MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

The focus this month will be on providing participants with a framework to embrace the art of possibility in support of a culture of growth, innovation, co-creation and response-ability. Participants will strengthen their skills in invoking their imagination to think outside the box by focussing on the what and not the how and detaching from the old way of doing things. Participants will become familiar with the cycle of creation from a mindset perspective– that is understanding how thoughts repeated over time become beliefs, how beliefs in turn trigger emotions, and how those emotions in turn drive action or inaction and ultimately the results we are achieving. Therefore, to change results, one needs to change actions which means changing beliefs and the emotions around those beliefs, and fundamentally one’s thoughts. How we do that successfully is by refiring and rewiring the brain (neuroplasticity) by focusing on what really matters from the heart, having a definitiveness of purpose, passionately believing in the possibility, embodying the vision in the present and deliberately taking action on that vision each day. It also means showing up in that expanded state individually and organizationally, internally and with stakeholders. Participants will be introduced to the six steps of R.E.F.I.R.E. to REWIRE by Dr. Sarah McKay that can enable individuals to tap into one’s capacity for brain plasticity and mastery, to change old patterns of beliefs and habits to embody new possibilities particularly when change is deemed important and rewarding. Overall, Month 2 is about understanding why imagination, positive mental attitude and feeling of expansiveness are significant levers to achieving success in transformational change. The case work will draw on the current strategic framework of the organization and ask participants how they are showing up — as leader, manager or employee? Do they have a vision for their role or department’s role within the broader corporate context? Can participants provide examples of definitiveness of purpose for the organization from the perspective of pure potentiality? In so doing, participants will explore the concept of basements and ceilings to extend boundaries. They will also reflect on their current beliefs and emotions around transformation and change in the organization. The workshop will conclude with some initial thoughts on what to include in making the case for new transformational strategies at a conceptual level.

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Objectives

01. Mindset Matters: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Challenging Beliefs: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Unconscious Mindsets: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Fixed vs Growth: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Transformational Philosophy: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Understanding Why: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Prioritize: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. The Influence Model: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Positive Attitude: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Personalize Change: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Transformation Culture: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Transformation Fatigue: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month

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Strategies

01. Mindset Matters: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Challenging Beliefs: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Unconscious Mindsets: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Fixed vs Growth: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Transformational Philosophy: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Understanding Why: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Prioritize: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. The Influence Model: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Positive Attitude: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Personalize Change: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Transformation Culture: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Transformation Fatigue: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.

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Tasks

01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Mindset Matters.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Challenging Beliefs.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Unconscious Mindsets.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Fixed vs Growth.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Transformational Philosophy.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Understanding Why.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Prioritize.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze The Influence Model.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Positive Attitude.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Personalize Change.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Transformation Culture.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Transformation Fatigue.

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Introduction

The most recent research in neuroscience demonstrates how to cultivate the proper mindset for driving ongoing transformational change.

Today’s enterprises are under tremendous strain from unprecedented and seismic forces of change in the outside world, such as exponential digital technologies and existential global risks. They will have to transform their people, processes, and goods repeatedly. Leaders in every organization, regardless of size or industry, need to have a “transformation mentality” in order to change quickly. The majority, though, have a “legacy mindset”—not because they aren’t intelligent and successful, but rather because they are.

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Before innovation and business transformation, well-established legacy firms were capable of generating predictable long-term profits. Now, businesses that are unable to continuously change what they do and how they do it will surely collapse, whether through spectacular bankruptcy, mediocre underperformance, or dishonorable takeover. There is no denying the need for ongoing innovation in markets that are VUCA: volatile not stable, uncertain not predictable, complicated not simple, and ambiguous not clear. This is especially true in light of COVID-19 and the climate issue.

The majority of leaders, however, have been shielded from the harsh realities of ongoing evolutionary pressures as a result of decades of success in markets that were predictable, simple, stable, and clear — where prior resources and means allowed well-established organizations to maintain market dominance for extended periods of time. Many leaders have lost access to the creativity and insight necessary to lead transformation not just once, but multiple times in order to stay relevant after being lulled into a false sense of security. Their mentality must first change.

How Mindsets Matter

The mindset of a leader decides whether their organization ignores and rejects the forces of evolution to adapt or metabolizes them into innovations that create value and influence the direction of their industry. Just take a look at companies like Kodak, Nokia, AOL, and Yahoo, as well as Uber, which has ethical and worker issues, and Deliveroo, whose IPO failed due to investor concerns about unfairness and inequality. All of these organizations’ leaders believed that their recent success (in the immediate past) was a guarantee of future success.

