What Really Matters Vol 1 No 1 2009

Organisations That Matter

What Really Matters!
Volume 1, Number 1, 2009
Gary Ryan & Dr Andrew O’Brien
What Really Matters! Volume 1, Number 1, 2009 – is a compilation of selected articles
from The Organisations That Matter Learning Network up until June 30th 2009
By Gary Ryan and Dr Andrew O’Brien
Published by Organisations That Matter Pty Ltd
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Copyright © 2009 Gary Ryan & Dr Andrew O’Brien, Organisations That Matter®
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This ebook is for people who are interested in personal and professional
development, specifically as it relates to achieving career aspirations and
enabling the organisations within which we work to be better places for
human beings. This ebook represents articles from the first six months of
2009 from The Organisations That Matter Learning Network. Number 2
will be released late in December 2009 with Number 3 coming out early in
January 2010.
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Thank You!
Thank you to all our members of The Organisations That Matter Learning
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articles compiled in the first half of 2009.
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Gary Ryan and Dr Andrew O’Brien

Table of Contents
Why Practicing Your Employability Skills is Important! By Gary Ryan .................................................... 1
The Power of Personal Vision By Andrew O’Brien .................................................................................. 4
Understanding the Relationship Between Leadership and Values By Gary Ryan .................................. 6
The Art of Skilful Questions By Gary Ryan ............................................................................................ 13
How To Make The Most Out Of University Group‐Work By Gary Ryan ............................................... 15
OTM High Performing Teams Model ................................................................................................ 16
Seven Questions For Effective After Action Reviews – a great way to learn! By Gary Ryan ................ 21
How To Master The Four Quadrants Of Time Management By Gary Ryan .......................................... 22
Urgent and Important Matrix ........................................................................................................... 23
Learning The Power of Focus and Self‐Talk From World Champion Surfer Layne Beachley
By Gary Ryan ......................................................................................................................................... 27
Gary and Liam catch their first wave! ............................................................................................... 28
Tribes – We Need You to Lead Us – Seth Godin By Troy Simmonds ............................................. 33
Faking The Figures ‐ how you can tell when someone's been fiddling the books By Jock MacNeish .. 35
One Insight That Drives Service Excellence By Gary Ryan ........................................................ 37
How To Take Responsibility For Your Organisation's Values By Gary Ryan .......................................... 41
Why Mentors Are Important By Gary Ryan .......................................................................................... 47
A Life Lesson From Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King By Gary Ryan ...................................... 49
National Volunteer Week ‐ A time to celebrate By Jim Poussard .................................................. 53
Dee Hock ‐ an example of a Servant Leader By Gary Ryan ..................................................... 58
How to Conduct An End Of Meeting Reflection By Gary Ryan ................................................. 61
How What You Think Affects What You See! By Gary Ryan ...................................................... 66
The Danger of Jumping to Conclusions ‐ and a tool that can help! By Gary Ryan ................................ 72
Twenty Paradoxes of Servant Leadership By Gary Ryan ......................................................... 80
Book ‐ "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell ‐ some interesting thoughts for discussion By Gary Ryan ..... 82
About Organisations That Matter ......................................................................................................... 85
About Gary Ryan ................................................................................................................................... 86
About Dr Andrew O’Brien ..................................................................................................................... 87
More in this series! ............................................................................................................................... 89
Join us! .............................................................................................................................................. 89
Share! ................................................................................................................................................ 89
Thank You! ........................................................................................................................................ 89
What Really Matters 2009 Vol.1, No.1

Why Practicing Your Employability Skills is
Important! By Gary Ryan
Attending workshops is a great way to start to understand
what employability skills are (they are also known as
Transferable Skills, and within organisations they are often
referred to as Key Competencies) and how they are expected
to be used in the workplace. While we strive to create
interactive workshop experiences through activities and
sharing our own stories, and hearing the stories of other
students, it is critical that you find opportunities to develop
your skills. As Andrew highlights in his blog, "The Power of
Personal Vision" we tend to see things when they are part of
the future we are trying to create, and we don't see them
when we haven't got a clear picture of the future.
If you see yourself attaining a great job in an organisation

that is worthy of your commitment (or you see yourself
starting such an organisation) then it is critical that you find
opportunities to practice your employability skills. After a
recent workshop a student told me that she wanted to
improve her English (part of the communication set of skills),
but every time she started a new strategy she would only
last a few days and then stop. I asked her what her
strategies were. She said, speaking into a recorder and
playing it back to myself, and reading as much as I can to
increase my vocabulary." These strategies are quite sound,
so I asked her what she was doing to increase her
conversational English. "I'm using the same strategies
1 ©Copyright Organisations That Matter® 2009 www.orgsthatmatter.com

because I don't have any English speaking friends, I don't
have the opportunity to speak English."
I proceeded to ask her how important speaking English was

to achieving her personal vision. "I believe that if I can speak
English fluently, I will have a much greater chance of
achieving a high quality life." (We explored what a high
quality life meant to her and she had quite a vivid description
which is very helpful). We identified that if she did not
become fluent in English, then, according to her own life
theory she would be risking not achieving a high quality life. I
asked her if she thought that risk was worth it. "No." was her
reply.
I then asked her a question from 'left field'. "What do you

enjoy doing that you would like to get better at?". "Dancing"
was her reply. I then asked, "What if you were to go to
dancing classes at a place where most of the people spoke
English?". "You mean, learn how to dance and speak English
at the same time? That sounds like fun!" We then explored if
this was a realistic option for her and, as it turned out, she
felt that it was an option that she could take action upon.
She also identified that it would also result in creating some
new friendships with English speaking people, which would in
turn provide more opportunities to develop her English
speaking skills.

This is just one example where the opportunity to improve an
employability skill is available if you are willing to look for it.
The opportunity was also quite a strategic way to have fun
and develop a skill that is critical to this person's future.
Imagine this story being told in an interview when asked,
"How did you become so fluent in English?". I suspect the
interview panel would have an increased chance of
remembering this person!
Therefore, in the spirit of sharing ways that you have gone

about finding opportunities to practice and develop your
employability skills, please share your stories so that others
may learn from your experiences.
Please feel free to make a comment on this article by clicking

here.

The Power of Personal Vision By Andrew O’Brien
Establishing our own personal vision is one of the most
important actions we can take as once we create a "picture"
or "memory" of the future we desire we open ourselves to
seeing possibilities to help us achieve the future we wish to
create.
We often experience this phenomenon when we decide to

purchase something substantial. As an example for several
years I visited the same shopping centre every week and
only noticed one store selling iPods. Eventually I decided I
wanted to purchase an iPod and in the weeks before I saved
the money for my purchase I noticed that there were
fourteen stores at the shopping centre selling iPods.
When iPods were not part of my desired future I did not

notice or see them but once I saw an iPod as part of my
future I became aware of many opportunities to purchase an
iPod. Have you ever had such an experience?
This aspect of personal vision is vital at work, in our

education and in all aspects of our life as once we are clear
on what we are seeking we prepare our mind to see the
opportunities to make it happen.
Often we hear people in organisations or at university

complain of a lack of opportunities while others in the same
situation see many opportunities. It is highly likely that when

this happens the person complaining of lack of opportunities
has not developed a personal vision while the other person
has.
As well as opening ourselves to possibilities, once we have

determined our starting point or current reality we can use
our personal vision to develop and implement strategies and
actions to bring our desired future to reality.
I will explore these concepts further in future blogs. In the

meantime it would be great to hear different perspectives on
the value of personal vision and/or the challenges of forming
one.

here.

Understanding the Relationship Between
Leadership and Values By Gary Ryan
Many great questions were asked at the workshop Leadership

for Excellence on Saturday 21st March. One of those
questions was, "Why have personal or organisational
values?" On a personal level, living a life that is consistent
with our personal values is one of the ways to live a happier
life than someone who does not live such a consistent life.
This is irrespective of material wealth. Life has a habit of
creating difficult situations through which we must navigate
and the path that we choose to take can be guided by our
values. If, however, you don't know what your personal
values are, then it is very difficult to choose a path that is
aligned with them. Some might suggest that it is easier to
not have values. I'm yet to experience a value-less person.
By this I mean that everyone has values; their behaviours
indicate what they are. The issue is whether or not the
person knows what values they are portraying. It is easy to
preach a certain range of values, the challenge can be living
them.
Ultimately a simple metaphor can help with this idea of

values. Irrespective of your role in life, at the end of each
day when you are home and look at yourself in the mirror,
are you proud of the person staring back at you? In 1934 the
editor of the New York Post (a monthly magazine at the time)
was sent a letter by an 18 year old male. His letter contained
a single question, "Why be honest?". The editor thought that

it was such a great question that he published it the next
month and asked the readers to send in their replies. He
promised to publish the best response.
The following poem was adjudged the best response. While

written in 1934 I think the essence of the poem has
significant value to this day. Many of you may not have
heard of the word 'pelf'. It means, "money or wealth, esp.
when regarded with contempt or acquired by reprehensible
means." In other words it is when you acquire wealth no
matter the cost to others. Dale Winbrow, the poem's author,
was not a poet. He simply penned this poem in response to
the 18 year olds question. If you would like to learn more
about Dale Wimbrow visit his website. This is my favourite
poem and has been since I was introduced to it in 1996.
The Guy in the Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.
For it isn't your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.
You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,
And think you're a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the guy in the glass.
Ultimately living a life in which we behave in a way that is

consistent with our values across all our various life roles
provides us the best chance to be happy when we look at the
person staring back at us in the mirror. It is possible to be
lauded as a great person but not be happy. This can be
because, at the end of the day when we are alone and
looking at ourselves in the mirror we may be aware that we

have not been true to our values or ourselves in the way that
we have behaved during the day.
So what does this have to do with leadership. Michelle Hunt

