September Gloss 2016

SEPTEMBER 2016 LBDGroup Publication

PUBLISHERS NOTE

What Do You Really Stand For Stand?

From

Janine Garner HUFFINGTON POST COLUMNIST Over the last year I have been inspired on a daily basis with stories from corporate leaders of driving change, business owners following their passion and creating new industries as well as reading book after book of inspiring thoughts and ideas that have triggered off my own thinking and learning. Some of you may know I am a Partner at Thought Leaders Global and I’ve decided that this month’s issue is a celebration and small taste of some of the amazing thought leadership that is out there.

The Entrepreneur: business leaders who have used their subject matter expertise and identified the need for a product or service to then start, grow or sell a business, or to develop single businesses into chains.

Thought leadership can be found in any number of locations, and in any number of people - be they self-employed, working the public/private sector or non-for-profit organisations. They are found within the walls of corporations, in big industry, media, in our own personal circles. Thought leaders are not simply managers or people in positions of authority. They are those individuals who inspire higher levels of thinking and action in others. They often hold a unique perspective, and have the ability to inspire others to act.

The Socialpreneur: individuals who give back to their communities in a unique and innovative way, often bringing a unique perspective to support a non-for-profit initiative or organisation, harnessing their creative genius, network and ability to get things done like never before.

My own journey into this space began almost five years ago, when I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of Thought Leaders Global, Matt Church (and it is a pleasure to feature his thinking in this month’s issue along with the CEO of Thought Leaders, Pete Cook). From day one, I knew that I had found my tribe. I continue to learn every day from the community of Thought Leaders that I surround myself with, and I am honoured to be a Thought Leaders Partner, accredited Thought Leaders Mentor, and on the faculty of the Thought Leaders Business School.

All Thought Leaders fall in to one of the following four categories:

The Intrapreneur: an individual, often identified as a subject matter expert, working within a large organisation, using their breakthrough ideas and perspectives, promoting them on behalf of their organisation in such a way as to position the company and themselves as the dominant force within

AND FOUNDER OF LBDGroup

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SOO Jani N... ne’s e anti a g erl ci “It’s secondpated y Who boo You k Kno w”

their industry.

The Infopreneur: sole traders or partners who run their own practice, and they might write, speak, mentor and/or train in their area of expertise

The challenge is that there are currently not enough Thought Leaders, and we as societies are missing out on the opportunities that they create to disrupt, to challenge, to ideate, and to innovate. Indeed, much technological, philosophical and business advancement can be attributed to a Thought Leader who decided to strike out and do something different.

It is a pleasure to share with you in the pages of this month’s GLOSS the stories, wisdom, insight and expertise of Thought Leaders around the country and globe.

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We are all here for a reason – so make your reason matter.

AND MORE.

And, as always, remember to: Connect. Inspire. Succeed.

Published internationally by Wiley.

Available online and at these online retailers JANINE GARNER PUBLISHER / EDITOR GLOSS JUNE - JULY 2016 | 3

GLO S S GLOSS MAGAZINE Issue 31

80 Be Curious. Ask Why. Innovate With Confidence And Conviction (Janine’s Note) ...........................................................2

PUBLISHER & EDITOR

Janine Garner

ART DIRECTOR

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Margot Andersen Dr Jenny Brockis Melissa Browne Nikki Fogden-Moore Renata Cooper

FEATURED THIS MONTH

Peter Cook Kieran Flanagan Dan Gregory Matt Church Julia van Graas Emma Bannister Gabrielle Dolan Jacqui Walford Georgia Murch Louise Agnew Emily Verstege Fiona Tuck Jane Anderson Melanie Greblo Katherine Gonzalez Cork

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© LBDG 2016 All content in this newsletter is protected under Australian and International copyright laws. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of LBDGroup is strictly forbidden. The greatest care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information in this online magazine at time of going to press, and we accept no responsibility for omissions or errors. All rights reserved.

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CO N T E N T S

Andrea Welsh

FEATURE ARTICLES Thought Leaders .....................................6 Leading From the Internal Conversation Out .................................10 Do I Have What It Takes .......................14

52

26

Business Section Thought Leadership Is Nothing Without Selling ......................................20

76

Impossible Questions .........................24 What Is Visual Learning .......................26 Building Business Resilience ............30

Building A Culture Of Thought Leadership Mindset .............................42 Thought Leadership - Influence or Action........................................................46 Building The Next Generation Of Thought Leaders ...................................48 Should I Have A Linkedin Premium Account.....................................................50 The Ringmaster Not The Juggler ....52

FEEDBACK

58

Feedback Is Broken And It’s Time To Make Change..........................................34 The Power Of Storytelling To Influence And Lead...............................38

FIXING

Money

Just Press Go .............................................................................58 Love Thy Numbers ..................................................................62

You

D ON’ T BE A D!C K

BE REMARKABLE

Will The Real Thought Leader Please Stand Up ............70 Walking The Talk - Business Vitality For Thought Leaders ............................................................. 74 Top 5 Immune Boosting Tips .............................................76 LBD’s Out And About ............................................................80

GEORGI A MURCH GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 5

FEATURE ARTICLE

By Matt Church

Matt Church on Thought Leadership

So why has Thought Leadership emerged as such a rapidly rising influence in business,

THOUGHT LEADERS

corporations, charities and even for individual subject-matter experts? There are, of course, a number of reasons, we asked Matt Church, Founder and Chairman of Thought Leaders Global and author of 11 books on leadership to share his thoughts on why Thought Leadership matters now.

So here it is, you probably know something that others don’t, we all do if we have been living and learning throughout our lives. It might be that you are constantly being asked to share that information. Maybe you are asked to speak at events, perhaps someone has suggested you write a book, maybe people are always calling to pick your brain, buy you lunch or shout you a coffee. If this is happening to you, you are a thought leader.

An expert knows something, a Thought Leader is known for knowing something. Thought Leaders are professionally famous experts.

There are three domains where Thought Leaders stand out: 1. They may appear as independent consultants who share and often sell their thoughts 2. They may be entrepreneurs who use industry profile to drive their business 3. They may be embedded in large organisations and use their thought leadership to influence business outcomes.

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As the world’s information continues to become more accessible to all, it’s critical that we know how to apply it. Thought leadership is about sharing wisdom in a way that is relevant, thorough, elegant and often unique. It’s about capturing information, packaging it in a way that increases understanding and being able to deliver it in the most valuable way.

We are experiencing a pace of change right now that is incredibly rapid and unprecedented. There is no doubt that the world is both faster and flatter than it’s ever been. We have always, and I suspect will always, need leaders who can supply the WHY we do what we do. What’s become even more critical is someone who can provide the HOW and WHAT. Information has been democratised It used to be that information was held in the hands of a few. Now, thanks in no small part to the Web and further to specific applications like Google and Wikipedia, information is in the hands of the many. It used to be that to become an expert in any given topic typically required years of study, possibly resulting in a university degree, and many years of experience of working in that particular topic or field.

Experts were those elite people with a gift of rare knowledge and insight, the holders of the information that could be considered to be of great value for those lacking yet desiring that understanding. Experts were invited to speak at conferences and share ideas that most of the audience had either never considered or did not have the depth of understanding for that already existed in the mind of the speaker.

Today, your audiences have often searched the topic on the Internet during the day or night before the presentation, or even on their iPads or iPhones as the speaker is being introduced.

Information is no longer the scarce and rare commodity it once was. There are over 2.5 billion searches on Google every month. The number of text messages sent every day exceeds the population of the entire planet. In addition YouTube has become one of the largest search engines in the world with people now able to see people in action — rather than read bland text on a screen!

There are some 3000 books published globally each day, and that figure stands before the iPad and Kindle are even taken into consideration, and the avalanche of electronic books that are beginning to be published both through and by circumnavigating traditional publishers.

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FEATURE ARTICLE

By Matt Church

Add to this the tidal wave of daily emails in our inbox, and it’s fair to say we are no longer in the information age. Indeed, we are rather in the age of over-information; an age in which, each year, we will create and distribute more information than we have produced in the past 5000 years; a data deluge that has created three key vacuums: The Engagement Vacuum: so much information is now out there that people are getting desensitised to receiving new material, particularly in the media.

The Relevance Vacuum: even if people can access the information they require, they often lack the understanding of the bridge that joins the information in some practical way to their work or personal life.

The Meaning Vacuum: even if they can get the information, people are often left without the necessary filters to understand the real meaning of it.

It takes something special to get through to people in a way that they can understand and take something away from. Thought Leaders are experts in doing just this. Learning the Thought Leader core skills and practising them relentlessly will assist you to quickly become engaging, in both written and spoken communication as your information will be relevant and timely, and you will know how to position your ideas to instigate and create a deep and fuller meaning.

The business world has changed.

It is believed that the top 10 jobs in 2015 didn’t exist in the last decade. If ever there was an indication that the business world has changed, surely this remarkable fact is the one that hits the mark. Business as an industry has changed, and it continues to do so at an ever increasing velocity.

Of course, it could be easily argued that business has always changed as we have grown as a global civilisation, and merchants have gone from being some of the least to some of the most respected members in our society. However, the speed of that change in the current markets is startling. With the increasing innovation of technology and ideas, has come a change in business practice, and over the past 100 years, some of the most historically significant shifts have taken place in the world of business.

In 1910, the 10 largest businesses in the world were those in the business of constructing and selling products that were large enough for a human being to stand in. By 2015, the largest businesses in the world are predominantly associated in the

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creation and sales of the invisible, intangible and the hand held, including everything from pharmaceutical products, brands, computer coding, genetically based engineering, web based technology and telecommunications.

Thought leadership offers an evolved way of thinking and acting, and is of increasing importance for all businesses in both the corporate and the not-for-profit and community sectors. Never before in commerce, or society in general, have the value and need for having the latest and most relevant information at hand been so readily apparent. The businesses and organisations of today are more varied than at any time in human history and try to interact with customers and consumers on an almost instantaneous basis.

Marketing has changed — forever!

Ask anyone in the advertising business how it compares today with as recently as ten years ago and they will just say one word: Internet. Going back 40 years ago the primary form of mass marketing involved primarily print, radio and television. The Internet has created an entirely new marketing channel that has drastically shaken the traditional order of marketing into the new millennium. Imagine the concern of a large business that spent millions of dollars on a traditional television campaign to see a simple home computer produced YouTube video getting hundreds of millions of hits — meaning these people wanted to click onto this information to find out more!

With the ever increasing amount of advertising overload many people are looking for easier ways to identify whom to trust, to do business with and to follow. Being a Thought Leader is the key to taking content marketing and turning it into a community (dare I say tribe) of followers.

Like consumers, businesses and corporations prefer to buy from and deal with companies in whom they can place their confidence. This trust is built on reputation, and reputation is generally not built on marketing or advertising but on good business practice all the way around.

By becoming an industry Thought Leader, you can build a strong reputation, even with severely limited resources. Developing Thought Leadership is not a strategic objective in its own right, but combined with any number of business ideas and objectives, it will turn into quite the juggernaut.

Thought Leaders provide support for your marketing and corporate objectives of selling products, generating leads or boosting share price. A great Thought Leadership strategy

contributes to the achievement of all these business goals.

Thought Leaders also provide credibility, which helps influence job candidates, investors, customers, suppliers and industry commentators in their decisions about your business, corporation or organisation — which everyone knows is the strongest form of marketing: word of mouth.

Our decreased attention span makes the Thought Leadership skill of communicating a clear and compelling message even more important. Unless you position yourself and your ideas in an engaging way, others will not listen. This occurs between businesses as well as within them. The days of positional power are fading fast, when if a senior manager speaks everyone has to listen because they expect brilliance. All too often these senior managers who lack Thought Leadership are viewed with a form of contempt. The question is asked, ‘How did they achieve this level of authority without having the skills?’ Today businesses cannot afford to have leaders at key levels who lack the ability to communicate in a way that grabs others’ attention — and, more importantly, mobilises them into action.

So what’s next?

If you are an individual who consults or shares your information and charges for it you need to figure out how to leverage positioning better. Consultants can earn $500,000 to $1,500,000 a year working 50 – 200 days doing work they love, with people they like, the way they want. If only they learn how to be commercially smart selling their thoughts.

Entrepreneurs can become rainmakers for their startups as they use the power of Thought Leadership profiling to get attention and keep it. This is about sharing your ideas with the whole market. Entrepreneurs who nail this get a job on their competitors and slingshot their business growth, saving years and thousands of dollars in advertising.

If you work in big business, Thought Leadership is the key to getting noticed, promoted and making a difference to the business while developing yourself into an increasingly valuable ‘linchpin’ in the company.

Matt Church is the founder of Thought Leaders Global and Chair of the Thought Leaders Business School. If you would like to develop your thought leadership check out the program at tlbusinesschool.com or you can follow Matt via twitter @mattchurch.