Our mindset, or how we sense, feel, think, and then act, is our main source of competitive advantage in today’s rapidly and radically changing situations, and it’s the one thing we can fully control. We cannot rely on “things,” not even the most advanced machine-learning algorithms, to protect our company because every organization has access to the same technology and capabilities. We have no influence over what our customers or our rivals do. A pandemic or a mass extinction are uncontrollable. The only thing we have control over—or, maybe, mastery over—is our mindset.

We can and must take responsibility for our mindsets as leaders. In order to repeatedly reinvent ourselves and our organizations as the VUCA reality takes shape, we must decide to evolve, develop, and mature it over time.

Legacy Mentality

The legacy mindset that has imprisoned so many leaders is molded by the conviction that our ability to survive and thrive in the future depends only on our ability to leverage our power, success, expertise, and best practices from the past. It persists, in part, because VUCA realities can be overwhelming for our brains, which tend to experience pain when things change, become chaotic, or are uncertain. For example, when we perceive a threat, even if we are not physically in danger, our mind’s wiring causes us to fight or flee from sudden changes in our markets rather than approach them with an open mind and heart. When we most need insight and creativity, we lose them.

The legacy perspective leads us believe that doing what worked yesterday – just better, harder, and faster – will be enough to make it large tomorrow because we always want to seem right and feel in charge. We develop a righteous attitude about the leadership behaviors and underlying assumptions of our successful company models. Even when our firm loses competitiveness, its culture deteriorates, and its capacity for innovation wanes, we choose to disregard the need for transformation.

The legacy mindset causes us to project outmoded meaning-making frameworks and narratives onto the rapidly changing reality since we were taught management experiences and theories from a world that was not as digital or disruptive, or complex or chaotic. It smooths out the “anomalies” and “weak signals” that disruption, innovation, and transition inevitably entail. The legacy mindset causes us to cling to outdated beliefs as if they were unchanging facts, while others may have the insight to recognize and the determination to act on those signs.

A Dartmouth business professor named Sydney Finkelstein examined the demise of more than 50 firms. According to him, failures are brought on by “flawed executive mindsets that throw off a company’s perspective of reality” and “delusional attitudes that hold this false reality in place,” according to Why Smart Executives Fail. In other words, top executives unintentionally fostering a legacy mindset are to blame for pretty much every organizational disaster. Because of this, Yale professors anticipate that by 2030, the majority of the Fortune 500 corporations will no longer exist.

The Transformation Mindset

A growth mindset is the conviction that our talents can be developed by “hard work, good strategies, and input from others,” according to renowned Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck. This is a fundamental advancement, but it cannot withstand the rapid changes of the VUCA world. The growth mindset is expanded upon by the transformation mindset. We are aware that our abilities are far from fixed and that we must constantly adapt and evolve in order to match the viciously and relentlessly changing external environment.

A leader with a transformation mentality sees the VUCA world as a never-ending invitation to spearhead transformative change of antiquated goods, procedures, and people. Instead than attempting to ignore, repress, or reject the significant changes in our environment, we attune our entire self to completely engage in them. The fact that we own these changes, even if we did not initiate them, is crucial. By absorbing these changes internally, we may metabolize them into inventions that exponentially increase value.

When it is appropriate, we can continue to make improvements in the way we complete tasks while maintaining a transformation mentality. However, we may also spearhead ongoing changes when flexibility and adaptability are required. The ability to transition between these two equally valuable approaches of problem-solving is at the heart of the transformation mindset.

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Two Different Mental States

It takes more than just intelligence to have a transformational mindset. Recent research has actually shown that when we are creative, our prefrontal cortex, which has long been thought to be the seat of human reason, is really less active than usual. In other words, we are less in control, less focused, and less conventionally brilliant when we are innovating to solve difficulties brought on by the VUCA world!

It turns out that human brain has two quite unique neural networks that enable fundamentally different methods of problem-solving and world-sensing. Every leader has access to two separate modes of consciousness that offer quite different, yet equally valuable problem-solving approaches. This claim is based on the developing science of these two brain networks and incorporate wisdom from philosophy and lived experience. Each mode has a different brain architecture, is well suited for particular types of tasks, and results in a unique set of subjective experiences.

Protect & Control Mode

We try to manage the inherent chaos of life in the task-oriented and effective first mode by anticipating what we should do next to survive and defending ourselves. We are highly motivated and productive; we move quickly toward certainty; we draw on technical know-how to address well-known challenges; we gauge success by metrics; and we are both rigorous and risk-averse. In this mode, we enjoy making ongoing adjustments to the status quo in order to offer predictable results, such as constant profits and upward career mobility.

