How Exponential Growth Changes Everything & What You Can Do About It

The Best Carburetor Repairman In Town
John was busy under the hood of the shiny Chevy. He was too busy to pay attention. He was the best carburetor mechanic in San Jose. He had work lined up for days, the future looked bright. As he was busy with his head stuck deep in the machine something interesting happened outside the machine: someone thought about a way to build cars without this pesky piece of equipment (as a matter of fact most of the 20 year old and younger generation may not have a clue what a carburetor was). Within a wink John became a historical footnote because he was too busy being busy with his head deep inside the machine.

Get Your Head Out Of The Machine
The next time you have a meeting with your management team pay close attention to their thinking process. Ask them wide ranging questions about technology developments, societal trends, how they gauge the markets and you may realize that you are faced by a room of carburetor repairmen. Highly focused artisans who have mastered their specific trade but are hopelessly disconnected to the real changes that are sweeping through all aspects of our existence.

It is time to take your team’s head out of the machine, their present knowledge and abilities may be obsolete within the next half decade, and here is why:

The Exponential Information & Computation Tsunami
The future will be dictated not by how much you know, but by how fast you can manage information. This flies in the very face of our whole educational fiber, after all we still like to grade stuff kids learn by heart. I still remember the day the first electronic calculators came on the market and how my engineer father fought the very preposterous idea of purchasing these machines for us. His fear was that this newfangled toy would dumb us down and, worst of all, what if there was nuclear war and electricity seized to exist… who would do the calculating then?

The fact is that information and it’s delivery are growing at an exponential rate:

• Over 3000 new books are published daily
• 1 week of today’s New York Times contains more information than was gathered in the lifetime of a human existence in the 18th century
• 1.5 exabytes (1.5 * 10 exp 18) of unique new information will be generated this year
• This is more than in the previous 5000 years
• New technological information doubles every 2 year currently
• By 2010 there will be a doubling of technological information every 72 hours
• NEC & Alcatel are currently testing 3rd generation fiber optics, these push 10 trillion bits/second, equivalent to 1,900 CDs or 150 million simultaneous phone conversations/second

What Does It All Mean?
It means in the simplest terms that whatever knowledge you own at this very moment is most likely obsolete in real-time terms. It means that you have to get your head out of the machine and become a broad based reader, researcher and Information Glutton, an Information Synthesizer who is adept at reading trends and re-mix this information into cutting edge solutions.

The artisans, individuals who are only able to perform a small range of professional services (accounting, client servicing, actuary services for example) will become second-class citizens, much like worker ants, who deliver a dependable yet duplicable service for an ever lower income.

Change Is The Name Of The Game

• The US Department Of Labor estimates that the average new human will hold between 10-14 jobs… by the age of 38!
• Former US Secretary of Education Richard Riley projected that the top 10 jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004
• This mean we are preparing students for jobs that don’t exist using technologies that have not yet been invented. Students starting a 4 year tech degree will find that ½ of all they learned in year 1 will be outdated in their 3rd year of study.

The Future Belongs To The Synthesizer & The Orchestra Conductor
This onslaught of information goes beyond the capacity of an individual to comprehend or control. The old strategy of becoming a highly knowledgeable specialist in a narrow field is self -defeating, as you focus on becoming the best in a given field someone else is busy creating a new, disruptive and better solution.

To stay relevant it is imperative to step back, observe trends, do a massive amount of wide ranging reading and you-tubing. As mentioned above: Information Gluttons & Synthesizers will be the most valuable members of future organizations.

Start thinking like an Orchestra Conductor: stop focusing on just mastering one instrument, focus on getting different instruments (trends) to make sense together and re-mix them into a new symphony (strategy).

The Employee Is Dead
Employees vs. Co-Creators

A father’s well meant advise to his children not too long ago sounded somewhat like this:

‘Get a good education, graduate with decent grades and find a good employer. If you don’t rock the boat too much and are diligent at your job your loyalty shall be rewarded with promotions and, more importantly, with a steady income’

This paradigm is still very much in evidence across large swathes of businesses. A re-active, you-tell-me-what-to-do employee mindset that abdicates responsibility and creativity in exchange for a stable income.

