A couple of blog posts ago I made the statement about the future of leadership development, and how I don’t think current leadership development approaches are enough to equip leaders in our current business environment. This is especially true when considering how much change leaders are  facing daily as a result of globalization and technology. Because of this, I believe there are three important keys to the future of leadership development:

• It needs to be experiential
• It needs to start from within (especially the mental, emotional, and spiritual domains)
• Leaders need to learn how to become more agile to handle change more effectively

A total leader in my opinion is constantly developing from the inside-out, especially mentally, emotionally and spiritually (The Game Within). But how does one develop that?

As many of you might know – my love for performance and leadership actually started on the sports field. As a tennis player, coach, and sport psychologist I very early on became aware of what it really takes to get to the next level. Over the years, I have studied and worked with some of the top perferformers in the world. Just as professional athletes are not just born to be an expert performer, leaders are also made over time – it is a developmental journey.

Through my studies over the years, I became aware of four important keys we can learn from professional athletes:

1) Self-awareness (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and technical)

2) Performance in the moment

3) Development and growth over time

4) Self-care 

In the next 20 weeks of blog posts, my goal is to go through these four steps in detail to see what leaders can learn from professional athletes to become total leaders, themselves.

What do you think leaders can learn from professional athletes?

Earlier this year I had the privilege to work with an elite 16-year-old gymnast. She started her year with a couple of falls on the vault and was struggling to move on. These mistakes got into her head and paralyzed her so much that she could not stop falling. It was just two weeks before her State meet that I was approached to help her with her “Game Within”!!!

In our first session it became clear that she was gripped with fear—a fear that could not go away. You see, fear always takes us to a smaller place, a place where we feel overwhelmed and analytical. My job was to help her see other possibilities. The opposite of fear is trust, and trust will always take us to a bigger place, a place of peace and flow. But how do we make the shift? I helped her to understand two things:

• The nervousness will never go away. There is a difference between nervousness and fear. Decide to make nervousness your friend. It is like watching CNN—you can choose to watch the news reporter while there are still little headlines on the bottom of the screen moving from right to left. Decide not to be bothered by it, even though it will always be there!
• Decide what you are going to focus on. You have a choice. You don’t have to give fear the power in the situation. With this in mind, I helped her to develop a pre-performance routine. Right before she is about to perform she takes 20 seconds to visualize a picture of trust, whispers her performance statement (three words) to herself, and gives three deep breaths.

Not long after this she began to trust again.

This is a great example of how elite athletes are able to mentally and emotionally prepare themselves before they perform. So, how can you use this in being a more effective leader? Do you sometimes feel nervous or even gripped with fear?

Next time you are about to step onto the “stage,” try out the following pre-performance routine:

1. Accept the nervousness. Say it softly to yourself.
2. Decide what your are going to focus on. You have choice in the moment.
3. Breath—Take three deep breathes (5 sec. in & 5 sec. out)
4. Smile and step on the stage!

You always have a choice! Where are you going to put your focus?

I am looking forward to hear how you think you can use a pre-performance routine as the one above in your world at work.

Here are some additional links:

Keep Calm And Carry On

How Do You Deal with Disruption?

Almost everyone will agree that we are currently living in a much more complex world than 20 years ago. Current trends in globalization and technology are forcing leaders to adjust in the way they are leading in this volatile, complex, and constantly changing environment. In fact, thousands of new books are written about leadership development every year and hundreds of leaders are sent for training and leadership development workshops. But are these methods effective?

More complex and adaptive thinking abilities and skills are needed from our leaders, but our approach to leadership development stayed the same. So, what is missing?

Nick Petrie from The Center For Creative Leadership made some very good points in his white paper called “Future Trend in Future Development”. Out of his research he delineated two key findings:

• We no longer just have a leadership challenge (what good leadership looks like), but we have a development challenge (the process of how to grow “bigger” minds) and how to help leaders grow their capacity to hold many things at the same time.
• Managers have become experts on the “what” of leadership but novices in the “how” of their own development.