(Dream Makers) suggests that formal leadership roles carry a
great weight of responsibility because they involve a serious
meddling in other people's lives. When we hold positions of
leadership within any organisation whether it be for profit,
not for profit or government based, our decisions can have a
direct impact on many people's lives. Performing our roles in
the context of our personal values becomes critical for both
personal happiness and organisational performance. If we
are working full time, we spend too much time at work to
behave in a way that is not consistent with our values to
think that there would not be a negative effect on the rest of
our lives. (You can find out more about Michelle Hunt by
visiting http://www.dreammakers.org/)
A business reality, particularly in difficult economic times

may involve reducing staff numbers. It is often worth asking
before taking such action, "Have we truly exhausted all other
options?" Another consideration, "Did we have the foresight
to prepare for more difficult times when times were good?".
If we still have to make staff redundant, our values, and in
this case our organisational values can guide the way we go
about performing this process. As our values are an element
of our vision, should we decide to ignore our values in the
way we would perform such a task we guarantee, in my

view, in ensuring that our vision will NOT be achieved. Is that
a price that we are willing to pay for the sake (usually) of
saving a few dollars and maintaining our dignity (and the
dignity of those being made redundant) when such a decision
is made? While your experience may be such that not many
organisations are true to their values, I suggest that this is
NOT an excuse for you to do the same. You are not monkeys,
so you do not have to do, "Monkey see, monkey do".
Taking action in alignment with organisational vales can take

courage. The Herald Sun Sunday Newspaper in Melbourne
published front page headlines and alleged photographs of
prospective Queensland parliamentarian Pauline Hanson one
week before the Queensland State election. To me the values
of the paper's editors were obvious. Sell papers at any cost. I
wonder whether that is the true value set of the editor? A
week later after public outrage about the photographs and
evidence that clearly indicated that the photographs were not
Pauline Hanson the Newspaper published a public apology
(interestingly buried on page 68!). While a noble act, the
behaviour of the paper cannot be undone. This is one of the
reason's that organisational values are so critical. Without
them organisations are at risk of behaving in ways that can
taint the brand of the organisation and reduce trust in the
organisation by its customers. If your organisation has a set
of values and you have a leadership role within that
organisation, then it is your duty to be able to explain how
you have used the values in your decision making processes.

It is through sharing real stories and examples that staff
within the organisation develop their understanding of the
values in action. In this way the values help create the
results that you desire. So, if your organisation is about
making money (which, by the way, has nothing inherently
wrong with it) it can do so while also having a clear set of
organisational values. In the case of the newspaper, imagine
if it held the value of integrity. If such a value were alive and
well in the way that decisions were made at the paper, then
the photographs and the article would have never been
published in the first place. The paper would have had
systems in place (systems that had been created to support
their values) to ensure that the appropriate checks on the
story had taken place before it published them.
You may be in a situation where your organisation has values

but you can't see how they are lived. You may even hold the
view that 'those at the top' are hypocrites. Maybe they are.
Your challenge is this. If you actually believe in the
organisational values, is your behaviour aligned to them? Are
you able to explain your decisions in the context of the
organisation’s values? Too many people say something like,
"Well the leaders don't live by the values, so why should I?"
Why would anyone base their own poor behaviour on
someone-else's poor behaviour?
There is no doubt that living your values can be challenging.

Doing so within an organisational context can be even more

challenging. But it can be done. The only person who will
know how you are performing in the context of living your
values is you. So, when you look in the mirror at the end of
each day, what does that person have to say to you?

here.

The Art of Skilful Questions By Gary Ryan
Effective communication often consists of the ability to slow

down your mind so that you can listen to what is being
communicated to you. Note that I have said, "Communicated
to you" rather than, "...said to you." In oral communication,
the words we actually say are only a fraction of what we are
communicating. For those of you who have English as your
second language you would understand this concept very
easily. While developing your competency at speaking
English, the words that you use are often only a fraction of
what you are trying to convey in your mind (where you use
are using your first language to speak to yourself). Our body
language tries to compensate for us in that it communicates
for us while we speak. The challenge that we have is that our
body language and our words aren't always in agreement!
It is for this reason that the art of asking good questions is

so important. When you are truly listening you are more able
to hear what is not being said, and better able to listen to
what the body language may be telling you. Good listeners
know that anything they believe that they heard, or did not
hear but was said "between the lines" is just an
assumption...until it is confirmed or otherwise by the person
they were listening to. Rather than believing that their
assumptions are always accurate, good listeners ask
questions. The questions that they ask are designed to help
them to develop their understanding. Good listeners, through

the use of artful questions, can also help other people to
better understand what they are trying to say as well. Wise
people and mentors have known this for thousands of years,
which is why the good ones are both good listeners and
skilful questioners.
Read the article by Michael Marquardt, The Power of Great

Questions (Harvard Business review). His suggestions for
developing the art of becoming a good questioner are
exceptional. You may like to contribute to the discussion on
this topic as well and share your experiences; both of having
been asked great questions and your own experience of
using them yourself.

here.

How To Make The Most Out Of University Group
Work By Gary Ryan

One of the most relevant aspects of your university
experience is group-work. Unfortunately the majority of
students report having poor group-work experiences. This is
unfortunate because employers report that group-work is one
of the most relevant experiences that students can have in
preparing them for the workplace. The main reason for the
failure of the majority of student groups is the lack of a
framework for providing the basis for creating an effective
team. Group-work is teamwork. The team of students will be
treated as a single unit where everybody (usually) receives
the same grade as everyone else on the team. The OTM High
Performing Teams Model and how it can be applied to
student group-work to increase the chances that your team
will not only be a more enjoyable experience, but a more
productive one as well.

OTM High Performing Teams Model
OTM High Performing Teams Model
Monitor & Purpose &

Improve Goals
Skills &
Performance
Composition
Strategy & Agreed

Tactics Behaviours
1 © Organisations That Matter® 2007 - 2009
Every team needs to clarify why it exists. In the context of

student group-work, the purpose of the group-work is to
provide team based experiences, as well as having a group of
people work toward a common goal. This is often the starting
point where student groups go wrong. Firstly, student groups
needs to clarify what the assignment is asking them to do.
Many student groups do not do this which results in many
problems throughout the duration of the project. The
following seven steps outline a process for enhancing the
chances that your group-work experience will be more
enjoyable.
1. Clarify what the assignment is asking you to do.
2. Clarify your goal(s)

What is the grade that we are agreeing to achieve? Many
students have assumptions about what the other students
want to achieve. There is no guarantee that people will be
honest, but I encourage you to be honest.
3. Clarify the skills that the team members have and their
direct relevance to the project
Some members may be better writers than others. Some
students may be better presenters than others. Some
students may wish to deliberately improve an aspect of their
writing or presenting and, even though they may not be the
'best' at this skill, the other team members could 'coach'
them to enhance their chances of doing the best that they
can. In terms of team 'roles' are there any roles that are
missing? Are there any roles that may clash (for example,
too many people trying to be the 'leader', or too many people
being the 'ideas' person, or too many people being the 'black
hat' person)? It is okay for one person to write the group
report - providing the other group members contribute to the
content by doing their agreed tasks, one written 'voice' is
better than four 'voices' that have been 'glued' together at
the end to produce a report. Unless specified at the start by
your lecturer or tutor, it is also okay to have one person
present your group's work if a presentation is required. These
issues can be addressed in the next step; clarifying your
agreed behaviours.
4. Clarify your agreed behaviours.

This includes addressing issues such as:

a) Meeting attendance - how many of the group are
required to be present before a meeting can start?
b) What is expected in terms of getting to meetings on
time and what is the process if a team member knows
that they won't be there on time?
c) What is expected when work is allocated to individual
team members in terms of them doing what they have
said they would do and what should group members if
they realise that they won't be able to complete what
they agreed to do within the agreed timeframes.
d) When meeting, are mobile phones okay to be answered
or should they be turned on to silent and answered
during meeting breaks - in other words, what are your
face to face meeting protocols regarding the use of
mobile phones?
e) The use of other technologies should be agreed upon -
some students will set up websites and or use
networking sites and create one for the study group -
what are the agreed protocols with regard to using
such technology and does everyone in the team know
how to use it?
5. Strategy and tactics

This is where you plan your project and allocate your tasks
according to the information gathered in Step 3 above. Check
that your plan will give you the best chance of achieving your
goals and double check that your plan will result in delivering
a project that meets the requirements set out at the start by
your lecturer/tutor.

6. Performance
This is where you spend the majority of the group's time. You
do the work that you have agreed upon and eventually
submit your paper and/or do your presentation. The above
five steps can be completed quite quickly - in less than one
meeting, in fact. It may seem slow at first, but it will save
you a lot of time later in the project.
7. Monitor and improve

Throughout the performance of your project (step 6 above)
you need to keep monitoring your agreed behaviours and
ensuring that each person is doing their agreed part of the
assignment. This is critical and the part of the experience
where the most relevant skills for the workplace can be
developed. Should uncomfortable situations arise, use the
agreed behaviours as the focus of the conversation to help
identify if any chances need to be made. More on this specific
topic will be covered in future blogs.
Seem simple? Maybe not. But having a strategy is far better

than none at all. Don't be too disappointed if your first
attempt at applying this process doesn't work as well as you
might expect. Like any skill, perfecting the creation of high
performing teams takes time. This is a huge advantage of
your university experience because you are provided with
extensive opportunities to practice this skill as new study
teams are formed with each subject that you do. If you think
about it, university might be a far better place to start the
journey of perfecting this skill than when you start work?

here.

Seven Questions For Effective After Action Reviews
– a great way to learn! By Gary Ryan
After Action Reviews are terrific tools for learning. They are a
set of seven simple questions that you can use after any task
or event that you have completed. They are particularly
useful for team environments but can also be modified for
individual use. The questions are:
1) What was supposed to happen?

2) What actually happened?
3) Was there a difference?
4) If so, why?
5) What have we learned?
6) What would we do differently next time?
7) What learning should we carry forward into our next task?
It is possible that your answer to question No.3 may be,

"No." This would indicate that you have at least learned that
what you planned (your answer to Question No. 1) was very
useful. This would probably indicate that you should carry
that learning forward into your next task.
Please share any experiences that you have using these

seven questions and your experience in using them. Some
examples of their use may be very helpful for other members
of the network. Please feel free to make a comment on this
article by clicking here.

