Leadership Advantedge: Leadership | Influence | Talent | Neuroscience

Double Blessings to you this new year.Ask what they want from the coming new year and most people are seeking to be happy and successful in the year ahead. We see the new year as a fresh start where we can put the past behind us and move ahead.Sadly, most people never achieve happiness or success and, in large part, that’s down to the way we set goals and commit to new year’s “resolutions”.The problem is a lack of motivation and a lack of balanced prioritisation.Resolutions tend to be negative shifts of behaviour that we “should” do for our own good. Things like: get fit, lose weight, quit smoking, quit drinking, be kind to everyone, stop complaining. All things that our flesh just screams to keep on doing because we don’t like change - or at least our brain does not like change - and your brain was getting something it liked from the “bad habits” of last year. Your brain would rather “do nothing” than “do something, anything, taxing”.And those new goals, we try but they tend to throw us even more off balance

Welcome to the AdvantEdge Joy@Work podcast with me, Dr. John Kenworthy. In this guide to developing your five essential qualities of expert hybrid leadership: we're learning why your attitude to hope and how you communicate it, determines how your days and those for your team will unfold. Welcome to Hope and Mirrors.  In this episode of the AdvantEdge Joy@Work podcast, we're looking forward to a future in hope and expectation of something new and exciting in the days ahead. And how you can choose to be the leader who inspires hope for yourself, and for others.Full episode and show transcript here: https://joyatwork.coach/hope-and-mirrorsThe choice is yours. I stick to my favorite verse to start every day from Psalm 118, Verse 24, in the New King James Version.  This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.  All the faces in the world are mirrors. What kind of reflections do you see in the faces of the people you meet? What kind of reflections do you want to see?  To learn more about Ad

The Power of Deep Listening: Creating Psychological Safety for Team Effectiveness and Joy@WorkGoogle's "Project Aristotle" sought to determine the key factors of effective teams and found that Psychological Safety is the #1 factor for team effectiveness, followed by Dependability and Meaning/Impact. Listening deeply and asking questions is essential for creating a culture of safety, belonging and mattering in the workplace and preventing disasters resulting from a lack of open, candid communication. Doing this can help create trust, collaboration and joy at work.Collaboration is when an effective team harnesses the best out of individuals working together and appears to be disarmingly simple:“to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something”But everyone in the team comes with their own personality, their culture and way of doing things and their own competitiveness, their fears, their concerns and their needs. For successful and fruitful collaboration, the leader needs to help the team

Have you ever sat in a presentation and successfully listened to everything that the speaker shared, remembered what was essential and acted on the information whilst simultaneously fielding emails, carrying out a chat message and planning lunch and all before a really important client meeting.OK, now in this very short space of time, what do you remember? Not a lot huh?You just experienced cognitive overload. And that was just thinking about those 5 things happening in theory."That went right over my head!Cognitive overload is more common than you might realise.Cognitive overload occurs when your brain is being tasked with too many things at once or you are trying to process too much information. It happens when you use too much mental effort in your brains working memory to continue effective processing. You may well feel that the words flew over your head. You stopped taking any more information in and tried to clear the backlog.It is also remarkably common. A leader does a data dump of the facts and figur

What do they Know?Let's start with asking what do your audience already know about you and your topic?There are two extreme dangers here:1. Assumptions and2. The Curse of KnowledgeYou see I carry a curse. A curse of knowledge. Just as you do:The Curse of Knowledge!I attended a networking event recently where someone was sharing about Bitcoin."Bitcoin is a type of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used in a blockchain to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank."Yes, but what is it?I don't fully understand Bitcoin. I don't get how you "mine" them and I don't appreciate how they can be worth more than $10,000. And I'm a geek!I feel utterly stupid when someone who does know, speaks down to me as if I really should know and it turns into a crushing sense of hopelessness.And that's not a great place for your audience to be.jill and colleagues peering into empty skull.pngWhen someone assumes that you should know someth

If there's one complaint I hear about a leader’s skills from their boss or their HR, it's that they don't adjust their communication for their audience. And yet those leaders genuinely believe that they do adjust for their audience.So who is right? Well, they're both correct of course. The presenter thinks they are adjusting but they don't really KNOW their audience.What about the audience themselves? What do they think? Sadly the audience don't have an opinion because they stopped paying attention and moved onto other, more exciting things like thinking about lunch or updating Facebook.To capture their attention and motivate them to act, you have to get to KNOW your audienceIf you want to capture the attention of your audience and take some sort of action as a result of your Communication , you need to get to KNOW your audience and present to them as if it were tailored exclusively and entirely just for them. Because you will have done just that.Below, I share how you get to KNOW your audience so that you ca

“There are no such things as wrong turns, Only paths we never knew we were supposed to take.” ProverbAdvantEdge Coaching is about change“Change is the only constant” goes the refrain. There would be little need for coaching, training, mentoring, counselling or any development if people were happy to stay the same as they are now.Being coached by someone is all about being empowered, equipped and enabled to change. Coaching empowers people to find new jobs, work through transitions, enhance performance, build better relationships, make wise decisions, transform organisations and reach new spiritual levels. Coaching is about establishing a vision of the future and reaching goals. When coaching is successful, it’s about bringing and maintaining change.But coaching is more. We also help people determine what needs to stay the same in times of constant flux. We encourage our clients to stake out their core values, established strengths, basic beliefs, ethical principles and lasting relationships that remain firm a