The time for this way of living has come and gone. The new reality will be owned by individuals who see themselves as ‘one-man-consultant’ operations who rent their time and knowledge to other operations in order to achieve specific targets: the Co-Creator.

Categories like ‘loyalty’ and ‘hard work’ if unaided by inventiveness, contribution and co-creation are losing their shine faster than a new dime in the salty water of the Pacific Ocean.

Simply put: if you do not have new ideas to contribute you are virtually useless to a company…. You are just another mouth to feed (also known as headcount… can you hear the bleating of the sheep?)

The Big Hurdle – Is Anyone Listening?

The biggest hurdle is not that people may have nothing to contribute. It’s the fear of their ideas not being heard (or outright ignored) that has many a team member keeping their mouth shut.

This is the main culture challenge for old/established organizations: how do we open our cultures, become transparent and not merely pay lip service to the top management’s exhortations about being open and creative from the bottom up.

Bring On Jeremy Sevush

Never heard the name? Perk up your ears, Jeremy is the sign of things to come for companies who will make a difference.

Best Buy is a household name in the USA for price conscious electronics buyers. What started as a powerful idea (go into critical mass bulk business and offer the best price in town) ran it’s course, ending up in an ever downward pointing spiral. Cheap begat cheaper and this begat dwindling bottom lines.

It was time for a change.

This is when Best Buy did something very clever. It tapped into the very people who were the nexus between the company and the consumer: the everyday Joes who worked the floors of their mega-shops. Normal people who understood the company and at the same time lived the lives of the people who would actually consume the products the sold.

Best Buy took a few of their best & brightest younger floor and outlet managers, locked them up in 4 teams for 10 weeks with 1 mission: think of a viable business model that can be implemented in a short time.

The result was Studio D. A design and shopping concept focusing on women, allowing them to design the home of their dreams… all ideated by Jeremy Sevush, who is now the boss of this new organization1

Create The Unasked For Presentation

Don’t wait for your company to lock you up at an internal Big Brother think tank party. Take that idea you have been having for a long time. Manifest it into a tightly focused powerpoint presentation, create your own business case and send it to the top management. Yes, I said: top management. Don’t waste your time slashing your way through the middle management BS jungle.

No Idea How To Start? – Here Is A Hint

Of course you may be all excited about the idea of finally uncorking all that know-how you have and gelling it into a tangible presentation that will impress top management. But how to start? When was the last time you wrote a pitch… ? Possibly never…

Here is a hint: the internet is full of free resources. Type in ‘business case’, ‘power point presentation’, etc and you will find other people’s materials, use their formats as templates, it will give you great ideas on how to make your content palatable and understand which are the key questions you need to answer.

What If They Don’t Listen?

There are 2 reasons why people will not listen:

a)     Your idea missed the point. So what, we all learn from mistakes. Have the guts to invite the top manager who rejected the idea for coffee and ask him/her precisely what was off with the idea. Thus will achieve two great things: you will learn a lot from a good corporate leader and you will become very visible to this leader. Leaders are always on the lookout for innovative thinkers… even if they make some mistakes.

b)    The management missed the point. After interviewing the manager in question over a cuppa you realize that he/she lives behind the times and has not caught up with current realities. Well then there is only one thing to do, escalate your ideas to the top of the mountain and if the old man with the white beard in the Mahogany paneled room also doesn’t want to listen to what you have to say it’s time to vote with your feet. Take your box of tricks to someone who will want to listen.

As we said last time, don’t wait for permission to be brilliant and cooperative to be granted. Winners give themselves permission.

