadership position and guiding teams or entire organizations always came along with a high level of responsibility and with having a certain skill set. It’s not any different for the Age of Agile, apart from the fact that current leaders are not used to the tools, nor have they learned the right skills at school. So it’s time now for the truly great leaders who understand how to use their full people potential and who are brave enough to focus on the human dimension rather than the technology. 

Giving myself permission to “Be Me”!

If there is one thing for certain for me in these uncertain times, life is not only extremely complicated, it has become horribly complex. I deal with a whole plethora of different demands these days, but my personal resources available – my body and my mind – remained more or less the same for the last centuries: My fingers are the same, but need to do fast text messaging now instead of doing manual work. My brain – by medical definition – is still the same, but needs to juggle virtual meetings, augmented reality and distance learning instead of interacting with others face-to-face.

Interestingly enough, what remained constant over years though is the advice I have received from the people around me in order to succeed and handle all this complexity: family, friends and colleagues keep telling me I need to try harder to make it to the top – which “top” they are speaking of remains unclear. I am told I should learn and practice more in order to achieve – what to achieve is not being discussed. They tell me I should be grateful for what I have and bring passion to my work – if I’m really clear on my true passion is not being asked. They never talk about how important it is to have the permission to be yourself. To me that sounds like a whole lot of well-intended pieces of advice. However, I am not seeing any gamechanger moves here! Do you?

Getting back in the driver seat of my life and finally getting to where I feel I deserve to be is what I truly want! I do not believe it is a question of age, gender, personality, experience, income or education. I believe it is a question of having the right structures, the right mindset, and the right habits in place. 

It is about giving myself permission to simply “Be Me.”

Starting with myself first does not feel like it has been very in vogue for decades. People say it is considered selfish, egocentric, self-obsessed. But, Hey! How can I possibly hope to guide and lead teams, or entire organizations for that matter, without fully understanding myself first?

As an experienced leader I have mastered the arts of achieving goals, getting things done, and motivating others to follow and to perform. The better I become as a leader, the more I find on my plate. This is mainly because the more I accomplish, the more I am given

The question though is not, if I can do what is being put on my plate, but if it is the right – the most important things – that move the needle for ME? Giving yourself permission to be focus on your things first is simply one aspect of self-care. 

“Be Me” is a call to action for rearranging my focus-laser on me and my life. – It is for you too!

I know – now – that I do not have to deal with all the grins and bear it in order to achieve what matters most to me. I have found this hidden, beautiful trail aside from stressful hustle, overwhelm, and burnout. It is a path where I can trust my resilience and self-confidence muscles, instead of going through painful distraction, fatigue, and frenzy.

I know – now – that there is no trading in health for success because it simply does not work in the long run. It is a rather clear roadmap, which I found that allows me to feel energized, not only on a physical, but also emotional and mental level

I know – now – that I can take on challenges that do not cause any self-doubt or give me the FOMO (*fear of missing out) feeling. I can trust in my abilities and feel confident that I will figure out the best way going forward towards my personal Northstar. 

I know – now – that I can be in a state of true happiness without having my favorite chocolate-cherry-therapy-cake or signing big deals for my business. It is not about working for some illusive monetary trophy or a super-achiever badge. I am now “in it” for the meaning and the impact my work has. 

I know – now – that my role as a leader is for sure not about outperforming my personal past achievements as a lone expert. It’s primarily about adding value to all the other talents around me – guiding them to their own success stories. 

I gave myself permission to “Be Me”. I consolidated all my findings along the way in a Rulebook of Structures, Mindsets and Healthy High Performance Habits that I’ve implemented in my life and that are being constantly fine-tuned. I now share these with talented individuals who can hear their own calling to “Be Me” and it’s one of the most rewarding things seeing others making this transformation themselves. 

Rearranging my personal focus laser on me and my life first was most certainly not a sign of selfish and egocentric behavior. Instead it truly allows me to care better for others now.

Where are you? Have you given yourself permission to “Be Me”? The permission to be yourself is the actual gamechanger that will bring about inevitable positive results. 

