Decision Tree
The ability to create self-reliance in people is one of the most empowering skills you can develop. You will bring out the best in people, they will feel powerful, and they will not feel burdened by your control. Joshua Uebergang

The decision tree identifies what work an employee does and when and how they need to involve others in the decision or communicating the result. Think of the organisation as a tree that we wish to see flourish. In many organisations managers complain that staff will not take responsibility. Go and talk to the very same employees and they will tell you that the managers don’t let them take responsibility!  

By tagging the actions and decisions in a position description with the four components, it makes it clear what an employee can and is expected to do.

Leaf
It’s your responsibility. Just do it. Changing a leaf will not have an impact on the whole organisation. A leaf decision is a minor one within your realm of responsibility. You do not need to report it. Examples: Calling a client to discuss a job, approving payment of an invoice or refund.

Branch
Make the decision. Do it and report on the results in the agreed timeline and format (e.g. monthly review). There is no need to consult others or report immediately. A branch decision is a more major decision within your realm of responsibility and one which others will need to know about, but not today. Examples: Purchasing equipment within your budget, negotiating a contract with a client

Trunk
Trunk decisions are significant but would not alter the fundamental nature of how the business is done. Consult others and you alone make the final decision. Report on the results of trunk decisions immediately to those impacted and provide extensive communication. Examples: Switching suppliers, shifting offices, hiring new staff, building a new distribution channel

Root
Consult and get agreement before going ahead. A root decision has a fundamental impact on others in the business and cannot be taken without agreement. The impact of cutting a root is far greater than pruning a leaf. Examples: Closing a product line, changing the company’s position

Benefits of this metaphor
Creating a shared language is a powerful way to improve communication. The benefits of this metaphor are:
·        It empowers employees by encouraging autonomy
·        Creates clarity in the boundaries of that autonomy
·        Supports personal development
·        Improves decision making
·        Frees up energy
·        Creates accountability

Sources: More on decision trees at www.towerofpower.com.au and
Susan Scott author of Fierce Conversations http://www.fierceinc.com/conversations/

Do you want a simple framework to help you achieve your goals? C-GOALS can help you do just that. It's so simple that it is explained in one page.

If I had  a dollar for every  time someone said I am dumb then I would have $12.50.
If 100 people enter a competition, 99 will fail. So the experience of failure is far more common than winning. Leaders that focus on setting goals and winning may be missing the point. Perhaps the main job of a business leader is to encourage beautiful failure. Why not start every meeting with the 'mistake of the week'. A business is a conversation. If failure is taboo then part of our energy is taken up by hiding our mistakes. The child that falls over 99 times before they learn to stand understands beautiful failure.   

It is easy to focus on the problem or obstacle and not see the big picture.  The sideways leader makes the obstacle an essential part of the game. 

Here is a question cluster for you to help you innovate. The outer questions start a conversation. The aim is to get the answer of the central question. The outcome is that you will know what you really do, not  what you think you do. once you know that, you can innovate more effecti

What do you find easy?
You find it easy and you can't understand why others don't.  Guess what' that's a core strength.

What are you passionate about?
If you are excited about it, then it will be easy, fun and rewarding to do. it won't feel like work.

If you closed your business tomorrow what would you be remembered for?
What would people say, when they remembered what the business did well?

What does your industry find hard that you find easy?
Just because others find it hard doesn't mean that you have to.

What was your #1 reason that you set up this business in the first place?
Hopefullythe reason is more than just making money.

If I asked your best client about you, what would they say was the reason they chose you?
Try asking them and write down their answer.

Your answers will point you to what you do brilliantly. Build a busienss around that. Innovate around that.  In the next blog I will talk about the two different ways that you can innovate. One is much easier than the other.

Business can be colour coded into three areas, red(admin), blue (revenue) and black (strategy). I have moved most of my coaching business red work to the cloud now.

I love the cloud. I continue to do blue and black work face to face but am pushing as much of the red work up to the cloud. Most of the time all I need is my iPhone as cloud applications usually have an app. Here are some examples.

Backup
I use www.Carbonite.com to back up my laptop. It took a few days to do the first backup. Now I don’t even notice or have to think about it. My files are 100% secure on the cloud. I can also access them through my iPhone. If I am out and about I can view any document and email it if necessary. In Windows explorer I know what has been backed up because it has a little coloured icon.

Accounting
I now use www.Xero.com for all my bookkeeping. The big change is that all my bank transactions are automatically fed into Xero by the bank. Xero learns what a transaction is for and the process of reconciling gets faster and faster. Because it is web based I can give my accountant access and they can make changes remotely. When I send out invoices Xero matches the payment. If you need a xero expert to shift you across and take some of the load then I recommend www.accountabilityfinancial.com. Contact Terry Howard and say Bill sent you.

CRM
I use www.Box.Net as a central repository. I share this with all my fellow coaches. We each have our own area and a shared files space. Box.net integrates with Outlook so I can attach a file from box.net to an email I send.

Telephony
Viber is a great tool for making free long distance phone calls when in a wireless network. The big difference to Skype is that you use your telephone number rather than a user ID.  Any of your contacts in your phone book who are already on Viber just show up as soon as you register. It’s a bit like having an extra sense or being invited to a party you didn’t know was going on.

How did the interview go? the one I wanted to give, the one I gace, or the one I should have given. These are my notes for the interview I just gave to the ABC. Some of the points ended up in the actual interview.

