Jolt E-Book

Richard Tyler

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 216

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Jolt! Provides the burst of fresh thinking needed to upgrade yourself from ordinary to extraordinary

Are your habits and limiting beliefs holding you back in your professional and personal life? Are you stuck stagnating in your comfort zone? What you need is a jolt.

Organizations are no longer looking for people who turn up and do a good job; they are looking for the extraordinary. So it’s time to get motivated, be positive and make exceptional things happen. Jolt will help you recognize that in many situations it’s not a lack of skill that’s holding you back but your own limiting beliefs and habitual thinking. Deep within all of us lies an inner spark to be unleashed, if only we can find the way to shape our thinking, carve out the right action, and rock the world.

Jolt will show you how to:

• Shake up your thinking, embrace the new and unleash the extraordinary version of yourself
• Help make a sustainable gear change
• Recognize the habits and limiting beliefs holding you back
• Test out new ways of thinking and doing things

Leseprobe

‘Jolt upgrades you from “happy, safe and fine” to “extraordinary, fearless and outstanding”.An exciting, exhilarating, and empowering journey.’

Elizabeth L Kuhnke, Bestselling author, conference speaker and executive coach

‘Richard Tyler once told tone deaf me that everyone can learn to sing. I now know it to be true. In my case I also learned to play the music, handbuild the instrument from raw materials – my beautiful electric guitar – and write the song. Oh yes, and along the way I chose, aged 59, to move on from a successful career as an academic, a Surgeon and a Chief Executive and create my own independent business. Truly there are no limits; it just took a Jolt from Tyler to get started.’

Dr Mark Goldman, Surgeon, Former NHS Chief Executive and Director of the Goldman Partnership

‘Steve Jobs didn’t take Apple into the stratosphere by emulating IBM, but by thinking radically different. How we find those triggers and build on those key blocks to make us achieve extraordinary action is the mission of Jolt. Richard gives some building blocks where we can identify what we need to do to make step changes in our performance and that of others. High levels of success only come from stepping out of our comfort zone and taking on challenges that may ordinarily scare us, but learning how and where the markers are can help. Massive changes are not needed. If one of two parallel railways has a one degree shift, 50 miles later they are a mile apart. Keep one degree shifts emerging in your culture and dramatic change takes shape.’

Ian Dormer CDir FIoD Chairman, Institute of Directors

‘Are you up for the challenge? Through practical experiences, supported by evidence-based theories, Richard challenges assumptions and mental models. You can’t fail to be impressed by the simplification of robust theories and personal experience, which together help the reader define, or even redefine, who they are and who they want to be. Jolt is a great leadership journey… be open; be honest; be ambitious and you will be jolted.’

Theresa Nelson, Chief Officer for Workforce Development at Birmingham Children’s Hospital – Passionate about developing people and creating great organizations through leadership

‘As the speed of change accelerates, it is essential that bigger companies like BBC Worldwide continually shake up the accepted way of doing things. Jolting our thinking is no longer a luxury. It is essential for survival and growth.’

Tim Davie, CEO, BBC Worldwide

‘Irrespective of where you are in the pecking order, none of us can afford to sit back and become complacent. The current unprecedented pace of change and challenges to accepted wisdom mean that we all need to continuously upgrade and reinvent ourselves – and use every bit of talent and courage in the process. Richard delivers this message loud and clear through Jolt! If you are ready for some fresh thinking and a new perspective, then I suggest you get stuck into your own copy of Jolt – then watch the changes go viral (and watch out – there may be horror and some drama on the way to the happy ending!)’

Etay Katz, Partner, Allen & Overy LLP – Etay takes an active role in mentoring lawyers through their development stages and in shaping the firm’s training programme designed for its emerging talents

‘A cognitive Jolt to transform your business and your life.’

Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer, Microsoft UK

‘At Innocent, we look to disrupt the norms and lead the way. For this to happen, we have to Jolt!’

Richard Reed, co-founder Innocent

‘This book contains some great insights to help disrupt you and your business out of “auto mortgage payment” and ensure your hardware (brain) is getting its vital upgrades. Unlike your phone it’s got to last a lifetime – give it a Jolt!’

