The number one thing our clients request when working with us is training on being a better leader.

And they are not alone. Leadership as a keyword has over 4.4 billion search results on Google, and organizations in the U.S. alone spend upwards of $14 billion annually on training their employees to be leaders. Yet, somehow, most of these leadership programs fail to deliver on their promise: access to being a leader.

Why?

Here’s the quick answer. If you try to be a leader, your attention will be on acting like a leader (looking the part) rather than being a leader, which comes from a place of purpose.

In a moving conversation with Lynne Twist — a pro-activist and author who raised hundreds of millions for philanthropic causes and had the opportunity to work alongside iconic world leaders like Mother Teresa, Buckminster Fuller, Maya Angelou and the Dalai Lama (to name a few), she points to something very important about getting access to leadership:

“When you take a stand with your life, what comes through you is a level of effectiveness, inspiration, and I’ll call it guidance that one doesn’t even know is possible. You stop living your life, your little life starring you, and you live your stand. Archimedes said Give me a place to stand and I’ll move the world.“

Here are some pointers on how to access the true power of leadership:

Take a stand for something purposeful.

What moves you? Maybe you are passionate about team dynamics.  Company culture? Diversity? Whatever it is, if you take a stand for something purposeful that inspires you into elevating the collective wellbeing of your community, that newly created context for your life will move you powerfully into action, or, in other words, effective leading.

As a personal example, when my identical twin girls were born at 28 weeks due to severe Twin-to-Twin-Transfusion Syndrome, I was devasted. Particularly when I found out they had up to 80% chance of dying, but I took a stand for them.

I stood for their full recovery with a clear vision that one day they would lead normal lives. It took 300 days of feeding tubes, 210 of respiratory support,180 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), two heart surgeries and many sleepless nights but today, if you met them on the street, you would never imagine what they’ve been through.

My stand pushed me to challenge doctors, advocate for the best treatment and secure therapies in the NICU, which they previously told me was not possible.

Develop the mental muscle to deal with extremes.

Unbelievable success, however you define that, often calls for you to be able to deal with extreme highs and dark lows. Why? Because you can’t feel and experience one without the other. That’s true in business and in life.

Want to start a business? Guess what, there will be days you won’t be able to peel yourself out of bed. Believe me, I’ve been there, but what really helped me was developing a muscle to remove the significance from events.

For instance, when we were in the process of having our business acquired, it was a rollercoaster. One day the deal was blowing up, the next day it was back on track. But I asked myself one question: will I survive this? The answer was always yes and knowing this helped my practice removing significance from things, which allowed for a recalibration.

Identify your unexamined beliefs that get in the way of what’s possible.

In 1977, when Lynne Twist — a pro-activist that’s raised hundreds of millions for philanthropic causes– took on ending chronic persistent global hunger at the time, it was thought impossible to achieve. She goes on to say on my podcast Unmessable, “Back then, around 44,000 people were dying every day due to hunger”, and Lynne, like many others, were resigned to the notion that nothing could or would change.

Once she realized that these limitations were something that she (and many others) had made up, she got to a point where she could visualize ending hunger and then embraced it as a challenge.

While not totally eradicated, progress has been made since 1977 to end chronic hunger globally. It decreased from 44,000 deaths per day to 15,000 per day, in a world whose population has grown by over 3 billion in that same time span.

The lesson here is that until you identify the unexamined views you hold of the world, you cannot move past them. They are your world and working with an effective coach will help uncover your blind spots.

Access to effective leadership is about tapping into a higher purpose that moves you. The storyline stops being about you and your focus is then shifted to realizing what you are most committed to.

After speaking with two meteorology experts and a chemical engineer who specializes in carbon capture technologies, it’s clear we’re not doing enough to get in front of what’s becoming a climate disaster. 

A number of credible scientific publications stated that climate change puts the well-being of people around the globe at risk. And yet, most of us are not aware of what’s potentially coming nor are we planning for it from a business and personal perspective. 

I spoke with Rear Admiral David Titley, who spent 32 years as the Navy’s meteorologist/oceanographer, when he appeared on my podcast Unmessable. Titley was tasked with assessing and planning for security risks our country faced with regards to global warming. 

One big concern he spent a lot of time analysing is rising sea levels. He expects levels to rise up to 3 to 6 feet by the year 2100, but by the time levels stabilize (several centuries from now), we could be looking at a 30 feet increase globally. 

