WRFY Grounded

GROUNDEDBy Bob Rosen

Presented by Dr Renata Schoeman

16 September - Johannesburg

23 September - Cape Town

Grounded

The author• Bob Rosen is a trusted global CEO advisor,

organizational psychologist, and bestselling author (e.g. The Healthy Company, Leading People, Just Enough Anxiety, Global Literacies, and The Catalyst)

• He founded Healthy Companies International more than 20 years ago with the goal of helping top executives achieve their leadership potential and build healthy high performing and sustainable companies

• Recipient of a multi-year grant from the MacArthur Foundation for an in-depth study of the nature of leadership.

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Overview• Confronted by disruptive change and economic

turbulence, many of today’s leaders find themselves ill-equipped to manage the hazards they now face.

• Based on the author’s Healthy Leader model, it focuses on the six personal dimensions that fuel—and refuel—the world’s top leaders

• The book argues that leaders at every level can be more self-aware, develop their untapped potential, and drive significantly better results – for themselves, their teams and organizations.

• Features fresh stories from leaders in a variety of organizations

• By developing themselves and mastering the six dimensions, readers can gain the stamina and strength to not only weather tough times but to achieve much, much more.

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What is most personal to people and their leaders is at the heart of their health and happiness

All business is personal:

a personalised approach to leadership

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Research methods• Interviewed more than 500 CEOs in 45 countries

– Qualitative face-to-face best-in-class interviews

– Quantitative 360 Healthy Leaders Assessment

• What drives great leadership at any level of organizational life?

• Three unequivocal truths– Who you are drives what you do

– Who you are is grounded in your healthy roots

– Healthy leaders build teams and organization that outperform

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Part 1: A crisis on the horizon

• The winds of change

• In today’s business environment, leaders are confronted by powerful, disruptive forces that are making their jobs more challenging than ever

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• A gigantic gap

– Assuming that what worked in the past will work in the future

– Focusing too much on action and too little on introspection

– A climate of acceptance and tolerance of dysfunctional behaviour in themselves and others

– Fundamentally flawed belief that their status and actions alone determine the quality of their leadership


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• Are you bending, breaking or staying rooted?

– Leaders react to the forces in three different ways• Ignore

• Chaos

• Foresight and adaptability (flexible and grounded)

– Leaders with healthy roots are strong and thriving, and this is what influences their health, performance, and resilience


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The outside appearance

The hidden foundation Who you are

What you do


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Part 2: The roots of healthy leadership

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Physical health

• Body-mind awareness

• Energy management

• Peak-performance Lifestyle

Warning signs of declining health:

Insufficient energy and staminaIncreased stress and unhappinessInconsistent ability to think clearlyLifestyle habits that undermine workLoss of work due to illnessDecreased concentration and attention

Physical health

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Body-mind awareness

• Judith Jamison (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre)

• “No matter what you’re doing, if you are doing it excellently, then you’re in touch with who you are; this is the heart and the soul, why you’re here in the first place. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Physical health

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Body-mind awareness

• Your health depends on your genetic makeup, personal development, life experiences, beliefs and expectations

• The power of the mind

• “Live like an athlete”– It is all about winning and losing

– Teamwork is essential

– You need discipline, perseverance, and the courage to take risks

– You learn from mistakes and failure

Physical health

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Energy management

• “If you don’t know who you are and you don’t have a good sense of what you’re trying to do…it’s pretty hard to deal with the changes out there…You need to understand your priorities as an individual”

Physical health

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Energy management

• An inward and outward process

• Harnessing personal energy while simultaneously generating organizational energy

• Using interactions with environment to create positive energy

Physical health

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Peak performance lifestyle

• An ounce of prevention = a ton of benefits– Over a 2 to 5 year period, companies with comprehensive

workplace wellness programs and health plans saw each dollar of their investment yield 3 to 6 dollars (CDC, 2013)

– The ROI on wellness programs ranged from $1.17 to $6.04 (Health Fairs Direct, 2012)

• Unhealthy executives produce unhealthy companies, and unhealthy companies produce unhealthy employees. And unhealthy workers are costly workers, whether they are in the corner office or on a factory line…

Physical health

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Peak performance lifestyle

• “There is no such thing as work-life balance - unless you create it”(Bill Johnson)

• “Lead yourself first” (Joe Jimenez)

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Emotional health

• Self-awareness

• Positive emotions

• Resilience


Increased susceptibility to stressInability to fully express and manage emotionsGetting caught up in negative thinkingDisconnection from network of supportHigh incidence of conflict and defensivenessFeeling victimised or powerless

Emotional health

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Self-awareness• EQ/SQ

• 80% of executive have blind spots about themselves, and 40% have strengths they are unaware of or not using (Orr et al., 2010)

• Failed leadership arises from ignorance

• From “you don’t have to be liked; you just have to be respected”

• To “being a kind person…is more about bringing up your ideas in ways that protect the ego of the other person and aren’t threatening to them. You try to do it in a way where both could own the new direction”