How To Master The Four Quadrants Of Time
Management By Gary Ryan
It always causes me to have a small laugh to myself when I

conduct time management programs and people turn up late!
It really doesn't bother me if people are on time or not - they
are the ones who will miss out if they are not there. For a lot
of people it does highlight an important issue - their lack of
capability to manage their time. Many people leave little
room for error with regard to their time management -
everything is 'cut so fine' that if one thing goes wrong, then
they are unlikely to be 'on time'.
Many people have often suggested that they need to 'make

time'. I know what they mean, but can anyone really 'make
time'? The challenge is to use your time wisely so that you
don't 'waste time'. The Urgent and Important Matrix has
been adapted from the original work of Stephen Covey and is
a useful tool for determining the wise use of time. The matrix
works as follows:

Urgent and Important Matrix
1. 2.
Urgent & Not Urgent &
Important Important
3. 4.
Urgent & Not Not Urgent &
Important Not Important
URGENT and IMPORTANT Tasks (Quadrant 1)

These are the tasks that require immediate attention. A
presentation, a meeting, a speech, a performance (as in a
musical, theatrical or sport performance) the majority of the
work that you do in your job, answering exam questions, a
critical issue or crises. Time matters in the performance of
these tasks. In short, if you don't take effective action 'right
now' you fail.
NOT URGENT and IMPORTANT Tasks (Quadrant 2)

These are things like planning, preparing, reading, clarifying
your values and other personal development activities,
capturing and preparing your stories for interviews, retreats,
health and fitness activities, developing relationships etc. All
these things could be completed at another time. In this
sense, time is 'not urgent'. As such, many of the tasks in this
quadrant are simply left alone and they aren't attempted.

What people don't understand is that there is a direct
relationship between the quality of the tasks performed in
Quadrant 1, and the quality time that you have spent in
Quadrant 2. In short, time spent in Quadrant 2 improves
your performance in Quadrant 1. It is therefore worth
prioritising your time so that some of it, at least, is spent in
Quadrant 2. Think about your performance when you have
prepared for a presentation as compared to when you have
'winged it'. I have heard some people boast about how well
they can 'wing it' and make presentations without preparing.
While it may have the appearance of working these people
are in for a big letdown - one day. The reality is they don't
'know their stuff' and because of a 'gift' may be able to
bamboozle people with their presentations skills. That can be
a lot of extra pressure to carry around with you after a while.
The majority of us, however, know that if we don't prepare
our performance suffers, so we prioritise our time beforehand
to ensure that we are prepared.
Another example of Quadrant 2 activities is attending

personal development workshops, particularly when you are
a volunteer. Ideally the lessons that you learn, when applied,
will help your performance in Quadrant 1.
So where does the time come from to enable you to spend

more time in Quadrant 2 activities? The following quadrants
provide that answer.

URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT Tasks (Quadrant 3)
These are things like many emails, some meetings (when
you really don't need to be there), text messages, the
behaviour of some people when they demand your time 'right
now' (you know the person, they ask if they can have five
minutes of your time and they always seems to be talking 30
minutes later). Tasks in this quadrant have the appearance
of being urgent, which is why they draw your attention. The
problem is that you really could deal with them later (or not
at all). By focussing on them 'right now' all you are doing is
taking your attention away from Quadrant 1 or Quadrant 2
tasks. It is Quadrant 3 tasks where effective prioritising can
'free up' a lot of time; time that can be better used in
Quadrant 1 or Quadrant 2.
NOT URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT (Quadrant 4)

These are wasteful activities that often relate to addictive
type behaviours or are behaviours that are undertaken to
deliberately avoid the Quadrant 1 or 2 tasks. Time spent in
Quadrant 4 has a DIRECT impact on your performance in
Quadrant 1. You have a presentation tomorrow that you have
not prepared, yet you spend the whole of the previous night
watching the Premier League football on the television. You
eventually arrive for your presentation underprepared and
very tired. It is no surprise that you performance is poor.
Ideally Quadrant 4 activities need to be completely
eliminated from your life - all they do is detract from where

you performance really matters, and that is your
performance in Quadrant 1.
This is just one example of many approaches to time

management. What are yours? What systems work for you?
What questions do you have about time management? What
templates do you use that could be useful for other members
of our network? As an example I will post an example of the
Daily List template that I use - but you'll have to wait until
next week's blog. In the meantime, please share your
experiences and useful tools.

here.

Learning The Power of Focus and SelfTalk From
World Champion Surfer Layne Beachley
By Gary Ryan
My experience with listening to talkback radio is such that I

rarely choose to listen to it. However I was flicking through
the radio channels while driving to on my way to a meeting
recently when I tuned in the start of an interview with Layne
Beachley, retired 7 time World Surfing Champion from
Australia. Lane is currently having a positive influence with
another current Australian female athlete, Samantha Stosur.
Samantha has recently entered the Top 30 list of the world's
best female tennis players and has had a string of recent
victories against higher ranked players. In a recent interview
Samantha named Layne Beachley as the person who has
helped her most to enable her to make the most of her
ability.
Which takes me back to the interview with Layne Beachley.

Lane said that all she had been doing with Samantha was
sharing some of the most significant lessons that she had
learned throughout her highly successful surfing career. As I
was listening to Layne speak, her words seemed so familiar
to me. We have be teaching and practising a version of what
she was saying for some time. However I would like to share
Layne's version as it is sometimes useful to explain a similar
concept from someone-else’s perspective.
Layne mentioned that up until the age of 26 she had not won

a world championship. When in competition, Layne
recognised that she had natural surfing ability, she was a
good surfer. But what she wasn't was a natural winner. When
she had to compete against the top surfers in the world,
Layne would 'self-talk' herself down. She would compare
herself against these world Top 10 athletes and think to
herself, "Gee, isn't she good. She is much better than me.
I'm not as good as her." Henry Ford once said, 'If you think
you can, or you think you can't, you're right either way!".

Gary and Liam catch their first wave!
Layne had been talking herself into defeat even before she
caught her first wave in competition. To compensate for her
negative self-talk, Lane would then, as she describes it, 'surf
the wave' before it came. This meant that when the wave
actually did come along to surf, while she was physically
riding it, her mind was focussed on the outcome rather than
staying 'in the moment'. The result: she would lose.

Losing did not fit with Layne's personal vision of being a
World Champion. One day she recognised that she was her
own worst enemy and the only thing that was stopping her
from being the best she could be was herself. So decided to
do to two things.
1) Layne decided that she would teach herself to speak

positively to herself. She knew that she trained hard and she
that she did the work required to be a World Champion, so
she had to believe that she really could be a World
Champion. So Layne changed the focus of her self-talk to
become positive,. Rather than saying things like, "Gee I
stuffed up that wave", Layne would say to herself something
like, "When I'm focussed my skills enable me to surf to the
best of my ability. I've done the training!"
2) Layne also recognised that she had to train herself to

become excellent at executing her skills 'in the moment'. So,
rather than surfing a wave before it came along, or being
mentally 'stuck' on a wave that she had already surfed,
Layne decided to train herself to be able to focus on her
processes and what needed to be done 'in the moment'.
Through training in this way (this is an important point -
Layne didn't just use training to perfect her surfing skills, she
used training to 'perfect her mental approach'). In this way,
negative self-talk at training became unacceptable. Being
distracted by the wave that was yet to come or the wave that
had just been surfed while she was training was also not
acceptable - she could do that when she was out of the water

and reviewing her session. Instead, she trained herself to
execute her processes is the most focussed way possible; by
'staying in the moment' and surfing each wave (which, by
the way, is always unique!) the best way that that particular
wave was demanding to be surfed. And she did this at
training.
Samantha Stosur reportedly said that her capacity to play

each ball for what it was, rather than worrying about the
outcome for each shot, was the skill that she was developing
and was the key skill that was making the biggest positive
difference to her results. But, like any skill, this had to be
trained.
Clearly the majority of us are not elite athletes, certainly not

World Champions. But we can be the best that we can be at
whatever it is that we want to be good at. I know that in my
work it is critical that I 'stay in the moment' for my
facilitating, in meetings with clients, colleagues and peers,
and most importantly when I am with my family. I have my
structures in place in terms of my plans etc. but it is still
important that I execute those plans and listen to what is
being said and don't get 'ahead of myself'. When I do (which
I sometimes do) I can miss an opportunity that was calling
out for my attention.
We advocate that it is critical to have goals and to have plans

(processes) that you need to execute to enable your goals to
be realised. It is important that you believe that you can

achieve the goals that you set for yourself. I had to believe
that I actually could complete the first marathon that I ran. I
had to believe that I could facilitate the first workshop that I
facilitated on my own. I had to believe that the service areas
that we operated could become National Award winning
teams. I had to believe that if we provided good people with
the right support they could take the organisation we were in
to become nationally recognised for its service excellence. So
goals and self-belief are critical. But, when you are executing
your plans, and you are in the process of 'doing them',
'staying in the moment' and getting the best out of that
moment while you are executing your plans is the level of
focus that can bring everything that you are working towards
into reality.
The recent Forum topic High Performing Teams - The Oxfam

Trailwalker 100kms Event highlights the power of focus, of
having goals and plans, but of also 'staying in the moment'
while your executing your plans so that you can make the
right decisions at the right time for the right reasons. When
these things are done, more often than not, the result looks
after itself.
As a final note, Layne Beachley mentioned that when she

started to perfect her focus she failed many, many times.
She failed at training, and she failed in competition. But she
never lost the faith that, through practice and continuous
learning, she could improve her focus and achieve her
dream. Over time, as her 'focus' skill developed, Layne's

results started to look after themselves and the rest, as they
say, is history. Surfers themselves have commented upon
Layne Beachley's capacity to handle pressure. It is now clear
why she is able to handle pressure. She had trained herself
to focus.
I'm interested in hearing from you about your experiences

regarding self talk, goals, focus and 'staying in the moment'
and how you might see such a skill being applied throughout
your career?

here.

