That means a commitment not just to your business idea, which obviously matters, but to the process of building a business from the ground up. It means committing to being held accountable when things don’t go as planned. Without a deep-rooted commitment, even the smartest business plan can collapse under pressure.

For many entrepreneurs, maintaining this commitment is the biggest challenge they face. Among those who have had success, many point to the importance of a strong support system as a crucial factor in keeping their commitment strong. 

Entrepreneur and educator Reza Satchu knows this firsthand. He and his brother Asif have co-founded and built six businesses between them, with exits ranging from $100 million to $2 billion. But when Reza brought his brother and sister-in-law into his Harvard Business School classroom recently, it wasn’t the billion-dollar wins that grabbed students’ attention—it was the strength of their relationship.

“The answer always came back to one word: commitment,” Reza wrote on social media after the class. “We weren’t just committed to our ventures but to each other.” That bond, forged through shared struggle and honest dissent, gave them an edge. As Asif put it, “Find someone that cares enough about you to dissent with you.”

Founders live in a world of uncertainty, where blind spots and ego can kill a business before it even gets off the ground. A co-founder, advisor, or even a sibling who’s willing to call you out can be a lifeline.

But commitment goes beyond personal relationships. It shows up in how entrepreneurs handle adversity. Do you pivot the moment something gets hard? Or do you stay grounded in your mission long enough to learn from the challenge and adapt? As Reza explained in an interview with Exeleon Magazine, “Committing with uncertainty is not easy. But you must commit, and that takes belief in both yourself and the idea. You simply can’t compete with someone who is committed. Because that’s where the magic happens.” 

Commitment means sacrificing comfort, absorbing failure, and staying the course even when the outcome is unclear. It means sticking with a product during its awkward adolescent phase and showing up when motivation starts to fizzle. And it often means doing the boring, unsexy work—again and again.

Too many founders chase external validation like investors, press, and user numbers, without first building internal clarity and long-haul resilience. But business isn’t just about being first to market; it’s about lasting long enough to matter.

So here’s the real advice: Before you pitch anyone else, commit to yourself. Commit to the uncomfortable truths, the slow growth, the tension of receiving feedback. Surround yourself with people who believe in your potential enough to challenge you. Not cheerleaders, but the kind of allies who, like the Satchu brothers, can stand beside you and say, “You’re wrong—and I’m still here.”

In the end, great companies aren’t just built on ideas. They’re built on people willing to stay in the fight. Commitment is what keeps them there.

The post What Reza Satchu Teaches Us About Commitment in Entrepreneurship  appeared first on CEO Medium.

Here are four key areas to focus on, which can help anyone to develop their own effective leadership style and to inspire bold leadership culture in their organisations.

SELF: Developing Conscious Identity

Bold leadership culture starts with being kind to yourself, recognising your true self in your work, and engaging your entire purpose in what you bring as a leader. But there is no leadership without learning.

To truly understand our strengths and limitations as leaders, we need to develop our conscious identity, and this requires constant learning. If we can commit to this evolutionary framework, we can learn to expand our ability to take risks, and perform at the top of our game.

When faced with challenges or in critical transition moments, we need to ask ourselves important questions: What are the beliefs that drive our behaviours? What can I live without and what are the habits that are getting in the way of being my best self?  Who am I being whilst I’m on that path? When we reflect and find different perspectives and question how we can be better, we can develop more self-awareness, understand the impact we have in our communities and un-tap our potential to create bold leadership culture. This self-awareness will allow us to lead by example to delegate, motivate, inspire, and confront the challenges we face head-on.

But we cannot do it alone!

OTHER: Creating Relationship Agility  

Building a culture of bold leadership depends heavily on flexing our trust muscles and empowering others to be their best, reflective, learning selves as well. Creating relationship agility means co-creating with other people, learning how to show our humanness, being approachable and practising authenticity in our relationships.

This does not happen in isolation. We work with other people every day and these people are all different and bring different things to the equation. They have different ideas, approaches, weaknesses and strengths, and bold leadership culture means navigating these and using them to optimise results. We must be ready to find different ways of doing things together, as a team, and should avoid imposing our way exclusively.

We can’t know everything, be everywhere or do everything on our own, so bold leadership culture also means trusting that other people’s greatness is part of the equation and having the ability to let go of some of the control to work together.

This letting go requires trust, vulnerability, and intimacy. If we surround ourselves with trusted people who can call each other fourth, we can grow through our relationships, and success becomes unequivocally tied to other people, our interactions and collaborations.

UNIVERSE: Unlocking Collective Intelligence

Bold leadership culture involves learning how to listen to basic patterns of thought and behaviour within the workplace and noticing what the organisation needs and how to contribute to those needs.