This means ultimately Orlando becomes the southernmost point of Florida. Baton Rouge is the southernmost point of Louisiana. Everyone in Harlem, New York is elated because they now have beachfront properties. And that’s just the beginning.

In another Unmessable podcast discussion, Dr. Marshall Shepherd, a distinguished professor and Director of Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia, and former Nasa meteorologist, said “Many people don’t understand that the increases we’re going to see in the next 0 to 50 years (sea level rise, ice caps melting, flooding, droughts, agricultural belt shifts, diseases, etc.) are going to happen at an exponential rate. They’re not going to be linear increases. The more time we wait on action, the further along the exponentially increasing curve of crisis we go.”

Scientists say there is an inflection point where the climate scales tip, which is when we reach an average climate increase of 2 degrees celsius. That’s where the rate of climate change will get away from our abilities to reverse it. Today, we are seeing a 1.5 degrees celsius average climate increase, which means there is still some time to be proactive.

So I asked myself, what can regular people (like me) do to help slow down this train wreck? What business opportunities exist around being part of the solution? Here’s a place to start.

Clean air: It’s likely to be very valuable

Dr. Jennifer Wilcox, a chemical engineering professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric pollution, believes CO2 carbon capture is a solution we should employ to reverse some of the damage that’s already been done. 

“We have the capability to build synthetic forests that have the potential to remove some of the CO2 that is emitted into the atmosphere each year, ” Dr. Wilcox said. “Ideally, we avoid CO2 emissions to begin with, but we are not doing that at the scale required to meet our climate goals and so now we have to start pulling CO2 out of the air to avoid reaching a climate change tipping point.” 

It sounds simple to pull CO2 from the air, but it’s not. Far from it. It’s a complex process that requires lots of engineering and funding. There are some businesses working on clever ways to do this, but we need way more innovation happening in this space and significant capital investments. It’s a great business opportunity that will predictably be in big demand.

Get involved with Congress and local government

Titley suggests to learn about climate change, we should all get involved locally, monitor the state of affairs, and become an advocate. There are short explanations from the AAAS where you can quickly develop a basic understanding of climate change. Then, if you don’t already know, find out who your representatives are locally and make your voice heard.

But when it comes to affecting change on a larger scale, it takes advocacy to organize slow-moving government agencies. Congress and local governments can create business grants and other incentives to fuel business opportunities at all levels to work toward achievable climate goals. Staying silent while the house burns isn’t an option any longer.

Be mindful of your own daily life choices

We can all take small steps to at least slow the effects of climate change, if not reverse it, but making simple choices like using LED bulbs in the home, reducing plastic consumption (especially one-time-use plastics), traveling less (or drive less when possible), using solar powered energy, and electric cars are effective strategies. Creating competitive, environment-friendly consumer options is one area where the market can help as long as it’s provided the right incentives. 

Don’t buy real estate near the water

Although local governments are taking some measures, like New York’s effort to build flood surges (which are glorified sand bags) to avoid disasters like Hurricane Sandy, or the efforts of government officials in Miami to protect against a 3-foot water-level increase, Titley says it’s likely to be insufficient. If you are looking to set up shop for personal or business reasons, avoid high-risk areas for long-term investments.

World governments and industry responded quickly in the 1980s in an effort to undo years of ozone depletion. It worked. We can do it again.

It is inescapable: teamwork. Whether you are volunteering at an event for your kid’s school or leading a business unit or company, one thing you will need to not only understand, but dial-in on is how to lead teams. 

Sure, it’s easy to get things done yourself, and some might even prefer it that way. But when you have to inspire and guide a whole team, like an orchestra conductor, to deliver on some outcome, you will quickly find out it’s hard and messy. It can take years to develop good team-leading skills. 

Now, once you manage to get leading teams down, the next level up is fostering a high-performance team. That’s another magnitude of a challenge. It’s easy to hire world-caliber people, but it is not easy to achieve high-performance. 

A high-performing team can produce unimaginable outcomes. It’s essentially a state of flow, which is described as being in the zone or the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity according to Wikipedia.  In this case, it’s not individually experienced, rather a collective partnership that emerges through teamwork. 

But what gives way to being a high-performance team? What components are vital for crafting a team in which each player operates to their fullest potential? 