Creating and Connecting Mode

The second mode enables us to interact with others, including clients, partners, users, and investors, in order to gain the novel insights we need to produce value-creating solutions that address brand-new issues raised by the VUCA environment. We are inquisitive, imaginative, and empathic mode when creating and connecting. We are willing to pause and reflect on complex problems rather than rushing to find solutions; we are able to create safe psychological environments where different opinions can be shared; we welcome others to respectfully challenge our leadership style and business model assumptions; and we place more value on possibility and agility than certainty and stability.

Control & Protect Mode is a very effective problem-solving strategy in environments that are stable, straightforward, predictable, and clear because it spares us from having to put forth the tremendous emotional and cognitive effort required to come up with novel insights and consciously create new ideas. However, it may not work well in contexts that change quickly. It is linear and task-oriented and makes an effort to apply power and best practice—which are by definition outmoded because they are based on technical knowledge, experience, and training from the past—to emergent transformational problems that have never been resolved before.

We must employ Create & Connect Mode to translate evolutionary pressures into exponentially value-creating innovations when faced with such transformational issues, so-called because they necessitate business and leadership transformation to be resolved. To deliver our ideas on time, within budget, and with the desired quality, we still require Control & Protect Mode. In actuality, a difficult harmony between modes is a necessary part of the difficult process of conceiving and then carrying out high-value ideas. Creative people are better able to co-activate brain networks that typically function separately, according to Dr. Roger Beaty of Penn State.

From Intelligence To Wisdom

A leader with a solid yet flexible transformation mentality is aware of the appropriate mode at any given time. Furthermore, they are adept at changing modes. This is trickier than it first appears because, according to neuroscience, our emotional and physical states—and not our will—decide which mode we are in most of the time. We cannot just resolve to change; rather, we must learn to control and transform our feelings and physical sensations.

We need to be intelligent, not simply brilliant, in order to dance with complexity and wrestle breakthrough from the jaws of chaos. An unwavering emotional stability within is necessary for radical degrees of behavioral agility. In order to foster flexible, fluid, and free minds in ourselves and the team members we depend on to contribute to and implement future-proofing ideas, the transformation mindset requires previously unheard-of levels of embodied wisdom. As we grow in embodied wisdom, empathy, insight, and imagination broaden our cognitive capacity and tame our egos.

We must deliberately cultivate a transformation mindset if we are to successfully address the transformative issues raised by the VUCA reality. Success is more about fostering an environment where cross-functional teams may produce innovative breakthroughs than it is about technological brilliance or managerial skill. The days of having to be the sharpest person in the room are long gone. To confidently and intentionally guide our people, companies, and systems toward a prosperous future, we need to be wise, not merely smart.

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Four Methods To Develop Your Company Using A Transformational Mindset

The pandemic brought to light what was always true: for businesses to succeed, they must be prepared to adapt. A transformation attitude may help companies of all sizes seize opportunities, according to new SAP study.

Without a doubt, modern firms benefit from being able to react swiftly. Brands can emerge from the epidemic and into whatever comes next by working to change and adapt with the market and by embracing what is referred to as a transformation mentality.

How therefore can leaders use technology to foster a transformational attitude and advance their company in this altered and evolving environment? Des Fisher, the head of innovation at SAP, offers his perspectives.

1. Acknowledge That Change Is Necessary For Growth

The persistent emphasis on expansion among midsize business leaders is reflected in new research from SAP. Although the desire to boost revenue is nothing new, the survey reveals a movement toward identifying new, superior methods of doing so, such as through sustainability and enhancing the customer experience.

According to Fisher, the pandemic only served to emphasize the need for businesses to be flexible if they want to succeed. They must have the internal resources and culture to enable change, as well as be not just willing but excited about it.

He claims that “Covid was a deep realisation event.” “It made everyone realize they had to start acting differently right away. Right now, not when it suited them.

After COVID, firms will focus on being agile and nimble enough to roll with the punches and will owe their long-term success to their transformation success. “They may be thinking, ‘What if the supply chain fails? How can we increase the number of our suppliers or improve our electronic communication? Additionally, there is a push to build resilience and learn to ride the waves.

Fisher claims that high growth is actually stimulated by curiosity. Organizations with inquisitive staff will ask why they are doing things and then change to do them better, according to the study. They enjoy putting the status quo to the test.

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2. Tap Into The Potential Of Your Data

Only when a decision-making process is combined with evidence-based reasoning can a transformation mindset result in successful transformation. To be able to act fast without compromising success, it is essential to be aware of what is happening in every area of the organization.

When many segments of the organization are aware of a choice, Fisher claims, that is when data-driven decision-making is valuable. The majority of critical thinkers will advise people to consider both the immediate and long-term effects of their actions before acting.

Every aspect of the business is affected when one lever is pulled, and successful transformation depends on foreseeing those effects. According to Fisher, “having data that spans many business components and being able to analyze the impact of changes is profoundly valuable.”