Guest Post: How Yoga Can Help You De-Stress At Work

Stress management in today’s work environments is extremely important. This was true long before the CoV19 outbreak, and will continue to be into the future. In many industries, people have been working longer hours for several years now — and the problem has only gotten worse in 2020, with 44% of people putting in more hours at home according to RTE. This naturally leads to stress (as if we don’t all have a bit too much already these days), which is not only bad for employees’ personal wellness but also has a negative effect on productivity. Virtually any experienced leader in business will attest to the fact that a stressed-out employee is generally a worse one.

An employee who feels overworked will ultimately “burn out” — an idea we covered in our piece on ‘How to Access Your Peak Performance’ back in 2018. In that piece we focused more on some of the mental and strategic things people can do to avoid feeling overwhelmed (such as saying “no” to more tasks, when possible). But sometimes physical activity can help to offset the burden or the modern work schedule as well.

One idea with regards to the physical dimension that become increasingly common is yoga. A simple search for “corporate yoga” will reveal pages upon pages of write-ups about various companies that have infused yoga and wellness programs into their cultures. They include the likes of Aetna, Blue Chip, and Eventbrite. But now, with so many people working at home, yoga is an even more appealing option, because it’s that much easier to sep away from your desk and knock out some downward-facing dog!

So let’s identify a few of the specific ways an activity like yoga in the workplace can help employees to manage stress, and thereby keep workplaces (even the remote ones) more productive and healthy.

#1 – Yoga is actually feasible

Yoga in the office can take a lot of forms. In the best of cases, a company will establish communal space where yoga or other light physical activities can be practiced, so as to incentivize employees to take care of themselves. However, the point here is that even in a more traditional office environment, yoga at work is completely feasible! Sure, you might not be able to do the full routine you’d ordinarily do at home with your favorite yoga app, or in a local studio or gym you might go to. But there are some things you can do without taking up any more space than you normally do when you’re sitting at your desk.

Thrive Global wrote about practical stress management and revealed some of the specifics behind simple yoga exercises that most anyone can do at work. Declaring yoga “hard to beat” as a stress management technique, the article revealed some basic poses — such as spine twists, rolling shoulders, and back-and-forth twists — that you can do quite literally while seated at your desk. There are more like these out there, and there are also some effective yoga exercises you can do standing behind your chair, if you have the option. Whatever the specifics may be though, the point is that one reason office yoga is so effective is that you can actually practice it regularly, no matter what your working environment may be. So yes, Yoga is feasaible!

#2 – Yoga Can Be Social

Socialization in the workplace is a somewhat polarizing topic. Some believe that employees becoming friendly with each other can lead to the working environment becoming somewhat less serious, and ultimately less productive. Others, however, believe that when employees are encouraged to socialize, they generally stay happier, and thus avoid burnout. To that point, Forbes covered multiple benefits of social connections specifically for employee wellness. Their article made note of broad concepts like increased happiness, less stress, increased engagement, and so on.

Considering these points it’s fair to say that socialization itself helps to keep workplace stress under control. Yoga, however, can help to drive that socialization. We mentioned above that some offices have spaces set aside for yoga and similar activities, and in these cases the exercise can help unite people. Even if employees aren’t necessarily chatting a whole lot while practicing yoga, they’ll be doing something together aside from work. It can help to build a sense of community that can in turn help to reduce stress. So yes, Yoga is quite but there is a very social, team-dimension to it!

#3 – Yoga Has Plenty Of Physical Benefits

Last but not least, there are physical benefits to consider! Healthline sums up the benefits of yoga in a fairly comprehensive manner, and includes improved heart health, reduction of chronic pain, better flexibility and balance, better breathing, and increased strength — not to mention the promotion of better eating and sleeping habits.

All of these perks are associated with regular yoga practice. And while they may not seem directly relevant to workplace stress, it’s reasonable to expect that employees who feel healthier in all these ways will simply feel better at work. They might be inclined to eat healthier lunches, they might feel more natural sitting at their desks, and they might simply operate with a more refreshed, energetic attitude. All of this, in turn, can amount to fairly effective workplace stress management. All it takes, as demonstrated by some of the companies listed previously, is the designation of a space and the offering of free yoga classes. Employees will do the rest. And your organization will experience one additional way to making your employees healthy high performers!

