Creating and developing personal and leadership brand value
12/02/2012 Leave a Comment
Join us at Mowbray by Design CONNECT on Linkedin – a networking group for all who are interested or involved in Coaching, Mentoring, Facilitating and Public Speaking in the realms of people and organisational development.
Great international networking, lively discussions, co-creation and thought leadership… I look forward to your contribution and to seeing you there :-) Louise
09/01/2012 Leave a Comment
I’ve dubbed 2012 the year fluidity. From necessity in life and the markets. 2011 was, in my humble book, the year of resistance. We ranted and railed and defaulted on a big brash country scale. We held on as tightly as possible not really getting ‘what was’ had already escaped us in 2009, discarded us in 2010 and made it felt in 2011.
Cause and effect have changed. If we do this we get that. Actually, if we do this, we get a lucky dip. Perhaps curiosity is the only sanity. If we do this, what will we get? And if we do it again, what else will crop up? Somehow, one has to have a sense of humour regardless of the outcome. And fluidity – are we able to move with the tides, the natural ebb and flow and stay on our toes knowing we can control little above our state of mind or the context we operate in – or in navel gazing speak, our consciousness?
A great dins last night with a diverse, influential group of people. All involved in the markets in some way shape or form. And the debate, well it was varied. And it was fluid. No conclusive answers and many searching Q’s?
Taking stock in a new year seems to be a natural phenomenon. What was 2011 all about, am I doing more than treading water, and what do I want to achieve this year? No small Q’s and yet little steps are the only solution. Stay fluid, take a small step at a time, be mindful and present to every nuance.
This, incase you are wondering, is as much of a note to you as to self! Wishing you and yours the best of the best this 2012.
25/10/2011 Leave a Comment
As reported by Simon Lutterbie in the Wall Street Journal on the 23rd October:
“The Wall Street Journal Europe Global Survey of “happiness at work” has yielded some surprising findings. Over 2,000 individuals completed the recent survey hosted on this site over the past few weeks. People who completed it represent 90 nationalities, work in over 80 different countries and represent over 30 sectors of the global economy.”
Jessica Pryce-Jones’ article introducing the survey garnered over 15,000 hits, becoming one of the most successful articles ever on The Source, the Wall Street Journal blog on which it is posted. You too can read the original article and complete the survey by clicking on the link.
The survey used the iOpener Institute’s iPPQ, a questionnaire that measures five components, the 5Cs, of happiness at work:
There were five lessons learned from the first round of this research, which may surprise you:
“People who are happy at work put in far more effort, work longer hours, and are more productive than those who aren’t. They remain at their jobs twice as long and they work 25% more time than an unhappy employee works” Jessica Pryce-Jones
If you want to learn more about happiness at work personally or for your company, contact me…
12/09/2011 Leave a Comment
Passion – it’s the stuff of flow. When work doesn’t feel like work. When time contracts or expands. Opportunities open up and so do our minds, souls and beings. And our being drives our doing. Lovely stuff. How many people do you personally know who are living their passions? Good Q – are you?
I am currently reading The Passion Test by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood. At first the title grabbed me, then the logic stepped in. “Not another self-help book”. Saying that I bought the book and took the test. Wow! Finally something that speaks into being in action of my passion rather than my goals. Passion is sustainable, it’s authentic – we can do it without effort. The truth is that we all crave to live in passion and all else is a poor substitute.
And what if we held real, deep Curiosity as the context of our enquiry? Active listening, insightful questioning, empathy and the ability to have difficult conversations. Good old fashioned relationship building. If we can hold this context we develop our ability for real human compassion, connection and intimacy at levels that serve us and them. And yes this applies to business.
When we examine all the research – powerful, concrete, quality research – we know that what feels right – living with curiosity as the context and passion as the driver, we too can be as successful in our chosen paths as those who are leaders in their fields. It just takes a little curiosity to get the ball rolling and a real determination to live in passion…
10/09/2011 Leave a Comment
”Find a teeny spot you’d like to change for the better. Maybe it’s the way you answer the phone or how you greet people on the street. Be consistent. Follow that one little spot until you’ve transformed your whole life. Because you can’t change just one thing without changing everything.”
Naomi Ragen, The Tenth Song
15/08/2011 Leave a Comment
When we apply the word brand to people we should really be asking for a clearer definition. At the heart of building people brands, we use the same principles. Those of self-awareness, understanding our strengths, really getting how we are perceived, making conscious decisions about how best to deliver what it is that makes us successful… and strategic choices about how we put it out there.
Depending on your purpose, the outcomes you are committed to and the role you are in – or want to be in, the really smart stuff is all about consciously causing the effects you want to experience.
The art is being in action of all of this, whether you are in sales and are looking for better client impact, relationships and the ability to have those difficult conversations that are part and parcel of the territory. And the resulting rise in revenues – afterall, this is how you are ultimately measured.
Or perhaps you are an entrepreneur, a business owner where you clearly are the brand and your bottom line is a direct result of whether people buy into you? Executives and Leaders may need to focus on both their internal and external impact… And political and celebrity figures, probably the most public of all brands, have a whole array of specific and critical issues to deal with.
People brands – well, let’s face it, we all have one, need to be managed effectively to produce the outcomes we desire…
31/07/2011 1 Comment
According to John Baldoni in his article by the same title in the Washington Post where he argues the case for nurturing your brand. “Another word that those of us in the leadership development community use for reputation is brand… Savvy executives know that brand is more than a product or service; it is the sum of how and why you connect with consumers and what they think of you.
The same applies to leaders. So when building a reputation or brand, it really is a practice of considering how your actions affect others. Leaders are judged by their accomplishments, but those achievements only occur when others believe in the leader. As with follower-ship, a successful leader’s brand relies upon reciprocity. How that brand is nurtured is important…” It’s worth a read.
