“The real ‘data science unicorn’ isn’t the person who knows every analytical technique and technology; rather, it’s the one who has expanded their skill set to also participate in a company-wide, business-oriented effort that gets their models deployed.”

Business and data professionals must develop a shared understanding of Machine Learning (ML) opportunities

“All planning is backward planning. You start with a goal and work out how you’re going to get there.”After choosing how to apply your ML, your next step is to get approval from stakeholders with decision-making power at your company. Focus on selling the gains ML can help your team make instead of overly fixating on the “cool technology” you’ll be using.

Step 1: Establish your value-driven deployment goal by leveraging “backward planning.”

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to forge a rare collaboration, enlisting business leaders to weigh in on the caveats and qualifications that determine the prediction goal in all its detailed glory.”If you’re launching a new ML project, consider creating a binary model, or “binary classifier,” that makes predictions by answering yes/no questions. e.g., if you want to target customers more effectively with your advertising, your binary model could answer the question: “Will the customer buy if contacted?”.

Step 2: Business and tech leaders collaborate to specify a prediction goal

“Headlines about machine learning promise godlike predictive power… It’s all a lie.”Focus on metrics such as “lift,” which calculates the ratio by which your model performs better than making guesses without the model, and “cost,” which calculates the price of false negatives (FN) and false positives (FP). The “fatal flaw” of using accuracy models to evaluate your model is that it treats FNs and FPs as equally bad, when in reality, one may be costlier than the other.

Step 3: Use the right evaluation metrics to determine how well your model makes predictions

It doesn’t matter how sophisticated your algorithms are if you don’t use the right data to fuel your predictions, so make sure your data spreadsheet is:Long — You need a lengthy list of entries to ensure your data is representative. Wide — Note pertinent information about each entry in the row connected to the item. Labeled — Humans often need to manually label data to help train ML software to detect negative and positive cases.“Machine learning algorithms may be the fun, sexy part — everyone wants to crash that party — but improving the data is where you usually get the greatest payoff.”

Step 4: Prepare the correct data, or “fuel,” to achieve your desired outcomes

ML algorithms “learn” from your data, deriving functional predictive models. Your model emerges from a “rule” or “pattern” that an algorithm derives from your data and uses to make predictions. While it can be tempting to greenlight a model when it aligns with your human intuition, understanding your model is not typically a straightforward process. “When a newborn model emerges, it absorbs all your attention. Like counting a baby’s fingers and toes, you examine it thoroughly, poking around to see how well it works and why — what makes it tick.”

Step 5: Train your ML model, ensuring it detects patterns in a sensible way

Deploying your model means moving from the experimental phase to leveraging its predictive capabilities in the field to drive your operational decisions. Deployment will require full-stack cooperation and buy-in from team members at every level of your organization. Though your leaders may be the ones approving your model, it’s vital that you overcome any resistance and get buy-in from the staff tasked with deploying it in the field. People naturally fear change, so work to build trust in your model.“ML delivers a rocket, but those in charge still must oversee its launch.”

Step 6: Deploy your ML model, getting full-stack buy-in throughout your organization

“When you launch astronauts into space, you commit yourself to a new job: You’ve got to keep them alive. Likewise, once it’s in play, sustaining a model’s viability moving forward takes maintenance, monitoring, and vigilance.”

Commit to maintaining your model and a strong ethical compass

Mastering the Rare Art of Machine Learning Deployment

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

problemsolving

Problem Solving

computerscience

Computer Science

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

softwareengineering

Software Engineering

The AI Playbook

Everyone loves success and hopes it will continue, but people sometimes make mistakes or misunderstand their situations, and everything goes awry. People and companies make bad choices, and accidents happen, sometimes with dire consequences. However, you and your company can mitigate and manage your risk, build collaborative risk management into your culture, and even prevent some of those consequences if you understand the underlying causes of bad outcomes.

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Sustained success over time is the only way to demonstrate reliability.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Leaders must recognize and understand risks.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">A system’s design creates the boundaries within which it is reliable. </li><li class="ql-align-justify">People are fallible.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Achieving organizational reliability requires a combination of human and systemic factors.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">You can predict human and organizational reliability – within limits.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Today’s global risks can seem overwhelming, but you can meet them.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">People and organizations can achieve reliable sustained success.</li></ul>

Key Points

If you strive to be reliable, doing something just once in a while is insufficient – even when you do it well.“To be reliable, high performance must be sustainable.”Reliability isn’t perfection. Mistakes and accidents happen. Unexpected and unpredictable circumstances arise. Even performing solidly over time doesn’t guarantee future flawless performance. The risk of failure doesn’t magically disappear. Whether you are analyzing everyday tasks, creating presentations, flying jets, or performing surgery, the risk of failure is always present.

