While most businesses measure their success by looking at tangible vital signs like sales, profit margins and market share, Michael McQueen explores why these ‘audible pulses’ of a business can be dangerously misleading and unreliable;

“By the time the numbers start showing that there’s a problem, it’s sometimes too late.”

As we prepare to enter a new financial year, Michael offers five questions designed to help leaders take their ‘silent pulse’ – a powerful measure the true health, vitality and relevance of a businesses or team.

Inspirational leaders it’s your time to shine. As we head into the new financial year it’s time to reflect, evaluate performance and celebrate the successes of the past year. It’s also time to build excitement about what lies ahead, navigate a course of action for each person and shine a torch on the path to light the way. In a word, it’s time to inspire.

The ability to inspire and motivate people is the single biggest attribute of a successful leader.

Recent research by global recruitment firm Randstad shows more than half of all people surveyed (51%) want a leader that inspires and motivates – yet half of the respondents rated their own direct manager as poor or average in this area.

There is a significant gap between what is expected of our leaders and what they are delivering. Add in the fact that productivity is directly related to employee motivation and it becomes not just a people issue but actually impacts the bottom line.

Recent research by the Society for Knowledge Economics found that those with positive leadership cultures delivered a 12% productivity upside and triple the profitability of comparative companies.
So what does it take to be an inspirational leader? It takes knowledge and action.

The knowledge we require is sometimes obvious, and sometimes quite hidden.

Think of an iceberg. There is a common understanding that only 10% of an iceberg is visible above the surface. This is often, but not always, correct.
In equilibrium an iceberg will float. However often we don’t know what’s going on under the surface and the berg is often eroding. When the erosion gets too much the berg simply flips over.

Leaders need to see what’s happening at the tip of their iceberg and more importantly, they need to know “what’s going on beneath the surface” to avoid it flipping over.

The 4 areas of knowledge required by inspiring leaders are:

Technical – (what) this is what the company sells or does, their products and services, as well as the rules that relate to their industry. A manager in the banking sector needs to know something about financial regulations as well as know about the financial services and products it offers. You don’t need to be the absolute expert – but you need fundamental technical knowledge. Leaders also require basic management knowledge – how to evaluate performance, allocate resources, budget management skills. This knowledge is really obvious; it’s above the surface.

Organisational (how) – this is how do we deliver what we do, how various departments relate to each other, who has the authority to make certain decisions. It’s how the work is organised – it’s the financial delegations, the reporting structures, the policies and procedures. A leader may have great technical knowledge but you also need to know how to get the work done. This is often above and below the surface

Social – (who) – your teams, your people, the politics and culture of the workplace. It’s the knowledge you need to influence people, to match people to the task, manage conflict, harness diversity etc. This knowledge is mostly below the surface

Individual – (me) your role as leader, your self-awareness, knowing your own style/skills/abilities, understanding the scrutiny you’re under as a leader, knowing the responsibilities that you have.

As the new financial year approachs this is the time for inspirational leaders to shine.
So as you review the past year and plan for the next year here are 5 actions to ensure you are inspiring your people:

1. Navigate a course of action – as you develop individual Performance Plans for the year ahead make sure you clearly demonstrate how each person’s tasks contribute to the overall organisational objectives – 24% of people nominate this as their most important motivator.
2. Celebrate short term wins – during performance appraisals be sure to acknowledge the small successes as well as the bigger gains. For 38% of people “feeling valued” for their contribution is their number one motivator at work. During long projects, or even times when it’s business as usual, inspiring leaders find a reason to stop and celebrate with an event, a reward or a simple thank-you
3. Self-awareness – know yourself and your capabilities. Dedicate time each day to reflect on your decisions and evaluate your performance critically and honestly.
4. Take care of the little things – manage those seemingly small interpersonal workplace issues. If they’re ignored they have the ability to grow to Titanic proportions. They become distracting which then effects productivity.
5. Map out a development plan for individual staff – inspiring and motivating staff by showing them future possibilities and the route to get there is critical. Recent Randstad research highlights how half of all respondents intend to leave their current role citing lack of opportunity for growth and development. This is more than double the number that will leave due to uncompetitive salary and remuneration.