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 9

FEATURE ARTICLE

By Melanie Greblo

Leading From the Internal Conversation Out

It was many years ago that I first ventured upon the term conversational leadership. I was studying a Masters in Education, Social Ecology Leadership, and was delving deep into the work of internationally acclaimed poet and global thought leader on conversational leadership, David Whyte. I was also hungry to learn more about the world’s indigenous cultures and their approach to conversation, story and listening. More recently I have discovered the work of Judith Glaser, an American thought leader on collaboration, her latest book is titled Conversational Intelligence.

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Our businesses and organisations today pay scant attention to conversations. Management practice and leadership are often too concerned with the mechanics of communication at the great expense of truly understanding conversation, the foundational elements of good conversations and what a culture born of conversational leadership can nurture and grow in people, teams, the business and the special place that business has in a community.

As leaders we are constantly striving for growth, both personally and in our work. Judith Glaser’s work is based on the single premise that the ‘next level of greatness depends on the quality of our culture, which depends on the quality of our relationships, which depends on the quality of our conversations’. Everything happens through conversations. In David Whyte’s words, we must apprentice ourselves to the conversational nature of reality. There’s a lot to be learned from our Indigenous peoples, who seem to live by conversation, firstly the conversation they have with country, place and the intimacy created through deep listening and stillness. It’s from that wellspring and presence that conversation then takes place within and between people through stories, ceremony and ritual.

It is only through the inner work can we possibly come to bring to light the conversations in our organisations and businesses that will truly serve us as leaders, and the people with whom we work.

To thrive in your conversational leadership start with these principles: •

Stop the conversation you are having right now – sometimes we can get so caught up in a narrative and story that has long stopped serving us. Stop that conversation. What might you become if you stopped it?

•

Become friends with the unknown and with silence.

Stop every day and ask yourself a beautiful question, where could your internal conversation take you if you conversed with the silence and uncertainty, and adopted the ancient Aboriginal practice of patient waiting. There’ s more time than we think, rushing for answers doesn’ t always deliver the best outcomes.

•

Be present – in every moment, in every conversation. It takes practice, but to be truly present to a conversation we need to engage our whole person, not just our mouths and ears and eyes. The conversation is happening everywhere, in the silent pauses, between the spaces and places and people, in our bodies and through our breath

•

Cultivate a robust vulnerability. The power of conversations lies in vulnerability, especially in the conversations we have with ourselves, and each other.

Without the capacity for this element of emotional intelligence, vulnerability, we cannot possibly be authentic, and without authenticity, we are out of the game.

When you think about it, everything is a conversation, an exchange.

Whether you are actively participating in the conversations of your life or business doesn’t mean they are not taking place. When a young son who was shadowing his CEO dad all day at work told him he didn’t think his dad actually did anything except talk, his dad replied wholeheartedly, “Son. There’s a story going on out there. I need to know if they want bigger chips, smaller chips, round chips or flavoured chips. There’s a story going on in here, in these walls. I need to know if they are motivated, aligned, and energised by the bigger story. I need to know the conversations, I need to know what people are saying, I need to listen. Son, I’m chief storyteller around here”.

To show conversational leadership requires so much of us.

It begins with the robust and authentic conversations we have with ourselves. It begins with our own central narrative and having a depth of awareness about it. What is the conversation we are having with ourselves. Importantly, and perhaps more so, the insight comes from asking ourselves what is the conversation I am not having with myself?

What conversation am I having with myself and what am I becoming whilst I have it?

How does conversational leadership support a person and organisation to thrive?

We all know that one of the single most influential character traits we can possess is trust, and the capacity we have to elicit trust from others, quickly and deeply. It’ s also described by authors Richard Shell and Mario Moussa, as The Art of Woo. They suggest that the art of wooing, or winning others over, lies in strong social skills. As social creatures, our most employed skill is conversation. If we’ re not ‘ good’ at it, we’ ll be on the back foot, and with the future of work so complex, we’ ll quite simply be left behind.

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FEATURE ARTICLE

By Melanie Greblo

Judith Glaser’ s work has uncovered the intricate and fascinating neurochemistry that is triggered through conversations. The brain processes at play during conversations determine our trust levels, the bedrock of good relationships. When a conversation takes place, a complex chain is activated. Bio-reactions kick in immediately, feelings then come up as a result of those bio-reactions, then thoughts (if we’ re emotionally intelligent enough to move through feeling to get to the thinking stage), assumptions and beliefs arise, and then conclusions.

Conversational leadership and intelligence requires us to move beyond the technical, mechanic aspects of communicating. This is a transactional level, where most conversation is instructional or like the show, tell and ask we all engaged in at pre-school. True leadership around conversational capacity requires us to also go beyond the next level, where conversations serve more to advocate, champion and more thoroughly and deeply inquire. Beyond this, we reach the pinnacle of conversational leadership, transformational conversation. Characterised by whole person or whole systems transformation, these conversations facilitate sharing, discovery, and ultimately a very authentic invitation to everyone involved in the conversation, an invitation to evolve, beyond your position, opinion, thoughts and the safety of yesterday.

Future leaders and our best organisations and businesses share one thing in common. The capacity to allow, invite, encourage and learn from transformational conversation. It takes courage. It takes human effort, no technology can do it for us. It’ s our humanity in action. What is the conversation you will have today?

MELANIE GREBLO Melanie Greblo is the Director of Talking Sticks, a purposedriven business transforming conversations. Talking Sticks curate and host events that bring together a potent diversity of minds and hearts - experts, thought leaders, creatives and everyday folk - to transform conversations, debate and thinking and to create shifts in the people having the conversations. mgreblo@talkingsticks.com.au

talkingsticks.com.au

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FEATURE ARTICLE

By Peter Cook

Lots of people love the corporate world. The cut and thrust, the resources, the

DO I HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? 14 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

teams. The social aspect getting to work and play with a bunch of colleagues.

The scale of the projects, and what can get accomplished.

For others, not so much. The other end of the spectrum is what Dilbert author Scott Adams would call a wage slave.

I speak to lots of people who dream of going out on their own, but aren’t sure what’s involved or if they have what it takes.

This article outlines what’s involved in being successful on your own, selling your expertise, and what I believe are the key skills you’ll need.

The third way to make a living There are three ways to earn a living. The two we all hear about are to have a job or run a business. Ideally in a business you create systems that other people follow and eventually remove yourself and sell the business for a lottolike figure. Alternatively, a job is working in someone else’s business or organisation.

The third option is to run a practice. A practice is based on the expertise of the principal. For example if the practice we look at is a brain surgery, the practice is based on the expertise of the brain surgeon. While there would be other people in the practice supporting the surgeon, she is the one who does all the delivery (in this case the brain surgery). If she is sick, the receptionist isn’t going to fill in for her. Without the brain surgeon the practice isn’t worth anything.

Here are some of the distinctions between the three options:

Practice

Job

Business

Low start-up cost Based around expert High profit margin

No start-up cost Based on role Salary - no profit margin

High start-up cost Based on systems Low profit margin

The practice of a thought leader is based on the subject matter expertise or the ideas of the principal. The expert is typically a consultant, speaker, author, trainer, mentor, facilitator or coach (or ideally a combination of these).

Practices – as opposed to businesses – generally have low start-up costs. For example, many infopreneurs start their practice from home, keeping their overheads down. And practices continue to be funded from the cashflow created in the practice.

Businesses, on the other hand, have an initial investment focus and even if you build one by boot strapping, that is, by keeping initial costs as low as possible, often at some point they require fundraising or more significant capital investment to get it to the next level.

A successful practice In my view a successful thought leaders practice revolves around revenue, lifestyle and legacy. In a nutshell, this means getting well paid to do work you love with people you like while making a difference in the world.

From a financial perspective this means turning over $500k to $1.5M a year, working 50–200 days, with one or two support staff.

In terms of lifestyle, success is doing work you love with people you like the way you want. Given this is about exertion income, to maintain a successful practice for a decade or more the work has to be a labour of love.

And finally, a successful practice is one that provides you with the vehicle to make the difference you were born to make. You get to make the contribution that you choose and leave a legacy that you are proud of.

Be a thought leader It is possible to run a practice based on other people’s ideas. You can consult or train or coach using other people’s intellectual property. You can become accredited in Myers Briggs or Getting Things Done or Life Styles Inventory or thousands of other methodologies out there.

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FEATURE ARTICLE

By Peter Cook However, it’s much harder to make the revenue I’m talking about without being the thought leader in your field.

What do I mean by being a thought leader? It means extending the thinking in your field, and eventually being positioned as the go-to-person in your domain. The litmus test for this is “do you have a book in you?”. If writing a book is on your bucket list, then this might be a sign that running a thought leaders practice is something for you.

Do I have what it takes?

It sounds pretty ideal, getting well paid to do work you love with people you like while making a difference in the world.

But what does it take to be successful at this game?

There are three things a thought leader has to do in a thought leaders practice: think, sell and deliver.

Think – you need to have original ideas, and be able to give advice based on those. It’s essential to be able to bring your own perspective, wisdom and experience to bear in a way that can solve problems in the world.

Sell – lots of people would love to just think and deliver, and have someone else bring them the clients. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. You also need to be able to have a conversation with a prospect that ends up with them buying.

Deliver – to run a thought leaders practice you need to be able to speak and write. You’ll also make money from coaching, training, facilitating or mentoring, but speaking and writing is the threshold. If the thought of speaking in front of groups terrifies you, and you haven’t written anything since your last uni essay, this probably isn’t for you.

In the end our lives are determined by our choices. The security in having a job has been proven to be an illusion.

The lotto-like payoff for starting your own business is the statistical equivalent of kissing unicorns. For me and many other thought leaders the best bet for financial freedom, reducing risk and loving what you do lies in running a thought leaders practice. Maybe it will work for you as well..

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Peter Cook is the CEO of Thought Leaders, the Dean of Thought Leaders Business School and the best selling author of 7 books including The Thought Leaders Practice and The New Rules of Management.

He’s passionate about helping thought leaders run successful practices.

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 17

noun 1.

a person’s regular occupation, profession, or trade.

2. commercial activity.

business

business

BUSINESS

By Kieran Flanagan

Many of us get a little icky when it comes to ‘selling’ our thinking. We think having to sell is a negative thing. We think we shouldn’t need to do it. We believe if our thought leadership is good enough, if our thoughts are breakthrough enough or if we’re clever enough, informed enough, or work hard enough then the value of our ideas will be self evident and ‘sell themselves’. That people will be blown away

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by our genius. That we will start a revolution. That our thought leadership will change the world.

This is not true.

Thought leadership is not only the business of thinking, it is the business of selling.

Thought leadership, like life is ultimately about building buyin. But don’t be alarmed if you get a little uncomfortable at the thought of the persuasive arts. You (and us all) are all already in the business of selling.

If you’re a mum you are selling vegetables, clean teeth and bedtime. If you’re trying to get your point of view across you are selling an opinion and if you are single and go on a date, you are definitely selling.

So why are we so weird about selling our thinking?

Right or Rich?

Often in our work we meet people and even companies that would rather be right than rich. They would rather not ‘sell’ and frame things in a way their audience will value than be seen to be selling. They choose to bemoan the fact that people just don’t seem to ‘get it’ versus own the idea that they just don’t get people and how to share a thought with them in a way that resonates.

There are many great thinkers in the world whose genius goes unnoticed in their lifetime. There has been throughout history. From Galileo to the ‘father of modern genetics’ Mendel to artists like Van Gogh. For us these people have missed part of thought leadership. They have the genius but fail on the leadership.

Thought leadership is a combination of thinking and leading.

As thought leaders we need to do both things. We cannot blame other people and their lack of insight, foresight or plain

old sight for our failure at either one. Nor should we be as naive as to believe that the best thinking (or person) wins.

We also must not fall into the trap of believing in a meritocracy.

Being the best is not enough.

The best ideas, thinking or technology does not guarantee success or popularity. Beta versus VHS is a perfect example of this. Beta was a superior technology in almost every respect except the one that truly counted. The ability to lead people to it. To make it easy for people to understand it, connect to it and adopt it.

Being first is not enough.

A breakthrough study done by Oded Shenkar at Ohio State University found that 97.8 percent of the value of an innovation goes to the imitator not the originator. Think of White Castle versus McDonalds or Diners Club versus Mastercard. The originator is not the more successful brand or business. The imitator is.

This is not to say as thought leaders we should ‘borrow aka copy’ others peoples thinking but rather to demonstrate the importance of selling our thoughts. Selling is after all leading people to your way of thinking.

When it comes to selling our thoughts we can also learn from this study to not be obsessed with being radical, new and never thought before.

Rather.

Make your thinking new enough.

In our work with thought leaders, organisations and small businesses we frequently see the desire to be new and

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BUSINESS

By Kieran Flanagan amazingly breakthrough. The urge to shout ‘new’, ‘never seen (or thought) before’, ‘a breakthrough’ or ‘a revolution!’ The problem with this is that human beings are fundamentally afraid of change. We are wired to be nervous around new things in our environment because new things usually meant a threat in our early days.

So shouting about how unbelievably different what you have to say is, sets off unconscious alarm bells of the survival kind.

