A novel way to be more productive at work

We all know that it is important to keep fit. We hear it all the time from our friends, co-workers and through all forms of media. If none of these have motivated you, here is a new reason. Being active during your work day can actually make you more productive at work! I am serious!

According to a study performed by Jim McKenna, from the University of Bristol, being physically active during the workday can help you to feel more productive, less irritable and more tolerant of your co-workers.

Here at BluEra we take fitness to heart with our intense bootcamp twice a week led by Tyler McRae, of KIN-etics Personal Training. Many on our team have their own personal fitness routine also.

I found this article to be quite interesting and I hope you will to. Check it out…

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.

Lean in or Lean back?

There has recently been a lot of press on ways to work and engage with organizations. Most recently, an article in the Globe and Mail titled “Alternative advice to high-flying women: Lean back” by Margaret Wente had some interesting points. She was discussing the fact that many bright, capable women are not interested in Sheryl Sandberg’s advice in her new book, entitled “Lean in.” In fact, they are doing quite the opposite and leaving the workforce completely so they can raise their family. Given the shortage of qualified people in Alberta, this is not a good trend going forward.

We frequently hear from candidates that they are interested in project based work, versus full-time. Interestingly, this is from both men and women. It seems as though there is a movement from the candidate side towards a more flexible work arrangement – one that would allow people to apply their skills in ways that add immediate value to organizations, and where they can continue to hone their expertise to the organizations advantage.

Do you know of organizations that are already thinking and applying this strategy – hiring on a project basis? Would this be something you would do over full-time employment? Did you read the article in question? What did you think? Also worth considering is how can we ALL live in balance to create a more awake society?  Not leaning in, or back, but rather just being present. Let us know your thoughts. . .

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.

Unfolding your own Definition of Authentic Leadership

Here is the latest in the series of blog posts from Catherine Bell, written for the Enneagram in Business Network. In this blog, Catherine questions the meaning of “authentic” leadership and presents her own definition. In the full blog (available here), Dr. Bogda goes on to describe what an authentic leader might look like in each of the 9 Enneagram types.

Ever since I was little, I have had a fascination with leadership – what makes a good leader, what makes a bad leader, and what is a leader really? Perhaps it is simply authenticity or authentic living and that in and of itself is authentic leadership. Or, is authentic leadership simply trust, transparency, openness, responsibility, commitment, and truthfulness? Is authentic leadership feeling, thinking, and acting from a place of authenticity with wisdom from the past, not reactivity from the past? My team at work recently spent time with leadership guru Dr. Julian Barling, and he describes transformational leadership in these terms:

• Charisma – idealized influence and inspirational motivation
• Intellectual stimulation
• Idealized influence

He also discussed that transformation leadership is the embodiment of an ideal and the ability to construct yourself as the embodiment of that ideal. He also spoke of how Nelson Mandela “walked his talk” in prison, just as he did when he was free. Julian’s wisdom, combined with a discussion with a profound leader, Mac Van Wielingen (who mentions love of truth, and the ability for a leader to have a vision of the future), led me to my own definition of leadership. Here it is:

Authentic leadership is the current “now” embodiment of a future desired end state (which represents a universal truth), which may or may not be actually attainable in this lifetime.

I asked Karen Radford of People and Partners at Enbridge Inc. what leadership means to her and also about the feminine role in leadership:

“At a young age a wise man sent me out to the ‘field’ to lead a team of technicians. I was 23. I was thrown into my first leadership test. The man whose job I was filling was Jimmy Nelson. He’d been with the company for 40 years and had never had a sick day. I chased him for weeks to try and get him to tell me what I was supposed to do in my new role. When I did finally pin him down, he gave me the best authentic leadership advice I’ve ever received in my life. He said, ‘Try to be me and I guarantee you will fail. Learn to be yourself and I guarantee you will succeed.’ Everyday I work to remember my purpose, what fulfills me, and how I bring my full self to my team, our customers and the business.”

What are some of your favorite definitions of authentic leadership?

What is leadership to you?

How can you embody the feminine and the masculine in leadership?

How is Enneagram type related to how you lead?

To what extent do you “walk the talk” of leadership?

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.

Enneagram in Business

How are you getting creative in hiring?  Catherine Bell is part of the Enneagram in Business Network, and Dr. Bodga’s system of hiring has recently been rated as the top by SmartRecruiters.com.