Waiting For Permission…..
Until You Die

Most people tiptoe through life to arrive safely at death’s door! As I look around me in every session, talk and workshop I am always struck by the sheer amount of people who are living unfulfilled destinies. Human beings who act like automatons: they wear the ‘right clothes’, talk the ‘right talk’, go to the ‘right job’ and yet never reach the pinnacle of what the universe had sent them to this planet to achieve. They are just play-acting at wanting their job, at wanting to serve client, at wanting to have their careers…

They tiptoe from their mortgage-financed condo in their credit-card-bought designer outfits into their bank-financed car to arrive safely to their workplace where they plug straight into the ‘right mindset’: they check the ‘weather report” (how’s the boss today) and launch into politically correct ‘corporate speak’.

The Simple Question
If you’d stop most any of these corporate illusionists who live a life by proxy and ask them: “Tell me George, what is it that you’d really want to be doing?” the answers would startle you: “If I only could, I would become an orchid farmer!” he would whisper conspiratorially into your ear while furtively checking all around if his innermost secret had been exposed to too many people.

If you now ask George in a loud, clear voice: “SO, WHAT’S KEEPING YOU FROM FOLLOWING YOUR DREAM AND BECOMING AN ORCHID FARMER!” something amazing will happen!
George, in his smart, starched shirt and the impeccably pressed trousers will change color and shape in the most staggering ways, turning from a deathly white to a deep purple that finally fades into an ever so pleasant mauve, while his body deflates, his shoulders sag and he slinks out of your presence at the speed of light.

What Happened?
Simple, really… what happened is that your brought George face to face with his true desires vs his current reality. The current reality is one of dissimulation, of hiding his true desires to pay the bills on time, to keep the illusion alive that his life is peachy in the glitzy condo and in the shiny car when he actually, truly, deeply knows that he is in the wrong place and job to fulfill his innermost wishes and dreams: to fulfill his true destiny.

By asking this simple question you have just revealed to George that he may be living a lie. That he is playing it safe, that if he just doesn’t rock the corporate boat he may slip through his life and be able to pay off his condo and car(s) before they slam the lid of the pine box shut on him.

Permission Is Not Given By Anyone But YOU!
The reason why millions of people never get to live their true inner dream is that society at large takes a big branding iron and puts a searing hot mark on our brains:

Who are you to decide anything!? You are here to wait for instructions, follow them, and if you have any ideas that do not fit the norm you will have to come and ask for permission. Got it?!

The process starts at home, continues in school and then into adult working life, by which time most people have become black belts at not having a real opinion and waiting for permission.

Permission Is A Muscle: Train It!
Here is the rub: giving yourself permission is like a muscle. It has atrophied over time from lack of use. As a matter of fact: you may even experience pangs of guilt and little nagging thoughts when you grant yourself the power of making decisions (‘Oh, c’mon, who am I to think that I am that important… it’s OK , I can handle what others want, I am after all mature and not some needy child…’).

Observe this inner psycho-babble carefully, it will dis-empower you every single time you want to take a decision, a decision to please yourself, to honor yourself and to empower yourself.
Make a commitment to make at least one decision a week that shatters your normal modus operandi and allows you to get something you truly want, desire or need.

Decision Making Calisthenics:
Lets start with something simple:
Go to a restaurant and look at the menu: that steak looks really excellent! But the mashed potatoes don’t really do it for you. You’d rather have some fresh rocket salad with it. Get the waiter over and just decide for him, do not ask him if changing the mash for the salad is possible:

‘I’ll have the T-Bone, I always have it medium rare and instead of the mashed potatoes I will have rocket salad with balsamic vinaigrette, than you!’

The very simplicity of your decision being expressed gives you the Power of Intention, you will see how the seas part in front of you, how things starting moving the way you want them to be.

Now that you are comfortable practicing your decision making muscle in situations in which you are in control (in a restaurant you are always in control, after all: who’s holding the cash? You are!)

Fast forward to the office:
You have been invited to partake at the 15th meeting of the day. In your head you are counting the amount of reports and e-mails you still have to write in the last 2 hours before the sun disappears over the horizon and dreading the prospect of another senseless, unfocused blab-fest. It’s time to show your decision making muscle:

Decide exactly how much time you can devote to this meeting. Decide exactly what results you want from this meeting.