If we listen to work culture, the environment, what’s happening in the organisation, and the patterns that are informing us we can better understand what’s needed in the hive. Unlocking this collective intelligence is also about speaking up, noticing what is needed and delivering, to honour shared consciousness and the role it has in informing decision-making.

We also need to be aware of our impact in a wider, global sense. How are we a part of the world around us? What is our contribution? How are we shaping culture? How are we building the future? What is the bigger picture?

Bold leadership culture means recognising everything that concerns us and everything that shapes the world. If we can think more universally and be actively part of a whole, our engagement will become less about self-preservation and so less self-defensive. Instead, we can become empowered and proactive with a greater sense of shared purpose, accountability, and positivity for the world.

LEGACY: Demonstrating Purposeful Achievement

A bold leadership culture requires us to think about our legacy and the impact we want to create.

If we create a platform for meaningful, value-based work and entrepreneurial passion rather than just simply executing tasks, a culture of bold leadership can be established. Values of intimacy, compassion, and getting to know our teams enough to understand individuals’ values and potentials, are essential foundations in the building of a bold leadership culture.

Leadership models that appreciate these individual values and strengths in the workplace will allow for more meaningful work and enable teams to be engaged and motivated to contribute.

If we are to leave the legacy we wish for, we have to act in the present and be aware that everything matters. How are we honouring our purpose right now? Am I fulfilling my purpose in life? Am I in the right place to do that? What difference can I make in the world? What is the best impact I can make? What will my legacy be? Am I working from a place of self-preservation or a place of growth, togetherness and optimism?

If we can stand up, and take risks based on our values and purpose, we can dare to swim upstream and create cultures of bold leadership, which will make the world and our organisations better places.

Zana Goic Petricevic is an internationally certified leadership coach and consultant. She is the founder of Bold Leadership Culture, and the author of Bold Reinvented: Next level leading with Courage, Consciousness and Conviction.

The post Four Steps To Creating A Bold Leadership Culture appeared first on CEO Medium.

I drafted a business plan for myself!

I reckoned that something tried and tested in the professional arena could be conveniently adapted for personal use. I couldn’t afford to get things wrong again, so my natural inclination was to find a structured way of getting things right this time around.

What I produced was a watered-down version of a genuine business plan, holistic in nature, taking into account both my personal and professional life. I was beginning to realize that stress management and work/life balance were closely connected concepts.

So here it is, step by step. Four steps in total.

Step 1 – Conducting a SWOT analysis

The SWOT is probably the single most utilized tool in the professional world. It is used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a brand or business, and the opportunities and threats they are facing. The first two are internal factors and the second two are external. Once you have completed the SWOT, this can then be used as a springboard to help you select your strategic priorities, giving you a clear sense of direction.

In short, the SWOT pinpoints where you are at and helps you decide where to go next.

You can apply the same principles to more or less anything, including your own personal and professional life. Here was how I used it to audit my situation after I emerged from my breakdown:

Step 2 – Setting yourself strategic priorities

The first role of the SWOT is to itemize the most relevant strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities, but its second crucial job is to then do something with this information. In other words, you have to make the SWOT “sweat”.

1. Which strengths will you leverage?
2. Which weaknesses will you fix?
3. Which opportunities will you look to pursue?
4. Which threats do you need to address?

Each of those four questions demand that you do something tangible with the information you have gathered. By combining, connecting and colliding elements from each of the four boxes, you can formulate a number of strategic priorities that will provide you with direction and destination.

This is how I made my SWOT “sweat”:

Step 3 – Identifying actions

Actions are the concrete execution of your strategic priorities. This is where the rubber hits the road and where the planning process becomes tangible. In order to keep stress at bay, I needed to ensure that the activities I carried out and the behaviours I adopted were holistic in nature. In other words, it wasn’t just the workplace that needed fixing but also what I did in the evenings and at the weekends. The actions listed below were how I planned to execute my strategic priorities, identified in the previous section.

Step 4 – Reviewing your performance

The one area of the business planning process that often gets least attention in the corporate arena is taking the time to review how the brand or business have performed. Which actions have been carried out? How successfully? What have you learned? What will you do differently next time around?

With this in mind, I made sure that I sat down periodically, often with my wife, and reviewed our action plan. A few years later (please don’t laugh!) I actually scored myself against each of the four quadrants. It had been, on balance, a very satisfying period in my life. Room for improvement in all categories for sure, but overall it had been a solid effort all round. It would score a very commendable 30 out of 40!!

I suspect a number of readers will be chuckling quietly now at this attempt to bring the world of business into the personal arena. And yes, at face value, it does seem a little bit over the top, I must admit. But this was how I was, how I still am today. It’s my way of navigating a path through life by providing some structure.

However, I bet there are quite a few closet “theory nuts” right now, nodding approvingly. I also suspect that a number of you will shortly be investing in a little notebook and some highlighter pens.