Written for: braininspa.com
Submitted by: Jennifer Birch
Image Credits: [PxFuel] – No changes were made to the image

How To Identify And Practice Emotional Intelligence In The Workplace

In years past, the emotional intelligence of employees was low on the list of qualifications, especially for leaders. However, with the way that the market has changed, how someone connects with others on an emotional level is becoming much more important. Company leaders need to understand the emotional connection audiences have with services, products and companies as a whole. The most recent Fjord Trends 2020 even talks about “liquid people” and why it is important to set up human insights teams instead of consumer insights. All this leads to the conclusion that now, more then ever before, if you want to successfully lead your company or grow your startup, you will need to understand what emotional connections are and how they can propel you forward.

How is EQ a KPI for emotional connections?

EQ is a term that describes the emotional intelligence that people in the workplace have with each other, and also with the customers or clients of that company. It propels the relationships that people build with one another and can also be applied outside of work.

In general, EQ is thought to have four distinct characteristics, including self-awareness (being aware of how we respond in situations), self-management (how we apply that self-awareness), social awareness (how we perceive others’ feelings in the context of their environments) and social management (how we apply social awareness in order to have fruitful interactions with others).

How does EQ make leaders more successful?

The way people connect allows them to understand what others are going through, which can be the perfect way to help solve someone’s pain points. Leaders with high levels of emotional intelligence often notice how people around them observe, react and respond. Knowing how to respond appropriately in all situations, both in private and in a group, allows for better experiences with the people around us. As leaders, we want to create the best employee experience possible so that those positive experiences trickle down into how our company’s representatives treat clients and customers. In turn, this can help build positive, trusting relationships with customers.

Where can EQ be utilized in today’s companies?

The greatest thing about emotional intelligence is that it has endless applications. It can be used to help inspire higher performance, develop new products and services, and improve personal development opportunities. It can also be used to prevent burnout, as people who learn how to manage their emotions are often less overwhelmed and benefit from a better work-life balance.

Higher EQ can benefit everyone in a company, from the CEO and founder all the way down to the latest part-time hire. But when it comes to helping improve the employee experience, leaders need to fully understand and utilize EQ regularly. The reason? When you understand where your employees are, both with the company and with the clients, you can better serve them. You can inspire them to strive for more fulfillment and give them challenges that allow them to feel as though they can accomplish even greater things.

Three Ways To Improve Emotional Connections

For many leaders, the question is less about why emotions matter and more about how to create better emotional connections. Here are three practices that you can easily incorporate into your schedule:

• Coffee Surprise: Pick one employee from your team, and schedule a coffee this week. Have a 20-minute conversation about how things are going. Show sincere interest. This conversation is not about facts and figures, sales objectives, or difficult clients. It’s purely about your people and what’s on their minds. You might be surprised by what your employee brings up.

• Listening Marathon: Practice your active listening skills on a large scale by engaging your entire team in a monthly listening marathon. This is a meeting — preferably outside — where two people from your team go for a 30-minute walk. For the first 15 minutes, one person is talking, and the other person only asks questions — no commenting, no telling stories — and practices active listening. Then, switch roles. At the end of the month, take time to reflect with your team on what you’ve collectively learned.

• Gratitude Board: Next to your team bulletin board — whether that’s an objectives and key results board or the spot where you post announcements in the kitchen — set up a gratitude board where every team member is required to post one note every day, stating what they are thankful for. This could be related to work, colleagues, clients, the office building, company events, etc. The point is to get in touch with your emotions and practice positive thinking.

Emotional Intelligence Can Be Taught

If you do not feel as though you have as solid of a grasp of emotional intelligence as you could, then feel better about the fact that you can learn it. You have the opportunity to learn about what makes customers respond the way they do and how to help your employees use that to their advantage. But it’s not a tool or a plugin you can buy. It takes dedication, passion and a real interest in the human beings around you to grow your emotional connections.

This post was initially published on Forbes.com early 2020.