The time has come for leaders to own their individual, internal development (mentally, emotionally and spiritually). Skills, competencies, and external development will not be enough anymore. Leadership coaching is already playing a crucial role in this new shift looking at internal development, but how can HR managers and senior leaders create a sustainable approach to leadership development that is financially friendly and effective? I believe this is the nut to crack as we look into the future.

What is your view on the future of leadership development? How do we breech this gap between the changes of environment and our current approaches?

Looking forward to your comments.

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A New Era for Global Leadership Development

The #1 Reason Leadership Development Fails

Most leaders I work with typically desire to use their time more efficiently. While I do believe time management is very important, how is it that when many leaders reach a point where they feel more in control of their time, they still feel exhausted, stressed and unable to focus at the end of the day? What is missing?

In their book The Power of Full Engagement, Jim Loehr and  Tony Schwartz talk about the importance of energy management. What is energy management? In short, energy management is the process of managing your energy consumption and energy recovery in a conscious manner. You can manage your energy by understanding the following principles:

• Recognize the four dimensions of energy: body, emotion, mind, and spirit. We draw energy from each. Each one is necessary, but no single one is sufficient.
• Rhythmically balance stress and rest.
• Push beyond your limits systematically. Building “mental, emotional, and spiritual strength” is very much like building physical strength. No pain, no gain.
• Use energy rituals.

Let’s put some energy management into practice.

Exercise:

Think about your energy consumption times (times you are busy and in action) as red, and energy recovery times (times you are not working, but relaxing) as green. The idea is to make sure you have at least two green times in your daily schedule.

Here are some green times one of my clients came up with:

1) Go for a run (Three times a week at 6am)

2) Take a 15 min walk (Two times a week)

3) Go for a shoeshine (Every Friday)

4) Meditate (10 min every Monday during lunchtime)

BUT, here is the key – In the beginning of your week, FIRST put your green times on your calendar, followed by your red times.

Try this for a week, and let me know what you noticed. Looking forward to your comments.

Luke Hancock, right, with Tim Henderson after Louisville beat Wichita State on Saturday.
In the moments immediately after Louisville guard Kevin Ware’s right leg snapped, it was virtually impossible not to recoil. A shard of bone jutted grotesquely through the skin, so players, coaches, officials and fans understandably — and uniformly — shrank back.

Except Luke Hancock. While everyone else was looking away or turning away, Hancock was going in the other direction. Hancock was the only player who immediately ran toward Ware after he crumpled, and he knelt beside his teammate and began praying with him, patting Ware’s chest over and over. He knew Ware was scared, he would say later, and he did not want his teammate to be alone.

This display of humanity is emblematic of a larger point about Louisville’s team. Hancock, a junior, transferred from George Mason in 2011 and was named a team captain before he ever played a game for Louisville — a development that speaks to Hancock’s character and, perhaps even more, to that of his teammates, who saw his motivation and accepted him as a leader despite barely knowing him.

Why? Now, a season of games later, they say they could simply see what everyone else saw when Ware was writhing on the court and Hancock ignored the screams and gasps and groans to kneel beside him. It is why the Louisville players mobbed him in celebration after Hancock scored 20 points during the Cardinals’ Final Four victory over Wichita State here Saturday.

Hancock is not the Cardinals’ most talented player (that is guard Russ Smith). And he is not their best-known player (that is surely Ware, who spent the last week doing a variety of interviews, including one on David Letterman’s talk show where he read the Top Ten list). But despite having played just one season for the Cardinals, Hancock is a significant piece of Louisville’s soul.

“He showed his leadership out there tonight,” guard Peyton Siva said after Saturday’s victory. “He showed his leadership when Kevin got injured. He’s an all-around great player and person. Tonight, he showed the world what he’s capable of doing.”

Hancock admits that he can be difficult to coach at times — mostly because he believes he has an advanced understanding of the game’s tactics — and Coach Rick Pitino opts to bring him off the bench in an effort to keep him out of foul trouble. He is also not the only leader on the Cardinals; Siva, a senior, is also a captain.

But Hancock’s passion is unmatched among his teammates, and it is that devotion that led Pitino to make him a captain.

The genesis of that unusual decision has two parts: first, Pitino had a lengthy discussion with Jim Larranaga, who coached Hancock at George Mason. Larranaga, who left George Mason for Miami (which prompted Hancock to transfer to Louisville), raved about Hancock’s mental capabilities and praised his passion.