Welcome to the club.

Mark Simmonds runs an innovation agency GENIUS YOU and is the author of new book Beat Stress At Work 

The post Happy Career Planning appeared first on CEO Medium.

Leaders deliver most of their effect through other people by connecting and engaging with them in pursuit of a clear and compelling purpose. To do this effectively, the leader must have a positive impact on the people they lead.

Generally, people feel uncomfortable with uncertainty. The more clarity and reassurance a leader can give to the team, the better. Effective leaders create a sense of safety for their team. The more information and inspiration a leader can give to their team, the safer those people feel, and the more able they are to use their initiative and make good decisions. People do not like or trust detached leaders, and a lack of communication and clarity will lead to mistrust and a poor working culture. There is a real imperative for leaders who want to build and maintain a positive culture to work hard to inspire and be understood.

As a leader, giving people clarity and reassurance about who you are and how you work creates safety and has a positive impact. You will have your own style and preferences, so it really helps other people if they understand how you like to work, and the culture that you are looking to grow. This goes a long way towards preventing misunderstanding and frustration. The better people know and understand you as a leader, the more freedom you will be able to give them and the more initiative they will be able to take.

Who you are and how you work

There is a simple structure that I suggest you use to define who you are and how you work. First, begin by writing a paragraph that will introduce you at a personal level. The more you can share about yourself, the better. Only share things that will encourage connection and allow people to feel comfortable.

Whilst being so open might feel unnatural or uncomfortable, effective leadership is based on personal connection, not positional power; this openness and honesty will help to form the connection and understanding which will allow you to engage others and get the best from them. Teams thrive on human connection.

Start by writing a paragraph that introduces you on a personal level. As long as you are sharing things that will encourage connection and allow people to feel comfortable. Where are you from? What sort of family do you have? What do you enjoy? What matters to you? What do you value in the world? What are your hobbies and interests? The aim of this is to help create personal connection.

Then explain your working style. Establish how you would like things to be (otherwise you will quickly become sucked into accepting the way things are). What sort of culture do you want to work in? How do you want your team to feel? How will people communicate? How important is honesty? Do you value face to face meetings? What is your view on being copied in on messages and being kept ‘in the loop?’ (Personally, I think being kept in too many loops distracts leaders from leading). Can people book you to attend meetings? What level of detail do you want to be engaged in; what matters to you?

As soon as you are ready, pull people together and present this work to them. Find a nice venue, offer refreshments, and present this in an informal chat. Be yourself, not your appointment, and use this occasion to connect with your team and reassure. If you can get this right you will have gone a long way towards creating the conditions for a positive culture.

People need to feel Connected to the Purpose

As a leader, you need to think about and then share what the Clear and Compelling Purpose is, as well as your vision of how you will work towards that purpose. Knowing what is going on and feeling part of the bigger picture is a powerful motivator; conversely, a feeling of disconnection is demoralising. Often the aspirations of organisations are captured and then concealed in turgid five-year plans that are rarely seen by most staff.

On our leadership courses, we run learning projects that are designed to make some members of the team feel disconnected from the purpose, and their feedback after the exercise is always negative. This replicates the reality in many organisations, where the staff on the ground have little or no understanding of what the senior leaders are trying to achieve; without knowing that, it is hard for them to innovate and contribute.

Neil Jurd OBE is the author of The Leadership Book (priced at £15.99 and available from Amazon.co.uk) and founder of skills platform LeaderConnect. Find out more: www.leader-connect.co.uk

The post Leading Teams and Organisations: How to Develop a Positive Team Culture appeared first on CEO Medium.

When considering what is meant by a “brain friendly” culture, consider other places that are “friendly”; consider “child-friendly”.  The definition of a child-friendly environment is one in which “behaviour, conduct, practice, process, attitude, environment and treatment…. that is in the best interest of the child”. (child friendly Definition | Law Insider).

Similarly, a brain-friendly environment is one that functions in the best interest of the brain.  It enables the brain to operate at its best. When an environment does not meet the interests of the brain, the brain become resistant, negative, unwilling to learn, staying with the known, the tried and tested and unwilling to embrace the new.

To create a brain-friendly culture, start by knowing what is in the best interest of the brain.

The purpose of the brain is to ensure the survival of our species. Which it is doing very well, despite the efforts of various viruses. Part of the success has been down the brains’ ability to quickly spot danger and threat, and then prepare us to either address the threat (fight) or to remove ourselves from impending harm (flee). This preparation to deal with threat is so finely honed and so efficient that once triggered, the threat response deprioritises any bodily processes that are not directly needed to fight or flee. This is the reason that when stressed or anxious you may feel nausea. Digestion is not a priority function when fighting or running away.

