Bill Jensen's Blog, page 13

Find Your Three Words

1. Effective leader quiz

Create a list of words that defines the one thing you are seeking from an effectively leader. Then pick the one word. Just one! That's a crucial quality you should be seeking in your day-to-day manager/supervisor.

(Infographic below draws upon one-word selections in a LinkedIn Discussion Group.)



2. Ultimate leader quiz

Now from your list, pick just three words that, when combined and interconnected, comprise the ultimate leader for you. Just three! If your manager does not have ALL THREE of those qualities, make sure you find a mentor to make up the difference! 



3. Ultimate introspection and personal accountability quiz

So, of those three words...how many do you live everyday? Should you not be living (or at least learning) how you expect others to lead you?

(Infographic is also available on Pinterest.)

Hack Yourself!

INSIGHTS FROM TOP DISRUPTIVE EXPERTS

Join the Disruptive Movement!

  




Sunni Brown

Author, The Doodle Revolution

Blog







PART 2: MY FAVORITE DISRUPTIVE CHANGE

Neural Self-Hacking. “Some people call it alignment engineering. Other people call it cognitive behavior performance blah blah whatever. 



“I think it is absolutely riveting what is happening in the reprogramming of the mind. Because we know more about neurology in the mind, which is to say we know nothing, still. But we do know techniques that can be applied to thinking in order to elevate oneself.



“It’s phenomenal what we’re going to see in terms of people amplifying not only their productivity, but also their awareness of their own perceptions and their own ability to be empathic towards others in a way that matters in the workplace and in their lives.



“You can get there by asking yourself simple questions like: 

• What’s actually happening? (Not: What do I perceive to be happening?) 

• What are the reasons that is happening? 

• Am I personally responsible for any of that? 

• How might I shift my behavior in order to change an outcome? 



“Practicing asking just those four questions can change a transaction forever. I you choose to bring to understand what you’re bringing to that situation that you could change.”

FOR MORE: See her video below




Let's Disrupt This!

We all need to ask ourselves those four questions ALL the time! Because we are always bring our own stories and perceptions to whatever is happening. 




Hack yourself today! Realize what you can do to change ANY situation!




What do you think? Please post...

• On Twitter: #DareToDisrupt

• Or on DisruptMovement.com

Don't Do It!

"…unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it."




We are told to pursue our passion so frequently, that that idea sometimes feels like white noise — ever present, but not really there.



If so, Charles Bukowski may provide the jolt you need.




In this brief spoken-word video, we have excerpted portions of his poem so you want to be a writer? so his challenge applies to all professions, all endeavors.






"…if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself…"



Otherwise: Don't do it.

How Do You DO Your Brand?

INSIGHTS FROM TOP DISRUPTIVE EXPERTS

Join the Disruptive Movement!

  




Denise Yohn

Author, What Great Brands Do

Blog







MY FAVORITE DISRUPTIVE CHANGE

What a Brand Is. “For the first part of my career, I held a common, traditional view of what a brand is: A name, a log, an image that you project and that you express in your communications and promote in your marketing.



“At Sony Electronics, as a brand manager, I started to learn that a brand is not just what you say, but is really about what you do. And it has as much to do with your internal culture and your internal operations and how that gets expressed in a customer experience as it does with how you promote all that.



“That disruption in my view has really shaped the second half of my career. I’ve since developed tools and approaches that help companies DO their brand, actually operationalize it. Actually make their brand something that they use on a daily basis and shape everything that they do.



“That’s a fundamental change in the way one views brand-building and you go about it.”


FOR MORE: See her video below




Let's Disrupt This!

Denise’s aha is one that we all must have. Wherever you work, what you do is either building or destroying the company’s brand. And equally important: Whatever you do is either building or destroying your own brand.



Yes, you need to think about yourself as being a brand promise that people trust and leverage when you deliver on that promise. Or walk away from when you don’t.




What do you think? Please post...

• On Twitter: #DareToDisrupt

• Or on DisruptMovement.com

Killers or Saviors? Yes!

Tonight, Virgin Records will host a raging debate where everyone will be in violent agreement. (7:30pm London, 2:30pm NYC)



The Virgin Disruptors panel will debate: Has tech killed the music industry? The event will feature artists who have been vocal about tech vs. music: will.i.am, Amanda Palmer, Scooter Braun, Imogen Heap and Zoë Keating, alongside leading music platforms Spotify, Vevo and Songkick.



Skip the debate, we know the result. 

Killer? Yes. Savior? Yes. 

Resurrector? Yes.

Complicator? Yes. Simplifier? Yes. 

Elite King-Maker? Yes. Democratization for the masses? Yes.  