Fisher emphasizes the need of having communication between all departments, from manufacturing and procurement to finance and HR, given that 34% of midsize businesses want to provide new products or services and 34% want to grow through increased sustainability. Data-driven decision making will be more effective the better connected your organizational units are.

Businesses may utilize their data by employing platforms like SAP to use it to make the best decisions. However, having access to insights is only one piece of the solution; data mining and human problem solving work best together to produce the greatest outcomes.

Because machines can run continuously, Fisher claims that you may instruct them to be hypervigilant. It implies that people don’t always need to be looking for new discoveries. Instead, they can adopt a decision-making role.

3. Make The Most Of Technology

According to Fisher, technological improvement will make it possible for people to make these choices. He has a strong interest in the amazing things that technology is capable of as the innovation principal. He remarks, “It’s getting so much closer to human.” Things are actually inventive in that we can get by with doing practically anything using machines.

According to Fisher, businesses will never be able to gather all available data. However, organizations will identify the sweet spot for transformation between what technology can offer and how a human being can perceive it. It is possible, he says. Asking technology to fill in the gaps is an option.

According to Fisher, human contribution to technology can be enhanced by prediction, inference, sentiment analysis, and natural language processing. With the data available, analysts and thought leaders can spot chances to expand, reduce risk, or boost efficiency knowing the data backs up their decisions.

“You’re missing a trick if you’re not embracing technology. Nowadays, we’re asking people to handle technology on a daily basis rather than doing more manual labor.

According to Fisher, cloud computing “democratized” technology for companies of all sizes. Small and medium-sized businesses who want to increase their use of technology now have easy and affordable access to tools and services that were previously only available to giant corporations. Automation can be implemented in every area of the organization, including billing, logistics, payroll, and e-commerce, using a platform like SAP.

Most significantly, he claims, technology gives people more time to accomplish what they excel at: having big dreams.

4. Motivate Your Group To Accept Transformation

Fisher asserts that having a solid grasp of both business and technology is a requirement for success. The road to developing novel and improved methods of doing things is the ability to apply innovation to issues.

“An organization won’t hold their interest if it doesn’t allow its personnel to consider their own mission in the context of generating income. Those workers will only carry out tasks out of necessity. People ought to act in an engaging and inventive manner because they want to and because they are aware that by doing so, they are improving the world.

With the appropriate technology in place, a company’s employees may access what’s most crucial without needing approval to think otherwise. “It almost becomes a personal obligation to consider the question, ‘Why are we doing this? I think there’s another way we might approach this.'”

According to Fisher, the key is to strike a balance between an organization’s values and guiding principles and its workforce’s interests.

When you combine both of those things in a beautiful, intellectual way, he advises, you’ll be amazed at what you can do. What part do technology and innovation play in innovation? It is guiding it.

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Executive Summary

Chapter 1: Mindset Matters

When the epidemic struck, businesses all around the world underwent an instant transformation, driven by adrenaline, survival instincts, and a workforce that was unified with management in the face of a shared peril.

The C-suite now faces a very different danger as they try to start transformation programs to adjust costs to new economic realities: Employee perspectives have changed. Dramatically. What is most concerning is that the top managers who must take the lead, rally the troops, and carry out transformation efforts are probably the ones with the biggest distance from the C-suite. In fact, almost a quarter of middle managers and a third of higher managers report feeling hostile toward change at work.

Leaders must move quickly to comprehend the mentality of employees today since this divergence is not only shocking but also a significant liability. Because engaging employees in the mission is what produces meaningful change, not issuing orders.

The Survivor Mode’s Rules Are No Longer Valid

During the height of the pandemic, businesses were obliged to make quick, radical changes in order to survive. The C-suite will now need to concentrate on longer-term reforms to support new business models and expand capabilities, including technology and talent, while avoiding silos and customizing costs to do so. It is certain that this company change will not resemble ones in the past, though. Major changes have never been able to provide lasting change. Now that the C-suite is getting ready to start transformation programs, the threat is that employee mindsets have changed. Significantly.

More than 80% of managers claim that the COVID-19 has changed the way they view work in general and the leadership of their organizations.

The stakes are raised by this new dynamic. It necessitates a change in how the C-suite approaches change projects, with a better grasp of employee mindsets and fresh, more effective approaches to dealing with them. Employees and management came together during the pandemic as allies battling a common foe. Employees now demand more from their bosses more than a year later. They’re also worn out. Many people are looking for meaning in their employment. In addition, they are raising important queries regarding the significance of work in their lives. Top-down directives from the C-suite are no longer used.