Dr. Bodga has long  been “adamant about not using the Enneagram as the way (or one of the ways) to hire candidates for jobs.” She presents the reasons for this rational in her blog here. However, Dr. Bodga has managed to find a way to apply the Enneagram to a hiring process without compromising its integrity. Read her blog on how the Enneagram was used by Salesforce.com in their “Build Your Own Dream-Team” event.

Recently the “Build Your Own Dream-Team” event was recently named by SmartRecruiters.com as the number one in a list of the top ten interview processes – showing the ability the Enneagram posses to allow us all to rethink traditional processes, such as interviewing.

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.

Is there “meaning” at work for you?

A recent article by McKinsey & Company reported that employees are “in the zone” at work, less than 10% of the time. Is this true for you? For 90% of your day do you feel that you are simply earning a paycheque? This has serious implications for leaders and organizations, because when employees are working “in the zone” they are 5 times more effective at their job, and it doesn’t even feel like work.  They are fully engaged. Isn’t that what every leader wants for their organization and team?

The article I am referring to is “Increasing the ‘meaning quotient’ of work” by Susie Cranston and Scott Keller for the McKinsey Quarterly.  In this article, they refer to basic theory that has been around for a long time – employees need both intellectual quotient (IQ) and emotional quotient (EQ). Intellectual quotient (IQ) refers to role clarity, a clear understanding of objectives, and access to the knowledge and resources needed to get the job done. Emotional quotient (EQ) refers to a baseline of trust and respect, constructive conflict, and a general feeling that “we’re in this together,” and therefore an ability and desire to collaborate.

Besides IQ and EQ, the authors describe a third category, one which delivers peak performance and it involves excitement; a challenge, it hasn’t been done before, and “we’re in this together” feeling that leads to the desire to collaborate – this is referred to as the meaning quotient (MQ). In the article, they give three examples or tools on how to apply this concept at work.

First, tell 5 stories at once. Go beyond the classic inspirational turnaround or “we can do better” story.  You also need to show or explain how you will impact:

• Society – making a better society, building the community, or stewarding resources
• The Customer – making life easier for them, saving them money and time, providing a superior product
• The working team – a sense of belonging, a caring environment, or working together efficiently and effectively
• Themselves – personal development, a higher paycheck or bonus, and a sense of empowerment.

Studies have shown that these five sources have a universal phenomenon. In other words, you will impact 100% of the workforce versus 20% by simply telling the inspirational story. How can you tell your story differently?

Second, let employees “write their own lottery ticket.” Studies show that if we choose for ourselves, we are far more committed to the outcome – by a factor of at least five to one. The article has a number of interesting stories on how to do this – tell the inspirational story at the top, and then ask others how they will contribute, or what their story will be and watch employee engagement rise and amazing results flow in.

Third, use small, unexpected rewards to motivate. “Do not underestimate the value of a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They are absolutely free – and worth a fortune” says Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Stores. Research shows that when we aren’t expecting a reward, even a small one can have a disproportionate effect on our state of mind.

What are you doing to increase the Meaning Quotient at work? Or is it already there? Tell us your stories, let’s learn from each other.

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search and team transformation practices.

What to Expect from BluEra’s Blog

On February 19th BluEra attended the Strategic Capability Network annual Wine and Cheese Event. This years event included a presentation given by David Gardner of TMP Worldwide on how to leverage Social Media to recruit top Talent. Among other topics covered in the presentation was the point that Some companies have jumped on the ‘Social Media Bandwagon’ without really having a strategy in place. It was noted that some companies seem only concerned with increasing the number of followers, connections, friends on their respective sites without ever really seeming to have an end game in place. Here is a related article from a blogger on LinkedIn who laments the lack of identity tools to help him measure the true effectiveness of his blog. Such a tool would help massively with understanding the success of a ‘blog strategy’. However, until one exists, blogs (BluEra’s included) most continue to post and hope that our target audience are seeing, reading and getting value from our regular postings.

The Social Media strategy of BluEra can be explained as follows:

1) Posting our new searches: BluEra uses our blog to advertise our active searches. This is aimed at both active and passive job seekers. If you are interested in hearing about the roles that we search for this will keep you up to date. We always post the roles we are working on to our blog.

2) Research on leadership, team work, growth, entrepreneurship, etc; We come into contact with many business leaders through our daily work. We also like to stay informed with what eminent thought leaders are saying. We use our blog to highlight particular articles or papers we have uncovered which we found interesting and which we hope our followers will find interesting also.

3) Letting you know more about our world (executive search): We also come into contact with job seekers on a daily basis. We blog about topics such as networking, interviewing, getting noticed in a crowded job market and many others. Once again if we come across a particular article we found enlightening we will share it with you through our blog.

