Last week I worked with a brilliant team on a strategy for the 2012-13 horizons. They are the best in the world at what they do – the undisputed world champions.  You know you are dealing with champions because of what is present at the point of engagement and also because of what is not present. Here are some of the characteristics I observed and experienced with this team. They are…

1. Focused on goals and on realizing the intended future state.
2. Open in communication. Ready to challenge each other’s premise and ideas.
3. High on value. Low on ego.
4. Present in the moment. Fully engaged.
5. Ready to speak their mind and to try new ways.
6. Not defensive. Not political.
7. Agile and ready to change and adapt.
8. Fast to reframe problems as opportunities.
9. Capable of active listening and intense ideation and collaboration.
10. Committed to turn setbacks to learning and growth experiences.

Developing strategy is about delineating a series of plausible future states, creating options and aligning a course of action. Our “Hot Seats Exploration” process helps us accelerate the conversation, create high engagement and rapid prototyping of ideas.  In this exercise we guide the conversation through divergence and then convergence phases as the object we explore comes into focus.  We shift from expanding the range of ideas and options (divergence) to aligning on a preferred course of action (convergence).

In the divergence phase we practice framing open-ended questions. I was asked this week: “What is the difference between HOW and WHAT questions?” Here is a simple way to think about it:

1. HOW promotes prescriptive answers. WHAT promotes explorative responses.
2. When you are in (A) and seeking to arrive to a KNOWN end-state (B) – use HOW questions: How do we get from A to B?
3. When you are in (A) and are seeking to discover a new UNKNOWN end-state (B) – use WHAT questions: What opportunities are available to us in a new end state B?
4. Language is important. Your words, your narrative invoke images. Images create feelings that impact the brain chemistry and state of mind of the people you engage. When you ask: “How can we extract value?” you invoke the image of a dentist (extract). When you reframe the question to “What value capture opportunities are available for us?” you evoke the image of a fisherman (capture). Dentists and Fishermen bring up a very different set of associations in our unconscious mind where creativity and innovation comes into the picture.

High performing teams are adaptive. They are capable of holding open-ended conversations, ready to coalesce and agree on a course of action and are committed to follow through and execute. Thank you.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Nov.24.2009 :: Consultant Journal, Organizational Development :: No Comments »

Consulting and coaching allows you to live in between worlds. You work with diverse people, organizations, cultures and regions. You arc across crevices of space and time and sometimes you touch the beyond, explore the archetypal and get a peek at the universal.

I am back from two events, where I was asked to help organizations that are grappling with growth and change. In each situation the work focused on turning the ‘good problems’ of success into greater opportunities. The first was a strategy summit for a global team managing a multi-billion dollar operation. The second was a leadership retreat for a spiritually based community in northern CA.  Working back to back with these two very different groups led me inside a parallel universes frame of mind. As always, part of the benefit of working with such diverse groups is being able to decipher the patterns of what works, to capture the wisdom teased out of grappling with success, growth and change. Here are some of the themes and ideas I found this week:

1. Engage in organizational transformation and change. Keep re-architecting your organizational vision. These are dynamic times. Yesterday’s formula may be good but is not sufficient. To transform the organization we all need to transform.

2. Resolve to side-step obstacles. Do not react to old hindrances. They tend to suck you down rabbits holes that are dead-enders. Stop the bleeding. Make a swift movement forward.

3. Attend to what is present here and now. Recognize and name the ‘emergent needs’. Sculpt the possibilities. The challenge you face holds the key to the inner work you must do. The next breakthrough is always nearby, and when it gets tough, the breakthrough is even closer.

4. Step into the leadership space. Most team meetings are wasted time, filled with reports and presentations of data, problems, and machinations and repetition of decisions that were made previously. The leadership space is emergent. You move out of reporting, out of managing into surrendering control to the guidance of the creative and collaborative process.   This is where our services are a game-changer. We help you cultivate the leadership space.

5. Take courage. Listen to intuition and guidance. The circle/the group is supremely intelligent. Ask and you shall be given. Knock on the door and it shall open. Engage others in the inquiry so the escalator of discovery accelerates you and the whole.

6. Create the moment. Life itself is the poetry. Joy and pain, struggle and triumph are a syncopation we all discover. Vision is not out there. It is here and now, in what you enable for you, for your team and for the whole as it grows into what it is becoming.

7. Ask yourself and your team. Are we working on the right things? Are we engaged with the essential questions? Organizational greatness is found first in supporting each part to be the best it can be. And second, in the synergy of all parts creating a greater whole.

8. Take action. There are times to wait. There are times to patiently and busily ready yourself, in business, in organizational life and in the universe at large. And then there are times to take action. This is a universe that blesses initiative, ingenuity, creativity and movement.

9. Develop new capacities. The story you are in is unfinished. You are creating it now. It is undetermined. You can choose right now to move into a new possibility, to then sculpt it step by step. Every day, every challenge gives you a new choice.  Your job as a leader is to enable what was impossible yesterday. You are here to help others see new options, to help them create anew their story and safely realize the options they choose.