Sustained success over time is the only way to demonstrate reliability.

To manage an organization’s risk, leaders must pay attention to each level of its operations. Risk management first requires perceiving and grasping the presence of a risk. “One of the biggest challenges you face as a business leader is preparing for hidden risks.”A leader wrestling with multiple competing priorities might miss non-obvious risks. Indeed, sometimes the risks a leader recognizes are just the “tip of the iceberg,” and graver risks remain hidden under the surface.

Leaders must recognize and understand risks.

Sometimes systems fail, whether due to human error or technological or systemic flaws. To manage systems and make them reliable, leaders need to understand how they work both when they are functioning properly and when they fail. “How can we predict and manage system performance? The answer begins with understanding what shapes system performance – the influences that determine the results systems produce.”Systems should optimize their core functions, like making calls or sending email messages, while also heeding the functions they may deem less important.

A system’s design creates the boundaries within which it is reliable.

One of the principal socio-technical risks is a simple, unavoidable fact about human beings: they make mistakes. But, as with system failures, organizations can manage and minimize human failures – if their leaders understand how performance works and what motivates and shapes it.“Most days, the socio-technical combinations of system and human performance produce positive results. Ironically, these same combinations also cause disasters.”

People are fallible.

“Highly reliable organizations continuously try to see and understand risk, including internal and external factors influencing their performance.”

Achieving organizational reliability requires a combination of human and systemic factors.

Leaders must manage and understand their organizations, employees, and systems. They can’t predict the future, but they do have several ways to assess future risks, including investigations, audits, inspections, employee reports, and “predictive risk modeling.” “All methods of seeing and understanding risk have systematic limitations and are subject to human interpretation bias.”

You can predict human and organizational reliability – within limits.

The world has changed dramatically over the past 100 years, from the dominance of cars and airline travel to the internet, with all its upsides and downsides. Dangerous forms of nationalism have arisen and could lead to disruption and conflict. Climate change presents tremendous risk. Still, individuals and organizations are not helpless; they can help mitigate these global risks.“We live in a dangerous world. Many of the things you and I do in our everyday lives – fly in an airplane, get treated in a hospital, or drive a vehicle, for example – bring with them inherent risks.”

Today’s global risks can seem overwhelming, but you can meet them.

“If we are to manage risk optimally, we must take a deeper dive into the realities of socio-technical risk and think differently.”

People and organizations can achieve reliable sustained success.

Dealing with risk, from your private life to your industry, requires a systematic, scientific approach.  The best ways to address risk vary depending on the particular risk. The hazards in your personal life aren’t the same as hazards facing your company or industry. Use the Sequence of Reliability as a framework in all instances – by discovering and analyzing risk, and managing your systems and people to prevent harm – while varying your hypotheses, analyses, and solutions to fit the scale and circumstances at hand.

Final Closure

A Proven Method to Build Resilience and Reliability.

Be prepared for the dangerous and largely unknown risks that threaten your business and learn how to survive and thrive when uncertainty hits.Leaders today must navigate their teams and organizations through unprecedented levels of uncertainty. It feels like every year there is some-game changing technology or catastrophe that gives rise to a “new normal” and sends businesses scrambling for how to rethink themselves to operate under these new conditions. In The Leader’s Guide to Managing Risk, K. Scott Griffith, a former airline pilot, socio-technical physicist, and author of the first independently-audited high reliability and just culture model offers practical and proven methods to build processes that will withstand the winds of uncertainty while driving success. By understanding that organizations are people operating within systems, leaders of all kinds will build reliability and resiliency into their culture and set up their business to withstand the next big changes that come their way.<ul><li> Learn a new way of seeing, understanding, and managing risk.</li><li>Understand how people and systems interact in organizations and how to build processes that increase resilience and performance.</li><li>Collaborate with all stakeholders, including employees, to help you foresee dangers and achieve sustainable reliability.</li><li>Implement proven methods from Scott’s award-winning model that is being used in some of the most prestigious healthcare, EMS, and transportation companies in the world.</li><li>Achieve independent validation of success through certification.</li></ul>

strategy

Strategy

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

business

Business

humanresources

Human Resources

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

K. Scott Griffith

The Leader's Guide to Managing Risk

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Stress and tension can compromise your health and well being.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Simple - but often overlooked - techniques can help you reduce stress.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Research shows that laughter really is the best medicine.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Quiet time can include meditation, breathing, writing and taking a bath.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Release tension by making noise, such as a loud groan, a good scream, singing and crying.</li></ul>