Then, during his first off-season weight training program at Louisville, Hancock did not hesitate to make clear his own high standards. After the players opted to have some early-morning lifting sessions, Pitino recalled, two players — Smith and Rakeem Buckles, a former Cardinals forward — showed up late. Hancock, uninhibited by his status as the new guy, confronted them.

“Remember now, they’re just seeing Luke really for the first time,” Pitino said. “They knew him a little bit. Luke said, ‘That stuff is not going to cut it here at Louisville.’ And right away, you think some guys would answer back, ‘Who are you to say that?’ But they immediately said, ‘It’s our bad, it won’t happen again.’ ”

Leadership in sports often comes with murky motivations, but Hancock’s drive — it is the only way he knows how to act, he has said — is genuine. Yes, he arrived at Louisville with a track record, having hit the game-winning 3-pointer for George Mason in a 2011 N.C.A.A. tournament victory over Villanova, but his worth has always been about more than that.

It is also his presence, his teammates say. His willingness to push and prod and demand. His calm during a time of crisis, as when he dropped beside Ware — a player he used to compete with for playing time — and tried to convince him everything would be O.K.

“It surprised everybody,” forward Wayne Blackshear said of Hancock’s leadership. “But he was that first one there by Kevin when the accident happened, just trying to hold him and make him stay calm. It is great to have Luke.”

On Saturday, Hancock displayed all his attributes. In a game in which the Louisville starters struggled to score, Hancock and another reserve, the walk-on Tim Henderson, were the offensive sparks. Hancock drilled two critical 3-pointers late in the second half, nailing his shots not far from where Ware was sitting with his broken leg splayed across an adjacent chair.

Then, after Hancock missed a crucial free throw with eight seconds remaining, he made up for his mistake by forcing a critical (albeit disputed) jump ball, returning possession to the Cardinals as they finished off their victory.

Not surprisingly, Hancock is hesitant to offer much in the way of self-praise, and he has deflected questions about where his leadership skills come from, saying that it probably does not hurt that he was the youngest of six children.

“I guess my brothers beating up on me growing up has helped a little bit,” he said.

Now, Hancock is the proverbial older brother, and on Monday, he will join his teammates in trying to win Louisville’s first national title since 1986.

“He keeps the team together,” Smith said, and there can be little praise higher. Hancock is not the team’s best player, nor is he the most famous. It does not matter. He is simply its leader.

As such, Total Performers:

• Are more self-aware than conventional performers
• Know and understand the power of the five domains of peak performance
• Approach practice and development differently than conventional performers

Along the way you will find:

• New, sustainable levels of energy and endurance
• Deeper focus
• Control in high intensity moments of choice
• A grounded sense of self and purpose
• Emotionally connected and aligned being that drives success and satisfaction

DOWNLOAD OUR FULL BROCHURE HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

Please go to the website for Kampioen for more information: www.thejourneyofchampions.com

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Charl Schwartzel gave this Masters a finish it deserved.

By – The Associated Press

On an amazing Sunday at Augusta National, where the roars came from everywhere and for everyone and didn’t stop until it was over, Schwartzel emerged from the madness by becoming the first Masters champion to close with four straight birdies.

His final putt from 20 feet curled into the side of the cup for a 6-under 66, the best closing round at the Masters in 22 years. It gave the 26-year-old South African a two-shot victory over Australians Adam Scott and Jason Day.

“Just an exciting day,” Schwartzel said. “So many roars, and that atmosphere out there was just incredible. A phenomenal day.”

Indeed, this final round had it all.

First came a fist-pumping charge by Tiger Woods, who erased a seven-shot deficit in nine holes only to go flat on the back nine. Then came the stunning collapse of 21-year-old Rory McIlroy, who put his name in Masters lore for all the wrong reasons.

Still leading by one shot as he headed to the back nine, McIlroy hit a tee shot next to the cabins left of the 10th fairway and twice hit a tree to make triple bogey. He three-putted from 7 feet for bogey on the 11th, four-putted from about 12 feet on the next hole and buried his head into his forearm as the shock began to settle in.