The start of a new financial year is a critical time that will set the foundations and determine the successes for the next 12 months. It’s time to lead, to inspire, and to make sure your iceberg is well balanced and avoid the tipping berg.

On New years Eve we have all found ourselves setting ambitious resolutions, “This is the year I am going to get into shape and get my life on track”, “This year I will be more productive and stop wasting time”. The 1st of July is the corporate world’s version of a New Year, people get new budgets, new targets and new direction.

A transition into a new financial year is an amazing opportunity to get our teams engaged and excited around the year ahead. Unfortunately most companies, like people, rarely manage to keep the momentum going past the first few weeks. Haven’t we all been to a planning meeting and secretly thought “This is great now, but in a month things will go back to how they were!”

Here are a few things that many companies and teams do badly when transitioning from one year to the goals and expectations of the next:

• Trying to change too much too soon.
• Carrying the baggage from the previous year into the next.
• Not being clear about the new vision.
• Not articulating clear behaviours that will make the change possible.
• Failing to provide a process where others can emotionally engage in the change.

Due to these mistakes, most businesses and teams miss out on making the most of a golden opportunity to re-engage and renew. As you move into the new financial year here are some simple steps to effectively manage the transition.

Step 1 Reflect:

If we have had losses and setbacks in the previous financial year, we often carry the emotional baggage with us into the new financial year. This baggage reduces our performance and ability to think creatively.

When we reflect on the previous financial year we tend to focus on what went wrong, what targets were missed and what didn’t get done. However this leaves us feeling heavy and burdened. While it is important to explore what got missed, just as much attention needs to go into analysing the positive. Ask yourself how did you grow and what did you do well last year?

The key step here is asking ‘why’ did you achieve these things. This is crucial as it gets you focused on success and most importantly understanding why you were successful. With this focus you have a greater chance of repeating it.

Human beings interpret the world by telling ourselves stories. For instance, the way we relate to people is through story. “Jane, she is always there for me and someone I can rely on”, “Peter can’t be trusted he is only concerned with furthering his career”. We do the same thing when we reflect on the year. “Last year was a disaster, it was just so hard and we didn’t get any traction.” These statements obviously don’t set us up for a productive new start.

When you analyse the previous year, ensure that the story you tell yourself is Accurate, Realistic and Optimistic. This is crucial when it comes to leaving the past where it belongs, and only carrying the lessons forward into the next years opportunities and challenges.

Step 2 – Rest

Companies make the mistake of blurring from one financial year to the next, without a pause. Take the time to make a clear distinction with your team so that they feel that they are moving into something new. This can be done in many ways depending on your culture and budget. You could hold a team building afternoon, get a speaker in to address a relevant issue and here is where you map out the vision for the next financial year. If you wanted to keep it low key, simply mark the occasion by giving people an afternoon off, telling them that they have worked their butts off over the last year and they deserve it. Before you freak out, you know that what you pick up in cultural impact will greatly outweigh the small loss in productivity. What ever you do ensure that there is a distinct pause between the financial years.

Step 3 – Reset

This is where you map out the vision for the next year. Various research studies show that for people to feel engaged at work they need to know where the company is going and what is it trying to achieve. This 1st of July is your perfect opportunity to clearly articulate this a new horizon. However, one trap that organisations often fall into is attempting to overachieve by declaring too many goals and initiatives. All this does is dilute the message and detach people from the outcome. Make sure the message is clear enough that they can hold it front of mind and refer to it constantly throughout the year, much like navigating by an actual horizon!

In their World of Work survey, Randstad asked employees across the globe for the number one thing their employer could do to retain them. The most common response was “Show me how my actions contribute to something that is bigger than me”. People are crying out to contribute and have a sense of meaning. Use this new financial year to show your team exactly how what they do is meaningful.