Takeaways

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Moving releases physical and emotional stress, so try exercise, yoga, dance or another physical activity.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Try the carefree things you did in childhood, such as color, read (or have someone read to you) and play with crafts.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Talking is an effective release, even if you’re just talking to yourself.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Escape by going home on time, spending time outdoors or taking a vacation.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Get enough sleep, quit worrying, get rid of some of your stuff and remember that you have choices.</li></ul>

Feeling stressed? Filled with tension? Like most people, you probably don’t take care of yourself very well. Most folks work too much and feel guilty when they take time off or relax, even for a moment. You can undress your stress with 30 simple and fun tension relievers that are so obvious you’ll wonder why you’ve overlooked them.“Take a snooze, go for a walk, read a trashy book, see a silly movie. Everything will be waiting for you when you resurface. I promise.”

Tiny Tensions

“We are not designed physically to keep up with the technology we are smart enough to invent.”These take their toll. So, what can you do to counteract that tension and stress?-Laughter-Quiet Time-Noisy Time-Move around-Kindergarten Magic-Escape-Stop the Madness

30 Curiously Fun Ways to Take Off Tension

Take off tension and take back your life with a variety of simple techniques that will leave you soothed, stress-free and satisfied. When is the last time you: <ul> <li>Danced around your living room?</li> <li>Screamed at the top of your lungs?</li> <li>Bought a box of crayons for yourself?</li> <li>Took a field trip?</li> </ul> In quick, easy and not-necessarily-orthodox methods, Undress Your Stress will show you how to strip away stress and shed life's pressure.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Lois Levy

Undress Your Stress

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Take on “messy challenges.”</li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Ecosystem innovation” connects people, organizations, and technologies to solve big problems.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Ecosystem innovation relies on specific sources of power.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">The “innovation choreographer” focuses on building solutions, rewarding everyone, and adapting to uncertainty.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Set an ambitious goal that aligns actions.”</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Understand your current ecosystem’s challenges and opportunities.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Design your future ecosystem.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Plan the shift from your current to your future ecosystem.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Create your future ecosystem.</li></ul>

Take-Aways

Messy challenges such as poverty and climate change resist the kind of innovation that results in new apps or otherwise fine-tunes the status quo. These challenges demand innovation that takes existing concepts, tools, and expertise and organizes them into new, problem-solving ecosystems.“The big shift in thinking is to see that, in every case, the innovation is the ecosystem.”

Take on “messy challenges.”

Start-ups, nonprofits, and large companies assemble real-world “Lego blocks” — people, organizations, and technology — into cohesive ecosystems. The innovation lies in the unique way these entities combine blocks, not in the individual blocks themselves.“No invention is an island. To succeed, individual inventions must be part of an ecosystem of people, organizations, and technology.”

“Ecosystem innovation” connects people, organizations, and technologies to solve big problems.

The ability of ecosystems such as Airbnb to grow rests on these sources of power:<ol><li class="ql-align-justify">“Lots of building blocks” — Whether it’s people learning new skills, assets being underused, or innovative technologies being developed, more building blocks exist now than at any other time in history.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Built-in motivations” — Different motivations and rewards drive people and organizations. Ecosystems leverage this difference to create win-win situations that incentivize everyone to participate, which fuels continued growth.</li></ol>

Ecosystem innovations rely on specific sources of power.

3- “Rule-breaking” — The ability of ecosystems to break or change rules ethically and legally helps them circumvent industry constraints and barriers. 4- “Magical synergies” — Ecosystems combine individual innovations into a powerful system, causing synergies between disparate parts to emerge and create new value and growth. 5- “Adaptive flexibility” — Unlike conventional businesses with rigid rules, ecosystems easily adapt to new challenges by adding or subtracting blocks and connections.

The innovation choreographer is an emerging role. Though essential, they lack recognition, as UX designers did in the early years of online business. Innovation choreographers connect people, organizations, and technologies to achieve sweeping goals. They bring talented people together to turn ambitious visions into reality. Innovation choreographers are usually generalists who understand the big picture of a given challenge, cut across boundaries, strategically break the rules, solve problems adaptively, and tell stories that galvanize support.“We deserve work worthy of our talent.”

The “innovation choreographer” focuses on building solutions, rewarding everyone, and adapting to uncertainty.

