What does fulfillment at work really look like?

This article was written by Polly LaBarre and was sourced from the AIM Update Victoria. For the last 30 years, Semco has operated as a kind of lab for experimenting on what it takes to build positive working lives.

(TheMIX) — There is tremendous goodwill, not to mention countless exciting experiments, around making the world of work more human — designed to promote more freedom, equity, engagement, and passion. Why, then, can those words sound so cheap when we hear them repeated over and over by leaders of all stripes? Probably because these words are uttered much more often than they are ever enacted.

That’s why it’s so refreshing to spend time with a leader who is relentlessly inventive and effective as a champion of this cause. We aim too low, says Ricardo Semler, the irrepressible force behindBrazil’s Semco Group. “We constantly talk about passion — serving customers passionately, filling in forms passionately — but what if we created the conditions for people to feel exhilaration, to get involved to the point they shout ‘yes!’ and give each other high fives because they did it their way and it worked?”

What if, instead of assuming passion will just show up when we invoke it, we focused on designing organizations to unleash it?

To learn, read more….

Seven Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Learning Organization

Failing to avoid these mistakes may lead to high volatility in your learning organization, namely irregular funding, changes to the CLO function and inconsistent learning programs.

Whether you’ve built a learning organization from the ground up or were promoted to the position, as chief learning officer you’re called to serve the company by fostering a culture of learning at every turn. Since all business demands continual adaption to changing tides in the economic environment, a learning organization itself needs to preserve its function as the tiller of the company, because it’s surprisingly easy to drift off course. Let’s look at some common mistakes that can trip up CLOs and, by extension, have hurt the entire learning enterprise.

Mistake No. 1: Failing to Make the Transition From Tactical to Strategic Thinking

Mistake No. 2: Getting Your Program Funding at the Last Minute

To continue reading this article from the Chief Learning Officer, written by Frank Waltmann, click here….

Training and development: making coaches turn professional

When does an industry formally become a profession? The question is an increasingly apt one for the world of business and executive coaching, which has enjoyed extraordinary growth in the past 10 to 15 years.

While some argue that the coaching industry is slowly coming of age, historically anyone with business experience across a wide range of sectors – from real estate to psychiatry – has been able to hang out a shingle. Without any clear qualifications or barriers to entry, coaching is a free-for-all – anyone can be one.

“There isn’t a business which hasn’t been marketed to by people professing to be business coaches, claiming the widest experience and who promise to work wonders,” remarks James Mason, managing director of coaching firm Mindshop. Mason is particularly critical of franchises offering a “cookie-cutter” or one-size-fits-all approach that use coaching gobbledegook, often via the latest forms of social media. They are one reason some people in the industry have now stopped calling themselves coaches and adopted other titles, including “sales scientists” or “business catalysts”, says Mason. “They’ll do anything to distance themselves from the word ‘coach’.”

But what’s to stop those less qualified to coach from making their own moves on the market when even the top coaching practitioners – the experienced business professionals and highly qualified academics – are still struggling to define what they do?

Even qualifications present a sticking point. Successful graduation with a masters of business coaching or a degree in coaching psychology, as well as various diplomas and certificates, does not deliver an automatic licence to operate when, in the eyes of the market, a coaching graduate is no substitute for a battle-hardened former chief executive with tried-and-tested business acumen.

Continue this article found on LeadingCompany, by clicking here…

How to Develop Mental Toughness in Leaders

Business leaders, much like athletes, need to be psychologically ready to play. Mentoring and coaching can help them cultivate this trait according to Frank Kalman, on the Chief Learning Officer website.

Of all the competencies sought after by today’s budding business leaders — critical thinking, emotional intelligence, the ability to influence and inspire a team, to name a few — perhaps the most valuable is one that isn’t learned in a boardroom but on a baseball or soccer field as children.

Mental toughness is a term commonly used in sports — a term many begin to hear from coaches in youth athletics. Tuning out the noise or pressure and performing to potential in an otherwise difficult situation is what makes fans admire the most astute professional athlete.

It’s not that the quarterback was able to throw the winning touchdown, but the fact that he or she was able to do so under the tight and uncomfortable circumstances of the situation.

While sports stars grab the majority of headlines in the mental toughness arena, this trait has become essential for leaders to be successful in business as well, according to Christine M. Riordan, dean of the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver.

Global business leaders, facing the complexity of an uncertain working environment, need to have the same psychological readiness as an athlete. It’s not just a matter of leaders’ knowledge, ability or skill that sets them up for success, but also an ability to deal with the pressure and stress of competition, fatigue and failure, Riordan wrote in a 2010 Forbes article, “Six Elements of Mental Toughness.”

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Five myths about introversion

By Lisa Petrilli found on the Leading Company website…

I was exceptionally honoured when the senior editor of the Harvard Business Review Blog Network asked me to write a post about introverts, which led to the network publishing An Introvert’s Guide to Networking. I have been amazed by the response it’s garnered and the number of emails I have received from introverted executives “pouring their hearts out” to me.

As I read through the hundreds of comments on the post and the emails, I realised there are clear myths about introversion that are relatively pervasive. I aim to dispel them here.

Introversion myth #1: Being introverted is the same as being shy

Introversion myth #2: Introverts are socially inept or anxious in social situations

Introversion myth #3: If I am fearful of public speaking i must be an introvert

Introversion myth #4: Introverts have communication challenges and difficulty knowing what to say

Introversion myth #5: If you act like an extrovert you can “overcome” introversion

What is introversion?, continue here….