Enter the meeting and declare loudly and politely:

‘Thank you for inviting me to this meeting, I have exactly 20 minutes to devote to this session, please let me know how I can support you, which questions you needs me to answer and I will do my best to support you.’

Magic will happen right in front of your eyes: you will see the seas part in front of you! The very clarity of your decision to invest 20 minutes of your life in the meeting will focus the rest of the participants to make the best of the time you have allocated to them. Their thoughts will sharpen, their questions will be intelligent, sharp and focused, the results will be measurably better.

After 20 minutes you get up, politely point out that your time is up and leave the room. As you close the door the meeting will deteriorate into the usual bullshit bingo session where the posers take over and the rest of the crew pretends to be interested… but that is not your concern anymore… you have a path to walk, a destiny to fulfill.

The Mother Of All Decisions
Having taken your power back, and trained your decision making muscle to a nice, firm tone it’s time to make the biggest decision of them all:

What is it that you REALLY want to do with the rest of your life?!

You have a fulfilling destiny to live, we all have! The first step to getting there is to decide to have the guts to go all out to get what you truly want.

It may be that you are in the right profession: good, then go and really give it your all.

It may be that you actually really want to be an orchid farmer: then decide to take the first step to achieving this goal, go and buy the right books, flower pots and tools to start your first mini test farm on your balcony… It’s the small steps that lead to big things, they took Hillary & Tensing all the way up Mount Everest…

Why Money Won’t Motivate … And What Really Will…
Crash! Bang! Boom went the world economy, and something strange happened, the second ‘Age of Greed’ in the last 4 decades (the first ‘Age of Greed’ in the 80’s was epitomized by the movie Wall Street and Gordon Gecko’s famous line: “Greed is good!”) does not seem so sexy anymore… all the hard work to pile up the cash went up in a smoking pyre of lies, greed and deception…

Money has somehow lost it’s sheen as a motivation factor. All the scrambling for position, all the offers for a better future and promotion if you just worked hard,  has turned into a breathless exercise to just hang on financially for many.

This is why today I want to share the case study of an outstanding company with you:

I first met the Philippines Actmedia team at their company’s regional powwow in Bali last year. As country team after country team stepped up and delivered their yearly reports I sat back and took in the information. The numbers were good and their targets just-on-the-money, the main question was: how do we keep our staff motivated! This question is of special importance for the company given that it is Asia’s leader for in-store customer activation (have you ever tasted that little cup of free coffee, taken that freshly steamed sample of shrimp or licked the dollop of new ice cream at your local supermarket? Then you know what Actmedia does).

The challenge of motivating in-store activation specialists is a big one: these jobs simply don’t go hand-in-hand with a gold-plated pay-cheque at the end of the month and a chauffeur driven limousine.

So, slice and dice it as you will, the market realities dictated that the money incentives for the teams would never become breathtakingly awesome.

This is when the Philippines team took the stage and ripped the whole motivation game wide open:

Picture after picture of bright, smiling, engaged faces of in-store activation specialists lit up the screen. These were not faces of people hamming up their best smile for the camera, these smiles had a different, deeply meant, quality to them… they were REAL!

These people were proud, open, self assured individuals who had that certain je ne sais qoi about them that attracts other people, they had a sense of self, a shining pride that attracts you, unlike other drab sales people and product pushers one is prone to encounter in supermarket isles.

As the presentation progressed the reason for this inner light permeating the team members became evident:

This team had a deep sense of meaning & contribution.

Money alone won’t buy you happiness. And when you are at the lower rungs of the income pyramid you may never make enough money to give you the trappings of financial wealth! But you have something special:  you have your soul, your purpose and the ability to contribute to others.

This simple and powerful insight drove the ladership to look for ways to create deep meaning by contribution:

Every year the Actmedia Philippines team joins to help the less fortunate in the most direct way possible: they go into the slums of Manila and build houses for the poor!