James Gentle, Innovations Marketing Manager, KP Snacks

Jolt

Shake up your thinking and upgrade your impact for extraordinary success

Richard Tyler

This edition first published 2015 © 2015 Richard Tyler

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tyler, Richard, 1972-      Jolt : shake up your thinking and upgrade your impact for extraordinary success / Richard Tyler.           pages cm      Includes index.      ISBN 978-0-85708-598-6 (pbk.)    1. Change (Psychology)   2. Organizational change.   3. Success.   I. Title.    BF637.C4T95 2015    158–dc23

2014047601

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-857-08598-6 (pbk) ISBN 978-0-857-08599-3 (ebk) ISBN 978-0-857-08600-6 (ebk)

Cover Design & Illustration: Kathy Davis/Wiley

For all those that have Jolted me on the journey so far. Thank you.

Contents

Introduction

Ideas spread

An Artful approach

I remember it well …

Time to make an upgrade

Your call to action!

Part 1 Setting the Scene

Who do you see in the mirror?

Playing at your edge

The path to extraordinary … one small step at a time

Fiddle with the right level

Part 2 The Jolts!

1 Choose well

2 Dare to begin before you are ready

3 Take care of the small stuff

4 Change feedback to

feedforward

5 Dare yourself to fail

6 Veer from the routine and get wonky

7 Know where you need to get to

8 Adopt your authentic posture

9 Unleash your real voice

10 Become the Chief of Possibility

11 Make your audience matter

12 Change the language to change the story

13 Get yourself all turned on …

14 Fly by the seat of your pants

15 Live out the Magic ‘If’…

16 Stay plugged in

17 Embrace the art of being vulnerable

18 Bring out the best version of yourself

The final Jolt: Spend your power wisely

The secret

The final push …

About Richard Tyler

Acknowledgements

Index

EULA

List of Illustrations

About Richard Tyler

Image reproduced with permission of Jack Alexander

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

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Introduction

With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.

Thomas Foxwell Buxton

This book will Jolt you. Not for the shock factor, but because the challenges faced by anyone in a leadership position are immense and in this new age there needs to be a better way to make an impact. Too many are busy ‘doing’, yet are not actually being productive. People are working longer hours than ever before, yet in that time, how significantly are they really transforming and innovating their space?

The luxury of just being ‘good’ and remaining a leader are gone and the consequences of failing to Jolt are severe – take Blockbusters, Jessops, Comet – why did they collapse? They stayed comfortable. They didn’t disrupt. They failed to lead.

On the flipside, look at Apple, Innocent, Dyson, Amazon – they are successful because they push at the edges and do dare to disrupt the industry standards.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you are safe. If you are not shaking up your industry now, someone else will be.

You, like me, will recognize that the world is moving at an extraordinary pace. Probably faster than ever before and the one thing we can be sure of going forward, is that the pace will only continue to accelerate. There was a time however, where you could pretty much be ‘good’ and feel ‘safe’ as a leader by predicting what you delivered last week, last month and even last year, would continue to be a success. ‘Let’s keep churning out the same as it’s worked for us before!’ Well those days have passed us by. Business schools focused on metrics, measurables and the bottom line. Case studies, reports and spreadsheets ruled!

The space we are in now has shifted beyond recognition and the expectation of what has to be delivered has multiplied. We can no longer rely on telling the story where leaders scrape by with knowledge alone, technical competency and a textbook approach – the world is ready and, in most cases, demanding something more. The requirement now is for organizations and their leaders to be led away from pure process, out‐of‐date habits and mediocrity and towards a hunger for embracing something extraordinary where the outcome is to transform and not just fix.

The ability to transform, however, requires so much more than simple technical knowledge. While that is important, it is only a small part of the story; courage, listening, noticing, intuition, improvisation and engaging others in transformation is the larger part. In your role as a leader today, it is not just about playing the notes well, but listening to what’s emerging in the spaces in‐between.

That final statement is key. A good musician will be competent at playing the notes and lots of them together. The same is true for many good leaders, they will also be capable of playing many notes and lots of them together. What differs for the extraordinary musicians is that they are the ones that stop and listen to the spaces in between the notes. This is the moment that becomes their choice point for creating an extraordinary narrative and ensuring it finds its way to landing with their audience. It is the moment when they hold the questions:

What am I noticing?

How can I build on this?

What can I do to deepen my listening?

How can I become even more of a contribution?

When did you last ask yourself the same questions?

It is not just about playing the notes well, but listening to what’s emerging in the spaces in-between.