Nomi Bergman, Advance/Newhouse’s Bright House Networks (now Charter Communications)

Emotional health

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Positive emotions

• “We all have our personal Andes”

• Philosophy: – Don’t be afraid– Live in the moment – Follow your heart – Never stop changing

• Love, optimism (hope + realism), forgiveness, compassion (empathy + behaviour), and forgiveness are part of our neurological hard-wiring

• Humanity is as important a productivity

Nando Parrado, Parrado Multimedia

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Resilience

• “Respond instead of react”

• Emotional flexibility: Pain is inevitable, suffering is not

• Living with just enough anxiety to fuel higher productivity and greater achievements

• Being comfortable with being uncomfortable

• Be tough enough to be gentle with yourself

Mike Puzziferri, FDNY

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Intellectual health

• Deep curiosity

• Adaptive mind-set

• Paradoxical thinking


Inability to adapt to changing conditionsDifficulty thinking critically and solving problemsInability to make short- or long-term decisionsInability to recover from setbacksDecreasing ability to apply skills and knowledgeDifficulty understanding diverse beliefs

Intellectual health

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Deep curiosity

• Fear, disapproval, and lack of support kill curiosity

• “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious” (Albert Einstein)

Mike Petters, Huntington Ingalls Industries

“It takes an entire company of curious people to build a great business”

Intellectual health

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Deep curiosity

• Neuroplasticity

• Learn through your life

• Be aware of your learning style

• Tap into your natural curiosity– Explore the world differently

– Experiment and try out new ideas

– Become and information omnivore

– Share and solicit your creativity and knowledge

– Develop passions

Intellectual health

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Adaptive mind set

“Act swiftly, think in real time, be flexible and adaptive. Give people room to take initiative. Learn from the past and prepare for the future, and pass wisdom down from one generation to the next”

(Maasaki Kashiwazaki, OfunatoElementary school)

Intellectual health

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Adaptive mind set

• A strong adaptive mind set has the ability to hold both worldviews (personal power and uncertainty) simultaneously

– Manage your fear of the unknown

– Be confident that you will land on your feet

– Be open to new ways of thinking

– Be aware of old patterns and create new ones

– Create communities of adaptive people

• Trusting environment, questioning, and listening

Intellectual health

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Paradoxical thinking• Leading in a creative world of

contradictions

• Healthy leaders must live in the present and the future simultaneously. They must balance speed and urgency with discipline.

• Embrace opposites– Constructive impatience– Realistic optimism– Confident humility– Committed detachment– Passionate rigor

“Take charge and let go” (Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, Lego Group)

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Social health

• Authenticity

• Mutually rewarding relationships

• Nourishing teams and communities


Inability to build and participate in strong teamsDifficulty building peer relationshipsInability to see other viewpointsDecreasing desire for productive collaborationDifficulty leading/flowing othersTendency to ostracize others with different perspectives

Social health

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Authenticity

• Knowing yourself, being yourself, and sharing yourself

• “The unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates)

• People do not want leaders to be weak, but want them to be real.

• Earn trust through

– Credibility

– Dependability

– Predictability

– Valuing the common good

– Emotional safety

Social health

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Mutually rewarding relationships

• “We tend to see everyone as a competitor, but we need to see them as partners” (IBM, 2012)

“NO POLITICS. Civility is the name of the game.”

“It’s more than being able to speak English or Chinese. It’s about trying to understand how you truly communicate with people in different parts of the world.”

Social health

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Mutually rewarding relationships

• The four pillars of healthy relationships

– Empathy: don’t leave home without it

– Fairness: it’s genetic and fundamental

– Communication: conscious, clear and courageous

– Appreciation: recognition trumps money

Social health

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Nourishing teams and communities• We are born to bond into groups, and when we don’t,

we suffer physically and psychologically

• The most significant predictor of health, better than diet or exercise habits, is the number of strong groups they belong to (Brody, 2012)

HeLa cells (Henrietta Lacks)

“I want to help shift the whole organization from that very me-oriented thing toward a team atmosphere”

Social health

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Nourishing teams and communities

• Teams have changed: visual to virtual, insular to boundary-free, static to flexible

• Work occurs through informal networks of people (Cross, 2002)

– People with larger and more diversified personal networks • were higher performers

• energize (rather than de-energize) networks

• outperformed competitors

• Unlock the value of social technologies

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Vocational health

• Meaningful calling

• Personal mastery

• Drive to succeed


Increasing loss of energy at workGrowing disengagement and boredomReticence to work with others to achieve common goalsDecreasing ability to learn and master new ideasLack of long-term vision and purposeDeclining performance at work

“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to make them better.” (Steve Jobs)

Vocational health

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Meaningful calling• “Employees, especially young people, want

more than a paycheck.” (Marissa Mayer, Yahoo)

• Strong correlation between meaningful work and job satisfaction

• Meaningful work – Self-actualizing– Social impact– Feelings of personal accomplishment– A belief in being able to reach career goals