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Building complete solutions — They arrange the Legos functionally by seeing the big picture of the ecosystem, understanding that connections — not individual components — create the most value, and ensuring that no key pieces are missing.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Rewarding everyone — They give individuals and organizations tailored rewards that match their unique motivations to generate win-win outcomes that benefit everyone.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Creatively adapting to uncertainty — They take creative action despite uncertainties.</li></ul>

Innovation choreographers main tasks

Commence ecosystem innovation by setting an ambitious goal that inspires a diverse range of individuals and organizations to work together. For example, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy set the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of that decade. This aspiration inspired coordinated action from Congress, NASA scientists, and the American public, leading to Neil Armstrong setting foot on the lunar surface in 1969.“Being able to shape the future also makes us responsible for the future we create.”

“Set an ambitious goal that aligns actions.”

“A big view of the current ecosystem — the area you care about — allows you to better explore the real-world messiness that underlies challenges.”

Understand your current ecosystem’s challenges and opportunities.

To craft a bold future vision, start by considering current trends, ideas from other fields, underutilized people and resources, innovative technology, and “unmet needs.” Map out the Lego blocks and connections of your future ecosystem, as you did with your current ecosystem. Test your ecosystem for completeness by seeking out the components that might prevent it from working in the real world.“Remember the trifecta — aim for something that is practical, ambitious, and creates significant value.”

Design your future ecosystem.

“How do you get from the way the world looks today to the ecosystem you want to create for the future?”

Plan to shift from your current to your future ecosystem.

Embrace the “act-learn-adapt cycle” to manage risks in an unpredictable world. Build flexibility into your design so you can pivot or make changes. Use “modular blocks” that you can quickly assemble, reuse, and rearrange. Measure your “success, progress, and performance.” Success is whether your ecosystem works well and creates value for all participants; progress measures how well you move through your thin slices; and performance considers whether your team is efficient and productive.

Create your future ecosystem.

Demonstrate how “ecosystem innovation” brings people, organizations, and technologies together to solve complex problems. Whether you’re a small business or a global organization, their practical guide will help you innovate a “future ecosystem.”

Unleash your potential to do bigger things!   In today’s changing world, where business leaders must navigate industry disruption, entrepreneurs struggle to push beyond initial success, and activists tackle hard challenges like climate change, there is a need for a more powerful way to do innovation. Too many innovators are trapped by the limits of common innovation practices. The way we’ve been taught to create and innovate for the past two decades is failing us.   It’s time for a paradigm shift. To unlock the secrets to doing bigger things, this book introduces the pioneering concept of ecosystem innovation. Drawing on their experience with a wide range of innovators, from Fortune Global 100 companies to local entrepreneurs in Nepal, authors Dan McClure and Jennifer Wilde present remarkable stories and actionable insights for achieving more with innovation.   With this step-by-step guide, you’ll acquire the big-picture mindset and capabilities you need to outmaneuver fast-moving competitors and break through the ceiling on innovation impact. Do Bigger Things offers a practical way to set bolder goals, understand harder challenges, and design more powerful solutions.   Shatter the notion that game-changing endeavors are beyond your reach, your organization’s capabilities, or your community’s grasp. The time to do bigger things is now.

productivity

Productivity

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

creativity

Creativity

Dan McClure

Jennifer Wilde

Do Bigger Things

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">You only have one life, so make every second count by “playing to win” every day.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Take ownership of your game and relentlessly pursue excellence in four steps.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Prepare mentally, physically and emotionally to “play the long game.”</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Work toward your goals relentlessly each day with the “one-percent mentality.” </li><li class="ql-align-justify">Choose your team wisely on your journey toward success.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Don’t let stress prevent you from excelling. Control it by following three rules.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Reframe your view of failure. Look at it as a component of success.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Trust the process” and share your authentic gifts with the world.</li></ul>

The saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun,” might ring true sometimes. The outcome is the same whenever you choose to live your life passively instead of proactively: regret.Pause and reflect on your past year: How much time did you spend embodying your life’s purpose? How much time did you waste on unproductive meetings, unnecessary activities and inefficient processes? Are you content with your career path? Are you truly happy in your personal life? Do you wish you had prioritized what matters to you? Remember, you only have one life and are responsible for making it count.

You only have one life, so make every second count by “playing to win” every day.

The journey of greatness requires these 4 steps:<ol><li class="ql-align-justify">“Own your game” – Take ownership of your life and avoid “playing the victim” when things don’t go as planned.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Be 100% all-in” – Commit to your game on an emotional, mental and physical level. Without commitment, you can’t create a workable strategy or achieve results – you’re just hoping something good happens.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Trust yourself enough to take risks without second-guessing your decisions.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Make hating to lose a priority” – Cultivate the discipline, dedication and “hate-to-lose mentality” required to be truly accountable to yourself and your goals. </li></ol>

Take ownership of your game and relentlessly pursue excellence in four steps.