Another function that is deprioritised when experiencing long-term threats is the brains’ executive function: the best bit of the brain. The smart bit.  After all, you don’t need to be smart to run or fight. The executive function is the part of the brain that you pay people for: the part that solves problems, that’s innovative, creative, constantly learning, collaborating with others, and being agile to new demands.

So a brain-friendly environment is one in which the brain feels safe because the fight or flee response is quietened and the smart executive function can be prioritized. A culture that the brain perceives as physically and psychologically safe is one that is brain-friendly. So how do you create such a culture? Well, let’s start with the basics.

Like every living organism, the brain needs sustenance and rest. This means it needs to be fed well, sufficient hydration (it is 60% water), relaxation, and sleep. These are the “fuels” it needs to function at peak performance. Does your organization encourage “downtime”? Proper lunch breaks? Sensible hours? Time away from work without looking at emails/taking calls? True, the employment contract may state an 8 hour day and an hour for lunch but is that what really happens? Do leaders ensure that this happens?  Does the culture support this? If it doesn’t, employees’ brains will be increasingly tired and running on empty.

Having enabled a fit brain, a brain-friendly culture then reduces the incidences within the workplace that could trigger the threat response. Of course, this may not be intentional, however, leaders and organizations often do things that inadvertently create stress for the brain. This is because there are five scenarios in which the brain is “hardwired” to treat as a threat. Know these and you can begin to develop an environment that creates a sense of safety around these five needs.

1. Control

Very few people like being told what to do. After all, being controlled by someone else could be a threat to our survival. So leaders and organizations who adopt a “command and control” leadership style in their day-to-day interactions, will trigger a threat response.

A brain-friendly environment is one in which leaders coach, empower, collaborate and delegate. An environment in which individuals feel that they have a sense of control over the work they do, and the way they do it. To achieve this, leaders should lose the ego,  adopting more of a coaching/servant-leadership approach.

2. Consistency

From a survival perspective, if something is out of the ordinary or doesn’t follow the usual pattern, the brain will err on the side of caution and assume it is a potential threat. The brain has a strong “error detection” capability. Conflicting messages, incongruency between word and deed, constant direction changes all result in the brain recognising the inconsistency which is assumed to be a threat.

The brain friendly culture is one with consistent messaging that is embodied in the organisations values and employee’s behaviours. Ensure fairness, transparency, and inclusiveness for all. True, change is a constant, but be consistent in how your change is implemented and do so with the brains needs in mind.

3. Competence

For most of us, there is some negative feeling that comes with feedback: it’s normal because our brain will respond to any perceived threat to our competence. Competence was (and still is!) key to our survival. People will go to great lengths to disguise a perceived threat to their competence, especially in organisations in which failure is penalised.

In a brain-safe environment, learning and growth is encouraged recognising that failure and errors may be part of this process. An environment in which people fear failure or making mistakes is an environment in which employees will not risk learning, trying new things or stretching their comfort zones. Consider how your organisation deals with “failures”. With penalty or positively?

Give employees the tools and skills they need to succeed. Train them. Coach them. Set people up for success.

4. Connectedness

We are herd animals. From a survival perspective there is safety in numbers. This plays out in organisations in the form of cliques, “in groups” and “out groups” and even between functions or departments. We have a hardwired drive to be connected to a group or person. Without connection, we feel isolated and threatened. Leadership should strive to create connections and build trust with their employees and even between employees and the organisation. Know your people, what drives and motivates them. Hold events that bring people together, get to know your team as people, not employees.

5. Cause

We have finite physical, emotional, and cognitive resources. If you want your employees to invest them in something, then there needs to be a good reason. Otherwise, valuable resources needed to survive may be wasted.

Provide meaning and purpose in the work that people do. This also helps with connectedness to the organization. Of course, this needs to be meaning and purpose for the employee. Leaders need to be able to translate organizational purpose into something emotionally meaningful for each employee. Storytelling is a skill that leaders can use to help engage employees’ brains, helping them feel safe and part of something worthwhile.

Of course, “creating a culture” is no mean feat. It requires the organization to take a systemic approach to all interactions and touchpoints with its employees. But when you do, reassess how you do what you do and its impact on the brain.

Dr Sam Mather is a Neuro-practitioner, Leadership Consultant, and author of Rise Together: A leaders guide to the science behind creating innovative, engaged and resilient employees.

The post How to create a brain-friendly workplace culture appeared first on CEO Medium.