RISK. RISK. A better strategy is to make your thinking new enough. Analogies are a great way to do this. Email is like mail made electronic versus an unbelievable breakthrough in letter sending and much easier for a human being to buy.

Which is ultimately what all thought leaders are trying to do.

Get someone (preferably a group of people large enough to make a difference to buy their thinking. This means we must become obsessed with the people we are trying to influence.

Instead of trying to talk all about ourselves and what we do we should think more about the people we are trying to share our thought leadership with.

Sell what they care about.

If you are going to lead, lead them somewhere they won’t mind going (even if the journey is a little arduous on the way).

When you sell ideas that solve a problem, that improve something, that make something easier, that make people like themselves a little more, it’s never really selling… it’s connecting.

When that happens anything can happen.

This is the true art of influence.

This is the true power of thought leadership.

Think about who not you.

The most crucial thing for a thought leader to obsess over is ‘what’s in it for them?’

We need to know why anyone would care about the things we are creating. Seeing the world from the point of view of the person we are trying to sell to is crucial.

Think of the runaway success of the ice bucket challenge.

People all over the world got involved. It was viral, social and everywhere. It told us nothing about the disease itself. It is one of the most successful charity fundraising efforts of all time and has recently led to a breakthrough in identifying a new gene that contributes to the disease, NEK1 .

Yet despite it’s extraordinary success most people don’t know it is for ALS or what also ALS actually is. It doesn’t matter. The average person did not need to know the details, the sad facts or the worthiness of the cause (all traditional charity techniques) they needed money to help fund research. They got it. Without talking all about themselves. In fact, it is a wonderful example of “stop saying what you want people to hear” and start to frame your sell in terms of that they get out of it, or why they would care.

All charities have worthy causes and people who need our help.

All human beings have a finite amount of head space, heart space and financial room to give. So instead of focusing on themselves the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge focused solely on the people they were trying to engage and made something fun and viral that everyone from celeb tokens would want to do. As thought leaders we can learn a lot from this.

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KIERAN FLANAGAN Kieran Flanagan is Chief Creative Officer of The Impossible InstituteTM, a strategic think-tank that helps organisations design the future of business and make what is not... possible! A Social Researcher & Innovation Strategist, Kieran is a speaker, author, educator and mentor who helps individuals, teams, leaders and organizations navigate the business world of the future. kieran@theimpossibleinstitute.com theimpossibleinstitute.com

GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 23

BUSINESS

By Dan Gregory

Impossible Questions Remember high school maths?

Now we do realise many of you may be desperately trying to not recall it but don’t fret, this article isn’t a test. Nor is it going to require you to relive complex calculations. Just try and remember how early in high school they taught you that you cannot square root a negative number. It was a rule thou shalt not break. Subsequently you and all your thinking adhered to this mathematical world view.

Then one day, usually a few years later they turned up and said ‘let’s pretend”. Yes even in mathematics they play make believe. What they pretend is that the square root of a negative number (-1) has an imaginary value called i. With this game of ‘imagine’ an entire branch of complex mathematics opens up.

This suspension of a current belief changes everything. We call it Impossible Thinking©.

Impossible Thinking© is the altering of what we currently believe which in turn changes what is possible. The wonderful part of it is that change can begin with one simple thing re-thought. Like a single brick knocked out of a wall, the right thought delivered at the right point can destabilise something much larger and change it the entire system or structure.

That is what great thought leadership really is. The ability to un-think what has been done before, to re-think what we currently hold true and to out-think our limitations.

Impossible Thinking© is a process we take companies, individuals and small businesses through when we are working with them on their thought leadership. In the process we help them develop an ability to hold a possibility long enough until a new one emerges.

Take for example some work we are doing with a large financial services company. One of the problems they face is customers being angry and frustrated when they are on hold and getting so angry that by the time they speak to someone they are not in the mood to be nice which means the staff are constantly

24 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

facing irritated customers. This makes for a less than ideal work environment which makes staff turnover high. So using Impossible Thinking© we asked is it possible for customers to want to be placed on hold? Currently we are exploring getting famous bands to record unplugged versions of songs that can only be heard on hold. Hello ‘I want to be on hold’.

Thought leaders are able to see things others cannot. They think the impossible.

Here are some of the key steps from our methodology that you can apply to stretch your own thought leadership.

LOOK TO THE NORMS The first part of Impossible Thinking© is to look for the typical ways of doing and thinking. In this stage we want to see and capture as many default settings as we can for our category, problem or behaviour. Until we notice the entrenched points of view and the unconscious processes we have no hope of changing them.

For example if you were thinking about the hotel business, you would notice that all hotels have rooms, beds, bathrooms, a way to book, check-in and out and so on. You would see the usual ways of doing things.

LOOK TO THE BREAKAGE POINTS The things that are broken are a thought leaders gold mine.

Getting good at noticing (not glossing over) things that aren’t working is a wonderful way of finding new ideas and possibilities.

If you hate or people hate it, embrace it and ask why.

QUESTION EVERYTHING The next stage of Impossible Thinking© is to question every little thing. Why are things done around here like that? Why do we do that, think that, behave that way, say that, want that, reject that, hate that, love that?

Try spending a day or a week questioning every single decision you (or the people you are trying to engage) make. This gets us off autopilot which has us notice things we may not have noticed before and wonder things we may never have wondered.

We often say there is magic in the gaps between what people say they do and what they actually do. That the gaps are the breaks in logic, emotion, motivation and human desires. In these gaps are the potential to close them with the right thinking.

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE? The last part of the thinking process (before the refining and realising processes can begin) is to imagine a different possibility.

To ask what would it take and how is it possible.

How is it possible for people to not stay in a hotel?

Well people could stay in people’s houses and unused spaces.

Hello Air b’n’b.

How is it possible for a restaurant to have no food?

Well a restaurant could be opened in the midst of a fresh food market where people brought their own ingredients to master chefs who cooked them wonderfully.

Thought leadership is the ability to lead people to a new way of thinking. To change what is possible. After all, the words I can’t, should always be followed by… yet.

SUSPEND A BELIEF Now un-thinking is hard. Human beings don’t come with a delete button. We cannot unsee that moment we walked in on our parents nor can we simply etch-a-sketch our minds and habits.

So we need to play a game with our brains called make believe and let’s pretend. We were all good at it as kids so don’t start telling yourself you are no good at it.

Choose something you hold true. Perhaps the thing you are the most reluctant to change your view on. Now imagine for a while that it isn’t true. (We are pretending remember).

What changes? What are the consequences of this thinking?

What if restaurants did not need menus or even food…

ASK WHAT IF OR IMAGINE IF Questions are much more powerful than statements when it comes to Impossible Thinking©. Questions after all open up possibilities whereas statements lead them.

Saying we need to build a bridge means people will think of bridges. They will look at structures, costs, engineering challenges, materials, design, logistics and the like. They will bring back bridge designs. They will choose one and build a bridge.

Asking how do we get across the water opens up all kinds of possibilities that saying we need a bridge doesn’t. Water taxi, underwater tunnel, sling shot, ferry, transporter and so on.

DAN GREGORY Dan Gregory is the Co-Founder, President and CEO of The Impossible Institute™, a strategic think-tank that helps organizations understand what motivates the staff, customers and communities so that they can make what’s not… possible! His mission is to elevate and transform our understanding of Human Motivation and help those he works with to become key people of influence. dan@theimpossibleinstitute.com theimpossibleinstitute.com

In the hotel example, what if hotels didn’t have a lot of rooms in big buildings?

GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 25

BUSINESS

By Emma Bannister

Visual Learners also understand information in regard to spatial relationships. I remember seeing a diagram like this at school; the sense of space and size enabled me to remember it forever.

Unfortunately, most teaching styles don’t include visual aids. Teachers and lecturers write key words on the chalkboard or show bullet-pointed slides on a projector. Although students see the words, visual learners need pictures, images, models, and objects.

What is Visual Learning?

HTTP://WWW.FOODBEAST.COM/NEWS/PLANETS-RELATIVE-TO-FRUIT-SIZES//

At work we are often subjected to reports and strategy meetings that follow the same formula. If you’re a visual learner, how can you ensure you remember what’s required?

• Colour-code your notes by topic, concept and idea.

• Highlight the main point, idea or event.

• Illustrate the facts that support the main point.

• Draw arrows to connect supporting or similar concepts and ideas.

If you’re giving a Presentation, ultimately you are the teacher! You’re not just there to “present” – you want your audience to understand your message, information and idea. But most importantly, you want them to remember it! That’s learning.

According to the Yale Centre for Teaching and Learning2 the most successful teachers incorporate methods to accommodate all types of learners – reading, listening and experience. The best method for your presentation is a combination of all three.3,4 I’ve always been fascinated by how people understand information. Probably because the learning methods at school rarely engrossed me. Even now, if I’m told something - a sequence of words, a telephone number even people’s names I forget it in seconds.

Presentation Methods and Effect on Ability to Recall

When I discovered visual learning - a teaching style in which information is associated with images, I realised I may not be stupid after all. And I’m not alone – 83% of human learning is visual.

Visual learners are defined as individuals who learn best through visual aids, such as diagrams, charts, demonstrations and videos1. Audible learners engage when listening to information and repeating what they heard out loud – either to themselves or others. Yet verbal learners still use an element of visual learning, tending to highlight key points in textbooks or notes.

Teachers tend to instinctively use the teaching style that reflects their preferred method of learning: a teacher who learns audibly teaches audibly. Yale recommends Lecturers understand their own learning style first. Awareness enables them to rely less heavily on one teaching method whilst incorporating the others.

Thus when creating and delivering your presentation, be mindful of your own style and appreciate others will differ.

Always include visual elements, as they enable faster assimilation and lodge in long-term memory.

26 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 27

BUSINESS

By Emma Bannister

“If one wants to reach younger people at an earlier age to shape their minds in a critical way, you really need to know how ideas and emotions are expressed visually.”

– MARTIN SCORSESE

Visual learning methods are an essential tool for educators. But if you want the ultimate formula for a powerful presentation, incorporate all types of learning – visual, written, verbal and experiential.

Presentation Studio’s innovative approach to Visual ThinkingTM, transforms lacklustre presentations into engaging, powerful and successful communication tools.

EMMA BANNISTER

1

TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY, 2016, “VISUAL LEARNING”, VIEWED MAY 31, 2016, <HTTP://WWW.PSSC.TTU.EDU/TECHHORT/LASRVY/VS_VR.HTM?>.

2

“YALE CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING, 2015, “TEACHING STUDENTS WITH DIFFERENT LEARNING STYLES AND LEVELS OF PREPARATION”, VIEWED MAY 31, 2016, <HTTP://CTL.YALE.EDU/TEACHING/IDEAS-TEACHING/TEACHING-STUDENTS-DIFFERENT-LEARNING-STYLES-AND-LEVELS-PREPARATION> 3

CHANGING MINDS, 2016, “ACTIVE LEARNING”, VIEWED MAY 31, 2016

4

HTTP://CHANGINGMINDS.ORG/EXPLANATIONS/LEARNING/ACTIVE_

LEARNING.HTM

A presentation expert & Telstra Business Women Award 2015 finalist, Emma is passionate about changing presentation culture. With over two decades of Visual Design experience, and ten years as Founder and CEO at www.presentationstudio.com Emma Bannister’s view is radically different. emmab@presentationstudio.com presentationstudio.com

28 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 29

BUSINESS

By Julia Van Graas

i u B

g n i ld

s s e n i s e u c B n e i l i s e R

30 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

Could your business survive the loss of a major customer? How about a supplier bringing in their payment terms from 45 days to cash on delivery? Would you still have a market and customers if a competitor arrived with technology that halved the cost of service/unit cost?

The business environment is changing at a rapid pace. Markets remain volatile, political uncertainty seems to be the new norm, growth continues to be a challenge, and technological innovation continues to disrupt the status quo.

The impact these issues can have on the performance and ultimately the viability of a business depends squarely on the organisation’s ability to identify, mitigate and adapt to constant and unpredictable changes.

The perpetual and rapid changes in today’s markets mean it is critical that businesses actively manage their business resilience to confirm business viability and create lasting value.

Business Resilience Dynamics A helpful framework for assessing resilience in your business considers four key areas.

So what is Business Resilience?

Business resilience is the ability to identify, mitigate and adapt to emerging issues and seize the opportunities as they arise.

In a practical sense, it’s making sure you have a Plan B, Plan C and a Plan D, even if you have a really coherent and achievable Plan A. It’s not just about having a contingency plan in place and more about de-risking your business so that it is “tough” enough to withstand the numerous challenges facing businesses today.

The big issues threatening your resilience Arguably, there has never been a greater need for a company to assess its own business resilience.

However, even in calmer times, a company’s business resilience will always be brought into the spotlight at some stage of its corporate life cycle.

We see five common issues in the global market that can affect businesses’ resilience: •

Economic uncertainty – increased volatility in commodity prices and exchange rates, geopolitical precariousness (eg Brexit)

•

Regulatory scrutiny – increased intervention and oversight from regulators and government

•

Technological innovation – changing consumer behaviours, habits and globalisation

•

Aggressive capital – increased shareholder activism and expectations, multiple alternative capital providers targeting underperforming businesses

•

Market uncertainty – innovation, changing customer trends and behaviours

1.