Employee Attitudes Have Changed

People are rethinking their priorities as a result of the protracted realities and stress of work and life without outside distractions. As a result, many people are moving. They’re not only quitting their jobs, either. They are changing occupations, rearranging their work schedules and commutes, moving across the country, or taking early retirement to completely stop working.

Stop Educating. Begin Recruiting

Beyond the repressed urge to change employment, there is an obvious dynamic at work. Employees are rethinking their goals and how their work lives fit into their larger lives after a year of lockdowns. They have also redesigned their professions and careers.

This new dynamic cannot be ignored by leaders. Employees are just as vital as customers, as we all know. However, many leaders continue to treat them like a captive audience, using top-down communications that are more concerned with informing them than with involving them in the transformational efforts. The differences between the two are pronounced.

Employees must be participants in the transformation for it to be successful, yet many are not. Critically low levels of engagement may result from failing to effectively involve employees in transformation initiatives. Most worrisome The highest levels of management, who are both employees and key players in leading the fight, organizing the soldiers, and enacting change, are where the most dissension is found. They are the group least likely to support transformational actions. Close associates of the C-suite make up one-third of individuals who are either change-resistant or alienated. The same is essentially true for one-quarter of middle management. It is unlikely that the mission will be effective if people working on the front lines, such as managing directors, senior vice presidents, or factory managers, are not on board.

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Chapter 2: Challenging Beliefs

People will act when they firmly believe that they must and will change when they firmly believe that change is absolutely required, but they won’t readily adopt that belief if it contradicts what they currently believe to be true. This is because, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it is not in human nature for people to give up their convictions.

You must comprehend how beliefs operate as a leader and what it takes to alter them.

What Exactly Is a Belief?,” a Psychology Today article from 2018 asks. The author refers to beliefs as “our brain’s approach of making sense of and navigating our complex reality” in his book (And Why Is It So Hard to Change?). They are “mental representations of the ways our brains expect things in our environment to behave, and how things should be related to each other—the patterns our brain expects the world to conform to.” The article claims that beliefs have various advantages:

• We often “intertwine them with how we define ourselves as people,” including our reputation and/or the structure of key aspects of our lives.
• They also mean we don’t have to constantly create a new worldview, which is “effortful, time- and energy-consuming.”
• They “act as templates for efficient learning and are often essential for survival.”

Therefore, by having our own personal belief system, we are able to learn more effectively, filter out noise, quickly assess potential hazards, prevent overworking our brains, and keep a consistent sense of who we are. In addition to all of these other advantages, many of our views are ingrained in us from a young age by our parents and other adult authority figures, which makes them particularly hard to change. So much so that rather of rejecting information that threatens our firmly held ideas, we will respond passionately to it and explain it away.

In the context of what a belief framework accomplishes for us, the Psychology Today article introduces another word—homeostasis: “Beliefs sustain a kind of cognitive homeostasis—a steady, familiar approach to processing information about our world.” By taming what might otherwise be wildly erratic swings in our moods and actions as we process new information, they assist us in maintaining our equilibrium. According to the Guardian report, “the brain determines whether or not to assimilate new sensory information by comparing it to these knowledge units when it is received.”

Your family, your neighborhood, and your workplace all have belief systems that facilitate communication, reduce noise, hasten learning and decision-making, and aid in the development of a common identity. These collective belief systems require time and effort to alter, just like personal belief systems do. In mission/purpose statements, fundamental values, and other places, they are mentioned. They support culture. Similar to personal views, they are frequently picked up from coworkers, managers, mentors, bosses, and other authoritative figures quite early in a person’s time spent with the group.

A company’s basic values, such as its mission and purpose, can endure thanks to its belief system. Shared values also encourage sticking with tried-and-true methods that have consistently increased earnings and satisfied customers, even when institutional resistance to change is the price of consistency.

Long-held principles of your organization serve as a kind of homeostat by keeping your workers focused and unaffected by “ripples in the force” surrounding them. However, they also serve as an anchor when they become unchangeable and unassailable, when being a “good team player” takes precedence over advocating for change, when abiding by the rules is rewarded while taking risks is punished, and/or when hierarchy shields the proverbial naked emperor from being exposed.

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Chapter 3: Unconscious Mindsets

Unconscious beliefs can harm interactions between managers and teams in the workplace. Reduced morale may result if someone is prejudged before they have an opportunity to share their viewpoint. Biases can lead to conflict and unproductive behavior, making it challenging to move a difficult issue toward a constructive resolution. The propagation of harmful unconscious attitudes across a team can result in a style of thinking becoming accepted, typical, and unquestioned, which can reduce productivity. The “rotten egg” of a perceived manner of functioning can “infect” every team member, much like a virus.