In the business space we currently operate within, playing the notes is simply no longer enough: reliance upon banging out as many notes as you can is a high risk strategy that most cannot afford to take. Yet, still, many organizations continue to focus on developing only the behaviours and skills that fit with the ’old story’ – where the number of notes played in a day was the measure of success. It has all changed – the audience is now demanding that we deliver a more relevant and up‐to‐date story.

Just recently I read in the paper that John Cridland, director‐general of the CBI, has written a hard‐hitting report recommending that schools and the government pay far greater attention to developing the attitude and character of children while in education. The past and current focus is on exam results; more knowledge, more learning and more tick boxes, yet employers believe that an agile mind, emotional intelligence and the desire to go the extra mile are most important. Skills are much easier to instill if the attitude to learn and upgrade yourself is in place.

Here’s the thing – much of what you do already works well. It must or you wouldn’t have got this far in life. The question for you though is this: will it be enough to take you beyond where you are now in order that you can play with extraordinary?

The attitude and behaviours that made you good will not be the same ones that make you extraordinary – doing more of the same will not unleash your success.

Ideas spread

Over the past 15 years, I have worked across the globe as a consultant and coach to some of the world’s biggest organizations, helping them to Jolt their own thinking. Jolting them to be bold and to start embracing this new world. Shaking up their thinking and the action that they take. Offering them a new lens to look through. Encouraging them to dare more.

Cajoling them to make new choices rather than play out old habits simply because ‘it did work that way once… in 1874.’

In simple terms, provoking them to adopt a more Artful approach, thereby creating the choice to elevate towards something extraordinary.

Having witnessed my clients now begin to exceed their audience’s expectations, have happier people amongst their workforce and generate more extraordinary moments than ordinary ones, I think that it is now the time for the Jolt to ripple further. I want this thinking to go viral. I want to start a revolution where more people can begin to flirt with extraordinary. The route to that exists here, through Jolt!

This is your Jolt. Like anything worth having though, it is good to share it with others. I ask you to pass this Jolt on. Jolt yourself. Jolt your team. Jolt your manager. Jolt your culture. Doing all this will in turn Jolt your audience, meaning that you remain on their radar for all the right reasons.

An Artful approach

During your life, at some point and in some way, you will have been touched by the arts; a play, a piece of dance, a song, an orchestra, a singer, an actor or actress, a film, a painting … it will have moved you. It will have created a connection and provoked a response. It will have been extraordinary. It will have offered you a Jolt!

Now take a moment to consider what it might have been that made it so extraordinary for you.

What was it about the performer?

How was it they connected with you?

What did it Jolt you from and to?

What made the difference between that experience being an ordinary one and an extraordinary one?

I frequently ask these questions of my clients and, without exception, each one has admitted a profound effect when they experienced extraordinary performers sharing an extraordinary performance. When I enquire about what it was that made the difference between ordinary and extraordinary, there is rarely any mention of ‘the great voice’ or some superhuman skill set they possessed. The answers are pretty consistent; the courage to dare, the bravery, passion, energy, commitment, a well rehearsed talent, connection, a vision, listening to the audience, precise communication and a personal accountability for the success of the performance.

The world of the arts offers a unique framework for building even greater possibilities and presents you with a new lens to look through: a lens that invites both its performers and its audience to consider an alternative narrative and a new story to live out.

Performers are driven by a compelling vision and are fuelled by the desire to translate that vision into something meaningful for their audience. Most artists know that they will only achieve an extraordinary performance if they constantly push themselves to evolve and upgrade. They will be diligent and rigorous in their practice and rehearsal. They will hone and refine the necessary skills and behaviours. Feedback will be expected from the start of any project and the artist will actively seek it out, as they know that it only serves to enhance the end product.

Sitting right at the very heart of all this is an attitude, a mindset and a way of thinking that binds everything together. It is this that creates extraordinary. Having the right behaviours and skills in isolation is not enough. At the core of any artist’s own development, it will be their attitude and mindset that take centre stage, as without this pointing in the right direction, everything else falls away and the results are plain old beige!

In the same way, organizations have a performance to put on 24/7. They have an audience to engage with. People that they need to reach out to and connect with. A story to tell. Hearts and minds to win over. A purpose. A quality service to deliver. An experience to create that the audience will want to return to again and again. A brand to maintain. Stakeholders that want to be listened to and heard. A culture that goes viral for all the right reasons. A culture that their own performers will want to be a part of and can thrive in. A place where people are rewarded for what they deliver and how they deliver it. An organization that every stakeholder believes is extraordinary.