Been through this before. The pattern is just repeating itself:

• 1887: Tech innovator Thomas Edison rips into the future of all live music with his recording of "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

• 1900s: Music industry goes berserk over copyright infringement

• 1906: Victrola flattens the cylinder to be a 78rpm pancake. Destroys one format by creating another

• 1920s: Radio starts broadcasting music. Music industry cries foul. Record sales plummet 

  

Been there, done that. That 30-plus-year cycle of innovation, destruction, reinvention and feuding is simply repeating itself today at digital speed. (14 years and 12 years since Napster and iTunes debuted.)



And the cycle is finally paying off: Music sales are growing for the first time this century. Global music sales rose by 0.3 percent to $16.5 billion last year. But like all disruptions, the growth is uneven. While the surge is global, U.S. music sales are still falling. Wealth and progress, like the future, will never be distributed evenly. The U.S. is simply more peeved because it's used to being on the upside of the uneven distribution. Boo hoo. Nobody said disruption would be fair to all!



To really get a grasp on disruption, we need to stop focusing on any one dimension or any one industry or even on technology, and start realizing that…

Disruption is a State of Mind, a State of Being.



A couple comments from Virgin's Disruptor site: 



• Gwen Davis, CEO & Founder at The Look. "Disruptor" is my middle name. Dynamite with a laser beam, I create my OWN niche, and develop a way to do what hasn't been done before. I ask no permission, take no prisoners. I Just blow minds and move on to the next challenge. Innovate, people! Change the world... Illegitimi Non Carborundum.



• Lidia Bergamaschi, University of Bologna. My way to disrupt is about my job and my consciousness. As trainer, I [help people] recognize how much we are part of a process, how much we can influence what/who we have around. Start to be aware, be emotionally present, be the one who can choose... Take a position, and go ahead... and when it is necessary... Go against the tide... maybe you will be alone, but you will be ok, with yourself, with the world... and sooner [or later] people will follow.



Advances in technology surely distribute disruptions faster, surely democratize the changes, surely speed up the process… But...

Behind all the technology is a way of being, a way of thinking.



Those who "get" the technology faster and ride its wave better, are those who were wired to "get it" before the new technology ever appeared.



Skip the debate, we know the result. 

It's never going to be about the technology or the industry or profits being disrupted. It's always going to be about you.



Are you ready to "get it"?





• • • • • •

Mr. Simplicity, Bill Jensen’s new book, Disrupt! Think Epic. Be Epic, based on interviews with 100 disruptive heroes, was published on August 5. He blogs at simplerwork.com.

Ultreya!

It was in a dimly lit speakeasy in Manhattan behind an unmarked entrance. I noticed the tatt on the inside of her left wrist, but couldn't make it out. "Ultreya," she said, and told me the intriguing story behind it.



A family tragedy inspired her to walk the 1,000 mile pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain — a holy place in Catholicism where the body of St. James was interred after spreading the news in that region of Jesus' resurrection. For over a thousand years, the difficult and demanding pilgrimage has been seen as a spiritual test for many and an awakening for all.





She never made her pilgrimage. As she was training for it, another family tragedy changed her plans. But to memorialize the awaking that did happen within her, she got that tattoo as a constant reminder — Ultreya. 



That is what the locals in Spain shout to the pilgrims as they push on and the pilgrims shout to each other as they first catch a glimpse of the shrine and their journey's end: "Ultreya! Ultreya! Keep going! Go on! You can do it! Onward! Upward!" 



"Ultreya" has become a universal call to be echoed inside oneself when going through tough times — that there is a reason and a higher purpose beyond all hardships.



Economic tough times? Ultreya, ultreya! Call upon the courage within you to keep pushing for better ways to create better times.



Lost among so much change? Don't know where to turn? Ultreya, ultreya! Call upon the will within you to keep pushing to find the answer.



Tough family or personal or health challenges? Ultreya, ultreya! There is something bigger than you inside of you. Call upon it. That's what it's there for!



Stupid boss? Stupid work? Stupid meeting? Ultreya, ultreya! Call upon the courage to hit Delete or to ignore it or get past it. You are better than that silliness.



No matter how tough your journey, no matter what it entails... Guaranteed... There is somebody by your side or out in the distance, calling out to you... "Ultreya, ultreya! You can do it!"



Listen to those voices. Find your own within you. Listen to the sound of your own heartbeat: Ultreya, ultreya! Ultreya, ultreya!  

Suck Less Manifesto

I hope to change the world. My heart keeps me driving for big ideas, bold statements, powerful change.



And yet, wherever I am asked to speak and consult, the driving force behind many attendees leaning in and many a consulting project is much simpler... "Make it suck less. That's what we need. Work to suck just a little less."



If that's what you need, here is the Suck Less Manifesto. Enjoy! Go. Do. Be in a constant state of sucklessiness! (Infographic is also available on Pinterest.)

Make Time to Rethink

How often do you create the time for you to rethink your life, your work, your world? How often do you surround yourself with those who are doing just that?


Last week, I was privileged to not only present at, but sit in on, the  Yale World Fellows 2013 Forum . What an amazing group of people! 