• Understand your values, strengths, and vulnerabilities

Jack Stack, SRC

Vocational health

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Personal mastery• An innate desire for growth, self-improvement, and the

inner satisfaction that comes with being able to do or know something thoroughly

• A firm commitment to learning

• “Anything you’re going to try, you need to study. You need to prepare. You need to ask people who have done it before how they did it. You need to observe. You’re going to do all because you want to do well.” (Ted Mathas)

• Companies whose leaders are dedicated to learning and teaching perform better (Clemmer, 2007)– 27% more productive– produce 40% more revenue– 50% greater net income growth

• “The secret to success? Painful and demanding practice and hard work” (Geoffrey Colvin)

Vocational health

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Drive to succeed

Get inspired• Dedicate yourself to

learning• Create a shared vision• Promote outcome

thinking• Build a high-performance

culture• Celebrate success and

find a balance

• Stand up for what you believe

• Understand yourself and how others see you

• Be resilient

• Balance your passion for winning with being meaningfully centred in your life

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Spiritual health

• Higher purpose

• Global connectedness

• Generosity of spirit


Inability to handle adversity and life’s ups and downsDifficulty feeling empathy and compassion for othersDistrusting self and othersFeeling ethnocentric and ignoring cultural differencesHaving little or no alignment between beliefs and actionsPreoccupation with oneself and one’s needs

Spiritual health

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Higher purpose

“The more your life is all about you, toward your success, toward you looking good, toward other people looking at you and giving you the credit, the less you are able to truly lead

healthy people to become healthy leaders.”(Jack Stephenson)

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Higher purpose

• Leaders and organizations realize meaningful benefits when they care about how their activities and products affect their employees, the lives of their customers, and the communities and environment in which they operate.

• Companies with value-based brands outperform other companies by 400% over a 10 year period (Brown & Stengel, 2012)

Spiritual health

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Global connectedness

• Armand Diangienda (Kinshasa symphony) used music as the language to create a community larger than the Congo, a global family of music lovers dedicated to spreading joy and shared humanity

Business are global, markets are local

Global mind set• integrity • honesty• being collaborative

Spiritual health

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Global connectedness

Spiritual health

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Generosity of spirit• Although it begins inside of yourself, gratitude radiates

outward and touches the lives of everyone close to you

• Companies generous with gratitude are 12 times more likely to show better results than less generous companies (Bersin, 2011)

“I don’t want to spend my life trying to be the richest guy in the cemetery”

“I tell people give away your time, your energy and your ideas”

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On becoming a healthy leader

• Make a personal commitment to live the 6dimensions of leadership health every day

• Challenge yourself to be the best person and leader you can be

• Using attention and intention for

– Seeing: acquiring clear perceptions

– Thinking: developing an open mind

– Feeling: creating positive emotions

– Acting: behaving constructively

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Part 3: Putting leadership into action

Putting leadership into action

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Tap into a higher purpose• Most people are motivate less by external

rewards than by deep personal values. People want to feel that they matter and that what they do adds to a greater good.

• A leader should create the vision and inspire people to pursue itBob McDonald


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Forging a shared direction

A goal to shoot for and a path for hitting the target

“It is important to hold two things in your head

simultaneously: acknowledge the current reality and have a

better plan for he future.”

(Alan Mulally)


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Unleashing human potential

• Unleashing human potential

– Appreciating and recognising people

– Teaching and mentoring people

– Protecting and stretching people

• How?

– Paying attention to perceptions

– Get the right people in the right jobs

– Ensure that your leadership is personal


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Fostering productive relationships

Programs supported through REI grants engaged nearly 397 000 people in 2.8 mill hours of volunteer work on public lands; volunteers maintained 54000 miles of trails and 94000 acres of local parks and public recreational spaces (2012)

“You want people to appreciate nature, but you don’t want them to love it to death.” (Sally Jewel, Recreational Equipment Inc.)


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Seizing new opportunities

• “Strong Concepts”

• Never act out of fear (“affordable loss”)

• Companies have no reason to exist if they don’t add value to society

Ben Noteboom (Ranstad Holding)


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Driving high performance

• Better and more consistent customer service

• Fewer product defects, errors, and mishaps

• Enhanced reputation in the market place

• Increased focus n continuous improvement

• Greater willingness to identify and fix problems

• Higher performance from each person

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Conclusions• Without physical health, you lack the speed to respond.

• An absence of emotional health cuts into resilience and creates fertile ground for too much negativity.

• Intellectual health is vital to your ability to adapt.

• A leaders with weak social health is unable to mobilise people inside the business.

• A person who lacks enough drive and is unable to keep up with the competition reveals weak vocational health.

• It’s vibrant spiritual health that gives a leader the ability to show people a higher purpose, something bigger than personal needs, to inspire the.

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Conclusions

Leadership is contagious – every healthy leader inspires others to become healthy leaders

We truly can transform the world one leader at a time

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