Tribes – We Need You to Lead Us – Seth Godin
By Troy Simmonds
Hi all
I am just reading an interesting book by Seth Godin and was

inspired to post this blog after I read a certain section.
Briefly the book is about Leadership within a tribe - a group

of people connected to one another, connected to a leader,
and connected to shared interests. They way we
communicate this shared interest is changing in the world
through programmes like ning, book and blogs.
I won’t spoil the book for people who want to go and read it
but there is a section there very applicable to a network like
this.
It talks about having the new tools today like blogs and
programmes are there for you to lead. These programmes
may have only isolated individuals that have formed a group.
But not a tribe yet. Just strangers on an online forum.
A few people can take the lead, posting topics and starting
discussions, leaning in and leading and call on their peers to
participate. However, the rest lurk! They just watch! Were
they hoping to meet someone interesting or discover
something new is the question Seth asks.
Not all leadership involves getting in the face of the tribe. It

takes just as much effort to successfully get out of the way.
A leader who backs off is making a commitment to the power
of the tribe, and is alert to the right moment to step back in.
However the one path that never works is the most common
one: doing nothing at all.
Lean in, back off, but don’t do nothing.
Anyhow I will continue to read but it inspired me to share it

with you.

here.


Faking The Figures how you can tell when
someone's been fiddling the books By Jock MacNeish
I recently found out about Benford's Law. I wish I had known

about it earlier.
Back in 1938, Frank Benford, an physicist with GEC,

discovered that all large unrestricted groups of numbers have
a stable distribution of numbers. Statistics about populations,
Stock prices, Sports results, and particularly, business
accounts all have nearly identical numerical profiles.
This is what he found:-
The digit 1 has a 30% chance of appearing.

So when people "Fiddle with the numbers" removing, adding

or altering invoices and accounts, they disturb the normal
pattern of numbers, and you can tell someone has been

cheating.
This applies to scientific research results, income tax returns

and even student examination statistics.
Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford's_law .

here.

One Insight That Drives Service Excellence
By Gary Ryan
We deliberately choose the term 'Service Excellence' over the

term 'Customer Service'. The reason is both simple and
complex. If an organisation has a Customer Service
department or division, or if the organisation has a retail or
hospitality focus, many staff believe that Customer Service is
only relevant to the front line or 'Customer Service' staff. Our
view is that such an approach reflects a flawed mental
model, such as customer service is 'not my job' it is the job
of the frontline staff. If you think that customer service is not
part of your job, then there are a set of important behaviours
that are likely to be missing from your approach to your
work. A few of these behaviours will be highlighted shortly.
The term 'Service Excellence' underpins a view that service is

everyone’s job, from the CEO or Department Head to the
lowest paid employee in the organisation. We are not
suggesting that you should necessarily use the term 'Service
Excellence', rather that you should deliberately use service
excellence as an approach to what you do. For many staff
their 'customers' are in fact other staff. Or their customers
could be patients, students, parents, key stakeholders,
lawyers, directors, Ministers and the list goes on. It doesn't
really matter what you call the people that you serve, what is
important is how you treat them.
If you approach your role from the perspective of Service

Excellence, then there are a range of behaviours that you are
more likely to use in your day to day work. The behaviours
would include (but not be limited to) taking the time to find
out the expectations of those people you serve, seeing your
manager as well as your direct reports (if you have any) as
customers, responding to requests quickly even if it is to
inform people that you can't help them etc. etc. A significant
reason for this is that most of us (if not all of us) spend a
large amount of our time as customers, so we are in fact
quite expert at understanding what it is like to be in the
shoes of a customer. Everytime we go shopping or to a
restaurant or even to our local convenience store we are
having customer experiences. As such we are constantly
enhancing our own personal understanding of what good
service feels like, just as we are constantly enhancing our
understanding of what poor service feels like. While we might
not recognise that we do this, we innately compare our
experiences as a customer to our own personal experiences
of good and poor service. In this way we are comparing
service experiences rather than direct product to product or
service to service comparisons.
This process of comparison, which is often sub-conscious

means that we know when we aren't receiving good service
from our colleagues. When a sales clerk says that such and
such can't be done "because of the policy" our internal
reaction is exactly the same as when a fellow staff member
says the same thing to us. If we inquire about the purpose of
the policy and we are told, "I don't know, it's just the policy"

we become equally frustrated when we are both a retail
customer or a staff member within an organisation. I am yet
to experience an organisation that is able to provide a
sustainably high level of service when the internal service
within the organisation is poor. No matter what your
organisation does, service excellence must exist right
throughout the entire organisation for your organisation to be
truly effective at providing service excellence. Otherwise you
will be at risk of your service standards oscillating from staff
member to staff member within your organisation. I'll explain
more about how to manage this in future blogs (it is also the
focus of our new book Getting on the Road to Great Service
which is due for release later this year).
In terms of the simple insight to assist you in your practice of

Service Excellence, ask yourself this question, "Would those
people I serve consciously choose to use my services if they
had a real and genuine choice to work with me?". If your
answer is "No", then you know that you have some work to
do to improve (by the way it is OK to be honest and
recognise that you need to improve) and a good place to
start is to ask them what they expect of you. If your answer
is "Yes" then I'd encourage you to check your answer with
those people you serve. Similarly, if your answer is "I don't
know" then once again I'd encourage you to ask the people
who you serve about their expectation of you. You never
know, their answers might surprise you and it can't hurt to
ask the question. I'll explain in future blogs how a manager

(or People Leader) can treat the people who report to them
as customers in a future blog.

here.

How To Take Responsibility For Your
Organisation's Values By Gary Ryan
These days most organisations have a set of organisational

values. Sometimes they are represented in the form of a
Code of Conduct or in a statement regarding a set of
principles. Usually these values can be discovered on the
organisation's website and in various organisational
publications. On occasion the values are physically displayed
on the walls of the corporate offices.
Having a set of existing organisational values can be very

different to living a set of organisational values. The
difference lies in whether or not the people in the
organisation actually use the values in their day to day work.
Organisations can significantly enhance the use of their
values by creating structures that support their day to day
use. Some examples include:
1) using the values as a basis for behavioural questions in an

interview process
2) having systems to recognise people for behaving in
alignment with the values
3) promoting people for their demonstrated alignment to the
organisational values in hand with their technical abilities
4) exiting people from the organisation who demonstrate
over time that they do not share the organisation's values
Some real life examples include:

1) The primary (elementary) school that my children attend

have a set of values that exist under a "You can do it!"
slogan. These values are used every Monday at the school
assembly as part of a recognition program for appropriate
behaviour by the children. Often more than 20 students are
publicly recognised for something that they did that
demonstrated the schools "You can do it!" slogan in practice.
An added special touch to the awards which also provides
extra meaning is that the student leaders read out the
awards which have been written by their teachers and the
structure that they follow is as follows, "This award goes to
Johnny Brown for persistence. He worked really hard on his
writing and kept trying until he got it correct." The award
provides a concrete example of what is meant by
"Persistence" which enables the students to develop a
practical understanding of how their school values work. I'm
not sure, but I hope that the school uses these values in their
recruitment processes and well as in recognising the work
and contribution of the teachers.
2) A financial institution with whom we work has a clear set

of organisational values and each value has a very clear set
of behaviours that demonstrate how the value should be
practiced. As an example, one of their values is, "We will be
open and honest". Some of the behaviours that support this
value include, "We tell it like it is (no spin); We speak up and
we are open to other points of view" etc. etc." The benefit of
having explicit behaviours linked to each value is that they

significantly enhance the shared understanding of what the
value means. Honesty can mean a lot of different things to
different people, which is why it is important to clarify what is
meant by each value within your organisation.
3) A sporting team uses their values for feedback, both for

administrators and the players alike. Using the values and
their supporting behaviours as the basis for the feedback
(the context of the feedback is to help the person receiving
the feedback to be the best that they can be to help the
organisation achieve the success it desires) people go
through a process where they are informed of the behaviours
that they should cease, commence and continue. A process
such as this brings the values to life as people have to
consider their real day to day behaviour in the context of the
organisation's values.
Our experience is that too often an organisation does have a

set of values, but the people within the organisation do not
take personal responsibility for them. Instead, the people
defer responsibility for the values to 'the organisation' (a
'thing') or to the most senior people in the organisation.
Personally I have never understood why someone would
defer or deflect responsibility for the values especially when,
after reading them, most people seem to say something like,
"Oh yes, I can live with these values." I completely
understand that it is more difficult when an organisation
hasn't created a set of structures to support their values for
the people in the organisation to keep them alive, but it still

doesn't explain why some people say the following, "Oh, such
and such doesn't demonstrate the values, so the values are a
load of crap, which is why I don't do them either!". My
suggestion is that if you personally agree with your
organisation's values, then it is your personal responsibility
to do everything that you can to support through your own
behaviour.
So what might be a personal structure that you could put in

place to help you bring your organisation's values to life at a
personal level? Many of you may be familiar with an
interview preparation technique known as the STAR
storytelling technique. The technique is as follows:
S - ituation: Explain the overall situation that you were in.

T - ask: What was the task that you had to achieve? This
usually involves a team who had to complete the task.
A - ction: This answers the question, "What did I do?" to help
the team achieve the completion of the task.
R - esult: This is the outcome. What was achieved? What
was the result of your efforts?
The same storytelling technique can be used for your

organisational values. Take each value and /or the
behaviours associated with each value and ask yourself,
"What is a genuine STAR story of mine that demonstrates
this value in use?". If you had a 'bank' of stories that you had
collected over time, imagine your confidence when going into
an interview for a promotion. Interestingly, the very reason

why you may be going in for the interview is that others may
have witnessed your support of the organisation's values
over time which may have been a significant contributing
factor to you being identified for the promotion!
If your organisation is serious about its values, and if you

feel aligned to them, why wouldn't you prepare such
examples? Imagine when you are being interviewed for an
internal promotion. The likelihood is that your possible
promotion will be more significantly linked to your overall
organisational alignment than your technical skills alone. It is
unlikely that you would even be interviewed if your technical
skills weren't appropriate for the promotion, which leaves
your capacity to demonstrate your organisational alignment
as the most significant factor that will enable you to stand
out from everyone else who is going for the job.
Finally and possibly most importantly, if you agree with your

organisation's values and you take personal responsibility for
them, you will be increasing your capacity to make the right
decisions at the right time for the right reasons in your day
to day work, and this can significantly enhance your
happiness at work. You will have a high degree of clarity
about why you do what you do and while your clarity will
continually evolve with your practical understanding of the
values in action, the outcomes may include everything from
increased happiness at work to job promotions.

here.