Preparation is vital when playing to win.Preparing to play also means prioritizing your physical and mental health. You can’t achieve your goals or show up for others if you feel exhausted and depleted. Call a “timeout” if you need time to reset and re-energize. After your break, refocus by reminding yourself of your goals and priorities and adjusting your plans as needed. When you invest in building mental, emotional and physical strength, you develop the toughness and resiliency required to achieve, even when other people respond pessimistically to them.

Prepare mentally, physically and emotionally to “play the long game.”

In theory, it’s easy to understand the importance of healthy habits, yet 99% of people fail to make the changes needed to put the right habits into place. Reflect on your daily patterns: Are you taking intentional action toward your goals, or are you just relying on what feels familiar as you attempt to get through another day? Write down your daily habits.As James Clear explains in Atomic Habits, you may not see results overnight, but over time, small changes “compound into remarkable results.”

Work toward your goals relentlessly each day with the “one-percent mentality.”

Surround yourself with the right people by following these rules:<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Choose a team with the “It Factor” – Decide what success looks like to you, who are winning on your terms and inspire you to be your best every day.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Get sponsors and mentors – Connect with sponsors – professionals who’ve achieved higher levels of success than you.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Build a robust social network – Continually assess your social network and look for ways to expand it.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Identify cheerleaders and supporters – Not all your connections need to be the living embodiment of the kind of success you’re pursuing. </li><li class="ql-align-justify">Know when to ask for support. </li></ul>

Choose your team wisely on your journey toward success.

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">When you experience stress at chronic, harmful levels, it can trigger serious health issues, such as high blood pressure – or even trigger a heart attack. Get your stress levels under control by doing three things: </li><li class="ql-align-justify">“Decide not to be stressed” – Have you ever noticed that some people get stressed out when faced with a challenging situation, while others don’t? </li><li class="ql-align-justify">Focus on what you can change – Don’t overly fixate on things you can’t control, including past failures or missed opportunities. </li><li class="ql-align-justify">Breathe – Your breathing tends to speed up when you’re stressed, so take some long, deep breaths. </li></ul>

Don’t let stress prevent you from excelling. Control it by following three rules.

Failure can be discouraging, but remember that every successful leader, athlete and entrepreneur has failed. The secret is to “fail forward”: Learn from situations that don’t go as you’d hoped and keep pursuing your goal. Think back to when you were a child: You learned how to walk by falling repeatedly. The same rule applies in adulthood. “Successful players in the game realize they must learn from situations so they can effectively navigate through it every time the situation pops up.”While you should become comfortable with failure, this doesn’t mean you should be comfortable with losses.

Reframe your view of failure. Look at it as a component of success.

When you commit to unleashing your full potential and living authentically, you do the world a service: You position yourself to share your talents and gifts with others. Take inspiration from Academy and Grammy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington and take the necessary risks to align with your purpose. “When you don’t care about what other people say, and you have let go of that fear of judgment, you have reached a dangerously amazing level of freedom.”

“Trust the process” and share your authentic gifts with the world.

Dominate The Game will mentally prepare you to show up the right way each day, motivate you to take the shots that others won't take, and then help you to elevate, separate, and dominate your game. The principles discussed will challenge you, pushing you to become confident in your ability to conquer any situation you may face in pursuit of your goals, ambitions, and dreams. The pain of regret is far greater than the pain of discipline; remember, life waits for no one. If you want to achieve greatness, you need to take charge and make plays happen. It all starts with you. Dominate the Game is a complementary book to Jennifer A. Garrett's book, Move the Ball, a personal growth book that has been recognized across the globe. Move the Ball is a book focused on preparing vision, strategies, playbooks, blueprints, and game plans to accomplish your goals and priorities in business, in your career, and in life. Dominate the Game focuses on elevation, playing to win, a mindset of zero limits, acceleration, stretching oneself, next level, exponential growth and going against the grain to not just "move the ball", but to dominate your game. ﻿﻿﻿Tomorrow is never promised, so today is the day for you to suit up, to show up, and to move the ball.

habits

Habits

mentalhealth

Mental Health

timemanagement

Time Management

Jennifer A. Garrett

Dominate The Game

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Don't try to be the perfect coach; instead, focus on being fully present for your client.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Harness your emotions.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Keep your focus on clients and help them solve their own problems.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Encourage your clients to reflect on emotional experiences.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Help your client uncover clear, attainable goals.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Adapt your communication style to your client's needs.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Help your client discern habits and behaviors that impede growth.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Identify your client's social needs and core values to help them build a healthy life.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Have your clients verbalize new insights and help them commit to real change.</li></ul>

A safe, open environment is a prerequisite for meaningful dialogue. Your ability to create such an environment hinges on embodying a coaching mindset: being fully present and attentive to clients. To be fully present, you must embrace “unselfing”: practicing humility and letting go of the belief you must be a “perfect” coach to help people. When you practice being present as you use your coaching skills, you will, inevitably, grow in your craft. “You must let go of being the perfect coach.﻿”

Don’t try to be the perfect coach; instead, focus on being fully present for your client.

