Link: http://www.gaian.com

How hard is it To Change?

You're a leader and you believe you need to change. Fine. But how do you change and can you do it? The answer is clearly "yes' say those who have followed the methods explained by Dr Jeff Evans in his ground-breaking book Inspirational Presence.

As Dr Evans explains, "The work of this book is to teach leaders how they can accomplish transformation in the simplest form possible. My highest aspiration for this book is simply for it to be useful. I hope it will open a way of thinking for people who want to transform their environments and provide a guide that will fuel positive and creative change in the world."

Sounds great. Sounds just like the ideal way for you to change for the better. Change is possible and you can accomplish great things.

Remember change is no good unless it helps both you and your colleagues and it continues. Lasting change means your new leadership skills keep on keeping on. And personal sessions with a team member from the Gaian Group can be the quickest and most effective way to get change happening in your life and company.
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Link: http://www.gaian.com

We all need Skills

Being a leader today means your skills are more important than ever. Once you acquire new skills you become a leader who transforms yourself and others.

We've always had skills and leaders have used these skills to create change in many settings throughout our recorded history. But the issue now has to do with the relative importance of these skills. The magnitude of interpersonal connections being created globally is at a point never before experienced in human history.

Want to transform your interpersonal skills? Dr Jeff Evans explains how in his new book Inspirational Presence.

Leaders today must be able to create new perspectives, new thinking, and inspire people to take action in different directions-because people want to, not because they have to. This is how you can lead.

For example, look at global warming. This issue must be solved by people who are working from a consistent level of global thinking and looking at this issue from a much larger context than ever before. Einstein said: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

We know that a new generation of global leaders must step into the space of creating transformation in our world. With these new leaders comes new skills. Come aboard.

Link: http://www.gaian.com

New leaders

Our changing and expanding world needs many things not least of which is a re-invigorated leadership. As a new leader you require clearly defined attributes and you must:
- be far more comfortable with ambiguity and with leading through influence
- be fluent in the language of humanity, in the universal connections of heart and spirit
- connect through rapport rather than positional power
- understand the art of inspiration, which breaks the reliance on motivation used for so long in Western culture and
- understand systems and organizations, rather than organization charts and policies

You can definitely become one of these leaders. Inspirational Presence by Dr. Jeff Evans clearly shows you the path to becoming a new and dynamic leader.

Leaders Are Pioneers

As a new leader you must start now. And that's not all. You will:

- be forced to lead from a place of global and enterprise thinking
- have to rely on people with whom you do not relate culturally and who have different economic values and principles
- share a common sense of direction, purpose, and global identity
- experience a connectedness that transcends these differences

The Times Today Have Changed

In this world, the rule-based leadership in use for the last hundred years or so is becoming less and less relevant. Our planet is on the verge of massive change that demands global thinking.

Give yourself the boost you need. Transform your leadership team who in turn will transform your business. Training sessions are dynamic with the Gaian Group -www.gaian.com.

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Gaian Newsletter Volume 6.1

January 6, 2009

Leadership for 2009 - Supporting Others

As we watch the current economic situation and see businesses tightening expense budgets, some people are looking for the most effective ways to lead in these times. There are, of course, many things that one needs to stay aware of to best navigate these times, but one of the most important is to understand how to support the people who are sharing the journey with the leader. People tend to hold on to each other during times of stress, more so than when times are more relaxed.The role of a leader here is crucial.

I often talk about the "emotional leader" in a group, who is very often different than the formal leader. This person provides the signals to the group as to what direction to go. This is a primal function of our brain, and happens whether anyone is aware of it or not. When the group is experiencing fear of any sort, whether it is anxiety, apprehension, or downright panic, the primitive responses are "flight, flight, freeze, or follow". When the group is experiencing openness, the response is more typically curiosity and engagement. This mental state (self-realization) allows for a much broader range of thinking and is much better at creativity and finding possibilities than the state of fight/flight.

When a group gets into the self-preservation mode of fight/flight, they tend to become adversarial as a predominant behavior, and can often lash out at everything and everybody, simply because they feel threatened and there is no clear enemy.This can result in some really destructive behaviors, and can disrupt business as people alienate their customers, their suppliers, and one another.

The keys for a leader are in understanding that people need to have direction in the storm. They need a heading, a place that they all want to be, and a burning desire to get there. The more turbulent the times, the shorter the time horizon needs to be. When people are working really hard, they don't want to think that the end is year away. They need months, weeks, or days. This requires an ongoing exercise of setting short courses of action, coupled with optimism, enthusiasm, and commitment from their formal leader. If the established leader of the group can provide these and establish proper rapport with the group, it is very difficult for another person to assume the emotional leadership of the group. So, provide a focus, a compelling reason to be there, stay calm and assertive, and hang together with everyone else. 2009 will be a stellar year. Enjoy the ride.