Why Mentors Are Important By Gary Ryan
Irrespective of our age, having access to wisdom is extra-

ordinarily important. Dee Hock, CEO Emeritus of VISA
International suggests that the ratio of information to
wisdom has plummeted over recent decades. For the
majority of human civilisation we organised ourselves into
small communities where the 'wise people' were known to
everyone and everyone had access to those wise people. In
today's Information Age we have vastly more access to
information however many of us do not have nearly the same
access to wisdom to help us to navigate our way through the
information that we have available to us.
Mentors can help to improve the information to wisdom ratio.

They can be people who have a specific focus (such as
career) through to a whole of life focus. While the majority of
Mentors will involve a personal relationship, you may also
have some Mentors who may not know you from a bar of
soap. Depending how you wish to define a Mentor your
Mentor may even come from a book. For example, Nelson
Mandela's "A Long Walk to Freedom" has constantly provided
me with inspiration and opportunities to reflect, especially
when I have had difficult times. I've read the book three
times from cover to cover, and I expect I will read it many
more times throughout my life. One of the most useful
aspects of the book, for me, is that Nelson is brutally honest
about the various mental models that he had at different
stages of his development - and he was prepared to adopt

new ones when he discovered that his mental models were
no longer useful.
I figure that if it is OK for Nelson Mandela to change his

mental models from time to time, then it must be OK for me
to do it!
So, in wrapping up we encourage you to pro-actively seek

Mentors, both the face to face variety and maybe even some
of the more abstract ones such as Nelson Mandela's book as
I have just described. You may like to help other members of
this network by sharing any useful insights that your Mentors
have helped you to discover.

here.

A Life Lesson From Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King By Gary Ryan
The video of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a
Dream" speech marked a turning point for the civil rights
movement in the USA. It is very difficult for many of us to
comprehend the debilitating effects of racism on the scale
that it was being practised in many places throughout the
USA up until and including the 1960s. It is also very difficult
for many of us to comprehend the risks that Martin Luther
King Jr was taking in speaking up and speaking out about the
inequality that existed at the time. Unfortunately he paid the
ultimate sacrifice for his courage - he was assassinated at his
hotel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4th 1968 (if you ever
have the opportunity to visit Memphis, please take the time
to visit the Civil Rights Museum which was created at the site
of the hotel where Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated - it
is quite a moving experience) but his efforts did not go
unrewarded.
While the USA still has a long way to go for "equality to truly
reign free", the fact that the country has matured enough
that a man of African parentage could become the President
is a wonderful sign, something that I am confident Martin
Luther King Jr would have celebrated if he were alive today.
The reality for many of us is that we are unlikely to have to

lead or face such life threatening changes. We may, however,
have to "stand up to be counted" sometimes with the spectre

of personal risk hanging over our actions. One of Martin
Luther King Jr's many quotes was, "History will have to
record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social
transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but
the appalling silence of the good people." Sometimes when
we least expect it we may find ourselves thrust into a
situation where if we are silent we will protect ourselves and
our own patch, while if we were to speak up we may place
our 'safety' at some risk.
As an example back in 2004 a young graduate employee of

one of Australia's large financial institutions was going about
his work. Suddenly he discovered some activities that at first
appeared unethical, and then after a little more research
appeared downright illegal. He didn't go to work that day
looking to discover these breaches within the bank, he was
just going about the usual aspects of his job. When he
recalled the story to me he said,
"At first I was the only person who knew what I had found. A
thought went through my mind that maybe I could just
pretend that I hadn't uncovered the illegal behaviour. This
was huge and even though I didn't have any legal training I
was pretty sure that some people would be going to jail if I
opened my mouth. I also suspected that my actions would
lead to significant scrutiny of myself. For a brief period I
seriously thought about letting it go. I thought that someone
else would eventually find the same things that I had
discovered and they could be the one to blow the whistle.

Even though the person next to me in our open office was
not working in the same area as myself, I broadly shared the
story without giving away any specific details, just to see
what he said. At first he didn't say anything, and as it was
the end of the day, he turned off his computer, picked up his
bag, grabbed his jacket and walked toward the door. Just
before exiting he stopped, turned and said, 'Go home and
look into the mirror, then you'll know what to do'. As soon as
he had finished saying those words I knew that I had to
speak up. I had to be true to myself and do the right thing
for the organisation."
This young man eventually spent three days in the witness

stand as several of the institutions employees had been
charged with various (and serious) offences. The defence
lawyers tried to discredit him over those three days and
made a number of slanderous comments about him (all of
which they withdrew - but nonetheless they were all said
publicly). Each of the accused were found guilty and went to
prison and the institution used the event as a catalyst to
overhaul its culture. As a footnote to this story, the
institution concerned has probably performed the best out of
all of Australia's financial institutions throughout the global
economic downturn and I suspect that their change in culture
since 2004 has significantly contributed to their stability over
recent times. I don't think that the young man who blew the
whistle knew that there would eventually be such a positive
ripple effect from his actions. Often this is the case when true
courage is shown. The event and experience is initially very

hard and painful, while the long term outcome is usually very
positive and powerful.
This story highlights that each of us, one day, may have to
'stand up to be counted'. Maybe a fellow employee has been
falsely accused of an error when it was our doing; maybe a
senior manager is behaving badly within the workplace and
their behaviour is not being addressed. You never know, it
could be a whole range of issues. The challenge is, what do
you think that you would do? Would you be more like the
many who remain silent, or would you stand up to be
counted? Have any of you 'stood up' before and if so, what
happened?

here.

National Volunteer Week A time to celebrate
By Jim Poussard
Happy National Volunteer Week!
Australia has an amazing capacity to be generous. The recent

tragedy of the Victorian bushfires is a case in point. It is well
documented that hundreds of millions of dollars in donations
have been pouring in to the affected communities. We have
also heard of the bravery and commitment of the thousands
of volunteer fire-fighters who fought the fires. There are also
the individual stories of ‘Joe’ farmer or ‘Jill’ housewife driving
across the country with a truck of horse feed or organising a
cake stall. No one asked them to do this, no one is paying
them and I suspect in most cases, they hope their
contribution remains anonymous. They just want to help and
it is part of their values that they support others in hard
times. It’s built in to their system, a culture, a spirit of
giving.
So we come to National Volunteer Week (NVW) held in

Australia in May each year. So what is it and why is it
important to celebrate this week each year?
For me personally it has several purposes and meanings:
Celebrate
First and foremost NVW is a chance to say thank you to
those who contribute so much through volunteering. The

volunteer sector is massive, contributing a significant amount
economically to our society. More importantly it has
contributed to make Australia the country it is. By this I don’t
mean its politics or systems of laws, but rather its spirit,
generosity and sense of unity. An amazing achievement
given our ethnic diversity and huge land mass.
Inspire
Hearing stories of people’s generosity through volunteering is
truly inspiring to me. Inspiration is a word that I define as an
act that impresses me (and makes an impression), so much
so, that it encourages me to consider similar behaviours.
Have you ever seen someone do something truly amazing
and you said to yourself “I would love to be able to do that.”
That’s what I think about people who volunteer in soup
kitchens and meals on wheels and mentoring disadvantaged
kids, etc. etc. The next critical question I then ask myself is
“Can I do that?” Dee Hock, creator of VISA International says
you need to spend at least half of your work time managing
yourself (before managing your superiors, peers and staff). I
took this message on board last year and managed my time
so that I could spend 4 hours a month doing Meals on
Wheels, which involved delivering meals to the elderly and
immobile. I was inspired by others to do this and I really
enjoyed the experience.
Reflect
NVW is also about reflecting on society as a whole and what
brings out the best and worst in people. What society do we

want to create for ourselves and for the future? Is there a
paradox between giving and taking, between being generous
and wanting more for ourselves? What’s the balance? What’s
our current reality?
Do
By Celebrating, Inspiring and Reflecting, this week is a great
opportunity to stop and consider what we can do to assist.
What is our contribution? What are different ways we can
contribute? Can we manage ourselves in a way that gives us
greater choice and opportunities to assist others? We are all
busy and being constantly challenged by the demands of
work, study, family, friends and many other things.
Sometimes we need to hear the inspiring stories of
volunteering to be reminded of what is possible and how we
can turn good thoughts into action.
Volunteering and Leadership

Doing something positive in your community (however you
define community) without being asked and without
expectation of monetary reward, is the essence of
Leadership. To lead, in my view, is to motivate, inspire, role
model and support others for positive outcomes.
Volunteering ticks every box in this respect. In addition
volunteering is a great source of experience – developing
skills in communication, building confidence, and showing
initiative in addition to any technical skills you learn along
the way. This experience is then critical to your portfolio of
skills and experiences for your future employer. If 100

students graduating from a particular course with similar
grades then go out into the job market and apply for the
same 10 jobs, what will distinguish the successful 10
candidates from the other 90 graduates? Communication,
confidence, initiative! Does that sound familiar? Career-wise,
volunteering does make a difference!
So let’s take time this National Volunteer Week to celebrate,

be inspired and reflect on the value and contribution of
volunteers and how we can also benefit from volunteering by
being organised, managing ourselves and taking action!
Here’s just a few links to volunteer opportunities you may

wish to investigate further. You can also look up your local
city council / shire council for opportunities…and don’t forget
there are always opportunities on campus to get involved
and make a difference to your campus community.
www.govolunteer.com.au
Australian Volunteers International
Australian Red Cross
Oxfam
Seek Volunteers
www.volunteeringaustralia.org
Brotherhood of St. Lawrence
Camp Quality
Melbourne City Mission
Conservation Volunteers Australia
Australian Business Volunteers

www.ausaid.gov.au/partner/volunteer
For more information on National Volunteer Week, go to:

Volunteering Australia

here.