There are the three groups of capability that differentially enable an organization to thrive in the dynamic context of 4IR:

1. The level of Dynamic Capacity is determined by the combination of three capabilities, determining the capacity of an enterprise to pivot and adapt in a timely manner to the future as it unfolds.
   • Sensitivity to the forces and events that could drive change (and the ability to make-sense of these, to distinguish which are most important to pay attention to).
   • The ability to quickly decide how to respond and to implement actions that seize on an emergent opportunity, combined with the ability to rapidly scale-up and replicate these initiatives elsewhere.
   • The ability to adjust the activities and assets of the corporation, how they are configured, what is within and what is outside the boundaries of the enterprise, and how they collaborate externally.

2. The desire and ability to develop Dynamic Capacity is driven by a strategic outlook that is forward-leaning; a hunger for the ‘to be’ rather than comfort with the ‘as is’. This also has three identifiable components.

1. • A clear, ambitious vision for the future that aligns and energizes stakeholders. Often such visions are based on the pursuit of a societal impact (Purpose-led).
   • Empowering managers to own and to resolve seemingly conflicting goals; such as enhancing operating efficiency and also seeking greater flexibility, or the tension of delivering on current period budgets and forecasts whilst building the capabilities and processes for tomorrow.
   • The organization needs to be energized by continuous adaptation and adjustment. Organizations can become ossified due to their existing practices and organizational structures; departments optimising their performance at the expense of overall, total firm performance.

3. The ability to leverage and maintain the Dynamic Capacity is dependent on being effective in developing and deploying 4IR capable talent. In 2020, the World Economic Forum predicted that 50% of employees in developed economies will need to reskill, adopting 4IR relevant skills, by 2025. There is a significant and growing deficit of the skills required for 4IR, both technical skills and managerial and leadership skills. Most people haven’t had the relevant education or experience to manage in 4IR. Three key shifts in talent management are essential to operating dynamically:

1. • The ability to continuously upskill and reskill, at pace, across large proportions of the workforce.
   • The ability to deploy talent fluidly and flexibly. In particular, the ability to form, perform and reform in teams, creating opportunity and career mobility.
   • The adoption of human-centered workforce practices that promote employee well-being and support appropriate flexibility.

Acceleration officer is the executive who, looking across the organisation, helps to identify where and how the agility and speed of the enterprise can be increased; they look across the breadth of evolving technologies, the opportunities for upskilling, adjusting business models and key processes to identify how to increase Dynamic Capacity. The Acceleration Officer looks outward to understand what are the developments that could have most relevance for the corporation and they look into the corporation to coordinate and enable continuous evolution. The role may be incorporated within the position of the Chief Operating Officer or Chief Innovation Officer or similar, or may be a dedicated person. It should not be viewed as a singular programme of change or transformation, but rather an ongoing requirement. The Acceleration Officer plays an important role in navigating evolution. They peer intently into the fog of the unknown future, providing insights and assessments for the executive team; they are responsible for helping to formulate the evolution roadmap. They also provide governance of the evolution journey, coordinating across all the different initiatives that are being pursued at any one time. The Acceleration Officer promotes the culture that change is constant and the mindset to ‘never settle’ but rather to always be seeking new ways to adapt, evolve and accelerate; building and leveraging Dynamic Capacity.

The Dynamic Capacity of the organisation is the measure of the company’s ability to adapt and adjust in a timely manner as the future unfolds. Dynamic Capacity is of increased importance the faster evolving or less stable the context of the firm. It is a leading indicator of future performance that can be measured. The Acceleration Officer supports the leadership to identify and implement actions that increase and effectively leverage the Dynamic Capacity of the corporation for competitive advantage.

Management and Leadership in the 4th Industrial Revolution by Stephen Wyatt is published by Kogan Page, priced £19.99, available online and from all good bookshops.

The post Why you need a Chief Acceleration Officer appeared first on CEO Medium.

 It was said of Sir Keith Park, the Air Officer Commanding 11 Group in the Battle of Britain, that if any man can be said to have won the Battle it was he.  Yet Park led all his fighter squadrons from a bunker in near Uxbridge. 

Sir Glenn Torpy, who was commanding all RAF forces in the Gulf War of 2003, led his squadrons from a facility in the middle of Saudi Arabia.  The squadrons were spread over 7 different countries.  RAF station commanders frequently have their people spread all over the world, but they still have to provide leadership to them.  We can learn from these experiences.

We are in the anniversary period of the Battle of Britain so it is topical right now.  The Battle was fought using the world’s first networked air defence system.  The network was based on telephone lines.  A picture of the Battle was compiled in near real time at Fighter Command HQ from the radar returns and the Observer Corps. 

The part of the picture pertinent to each Group HQ was relayed to them – for Park this was at Uxbridge in Middlesex and the squadrons he led were based from North Kent through Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire.  The pilots fought against what felt like overwhelming odds for 4 months never backing away from the fight because of their leadership. 