Except where otherwise noted, this content is
licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Link: http://www.gaian.com

Gaian Newsletter Volume 5.9

November 25, 2008

Prioritization for the UltraSuccessful

When you ask most people if they are working on the most important things, they will usually say that they are. In fact, the longer I do this work, the more that I believe that most people are, in fact, doing what they feel is most important in that moment. Many don't think for a moment about it, they select based on a direction they have been given, or their best understanding of what their job requires of them. The process of diving into the thing that seems to be the top of the list is fairly simple. However, when we begin to take control of how the list is structured is when we begin to change our outcomes significantly. If you look at success in prioritization, you can't really look at whether people are doing it, you can only evaluate how they are doing it.

There is a little restaurant down by the water here in Santa Barbara. People come in, get their name on the list, and wait for the people who are already there to finish eating. We can call this method FIFO, or "First in, first out". The first person there has the highest priority. This is a very simple method of prioritization. You see it everywhere. The second generation of this method is the triage method of hospitals, where you look at the needs of those coming in and put them in order by relative importance of their need. This is all a method of dealing of work that shows up at your door, making sense of the ebb and flow, and feeling productive. However, if you are thinking about your most important goals and aspirations in life, is that what you want? Do you want the key ingredients of life stacked up in a long line, waiting for you to finish one, then the next, then the next? Do you want to live a life of responding to work as it comes to you, whether someone else creates it, or you create it yourself? I doubt it. If that's not the case, then what will you do?

Traditional prioritization is to create your list, rank it, pick the top item, work it till its done, then go to the next most important thing. Sound familiar? This is a great recipe for getting work done, keeping flow going and staying "on task". If someone wants to know when a particular item is going to get done, all you have to do is count down the list and estimate the time.
Okay, let's take stock. It is clear that many things literally have to be done in a certain order. You have to pour the foundation of a house before people can start building the kitchen. That is obvious. But life has many more wrinkles and complexities than that. Additionally, when we are talking about life aspirations, they can be far less concrete and linear. First step (oops, that sounds linear) is to be clear on what your image of the ultimate desired state of life actually is. We simply must know what we want to create, because we are actively creating something every moment of every day.

As soon as you define how you want to be in this life, and then see what you will be doing when you are that, it will become much more clear how you spend your time. For instance, I have a friend who recently said that he wanted to be a writer when he retired. That is pretty clear, most of us have an idea of what it means to be a writer. What is less clear for most is what it is that a writer does. In other words, think about how you would know a writer when you saw one. Staying just in the doings, there is a long list of things that writers would do every day, such as spend time generating ideas. There are other writer tasks, such as writing, editing, thinking, meeting with publishers, building marketing plans (provided you want to sell what you write), speaking, signing books, and the list goes on and on. It obviously fills the lives of those who are writers, so you can imagine the many nuances that go into being a writer.

Very often the act of creating priorities gets muddled up with creating a project plan. Think about the difference in priorities if you want to be a writer as opposed to write a book. They become quite different. We're going to focus on the first.

The most powerful prioritization process is based on what you want to be, and leave the question of who does it open. I call this third generation prioritization. The ultra successful focus on the question of "What do I want to be?" Then, how do I act that out every day? This prioritization process looks at everything you do, every decision you make, and asks if it is in alignment with what you want to be.

When we get down to the question of doing, the prioritization question is this. "What are the things that only I can do in order for me to be who or what I most desire?" At the deepest level, in the example of being a writer, that answer is to "Live the life of a writer." That involves what you think about, the conversations you hold, the way you look at the world, the way you describe your breakfast to a friend, and even the first program you open when you start your computer. Your life is what you do every moment, and what you do is an absolute reflection of who or what you have decided to be.

Given that, here is a basic prioritization process for the ultra successful:

Define who and/or what you want to be.
Get a clear image of what life is like when you are there.
Ask yourself the question "Can I love life when I am there?" If no, recycle. If yes, continue.
Decide to live that life, every moment of every day. Okay, here's a wrinkle. Commit to love living that life - right now. This becomes your top priority.
Rethink all of your associations to determine how they define you. Build new ones, retire old ones.
Recraft your life and your time so that you can spend your time creating the most important aspect of the life you have committed to live.
Decide who can handle the major doings associated with this life. Create the alliances required to support you in this life, and those who will ensure that the stream of work that comes towards you is handled automatically.
No matter where you are on the journey, hold a picture of yourself in your ultimate state of success, and live from that place.
Take time every day to feel grateful for giving yourself the life you want.
Adopt the practice of prioritizing through checking against your image of being who you want to be. If you aren’t living it right now, what you are doing or being is NOT a priority. Immediately find what is and move to it.
Endeavor to build each day doing what only you can do to be the person you most aspire towards being.

Now, if this appeals to you and you'd like more help with it, send me an email at jeff.evans@gaian.com. We can talk more.