Dee Hock an example of a Servant Leader
By Gary Ryan
Dee Hock is one of the most influential people of our time,

yet few people are aware of his extra-ordinary influence on
creating sustainable organisations through an approach
known as Servant Leadership.
Dee Hock was the founder and CEO Emeritus of VISA

International, an organisation that to this day is regarded as
the most profitable business on earth. Yet most people know
very little about VISA such as where it is head-quartered,
what it's history is, who created it, why it was created and
who works for it. To many people's surprise when they do
commence their research on this amazing organisation they
discover that it was founded upon an interesting paradox.
First, VISA International is an organisation grounded in solid
values, second it is an organisation that has a pragmatic
pursuit of profit. How can two seemingly opposite pursuits
co-exist?
One of the ways that these two opposite pursuits can co-
exist is through the concept of Servant Leadership. Robert K
Greenleaf first penned this concept in 1970 in an essay titled
The Servant as Leader. In many ways the deep concept of
Servant Leadership is captured by the test that Robert
described in his essay. The test is as follows:

"The difference manifests itself in the care taken by
the servant-first to make sure that other people’s
highest priority needs are being served. The best test,
and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as
persons? Do they, while being served, become
healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely
themselves to become servants? And, what is the
effect on the least privileged in society? Will they
benefit or at least not be further deprived?"
Many leaders practice the opposite of Servant Leadership.

They see the people who report to them as being truly 'sub-
ordinate' (the origin of this word means, "Sub - order") and
they believe that their direct reports exist to 'serve' the
leader. In contrast Servant Leaders consider that the people
who report to them are people who should be served. But
service in this context is not about 'doing their job for them'.
Rather, it is about creating an environment that enables a
leader's direct reports to be the best they can be in their
service of the organisation.
Servant Leadership also extends to serving the people to

whom you report, serving your key stakeholders, your
customers (or clients) and the broader community. So this
means that while the formal leader is serving their direct
reports, their direct reports are also serving them. Another
interesting paradox! In addition Servant Leadership does not
have to be limited to people who are in formal leadership

roles. Servant Leadership can be practised by anyone, at any
time, in any role.
Dee Hock published a book titled The Birth of The Chaordic

Age in 1999. In 2005 it was re-published under the title One
From Many. The book is exactly the same and both versions
are currently available through Amazon and other good book-
stores. It is well worth adding this book to your personal
library.
For many people the concept of Servant Leadership seems

natural yet they are not sure how to practice it. Please share
your experiences and/or ask questions to enable us all to
extend our understanding of Servant Leadership.

here.

How to Conduct An End Of Meeting Reflection
By Gary Ryan
Communication problems are regularly cited in employee

surveys as being the Number One problem that reduces
employee commitment, contribution and engagement. There
are many reasons why communication is the Number One
organisational issue. One significant reason is that
communication is unbelievably complex. Our perceptions and
mental models (see the blog The Importance of Raising Our
Awareness of our Mental Models for a definition of mental
models) have such a significant influence on what we hear
and how we interpret what we hear, that the same message
can be interpreted in many ways. It is for this reason that
using multiple channels to convey an important message is
so critical (see the discussion forum Effective Channels for
Communication for a definition of communication channels).
Organisational meetings are also often cited as being

ineffective and a waste of a lot of people's time.
Unfortunately this is often accurate. It is for this reason that
the development of three communication skills is essential to
raise the quality of meetings. Ideally meetings result in some
agreed actions that will take place after the meeting. To
increase the quality of the actions, the quality of the
communication within the meeting must take place. Three
communication skills are essential for this to occur. They are:

1) Questioning skills
2) Listening skills
3) Saying what you think and why you think it
Many people are highly skilled at the first half of the third
skill; saying what they think. However they don't always
know why they think what they think. Questioning skills and
listening skills are generally very poor, so any opportunity to
improve them should be undertaken.
A great way to improve all three skills is to conduct an end of

meeting reflection. There are several ways to structure these
into your meeting schedule. One way is to conduct them for
three meetings in a row to assist people to learn the process,
and then once every 3 - 4 weeks thereafter (if conducted
over a period of time). Over time the reflection conversation
can become quite a powerful tool to improve the quality of
the meetings and therefore the actions that flow from the
meetings. Eventually, as the team begins to master the three
communication skills the team may develop the capacity to
reflect as required.
The purpose of the end of meeting reflection is to reflect on

the quality of the questions asked during the meeting, the
quality of people's capacity to listen and the quality of
people's capacity to say what they think and why they think
it. This means that the reflection has a learning focus with
the intent to improve the quality of communication within the
team. The process also provides an opportunity to identify

whether 'space' is made available for all views to be heard.
The following process is one of a number of

approaches:
1) Explain that an end of meeting reflection will take place.

Explain the purpose of the process and identify the time set
aside for the process (15 - 30 minutes).
2) Conduct and conclude your normal meeting
3) Commence the reflection by re-enforcing the purpose of
the reflection (see above). Assign a person to take
responsibility for facilitating the team's time and keeping the
team focussed on the reflection. This person should be
'content free' for the conversation (therefore this role should
be rotated)
4) The following questions can be used as a guide for
identifying key lessons from the meeting process:
a) What was the quality of our questioning throughout the

meeting? Please provide examples in your answers.
b) What was the most powerful question asked throughout
the meeting? Why was this question so powerful?
c) Who demonstrated the highest capacity to listen
throughout the meeting? What did they do that indicated
they were listening?
d) How did we react when there was silence in the room?
What benefit did silence bring to our conversation?
e) In what ways did we allow all views to be heard?

f) Who seemed to be able to summarise what we were saying
in our conversations? What could we learn from that person?
g) What behaviours were detrimental to the quality of our
communication? How might we minimise the impact of those
behaviours in the future?
i) Who seemed to be able to best explain why they thought
what they thought? What lessons could we take from how
they were able to demonstrate that skill?
5) When it is time to close the reflection ask the following

questions:
h) What lessons have we learned from this reflection?
i) What skills will we try to practice in our next meeting?
The so-called 'soft-skills' are by far the hardest to practice. It

is this reason that I see them as the 'hard' skills. Providing
reflection processes end with clear lessons and actions going
forward, there will be plenty of evidence to support the value
of spending time reflecting. Many teams will also notice
considerable improvement in the quality of their meetings.
Once again, improved communication in meetings equals
improved learning which leads to improved actions.
Improved actions lead to more innovation and higher
efficiencies and performance. Who doesn't want to improve
their performance? So reflection activities are a classic
example of an old saying, "slower is faster!".
If you use this reflection process or have experienced other

reflection processes, please share your experiences so that

we can continue to learn from each other. In addition, if you
have never used a reflection process and you would like to
learn more, please ask the questions that this blog triggers
for you.

here.

How What You Think Affects What You See!
By Gary Ryan
Mental models are our theories about how we believe the

world works. They affect everything from our personal
relationships to the way we behave at work and the future
that we believe that we can create for ourselves. Mental
models are extremely powerful because they affect the way
we behave. Sometimes they can cause us to behave in ways
that are incongruent with our personal values, causing
considerable internal misalignment.
Many of the challenges of working with our mental models is

that they are sub-conscious, i.e. we don't even know that we
have them. Another significant and related challenge is that
we need our mental models to help us to navigate our way
through the complex world that we live in. Deep seated, our
mental models develop over time and come from our
cultures, our family experiences, our religious beliefs, our
education and our general life experiences. Like many
theories, our mental models are useful in some
circumstances and not in others. Just like the theory, "What
goes up, must come down" is useful on the planet earth, it
isn't useful out in space. In space, what goes up just keeps
on going!
So the question regarding our mental models is not whether

they are right of wrong, it is whether or not they are useful in
helping us achieve whatever it is that we are trying to

achieve.
To illustrate the power of mental models I will use a

metaphor. Just like a video camera can record events from a
single perspective, our eyes and ears can also act like a video
recorder. Our personal video recorder is controlled by our
mental models. In other words, our mental models tell our
video camera what to see, what to ignore, what to zoom in
on and what to zoom out on. Our mental models can even
cause our video recorders to use an on-the-spot editing
function - we can actually add things in and take things out if
what we are seeing doesn't fit with our mental models.
An example that I have used many times involves P plate

drivers (In Australia probationary car drivers have to display
a "P" on the their car so that all other drivers know that they
have only recently obtained their driving license). Imagine if
a person held a mental model that all P Plate drives were
terrible drivers. If we were able to 'download' that person's
video footage after they had driven to work, what images of
P Plate drivers do you think that we would see (just like you
would see on one of the screens in a TV studio)? Having
asked this question many times with the people with whom I
have worked, their responses are regularly:
- talking on their mobile phone while driving

- text messaging while driving
- tailgating
- changing lanes without indicating

- speeding etc.
Quite literally the person who held such a mental model

would not see any good behaviours by the P Platers.
Let's now look at a different scene. The person with the

mental model that all P Plate drivers are terrible drivers is
leaving a sporting event that had a capacity crowd. The car
park is full and everyone is trying to leave at the same time.
A P Plater happens to 'let this person in' so that they can
leave the car park ahead of the P Plater. What video footage
do we believe that we would now see if we were able to
download it from the person who holds the mental model
that all P Platers are terrible drivers? Regular responses that
I have received to this question over time include:
- The P Plater's car stalled so he/she didn't let me in, I took

the initiative and took the space when it was available!
- The P Plater was too busy text messaging so I took the
space when it became available!
- The P Plater had turned around to talk to his/her friends
and created a space in front of him/her, so I took it!
Notice that these answers do not recognise the fact that the
P Plater 'let them in'.
If the person did believe that they had been 'let in' instead of
having taken the space (as indicated by the responses

above), what do we think we might NOT see on the person's
video footage of the incident?
A very fast response that I usually hear in response to this

question is, "The P plate on the person's car."
Quite literally the P Plate may disappear from the person's

footage because it does not match with their mental model.
This is very powerful. We see what we want to see, not
necessarily what is actually there.
This example demonstrates the power of mental models.