Park got to know his squadron commanders well.  He set them a framework within which to work based upon the strategy set by Dowding at Fighter Command.  And he drove his squadrons hard.  The framework was loose enough for the squadrons to apply their own tactics.  Park gathered his subordinate commanders together regularly so that tactics that worked better could be passed onto other squadrons.  Problems could be discussed and ameliorated.

Park also visited at least one of his airfields flying there every day in the evening when it was less dangerous, in his personal Hurricane, OK1.  He became a recognizable figure supporting his people.  He was constantly concerned with his pilots, for example always trying to improve their diet, and they knew it. 

One pilot landed having forgotten to put his undercarriage down.  Park called him to his office and tore a strip off him for damaging a precious aircraft unnecessarily.  He then took him to the bar and bought him a beer.  That pilot was back fighting the following day with renewed vigour.

In 2003 Sir Glenn Torpy acted in a similar manner.  In the short time available before deployment, he redoubled his efforts to know the deploying station and squadron commanders and for them to know him.  He passed on his knowledge of the circumstances, the overall strategy for the campaign, his own parameters and intent.  They all know what their roles were, what was expected of them and what resources were available.  They were to lead within these parameters.

Of course, in war nothing goes to plan (does it ever?).  One of the countries planned to be used by RAF aircraft pulled out of the coalition at the last moment.  Aircraft had to be diverted elsewhere and some moved from that country. 

Campaign plans had to be changed.  Sir Glenn was now only able to communicate his new intent electronically.  However, the hard work prior to deployment had paid off, people grasped the new plans, and however suboptimal, got on with it.  They found a way to make Sir Glenn’s intent work.

The point here is that everyone in the RAF is trained and educated to lead.  In the Battle of Britain ‘every man was to use their own best judgement’.  For Sir Glenn, it was Mission Command.  The senior leaders provided the strategy (not a detailed plan), they got to know their people well.  What they were capable of and what they were not.  Followers knew their leaders, trust was built.  Missions were assigned.  Subordinate leaders had the flexibility to find a way to achieve them. And did so.

Remote leadership can work.  Everyone must be prepared to lead.  Must know each other well. Trust each other.  Senior leaders have to ensure that circumstances are well understood, they must engender a determination in all to get things done.  They must make strategy and intent clear to all and leave room for others to find a way to get things done.  Prior preparation is vital.

Dr John Jupp OBE is a former fighter pilot, Squadron Commander and founder of the RAF Leadership Centre. His new book Rise Above – Leadership lessons from the RAF  is published by Pearson, £14.99. 

The post Lessons on leading remote teams from the RAF appeared first on CEO Medium.

But despite my outward academic success, I knew something wasn’t right. At 25 I’d never had a romantic relationship, and my relationships with my family were formal at best and at times hurtful. My mum recommended that I start seeing a psychotherapist, which I did. I also started practising Zen and began a daily meditation habit which continues to this day.

Through the lenses of psychotherapy, yoga and meditation, I started to discover the behavioural patterns that I’d developed as a result of two traumatic events that had happened in my childhood: when I was a toddler, I was sexually abused by my father, and when I was 13 my mum and stepdad were in a car accident where he died and my mum lost three limbs. I realised how my unconscious had learned to hold people at arm’s length in order to protect myself from further hurt. I also uncovered a great deal of repressed anger and came to see how desperately I wanted to relate to people better.

Looking back now, I see that I used my academic work in astronomy as a distraction. My brain worked out that if I buried myself in study, I could avoid having to face the painful aspects of my life. And what better way to escape my earthly life than going to the furthest reaches of the cosmos?! The way I dealt with my trauma was certainly positive with regards to my academic work, but negatively affected large swathes of the rest of my live. I ended up very heady, emotionally distant, and with skewed priorities with regards to family and relationships.

The practice of mindfulness (the common thread in psychotherapy, yoga and meditation) allowed me to let all my emotions and feelings arise, be seen and acknowledged, but not judged as bad (or good). At its root, mindfulness is a technique for letting things be and letting things go. I recognised I couldn’t change the events that happened in the past; all I could do is see them and accept them for what they are – and by doing so I became increasingly content with how I was.

During my degree and research training, it felt like reason and logic (generally perceived to be a function of the brain) were held up as the ideals to strive for, while intuition and emotion (which are more body-centred) were not just put aside but actively discouraged. As a result I felt like, and was often treated like, a brain on legs!

It took me a long time – including a decision to shift gears out of astronomy and several years practising and teaching yoga and meditation, including a period as an ordained Zen monk – to consciously realise how out of balance I’d got. My perception that science was only about linear, intellectual thought covered a much deeper truth. I’d become a scientist because I was in awe of the Universe and was seeking to understand its hidden depths. Awe and wonder are not just thoughts, they’re embodied emotions. The reality was I’d become lost in logic, facts and the academic pressure to publish, and I’d forgotten the magic of just looking up at a starry sky.

