Disrupt or Be Disrupted?

1) FUTURE PROOFING THE WORLD OF WORK: Disrupt or be disrupted?

In a recent LinkedIn article, Donna Morris of 'Adobe People and Places' shares a humorous story of how she took part in a sleep deprived interview which, on the surface, could have been career limiting. In fact it turned out to be the catalyst for a breakthrough within her organisation.

In the short piece, she talks about the need to be a disruptor within our organisations and our own careers, offering four pieces of advice to embrace the disruptor within us all.  These four tips include one of our core principles, the ability to spot and challenge conventional wisdoms.

Morris writes, “How often do we challenge the way things have always been done in our group or company?  Not enough. It could be a performance review process, a product strategy, or a sales or marketing approach. If it seems wrong to you, be the one to ask the question and drive change.”

Conventional wisdoms are the weakest link in our organizational ambitions and we must gain freedom from them to achieve our fullest potential.  To enable transformations to occur, Leaders need to adopt new ways of thinking and acting, free from conventional wisdoms and restrictions that come with this type of thinking.

Leading beyond convention enables Leaders, their teams and their organisation’s to pass through the transition to becoming a true breakthrough organisation. At every stage there is a possible conventional way to react, but recognizing that and acting from a bigger possibility will keep Leaders grounded in the commitment that has been made to achieving breakthroughs again and again. Achieve Breakthrough senior leader development programmes deliver a change in organisational behaviours and culture.

To read the other tips that Donna Morris offers, click here.

2) INSIGHTS FROM … GHANDI:  Be the change you want to see in the world and in the workplace

The Achieve Breakthrough team enjoyed an article in Entrepreneur magazine this month which drew parallels from the teachings of Ghandi with the role that we play as leaders within our organisations.

 Structured around a series of Ghandi’s most poignant quotes, this insightful piece encourages you to reflect on his lessons as a Leader and to use them to create an empowered and inspired team.

 One particularly powerful parallel is drawn around the concept of Happiness.

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.   In other words, workplace happiness and productivity are largely dependent on connecting the thoughts, words, and actions of employees.“

 Could you be the change that you want to see within your own organization?

 To read this insightful piece, click here.

3) BREAKTHROUGH LEADERS: Is the key to transformational leadership self doubt?

 We have been inspired by and followed inspirational speaker, Mac MacCartney, since we saw him speak in Amsterdam last year.  When researching for our blog this month, we stumbled upon a powerful article that was published by Mac in The Guardian about transformational leadership and were breath-taken by how much his thoughts echoed both our approach and our passion around leadership and purpose.

Drawing from his musings around a colleague’s academic paper, Mac writes, “The possibility of leadership being experienced as transformational necessitates those involved in perceiving profound meaning in the purpose of the organisation. This is the challenge and opportunity offered to business leaders today. Create businesses that genuinely serve the needs of people and seek to support the emergence of a just, equitable, and environmentally sustainable world, and transformational leadership within business will emerge abundant and celebrated.”

 Beautifully written and compelling in its message, this is a big part of the possibility that Achieve Breakthrough is creating in the purposeful profit space.  We will be publishing a white paper in late Spring and speaking at Marketing Week Live on 30th April on our initial findings so watch this space.

 In the meantime, if you share a passion for purposeful business, then take a read of Mac’s full piece here. It will be 2 minutes well spent!

4) DRUM ROLL PLEASE:  Jakob's Colours hits the shelves

 Followers of our blog will know that we are tracing the journey of Friend and colleague Lindsay in her bid to find seven colours in seven countries around the world with her two sons.

 The book has already been recognised by Huffington Post as one of the “ones to watch”, by Amazon as one of their “Rising Stars” and Lyndsay has added a third accolade last month with The Independent listing her book, Jakob's Colours, as one of the 10 best new fiction books for Spring.

 The book is out now and has had raving reviews, including this one from Lindsay Clarke, Author, who writes:

“A compassionate, hopeful heart beats strongly throughout this vivid work of poetic imagination as Jakob's Colours journeys across time and space to illuminate a long neglected chapter in the wider tragedy of European history.”

 If you’d like to read this incredible debut novel for yourself, click on this link for more info

5) ACHIEVE BREAKTHROUGH IN THE PRESS:  Why it pays to tell the truth in business

 We partnered with Finance and Accountancy publication, Economia, this month to talk about all things culture.  Our article talks about the importance of having an open culture and the implications that ensue if this doesn’t happen, ultimately leading to “editing the truth."

 Our founder, Mike straw, writes,

 “I believe that it is essential that companies foster a culture where it’s OK to acknowledge and talk about setbacks. The more ambitious a company is, by definition the more setbacks it will encounter. So businesses have to be straight about them. There should be no shame about admitting a target may not be met or a problem has been encountered. In fact, that is part of the process of overcoming it and making breakthroughs.”

 We are in the business of achieve the extraordinary.  If you’re on this journey,  there is always a gap between the current reality and the possibility we have committed to.  That pathway to commitment is paved with continual setbacks that need to be overcome, yet as human beings we tend to perceive these setbacks as problems and something ‘bad’ – which we then try to avoid. This is an issue, as the more ambitious you are, the more setbacks you will have.

 In most organisations people are excellent at setting goals and objectives. But then they hit a brick wall or a setback, rationalise the situation, justify why it is that way and then set a new goal and objective – usually a lower one. This is the path of least resistance that leads to incremental improvement, as opposed to extraordinary results.

 So be bold but most importantly be honest because honesty shows up the setback merely as ‘missings’ which need to be addressed in service of the bigger possibility for your organsiation.

 To read more on why it pays to tell the truth in business, click here.

 6) STORY FOR INSPIRATION:  Origami-Inspired Personal Shelter Provides an innovation solution for the homeless

 Tina Hovsepian is the inventor of Cardborigami, a collapsible, transportable and origami-inspired personal shelter that she invented as a student University of Southern California.

Inspired after studying abroad in Cambodia and helping to redesign an impoverished school, Hovsepian was moved to become an advocate for those in need and designed the Cardorigami as part of a University design project.

She was honored at a Women in the World event on March 18 for the design, and was awarded the Toyota Driving Solutions grant of $50,000 to further her work helping the homeless.

We were inspired by Tina’s drive to step outside of submitting a conventional assignment at University and the impact that her bold mind-set has had and indeed has the potential to make to homeless people around the world.

To read this incredible story, click here