10. Embark on the next step. There is always a new leg on this journey. There is always a new opportunity. You journey from (A) to (B) because (B) allows you to do what could not be done in (A). Structures and process methodologies are bridge makers. They are important because they get you to (B) and then to (C) and much more. You are a leader because you are a bridge-maker.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Aug.28.2009 :: Consultant Journal :: No Comments »

The American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) published in its Consulting Newsletter the Consultant 3.0 Manifesto by Aviv Shahar.

Listen to The Consultant 3.0: How to Thrive in Consulting in a Scary, Brave New World podcast:

From the Press Release:
“In Consultant 3.0: How to Thrive in Consulting in a Scary, Brave New World, Aviv, who created and delivered leadership and talent programs to Fortune 500 companies and coach CEOs, demonstrates how he turned a casual conversation with an astronaut at 32,000 feet into workshop firepower and leadership development IP. In this podcast Aviv explores the five dimensions of whole practice growth, or in NASA speak, the five engines of a thriving practice”

“The strategic imperative shifted,” explains Aviv. “When the unthinkable is the norm and the unpredictable is happening daily, the strategy imperative is not in discovering ’how to respond‘ and ’what to do‘. It is in articulating what capabilities are to be developed to meet the requirements of these alternative and uncertain futures.”

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jun.18.2009 :: Consultant Journal, Entrepreneur, Podcasts :: No Comments »

Strange. 50 in a few days. Graduating from high school was only yesterday. Suddenly 50. Back then, 50 looked like the other side of the mountain. Unthinkable. Whoops – it’s here. Feels strange to think I’ve now lived half of my life.

It’s been a great ride. Learning. Wisdom. Understanding. Great teachers. Amazing people I’ve learned from and worked with. Deep gratitude. Living is so much more than any concept I could have imagined. Still, it feels like I’ve just started. This has only been a warm up so far. A beginning. Many more things to do. To learn about. To find and explore. Conversations to open up. Problems to solve. Contributions to make. Stories to tell and live.

Five years ago I wrote down one hundred goals for myself. One of them was to touch and impact a million people in a positive, transformative way. Perhaps you can help. I don’t know how to count this. I have been transformed by strangers who did not know me, who did not know they were changing my life. I think of the teacher I met who walks into his class each time thinking he might inspire a student to be a president one day or to develop a new cure for cancer. The teacher may not live to actually see the realization of his prayers or his efforts.

I think I am ready to release the goal of impacting a million people. To let the intention live on its own. The lives of a million people will be touched positively free of my need to know. Like you, I do need a little validation. Not too much, just enough to keep going. To know I am headed in the right direction. To be part of a part of a greater realization is to know I have lived on purpose. We each need a witness in this life. It helps us bear witness to ourselves. 50 in a few days. What a journey. I am just beginning.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Mar.02.2009 :: Consultant Journal :: 4 Comments »

What Executives say about the experience and value of a Strategy Summit…

Roger Bhalla

Tom Mitchell

Carol Hess-Nickels

David Conrad

Jonathan Kaye

Melissa Bargainer

Matt Wagner

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Nov.19.2008 :: Consultant Journal, Innovation, Strategy :: No Comments »

If your passion is to help leaders realize their brilliance, consulting is a great profession. What’s the difference between a subject matter expert and a process expert? The first needs to impress the client with what they know. The second needs to help the client impress themselves with their own latent knowledge by helping the client access and realize it. The fun part of getting to do and be in the second role is that you get to work with brilliant people – the Olympic champions of their field. Imagine getting to sit in on Lance Armstrong’s bike or run in Usain Bolt’s shoes? I get to experience that kind of exhilaration.

We are currently collaborating with Matt Wagner, Director of Strategy and Planning for Hewlett-Packard and his team to evaluate plausible futures as the executive team determines optimal strategic investments options. The strategy team developed a new model to guide this process. Here is an insight provoked by the process:

The implementation of a new model – for evaluation of risk, for decision making or for anything else – needs to go through four stages.

First, it needs to make sense – we need to understand it.
Second, it needs to become credible – we need to believe it.
Third, it needs to be tried and played with – we need to engage in it.
Fourth, it needs to be applied – we need to put it to practice, to use it in real time and to have it guide our decisions and the way we do business

Through the process, the model is tested, refined, improved and optimized.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Nov.14.2008 :: Consultant Journal :: No Comments »

To the Toronto Blue Belt Top Talent participants of 2008 – Thank you for the opportunity to work together and be on this discovery journey with you. Here are my notes from our last mornings briefing:

1. You are the most important person in this world! The people you serve and work for, the people you support and help, the people to whom you bring a smile and who you make laugh, your loved ones – they can all only have the benefits of your time, energy, talent and wisdom because of who you are!  Your good health, knowledge, experience and wisdom provides you with something to give. What you do and bring to them, the way you help, serve and give are extensions of what you are – of your being.

2. Always seek to be in your optimal zone! You are always better, more efficient and to the point when you come out of optimal energy. When you drop below your “90V” you are less effective and less productive. When you drop below “70V” you tend to be ineffective and produce negative results. Below “60V” you are susceptible to illness. (You can find more about how this works in our Emerald Keys.)