Having Second Thoughts

Changing your mentality can be really challenging. Your mind needs to repeatedly adjust to new, better behaviors in order to make up for unfavorable unconscious thoughts. It also needs to be aware of the potential effects you may have on other people. It is feasible for people to alter their thinking and become less judgmental with the proper training. Usually, everything comes down to self-awareness. Instead of having a “knee-jerk” reaction to a situation, take the time to listen to the other person, pause to analyze the information they have provided, answer appropriately, and possibly repeat the information to ensure you have fully comprehended. Likewise, if the other person responds in a similar way, this will ultimately result in positive communication between the two parties.

Think About Team Meetings Without Unconscious Mindsets

It can occasionally feel like you’re walking on eggshells when leading a team meeting with vocal personalities. This is probably a result of some of the people in the room having deeply ingrained views. Their unconscious bias fuels their emotion, frequently encouraging confrontational behavior, inhibiting creativity, and hindering clear thinking. The person makes assumptions and behaves accordingly. It can seem impossible to resolve disagreement and carry out effective crisis management if people are not listening objectively and are instead “zoning out” as a result of their internal discussions and biases.

What if we all took a moment to contemplate the viewpoint of the other person, objectively and without bias? Think about how much more efficiently team meetings would run if everyone took the time to listen to one another and put out the effort to completely comprehend what was being said. With the appropriate training, changing conscious and unconscious mindsets is feasible. It’s a tried-and-true method for developing a vibrant and upbeat workplace culture.

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Chapter 4: Fixed vs Growth

The mentality we adopt in life plays a crucial role. Because our attitudes have the power to either expand or contract how we interact with the environment and live our lives.

Additionally, based on the strength of our particular vision, we build the realities we live in (mindset). Because of this, we frequently see what we anticipate seeing, and the constraints we experience in life are typically brought on by ourselves.

Let’s say you don’t think you can do something or that a chance won’t come your way. In such situation, it will control how you behave in terms of investing time and energy in that thing.

As an illustration, you have been preparing for the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). But you struggle to understand the content, get disheartened, and give up on learning entirely. Your attitude about the test changed, and soon your actions did too. And if you approach the test with a defeated mindset, failure is likely to be the result.

If you approached the same MCAT test with the conviction that, despite the material’s potential for difficulty, you are determined to give it your all. You can very easily receive a different result when grades are given. Additionally, you can pass the test with confidence knowing that you gave it everything you had even if you fail. This kind of thinking might even motivate you to study more and retake the exam.

In essence, this illustration demonstrates the distinction between a fixed and a growth mindset.

Two fundamental mindset categories—a fixed mindset and a development mindset—shape our lives, claims Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck. How we view our skills and capabilities can have an impact on our performance in job, school, the arts, sports, and nearly all other spheres of human effort, according to the author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.”

In this chapter, we will define each before outlining nine key distinctions between a fixed and growth mentality along with concrete examples of each.

Let’s review two definitions to get things going.

A Fixed Mindset: What Is It?

People who have a fixed mindset frequently concentrate on the known and believe that their skills can never change (they are fixed). This kind of thinking leads to the idea that investing time in development, learning, or training is pointless.

For instance, you’ve had health problems that have restricted your mobility. However, your doctor has been advising you to get outside and take a short daily stroll. Sadly, you don’t because you believe you can’t walk that far and even if you could, your physical condition wouldn’t improve.

No amount of motivation from your loved ones, friends, or doctor will convince you to do it. You think that your body has physical boundaries that it cannot cross by walking a half-mile. If your mind convinces you that your capacity for performance is fixed, your mindset is immutable.

Additionally, when you have a fixed mindset, you believe that your current intelligence and skill set will enable you to achieve the achievement you seek. This attitude is seen in professional sports.

A lot of sportsmen succeed in the professional ranks thanks to their “God-given skills and abilities.” Additionally, they strive to survive throughout their careers on those skills. These athletes frequently refuse instruction and training that would help them develop their skills and put in the necessary effort.

The unfortunate result of this is that many talented athletes’ careers are cut short when “Father Time” causes their ability to deteriorate. They are described as being “stuck in their ways” when their skill level declines and they refuse to acknowledge that they need to improve their games. In the world of sports, this may mark the end of a career.

Coaches and media celebrities draw attention to the fact that some players fail to recognize their current limitations. They also fail to recognize that having a flexible mindset might help them improve on other facets of their game, which may help them advance their careers.

What Exactly Is A Growth Mindset?

Instead, having a growth mindset is being open to taking on new tasks. Many refer to it as being open-minded. This demonstrates your readiness to absorb fresh information that becomes more pertinent to you than the earlier information you were using. For instance, facts on seat belt use and cigarette smoking have emerged over the past 30 years, which have largely transformed society’s perspective in the US. No matter the shift in perspective, accepting it might not be simple. However, it is undoubtedly feasible, particularly if we adopt a growth mindset.