I can safely say that every performer and leader I have come across in the last 20 years, who is striving for extraordinary, has bravely chosen the attitudes, behaviours and thinking patterns that need to be left behind while holding on to those that will propel them forward. Without a Jolt, it can be easy and comfortable to keep churning out more of the same. Ultimately though, in some guise, the Jolt will appear!

I remember it well …

I have had many Jolts in my lifetime. Some I noticed, some I probably didn’t. Some I reacted well to, some I rolled on the floor, kicked my feet in the air and screamed like a baby (age 33 was the last one of those and it wasn’t pretty!). The Jolts that stand out, many of which I wrestled with, have become my guiding principles and are now a part of how I navigate my day. Experience has shown me that they are the basis for building anything extraordinary.

Jolt is not a thing that you do. Jolt is not your outcome. Jolt is a way of being.

In 1995 I joined the West End cast of The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom company and the many gorgeous people within it became my home, on and off, for many years. My time there was a rich tapestry of learning about the craft of consistently creating something extraordinary. On numerous occasions I was left baffled over why we would yet again spend hours practising tiny pieces of music and staging. Surely something so small couldn’t make a difference to the show? How would an audience ever notice? It was already a worldwide phenomenon, grossing millions globally through ticket sales and merchandise. Why fiddle with it?

Wind the clock forward 18 years and my wisdom and learning is in a more rounded place to make sense of it all. Delivering something extraordinary, eight times a week, is a feat even for the most experienced and seasoned performers and musicians. The courage and hunger to continually reinvent takes energy and tenacity. If we let go of that, we switch onto auto‐pilot, turn off the radar and deliver a lacklustre performance. In the world of the arts, there is no place for that.

So why is it then that in the world of business we often accept that as being ok?

A while into my run at Phantom, the resident director took me to one side and offered me a dollop of wisdom. I am grateful that he did as I believe it dramatically changed the course of my existence and placed the importance of Jolt right at the heart of what I do. He brought it to my attention that I had entered a ‘safe zone’ – a place that delivered an ordinary performance and not an extraordinary one. I had become comfortable and was delivering just enough each night.

The feedback and challenge he offered me was very clear.

‘Richard, what you do on stage each night is ok. It’s fine. It won’t change the world though. However, I’m not sure that deep down you are happy with ok and fine, are you?’

‘Not entirely, no. BUT what if I step it up a gear and then screw it up? What if I test out new ways and they fail? What if it doesn’t work? What if I crack a note? That all feels like a big risk to take!’

He smiled at me yet delivered a message that walloped me between the eyes!

‘The greatest risk Richard is not that you step it up a gear and do something differently. The risk is not that you give it a go and fail either. The greatest risk is that you stay doing the same thing, day in and day out, eight times a week. If you do, you won’t have a job and we won’t have a show. I’m telling you now so that you can make your best choice.’

The Jolt that came from my director shook me up. It was a very clear choice point for me. Doing nothing would cost me big time. Looking back on that moment, I smile to myself as I realize how naive I had been to believe that there was no risk to me in staying doing the same thing, over and over again.

Jolts will come in all shapes and sizes. They may well wallop your arse when you least expect it. They may knock you to your knees. Hear this though, what makes the difference between an enabling Jolt and a disabling Jolt is how YOU choose to respond to it. Jolts will be sudden, uncomfortable, provocative and create a heightened state of awareness of your thinking, your action and the situation you are in.

Will you embrace the Jolts around you or will you fight them off?

Time to make an upgrade

Imagine using technology that is 20 years out of date – analogue TV, cassettes, Atari computers. Even operating on a Windows system that is three years old can cause problems. It will work up to a point and yet when you need to engage and connect with your audience, it may well let you down. Technology upgrades have become normal in our world. What you buy today will have a new version available tomorrow. As I sit waiting for my iPhone 6 to arrive, I do so in the knowledge that even by tomorrow, new software upgrades will have been made available. If you are truly committed to making the step from ordinary to extraordinary, the starting point is to decide what upgrades are necessary. You may well have some catching up to do if you haven’t upgraded for many years!

When did you last make an upgrade to your current version?

Upgrading will quickly become a regular habit if you choose to make it so. When you have your radar switched on and are truly in the moment, you will start to notice the choices you make that are working and those that let you down.

Choices