The final thing is to clearly articulate the behaviours we need to exhibit in the new year. The most common reason that people fail in their resolutions is not articulating the new behaviours they need to do for the new vision to be a reality. Take the number one new years resolution of ‘losing weight’. The most successful people at weight loss are those that articulate the exact behaviours they are going to exhibit, “exercise 4 times per week, cut out desert and no alcohol during the week.”

Business falls into the same trap, for change to occur we need to articulate the exact behaviours that need to happen. “We get back to clients within 90 minutes, we solve people’s problems on the spot, each
manager has a face to face with each team member every 2 weeks” etc. these are all clear behaviours that can be measured and followed.

Now that you have the tools go forth and transition into the new year with a clear vision and free from the baggage of the previous year.

Anyone who tells you to have a 3-5 year plan set in stone, is completely nuts…

Being in the events industry for a few years now, I have had many discussions with clients about speakers that they invite – particularly economists & futurists. They always say the same thing to me: they specifically look for speakers that are optimistic about the future and speak positively about tomorrow.

Yet the reality of it all is that many signs are showing that Europe is facing its worst year in recent years, India and China are slowing down and predicting their worst year in a decade and America faces another year of uncertainty. So the only ‘known’ is not looking good.

Recently I was trying to find out what the differences are between pessimists and optimists. I came up with this formula:

“Pessimists get it right more often because they can see the world in its current form. Optimists can see the world the way it can become. So, pessimists will never change the world, only optimists can”

The world is changing so fast and you need a map that can guide you and give you the flexibility of change. We need to speak into the uncertainty of today and change our pessimistic view to an optimistic one of positive future growth.

Below are 5 pillars to start 2012 optimistically.

1. Anticipation – knowing what’s coming so you can take advantage of it…
2. Reacting – Building systems for stronger resilience and better crisis management
3. Product  – Continuous improvement strategies in service and product
4. Marketing – World class marketing and leveraging off industry best practice
5. Innovation – Being ahead of the rest and creating encouraging environments insures a sustainable future.

I’m excited and optimistic about the next financial year and know that teams of optimistic people will ensure long term growth, greater productivity and will prove that together, optimistically, we can change the world.

In an exclusive sneak peak at Chris Helder’s inspiring eVideo series, we’d like to share with you an incredible technique for improving your influence on those around you.

Talk to your consultant today about how you can provide the entire series to your staff or clients!

Visit Chris Helder’s profile page on O2 Speakers.

Anders Sorman-Nilsson and SR27 have commissioned a B2B Social Media report that details best-practice examples and case studies of businesses who have successfully used social media for B2B sales.

Download the report from Ander’s site, thinque.

Visit Ander’s speaking profile on O2 Speakers.

We’re inviting our clients to explore future trends, master the power of influence, enhance performance and collaboration and prepare to lead into the future.

Contact us for an invite!

In just a few years, the majority of consumers will have never known a world without the internet. How does this shape their expectations of product both digital and physical?

And what can your business do to keep up?

Mike Walsh @ Future Magazine

Visit Mike Walsh’ profile on O2 Speakers.

In fact, you could almost say that between Google and Facebook, these companies know us better than we know ourselves.

Anders Sorman-Nilsson makes a compelling argument that it’s time we took a leaf out of the corporate playbook and start to invest in our relationships, both business and personal, in the same way that Google and Facebook do.

Because unless you really know your customer, how can you know what they really need?

We all want it but it appears that most of us don’t have nearly enough of it. What am I talking about? Happiness!

Happiness research is now big business. Where once the secret of happiness was left to the philosophers to ponder, the world of science has since joined the party. Scientists want to know what makes us happy, psychologists want to know why, and marketers want to know how to make money out of our desperate need to be happy.

Why has research is this area exploded? Despite rises in the standard of living and greater and fancier possessions, depression rates have risen to 1 in 4 people. While our external world is getting more luxurious, our internal world is struggling.

Why isn’t our happiness scale climbing in parallel with our quality of life? I set about answering this question. Having spent the last three months analysing the research, I’ve found that everything we thought we knew about happiness is wrong.