But surely I’d taken up yoga and meditation in order to understand the hidden depths the Universe too – this time the inner universe of my mind. So I began to explore how I could bring these two pursuits together in such a way that helps us improve our wellness and better understand who we are in this vast Universe. So let’s explore a couple of practices you can do today to do just that.

Generating a sense of awe

Look up your favourite space image on the internet. Here’s a couple of examples that work well: Westerlund 2, NGC 6503. Make the images as big as you can on the screen and look at them as you would in an art gallery. Let your eyes explore and become aware of how you’re feeling as you observe. Allow yourself to be captivated by the beauty and magnificence of what you see. Read the caption if you want, and see how that added information changes what you feel or think. You might be dumbfounded, inspired, confused or simply awed; you might get an explosion of questions arising that you want to research immediately, or you might just sit quietly.

When we take time out of our hectic lives to appreciate the beauty of our Universe, it’s like hitting the pause button. We stop worrying about our todo lists and enter a timeless space that’s much more about feeling than thinking. A growing body of research shows that experiencing awe (the feeling we get in the presence of something vast) leads to a wide range of benefits to our wellbeing, including improvements in mood, satisfaction with life, a sense of generosity and feeling more connected.

Mindful stargazing

Choose a night when it’s reasonably clear and go outside. Sit or lie down and take a moment to relax your body. Look up and notice what you see. Just take a moment to observe. Try not to think about what you’re seeing or judge it to be good or bad, just look.

When you first go into the dark, it can take up to 15 minutes for the eyes to fully adjust. So as your pupils gradually dilate, notice how fainter stars slowly appear. There’s no need to look around. Just allow your eyes to be filled with the vista of the night sky.

If thoughts arise about what exactly you’re looking at (which constellation, what type of cloud, etc), or any other kind of thoughts arise, don’t worry. Put them aside. Simply do what you can to really immerse yourself in what you’re seeing.

Mark Westmoquette is an Astrophysicist, Zen Teacher and the author of Mindful Thoughts for Stargazers, Stars, and The Mindful Universe, about exploring the connection between astronomy and mindfulness. See more at markwestmoquette.co.uk

The post What does astronomy have to do with wellness? appeared first on CEO Medium.

Justin Haber is a professional footballer from Malta. He is also the owner of a local restaurant that featured on the Netflix business turnaround series “Restaurants on The Edge”. Haber is a fanatic about seafood. Consequently, he was flying in the finest oysters from Normandy, langoustine from Norway and so on. As you can imagine, his costs were astronomical, as were his losses. What was bizarre was this: just 100 metres from his harbour-front restaurant was a seafood market selling superb Mediterranean produce caught that day. How is it possible that he could have overlooked this?

Maybe you could just say Haber is a better footballer than restaurateur. But I think the issue is not so much about acumen as perception. Normandy oysters and Norwegian langoustine have cachet, amplified by being sourced somewhere else. If you’re from Malta, they seem more exotic than the produce at the local fish market.

The point is that it’s easy to discount the value of the familiar. Stuff from outside just seems more valuable, whether or not it actually is. The word ‘exotic’ literally means ‘from the outside’. So the expert from afar is more appealing than the prophet from our own land, and I once heard a New Yorker confess that while he’d never visited the Statue of Liberty, he couldn’t wait to get to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower.

Doing More With What You Have Already

The seduction of the exotic can cause businesses to overlook hidden potential. They think the answers to their growth challenges must rely on bringing in new resources from outside: perhaps a rockstar hire, a new computer system, or even an acquisition. And while those things can of course be important, they are also risky and expensive. As an alternative, some businesses have done extremely well by starting somewhere else: recognising and capitalising on the value of resources they had already.

One of the most powerful ways to do this is to look for what I call Implied Resources. Identify areas that are working well in your business and ask: “What resources must be there in order for this to work, and what else can we do with them?” This is where your truly unique assets might be lurking.

This thinking is applicable whatever the size of your business:

Large company. Amazon Web Services was launched when Amazon realised the internal capabilities that they had developed to run their main e-commerce website could be sold as a service to paying customers. As of 2020, AWS has grown to offer more than 200 services and controls more than a third of the cloud computing market, twice as much as its closest competitor. It has consistently been the most profitable division of Amazon and its primary profit driver.

Mid-sized company. Lotus Cars has developed notable expertise in vehicle dynamics through its long involvement in motorsport and high performance car manufacture. It capitalises on that know-how through its consulting arm Lotus Engineering which consults on vehicle dynamics, suspension design and advanced propulsion systems for clients such as Tesla and Formula 1 competitors.