As a high-performance team coach, I spent a lot of time in the laboratory testing out what actually enables teams to leapfrog into high-performance, and it’s not what you may think: hire top talent. Sure, it doesn’t hurt, but what absolutely needs to be present are the factors below, and those don’t always come organically in a business setting:    

The importance of psychological safety 

“Psychology Safety”, a term coined by Harvard Business School leadership Professor Dr. Amy Edmondson, means the shared belief that a team is a safe space for interpersonal risk-taking. I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Edmondson on a recent episode of my podcast, Unmessable, and we got to talking about teamwork and the importance of feeling empowered in collaborative environments. According to Dr. Edmondson, psychological safety is the foundation upon which people are willing to speak up, without fear of looking bad, being dismissed or, worse, face consequences. 

“You need talent plus psychological safety to thrive and innovate in the knowledge economy. Psychological safety plays a critical role. It’s not the end in itself. It’s not even a driving force of effectiveness. It’s a moderator. It’s the key that unlocks that talent,” said Dr. Edmondson.  

From taking ownership of a failed project to disagreeing with your boss on a subject you are particularly passionate about, or even bringing a long-shot idea to the table during brainstorming when there is a culture of psychological safety, it gives way to vulnerability. Being vulnerable, as I outlined in this piece, increases your ability to effectively lead. 

[Listen to the full podcast episode with Dr. Amy Edmondson] 

Openness and authentic connections

Studies have shown that a large part of why people love their jobs is because of the authentic relationships they developed and the collaboration they get to experience in teamwork. Sure, you have to love the actual job itself, but more than that you have to love the people you work with. When authentic relationships are present, it tends to lead to openness and transparency, which resonates for teams.  

Trust and Integrity

According to Dr. Edmondson, trust is a cornerstone of successful teamwork. There’s no way a team can function to its fullest capacity without a high level of trust holding it all together. The same can be said about integrity. Members of a team need to feel like they all have the same common goal ahead of them and more importantly, have each others’ backs. 

A Mix of Personalities

While having high-caliber talent on the team helps to perform well, having the right mix of characters will help make things gel.  Diversity in teams can be a tremendous asset. An effective way to quantify somehow that you have the right mix is by taking personality tests like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test, now taken by thousands of people and used by leading organizations to determine hiring processes and team dynamic. The only issue with this is people are not static objects and predictably will change, and, hopefully, evolve over time. So while initially useful, it’s not a long-term tool.

It is well-known that hiring world-class people helps in building a strong team, but what pushes teams into high-performance beyond effective leadership is having psychological safety, trust, authentic relationships and the right mix of personalities present. That’s why work is required to have these factors present by design.

We’ve all heard of the dangers of entering crowded markets, but as an entrepreneur, does that mean you don’t take the risk and withhold from launching your business in that sector? 

Entering an already crowded market isn’t advisable, but it’s been done. In a recent episode of Unmessable, I spoke to Heini Zachariassen, who along with his co-founder Theis Sondergaard, launched Vivino, a brilliantly-designed wine app that stands as one of the world’s largest wine marketplaces. In 2010, when they launched Vivino, they were the 600th wine App on the market. Within a few short years, they managed to climb to the top with 36 million users, looking up 2 million wines every single day, and organically attracting 600,000 new users each month. To date, Vivino has raised $57 Million in funding and is operational in 16 markets.

[Listen to full episode here]

But this kind of success didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it took years of focus to yield these results. Add to that an overcrowded marketplace and you’ve got the deck stacked against you. But somehow, Zachariassen didn’t falter. He worked hard at competing against the others and realized what they couldn’t.  

So how did he manage to come out on top despite being the 600th wine app to enter the market? 

Zachariassen shared with me that these four things were the reason Vivino, against all odds, became one of the top wine apps in the world:

Do a competitive landscape analysis. 

Doing a comprehensive competitive analysis is critical in getting grounded with the current landscape. Who are the top 10 players? How long have they been in the game? How well funded are they? What’s their business model? What are the product reviews? These are all questions you should answer before embarking on an arduous undertaking. 

Zachariassen did his fair share of research before committing to Vivino, and noticed that the top players on the market failed to tell him one basic thing: should he buy this wine? Because of this, he knew early on what to avoid if he was gunning for success. Although he realized he was up against some fierce competition, he knew he could address the pain points of the average wine drinker, and so he persisted.

[Listen to full episode here]

Know your audience extremely well and ONLY build for them. 

Zachariassen did not come from the wine industry, but he loved wine and wanted to build an amazing app for casual wine drinkers like himself. Their users want to know if the wine is good or bad, and maybe give it a quick rating. That’s it. So he built the product to address this core concern. 