Potential is much more than just knowledge or the ability to score well in exams.In this guide we’ll consider what are the components of potential so that we can distinguish between them and choose to develop those that will provide you the greatest chance of succeeding in your endeavours. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

In this guide we’ll consider how critical it is to make a good choice in response to the many varied challenges we face every day. How easily we can get trapped by “Effect” and the two enemies of our mind into a spiral of anxiety and fear or be at “Cause” for ourselves and our life. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

I’m going to explain how performance is unleashed using the AdvantEdge Potential to Performance System model. Performance happens when three things are aligned at the same moment: Your Potential, Your Drive and a Trigger.The ModelYou can visualise this model has two dimensions. The Vertical axis is your level of Drive to perform an action, and it can range anywhere from high drive to no drive.The horizontal axis is your Potential to perform an action. Also a continuum. On the right side is high potential making this action easy to perform. On the left side of this axis is low Potential or hard to do.Consider a simple example.Suppose you want someone to donate money to a Stray Dog Shelter. If they have high drive and it is easy for that person to do, they will be in the upper right corner of the model. When a person is triggered here to donate, they will donate. They are in the productive zone.On the other hand, if someone has low drive to donate to the Stray Dogs, and if it’s hard for them to do, they will be

Organisations want an AI that you feed 100 resumes and it spits out the top 5 candidates, without bias. But what's it like to be rejected by a computer?Current Recruitment AIs are being built on flawed systems and processes that favoured white, male candidates and HR seem surprised when the AI joins the same party. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

This guide will clarify the history and etymology of Talent from its Biblical roots and why this matters in modern business. This will enable you to be crystal clear about talent, skills, strengths and potential and form the basis of how we unlock and leverage talent to unstuck potential and develop the skills you need to thrive. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

The world is filled with fear and trepidation about the future. Staff are concerned for their jobs and what the future holds for them. World leaders have proven themselves to be uninspirational through being indecisive, divisive and destructive. So staff are looking for a leader who will inspire them and lead them forward into the future.This guide aims to help you be that leader. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

Trust is about how we deal with uncertainty. Even when I have proven myself trustworthy to you time and time again, over many years, there is always a remnant of uncertainty. Heck you aren't even completely certain that you can trust yourself!Our ability to choose to trust another person is an emotionally driven choice. Paul Zac's neuroscience research into what makes trust in the brain clearly demonstrates that the neurochemical oxytocin is a precursor to trust by the conscious, deliberate actions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

In this AdvantEdge Guide, we discuss how the lack of trust in recent months is largely due to lack of physical interaction and the negative effects of the pandemic. The author then provides a step-by-step guide for leaders to reinforce the foundations of safety, belonging, and mattering in order to rebuild trust and collaboration. This involves honest communication, using names, recognising individuals and their contributions, and reducing cortisol with deep breathing exercises. By rebuilding the sense of safety, belonging and mattering, trust can be restored, allowing collaboration to thrive. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

You only learn when you review and reflect on your failures and successes. Journaling is the single, most powerful, easiest means of ensuring that you develop your leadership daily. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

Over the past 30 plus years, I've worked with a lot of leaders, and the biases I've seen most in action can undermine your potential career as a leader and sabotage your success. They were all useful for you at some point along the way, but many have outlived that usefulness and could do with an overhaul and a serious upgrade. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

How can leaders get better at their Virtual Leadership using Neuroscience hacks?Live interview with Roberto Bendana of Leadership Link This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joyatwork.coach

Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the House of 1000 Mirrors. A small, happy little dog learned of this place and decided to visit. When he arrived, he bounced happily up the stairs to the doorway of the house. He looked through the doorway with his ears lifted high and his tail wagging as fast as it could. To his great surprise, he found himself staring at 1000 other happy little dogs with their tails wagging just as fast as his. He smiled a great smile, and was answered with 1000 great smiles just as warm and friendly. As he left the House, he thought to himself, "This is a wonderful place. I will come back and visit it often." In this same village, another little dog, who was not quite as happy as the first one, decided to visit the house. He slowly climbed the stairs and hung his head low as he looked into the door. When he saw the 1000 unfriendly looking dogs staring back at him, he growled at them and was horrified to see 1000 little dogs growling back at him. As he left,

Encourage Two Mindsets When I first started training and coaching more than 30 years ago I found that there were two distinct types of client or participant: Those who were motivated and eager to learn, did so and enjoyed great results, and became more successful, and Those who believed that they didn't need to be there. They knew everything they needed and were pretty much brilliant at everything. They were unmotivated to learn and gained little, if anything, from their limited interaction and went off to be just as excellent as they always believed they had been. I blamed myself about the second group, of course. Somehow, I wasn't getting through, but try as I may, somehow I couldn't find a way to get them to learn. Then I read Carol Dweck's excellent book on Mindset and my lightening fast brain ignited with insight: In every group of people there are two base mindsets, those who have what Dweck calls a Growth mindset and those who have a predominantly Fixed Mindset. Develop Your mindset is a