I became aware of global warming in 2009. I realised a few things. First, a political solution is very difficult. There are several reasons. The timeline to turn global warming round is measured in decades. Political leaders are lucky to be in power for a few years. So there is a mismatch. Political leaders are elected to act in their constituent’s best interests. But global warming does not respect borders. So the benefit of a lot of the work will just drift offshore. Third, there are no effective international mechanisms. We can’t even stop Somali pirates. 

Second, the scientific method, is against us. You cannot as a scientist say that global warming is a 100% certainty. The scientific method means that all you can say is that this is the best theory that fits what we know today. When I tell you that I am 99% certain I am going to buy your house, what do you hear?  You focus on the 1%.  

Third, the debate has become a moral one. Telling people that what they have been doing for generations is wrong or unhealthy, gets up their nose. People still smoke.

So my view is that we need a business climate change. Instead of focussing on what to do differently in this book I explore the how.

So when I work with clients I help them to become aware of the language that they use. I used to think that language first and foremost described reality. Through the conversations I had when writing this book I saw that language creates reality.

So there is one word that has shaped our civilisation over and above any other, in the past 200 years. That word is change. We treat the world as a problem or puzzle to be solved. Our brains are problem making machines.

What persuades us to change? Three things. Better, faster, cheaper.

However when you embark on change there is a price to pay. You have to limit the scope. That means you have to ignore everything else.

While it seems common sense that every problem has a potential solution, what is less obvious is that every solution creates a problem.  You could say that a problem is just a solution grown up.

So over the past 200 years humanity, as a whole,  has seen dramatic improvements in health and wealth. While there remains many who do not enjoy these benefits every trend is upwards. The lifestyle of most Australians today is better than any king would have enjoyed 200 years ago. But the thing that we ignored is the environment.

Now I am not a pessimist. Quite the opposite. I think that we will look back on this decade and call it the Age of Transformation. So what is the difference?

I want to speak of just one quality and that is the acid test. How do you know when you are creating transformation?  Surprise. Transformation always opens up possibilities that you could not conceive of. Change, on the other hand, engenders boredom. 

In the climate change debate there are two groups. One group is on the supply side. They are making products and services which are designed to mitigate climate change.  For example, battery powered cars or thorium powered reactors. The other group is on the demand side. They are creating the demand for these products through persuasion, tax breaks, funding legislation, carbon trading and taxation schemes. 

However both groups are relatively small. The rest of the world just gets on and does what it has always done.  

I look at this issue from a different perspective. My strength is in association. I can see connections in seemingly unrelated areas. The result was the book - Turning up for Life. The book is a collection of conversations I had with some incredible people around the world in many different industries and societies. I just got on a plane with no plan other than to find the people I needed to speak to. And as soon as I got on that plane the adventure started. I found myself sat next to the head of marketing for Greenpeace and we debated the basic premise of the book.  Later, I met the founder of the first Internet café in the world, the director general of the International Olympic Committee. I almost got killed in a terrorist explosion in India. It was a remarkable journey and one that changed me for ever.

So how do you create a business climate change? My proposal is that if you look closely we relate to each other in one of three ways: sexual, loving or compassionate. I am talking about us as individuals. However when people work together they bring their personal communication styles into business. The language changes. In business we talk of transactional organisations. They are the ones that dominate our society. They focus on getting the product to the client. They use persuasion to get us to buy stuff we perhaps don’t need. They don’t care much about the customer and they don’t care too much about their staff.  So why would they care about the environment. It’s a very unconscious way of working.  The loving organisations invest in the relationship and through building trust they sell products and services.  The indicators are very strong. According to Gallup, caring organisations are 27% more profitable, have 38% above average productivity and have 50% higher customer loyalty.

So if we can encourage business to switch from transactional to loving then the unintended consequence is a positive impact on the environment. You can’t treat people with grace and respect and the environment in which they live as a dump. Your staff won’t let you. Your customers won’t let you.  But the argument is not, “you naught wicked business, you must change.” It’s do this and become more profitable. Again there is a price to pay. But this time the price is one that is worth paying.

Let me finish by speaking of the characteristics of a compassionate organization.  Again there is an acid test. We have all heard of 6 degrees of separation. In the world of compassionate organizations that shrinks to 3. Compassionate organizations are incredible networkers.

In Tasmania, BlueLine Laundry is a compassionate organization. You walk into BlueLine and you see a bunch of people working. You cannot tell who is intellectually disabled. They compete in the market place and win contracts based on their commercial expertise.  BlueLine is the new breed, a social enterprise. A social enterprise is one that competes commercially and has a social intent. They are not dependent on government funding and that is healthy.

Met with Ross Copping on my social media strategy, or lack of. First thing to do is create a new, clean, simple website. The heart is the blog and we add links from twitter, facebook, google+ and linked in. So here goes.

Watched Lesley Symons deliver a master class on Clean Coaching today at the University of Tasmania. It was part of the Applied Coaching Skills course offered as an elective.

Clean langage is so different from any other coaching technique. The format is strange and unfamiliar and yet amazingly powerful. 

Has this happened to you? You explain what you do to someone in a large business and they get really excited. You spend a lot of time developing the relationship, giving them free stuff. They tell you that a deal is getter closer. But it never goes anywhere. What went wrong?
A mobile phone needs three satellites in different parts of the sky before you know where you are. You need the same. One person may be a champion or early adopter but they probably won't be able to make a deal. Unless you have three people in different parts of the organisation who all see the benefit, you are probably wasting your time. So have your champion introduce you to two people in different roles, preferably as far away from them as possible.