Lifting the emotional burden of perceived helplessness from the shoulders of their team members (we are low income earners, we have no power, how can we change the world?) and allowing them to create massive positive changes in the lives of their less fortunate compatriots has created a total shift in consciousness within the team. Team members now understand that they are not just another cog in the system, that their lives have meaning way beyond the banking of a pay-cheque at the end of the month, that they can make a massive difference.

This powerful insight has created a climate in which such ‘hard to come by’ attitudes as: motivation, ownership, pro-active thinking are thriving as if by magic.

The message is simple: business is not just business, it is an opportunity to create deep personal meaning and engagement for people to live valuable destinies. Choose a cause, get going, the world needs all the help it can get.

Belief Moves Mountains
5 Phases To Transform A ‘Team Of Losers’

Step 1. The ‘Realistic Cynic’ Feels Doomed
Here I was standing in on a Bali beach in the morning sunshine ready to knock my head against a coconut palm. All my problems had started with a good idea…

I had decided to sign up for this super expensive 10-day retreat that was supposed to reveal the secrets of superior business success to us handful of initiates who had enough cash to afford the rather steep ticket.

So there I was, standing in the first rays of the early morn cursing myself for my stupidity: I had expected to be sitting in a plush conference room, listening to some wise business guru. Far from it: the organizers had split us participants into randomly chosen teams and told us we were supposed to learn about cooperation and leadership by building a championship beach volleyball team to compete and beat the other teams in 9 days time.

As I looked around this randomly assorted group of people I ‘knew’ we were doomed! Not only did I not have the foggiest notion of how to get a ball across a net… there also was a guy with a severe cross-eye condition, a lady with a rather noticeable weight issue and other such souped up couch potatoes whose closest contact with sports had been punching in the ESPN number on their TV remotes!

Step 2. The Fearless Positive Leader Steps Up
“I know THIS is the winning team, I can SEE that!” a loud voice ripped me out of my ‘realistic’ and defeatist musings.

There he was, a 6′-something, muscle packed beach god with a California perma-smile beaming total confidence and can-do spirit.

My conservative, cynical (but to my mind ‘realistic’), European mind recoiled from this American ‘BS artiste’…

I mean: Where we looking at the same team here…? Or was he living in a parallel fantasy reality?
But the beach god kept right on coming: about how we would figure out each person’s strength and make it work for the team, how we would find it easy and fun to learn this game and how we would handsomely beat all comers on day 10.

Never ever was there the slightest doubt in his voice and demeanor: our victory was a foregone conclusion!

Step 3. The Leader Takes Responsibility & Overcomes ‘Realistic Cynicism’
He asked us for our prior volleyball experience, which turned out to be a grand total of zero. So he asked us if we minded him being the captain of our team. “Sure, whatever, Captain Plastic Fantastic” went through my mind as I raised my hand in agreement. I mean, what options did we have, right?

Step 4. The Leader Holds The Vision & Builds, Builds, Builds The Team
Ed, or Mr. Ed to us, moved swiftly, did a little try-out and assigned us to our positions. Always positive, reinforcing, supportive, motivating. Slowly his total positivity permeated my cynical attitude of rejection, it overcame my fear of making mistakes and losing face on the ball court.

I actually started looking forward to go to each morning practice and see how our team bloomed from strength to strength under the warm sunshine of Mr Ed’s attention.

By day 10 Mr Ed had transformed us into passionate, fearless, go-getting, tight- knit volleyball gangstas ready to take on a bear on heat!
Long story short: we smoked every single team they threw at us. We were running on adrenaline and certainty! Mr Ed had installed such focus, fierceness and determination in us that we KNEW we would win, and we did!

Step 5. The Leader Is The Chief Believer
The last score had been made, the whoops of joy were subsiding and I decided to ask Mr Ed a question that had been nagging me all these days “Ed, how did you know we were the winning team on day one? I thought we were total losers who didn’t stand a chance!”

Ed looked at me, smiled and said “The first day I saw you guys it scared my pants off! But what choice did I have? The choice was to lead you to victory!”