Stakeholder Resilience

The Board must first have a clear understanding of business strategy and have the ability to clearly articulate this to its stakeholders.

This includes identifying and fostering understanding and transparent communications with a diverse base of stakeholders which includes management, employees and unions, customers, suppliers, lenders and other financial stakeholders, investors, regulators, industry bodies, the public and media.

Should material stakeholders lose trust in management or the board, they may have the ability to significantly influence the outcome and/or veto options available for a business in times of distress so it’s critical that open lines of communication exist.

GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 31

BUSINESS

By Julia van Graas Questions to consider: •

Is there a clear vision for the business, supported by market trends and organisation’s capabilities?

•

What is the stakeholder perception of the business strategy? Is the current strategy the right strategy and has this been clearly communicated to the market/key stakeholders?

•

•

• 2.

Do you understand the objectives and needs of your stakeholders? How influential are internal and external stakeholders?

Does the board have appropriate representation and structure to align it to shareholder interests?

Are management perceived as credible?

Operational Resilience

Management teams considering the operational resilience of their business should think through the range of impacts covering demand and supply side - customer breadth and depth (e.g. reliance on single market segment or particular customer), suppliers (e.g. key supplier input prices, dependency on a particular supplier), IT systems, innovation and market changes.

It is vital that organisations have sufficient flexibility in their operations to be able to effectively mitigate the impact of rapid shocks to operations. This needs to happen while continuing to effectively generate value, reduce costs and execute the business strategy.

•

3.

Are you able to recruit and retain key staff effectively? Are industrial relations effectively managed? Are employees incentivised to meet business strategy?

Capital Resilience

A business has capital resilience if it has the appropriate liquidity and capital structure to provide the flexibility it needs to execute its business strategy and react to risks impacting liquidity and cash flows.

Resilience is enhanced by having flexible long term financing and achievable debt covenants supported by robust cash flow forecasts. If a business is overleveraged, it hinders the ability to adapt quickly to market changes.

Achieving visibility and control over cash flows and driving sustainable working capital improvements is the most cost-effective form of self-funded finance for the majority of organisations. This also provides the greatest level of control for the board.

Questions to consider: •

Is there sufficient visibility over liquidity in the short/medium term to manage the business?

•

Does our financing provide the necessary flexibility (including meeting covenants) to execute the business strategy?

•

What scope is there for driving incremental working capital improvements to release cash?

•

Is the business still viable in downside sensitivities modelled in the business plan?

Questions to consider:

4.

•

Is the business too dependent on a particular customer or market segment? If so, how can the revenue base be diversified?

In order for a business to be market resilient, it needs to understand the current and future dynamics affecting it.

•

Is the operational footprint aligned to the current and future business strategy be that capabilities, geography and/or capacity?

To assess this, a business must recognise how it is currently positioned, particularly compared to its competitors, as changing competitive dynamics can have a significant impact on the near and long term outlook for a business.

•

How dependent is the business on its suppliers?

Are any of the key suppliers in the supply chain in financial distress? What materials used are at risk of supply shortages and/or price fluctuations?

32 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

Market Resilience

It is also essential that all businesses, big or small, have a clear strategy regarding disruptive technology. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an expensive exercise; businesses can start small by first developing a culture of innovation and focusing on the customer experience.

Questions to consider: •

How critical are your products to your customers?

How differentiated are they from competitor offerings? How well do you understand and manage pricing, particularly in light of changing cost base?

•

How much revenue risk can the business sustain?

•

How important is technology to winning in your market? What is your strategy for exploiting technology to maintain and grow market position? How do you stay ahead of your competitors?

Summary Understanding your business resilience is not a “nice to have”, but rather a necessity given the rapidly changing market we operate in – businesses need to identify, mitigate and adapt to the changing market to seize the opportunities as they arise or risk missing out.

Winners and losers will be determined by how well leaders actively build resilience into their businesses and find ways to deliver extra value.

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author, not Ernst & Young. This article provides general information, does not constitute advice and should not be relied on as such. Professional advice should be sought prior to any action being taken in reliance on any of the information. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.

JULIA VAN GRAAS Julia is a Partner at Ernst & Young specialising in Business Resilience and Turnaround.

Julia’s expertise focuses on working with and alongside company management and boards to plan and implement turnarounds and restructurings, delivering outstanding results in high pressure environments julia.van.graas@au.ey.com

For example, a business with a strong portfolio of ‘must have’ products with limited scope for substitution will be more resilient through volatile market conditions.

GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 33

BUSINESS

By Georgia Murch

Feedback is broken and it’s time to

make a change!

34 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

FIXING

Most organisations and individuals understand the value and power of giving and receiving feedback. We are aware it builds trust and respect between our

employees, customers and stakeholders. We know that great conversations lead to

better outcomes and therefore productivity and profit. So we send our people to a

FEEDBACK

training program in the hope they will come back a changed person.

Yet we find that our people, and if we are honest… ourselves, still avoid it or handle it poorly.

It’s time to move to the future The concept of ‘performance management’ was introduced about sixty years ago (yep it’s pretty old) as a means to determine the wages of an employee based on their performance. It was used to drive behaviours to generate specific outcomes.

When employees were solely driven by financial rewards this tended to work well.

D ON’ T BE A D!C K

BE REMARKABLE!

In the late 1980s not all employees felt rewarded, nor motivated by financial gain alone; many were driven by learning and the development of their skills. From here performance management started moving into more frequent monitoring and reviews with a focus on ‘regular feedback’ outside the formal review process.

As organisations put more regular conversations into the mix there was a notable improvement in productivity and employee engagement, when the conversations were handled well.

GEORGI A MURCH

We are now seeing an emerging trend in high-performing organisations where all employees, not just the leaders, are being taught how to give great feedback and also how to receive feedback with equal candor and grace. Organisations that do this are in their ‘feedback flow’. But there are far too less that are gaining this as their competitive edge.

BRW, who award and recognise the ‘Best Places to Work’ cite that one of the factors about creating these high performance workplaces is where ‘the bosses saw issues from the employee’s point of view, gave meaningful feedback and information’. I know this to be true as I work with many of them and they are committed to improving the quality of their conversations.

Then they improve collaboration with each other, and their customers, and drive better strategies and relationships. The great companies get it. No wonder they are becoming the places that employees flock to and stay with.

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 35

BUSINESS

By Georgia Murch So if we want to remain not only competitive, but ahead of the game, we need to move into the future and have feedback become part of our everyday. Part of how we flow. Creating a feedback flow is how high-performing organisations get things done and create happy, fully engaged employees and customers. It is where we reverse the push of giving feedback and add to it the pull of receiving it, and alter systems to create an even flow.

2. People think the change will be too hard and too disruptive.

Creating a cultural shift requires effort, but taking out a layer of processes and systems that use considerable time for little or no result will free up time to focus on actual improvement.

3. We often blame the organisation and its leaders for failures in feedback and get stuck in what I call ‘the blame trap’. Getting stuck in the blame trap means we blame others, organisations

*

They highlight the crap. It is typically a focus on the gaps and therefore can become quite discouraging.

*

They are too focused on box ticking and scoring.

*

They are way too time consuming. For those preparing and receiving (when they do take the time to do it)

*

They are stiff and boring and often lack the inspiration they are meant to induce.

In fact, the CEB Corporate Leadership Council tells us that when informal feedback, that is outside the formal review process, is delivered well it can improve productivity by nearly 40%. Now that’s pretty compelling.

Increasingly the progressive companies are recognising this and ditching the performance reviews in place of feedback cultures and regular ‘check ins’. Adobe led the way, soon followed by Juniper, Accenture, Microsoft, Deloitte, Zappos, Expedia, Dell and GE. It’s no surprise these are the ones that attract the best and brightest as they are receiving the feedback they need and deserve and improving themselves and productivity as a result.

Fixing feedback We need to make the changes to not only get ahead but to stay there.

Fixing feedback is about creating a cultural cadence. It’s more than feedback training. It’s about creating a self-sustaining flow that feeds itself and becomes effortless. The onus is on both parties: one to deliver the feedback, in real time, and the other to receive it well, in the moment. The outcomes of this:

Why don’t we implement powerful feedback cultures?

There are four main reasons that get in the way of leaders and organisations creating these cultures: 1. Organisations don’t muster the courage to invest in their people and culture. They are stuck in the 1940s and they just don’t get it. As a result, these are not high-performing companies. Even for those that value and encourage feedback it is still not translating into action, or the actions are often damaging. The intent may be good, but intent is not seen or measured. We are still avoiding conversations or handling them poorly, no matter how much training we receive.

36 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

and leaders and do not take any responsibility ourselves. It’s not a healthy space, and nor does it allow anyone to move forward.

4. We think that ‘robust’ six monthly or annual performance reviews will be enough. It won’t. There are so many reasons why performance reviews are old school; *

The feedback is delivered poorly and the gold is hidden as we are not comfortable, or skilled, at being candid.

*

They are full of surprises and not the good kind. The feedback is now stale and has the opposite impact.

*

There is little room to explore both perspectives. What I call the ‘real truth’ which is a combination of what both people know to be true.

*

eliminate dependence on performance management systems

*

significantly improve productivity

*

create a culture of accountability and commitment

*

evolve authentic transparency and openness

*

allow individuals to own their own development

When we create a frequency of accountability that feeds itself, giving and receiving becomes an inevitable part of the way you do business.

You and the organisation are in your flow. You and your people become remarkable and no one can stop talking about it.

GEORGIA MURCH Georgia Murch is an expert in teaching individuals how to have the tough conversations and organisations how to create feedback cultures. She has over 20 years experience with private and public industry and is well known for helping ‘great places to work’ become even better. Georgia puts passion on the podium. A remarkable communicator in her own right, she is an inspiring speaker. georgiamurch.com

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 37

BUSINESS

By Gabrielle Dolan

As humans we have been sharing stories since the dawn of time. Whilst storytelling is

The power of

storytelling to

influence and

lead 38 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

not new as a form of communication, it has taken the business world a while to catch on. Not surprisingly, storytelling in business has emerged as a critical influencing and communication tool as well as a key leadership competency. The reason for the rise of storytelling is threefold.

1. People want meaning and relevance Information overload is not new and it is not going away.

Consequently, people do not want more information; they want to focus on the material that is relevant and meaningful to them. Successful storytelling that shows consideration for your audience is a perfect way to do this.

2. Employees are looking for real leaders Generation Y will be the most dominant generation in the workforce by 2020 and they aspire to be led differently. They are not looking for leaders who are perfect and have all the answers; rather they seek out leaders who are authentic and prepared to show vulnerability. A personal story has the power to show vulnerability and emotion in a safe and structured way. As a result, leaders who are prepared to show vulnerability through personal stories gain commitment and credibility as well as increase their ability to influence.

3. Emotion trumps logic Great sales people have known for a long time that humans are emotional beings and that we buy on emotion and justify it by logic. In comparison, business people have been trapped for decades by the premise that logic will build credibility and influence others. Sadly, what they fail to realise is that logic just informs people. Therefore logic alone will not change behaviour or mindset that is often required for successful leadership. Good leaders understand the importance of emotion when managing people by demonstrating the courage to share authentic and relevant personal stories.

“Two years ago I lost my husband in a tragic paragliding accident. In our time of dealing with this loss, my youngest son Billy said to me that his greatest fear was, ‘If it could happen to Dad, it could happen to you’. As a parent, this is a tough one to respond to—there are no guarantees in life.

Ten months later I was involved in a car accident while driving home from work. I had stopped at the shop on the way home to pick up some groceries and rang my eldest son Jackson when I was about five minutes away to get him to meet me outside to help with the groceries. Two minutes from home I was hit and instantaneously six airbags deployed and I pulled up just before I ran into a power pole.

The only thing that was going through my mind at the time was the memory of Billy saying, ‘If it could happen to Dad, it could happen to you’ and thinking that at that moment Jackson was standing outside at home waiting for me — and I was not going be turning up anytime soon.

I rang Jackson and he immediately ran across the park in his school uniform and socks to find me. As you can imagine, I was pretty upset and I just said how scared I was of what could have happened. Jackson gave me a hug and calmly said to me, ‘Mum, you can’t think of it like that. You need to think of it like this—you drive a safe car and the airbags worked.’ I just hugged him with pride about his perfect, powerful and positive response.

Storytelling in action

I am sharing this with you because every day when I am faced with the challenges of running this business, I often ask myself, ‘How would Jackson reframe this?’ “

Cindy Batchelor, an Executive General Manager at the NAB, understands the power of storytelling and has spent years polishing this skill. Cindy shares the following story with her team to reinforce the message of how important it is to be positive and to ‘reframe’ any situation:

I spoke to Cindy about how and why she used such a personal story. She said, ‘Not all stories need to be this personal but this story has had the most incredible impact on my business and the way I connect with my people. There is a real strength in showing vulnerability as a leader.’

GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 39

BUSINESS

Online Program:

By Gabrielle Dolan TOP 5 tips for storytelling in business

Tip 5: Always be authentic

Storytelling in business is a powerful way to influence and communicate and it is not surprising it has emerged as a key leadership competency and communication skill. Like any other skill, to become proficient you need to invest time in learning and developing your ability.

•

Storytelling in business must always be authentic. It is not worth the backlash on your credibility to make up stories or to spin the truth. The saying, ‘Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story’,

•

does not apply with authentic business storytelling.

The tips below can get you on your way.

•

Ultimately storytelling is something that can be taught and with practise anyone can get better at it. Once mastered you will find various applications for storytelling, from presentations to performance reviews or team meeting to job interviews.

Tip 1: Make it personal •

•

Sharing personal stories is NOT about sharing your most intimate secrets. It is this misconception that often frightens people away from using storytelling in business.

Consequently, many leaders predominantly deliver business related stories, such as examples of employees or customers. While these can be effective, the real power in using stories in business is to use a personal story and attach it to a business message.

The everyday anecdotes are the most powerful because they are the stories that people can relate to and connect with.

Ten years ago I took up Karate and being 1 of 8 children I already knew how to punch quite well. Nonetheless, learning new techniques and completing hours of practise to refine my skills, helped me to deliver a punch that is more powerful and effective. You can achieve the same result with your storytelling if you are prepared to learn the skill, commit to practising and refine your technique.

In an effort to be more engaging, many people try to make their stories funny. There is nothing wrong with sharing a funny story; undeniably people love amusing stories. Whilst humour definitely has its place in business storytelling and presentations, best practice is about using it purposefully and appropriately.

Tip 3: Avoid numbers and data •

Avoid using numbers unless absolutely necessary in your stories. You may need some numbers to set the context, such as ‘five years ago’ or ‘when I was ten’, but too many numbers can distract from your story. When you use numbers in your story, your audience naturally assumes they are important so unconsciously they try to remember all the numbers. This distracts them from making an emotional connection to your story.

Tip 4: Name your character •

When you introduce a character into your story such as your child, your partner or your Grade 2 teacher, use their name. By using their name, you bring your story alive. If you talk about your parents or your grandparents, then don’t provide their names but call them what you would normally call them, such as Dad or Nana. Also avoid references such as ‘I had a friend, let’s just call him John’, as this implies that the story is made up.

with Gabrielle Dolan With over 25 short videos, this program will challenge your current perception of storytelling and give you the skills, framework, insights and confidence to share stories effectively in business.

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Tip 2: Use humour wisely •

Business Storytelling

GABRIELLE DOLAN Gabrielle Dolan is the best selling author of “Ignite: Real leadership, real talk, real results”.

Her latest book “Storytelling for Job Interviews “is available now via online stores. Gabrielle is considered a global expert in Business Storytelling, with popular online training programs for storytelling in business and storytelling for job interviews gabrielle@gabrielledolan.com

Story

TELLING

for J O B

USE STORIES, NAIL AN INTERVIEW & LAND YOUR DREAM JOB You have less than 60 minutes in a job interview to make an impression.

Don't waste time stating all the boring facts from your resume.

INTERVIEWS This online program will help you to use stories to build trust, credibility and engage with your future employer – fast – to land your dream job.

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50% Discount available here 40 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

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BUSINESS

by Margot Andersen

Building A Culture Of Thought Leadership Mindset

‘As our society gets more complex and our people get more complacent, the role of the jester is more vital than ever before. Please stop sitting around.

We need you to make a ruckus’ Seth Godin

It is no secret that we are living in more complex and rapidly changing times than ever before. In fact it now seems almost trite to be told that we are, as we all live with the

We are all driven to want to be a part of a winning story.

reality of these complexities and changes each day. Our challenge therefore is not in merely recognising them, but in navigating them – in really understanding how things are changing so that we can ‘make a ruckus’ whilst remaining relevant and confident in the contributions that we make.

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With so much ‘noise’ and information available with just a simple ‘internet’ click of the finger, we have all no doubt faced the somewhat daunting task of knowing what and who to trust. For leaders and organisations it is the ability to simplify the sheer complexity and volume of information whilst establishing trust in our knowledge and skills that is imperative if we are to remain relevant in the future. Establishing thought leadership around what we do – our opinions and expertise – is fast becoming a clear advantage in helping us do just that.

Thought Leaders are the ‘go-to’ people and informed opinion leaders in their industry or field of expertise. They are fast becoming the movers and shakers of today’s leadership world because they have ability to not only inspire people with innovative thinking but to equip them with the knowledge and tools to turn ideas into reality. They have the ability to galvanise thoughts and actions and transform the way things are done. Furthermore they are achieving significant impact by harnessing the belief and engagement of others in what they do and stand for.

Importantly, thought leadership is not merely about being known or famous. It is about being known for making a difference. For this reason, becoming a Thought Leader GLOSS SEPTEMBER 2016 | 43

BUSINESS

by Margot Andersen requires time and experience as well as courage to put ourselves into the spotlight. Leveraging our knowledge and backgrounds requires us to commit to showcasing our talents, achievements and successes and sharing a blue print for others to do the same. It is through this replication of success that our positioning as a Thought Leader is established.

For organisations rich ‘thought leadership’ cements their position in the market place with credibility and relevance. It extends reach by increasing strategic visibility for what they do; and confidence in their knowledge and expertise as a trusted authority. Organisations such as the ‘big 4’ consulting firms, IBM and Mckinsey amongst others have built their reputations and success on their positioning as thought leaders in their markets.

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Organisational Thought Leadership also becomes a highly valuable tool in the attraction and retention of key talent. Smart, productive people like to be associated with other smart productive people and organisations that value this knowledge and way of working know how to create environments that are conducive to quality work. More often than not this means moving away from the ‘traditional’ way of working: 9-5, desk bound cultures and hierarchical structures. It requires new ways of thinking, engaging and marketing. It requires ‘learning to unlearn’ many of the old ways of working, thinking and behaving.

Like all great behaviours, creating a culture of Thought Leadership definitely starts at the top. Encouraging and helping your key leaders to hone their communication and develop clear and compelling messages in their areas of expertise – both internally and externally – imparts the belief that what they say and do matters. It also helps them not only tap into the ideas and ambitions of their team members and clients but also their drive to take meaningful action.

There is no doubt that employees are looking for their leaders to be more open in sharing their perspectives about the future and ways to navigate it. They want to see and hear from leaders who openly collaborate and are proactive about exploring what lies ahead so that they in turn can work out how best to add lasting value. They also want to know that they matter as individuals and not just on what they can do. This means harnessing individual thought, learning and contribution and showcasing it in relevant ways that create competitive advantage and opportunity.

We are all driven to want to be a part of a winning story. Businesses and individuals who build a reputation as thought leaders in their chosen field, increase not only their power to persuade but also elevate their status and authority to make things happen. With this comes not only increased opportunity and presence but an ability to create a lasting difference to the communities in which we live and work.

Did you know that 1/3 of our waking time is spent at work yet only 20% of us are satisfied with our jobs, which costs Australian businesses $10 billion each year?

What would it take for you to feel happy at work?

MARGOT ANDERSEN Margot Andersen is the owner of talentinsight – a management consultancy specialising in the optimisation of careers, performance and business workforce planning solutions.

Working with individuals and businesses alike she is passionate about seeing ‘the right people, in the right place at the right time’. Working to align careers with talents; and ambitions with opportunities she and her team provide coaching, training and talent advisory services.

Special offer to LBD members only

Emotional Intelligence assessment at 20% off normal package, which includes Scientific proven test used across the world Analysis of the test result Comprehensive report with face-to-face debrief session of the result

If you want to know how to bring happy back to your workplace, contact: PURE INSIGHTS Level 1, 118/7 Hoyle Ave, Castle Hill NSW 2154 T 1300 796 640 F (02) 8850 1401 E info@pureinsights.com.au

margot@talentinsight.com.au

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BUSINESS

While leadership needs influence, not all influencers are leaders.

I’ve found that true leaders are those who empower others and change the future. Women entrepreneurs, angel investors and those involved in steering startups to success are testament to this. These people have pushed boundaries and challenged the status quo.

by Renata Cooper

– p i h s r e d a e L t h g u Tho e c n e u l Inf ? n o i t or Ac Zeitgist, the German term for “spirit of the time” represents the mood of a particular period of history. It is the complex interaction between facets of society, including economic, social, technological, political and cultural, that can determine whether ideas succeed or fail. Thought leaders of an era are those who have related to the zeitgeist to connect with and influence those around them and the community at large.

In my experience channelling the zeitgeist of our era, I’ve found that while thought leadership and influence are connected, they are not the same. The best way to illustrate the difference is with Stephen Covey’s quote that famously notes, “What you do has far greater impact than what you say”.

Influence vs thought leadership driven action.

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When I started out to be an entrepreneur – taking the position of leadership was influenced by a need to make deep changes in the society and how it perceived women entrepreneurs.

Not everyone agreed with my values – as they do with pure influencers, but that didn’t matter, as my vision was to influence positive change.

In my case, influence was earned currency while leadership was more intuitive.

The age of many

Many other entrepreneurs challenging the status quo and pushing for change in archaic systems are faced with the same challenge.

Leadership is characterised by the ability to push forward and create pilot projects, thoughts and journeys even when it doesn’t have much support. Thought leaders often lead by staying ahead of the curve. As with angel investors and entrepreneurs, they recognise and share ideas before these ideas become too established or mainstream.

In conclusion, I say that being a leader has more to do with who you are than how many you influence. Where influence happens without leadership, I’ve seen it disappear quickly – especially in our dynamic world. Create impact and growth for others in your life by being who you are as a leader and become a beacon for change.

The zeitgeist of this era is the reality that everyone has great ideas. Whether in-person or on digital platforms, some are more vocal than others.

When expressing an opinion, many will concur with what you say, express shock at how you’ve put what they’re thinking into words and share, retweet or quote you to others. Some will agree, others will want to know more and others will strongly disagree. But that’s all okay.

A thought leader’s job is not to please everyone – you can’t.

I found that out early enough. My focus in using my voice was to reflect on my actions, interactions and learnings with authenticity.

Harvard Business Review’s research revealed that their authors consistently took aim at one of three core business objectives: improved efficiency, greater effectiveness, or innovation of products and processes. Thought leaders usually touch upon one or all of these objectives to connect to readers.

Unless the conversation comes from experience, impact often falls flat. In the age of many – opinions, influencers and even thought leaders – the thought leaders with longevity are those that listen with their heart and mind and speak from their own truth.

Are you making route or following a route?

The journey of many thought leaders often starts off a bit lonely as the community of influencers happens at a later stage. If you are looking to effect change in people, places and positions, you are often in a minority and climbing an uphill battle.

RENATA COOPER Renata Cooper is the founder of Forming Circles Global, a unique angel investment and mentoring organisation that predominantly invests in female-led technology startups. Committed to empowering women entrepreneurs, Renata has invested in over 100 national and global businesses, individuals and organisations since 2011. She is a member of Scale Investors and a muru-D mentor. info@formingcircles.com.au

formingcircles.com.au

When I started investing in women entrepreneurs many years ago, there was no one else focusing only on this group. Many viewed this decision with scepticism and sometimes ridicule.

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BUSINESS

by Dr Emily Verstege

The skills our kids will need to succeed in the future workforce are changing. Rapidly. According to the World Economic Forum, by 2020, over one-third (35%) of the skills considered important in today’s workforce will have changed. In five years time, instead of needing skills in people management, coordinating with others or negotiation, the top three necessary skills will be complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity. Thinking this way is a discipline, and it’s what the new Australian digital technologies curriculum encourages.

As business leaders, as parents and as community members, it’s our responsibility to help kids develop their thinking and help them acquire wisdom beyond the formal curriculum. Gihan Perera, a noted futurist, reckons you can extend people by raising the roof, breaking down the walls, or opening the door.

Building the Next Generation of Thought Leaders

Raise the roof. Simon Sinek reckons the great leaders who inspire action are the ones who not only get their why, but who communicate that to the people around them. They understand how what they do fits within a broader context.

We can raise the roof for our kids by reminding them to be obsessed with why they want to change the world, not what they need to do to change it. We can raise the roof for our future thought leaders by reminding them that technology is a what. It’s just a hammer, or a calculator or a fishing rod. It’s a tool we use to allow us achieve a bigger objective.

Open the door. Adults know good judgment comes from experience, not just observation. We can open the door for our future thought leaders by exposing them to environments that allow them to experiment safely with technology.

You might not know it to look at me, but I’m actually a superhero. I’m a Tech Girl Superhero: one of hundreds of women across Australia mentoring a team of schoolgirls to build an app that solves a critical community problem. This year, I’m working with a team of 11 year old girls in Adelaide.

They’re building a citizen science app for the Marine Discovery Centre attached to their school, because they can’t believe that when you go to the centre you need to take your school books out onto the beach to know which animal species you’ve discovered. (Like, so 1990!) Using the app, visitors can upload photos of the creatures they find, and explore critical facts about. The patterns in photo uploads will help monitor species migration and health.