How To Lay The Groundwork For Your Organization’s Next Breakthrough Innovation

All innovation comes from an idea that started with a problem and ended with a solution. It seems simple, right?

There’s just a small — though very important — differentiator: Everyone can think of problems, but not everyone has the same ability to come up with solutions. That is why collaboration is such a valuable tool. One person might see the problem clearly, but it might take the perspective of another to see the solution clearly.

If your goal is to have your business find the answers for the problems and pain points of your customers, then you need to set your company up to successfully collaborate with the best and brightest in your niche. By following these steps, I’ve found collaboration and innovation can become much easier:

Understand your starting point.

Over time, the knowledge each company brings to its specific niche becomes even more specialized. This is because you get better at what you do and can solve the issues that come up for those specific pain points.

However, to find a solution to a customer’s problem, your knowledge might be too specialized to see a valuable solution. It is vital that you have an understanding of what you know as a company — and what you do not know. That way, you see where the gaps are that you need to fill in.

Many leaders today reach out to startups or collaborate with individuals from completely different industries in order to identify these gaps. My personal favorite (and what I’ve found is one of the most powerful ways to learn) is working with children. What if you asked your employees’ kids to test your product in order to challenge your processes and assess your operations? It can be insightful and a true eye-opener to start asking your next-generation customers (as well as your next-generation talents) for their perspective.

Combine teams to improve the knowledge base.

To make sure your company can come up with as many innovative solutions as possible, make sure your knowledge base is vast. This can be done by mixing employees from different departments and having them work as a combined team on selected company challenges. This way, they can bring in their specific skills and expertise, as well as learn from and train their new team members — an excellent and fast way to build and share knowledge inside your organization.

As previously mentioned, it can be very insightful to conduct “experts workshops” with external experts such as young entrepreneurs, influencers, representatives from suppliers, artists, etc. to get their perspectives on the challenge the team is facing. For extra credit, make sure these teams have access to some guidance or a toolbox of creative and innovate techniques so they get support when trying to come up with innovative solutions.

If your teams are unable to work together at first, provide some team-building exercises to help them learn how to rely on one another and value others’ opinions. The more closely each team works together, the sooner their collaboration can result in innovative thinking. Again, for extra credit, make sure the office space is set up in a way that fosters and supports collaboration and creative brainstorming sessions (yes, innovation is often more of a “people” thing than a “technology” thing).

Encourage people to collaborate on all aspects of a business.

While many believe they already understand how to collaborate, your company might need your teams to work together differently than they are used to. For example, by simply taking two ideas from different use cases or product lines and putting them together, you might get a completely new solution, or maybe even a new business model. However, if you take two known ideas and your teams work together to add in one whole new part, it might be just different enough from what has been tried in the past to create a unique, new and innovative solution.

It’s important that your people understand the power of trying something unique in order to come up with a solution your clients will love. Nevertheless, doing minor adjustments to an existing way of doing it can also sometimes be just enough of what’s needed. The bottom line is that as long as your teams remain open and are willing to give different perspectives and collaboration a try, they are on a good track.

Many companies have taught the value of collaboration to their employees by simply encouraging them to keep striving for new answers. They show through the organization’s culture that they value communication and an agile leadership style in all avenues of how they do business. These companies give rewards to those who continually step up and provide more than what is expected of them. They are set up to listen to new ideas regularly, and they truly understand the concept of “fail fast and fail forward.”

If you want your company to have successful, innovative ideas and collaborative people, then you need to encourage collaboration at every level of the company. Even brand-new employees should be encouraged to be a part of this practice, as you never know where the next breakthrough will come from.

Conclusion

The good news is that your company has all of the innovation potential. You simply need to ensure that you are set up to collaborate with the best talents. Make yourself aware of your shortcomings, and fill in those gaps with people from the outside who can elevate your company. If you are not sure where to begin or what shortcomings you might have, reach out to sparring partners who can show you how to bring your company up to the next level of innovation and collaboration. After all, fast innovation capabilities will turn more and more into a key currency in the digital economy.

This article appeared in its original version on forbes.com late 2019.