To “unself” and become more present, work to set aside your personal needs, expectations and judgments in coaching relationships. Foster an open, non-directive mindset that prioritizes the client’s experiences and perspectives. Cultivate the mental habits of being a “self-less witness” to the client’s journey, maintaining a calm, curious, compassionate presence and believing in the client’s inherent strength and capability to grow.

Maintaining a calm and compassionate coaching presence requires tuning into your emotional responses. Relying solely on cognitive awareness in coaching – interpreting and analyzing based on your experiences – can hinder genuine understanding of a client’s unique perspective and feelings. Instead, blend cognitive and sensory awareness, opening up to emotional and physical reactions that arise during conversation and offering interpretations as invitations for further exploration.

Harness your emotions.

Use non-reactive empathy to recognize and validate clients’ emotions without absorbing them. Use phrases like, “When you mention this… it seems to bring up feelings of….” This approach allows you to cultivate awareness of your emotional responses during conversations, discern whether these emotions are yours or your client’s and offer perceptions for the client’s confirmation – as opposed to trying to fix their problems or interjecting your own experiences.“Your job isn’t making people feel better. You coach them to see better.”

Coaching that focuses on listening to your client and asking them open-ended questions to challenge their existing perceptions and beliefs can unlock creative insights. By refraining from offering advice or direct solutions, you can boost the client’s problem-solving skills and personal growth.  “Coaching is a spontaneous interaction that often leads to greater self-awareness more than goal achievement, but you keep the end in mind to make sure they are addressing what is hindering their evolution.”

Keep your focus on clients and help them solve their own problems.

Reflecting on emotional experiences allows clients to uncover their truths and motivations. This process enhances self-awareness and enables more confident decision-making by illuminating the underlying emotional drivers behind their actions and perceptions.“Unpleasant feelings are just as crucial as the enjoyable ones in helping make sense of the choices we make.”

Encourage your clients to reflect on emotional experiences.

A clear goal provides a specific direction for coaching conversations. It lets your client focus on overcoming resistance and achieving transformative changes rather than making superficial adjustments.Don’t predefine the outcome based on your understanding of someone’s situation or hurry into problem-solving mode. Premature action plans might bypass the client’s deeper insights or personal desires. “To open the window to blind spots, we need someone else to summarize our thoughts so we can objectively see them and then ask questions we can’t comfortably ask ourselves.”

Help your client uncover clear, attainable goals.

Guiding clients in coaching involves staying attuned to their narratives. These stories illuminate and clarify the desires and aspirations that form the basis for choosing and committing to achievable, concrete goals. Desires often hide within expressed frustrations and wishes.“The reaction you have to their resistance can cause friction between you and your coachee, decreasing their willingness to be coached.”

Adapt your communication style to your client’s needs.

Recognizing problematic habits and behaviors offers insight into your clients’ underlying “operating system.” Such patterns reveal connections between past experiences and clients’ current identities and actions. Your coaching can be a crucial tool for uncovering and adjusting these deep-seated patterns, thus enabling your clients to make more conscious, deliberate choices.“When coachees say they have been acting a certain way as long as they can remember, they are sharing not only a habit but a reason why they probably won’t succeed at changing.”

Help your client discern habits and behaviors that impede growth.

Helping your clients choose how to present themselves in the world can help them understand their social need for acceptance and move toward healthy, beneficial professional and personal relationships. “Even mentally healthy humans tend to rely on the opinions of others to feel complete.”

Identify your client’s social needs and values to help them build a healthy life.

Self-discovery work is peppered with “aha moments” that give clients the clarity they need to move forward. To assist clients in articulating their new insights, encourage them to describe their realizations concisely. Provide them the silence and space to grasp and express their newfound understanding. If they struggle to find the right words, summarize their thoughts and invite them to refine your words. This process can deepen their reflection, clarify their insights, and transform vague ideas into tangible action steps.“A breakthrough that reshapes your client’s story is always possible.”

Have your clients verbalize new insights and help them commit to real change.

Tools and techniques needed to guide your clients toward the kinds of “light bulb moments” that lead to significant breakthroughs in thinking and behavior.