These girls are making plenty of mistakes. (Like deciding to film their pitch video on the beach, in their togs, in the heart of an Adelaide winter!) But for them, the door is already open.

They’re learning an incredible, indelible amount about thinking critically and solving complex problems.

Break down the walls.

In the future, 90% of jobs will require skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Women make up relatively few of the numbers in the fast-growing STEM job families. The so-called ‘leaky pipeline’ of women starts at school, persists throughout university and on into the workforce. One of the biggest barriers for women entering STEM disciplines is unconscious bias.

We can break down the walls for our kids—for young men and women—by showing them the true face of technology. We can make them aware of and connect them with amazing role models who epitomize humanity, intelligence and resilience. And we can be brave and check our own unconscious perceptions of what technology superheroes look like.

Our role as business leaders, community members and parents is to be critical thinking and solving complex problems using technology. We don’t necessarily need to understand the difference between a megabyte and a megapixel, or to know that Jason File is not a kid in our son’s footy team.

What we absolutely need is to raise the roof for our kids so they’re connected with why they’re going to change the world. We need to open doors; to opportunity and new ways of thinking. And we need to break down walls for them so they can access the opportunities available.

Rita Pierson, in her brilliant TED talk says, “Every child deserves a champion.

An adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists they become the best they can possibly be.”

Emily Verstege Dr Emily Verstege is a digital expert, and author of the upcoming book ‘Digital Leadership: How to Build a Digital Evolution’.

She works at the intersection of business and technology to help forward-thinking businesses fast track their journey to digital leadership. Her clients benefit from Emily’s diverse expertise - first as an internationally published public health researcher, then as public policy analyst and tech entrepreneur - and her ability to simplify complexity. emily@multiplicite.com.au multiplicite.com.au

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BUSINESS

by Jane Anderson

Should I have a

linkedin premium account?

There is no doubt about it, the strategic use of LinkedIn offers small businesses and entrepreneurs an abundance of benefits. It enables you to engage with and influence your peers, clients and potential customers. Most of us start with a free basic account, yet LinkedIn also offers a range of premium accounts with extra features and analytical tools. These plans come at a cost of anywhere up to $80plus per month. People are often squeamish about paying for something they’ve been getting for free, so a question I’m often asked is, “Is it worth upgrading to a premium account?”

To help answer this question, let’s take a look at some of the important added features premium plans offer: Who’s viewed your profile While a basic account shows you the last five people who have viewed your profile, a premium account provides you with a full 90-day list. “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” is the most clickedon area in LinkedIn, so LinkedIn certainly is capitalising on the vanity factor here! Knowing who has viewed your profile (eg. customer leads and competitors) can be valuable information for you and your business.

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Detailed demographics Not only will you know who has viewed your profile, you will also receive more information about these people. LinkedIn lets you know what industry they are from, the company they work for and their job title. This knowledge helps you discover whether you are connecting and engaging with your ideal audience, so you can adjust your LinkedIn strategy accordingly.

Ranking A premium plan gives you a ranking that demonstrates how your profile compares to other professionals similar to you,

based on the number of views your profile receives. Bear in mind, however, that how you rank depends on who you are connected to – and if you are a Thought Leader, your ranking isn’t that valuable. For example, if you are a leadership expert and are connected to many other leadership experts, it will be difficult for your profile to rank highly. So it’s important you don’t view your LinkedIn ranking as a reflection of your success.

As you can see, premium plans offer many features, some of which will be extremely helpful to you, others not so much.

However, I think of LinkedIn as having a database of customers at my fingertips. A premium account gives me the freedom to talk to anyone, to increase my connections and boost my client base. So I think paying $50 a month for access to 450 million people is a good deal.

Open Profile As a premium user, you can choose to have an Open Profile, which means anyone on LinkedIn – even those outside of your networks – can connect with you and send you private messages. This feature increases your opportunity to engage with potential clients and collaborators.

My suggestion to you is to upgrade for a month for free and have a play with the extra features and tools. Remember, though, that you still have to do the work. Clients won’t magically appear as a result of upgrading to premium. You still must follow the process, continue to post content, reach out to others and invite them read your posts, watch your webinars and read your books. A premium account does not lessen the amount of work involved in cultivating your LinkedIn presence, but it does give you many more options to connect.

InMail Premium plans also allow you to send private messages to anyone on LinkedIn, including those you’re not connected to, via InMail. Depending on the premium plan you choose, you will receive a certain number of InMail credits per month. For every InMail you send that gets a reply, you receive one credit back. According to LinkedIn, people have 30% more success with InMails than standard connection requests and I think that’s right based on the results we see our clients achieve.

Your success rate with InMail is even greater when your content and visibility are also high – about 75%, particularly if you are a Thought Leader.

More detailed search filters You can refine your searches with the eight extra search filters available in the premium plans. These filters are useful for when you are searching for someone who is difficult to find in a particular industry, or if the role you are looking for is based more on level rather than title. For example, if you are looking for a senior executive in health at a hospital, you can access this level in your premium search field. However, if you know the exact title and type of role, but just need to know the industry, then this premium feature is not necessary.

Search result limits Like the basic account, some premium plans have restrictions on the amount of search results you can generate. But the Business Plus and Sales Navigator plans have no such restrictions, which is fantastic if you are searching aggressively. If you’re on a premium plan that does have a search result limit, you can work around this by conducting an X-Ray Search in Google, which means logging out of your LinkedIn account, doing your search, then logging back in to connect with the person. This is a way to save money, but it is not a way to save time! Upgrading is the better option if you conduct many searches.

Saved search alerts A premium account also allows you to have five saved search alerts, as opposed to three with a basic account. I love this feature as it significantly reduces the time it takes to find people.

JANE ANDERSON Jane Anderson is a Personal Branding and LinkedIn Strategist.

She works with Thought Leaders and Sales Teams to grow their businesses through LinkedIn. She has been featured in various national television and print media and the host of the #1 iTunes Podcast, the Brand You Show. She is the co-author of “CONNECT: Leverage Your LinkedIn Profile for Business Growth and Lead Generation … in Less than 7 Minutes Per Day”. jane@jane-anderson.com.au jane-anderson.com.au

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BUSINESS

by Jacqui Walford

The Ringmaster not the Juggler I was listening to a radio interview the other day. I can’t even remember now who the celebrity was. All I remember is the female announcer asking the female celebrity about her “growing brood” and how she manages to “juggle work and family”. Her answer was she has a lot of help, but that’s not the point. You hear the term ‘juggle’ a whole lot, in relation to women and careers, and frankly, I’m over it.

Juggling suggests that it takes some skill to keep all the ‘balls’ in the air great - but it also implies that you could drop any one (or all) of said balls at anytime. Meaning that you are only marginally in control. Someone could throw you a new ball that you aren’t prepared for and they all come crashing down.

I think this metaphor, whenever it started being used, has had its day. It’s part of the rhetoric that is keeping female leaders from reaching their full potential. Language is extremely powerful and if we continue to talk about our lives in terms of juggling all the aspects of it, we’ll continue to believe our lives are about this balancing act and not about living our fullest and most rewarding life - all important elements of it included.

I prefer to think of myself as a ringmaster. I manage all the different aspects of my life with (practiced) control. Organised chaos. Like a juggler, the ringmaster has to learn these skills, and it’s not without the help of partners, family and friends. My husband and I are both ringmasters. I’m just changing the metaphor for my life, so I’m not limiting myself to ‘juggling’ imaginary balls. I’m ‘ringmastering’. Yes, it’s a word. I looked it up. ringmastering The work of a ringmaster; the action of directing or managing something as, or in the manner of, a ringmaster (oxforddictionaries.com) I’m directing and managing and enjoying the thrill of the circus as I go.

Let’s not limit female leaders to the role of a juggler. Women are capable of directing the multiple aspects of their lives with skill, agility, flexibility and flair. If we continue to talk about balancing and juggling we will continue to make women feel like the different aspects of their lives are somehow precarious, uncertain, insecure, and risky.

JACQUI WALFORD Jacqui Walford is a marketing director, brand strategist, actor, and presenter. She specialises in brand engagement and reputation management. She has over 20 years experience in marketing communications and strategic brand management.

She is passionate about employee engagement,through internal communications and internal brand campaigns, delivering on the brand promise.. jwalford@hlbqld.com.au

I want women to feel like every part of their full lives is meaningful, rewarding and completely manageable. In the circus of life, let’s not denigrate women to the role of the juggler, let’s recognise and celebrate them in their rightful role of the ringmaster.

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Adobe PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, saved, and printed exactly as intended by anyone with the free Adobe Reader. You can convert any document to an Adobe PDF file by using Adobe Acrobat..

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a current medium of exchange in the form of coins and banknotes; coins and banknotes collectively.

money

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MONEY

by Melissa Browne “The difference, I believe is that I allow time to think, I allow time for ideas to form and I implement. ”

Just Press Go I’m an accountant and financial advisor so I think it’s fair to say I’m a numbers gal. Here are a few of my business numbers: 3: the number of businesses I have founded

Hills, was launched

4: the number of months since my third business, The Money Barre, a financial advisory business for Gen X and Gen Y, was launched

36: the number of months that I’ve been writing my fortnightly column for Fairfax (SMH, The Age)

10: the number of months since our online world for business owners, The Numbers Lounge, was launched 12: the number of times I’ve been interviewed on national prime-time TV 13: the number of months since my second book, Fabulous but Broke, was launched 19: the number of months since my second business, Thinkers.inq, the first of its kind long day preschool in Terrey

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40: the number of months since I launched my first book, More Money for Shoes 13: the number of years that my main business, A&TA (Accounting & Taxation Advantage), an accounting and advisory firm for businesses who want to grow, has been running 60: the number of free tools and templates available on the More Money for Shoes site Phew! It’s exhausting just writing it all down.

Now writing one book, never mind two is a big deal. Not to mention starting three businesses, launching online platforms, learning to navigate my way around new industries all the while searching for second centres for the preschool, writing for Gloss, Latte, Cleo, CEO Magazine, speaking and so much more. Oh and working with some amazing clients.

launching new services, products, efficiencies, marketing ideas and more. Or perhaps they’re in corporate and dream of changes they can make within their role or jumping ship and creating a business that would run according to their design. The problem is too often they are waiting for the perfect moment or they are trying to make sure that every duck they can possibly think of is in a row.

So, you might say I’m a little busy.

Or perhaps they want to put their great ideas out into the world but they’re afraid of being judged so they keep working, crafting, refining until someone else jumps ahead with the idea they were so busy perfecting and so they have to begin all over again.

The thing is, I’m no busier than Beyonce. I’m certainly no busier than a mum juggling four kids and I’m absolutely less stressed than when I was studying for my final year of school exams.

The difference, I believe is that I allow time to think, I allow time for ideas to form and I implement. Sure, loads of people talk about what they want to do, what they hope to do and what they could have done. The difference is I actually do something about it.

Is everything that I do perfect? Absolutely not! With my first book, More Money for Shoes I had an enormous crisis of confidence three months before the launch date. That’s because there comes a point when you’re writing a book where you need to stop tweaking, stop making changes and press Go to send the book away to be printed. And it’s terrifying. I remember everything in me wanted to take another week, another look, another read through and to stall that final send-off. Why? Because I wanted it to be perfect.

The problem is it was never going to be perfect. There will always be a line I could change, a colour I could tweak or an illustration I could adjust. However, the cost of collecting all the books that have been distributed, making the changes and reprinting would be exorbitant, not to mention ridiculous.

The same is true for so many business owners or wouldbe-business-owners that I meet. Sure they might not have written books or started multiple businesses but many have incredible ideas of things they want to achieve or implement within their existing business. It might be

I take a different approach. My rule is that if it seems 80% ready then hit Go. Now I realise 80% isn’t perfection. For a perfectionist like myself that’s a tough thing to deal with.

The problem is if you wait for perfection, you’ll be waiting forever. By pressing Go when I’m 80% ready I’ve completed everything in the list at the start of this article and so much more. It has allowed me to implement rather than procrastinate.

Have there been times when I’ve been unsure of myself?

Absofreakinglutely. Have there been times when I’ve wanted to dive back into a comfortable bubble and not put myself out there. Yep, at least once a month. Have there been times when I’ve wanted to sell everything and move to Bali to live a life of peace and tranquility? Yearly.

The difference between you and me is I’m prepared to have a go when it’s not quite ready. I’m prepared to look silly and to be judged for not being perfect. I’m prepared to fail, often spectacularly. When so many others are not. I’m prepared to look for things like Vedic meditation and coaching to support me so that I can do everything I want to do (and enjoy life in the process).

What I’ve discovered in my role as an accountant and dealing with hundreds of business owners over the years is that often the difference between a good business and a great business is the willingness of the business owner to implement new ideas, the courage to have a go and the willingness to create a business that is genuinely different.