They can be so powerful that we literally do not see things
even if they are really there. This highlights the capacity for
our mental models to be flawed. However, many people do
not believe that there mental models could be flawed.
Instead they believe that their mental models are not only
100% accurate reflections of reality, but everyone else
should also hold this mental model.
People have mental models about their own race, other

races, their own religion and other religions, etc. etc. mental
models, when shared can be used to go to war.
In terms of a workplace it is critical that we try to increase

our awareness of our mental models. As many of our mental
models are sub-conscious it can take some time to uncover
what we really believe about a workplace. Some questions to

consider to help you to raise your awareness of work-based
mental models include:
- What is the most important department in your

organisation?
- When an opportunity is presented to you that involves
doing more work or work at a higher level, what is the first
question that you ask?
- What size office should a senior manager have?
- Should specific car parks be available for certain staff
members, and if so, who should get them?
- Who is responsible for the performance of the team within
which you work?
- If you are a manager and you are asked a question and you
do not know the answer, what is your response?
- If you ask your manager a question and they don't know
the answer to your question (but you think that they should
know the answer given the fact that they are a manager),
what would you think about the competence level of the
manager?
Your answers to the questions above will provide some

insight into your own mental models. Once you discover a
mental model it is worth asking yourself, "Why do I think
that?" five times in a row (This is the Five Whys tool).
Eventually your answer to the last 'Why?" question may
reveal your sub-conscious mental model. While this can be
hard work it is very useful. You may discover that on some
issues your mental models are flawed. The problem with

flawed mental models is that they can get you to choose
information that fits with your mental model. This causes you
to quickly jump to conclusions that are, in fact, inaccurate
(see the blog The Danger of Jumping to Conclusions). You
then may take action based on a flawed mental model. Such
action can often make the situation that we are experiencing
worse. For example, I once said to a team member when I
was a young manager, "Don't bring me problems unless you
have solutions to them." Problems stopped coming to me.
But they weren't being solved either - the staff just started
hiding things from me because I had effectively told them
that I didn't want to know about their problems if they didn't
already have a solution to them. How silly was that! It wasn't
that the problems no longer existed I had just made it even
more difficult for the team members to raise them with me.
In terms of high performance, both on a personal level and in

the context of an organisation, it is better to discover a
flawed mental model so that you have the opportunity to
adopt a more useful one, than to remain ignorant of why you
believe what you believe.

here.

The Danger of Jumping to Conclusions and a tool
that can help! By Gary Ryan
Early one morning I was quietly enjoying my run when I was

tested to 'walk my talk' and, initially, I failed!
It is funny how the challenge to practice what I preach could

present itself while on a run. The course that I chose to run
includes a 2km track that runs between two golf courses. As
I live in the middle of suburbia the two golf courses create a
beautiful green belt and I enjoy running along the track
listening to the birds and the occasional 'Ping' as someone
tees off in the distance. This winter day, the sky seemed
unusually clear and blue, which created a magnificent
backdrop for the many gum trees and other natural flora that
adorn the courses. The crisp air made my breath visible as it
escaped from my lungs as I made my usual trot up the track.
I particularly enjoy this section of the run because it is void
of vehicles, their fumes and their noise.
Recently one of the golf courses had commenced some

changes to the layout of their course, and large trucks and
heavy vehicles had used the track to access the rear of the
golf course. A total of about six vehicles were using the track
that was usually closed via the "Road Closed" gates at either
end of the track. Previously, while on another run, I had
begun to wonder how long it would take before I noticed
some members of the golf clubs using the tracks as a vehicle

access to the golf courses...a seed was planted in my mind
without me really being very conscious of it.
You may imagine my disappointment as I noticed a car pause

for me when I entered the southern end of the track. At first
I wondered what the driver was doing. I quickly remembered
the construction works in one of the golf courses and quickly
assumed that the vehicle, a four wheel drive may have been
driven by a construction worker or supervisor. The vehicle
slowly drove by me, its engine noise and wheels crackling on
the gravel smashing the usual peace that I find along this
track. To my surprise another five vehicles followed this first
car. As each one drove by they added a little more dust to
the air. As it was a still morning, the dust seemed to 'hang in
the air' waiting for my drawn breath to enter my lungs. My
emotions rose. In fact, as I was running, I was feeling quite
irritated by the presence of the vehicles. So I started to track
them carefully with my eye to see which way they would turn
up ahead. If they turned left then they were most likely part
of the construction team and I had just been unlucky that
they had all passed by while I was using the track. If they
turned right up ahead, then they were going into the golf
course and my original assumption would be confirmed!
I had entered from the southern end of the track. The

northern end of the track includes a 400 metre sealed road
section that is in fact the entrance for one of the golf
courses. The northern "Road Closed" gates exist about 50
metres south of the entrance to the golf course, preventing

vehicles from heading along the gravel section of the track.
The initial part of the track along which I was running

includes a slight incline which may have prevented me from
seeing where the vehicles went if I didn't increase my pace.
So, despite the dust and the incline, I increased my pace.
Several other vehicles had, by now, also passed while I was
running which added to my frustration and disappointment.
Very quickly, my assumption was confirmed, as the initial set
of vehicles turned right into the golf course. "The lazy..." I
began to think to myself! More vehicles passed and a woman
walking her two dogs passed me a frustrated look (at least
that is what I believe that I saw) as I went by. "Annoying,
isn't it!" I said as I ran by. "Yes, rotten cars!" she replied.
The woman confirmed my conclusion!
As I approached the northern end of the gravel section of the

track I noticed that the "Road Closed" gate was open, so,
without missing a step, I quickly closed each side of the gate
to prevent vehicles from continuing with this clear
indiscretion. "It doesn't take long for people to discover a
short cut and use it!" I thought to myself.
By now I was on the bitumen end of the track and quite

pleased that I had taken some effective action that would
help others who were to follow me. I quite like the idea of
being a 'bridge builder' and I generally like to do something
that might help other people if I can.

My conclusions were, however, to be shown to be false as I

ran the next few hundred metres. As I drew closer and closer
to the start of the bitumen section of the track, I noticed that
the entrance was closed. Workmen had dug up the start of
the track and were re-building the gutters and track
entrance. The road was closed at the northern end of the
track! The other end of the rack was the only way that cars
could get in and out of the golf course - and I had closed the
gate!
Turning around I quickly headed back to the gate and re-

opened it, chastising myself for having taken action that was
based on a false conclusion!
This is something that many of us do. Well at least I do!

Fortunately there is a useful tool called the Ladder of
Inference that we can use to 'slow ourselves down' from
jumping to conclusions and /or from taking action that is
based on a false conclusion. The attached document includes
a version of the Ladder of Inference adapted from Peter
Senge's (1994) Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.

Figure 1 The Ladder of Inference
The ladder of inference – a helpful tool
7 I take actions based on my beliefs

6 I adopt beliefs about the world
5 I draw conclusions
4 I make assumptions based on the meanings I added

3 I add meaning to what I observe
2 I select “Data” from what I observe
1 All observable data we can see

(as a video-recorder might capture it)
www.orgsthatmatter.com
If you look at the document you will notice on Slide 2 that

the bottom of the ladder (rung 1) includes observable data as
if recorded by a video camera. The second rung (rung 2) of
the ladder includes the information that I selected from the
available data at the bottom of the ladder. This is an
important step because of two important factors. Firstly, I did
not personally have access to all the available and possible
data because I was only seeing the information that was
visible at the southern end of the track. If I had been in a
helicopter I could have seen more, but I wasn't! The second
reason why I chose the information that I selected was
because, deep down, I already held a belief that many
humans take short cuts when they can, often without much
care of the consequences of those short cuts to other people.

After having selected the information that fitted with my
already existing (but sub-conscious) beliefs, I added the
meaning (rung 3) that the golf members were taking
advantage of the track that was really only open for the
trucks and construction vehicles. I then assumed (rung 4)
that the golf club members were taking the short cut because
they could, and no-one was going to stop them (until I came
along, of course!). I drew a conclusion (rung 5) that the golf
members will continue to take the short cut while they could
and would further disturb people like myself by this
behaviour. My already existing (but sub-conscious) belief
(rung 6) that people take short cuts when they can was re-
enforced so I took action - I closed the gate (rung 7). And, I
might say, I was pretty happy with myself until ... I realised
that I was WRONG!
At that moment I had a choice - continue running and leave

the closed gates problem to someone else, or go back and
open them. So I went back and opened them.
All the way I was chuckling to myself. It was amazing how I

had become so focussed, so determined to see what I
wanted to see. And sure enough, I saw it!
While relatively tame, this short story highlights the dangers

of jumping to conclusions and taking actions based on those
conclusions without first checking out other possibilities. Yet
many of us do. At work, at home, in sporting organisations

and in our relationships we can take action based on
incorrect conclusions and beliefs.
(Which reminds me of a story I was told recently. A person's friend

was organising a surprise party for his partner and was liaising
with his partner's best friend. The mobile bill came in the mail, his
partner opened the bill because both their phones were on the
same bill, she noticed the extremely high number of times that her
best friend’s number was being called and SMS messaged by her
husband and jumped to the conclusion that...well I think that you
can guess what she concluded! As the story was told, the man had
to confess that he was arranging a surprise party!).
Unfortunately each time we jump to a conclusion and take

action based on a belief, if that belief remains below our level
of consciousness we will continue to jump to similar
conclusion in the future when similar circumstances arise.
Imagine if I had chosen to continue my run by turning into
the golf course and not proceed down the bitumen section of
the track. I would not be writing this blog right now and I
would still hold the view that I had done the right thing by
closing the gates - and I would have been WRONG but I
would not have known it.
To manage this situation it is important that we try to

increase our awareness of our assumptions and what we
believe. This helps us to understand why we might select the
data that we select in any given situation. We also have to be
prepared to slow ourselves down from going 'up the ladder'
too quickly. To do this we need to seek more data before we

take action. In this case, maybe I should have run to the end
of the track to check the possibility that it may have been
closed, which would have explained why so many vehicles
were using the gravel section. I would have saved myself an
extra 800 metres in my run if I had done this in the first
place!
We also must be prepared to correct our actions, own up to

our mistakes and learn from our experiences. I know that I
certainly did on that beautiful morning!
This concept is often challenging for many people to grasp in

one go, so I plan to write several blogs (and maybe some of
you who understand this concept will also assist in this
process) to help each of us to deepen our understanding of
both the dangers of jumping to conclusions too quickly, and
how to use the Ladder of Inference to improve our
performance.

here.

