Nicholas Bate

Something To Think About

"You tell me it's the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead"

The Beatles, Revolution

Beyond the carrot and the stick: the torch

Leadership is more than the carrot. There's rarely a carrot big enough to get the best behaviour out of people. And if there is, those amazing bonuses soon wear off. And the stick? Well, nobody seriously thinks frightened, anxious people give of their best.

No, great leadership is much more about clear direction, hope. It's about clarity of purpose. It's about answering the question: "Where on Earth are we heading?".

Great leadership is about carrying the torch.

Who's carrying the torch in your organisation? And what's it revealing?

The A to Z of Personal Wealth

P is Passion

To be wealthy, follow your passion. If you are passionate about what you do you will have no problems working hard, being enthusiastic and becoming extrordinarily good at your skill. And if you become extrordinarily good you will be one of the few. And if you are one of the few, you will be well paid. And if you are well-paid you have a great route to personal wealth.

Extreme Productivity

The story so far:

You know what Extreme Sports are don't you? You may even be a practitioner. Here's a definition from Wikipedia:

"Extreme sport (also called action sport, adventure sport, and adventurous sport) is a media term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger or difficulty and often involving speed, height, a high level of physical exertion, and highly specialized gear or spectacular stunts."

But you probably haven't heard of Extreme Productivity or Presenting or Wealth or.... Well, here's your chance:

"The Extreme Portfolio is a selection of Personal Enhancement Skills which allow a good to excellent practitioner of said soft skills e.g. presenting to move to a standard of outstanding or awesome by focusing on the absolute essentials of the skill, by working the high pay-off areas and ignoring some of the standard 'safety' but limiting practices. There is an incredible exhileration in getting it right as the practitioner is often flipped 'into the zone'. There is also a high level of risk if focus is lost or attention to detail is lost"

Extreme Produtivity

Rule 1
You no longer carry a watch. You decide that whatever you are doing, you will be in that moment and not worrying about the previous meeting, nor worrying about the journey home. You will simply 'be here now'. When you need a time-check, there are plenty around.

Rule 2
You carry one 3 by 5 card each day, freshly created. It has a vertical line to divide each side of the landscape mode. One side is home/personal. One side is work/commercial. The Left-hand division is IN time (Important and Urgent). The right-hand division is ON time (Important and Investing). Complete them and work them.

Rule 3
All meetings are a maximum of 30 minutes. All meetings are standing up.

Rule 4
All decisions are followed by an immediate action.

How to feel really, really good.

Of course a massage will do it. A good thriller or film. A pleasant meal with friends. A great rock concert. Or simply clearing sleep debt. But funnily enough if you want to feel really, really good, go to the other end of the spectrum. Don't seek comfort: seek a challenge. When you accomplish it, whether it is getting up 1h early every day for a week to work on your novel or you re-establish a working relationship with your boss, you will feel brilliant. Human beings are designed for challenge.

Don't get too comfortable.

Which Habit is the toughest?

We don't hear as much about The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey as we used to. If you haven't read it, it's well worth doing so at some stage. Or maybe get the CD and listen to it over a few car journeys.

I remember a few years ago when I heard Dr Covey speak live at a conference in London, he was asked "Dr Covey, for you personally, which is the toughest Habit to practise well?"

He replied Habit 5: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood"

I suspect it is for all of us. When we actually live and breathe that habit, the effects are remarkable. Give it a serious try, today.

Extreme Productivity

You know what Extreme Sports are don't you? You may even be a practitioner. Here's a definition from Wikipedia:

"Extreme sport (also called action sport, adventure sport, and adventurous sport) is a media term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger or difficulty and often involving speed, height, a high level of physical exertion, and highly specialized gear or spectacular stunts."

But you probably haven't heard of Extreme Productivity or Presenting or Wealth or.... Well, here's your chance:

"The Extreme Portfolio is a selection of Personal Enhancement Skills which allow a good to excellent practitioner of said soft skills e.g. presenting to move to a standard of outstanding or awesome by focusing on the absolute essentials of the skill, by working the high pay-off areas and ignoring some of the standard 'safety' but limiting practices. There is an incredible exhileration in getting it right as the practitioner is often flipped 'into the zone'. There is also a high level of risk if focus is lost or attention to detail is lost"

Are you ready?

Join us tomorrow for Extreme Productivity.

The A to Z of Personal Wealth

O is Organised

I know: it doesn't necessarily seem the most fascinating of the A to Z. But it is as crucial as any of the other letters.

Get organised. A box file or hanging file or drawer stuffed full of your financial documents does not allow you to maximise your wealth. Direct Debits are going out which should have been long-cancelled. Opportunities are being missed.

Get organised:
-a simple filing system where stuff can be found
-review the situation on the basics: insurance, life cover, pension
-create a summary document of personal wealth, stock portfolio

Start now.

The Weekly Tutorial: On Being Creative

4 of 4

The story so far:

To be creative you need three things:

A belief that you can be creative.
Time to allow your brain to be creative.
Some techniques to encourage creativity.

That's the priority order, too.

What about a few techniques to encourage creativity? These techniques essentially encourage the brain to get out of its pattern-in which mode the problem cannot be solved-and leap to another area where it can be. What these techniques are giving you-for a short period of time-are a new brain.

The best source of techniques is certainly Edward De Bono. Here are two to experiment with:

1: The Six Thinking Hats.
De Bono reminds us that we often get too emotionally attached to an idea, esepcially in discussion with others. To remove unnecessary emotion and stay focused on encouraging an individual to think in different ways, he proposed six hats:
BLACK: logically negative
YELLOW: logically positive
GREEN: start afresh; out of the box
WHITE: what are the facts?
BLUE: what's our process; how will we go about this?
RED: speaking with emotion and no need for logic.
Learn more here and try them out today.

2. PO
This stands for provocative operation and is used to propose an idea, which may not necessarily be a solution, or a 'good' idea in itself, but stimulates thinking and allows new ideas to be produced. PO can be used to notify others that they are deliberately making a provocative comment.

Start now!

PowerPoint is 20 years old.

And is the world a better place for it? Read on here.