Additionally, those who have a growth mindset think they may gradually get smarter, wiser, and more skilled. They form positive habits and believe that “practice makes perfect.” People invest more time and energy when they think they can be more inventive, successful, and accomplish amazing things.

“People with a growth mindset have an underlying belief that their learning and intelligence may grow with time and experience,” said Carol S. Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

Additionally, if you have a growth mentality, you think that your fundamental skills serve as the foundation for your potential. And the possibility for you to go further increases as you learn and develop. You don’t think everyone is the same, but you do think everyone can improve.

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Chapter 5: Transformational Philosophy

Running a group, an organization, or a company successfully requires a sound leadership philosophy. You’ll stay committed to your goals and be more likely to regularly inspire and encourage your team when your leadership style is grounded on a solid foundation of values and beliefs.

It’s likely that you already know this. That doesn’t mean you can develop your leadership philosophy statement with assurance. It can be difficult to fully comprehend how to develop a philosophy that serves as a foundation for ongoing success.

It is necessary. You’ll be able to construct your own leadership philosophy by analyzing examples of other people’s practices. But first, it’s critical to understand just what a leadership philosophy entails.

Tips & Tricks for Writing a Leadership Philosophy

You might be asking how to write your own leadership philosophy now that you are more aware of examples. Fortunately, you can use a few hints and shortcuts to get going.

Establish Your Leadership Style

Finding your style is the first step in creating a leadership philosophy. Are you more of a transformative or a strategic leader? Do you like taking a more hands-off approach or getting more involved in a company’s daily operations?

Consider your own personal values.

Make sure to match your leadership philosophy with your values if you adhere to any of the following principles: empowerment, vision, communication, passion, dedication, or respect. Remember that the foundation of your leadership philosophy is your work ethic.

Take After Your Heroes

Consider the leaders you respect. You can simply mimic traits that you admire in your role models by paying close attention to them.

Establish Your Goal

What makes you want to lead? What is the foundation of your leadership? By responding to these inquiries, you can create a leadership philosophy that is genuine and individual to you.

Seek advice from your team

Ask your team for feedback on the leadership style you wish to use because everyone needs to support your choices and key principles. Not to add, your team members can provide you with insightful feedback on how to develop and improve your leadership style.

Make it workable.

Your leadership guiding principles ought to be more than just words on paper. It ought to be something you constantly think about and breathe in. Ensure that your leadership philosophy is applicable and that you make an effort to uphold it at all times.

Examples of Leadership Philosophies Main Points

• A leader’s actions and decisions are influenced by their leadership philosophy, which is a set of values and beliefs.
• Authentic, democratic, transactional, and transformational leadership are just a few examples of the various sorts of leadership ideologies.
• Finding your leadership style is crucial when creating your own leadership philosophy. Consider your personal values, consider your role models, and decide what you want to achieve.
• Do not forget to consult your team and confirm the applicability of your leadership philosophy.

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Chapter 6: Understanding Why

Why success depends on having a cause for change

Consider beginning a journey.

You leave your home with the intention of traveling to a distant city, but you haven’t made up your mind as to why you want to go or what you’ll do when you get there.

You make a pit stop at another town along the way. You search the area for a place to eat, then you start visiting the sites, taking in the scenery, and discovering some undiscovered treasures. Before you know it, you’ve forgotten the entire purpose of visiting the city and are either remaining in the town or returning home.

In contrast, if you go out with a specific goal in mind, you are much more likely to stick with your route and arrive at your destination without becoming sidetracked along the way.

How Does This Relate In The Workplace?

One of the first questions we ask whenever we are asked to assist a company undergoing transformation is, “Why?”

Why? is the key to any successful transformation process. You can’t possibly hope to get the How, When, Who, or Where correct if you don’t know your Why.

Success requires a cause for change, and this is vitally essential. You have the best chance of continuing on the path toward achieving your goals if you understand why change is necessary.

Think about it: everything else in the process is affected if you don’t know why you need to make change.

If you are unable to explain the motivations behind your initial goal-setting, it will be difficult for you to choose the most suitable final objective.

If you don’t fully get why the change is required, your approach to accomplishing your goal may be faulty.

If you aren’t confident in them yourself, it will be impossible to persuade your colleagues of the benefits of what lies ahead.

How Do You Determine The Change’s Goal?

The first step in making a change is realizing that it is necessary. It’s remarkable how many people, who push through the shift nonetheless and eventually lose sight of their original goals, fail to see the wider picture at this early stage.

We advise beginning off by carefully reviewing your project. Try responding to the following queries: What element of your company needs to change?