Quickly Zachariassen learned that Vivino didn’t have to be the best wine app. It just had to be better than his competitors. Setting up realistic expectations is crucial, as is keeping your eye on the prize. Zachariassen admits that it took 18 months to begin to gain the traction he’d hoped for Vivino, and while he never demonstrated doubt to the outside world, he admits experiencing moments of uncertainty. It’s important, he says, to stay the course in the early years. Keep believing in your product. Know that if you put in the work, you greatly increase the chances of yielding the results you want. 

Find the one metric that matters most and only focus on that.

Amazon knew that the way to win people over is by providing fast and cheap or free shipping. That was the metric they optimized for. The key for Vivino was to have the best data. Wine is long-tail and the only thing that matters for the users is if they have data on the exact wine they’re looking for. So Vivino obsessively focused on having ratings for as many wines as they could. Focusing relentlessly on having the best data and being willing to ignore “nice to haves” was key for Zachariassen. 

Too many entrepreneurs in this landscape make the mistake of striving for perfection early on. It’s admirable, yes. But is it realistic? You don’t need perfection to get the ball rolling. Perfect can come later. It’s crucial that you solve the problem first, and set realistic expectations thereafter.

[Listen to full episode here]

Launch your product with a built-in product feedback loop.

If you enter a crowded market but have a better product, like Vivino, you increase your chances of winning. Zachariassen launched with a minimum viable product and iterated as customers provided feedback. You likely will launch or enter the market with a pre-conceived notion of what product/service will address the pain point but ultimately you will never know if it clicks with the market until your customers are actually using your platform.

Listening to the user and releasing new features based on feedback can help ensure your product is designed to meet your audience’s needs. Actually, Zachariassen launched Raw Startup youtube channel to discuss core issues around founding and scaling a successful business. 

[Listen to full episode here]

This first-time founder and ex-banker sold his ticketing platform to Ebay for close to $200 Million with only 2 weeks of cash left in the bank. Here’s how he did it.

Failures are only failures if we fail to learn from them. These 4 questions turn a failure into a lesson.

These are heady days; with nearly full employment and wages inching upward, this vibrant economy has created opportunities that simply didn’t exist just a few years back. No longer does someone feel beholden to a job that sucks the life and soul out of them, as there are plentiful options now available.

At the heart of job satisfaction lies employee morale. Morale may seem like an intangible concept, but, on the contrary, morale is an intrinsic barometer of a company’s success. A healthy, positive morale is the fruit of a workplace where employees feel both confidence in leadership and a sense that they are valued and are growing as individuals.

As a business leader, transforming the workplace to boost employee morale and maintain a positive vibe is essential. Efforts to improve company morale can reap significant dividends, as a happy team is not only more productive but is more likely to stay put.

The Secret Ingredient: Respect 

Much is written about the various ways to jumpstart morale in the workplace. At the core of each and every suggestion lies one important trait that underpins the action: Respect. Nothing inspires another human being more than the sense that they are valued and respected. By keeping respect at the center of all morale-building efforts, the efficacy of each effort is greatly enhanced.

People can sniff out insincerity, however. Workers can sense if they are being manipulated by leaders to simply amp up productivity under the guise of an inauthentic quest to build morale that benefits the few. Ensure that each program, incentive, or team-building idea contains the fundamental essence of respect and you will see your workplace morale spike.

Here are five exercises to boost company morale:

1.     Define a shared mission. Employees do extraordinary things when they can see the mission of a company and, more than that, own it—That’s what I call creating a company charter. A document that is very much alive in the day-to-day operation that clearly articulates the commitment of the organization, its people and its stakeholders. Once created, share with all employees the vision and the goals, and describe how each person will be an important aspect of achieving success. This creates a sense of being valued, as an asset or essential resource intrinsically tied to meeting the objectives of the company.

2.     Promote from within. Employees are buoyed when they witness people rising from within the ranks. Seeing a pathway to advancement is hugely motivating, and has a significant impact on company morale. Identify your superstars and invest in their growth and development through specialized training, preparing them for advancement. Internal promotions will underscore the sense that the employee is valued, respected, and worth investing in.

3.     Change things up. Sheer boredom can have a negative effect on employee morale. The 9-5 work life can be excruciatingly predictable, causing malaise and apathy to creep in. By occasionally changing it up, managers can inspire new bursts of energy and productivity. Take that weekly team meeting outside and provide appetizers and freshly brewed iced tea. Meet up mid-day for a 15-minute brisk walk to rev up energy and get some vitamin D. Get creative.