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MONEY

by Melissa Browne

Now I’m a numbers gal so I also know you need to plan, budget, analyse and do your research. I’m an accountant so I understand this preliminary work is essential. But often once you’re 80% there, it’s simply time to press Go. Like my book, you’ll find things that need to be tweaked, changed and adjusted. But unlike my book, there will usually be the opportunity to make those tweaks, changes and adjustments down the track. What you can’t do is make those changes if you never press Go to begin with.

My question to you as we move towards the second half of yet another year is: what are you putting off doing in your business or saying as a thought leader in your space because you’re worried it’s not perfect or that you’ll be judged? Or similarly, what leap are you not taking because you’re worried you’re not good enough?

Sometimes in business and in life once you’ve done all the research, the budgets, the analysing and weighing-up you simply need to have the courage to press Go, knowing you can deal with the 20% along the way.

As 2016 starts to head towards its’ inevitable close, I urge you to have the courage to be creative, innovative, disruptive and fabulous but most of all I encourage you to press Go.

le a y t y o ir u fa r n w o e t financial a e r C MELISSA BROWNE Melissa Browne is CEO of A+TA (Accounting & Taxation Advantage), Director of Business at Thinkers.inq and author of More Money for Shoes and Fabulous but Broke. melissa@byata.com.au byata.com.au

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MONEY

by Louise Agnew

Love thy Numbers I recently came across an accountant that called her business “Love thy

•

Seek a way you can create an income revenue stream into your business that will help you create a minimum base, this can be in a subscription format, a member site or a shop of some kind. Think a little outside the square

•

Have a running cash flow projection sheet with a column for comparing actuals – this will help you streamline and eliminate any unnecessary costs that are not serving your or your business well.

Numbers” which I found apt in what she described as more of a bookkeeping role to small businesses.

Many advisers never look too much at the cash flow of their clients personal or business, they assume by the time clients come to meet with them, you would have a pretty good clue as to what you earn, what you pay in tax and expenses and what’s left over.

I find this a huge mistake oversight on an adviser behalf as in my experience this is almost very nearly NEVER the case.

Most small business clients understand revenue… and this is where it stops. I say that as a generalisation as I am using a worst case example but I hope to illustrate a point The biggest shock that comes to client is tax and GST. Setting up their business with GST registration and needing to place money aside to do quarterly BAS is often beyond most new business comprehension. The next is looking at revenue and almost in every case, clients charge out too little to actually make a profit after they realise their expenses, cost of sales, GST and tax is to be paid. The cash flow conundrum kicks in quite early in the piece when they learn by making continued cash flow mistakes, because they quite frankly didn’t understand the numbers.

Deduct 30% for tax, another 11% for GST, 8% for costs to run the job and any materials or labour hours to be calculated into this as well. Then work out what is left over? Is this worth your time?

And is it fair price? Are you underselling yourself and your value?

If so, it’s time to double your VALUE and pricing.

Many clients who come to see me with their business financials come too late, with cash flow issues beyond acceptable limits, when a few things could have been easily resolved. Everyone has a rough patch now and again – and as your business grows, the expenses will too - so it’s a relativity game. Learning to control spending early on is the best lesson you can learn.

We’ve all been there when suppliers delay invoices or don’t pay on time, when you have been waiting to pay your bills diligently.

A couple of good tips to avoid this are; •

Best practice is to use this formula.

If you price a job look at what you think you would charge.

•

Get many of your expenses or bills on a payment plan rather than paying lump sums

And finally talk about it. So many people get fearful, embarrassed or land up in denial because the truth on numbers oversight is crippling. Speak up early if you find you are faltering and have a specialist assist you to get those numbers working better for you.

We use a fantastic software product for $50 per month that helps with all the above, and will streamline your financial life and business stress by cutting through cash flow issues early on .

Contact us if you would like more info on our “wealth portal” – it’s not like Xero or MYOB, it’s better!!!

LOUISE AGNEW Louise Agnew is a Director of LYFE Group, speaker, financial strategist and author of ‘Worthy Women – stories to inspire financial confidence and success in your life’. LYFE Group is also our newest supporting partner, here at GLOSS. louise@lyfeproperty.com.au

lyfeacademy.com.au

Ensure you set up referral arrangements with anyone you may refer regularly, as small bonus payments into your business help a lot more than you might think.

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 63

pronoun

used to refer to the person or people that the speaker is addressing.

you

you:

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 65

YOU

In Her Words

by Melanie Greblo

Melanie Greblo

Where were you born and where did you spend your childhood?

I was born in regional Victoria, in Bendigo, where I spent my childhood until I escaped to France at age 15 for a year on student exchange.

on Bay s - Byr

s

The pa

Cafe - Byron Bay

Where did your professional dream begin?

I always had a deep call to help make the world a better and fairer place. I had a very strong affinity towards the ideals of equality, fairness and justice.

I remember being incredibly inspired by Melanie Griffith’s character in the movie,‘Working Girl’ when I was only about 12 years old. I saw the real potential to influence change from inside a business or corporation, and the power of good leadership versus bad.

Tell us more about what you do?

My business is all about transforming conversations. I curate and we host events with thought leaders from around the globe, to transform the dominant paradigm, the current discourse - to shift people and the planet and encourage diversity of voice and opinion. I’m also passionate about supporting thought leaders to get their work out into the world, to again create diversity of voices, gender balance and a true opportunity for transforming conversations.

What have you learnt about yourself during your career?

I’ve learnt that my purpose has always driven my career. Having spent years in the education, arts, and not for profit sectors, I realise my career motivations were always driven by purpose and not a bottom line. I’ve learnt that what came naturally for me, is now held up as the beacon of good business and a good life, which feels amazing.

What 3 key gems of advice would you share?

1. Conversations are the life blood of relationships and good business. Invest in your conversational intelligence and know-how.

te and avid Why me with D n tour this year on o Mykel Dix

66 | GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016

2. Work/life balance is a furphy. When you love what you do, you co-create a life by design and all of your values are aligned, allowing for the time and space for each aspect of your life to

co-exist harmoniously. And being present in the moment is critical to unlocking this potential.

3. Nothing great is achieved alone.

What are some of the mistakes you made and learnings from them?

It’s been a lifelong learning of mine to reach out and ask for help, not for fear of being rejected but for fear that it was a sign of weakness. I now know that extending an invitation to others to support and work with me is critical on so many levels, and infinitely rewarding for everyone. I have made conscious effort in the last several years to be more vulnerable, which has opened many new doors both within and externally.

What keeps you going?

My belief in our power to co-create a better world, and my family keep me going. When the days are long and sometimes tough, in business or otherwise, I fall back on this, and see my children as the incredible teachers they are.

What’s next in the journey of BRAND YOU? I am writing a book, it’s a slow process as a single mother of three and a business owner, however I steal small moments of time to write and develop it. I’ve also discovered and started to really own the fact that I am an introvert by nature and so brand ME, is probably not what I’ve been thinking it is, which is a revelation and an incredibly profound one. It’s like I have finally given myself permission to be me, and so brand me will be all the more powerful because of that authentic connection. It’s actually very exciting.

Your favourite things: * Destination: Anywhere in nature, where nature reins supreme, and a connection back to the ground and earth is more accessible.

MELANIE GREBLO Melanie Greblo is the Director of Talking Sticks, a purposedriven business transforming conversations. Talking Sticks curate and host events that bring together a potent diversity of minds and hearts - experts, thought leaders, creatives and everyday folk - to transform conversations, debate and thinking and to create shifts in the people having the conversations.

* Drink: Herbal tea of all medicinal varieties.

mgreblo@talkingsticks.com.au

* App: Podcasts - can’t get enough of my choice of listening to in the car

talkingsticks.com.au

If you were a hashtag what would it be? #loveroflifeandlearning GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 67

YOU

by Katherine Gonzalez - Cork

In Her Words

by Katherine Gonzalez Cork Sunshine coast – spending time with family

Community Work – Cooking dinner at Ronald McDonald House

Mixing work with pleasure

Enjoying morning coffee!

Enjoying my favourite drink

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Where were you born and where did you spend your childhood?

I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and moved to Sydney, Australia when I was very young. We moved around a lot which saw me go from the Northern Beaches (Narrabeen & Palm Beach) to Sydney’s west (Baulkham Hills). I moved back to the northern beaches in my late teens and then upper north shore before moving to Brisbane in my early 20s which is where I settled. I remember climbing trees for blackberries as a young child in Sandy Point Palm Beach and then as an underage teen trying to get into Castle Hill RSL (very hard to get away with when your father was Federal Police).

Where did your professional dream begin?

I left school early with no real idea of what I wanted to do or be although I had a good work ethic from a young age. I always had to do my best, work the hardest and voice my opinion wherever I went. I did small jobs in my late teens in Sydney and moved to Brisbane in my early 20s. I opened my own business when I was 23 and moved into the fashion industry before being approached by a friend for a corporate management role, which I stayed in for 14 years.

I’ve always been great at sales and loved P&L management which is odd, I know, but most importantly I cared passionately about authentic people management. Working for a purpose and with purpose, as well as challenging company culture, made me want to do more with my skills.

Tell us more about what you do?

As the General Manager of Membership & Strategic Partnerships, I manage the largest division at Queensland Law Society (QLS). I look after the Business Development Managers, the Events team, the Learning & Professional Development team and the Records and Member Services team.

This division promotes engagement with legal professionals to increase membership to QLS and executes over 150 professional and social events each year. Anything that delivers service to our members or drives revenue sits in my division.

What have you learnt about yourself during your career?

I have learnt to let my personality and passion proudly sit amongst everything I do, to truly respect what I bring to the table and not go against my core values. If you don’t allow your team to make mistakes you will kill innovation.

What 3 key gems of advice would you share?

1. Don’t get caught up in the drama, focus on the bigger picture 2. Always have gratitude 3. Work hard in silence, let the success be the noise What are some of the mistakes you made and learnings from them?

Reacting to situations and not responding - it never gives you the outcome you need.

What keeps you going?

My husband and kids, the thought of being part of something bigger than myself, my morning coffee and lunch with my girlfriends.

What’s next in the journey of BRAND YOU? I would like to contribute to some not-for-profit boards and be able to give back.

Your favourite things: * Destination: Sunshine Coast * Drink: Champagne of course * App: Any audiobooks I can put on my iPhone to help my kids go to sleep.

If you were a hashtag what would it be? #itiswhatitis

KATHERINE GONZALEZ- CORK Katherine is an accomplished and demonstrated General Manager with over 20 years’ experience executing revenue-generating strategies and driving business profits. As a GM at Qld Law Society, Founder and Director of Executive Women Brisbane and the Queensland Ambassador for the LBD Group, Katherine is dedicated to promoting and empowering women in business at a corporate level, earning a strong reputation among Brisbane’s executive business women k.gonzalez-cork@qls.com.au qls.com.au

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 69

YOU

by Jenny Brockis

Will The

Real Thought Leader Please

Stand Up Thought Leader. The term has become almost as ubiquitous as the term passion on LinkedIn Profiles, resumes and media articles. Everyone wants to be thought of as a thought leader. Why? Because it implies that you have access to information that others will want to help them improve their performance and/or grow their business, and that you are an expert in your field with a deep and extensive understanding of your knowledge matter.

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Yet that definition stands incomplete.

Thought leadership is as the term denotes, about leading others to new ideas through insight and disrupting the status quo. Thought leaders enjoy ruffling a few feathers to promote better thinking, inviting us to become more curious about our world and the meaning we ascribe to it.

More than a thought repeater of current trends, thought leadership invites discussion, incubation and percolation of ideas.

How can you develop greater thought leadership?

Stay curious.

As humans we have evolved successfully over the millennia because of our insatiable curiosity about the world around us. Professor Brian Cox epitomises thought leadership. He stands in awe and wonderment with the world and questions everything. He has the extraordinary knack of explaining indescribably complex ideas and concepts in a way that is immediately accessible and makes us want to know more.

Curiosity allows us to connect with our environment and each other. It enables emotion to be held at arm’s length while your prefrontal cortex gathers the data to be examined and understood. Being exposed to a continuous array of varied experience builds our internal library of memories, ideas and thought associations that can be used to develop greater insight.

Be connected.

Leading others to greater insight requires human-to-human connection. While our technology is brilliant at providing and interpreting data, our ability to relate to each other through empathy and trust is what keeps brains safe and minds open. A culture that supports all voices to be heard, without judgement or ridicule, is one that promotes growth and opportunity.

Thought Leaders ask questions that relate to how someone else is thinking or feeling. This is why Leadership retreats that take you out of your “usual” environment and provide the space, positive energy and time out for deeper self-refection are so effective.

Ask why.

And keep asking. Simon Sinek best known for his TED talk and book “Start With Why” outlines perhaps the simplest of all concepts to explain that we respond to the “why” that connects us at a deeper emotional level, rather than the what and the how. We are very good at explaining how to do things and what this is all about, which is all at a conscious level of thinking. Tapping into your emotions at a subconscious level, for which we have no language other than how we feel is what drives our motivation and decision-making.

When you know your why, everything falls into place because now you have a reason to get up in the morning and go do.