You make the choice:
Lead Your Team To Victory
Or
Step Aside

Storytelling & Leadership
Lately I have been invited by a number of C-level suite managers to help them move their teams through the challenging times many companies are facing. One of the interesting observations I made during many of these sessions was how ‘professional’ most of these managers were as they tried to communicate with their teams.

While the intention of the communication was to elicit an esprit de corps, a common mentality of ‘yes, we can’ (to borrow a phrase that has become a game changer in US history) most of these managers achieved the opposite. Fact based, devoid of emotions and, as I mentioned above, ‘professional’, their communication to the team ended up being a lifeless stream of words that did not elicit the hoped for effect in the audience.
Leaders throughout history have always known a little secret: want to get your followers fully emotionally involved and rearing to go? Use stories and metaphors, paint pictures, create images and the people will buy in.

The Keys To Their Heart
Of course this contradicts a large percentage of the left-brain driven current management elite who trust that the facts and nothing but the facts suffice to get a logical (professional) mind to come to the correct conclusion and take the unavoidable actions…

But the brain is made up of more than the left sphere. There is still the right sphere, the emotional/creative side of us humans. It is here that the true engagement ‘from the heart’ happens. It is this part of the brain that you, the leader, will want to set on fire to get your team fully bought in to follow your cause… and the keys to this side of the brain are not facts and figures… the keys are metaphors and stories!

The Moon In A Bowl Of Water
Here is a nice little story shared by the Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm to explain the stillness of the mind and it’s importance when wanting to perceive truth:
Take a bowl and fill it with water. Now set this bowl on the ground under a full moon. As you step back and the water has time to settle down you will be able to see the moon reflected in the water with perfect clarity, in all it’s details. You are able to perceive the essence of the moon, it’s total truth.

Now, step up to the bowl and shake it! What will happen? The water surface will be filled with ripples, shattering the clear and true image of the moon, leaving you with a distorted, ugly image of the moon.
The water is like our spirit, in stillness it will perceive truth, if it is agitated by the ego it will only see distorted realities and come to the wrong conclusions.

Blame It On Darwin
Just in case your left brain is butting in at this point and muttering “well, I’m a serious kinda fella and who’s got time for silly storytelling anyhow?” you might want to consider that our brain’s predilection to learning and making decisions through stories is anchored in our evolutional trajectory:
Before the advent of the alphabet, paper, computers, powerpoints and exel sheets human beings were guided and learned through oral history that kept the cultural fiber of a tribe/culture alive… in other words: all our cultures are based on a foundation of story telling!

So, yes, our very survival through the evolutional cycle depended on how well we learned from, and reacted to the stories our elders told us around the campfire… isn’t it time you discovered some of that old magic again and got your company tribe around the campfire?

Need Some Help Getting Started?
Having fully grasped the importance and implications of stories and metaphors many of these C-level leaders discovered to their dismay that their ‘story telling muscle’ had atrophied over the years through lack of use!

Fear not, get in touch, let me know what kind of message you want to convey to your people and I will support you in finding the appropriate story. This support is strictly pro bono to help you and your team move fast and master the challenging times ahead.

Write me a mail to: roger AT rogerkonopasek DOT com and together we will find the story to get your team going

It had to happen, the question was just when: the bottom has finally fallen out of a global market pumped up on massive, manic, consumerism. Dizzy on the high octane ‘you want the world – and you want it NOW!’ message drummed into the head of unwary people by the incessant 24/7 advertising machine it turned human beings into ‘consumers’ (visualize yourself as a ‘consumer’… your function is to consume… not to think, not to create, not to contribute… it is to spend the money you have worked for as soon as you have made it, and then some more).

This cynical cycle of brainwashing humanity into finding meaning-by-consumption was equivalent to putting a loaded gun into the hand of a child and ask it not to pull the trigger and then wait to see what happens.

Of course the child pulled the trigger and rejoiced in the sense of power it seemed to have. So the child continued pulling the trigger, faster and faster, we wanted it all: the brands, the holidays, the fine dining, meanwhile totally missing the point that this drive to total instant satisfaction was creating totally irrelevant jobs and ‘industries’ that produced nothing but soap bubbles.

