One of the qualities that separate “Powerful Leaders” from the pack is the questions they ask.

At IKEA they ask, “What is our prospective client trying to have done?”  Their prospective client is a person who is living on a budget and needs usable space now! A new apartment they just moved into, a home office they need set up, a new kitchen that is easily installed so they can get their home on the real estate market quickly.

IKEA doesn’t focus on selling a particular type of furniture to a specific demographics. IKEA focuses on making it easy and affordable for people to furnish a space quickly.

IKEA then built a complete business model around answering one simple question, “How can we differentiate ourselves such that we make it easy for our prospective clients to have furniture set up and usable in their living space quickly?”

1. Design a showroom to display our products in typical living spaces so our clients can easily envision our furniture in their living space.
2. Make it easy for our prospective clients to buy from us – kids play zone so parents are able to shop without kids distracting them, lots of free parking, inexpensive dining, etc.
3. Supply a large inventory for our clients to select from.
4. Provide flat packaging to make it easy for our clients to get our products out of the warehouse and take their purchases home without assistance.

“What products and services do your clients and prospective clients need you provide to make their lives easier?”

The last time I checked, IKEA still does not have a direct competitor to their business!

At Awesome Journey we see a common theme between leaders like Elon Musk (Tesla), Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com), Suzanne West (Imaginea Energy) and Uber (Travis Kalanick). They are all disrupting their industry by finding ways to innovate their “Business Model”.

At Awesome Journey we see that the four key building blocks of a successful “Business Model” are:

1. Client Value Proposition
   1. Who is your key target client?
   2. What is the job that the target client needs done?
   3. What is your product and service offering?
   4. What is your distribution model to reach your key target client?
2. Profit Formula
   1. What is your revenue stream?
   2. What is your pricing model?
   3. What are your cost structures?
3. Key Resources
   1. What are your key resources you will need to support your product and service offering (physical, intellectual, people & financial)?
4. Key Processes
   1. What are your company’s key processes that will allow your organization to deliver product/service offering in a way that you can be consistent, reliable and scalable to grow?

Example: What is allowing Uber to take market share away from traditional Taxi companies worldwide?

They have changed the “Business Model”. Two key changes are:

1. Their distribution model – web based via an app to connect with client vs a call centre
2. Their pricing model – 75% goes to the Uber driver and 25% goes to Uber

Challenge: Where can you and your leadership team begin to challenge your existing “Business Model” so you are able to grow in the Digital World?

Powerful Leaders “Take Time to Ponder” their performance on a regular basis.

The question that I spent time pondering this week was,

“What inspired me, moved me or energized me to take action?

My answer – this quote by Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Pondering this quote lead me to explore how to leverage the “Gifts of Greatness” of each of my team members to create a High Performance Team that provides WOW!! Service to Awesome Journey clients. From there I thought about how to design more intentional conversations to inspire and empower each of my team mates and awaken them to their greatness.

Challenge:

For the next three days, pay attention to things, people, and experiences that inspire you and energize you to take action and write them down.  Book an hour in your calendar at the end of the week to sit in an inspiring space with no distractions to ponder your list and design conversations to inspire your team.

Ask yourself this question at the end of the hour…

“What is this experience asking me to look at, discover or see that will allow me to grow and transform as a Powerful Leader?”

Powerful leaders have clarity between the distinction of “Being a Leader” and “Being a Manager” that enables them to design and build a Powerful Leaderful Culture.

Being a Leader – Being a Manager

• Listens for future – Manages a process
• Authority is declared – Authority is given
• Inspires and empowers others – Tells others what to do
• Uses generative language – Uses descriptive language
• Challenges the Status Quo – Obedient to the Status Quo
• Is a Possibility Thinker – Is a Scarcity Thinker

Why is it so important to have an organization of Leaders at all levels?

It becomes too overwhelming for the CEO of an organization to process the plethora of data that comes from employees, clients, suppliers, competitors, subject matter experts, publications, media, and conversations they engage in to envision the future direction of the company.

However, when a CEO is intentional about designing and building a powerful leadership culture, Leaders at all levels of the organization process information they are exposed to with the intent to share and develop opportunities to advance the organization.

Challenge: Be intentional about Being a Leader vs. Being a Manager and observe the affect it has on your organization’s Leadership Culture.

One of the greatest expressions to hear is members of a team saying that their leader inspired them to explore their innate creative abilities to bring new ideas to the table. Included in this week’s blog are four great TED Talks on Creativity to inspire your people to be “Possibility Thinkers!”

Carl Bass 

• TEDxBerkeley – The New Rules of Innovation
• Question: What trends do you and your team see that will impact your business?

Luc de Brabandere

• TED Institute – Reinventing Creative Thinking
• Question: What are two questions you can ask your team to challenge their thinking about the company?

Peter Diamandis

• TEDx Academy – Achieving Innovation
• Question: How can you change your company from being “Linear” to being “Exponential”?

Patrick Meyer 

• TEDx VillanovaU – The secret inside of innovation
• Question: How can you make your company more mobile competitive?

Bold Request: Have two intentional creativity conversations every day for the next 7 days with a member of your team.