Light bulb moments in coaching are the creative insights that change minds and lives. A new, highly actionable guide for disrupting the narratives holding clients back from resolving problems and making the changes they want in themselves, Breakthrough Coaching provides methods, resources, and exercises to help you activate immediate and sustainable shifts in perspective and behavior, moving you forward on your path of coaching mastery. Stop being haunted by doubt and discomfort. Discover how to quickly create safety and connection so your clients accept when you challenge their thinking. Then know what to say that evokes the creative flashes of insight that change their minds and lives forever. Read Breakthrough Coaching to unlock access to: <ul><li>5 Modules of learning and discovery</li><li>19 Resource Tools and 5 Practice Exercises</li><li>Coaching case studies and examples</li><li>And so much more</li></ul>No longer will you worry "can I really say that?" or "should I have said more?" Instead, you'll be able to reveal deep desires and dreams, shine a light on blind spots and mental blocks, and open your client's minds to new perspectives that change their stories ripe with new possibilities-in less than an hour of your time together.

books

Books

meditation

Meditation

Marcia Reynolds

Breakthrough Coaching

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Innovative leaders should explore enlightened consciousness.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Fixing today’s problems requires cultivating higher awareness.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Leaders who practice elevated thinking, being and acting can become emotional and spiritual healers.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">The “Leader as executor” role is outmoded.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">To achieve heightened consciousness, practice self-care.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Lead a life of purpose – the right purpose.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Today’s world needs leaders to be healers.</li></ul>

You cannot deal with today’s troubles by applying yesterday’s management methods. Weak solutions only inspire additional problems. Leaders must invest their energy in an advanced form of innovative, mindful leadership.Executives face huge challenges. Major disruption is rocking many industrial sectors. “Some estimates suggest there has been more technological advance in the last five years than in the previous 500.”

Innovative leaders should explore enlightened consciousness

Consider, as a starting point, a lesson from Buddhism. It teaches that every person lives in a separate spiritual reality made up of his or her unique experiences, an internal world of a deeper self with heightened awareness. “This is the moment when what we need most is enough people with the skill, heart and wisdom to help us pull ourselves back from the edge of breakdown and onto a different path.” (Otto Scharmer, senior MIT lecturer)

Fixing today’s problems requires cultivating higher awareness

Thanks to these qualities, great leaders inspire those around them. Because of who they are, how they carry themselves, how they think, how they act, what they do and how they energize others, they have the ability to transform fragmented organizations into “coherent wholes.” That in itself is an act of healing.“There is almost nothing as beautiful or powerful as a human being whose every cell is alive with streaming energy and intelligence, as seen in truly great performances in music, dance or theater.”

Leaders who practice elevated thinking, being and acting can become emotional and spiritual healers

“Leader-as-healer” is the advanced leadership construct that replaces the outdated leader-as-executor model which rose to prominence when getting bigger and quicker took center stage in the business world. Executors prioritized profits, compelled action and enforced discipline, but they didn’t lead. Such executives see commerce not as a platform for connection, healing and mutual success, but as a grim battlefield where attrition rules.

The “Leader as executor” role is outmoded

Today’s leaders and their employees must be receptive to new ideas and nurture and maintain an open spirit. For most businesspeople, that calls for some level of personal transformation that includes getting back in touch with their inner selves. This begins with self-care. Leaders should pay close attention to their emotional, spiritual and physical needs, including their health.“True leadership sometimes requires that one decisively excise moral and spiritual tumors from the bodies of organizations or nations.”

To achieve heightened consciousness, practice self-care

People without a strong sense of purpose end up navigating life like a ship in stormy waters without a compass or rudder.A leader who operates unemotionally, based only on rationality, might translate purpose as increased profits and productivity, and those are necessary business goals. But your life’s purpose should be internally worthwhile. Define your values and consider the contributions you can make that will help improve the world.“Emotions are the gateway to our deeper humanity, to a richer, more heartfelt and empathic relationship to life and to leadership.”

Lead a life of purpose – the right purpose

Leaders should abandon archaic thinking that has failed in the past, dropping tactics that focus on doing, not being, and evolving beyond hyperrationality. This degraded leadership approach does not lead to greater effectiveness, healthier organizations or healthier people.“All too frequently…leaders…operate out of overt or covert self-interest, prioritizing and protecting their own positions.”

Today’s world needs leaders to be healers

Spirituality, mental healing, mindfulness and wise leadership, including how to meditate, listen deeply, and make sense of “BANI” (“brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible”) situations in business and life.