What exactly isn’t working right now?

What will success in the future look like?

The answers to these questions taken together will reveal your change-related purpose.

How To Convince Your Team To Accept Change

After you’ve determined your purpose, it’s critical to gain your team’s support for the change. Assisting them in comprehending the change’s purpose will be the key to your success.

We frequently see managers who believe that by just informing their staff of what will happen, they are relieving them of the additional responsibility of having to comprehend why. Although they have the best of intentions, the team members end up feeling dictated to rather than buying into the future. Unavoidably, the transition process is less effective.

When they have a cause, people adapt more quickly. People will become more receptive to the new working methods more rapidly if you can explain why your organization needs to change. We can accept the smaller process adjustments as reasonable if we have faith in the why.

You might be surprised by your team’s enthusiasm if you explain the goal of the change to them. They are much more inclined to participate actively in accomplishing it if they can clearly envision the final result and what success will mean to them in the future. Not only will they be more eager to comply with directions, but they might even give their own insights and help the project take on a new facet.

Next, what?

Turn your attention to the paths to success once you have defined your objective and won your team’s support. There will typically be a number of options for implementing change, each with a different cost, timeframe, effort, and other factors. As mentioned above, your team might also present fresh ideas that you hadn’t even thought of.

Before deciding on a course of action, consider them all in relation to the success you need to attain.

You can completely reshape the project and greatly increase your chances of success by defining the change’s purpose.

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Chapter 7: Prioritize

How To Set Priorities When Everything Is Crucial

These prioritization tactics can help you make the most of your working day because “busyness” doesn’t always equal progress.

Tasks are frequently prioritized (or not) during the workday based on the demands of others or the proximity of deadlines. This can also occur in our personal life, when we spend less time on things that are truly important and more time being “busy.” Effective task prioritization, done with purpose and in accordance with future objectives, can change this, ensuring that every work you complete adds value and preventing irrelevant chores from piling up on your to-do list.

You may significantly alter the course of your working day by putting prioritization tactics into place, allowing you to maximize both your time at work and at home. You can examine and establish your top priorities with the aid of these techniques.

Making an agenda, assessing the tasks, and assigning time and resources to deliver the most value in the least amount of time are typical steps in the thoughtful prioritization process. Prioritization should be flexible because you may need to put off less important work in order to complete urgent obligations.

Initiatives Should Be Prioritized

Because the organization’s resources are being stretched too thinly across too many initiatives, some transformation efforts fail. As a result, the decisions an organization makes regarding what to do and what to avoid doing are equally significant. However, a prioritization process must have a wide scope in order to aid in the success of a transition. As an illustration, ongoing initiatives must be reviewed with the same rigor as new ones because zombie projects waste valuable resources, particularly the attention of the leadership.

recognizing hazards. A solid data basis with a clear grasp of the magnitude and nature of each opportunity, its timeliness, and any delivery obstacles serves as the foundation for any effective prioritization process. Prioritization often uses the two lenses of value and simplicity. Although this strategy has some promise, the “easy” criteria are frequently arbitrary and encourage bias. Teams may as a result undervalue prospects that initially seem less promising and underestimate risk on projects they find appealing.

Determining the risks connected to each change in the transformation portfolio rigorously, often based on probability and severity, is thus a crucial stage. The whole range of unexpected consequences that can hinder implementation or seriously harm the company should be covered in a risk analysis, including benefit leakage, customer or talent attrition, safety or regulatory compliance, and compliance with regulations. When done correctly, the review combats the allure of large numbers and the ensuing propensity to ignore problems. Additionally, it prevents the promotion of pet projects during the prioritization process by taking into account the viewpoints of a wide range of stakeholders.

Reclassifying and mitigating. Leaders can gain a portfolio perspective by taking mitigation methods (such as preventative measures, backup plans, and monitoring) into account and then racking and stacking initiatives in accordance with their risk-adjusted value. They can decide on the goals of the firm based on that knowledge and the overall incremental risk they are willing to tolerate. The risk-effort trade-offs were made much apparent at a large refining company using this strategy, which changed the conversation from “That’s too hard” to “How do we make this easier?” As a result, projects that are of high priority are carried out more quickly than those that are straightforward but have unintended dangers.

Prioritization shouldn’t be a one-time thing; rather, it should be a key tool for flexible resource allocation based on the information at hand. Pilots for effective implementation are crucial investments because of this. Organizations that execute well frequently have well-honed strategies that not only tightly control pilots but also guarantee that the most important lessons are learned from the experience. Successful firms use the pilot as a crucial go/no-go gate as well as an opportunity to refine an endeavor, as opposed to using it as a ritualistic box-ticking exercise.

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