4) Letting you know more about us: This is where we allow ourselves to share a little piece of ourselves with our blog followers. We would like you to know a little bit more about each of us. We are not just a voice on the other end of a phone, we are not just our LinkedIn profiles. Either are you. In this section (Presence Practices) we show some of what makes BluEra, well BluEra- the people.

We hope that our blog postings are informative, insightful and sometimes enjoyable for you to read. Much like our company, our social media interactions will continue to grow and change. However we will endeavor to live our BluEra values of  online as well as in person.

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search and team transformation practices.

Social innovation:

Carolyn Duckworth, Founder and leader of BluEra’s Toronto’s office, was recently on a Panel at the Innovation Summit at Queen’s University (To view a blog Carolyn posted prior to the Summit, click here). Presented below are some of her thoughts on Innovation. Feel free to share your own experiences in the comments section below.

Social innovation:

Not that it’s a new concept, but social innovation has come a long way since I first came across the concept in 2006. My definition of social innovation as it relates to business is the actions that blend corporate social responsibility, social media, and innovation to activate people (and subsequently, organizations) toward positive social and environmental change. (for a more universally accepted definition, visit Wikipedia) The advent of tools, such as: integrated corporate social responsibility platforms, innovation in financial reporting (triple bottom line reporting), the concept of creating an Annual General Failure report- these are mechanisms that are making social innovation an explosive tool for today’s businesses to authentically connect with the ultimate consumer – you and me…people.

How do you access social innovation and leverage its positive aspects?

Synthesizing my learnings from the social innovation panel at the Queen’s School of Business Innovation Summit, here is what I can offer:

1. Challenge yourself to state the purpose of your department, your orgaznization in terms of the social, economic and environmental benefit.  What is the vision of your department and organization, in terms of what benefits you bring to society, and planet earth.  Keep this story whole and connected. Yes, businesses are in business to do business; now it is time to connect the economic story to the social and environmental purpose of your business.  Tell people.  Tell them again. Create positive innovation.
2. Challenge your business model. Do you know how to report in way that people understand and can value the social and/or environmental purpose of your business or department?  Does your business model, or new project/product development model enable triple bottom line reporting? How do you reward and value mistakes that ultimately give way to innovation and good solutions?
3. What are the attributes and behaviours you need inside your organization to ensure social innovation is a living, breathing aspect of your business?  What metrics can you put in place to keep the business focused on continuing to integrate the business vision, business strategy and objectives as a business that clearly delivers on its social purpose?

Why adopt social innovation practices?

Canada needs businesses to be more productive – today. When measuring productivity, we as a nation, are falling behind.  Productivity increases when we move forward, when we innovate.  There is no room for complacency. Building social innovation into your business practices is one way to innovate, today.   Give it a try. See what happens and please, let us know!

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.

BluEra’s online network recognized by Linkedin

BluEra continues to grow their network and their online presence.  Last week BluEra’s Bryan Arthur, Catherine Bell, Colin Richardson, Julie Kemp and Shahauna Siddiqui were recognized for having profiles which were among the 1% most viewed LinkedIn profiles in 2012.  Also, Tara McCarney and Rick Lancaster were credited for having profiles in the top 5% of most viewed.

Bryan Arthur’s online network stands out, even at BluEra. With over 30,000 1^st degree connections, Bryan not only has one of the largest networks on LinkedIn, but the largest network in Canada.  If you aren’t already connected to him please reach out and ask him to share his network with you.

He can be reached via LinkedIn at ca.linkedin.com/in/barthur/

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.

Presence Practice: Kimmie

In mid-January a few members of the BluEra team (Catherine Bell, Tara McCarney, Shahauna Siddiqui and I) attended the long-awaited “Evening with Oprah” here in Calgary.  Among Oprah’s many insightful messages, there was one simple statement that resonated with me, and I have tried to focus on it more since that evening: Listen to the whisper in your soul that guides you.

Elaborating further, Oprah talked about how important it is to take the time to develop one’s spiritual muscle, and be centered in yourself in order to hear your “whisper”.  In her opinion, the development of the spiritual muscle comes from a daily practice that allows you to be with yourself … a peaceful time to be present and focused on yourself. She suggested that those peaceful moments can be found in yoga, running, a relaxing bath or shower, anywhere that gives you the space and time to re-center yourself and be present. These words of wisdom came on the evening of BluEra’s introduction to our “Presence Practice”  and we were thrilled to know that we were on the same wavelength as Oprah!