Smaller company. Specialist software house IO Studios wanted an easy way to track its sales pipeline. The company was signed up to a well-known customer relationship management (CRM) system. The problem was that nobody liked using it, so they didn’t. The company decided to use their coding skills to develop a CRM for themselves – one that they would actually like using. One day a client saw it and, impressed, asked if they could adopt it too. After other clients showed an interest, IO Studios built and launched a commercial version called Salesradar with customers ranging from freelancers to giants like Costco.

IO Studios used the same strategy as Amazon and Lotus. When they noticed that others shared a problem they had solved for themselves, they acted entrepreneurially, packaging up their solution into an attractive commercial version to seize the opportunity.

Are you overlooking valuable resources?

Could you do the same as these companies? Here are some questions for you to consider:

• Where have you developed solutions for your own problems that, like Amazon and IO Studios, you could package and sell to others facing similar challenges?

• What internal processes are you so good at that, like GoCompare, who provide price-comparison software for other financial services businesses, and Ocado, who provide grocery retail technology for other supermarkets, you could offer them as a service or product to other people, too?

• What have you learned in the course of business, that like Lotus Cars, you could advise on or even teach others?

It’s human nature to take the familiar for granted. This tendency makes it easy for us to overlook potential to provide value that might seem seductively exotic to a willing customer. If you were a Norwegian langoustine fisherman you might say that “when you’ve seen one langoustine you’ve seen them all”. Nonetheless, you’d be happy to sell them to some guy from Malta.

Andy Bass PhD is author of Start With What Works: a faster way to grow your business, published by Pearson Business. Read a sample chapter and download resources here

The post How to Make the Most of Your Overlooked Resources to Create Growth appeared first on CEO Medium.

The biggest block for any relationship will always be poor communication. This is by far the most common thing that couples fall down on, and when this happens, the doors are open for all sorts of difficulties to arrive. 

Good communication is something that is often at taken for granted and yet in all honesty, is one of the hardest things to achieve. 

We might think that as long as we are talking to each other, we are good communicators, but there is far more to it than just that. Being able to understand our emotions and express them to our partner at all points of the relationship is essential, but this becomes so much harder when we enter into a period of conflict or difficulty. At these times it is easy to get into bad habits such as shouting, bickering, arguing, sulking, or thinking that the other one should know what we are thinking or feeling without explicitly expressing it. 

Good communication is about being able to express difficult emotions in spite of them being hard. To express hurt, sadness, disappointment and to feel that we are being not only heard but understood and valued. 

All relationships have ups and downs, but a solid, healthy relationship needs to be able to weather the storms and this can only be done when both partners are communicating effectively and respectfully with each other. 

Emotional barriers/fear of getting hurt 

This leads on from communication and can be complex in its own right. Emotional barriers are created as a way of protecting ourselves from being hurt. Here we can often look to our inner child (or teenager) to find the origin of such behaviors. 

If we have been hurt in the past, it is only natural that we protect ourselves from being hurt again. That is after all how we learn as children not to touch hot things and put ourselves in dangerous situations.  Heartache is no different and whether it be past love or a difficult family upbringing, those barriers are there for very good reason. The reality is that we can never truly find love if we aren’t willing to risk being hurt or vulnerable; trusting that even if you hurt each other, you will always love and support each other. 

Lack of trust  

I don’t see how any relationship can really go the distance if there is a fundamental lack of trust. Trust is everything in a relationship, regardless of whether that is around fidelity, honesty, or anything else. Trusting your partner and also trusting yourself, links strongly to unconditional love. When you really trust and love each other, you accept that even though things won’t always be easy, you have each other’s support. When a relationship lacks trust, that support cannot be relied on. The value of honesty and integrity is the cornerstone of most relationships. If they aren’t there, I believe the stability of the relationship is seriously compromised.  

You are not accountable for the difficulties in the relationship 

No matter what the situation, the simple fact is that there are two people in a relationship and as such both of you are responsible for the difficulties as well as the strengths. Some people really struggle with this and like to put all of the blame on just one person, but by virtue of it being a relationship, we have to consider that both people are responsible to a greater or lesser degree.           

When difficulties arise, it is very rarely 100% on one person‘s shoulders. How relationships develop over time, habits form, taking each other for granted, communication difficulties, emotional barriers, or anything else can only be managed if the communication is good and effective and if both people take accountability for where they are at. 

If you are able to do that, your relationship will likely go from strength to strength. Accountability, good communication, and trust are the building blocks to any good solid relationship. When we are able to consider that it takes two people to make a relationship as well as break it, is likely to last the distance. 

Pascale is a Therapeutic Relationship and Life Coach, the founder of the Surviving to Thriving group coaching program, and author of How to be Happy in Life and Love: A guide to living the life you Deserve. See more at: www.youfulfilled.co.uk

The post Common blockers which could be damaging your relationships appeared first on CEO Medium.