3. Practice learn-ability! Develop and practice the ability to learn from every situation and experience. Learn-ability is your top competency in times of rapid change. Debrief, harvest and apply your learning.

4. Develop communication and framing skills! Your second critical skill is the ability to frame ideas and the communication and influencing frameworks and skill-set we practiced at the Blue Belt. By practicing these regularly you get one percent better every day – the compounding result of which is getting 100% better in 70 days!

5. Separate “musts” from “wants”! Be clear about the difference between “Musts” and “Wants”. Do not confuse “I want this” for “I must have this”. Be clear about your priorities. Let top priorities guide your actions.

6. Align short and long terms! Work on your long-term aims and goals with a practical and pragmatic mindset by creating step by step progress. Bring to your short-term endeavors the energy and conviction of your long term intentionality.

7. Invest in your growth and development! Along with your career goals, set internal goals for yourself. Never work solely for an outer goal. Balance and complete the outer goal together with an internal goal. Your internal goals are not about what you will have or what you will do – they are about the person you are becoming and what you will be. Develop a “Being” goal for every “Having” and “Doing” one.
Examples for “Being” goals:
A. “I am becoming a more patient and understanding leader.”
B. “To be happy and grateful.”
C. “I am clear in mind and conscience.”
D. “I develop an energized presence.”

8. Be a tool maker! Go beyond problem solving and into tool making. Be the tool maker of progress, growth and innovation.

9.  Be confident! Everything big started small. Do not be intimated by others however brilliant they may be. You are brilliant in your own way. Be sure and confident about the contribution you can make. Success is not about perfection, it is about always taking the next step forward. Take the next step confidently.

10. Find glory in the inglorious! Find the little noticed or ordinary places and attend to them with special care. Give yourself and those around you small moments of recognition when it’s least expected. Allow for quiet moments of peace inside a crowded life. Look to make something right even when no one else sees or knows what you did, simply for it to be right. Find glory in the inglorious!

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Oct.07.2008 :: Consultant Journal, Leadership, Personal Growth :: 1 Comment »

What is the subtle, at times invisible work of a transformational coach and consultant?

1. To learn from the client (the team) about their talent and potential. Especially to learn about the potential that the client is unaware of or is unable to access.

2. To hold for the client their best strengths.

3. To bring fresh perspective, a new question and a new way of looking at the problem.

4. To believe in the client’s capacity to grow, transform and evolve.

5. To help create ‘zero gravity’ inquiry and open ended exploration.

6. To promote an innovative process.

7. To intuit the next steps. Open the next door.

8. To bring a total urgency for the client to take the next step and, at the same time, contain it with absolute patience and detachment from outcome. (Only the very impatient can understand the power of patience).

9. To frame the question, the challenge, in the pursuit of which the client can discover their next brilliance.

10. To be fully present and engaged in your own growth while helping the client grow.

11. To remove blockages.

12. To follow the energy as it leads to the next breakthrough.

13. To help ‘channel’ the collective intelligence available in the room.

14. To stay intact, impartial, and unattached.

15. To delight in the clients success.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Sep.22.2008 :: Coaching, Consultant Journal :: No Comments »

If you are to make yourself attractive to new learning and insight you have to dare to step into unknown situations, and to do that you must:
1. be fascinated with life and living.
2. be comfortable in not knowing.
3. love learning, truth and growth more than you love your ego.
4. be excited about new possibilities more than you love your need for security.
5. be ready for learning and insight to come through anyone regardless of their position, seniority or age.
6. have a sense of humor.
7. be mentally agile and alert.
8. be intensely present and treat each conversation as though it’s the most important thing in the world.
9. trust your capacity to turn every setback into valuable learning.
10. have a sixth sense for the invisible dimensions of things.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jun.17.2008 :: Consultant Journal, Entrepreneur :: No Comments »

You can hear a variety of voices that speak through people. Our Find Your Voice seminars provide opportunities to witness and learn more about this. The exciting part is when people begin to find their own voice. Every once in a while a discernable pattern shows up. When it does, it can be powerful and exhilarating to recognize it.

That is what happened in our seminar last week in Villa Rossa, a beautiful resort an hour away from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Participants explored and practiced a framework for effective communication – a template to Find Your Voice. The practice culminates with each creating a message they want to deliver. In most seminars about half the managers choose to focus their messages on their company, their team or on business issues. The other 50% of messages usually cover a range of topics including work-life balance, education, the environment and more personal messages too.

This week in Villa Rossa something quite unusual happened. The large majority of participants chose to focus their message on protecting planet Earth, preserving water, maintaining the environment and other related messages. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence. As the aggregated weight of these messages continued to build, it occurred to me that something else was going on. Earth was speaking through its people.

Brazil and its Amazon forests can be seen as the lungs of our struggling planet, and through the seminar, the Brazilians that I met are its guardians. In “Greendex 2008” – a recent National Geographic Society and GlobeScan survey, Brazil scored highest for overall consumer choices that are environmentally sustainable. Earth has a way of communicating through its keepers.

The exquisite power of the exercise was that as people began to find their own voice, the Earth’s voice found them and spoke through them.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: May.25.2008 :: Consultant Journal :: No Comments »