One of the key qualities of Powerful Leaders is their ability be constantly learning. One of the most important practices that they use for learning is “Self-Reflection”. On a weekly basis they schedule time to “Self-Reflect” to review their key learnings’ from the last 7 days. Three excellent “Self-Reflection” practices are:

1. Identify moments of being “Emotionally Triggered”.
2. Identify moments of being “Emotionally Energized”.
3. Ponder thought-provoking questions

I will share personal examples to give you insight as to the power of making time to “Self-Reflect” as a way to be learning:

Identify moments of being “Emotionally Triggered”

Being “Emotionally Triggered” is when you get emotionally upset (resistance) about something. The resistance is trying to show you something about yourself that is a blindspot.

Example:

The other day I went to see the Doctor about an issue I had, so the Doctor sent me to go and get some tests done. So I went to go and get the tests done and the clinic was closed. I became “Emotionally Triggered”, meaning I became angry and blamed the Doctor for giving me bad information.

What was my key learning from this small incident?

My key learning was, be a master of the details!! You see, did I look at the information sheet that the Doctor gave me about locations of clinics and hours of operations where I could get my tests done. No, I took the Doctor at her word and put myself in action. Eric, stop relying on others for the truth of how to do something. Do your own “Due Diligence!” A very valuable learning experience.

 Identify moments of being “Emotionally Energized”

Being “Emotionally Energized” is when you get emotionally inspired by what someone tells you or from an experience you had. The positive energy is trying to show you an area in your life where you need to spend more time pondering to support your future.

Example:

I have been reading a book entitled, “The Courage To Teach,” written by Parker J. Palmer and the book has me engaged, reading it anytime I am not working. It has been all consuming for me.

What was my key learning from this small incident?

My key learning was, you are passionate about being an Extraordinary Teacher so it is time to raise my game to support my team and clients at being an Extraordinary Teacher. So from reading this book I have been working on implementing three new teaching strategies with my team of Executive Leadership Coaches to support our clients in having more engaging coaching sessions.

Ponder thought-provoking questions

The third “Self-Reflection” practice that I like to use in my weekly session with myself is to ask myself a series of “Thought-Provoking Questions” that get me to ponder my performance and areas for personal growth to support my career and my personal life. Here are the five questions I like to ponder:

1. What is the future that is really calling me?
2. What is one bold request I will make this week that will allow me to live in my future?
3. What am I currently stepping over or not dealing with that is impacting my future?
4. Are the key people who are in my inner circle pulling me into the future that I am creating?
5. How many conversations did I have this week about the future that I am creating?

So in conclusion, I challenge you to set aside one hour a week to invest in yourself by developing a “Self-Reflection Practice” and try my three exercises and see what life wants to show you about yourself!

A Powerful Leader is someone who has the ability to create a compelling vision of a future possibility that inspires, engages and empowers others to take action. At Awesome Journey the team of Executive Leadership Coaches have worked with 1000’s of C-Suite Leaders and we see that there are 3 key roles that Powerful Leaders leverage to see their visions come to pass:

1. Steward – cares for specific things
2. Teacher – creates learning experiences
3. Designer – of intentional conversations

Steward

As a powerful leader you take your role as a steward very seriously causing you to focus on two areas that you deeply care about:

1. Supporting the growth and development of your staff through well defined and measurable “Learning Plans”
2. Building and fostering a High Performance Culture by having intentional conversations around the company’s core values and purpose/mission

Teacher

The second key role that a powerful leader focuses on to bring the vision to pass is being an excellent teacher to their staff. As an excellent teacher you are disciplined at creating learning experiences for all staff. Three of the key skills that create and foster learning experiences are:

1. Giving and receiving real time quality feedback around areas that others are doing well and supporting others in seeing their “Blindspots” to allow them to take their performance to a new level
2. Weekly session to talk about key learning experiences each member of their staff had and learning experiences that the team had together and how they are using those experiences to move the organization forward
3. Encouraging people to challenge the status quo by asking thought-provoking questions.

Designer

The final role that a powerful leader focuses on to bring the vision into reality is being a Designer of Intentional Conversations. There are several intentional conversations they are focused on having to ensure that the organization is High Performance:

1. Creation of the Vision, Purpose and Core Values
2. Strategies to execute the vision
3. Systems, processes and Structures to support flawless execution of the strategic plan
4. Clear agreements to support flawless execution

So I leave you with a question, “Which of the three roles do you need to focus on in order to support the transformation of your organization to the next level in performance?”

A critical quality of a Powerful Leader is their awareness of their Why! Knowing your why is all about becoming aware of what deeply moves you; what gets you energized and passionate. As you look around in the world you will notice that those who are going about creating change, results and action are those that are deeply passionate about WHY they do what they do. It’s not what we do, or how we do it that defines us, but WHY we do it.

This YouTube video by Michael Jr – ‘Know Your Why’ is an excellent illustration of the power of knowing your why!

Michael Jr: Know Your Why

How does one discover their WHY?

Ask yourself these four discovery based questions:

1. What energizes you?
2. How do you like to connect with others?
3. What is important to you?
4. What topics do you ponder?

How Great Leaders Inspire Action – Simon Sinek

Finish this statement to create clarity about your “Why Statement”:

I am deeply passionate about ….

or

I am committed to ….