Thus this ‘crash’ is actually a highly necessary re-setting of the clock, and it couldn’t have come sooner!

All this glitz and glam business of the latest ‘must have X…’ (you choose: car, bag, shoes, the right spa, holiday trip, etc) created a plethora of jobs and revenue streams that had one thing in common: they are simply not relevant or based in the current long term realities of the planet.

A classic example is tourism. Largely funded by cheap credit a human avalanche has swept over oceans and mountains, creating fake incomes in far away economies (fake inasmuch as local populations were made dependent on the tourist dollar, cut off from the ability to truly create long term, local economic solutions that are relevant, they were relegated to attract tourism by creating ‘authentic experiences’ for the culturally numb tourist from somewhere else, dressing up in funny skirts, gyrating to fake tunes in ‘real tribal dances’ etc…), over-burdening the local and global biosphere (from gutting local mangrove forests in order to build the next ‘exclusive’ resort that happened to look like all the other resorts to the perennial golfer who has to lug tons of steel in form of golf sets around the world, the ecological footprint has been gargantuan and unsustainable), creating total focus on an unsustainable instant satisfaction mania.

If you are in the mainstream tourism business get ready to become irrelevant.
Mass tourism at the scale witnessed over the last 50 years is a historical aberration, both financially & ecologically.

As with tourism a whole slew of other businesses will become irrelevant in the face of economic and ecological realities.

How do you find out if you will still be relevant?

Tune In -> Get Relevant

Find The Source -> Find A Thought Leader

The fact is that while most of humanity was asleep at the wheel of self indulgence at the cost of the future some people have been working away at creating a disruptive future that will burst into massive relevance over the next decade.

The best way to find relevance is to find the source of these new thoughts: the Thought Leaders

Thought Leaders are individuals who do not operate in parallel fantasy realities created by the consumerist machine but take a cold hard look at what is, the real issues of the planet, warts and all, allowing them to formulate brand new, relevant ideas and strategies that will change the world you and I knew forever.

Here are some of these relevant thinkers and thoughts:

The Future Of Cars Without Oil
www.betterplace.com
The days of oil in your car are numbered, and there is a huge new wave of change building… it might just look like hat Better Place has in mind… the question is: how can you connect with people/businesses who are getting ready for this future now and ride the wave to success

Cradle 2 Cradle: The Future Of Materials & Industrial Design
Michael Braungart & William McDonough are two of the most seminal thinkers of future product & industrial design. Forget recycling, get into sustainability. Immerse into Braungart’s & McDonough’s thinking and support your company design completely new products that will dominate your niche while your competitors are swallowed by their own carbon footprint.
www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm

Peter Gleick – The Unavoidable Water Crisis
The future of water has arrived, it is already the real change maker in politics and economics, those who have water will wield unknown power, whilst the rest of the world will suffer untold misery and mass migration if we do not face the water question head on. No one has studied this question in more depth than Peter Gleick, get tuned in, find a way to become a part of the water solution, start a business, work for a business that is part of the solution and become relevant!
www.pacinst.org

Mitchell Joachim –The Future Of Cities
Arguably one of the most visionary architects in the world he dos not focus on mere buildings. Mr. Joachim is ideating whole living eco-systems that will be fully sustainable and carbon-neutral. Get in the game, see what the future city you may live in will look like, learn to recognize companies that are designing the right products now which will be commonplace tomorrow and join them.
www.terreform.org

Joe Hartberg – The Future Of Eco-Entrepreneurship
Joe is a man who decided to become relevant. A man who realized that combating global warming and reducing our ecological footprint was not only a nice idea, but an overwhelming necessity he took action and became relevant by opening a new company: Current Energy (www.currentenergy.com). Joe now supports companies and homeowners to find the right electrical solutions to become energy efficient, becoming relevant and well off at the same time.

Get up, get going, become relevant.

