Keeping up with Simon Bailey is no easy thing but you surly walk away with a clear sense that we are all brilliant if we simply decide to be and take the actions to support our inner genius.
Bailey’s overall message is that in today’s turbulent times we must accept change as our friend and seek to be brilliant as a way to harness this change into opportunity. This brilliance is to often suppressed through our conditioning to avoid failure and by poor management that seeks to maintain the status quo rather than face change. People’s brilliance - and therefore productivity - is brought out when we lead people through change and we appreciate them creating an environment that celebrates employees rather than tolerates them. In order to be this leader and agent for brilliance we must decide what we want our future to be and then make the changes in the present that will lead us there.
Some of the major points from Bailey’s discussion of Brilliance:
On Failure:
Failure is not final. Failure is just feedback. We will all fail at some point in our lives but it is how we learn and respond to these failures that determine how relevant they will be to our future.
On Brilliance:
In a Harvard research we find that kids up to 4 operate at genius level. By 30 only 2% of us operate at genius or brilliant level. Why do we not continue to be geniuses as wel learn more in life. It is because we are conditioned to suppress our genius as we are taught to accept rules, paint within the lines and conform to the vision of others which generally create a lower expectation on what is expected of us. It is also due to our conditioning to what to hold onto the status quo rather than pursue change which leads to so many who simply seek to keep our jobs by not rocking the boat. And it is the work environment that most reinforces this genius killing mentality..
On What People Want.
When asked people come up with only 32% of their time being productivity at work and cite not being appreciated and not valued as the key factors keeping them from being productive. This is because people want to be more than paid to work - the want to contribute and be heard and, from my own perspective, want to be creative contributors to the overall challenges of the company. But too many office environments simply tolerate employees rather than celebrate them. People also want feedback from their leaders and leaders must constantly seek input from those that work with them.
On Change:
Change is your friend and we must except that change will happen constantly. Hanging on to the status quo leeds us to be unhappy and retards our progress. Successful people focus on where they are going seeing change as a natural part of that trip where losers focus on what their going through deciding to see only the effect the change has on them and therefore surrendering any power them may have to control this change.
On Leadership:
Offices are filled with bosses who seek compliance, set measurements and seek to maintain what is. These people do not bring out the brilliance in people and create environments where people choose not to be productive. A true leader seeks commitment, sets visions of where the team is going and are looking to create and embrace change and therefore bring people’s brilliance out. To shift from a boss to a leader we must ask ourselves:
Where have I been?
Why am I here?
What can I do?
Where am I going?
On Negativity:
We are surrounded by negative people and - if we are not careful - can be influenced by them thereby diminishing our brilliance. We must decide to put up mental shields those negative things we hear, see and say.
On the connection between Present and Future
Our future is created in the present. This means that what you do now, today, will determine if you get the results in the future you are looking for. This means we need to be able to focus on each moment in our day and make sure they are the decisions that will lead us to our goals. The moment we loose this focus our moments become memories or lost opportunity to effect change. This requires us to apply Vuja De or the ability to see something for the first time and look at what you are doing and make the changes to get the results you want.
On Waking-Up 15 Minutes Earlier:
5 min to meditate - quiet the voices
5 min to Read something that inspires you
5 min to stretch
On Being Paid for Solutions:
In your business you should be paid for the problems you solve and the solutions you find. In the future People will be paid for innovation not perspiration.
For the five pieces of advice by Bailey’s guest Lou please see the post on the SME twitter ConvencionSME.
(Summary by Dana Montenegro of SeriouslyCreative dana@seriouslycreative.com)
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