It’s time to debunk some common myths about happiness.

Don’t the big things make us happy?

Major positive events such a promotion, a new relationship or house or even winning the lottery may provide a boost of happiness but they do not always promote long-term happiness – we eventually return to our previous level of happiness. Research shows that few positive experiences affect our happiness for more than three months.

The frequency of our positive experiences rather than the intensity of our positive experiences is a better indicator of happiness. A person who experiences a number of good things in one day is likely to be happier than another who has one great thing happen. It really is the little things in life that matter.

Aren’t I happiest when things are easy and I am cruising along?

We mistakenly tend to think that relaxing and not working hard or cruising in life with no pressure will make us happy but the truth is boredom equals discontent. Communities with high youth crime rates often cite the root cause of crime as boredom in kids who then look for trouble to overcome the boredom.

Matthew Killingsworth from Harvard university has created an iPhone web app called Track Your Happiness, tracking more than 15,000 people in 83 countries. The app queries users at random intervals on their mood and what they are doing at the time, as well as their level of productivity and their social interactions.

His findings show that for 50 percent of our day our mind wanders away from what we are doing during which time we are incredibly unproductive. When our mind wanders and we are no longer ‘present’ we experience our greatest level of unhappiness. Why? Because our mind tends to wander to unpleasant thoughts or personal concerns.

Most importantly he showed that when our attention is completely absorbed in a task we experience our greatest level of happiness.

So how does this relate in the business world?

We are happiest when we are challenged and engaged – working to achieve difficult goals, yet those within our reach. Most employees do not want to be bored at work. Bored employers are neither content or productive.

If you are a manager and want more engagement from your team give them challenging work, keep track of their progress and debrief it with them.

3. Surely you can’t be happy at work?

In terms of overall wellbeing, career wellbeing has been shown to be more important than physical, financial, social or community wellbeing. In other words, whether we are happy at work or not is more important than the other aspects of our lives. Why? Because work makes up so much of our time and we often relate work to your self image and identity. Also, it is vital for employers to ensure their staff are happy as the research linking happy employees to greater productivity and performance is so strong that it is no longer up for debate.

4. Don’t I have to focus on myself to be happy?

A study was conducted where people were given a sum of money and asked to either go buy something for themselves or for someone else. Afterwards, the group that bought a gift for someone else had much higher levels of happiness than the group that bought something for themselves. When we do things for others we get a much bigger happiness bump than doing something for ourself. Same goes for the workplace, when we help others improve and develop their skills, our happiness is far greater than if we just focus on getting ahead.

5. That’s just me I am not a happy person!

Researchers have since discovered that happiness is not solely linked to genetics. While genes and heritage determine about 50 percent, the rest depends on lifestyle decisions and daily habits. While there is no magic pill for happiness and wellbeing, we can make daily habitual changes to make a difference.

6. When I have nice things then I will be happy!

While we certainly get a bump in pleasure after we buy something beautiful for ourselves, the effect is short lived. What gives us a bigger and longer lasting impact on happiness is when we spend money on great experiences. A holiday, a concert, hot air ballooning. If you want to use money to get you happiness, spend it on experiences rather than possessions.

7. Don’t I have to be a tortured soul to be creative and successful!

Is happiness really desirable since it is often thought that to write a best selling book or song you need to have pain or heartache? There is no solid evidence to support this theory. These people are the exception, not the rule. It’s like saying my grandfather smoked every day until he died at 99 years of age, therefore cigarettes must make you live longer. Happier people are generally more creative and successful than tortured souls.

• Hints for greater happiness
• Regular exercise
• Practicing meditation
• Daily reflection on what you are grateful for
• Striving to experience happiness in each moment
• Do things for others
• Get absorbed in each task you do
• Invest in your personal relationships
• Focus on experiences not possessions

Looking at that list it is a list that would make the people around you happy too and the world a better place. Looks like personal happiness is a win for everyone.