Twenty Paradoxes of Servant Leadership
By Gary Ryan
A paradox is characterised by two seemingly opposite

conditions co-existing. The term 'Servant leadership' contains
such characteristics. How can a person be both a servant and
leader at the same time? This is an amazing paradox and
others and I will address the answer to this question over
time.
Leadership is often characterised by the capacity to work

with and within paradoxes. Over time I will share some
examples of how this can occur, but firstly I will list a range
of paradoxes that relate to servant leadership.
Unfortunately I cannot recall the original source for these

paradoxes but I have found them to be useful in the context
of navigating my way through life. I would like to thank
Andrew O'Brien for bringing them to my attention many
years ago.
Strong enough to be weak

Successful enough to fail
Busy enough to make time
Wise enough to say, "I don't know"
Serious enough to laugh
Rich enough to be poor
Right enough to say, "I'm wrong"
Compassionate enough to discipline

Mature enough to be childlike
Important enough to be last
Planned enough to be spontaneous
Controlled enough to be flexible
Free enough to endure captivity
Knowledgeable enough to ask questions
Loving enough to be angry
Great enough to play
Assured enough to be rejected
Victorious enough to lose
Reflective enough to act
Leading enough to serve
If any of these paradoxes particularly connect with you

and/or you are intrigued by how some of them might work,
please let me know and I'll be guided by your input in terms
of which ones receive some attention.

here.

Book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell some
interesting thoughts for discussion By Gary Ryan
Malcolm Gladwell, in his most recent book Outliers suggests

that real expertise and talent emanates not only from the
natural abilities that we are born with, but also from putting
these abilities into practice and then learning and developing
from the practice that we do. Gladwell suggests that 10,000
hours of practice over the period of a 10 year time frame is
what distinguishes the truly successful from the moderately
successful. He also suggests that there is often an element of
luck associated with a person's opportunity to practice this
amount of hours. He cites several studies that suggest that a
child's birth-date has more influence than originally thought
on enhancing the opportunities that seem to come to the
child. In one example he cites the system for the
development of ice hockey players in the north of America,
and in another he cites the academic development of children
throughout elementary school based on their birth-date. In
both cases, the person's birth-date seems to correlate with
increased opportunities.
So how might these thoughts from Gladwell relate to

leadership development? A point to consider is the concept
that expertise develops with 10,000 hours of practice. This
suggests that if you want to develop a high capacity to lead
others, then prospective leaders need to consciously practice
leading themselves and seeking opportunities to lead others.
If you accept the notion that the true capacity to lead others

emanates from the capacity to lead yourself, then many
opportunities exist to put into practice the skills required to
lead ourselves. This means that we have to both take and
seek out the leadership moments that may present
themselves to us. These can take many forms. They can be
saying 'No' to drugs when they are offered by friends. They
can be the deliberate choice not to have the extra drink that
leads to another 10 drinks that leads to you becoming drunk
and (possibly) behaving badly.
Leadership moments can also include choosing to coach

skateboarding to your friends and other females (as recently
shared by a young woman in her 20s who is trying to
encourage more young women to skateboard), or it could be
the life changing and inspiring effort by David Yohan, a
young 23 year old Ethiopian refugee who I recently met who
has set up a new charity organisation (PAWES) in Brisbane to
help refugee (and domestic) children to use sport to assist
them to have a better future. David's family (except for his
mother) was murdered in Ethiopia and they came to Australia
via Sudan to escape the violence of the streets where they
lived for eight years (If you would like to know more about
David's story please visit
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,252198
11-5007191,00.html.).
People such as David and the young female skateboard coach

are people who are building their hours of leadership
practice. No doubt they are making mistakes, but they are

learning from them and developing their leadership
capabilities moment by moment. In this context 10,000 of
leadership practice becomes possible rather than being
something that may seem impossible. The major issue is the
conscious choice to seek out leadership moments and to
consciously practice with the ones that you find.
Please share any stories or experiences that may reinforce

and explain the concept of leadership moments, and in
particular please share any stories about some inspiring
people that you know.

here.

About Organisations That Matter
Organisations That Matter specialises in helping organisations matter.
To their people within the organisation, to the people the organisation
serves and the people within the broader community within which the
organisation exists.
To achieve this Organisations That Matter serves:
9 Businesses and Community Organisations

9 Universities and Schools
9 Executives
9 Young Professionals
9 Students
Our major services include:
9 Strategic Advice
9 Facilitation
9 What Really Matters
9 Desired Futures
9 Consulting
9 Mentoring
9 Development Programs
9 Learning and Change Reviews
9 Behaviour and Performance Materials
9 Keynote Speeches
9 Conference Packages
9 Theme Weaving
9 Membership
Please email info@orgsthatmatter.com for more information.

About Gary Ryan
Gary Ryan is a consultant, author and speaker who helps
organisations, organisational leaders, graduate employees,
graduate students and undergraduate students to be the very
best that they can be. He is passionate about helping
organisations to matter to their people; to their stakeholders

and customers; to their community and to their environment.
Through helping employers align what they say with what they
do, as well as helping current and future employees do
likewise, Gary knows that he can help organisations matter!
Holding several degrees including a Bachelor of Education in

Physical Education (1994), a Graduate Diploma in Human
Resource Management (2002) and a Master of Management
(2004), Gary is currently completing a Doctor of Business
Administration program at Monash University in Melbourne,
Australia. The more educated that he has become, the greater
the gap between theory and practice he has observed. One of
the reasons for founding Organisations That Matter with Dr
Andrew O’Brien was to close this gap. The intention of this
ebook is to do likewise.
Married with four children Gary also runs marathons to

maintain his health and fitness.
Please feel free to contact Gary via email at

Gary@orgsthatmatter.com .

About Dr Andrew O’Brien
Andrew is a sought after speaker, author, facilitator, executive
adviser and consultant. Drawing on his extensive experience as
a Chief Executive Officer and facilitator Andrew is highly
regarded for his ability to connect with people from the Board
Room to the Front Counter and everywhere in between.
Andrew has led start-up and harvesting phases of

organisational life in the commercial and community sectors
and has facilitated meetings for corporate, government,
education and sporting organisations as well as for industry
associations and conferences.
Most of Andrew’s career has focused on change management

and he specialises in the successful balancing of short, medium
and long-term strategic objectives while striving for high
performance outcomes. In 2004 Andrew was recognised for his
performance by the Customer Service Institute of Australia and
was awarded the CEO of the year for the state of Victoria.
Andrew’s research focuses on shared vision, personal vision,

strategy and effective performance. This has evolved into the
Organisations That Matter Desired Futures body of work.
Andrew has a keen interest in health and fitness and has
combined his Desired Futures approach with Sue O’Brien’s
fitness expertise to develop Partnerunning. In 2008 Andrew and
Sue completed a world first for a husband and wife team
running side by side to complete eight marathons in eight
countries in eight weeks. ‘Couple on the Run’ will be released
early in 2010 and is the first of a series of books and programs

as part of the Partnerunning brand of Organisations That
Matter.
Please feel free to contact Andrew via email at

Andrew.obrien@orgsthatmatter.com .


More in this series!
Please keep your eye out for the other two ebooks in this
series.
What Really Matters! Volume 1, Number 2, 2009
What Really Matters! Volume 1, Number 3, 2009
Feedback!
Thanks you for reading this ebook. We delight in feedback and

comments about our books so please feel free to send us your
thoughts at Feedback@orgsthatmatter.com .
Join us!
If you are not a member of The Organisations That Matter
Learning Network, please join us.
Share!
Once again you have our permission to share the ebook with
friends, colleagues and family, providing you do not change it
in any way. If you have found the content useful, why not
share it with others!
Thank You!
Thank you for taking the time ‘on’ yourself to read this ebook.
We are confident that will gain considerable benefit from
actioning the strategies outlined in What Really Matters!

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A note about ebooks

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Gary Ryan and Dr Andrew O’Brien

If you see yourself attaining a great job in an organisation

I proceeded to ask her how important speaking English was

I then asked her a question from 'left field'. "What do you

Therefore, in the spirit of sharing ways that you have gone

Please feel free to make a comment on this article by clicking

We often experience this phenomenon when we decide to

When iPods were not part of my desired future I did not

This aspect of personal vision is vital at work, in our

Often we hear people in organisations or at university

As well as opening ourselves to possibilities, once we have

I will explore these concepts further in future blogs. In the

Please feel free to make a comment on this article by clicking

Many great questions were asked at the workshop Leadership

Ultimately a simple metaphor can help with this idea of

The following poem was adjudged the best response. While

The Guy in the Glass

And the world makes you King for a day,

Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,

And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn't your Father, or Mother, or Wife,

Who judgement upon you must pass.

The feller whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the guy staring back from the glass.

For he's with you clear up to the end,

And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test

If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,

And think you're a wonderful guy,

But the man in the glass says you're only a bum

If you can't look him straight in the eye.

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the guy in the glass.

Ultimately living a life in which we behave in a way that is

So what does this have to do with leadership. Michelle Hunt

A business reality, particularly in difficult economic times

Taking action in alignment with organisational vales can take

You may be in a situation where your organisation has values

There is no doubt that living your values can be challenging.

Please feel free to make a comment on this article by clicking

Effective communication often consists of the ability to slow

It is for this reason that the art of asking good questions is

Read the article by Michael Marquardt, The Power of Great

Please feel free to make a comment on this article by clicking

OTM High Performing Teams Model

Monitor & Purpose &

Strategy & Agreed

1 © Organisations That Matter® 2007 - 2009

Every team needs to clarify why it exists. In the context of

1. Clarify what the assignment is asking you to do.