The Biggest Motivator Of All
Or
How To Avoid Wasting Money On “Happy Camp” AND Getting Your Teams Totally Wired

Motivation – Stop Wasting Money On What Does Not Work
The Motivation Industry is an amazing business. It has been up-and-running for many decades now with a barely measurable impact. Ask most anyone who has ever attended a company sponsored motivational event how this selfsame event has changed their energy level and motivation in the long run and you are liable to receive a wan smile. Dollar for dollar the Motivational Industrial Complex has been one of the biggest financial black holes in the corporate history of the past decades. Hundreds of millions have been spent globally to ship teams into ritualized ‘happiness camps’ to be sluiced through pre-fabricated activities that solve little or none of the real concerns.

Far from creating true, deep-seated emotional thrust, growth and motivation, most sessions are nothing better that a ‘conspiracy’ between the motivators and the audience:

The motivator(s) pretend to be superbly happy and the attendees pretend to play along, the pay-off for both parties is instant: the motivator(s) get paid and the attendees get away from work for a day or two.

Solve Their REAL Concern And Put A REAL Smile On Their Faces

The above observations are not a figment of my imagination, they are the result of having worked with thousands of employees ranging from front-liners to managers.

Most agree that motivational sessions have become institutionalized and ritualized, they are the best idea many managers have to create some sense of happiness, however, the effect is by now quite the contrary:

Many employees have been ‘motivated’ to the point of stimulus-response -> they know when to clap, when to cheer and when to pretend they have bought into the company’s vision.

So if classical motivation tactics are not the solution to creating real vibrancy and willingness, then what is?

The real solution lies in a simple question:

WHY DO YOU GO TO WORK?

There are many answers to this question, but most all people will list “making money” as one of the core reasons.

The answer is deceivingly simple. 98% of humanity still has to work it’s way up Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs. Statistically this means that the majority of employees is still on they way to financial freedom and self management.

Put another way: most employees live in fear… Fear of not having enough money. This fear is often conscious, more often it is subconscious, but it certainly influences all decisions taken by individuals.

Starting from “I have to go to work” to “I will not correct the boss, it’s too risky..” there are a myriad ways in which this fear of being financially dependent finds it’s expression in negative thoughts and behavior patterns. Most employees are caught in a dependency pattern towards their company, which is the source of the money = life blood they need.

The perceived lack of abundance and helplessness towards the big company on who my livelihood depends leads to re-action and resistance towards the company which is perceived as self-interested (and sometimes even seen as cynical)

Give Them Financial Intelligence & Create Massive Buy-In For Your Company

Financial security is THE main key concern why people join a company. However, most people live in a perpetual state of financial insecurity based on their lack of financial literacy.

Financial insecurity is like an unspoken cancer that erodes the spirit and morale of individuals. Cure the cancer and you will see intelligent people emerge whose thinking faculties are strong and free from fear, able to fully commit and contribute to your organization.

I have tested the financial acumen of room after room of corporate employees (from front-liners to managers) and the results were mediocre at best.

Given the chance to learn how to best manage their money has elicited instant, deep, interest in every single session. The sense of relief, interest and focus in each session after having shared hands-on money managing strategies with the participants is tangible. It is only after having addressed this key issue that the participants start paying real attention and buy into new ideas and strategies.

Don’t Wait, Make Them An Offer They Can’t Refuse

Have a meeting with your managers and team members, offer them a choice: a motivational outing to “Happy Camp” or a series of sessions with financial specialists and wealth planners that will get them to be financially literate and able to plan for a debt- and worry-free future, you might be surprised by the strength of their re-action!

The possibility of offering them a chance to take care of their financial future will register measurably on your ‘motivation index’. You are helping them with their key concern: to make sure they and their families are heading towards a financially secured future is the most powerful incentive of them all.

This is not just a mere ‘happiness tactic’, this is a deep seated corporate values decision: we want to help our team members achieve financial freedom. The payback will be a bought-in team who can see their rewards in the way their financial goals become true one-by-one.