Ask yourself. “Why does what I do matter?”

Your first answer won’t necessarily be correct.

Keep asking why to every answer you come up with, until you eventually discover your “truth”, which sounds horribly cliché, but will resound with a pleasant “thunk” when it lands and you know you just found your why.

Your why connects you to the meaning and purpose for everything you do and is a reminder to disconnect from autopilot and your default way of thinking and doing.

Stand in the courage of your conviction.

Fear keeps us small, yet is often the emotion most commonly experienced when we have that big idea or message we believe in. It’s not the idea itself that we are afraid of rather it is the brain’s response to keep us out of harm’s way. Our stress response evolved as a means to protect us from physical danger. We use exactly the same neural pathways to protect us from social harm. A threat to our values and belief systems leads to the generation of fear.

Acknowledging the fear, but doing it anyway takes courage and that’s what differentiates thought leaders from what Janine Garner would call our thought stealers.

A few years ago I decided to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb.

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 71

YOU

by Jenny Brockis Something many thousands of people achieve every year.

I wanted to do it because I have always been afraid of heights and wanted to set myself the challenge. Wearing my glamorous grey telly-tubby onesie on the top of the Bridge didn’t feel good at all. I was terrified. The wind was howling and all I wanted was to get down as fast as possible. Back on terra firma my friends suggested we go and celebrate, yet I was disappointed by the experience. My disappointment was that despite successfully completing the climb, I am still terrified of heights.

I had hoped to be “cured” but this was no Lourdes experience, rather the damp realisation that emotions are normal and fear is normal. What matters is how we choose to work with it, rather than against it.

Commit to the process.

One of our greatest challenges today lies not in our ability to think, it is taking the time to think. Make a commitment to yourself to spend time (and you choose how long) to press pause, reflect and think on a daily basis. This simple act, whether 10, 15, or 30 minutes is what grants you access to your imagination, innovation and creativity, and this is limitless. How magic is that?

Consistency creates habits and once you have developed your habit of taking time out for deeper thought it will continually enhance your understanding of the world and provide the bigger context.

Keep thinking.

Thought leadership is continually evolving. What you think and believe today may not be valid tomorrow, next week or in six months. It’s not that you were wrong, rather that you have continued to evolve, as has your environment. Change is an ongoing continuum requiring ongoing tweaking and minor adjustments of our thinking process.

In this new era it is how we think and apply our new knowledge rather than having access to information that will lead us to greater success and prosperity. Welcome to the age of Thought Leadership.

Jenny Brockis Dr Jenny Brockis is the Brain Fitness Doctor and author of “Future Brain: The 12 Keys To Create Your High Performance Brain”. jenny@drjennybrockis.com drjennybrockis.com

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YOU

by Nikki Fogdon Moore

Walking The Talk Business Vitality For Thought Leaders Great leadership is a true trifecta of being healthy, wealthy and wise.

The 3 core pillars of my Fitpreneur philosophy. So why are so many successful leaders still struggling to truly blend business and personal vitality without throwing their world upside down?

The first point of call is how you use your day. One of the greatest barriers to a healthy bottom line and a fit culture is way too much time and too many people in meetings. I say it’s by using an old “meeting” culture that is not reflecting our new business landscape. Sitting a lot is bad for you and for your organisation.

According to the Harvard Business Review, most senior executives and entrepreneurs spend 44 hours of meetings per week and 24 hours of e-mail per week. That’s a lot of sitting. Atlasssian research shows that unnecessary meetings have cost up to $37billion dollars to companies in the last year. We all know sitting a lot is bad for you, and there is nothing more frustrating than being in another meeting that is not truly effective and there are far too many people.

Review a typical week: where are you and your teams wasting precious time?

My advice is to look at the time you spend in meetings and start to re-boot how you work: As a kick start shift your meetings to the Walk and Talk: Pick up the pace in your business, regain some valuable man hours and reduce the cost of meeting times by making your decisions on the move.

Ensure you let the other person know it’s a meeting on the move: Know what your walk and talk route is and try not to ambush someone with an idea. Laptops on the desk, note paper left behind and increase your engagement with effective communication. You can always do a quick recap email back at your desk.

Remember you need to run your body like your business and your human resource as a leader is one of the most vital assets you need to invest in. Quite simply it’s time to start reducing unnecessary meeting hours and get back to basics and to think on the go. Some of the best decisions we make are away from a computer screen, with a fresh perspective and a sense of movement for both brain and body.

Get creative and connected to your surroundings: Walking results in fresh oxygenated blood throughout your body. From a neuro-chemical perspective, our brains are more relaxed during walks due to the release of certain chemicals, aiding creativity, problem solving and increases alertness. Move it or lose it.

How can you seamlessly blend your personal wellbeing with your business vitality when you’re busy running your life and your business and there’s not enough hours in the day?

It also gives you a fresh perspective. Look 3cm up. Great leaders (at any level) do not score their results by the number of hours they sit in meetings, but by their ability to know the company landscape inside out.

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Being on the move enables you to ‘check in’ with the vibe in your organisation, get connected to small incidents that can prevent larger issues, know your staff and be aware of the environment that your teams and your organisation operate in.

Disconnect to reconnect: Taking a digital detox is vital for creativity, problem solving and triggers the left and right side of the brain to work in harmony. Get off autopilot.

Plan them in like any other meeting: Just be clearer on time frames. Walk and talks promote clearer faster meetings.

A nano break to chat through an idea with a colleague can save hours of meeting times and provide a new way of looking at a issue or project.

Lead by example: Walking meetings have been the go-to for the ultra successful all along; for the likes of Richard Branson. Mark Zuckerberg, Barrack Obama and Arianna Huffington. Above all choose the right topics to be held in an open conversation, make the meeting clear it’s an ‘on-the go’ style and be consistent. Being seen and connecting with your teams, staff and colleagues is crucial for authentic connection. Walk and talks encourage continual engagement, teamwork and initiative.

Your teams will trust this is a everyday culture when they see you regularly get up away from the desk and conduct walk and talks.

5 quick Walk and Talk suggestions •

Out of the office around the block

•

Make it a golf /walk/run or actual activity weekly with a key member of your team

•

Walk the office/all the floors or the factory of your company

•

Ditch the taxi and take the foot option for meetings within a good walking distance

•

Make it a monthly company initiative to have chat’s on the go as your team catch up and walk to a great healthy place for lunch - sharing the top pics/outtakes and challenges from the month around the table when you get there.

Above all else it’s time to think differently about blending your health and your business during a day. Meetings on the go will provide you creative, functional and strategic benefits if you build them into your culture and your winning week.

NIKKI FODGEN MOORE Nikki Fogden-Moore specialises in coaching high achievers to bring business and personal vitality to life.

Engaging in next level thinking to create harmony and purpose. She runs tailored corporate vitality programs, writes regularly for several business magazines, is the head trainer for Women’s Health and Fitness Magazine and has been running leadership and private retreats for over a decade internationally.

nikki@thevitalitycoach.com.au thevitalitycoach.com.au

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YOU

by Fiona Tuck

TOP 5

IMMUNE BOOSTING TIPS

1. Coffee

2. Fruit and Fructose

If you are feeling guilty about indulging in another flat white or decaf cappuccino, feel free to drink up. We were once told that drinking coffee could be harmful to our health but new research may suggest otherwise. Research from the University of Southern Norris Comprehensive Cancer Centre of Keck Medicine have found that regular coffee consumption decreases the risk of colon cancer.

With sugar recently becoming public enemy number one, we have seen people go to extremes by cutting out all sugar including natural sugar found in fruits and vegetables.

Studies showed that drinking coffee is associated with lower risk of colon cancer, and the more coffee consumed, the lower the risk. Further studies suggest that regular coffee consumption may in fact reduce the risk of other cancers such as brain and breast cancer. In pre-menopausal women, the consumption of regular coffee (4 cups a day) has been associated with a 38% lower risk of breast cancer.

With so much conflicting information out there regarding what is good for our health, it is hard to know what the right foods to eat really are.

Health complications such as obesity, fatty liver disease and diabetes arise from eating excess sugar such as the nasty high fructose corn syrup which is added to sauces, chips, salad dressings, fizzy drinks, and processed savoury and sweet goods.

Fruits contain the natural plant sugar, fructose (not high fructose corn syrup which is where all the negative controversy stems from) and minerals, vitamins and fibre that keep us hydrated and nourished. Fruit and freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices are a healthy part of any diet. Do minimise the processed pre-packed juices in the supermarkets which often have preservatives, colours and added sugars (sometimes even high fructose corn syrup) and choose fresh juice that is still full of the fresh nutrients and enzymes that we need for good health.

Whole fruit is full of health promoting vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibre which slows down the absorption of sugar into the blood stream. Eating fresh, whole fruits is extremely healthy and cutting fruit out of your diet increases the risk of a deficiency in essential nutrients.

We are told to cut down on coffee, saturated fats, carbs, and eat the paleo way and yet obesity and obesity related disease is on the rise. The most recent Australian Health Survey shows that 63% of adults are now overweight or obese, with 28% classified as obese. Projections suggest that by 2025, the prevalence of overweight and obesity will increase to over 70%, with approximately one third of the adult Australian population classified as obese. Obesity related diseases include metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Heart disease is the number one killer of Australians.

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YOU

by Fiona Tuck

3. Butter and Full Fat Milk

4. Grains and Legumes

5. Carbs

New information is now emerging to suggest that there is no proven scientific evidence to link saturated fat with an increased risk of heart disease or obesity. Even top cardiologists such as Dr Ross Walker are affirming this. We need fat for vital functions within the body such as hormone production, nerve transmission, and healthy cell membrane function and brain health.

Paleo advocates will tell you that rice, nuts and legumes such as beans and peas are bad for us as they contain a substance called phytic acid which can bind and therefore inhibit mineral absorption. The reality is many plant based foods including vegetables contain phytic acid. It would also appear that phytic acid may not be the baddie that Paleo lovers make it out to be.

Our brain is made up predominantly of fat! Butter contains fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin A, D, E and K all of which are vital for our health, wellbeing and immune health. The reality is we are not eating enough fat and are at risk of become deficient in vital fat soluble nutrients which can further contribute to disease within the body. Including butter in your diet is healthy.

Phytic acid has in fact been linked to enhancement of the activity of our bodies own natural killer cells and may even inhibit tumour growth. Colon bacteria have been shown to produce potentially damaging oxygen free radicals in appreciable amounts and dietary phytic acid might suppress oxidative damage to intestinal epithelium and neighbouring cells. Studies suggest that those that consume more phytic acid are less likely to succumb to breast and prostate cancer.

Legumes such as lentils, peas and chickpeas are full of fibre, protein and essential nutrients such as folic acid, necessary for healthy DNA replication, fertility and cell health.

Carbs have been deemed the enemy for years and the mere mention of the word carbohydrates sends many running for cover. Carbs come in many forms and not all carbs are bad.

Carbs or sugars occur naturally in fruits and milk and are also added to many foods in the form of cane sugar, honey and maple syrup. They also appear as refined carbohydrates, as with white bread, white pasta or many cereals. Refined carbs offer little nutrient value and quickly turn to sugar and when eaten in excess fat in the body.

Our cells rely on carbohydrates as an efficient energy fuel source, particularly our brains. Removing carbohydrates completely from your diet can therefore lead to low energy, fatigue, brain fog and lack of mental alertness. The good carbs such as wholegrains, fruits and vegetables contain fibre and provide slow released energy throughout the day helping us to feel mentally active, alert, full of energy and happy.

Eating a diet similar to the Mediterranean diet that is high in antioxidant rich fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and fresh whole foods appears to be the most successful approach for health and wellbeing.

It is important to maintain a healthy balanced diet, and consuming too much of any one particular food is not recommended. A high intake of fresh foods, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables is important and include a variety of foods daily.

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FIONA TUCK Fiona Tuck is a Skincare Expert, accredited Nutritional Medicine Practitioner and a member of the Australian Society of Traditional Medicine. Fiona’s in-depth knowledge and insight into future trends within the health industry has made her sought after media expert.

Fiona’s holistic approach to nutritional health is driven by her mantra -’Nutrition is the grass roots of good health’ fiona@fionatuck.com fionatuck.com

GLOSS - SEPTEMBER 2016 | 79

LBDGroup OUT & ABOUT

NOTICE BOARD

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Janine Garner receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Science Degree at Aston University, UK.

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.Alicia Beachley, CEO April5, hosting a dinner for the LBDGroupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading wom en in Sydney

Andrea W e Dujiangya lsh volunteering at n Panda Base in China fo CHENDY r the da U y.. Assist caring f ing in or this y o ung baby old) pand a club.

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Melissa Browne appearing on the Today Show to discuss equal pay and share details of her new financial business, The Money Barre.

Congratulations to Gabriella Horak for becoming a 2016 St.George Bank AusMumpre neur Awards finalist for the #BigIdea Award

LYFE G r taking t oups Director heir clie Louise a dinners n and hav ts to new heig nd Jason Agne ing conv h w : ersation ts, by putting on s

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