Business Book of the Year Award 2023, UK Business Books Award Leaders of today must possess potent powers for logic, reason, discernment and strategic forecasting. Yet, they must also be empathic and therefore embodied; grounded and therefore intuitive; present and therefore awake. They must be skilled in mindfulness and deep listening, able to inspire authentic engagement and collaboration, and possess a clear and wholehearted sense of service, mission and purpose - restoring coherence where there is fragmentation and unity where there is division. Nicholas Janni presents this new and necessary leadership style as the Leader as Healer. The book outlines both a theoretical and practical map towards a new form of leadership, one that embodies the 'skill, heart, and wisdom' that the current moment demands. The pathway Janni describes is one of integration and restoration, which is designed to reawaken the innate human capacities - physical and emotional, individual and transpersonal - that were previously discarded and forgotten during our perilous journey towards profit-maximization and "infinite" economic growth. It offers a way to grow ourselves as leaders and to heal our organizations.

communication

Communication

Nicholas Janni

Leader as Healer

<ul><li class="ql-align-justify">Develop your next leaders by investing in your people.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Listen to your team and learn their needs.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Help your team “excel at their jobs.”</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Identify potential leaders and invite them to the “leadership table.”</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Set goals for new leaders and empower them to take action.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Motivate leaders to grow.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Challenge new leaders to work as a team.</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Choose your best leaders to develop and mentor more deeply.</li></ul>

To generate organizational growth and overcome business challenges, focus on developing strong leaders. An organization’s growth is directly linked to the growth of its leaders. Invest in leadership development. Marketing, reorganization or cost-cutting will prove ineffective if your company lacks competent leadership.“We cannot reach our potential without the help of others.”

Develop your next leaders by investing in your people

Leaders must listen to understand and connect with their team members. Listening leads to a deeper comprehension of each individual’s needs, aspirations and perspectives. Effective listening goes beyond merely hearing the words someone says; it involves actively seeking meaning. By genuinely listening, leaders build trust and empathy, fostering stronger connections with their team members.“Your goal is to equip people in such a way that they learn not only to do ﻿their job well, but to lead and to develop their own equipping leader’s mindset.”

Listen to your team and learn their needs

Once you gain perspective on how your team operates and their professional goals, your job as a leader is to equip them with the necessary mindset and tools to excel in their positions. Be a role model worth following. People feel more inclined to learn and participate in development activities when they see their leaders vesting in personal and professional growth. Spend quality time playing team-building games, facilitating increased interactions, lessons and a shared experience.“Telling others to do what you haven’t done yourself isn’t equipping. It’s bossing.”

Help your team “excel at their jobs.”

Identify potential leaders within your organization. They are familiar with the organization’s performance and culture, which reduces the uncertainty and adaptation time associated with external hires. These internal candidates have already established influence among their peers, a critical component of effective leadership.“The only way for any person to learn leadership is to lead. Leading isn’t a theoretical exercise.”

Identify potential leaders and invite them to the “leadership table.”

Once your leaders sit at the “table,” give them goals and the power to enact necessary changes. Discuss their core values individually to ensure they demonstrate integrity and authenticity and agree to be held accountable to these values. Evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Have discussions to help them develop self-awareness.“Only secure leaders give power to others.”

Set goals for new leaders and empower them to take action

Developing new leaders means teaching them to access the motivation to push forward and grow. Giving your new leaders a purpose, autonomy, collaborative partners and the ability to tap into their drive creates sustainable forward progression. The freedom to chart their own courses and make independent decisions motivates many leaders because it enhances their engagement and output. Leaders develop solid relationships and teamwork as they thrive on collaboration and the shared pursuit of objectives.“People don’t determine their future. They determine their habits, which determine their future.”

Motivate leaders to grow

Once your leaders have the drive, the next step in development involves making them work as a team. Creating a team of leaders boosts organizational resilience and eliminates blind spots. Ensure that leaders align with your organization’s vision and understand how their personal and team goals fit its purpose.“A lot comes into play to develop a great team. That’s why championship teams are so difficult to create and lead.”

Challenge new leaders to work as a team

Choosing the best new leaders involves using the Pareto principle. This principle, applied to leadership, suggests that 80% of results often come from the top 20% of leaders. Focusing your mentoring efforts on the top 20% of your team maximizes efficiency and effectiveness.Choose your mentees for their potential and commitment. Personalize your mentoring approach to address each leader’s unique needs, strengths and individual growth.“Good mentors don’t hesitate to have difficult conversations with the people they mentor. They deal with the ‘elephants’ in the room even when others won’t.”

Choose your best leaders to develop and mentor more deeply

Invest in People Like Your Future Depends on It

The AI Playbook

The Leader's Guide to Managing Risk

Undress Your Stress

Do Bigger Things

Dominate The Game

instructor Hood