For those of you who know me, you know that I love to run.  And not just a nice little jaunt around the block … I prefer to push myself to the limit all the time, both in distance and difficulty of terrain.  This year alone I will be running a number of races, including half marathons, full marathons, 50 km races, and in the fall, much to the amazement and dismay of many, my running partner and co-worker, Joelle MacDonald, and I will be running a 100 km race.  There are few people outside of the running world who can understand why running like this would be my presence practice, but it is in those hours of running when I find peace.  The steady beat of my feet hitting the ground, my even and calculated breathing, and the beautiful vistas that greet me on my runs center me.  The noise and chaos of daily life fades away and it is during those runs when I am truly with myself, taking the time to listen to my inner whisper.  For me, there is no feeling like the completion of a great run, when you have pushed all of the worldly worries out of your body through your feet, one step at a time into the ground, and stop, with a beautiful view greeting you.  It is then that I am with myself, centered and present.

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.

Innovation – Individual Expression as part of team work and Celebrating the art of Making Mistakes

Carolyn Duckworth, Founder and leader of BluEra’s Toronto’s office, is on a Panel at the Innovation Summit at Queen’s University.  Presented below are some of her thoughts on Innovation and tolerance for making mistakes. Feel free to share your own experiences in the comments section below.

I was recently asked to participate in the Innovation Summit at Queen’s University which is organized by the MBA students at the School of Business, in Kingston, ON and taking place on March 1-2. Sitting on a panel with other professionals, we will look at the topic of “Employee engagement and innovation:  How do you engage employees to innovate and continuously improve?”

I stopped.  How is it that individuals decide to bring their best self, their best ideas and their best actions to work?  What are the conditions to help people feel that innovation and continuous improvement are not only “allowed” but encouraged?  Although I’m happy to speak from personal experience, I also believe a certain amount of research might help me bring MY personal best to the panel discussion.

Here’s where I’m at with the topic after some sleuthing, I welcome your contributions too:

1.  Individual expression, of any form, enables innovation.  In today’s society, we work, largely, as part of a larger team. Whether this is within a family, within a corporate environment where performance is linked to both individual and corporate wide performance,  or as part of a volunteer organization  – where the overall cause is almost always greater than our own personal needs.  Innovation within these environments occurs when individuals – as part of a team- bring their own unique self, their own unique gifts, to the present moment. Meaningful, self-expression can be encouraged, or stifled through our modern definition of teams.  We spend a lot of time on process  improvements, time management etc.  In order to successfully innovate, humans need to be allowed to explore and express their unique contributions and gifts in an environment that is accepting, and supportive of uniqueness.  How are these conditions set up,  in your experience?
2. We learn by making mistakes. It’s proven.  The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle presents the science behind this known truth.  If we learn through making mistakes, it is somewhat the case that we innovate by making mistakes.  In some cases, product innovation is really just a practical application of a mistake. So, if we both learn and innovate through making mistakes, why is it that we can’t afford to make mistakes? How do we celebrate mistakes within our organizations?   Or, are we as leaders, employees, participants, recipients, essentially intolerant of the little mistakes and errors; they waste our time, they make us frustrated.  (Consider this: what happens when you drive away from the take out window and the brown bag contains the wrong food?).  We are intolerant of “preventable” mistakes because we are concerned with efficiency, value and excellence. Finding new ways, and being innovative within your role, company or organization, might be the best gift you can offer.  And it takes making mistakes to learn and innovate.  We must challenge ourselves to create a support mechanism which tolerates or perhaps encourages some threshold of “mistakes”, at work, at home, in our volunteer activities;  because a world without mistakes is a world without quality learning and innovation.
3. We are part of something bigger than just ourselves.  We know and have witnessed “ordinary” people taking personal risks to help other  humans, who they may or may not even know.  Why do people take these risks to help others?  It is because we a connected species, and we are wired to care.  Innovation happens when people are connected to the greater cause, the greater vision and they know and see that their own actions contribute to this greater cause.  To create an environment where innovation is celebrated and enabled, we need to ask ourselves:  is the vision clear?  How are my actions aligned to the greater cause?

There is a lot to the topic: “How do you engage employees to innovate and continuously improve”, and I welcome your contributions, your stories.  If you are willing to have your story or experience shared as an example within of the Queen’s University Innovation Summit panel, please let us know.

BluEra builds evolved and awakened teams through executive search, team transformation, and coaching practices.