I left with the same feelings as when I attend TED — feeling totally empowered and pumped, that anything is possible!!...and also feeling totally humbled, like: "Geez, these people are so beyond-amazing, whatever I've accomplished pales in comparison!"


Yale fellows are mid-career thinkers and doers from around the world — (more than 250 fellows from 81 countries) — who are already successful and given the opportunity to turbo-boost those successes with a four-month immersive program at Yale.


On the session on Rethinking Urban crime, I sat between a Venezuelan mayor with first-hand solutions to such problems and the spokesperson for the European Stability Mechanism, a group responsible for helping the EU stay together under the Euro.


A retired U.S. Army Major General had major contributions to the conversation on Rethinking Peace.


The conversation on Rethinking Entrepreneurship was kicked off by a social entrepreneur who completely reinvented how more than 5,000 farmers in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile and Brazil grow their goods, get them to market and earn more on each item sold.




Surround Yourself with Re-thinkers!


Rethink how you rethink!

Make the time to surround yourself with those who are not only challenging the status quo, but will challenge your own thinking!

At least twice per year, put your mind, your heart and your assumptions "out there." Sign up for events or presentations or workshops that you know will take yourself out of your comfort zone. And stay there. Be uncomfortable, be in awe, be present...and see what happens.

  

3 Simple Ways To Surf Waves of Change

All year long, I've been asking disruptive heroes from all over the world three simple questions. Each interviewee continually said "These are great questions. They really made me think!"



Then one of the interviewees, leadership guru Erika Andersen, blogged on Forbes.com about the power of those questions... That they "provide a simple yet powerful way to get yourself more comfortable with disruption." The following includes some of Erika's explanation about how these questions can help you...



Anyone who radically changed/affected what you know or believe, or what you felt or experienced, or what you do. A teacher, a parent, a friend, a boss, a mentor, a leader, etc… Anyone you had direct contact with who changed the path of your life.




> > > By reflecting on someone who you consider both a personal hero and a disruptor, you start to make the connection between disruption and positive change. You honor those in your life who have challenged you, shifted you, maybe even blown up some comfortable assumptions…and that it has been, ultimately, good for you. The more you can see that the biggest disruptors in your life can also be those who are most helpful to us — you start relaxing into ‘being disrupted’ in a whole new way.



Something that has completely changed how you think or what you do or how you relate to others or how you work… A technology, an event, an experience, a freedom, etc.




> > > By realizing that you can have a ‘favorite’ disruption — not the one that was least bad, or one you gritted your teeth and made it through — you realize that many of the disruptive changes you’ve come to see as positive were, at some point, awkward or painful.  So the next time some disruption is making you crazy, you can say to yourself, “six months or a year from now — this might be my favorite disruption.”



Something that is completely changing how you think or what you do or how you relate to others or how you work… A technology, a requirement, a way of doing things, a responsibility, etc.




> > > This question gives you permission to struggle with disruption. Even extremely successful people find big relief in simply acknowledging that the struggle is OK and that, maybe, they could be responding to it differently. It's OK for you to admit that to yourself too!



Disruptive changes can be both exhilarating and wonderful, and awkward, uncomfortable, out of control and scary.



Answering these three questions help you see a lot more of the amazing side of disruptive changes, as well as helping you surf the tough waves of disruption — that this, too, shall pass.

Find Your One Thing

INSIGHTS FROM TOP DISRUPTIVE EXPERTS

Join the Disruptive Movement!

  




Nancy Duarte

Author, Resonate

Blog







PART 2: MY FAVORITE DISRUPTIVE CHANGE

When reading Jim Collins' Good to Great. “The dot-com crash had just happened. Our strategy was to be generalists. We did a little bit of everything for clients — presentations, Web, print, multimedia… Our navigation bar included everything imaginable.



“Then there was something in Good to Great that completely blew me back… It was: If there’s one thing you can do, and you can be best in the world at that one thing, and be passionate about that one thing — then do just that one thing.



“We decided to cut everything out and focus just on doing presentations for clients, because we were really good at it and nobody else wanted to do it. Once we did that, I fell in love with the power of the spoken word. You can’t point to any movement ever that didn’t start with the spoken word.



“So our current owning that space of helping to put words in the mouths of powerful people wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t headed what Jim Collins said and taken his disruptive idea of focusing on one thing and becoming a master of that.”


FOR MORE: See her video below




Let's Disrupt This!

Whether it’s a work or play or home…You know what you need to do. Most likely your life and work strategy is like Duarte’s was before she had her Aha — all over the place. There is huge power in simplicity and focus.



Narrow that focus and you can own whatever space you wish. Go for it. Have the courage to simplify and narrow your focus. Find your one thing.




What do you think? Please post...

• On Twitter: #DareToDisrupt

• Or on DisruptMovement.com