4.     Recognize efforts. Nothing boosts morale like a pat on the back. Too often, management is too busy to acknowledge the hard work of their team members, and that is a mistake. Make the effort to recognize someone’s amazing project at the next meeting. One practice we followed religiously was at each company-wide meeting, after reading our company charter, we reserved time for people to highlight one person that helped them or made a difference that week. The results were mind-blowing. People felt honored, loved, and deeply appreciated. A simple exercise that changes everything.

5.     Have some fun. Employee morale gets a big boost from extracurricular events that are not only enjoyable for them and their family members, but allow them to interact and foster friendships outside of the more serious office environment. Plan a beach barbeque, a company picnic, a bowling night, or a community volunteering opportunity. Companies reap the intangible benefits that result from the crew’s camaraderie and bonding, with lower turnover and higher workplace engagement.

Maintaining a healthy workplace morale that is rooted in respect is a key ingredient to an organization’s sustained superior success. Make company morale a priority and see how it positively impacts both work culture and overall productivity.

Interesting in learning more about how you can transform your company culture with Legacy Transformational Consulting‘s proven methodology? Get in touch below.

Have you ever experienced an indescribable loss? Whether the passing of a close loved one, the end of a relationship, or even the death of a pet, times of loss have an ability to drive us toward painful, but valuable introspection.

Amid the certain sadness, which often leads you to question everything in your life, you learn things about yourself. At some point, you will have to make a choice though — continue grieving or use the time you have left in your life to do something meaningful. This process will force you to answer who you are and what you hope to accomplish during your own life.

Earth-shattering events have the potential to be a powerful catalyst for change and a major wake-up call. That’s exactly what Anthemos Georgiades shared on Unmessable [see full podcast episode].

Georgiades, a Harvard grad and former BCG consultant, successfully raised $90 million from top venture capital funds like Kleiner Perkins, Breyer Capital, Andreessen Howoritz and Greylock Partners to build Zumper —  a marketplace that makes renting a place as easy as booking a hotel — which produces tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue.

Georgiades, however, experienced a devastating loss at the tender age of 18 years old when his beloved mother, who was ill for some time, passed. Amid this unspeakable sadness, and after taking a couple of years to process the event, something curious happened.

Increasingly, Georgiades grew a deep desire to make his mother proud and began thinking about his life through that lens. Making his mother proud became the game he played in life or, said another way, the context upon which he lived his life. Suddenly, the grief, while never gone, began to channel into ambition, which he credits for his life accomplishments up to date.

Georgiades attributes his success with Zumper — which was recently nominated by Inc as one of the best places to work in 2019 — as one of the biggest gifts his mom brought him with her passing. Albeit a painful lesson, he shared crucial steps that were fundamental in his recovery as he redirected his pain into a total life transformation:

Set a specific time period to grieve.

First, know that everyone grieves differently. Some may cry until they can’t anymore. Others might just feel a big void for a period of time. In Georgiades’ case, he actually took a long time to figure out that he was grieving. He spent a lot of time alone, staying up late at night. And I didn’t realize that this was his way of grieving until much later. Whatever your journey is, know that you will grieve and it’s best to set aside time to do so. Setting aside a specific time during your day or a particular length of time to grieve can help you operate with a clearer mind.

Connect with people who are also grieving.

It’s normal to want to be alone during times of intense grief. While you shouldn’t deny yourself this basic need for privacy, don’t underestimate the power of outside support, especially from those who have been through what you’re going through, and are right there with you as you attempt to pick up the pieces after a loss. Being an only child, and going from a family of three to a family of two was jarring for Georgiades, but somehow he found strength in his community, which lifted him up.

Create a powerful context for your life purpose.

Once the storm settles internally, there’s an opening to reset your heading. Georgiades did this, and in thinking about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life, something became crystal clear: He wanted to make his mom proud and build something meaningful that improves the lives of millions. Suddenly, his life became about something bigger than him. He had a purpose, a new heading which has led to areas he could have never predicted.

So, the question is — how are you going to spend the rest of your life? What is a life worth living for you?

Align all actions to fulfill your life purpose.

You know what you need to do, but how are you going to do it? The power of intention can lead you to your life’s purpose, but it’s up to you to set things in motion Georgiades explained. While it’s uncertain if we ever really completely stop grieving a loss, you will find that underlying motivation to be your guiding light throughout all that you do. When confronted with choices, your life purpose should always be at the forefront, driving your actions and nudging you closer toward your goals.