McIlroy shot 80, the highest final round by the 54-hole leader since Ken Venturi in 1956. Not since Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie had someone blown at least a four-shot lead going into the last round of the major.

So wild was this steamy afternoon that eight players had at least a share of the lead on some point during the back nine. The steady hand came from Schwartzel, whose only bogey came on the fourth hole as this Masters was just getting warmed up.

He got up-and-down from behind the 15th green for birdie to briefly tie for the lead, only for Scott to stuff his tee shot into 2 feet up ahead on the par-3 16th. Schwartzel answered with a 15-foot birdie to catch Scott atop the leaderboard again.

Then came the pivotal 17th, where Schwartzel made a 10-foot birdie. It was the first time all day he had the lead to himself, and he finished it off in style.

South Africans now have won two of the last three majors, following Louis Oosthuizen winning at St. Andrews last summer. This one came on the 50th anniversary of Gary Player becoming the first international player to win the Masters.

“I am absolutely delighted for Charl and South Africa. Congratulations and very well done to him. That is how you finish like a champion!” Player said on Twitter.

After receiving many inquiries concerning The Game Within’s newest service Kampioen, I have decided to give you a little taste of what is coming before the launching of our website. (Yes, we have developed a beautiful website for more information on Kampioen. Stay tuned!)

Inside All of Us Beats the Heart of a “kampioen”

The world’s greatest performers of our time share something in common: deep within them lies the heart of a kampioen (pronounced comp-eeoon).  In Afrikaans, my native South African language, kampioen means champion.

At The Game Within, we believe within every person there beats this same heart. And as with all great leaders and champions, discovering it requires a journey of a lifetime—a journey that gives you time to take stock in life, to discover who you are, what you’re doing and why.  A journey that fast-tracks your development as a Total Leader.

An Exclusive Nine-Day Journey of Champions

That’s why we have developed Kampioen, The Game Within’s Journey of Champions. This nine-day, five-star senior leadership development tour de force criss-crosses with my homeland of South Africa. It takes you out of the frantic pace of life and into a place of self-discovery and performance enhancement.

And because it’s The Game Within, this trip will blend developmental reflection with experiential learning through golf.  You will play three rounds at some of the world’s most beautiful courses, including The Gary Player Country Club. Additionally you and your significant other will enjoy African wildlife, dramatic coastlines, culinary adventures, wine tastings at some of the country’s globally renowned vineyards and the incredible mosaic of people and places that are South Africa.

Through Kampioen, you and your spouse, partner, or significant other will see, taste, and experience South Africa in five-star luxury.  Each day has a focus:

Day 1     Arrival in South Africa; evening at African Rock Hotel

Day 2     Travel to the Shepherd’s Tree Lodge, Pilanesberg National Park near Sun City

Day 3     Golf’s Mental & Spiritual Domains Gary Player Country Club

Day 4     Leadership’s Mental & Spiritual Domains

Day 5     The Emotional, Physical Domains of Golf The Lost City Country Club at the Palace

Day 6     The Emotional & Physical of Leadership – Western Cape, Erinvale Hotel

Day 7     The Technical Domains of Leadership

Day 8     Total Integration on the Golf Course Erinvale Golf Club

Day 9     Total Integration and Total Leadership

Activities include:

• Golf
• Safari’s
• Game walks with ranger
• Elephant ride (Yes, an African elephant!)
• Cheetah sanctuary
• Wine Tours

And MUCH MUCH more…….

During leadership development sessions, spouses, partners and significant others will engage in activities and excursions at each location. Together, all of us will take in the natural beauty and wonder of South African wildlife, terrain, and culinary delights that make this country the jewel of the continent.

THE FIRST KAMPIOEN IS SCHEDULED FOR NOVEMBER 2011……. STAY TUNED FOR MORE INFORMATION!!!!!!!!!!

On the golf course we so many times lose sight of the purpose of the game. So, what is the purpose of golf? Well, it is to get the ball in the hole with as few strokes as possible. Ok, but then why do so many golfers spend hours of time practicing a 300 yard drive, or spending 1000s of dollars to get the newest equipment? What about going for two lessons a week to insure that their technique is “correct”? Does it really matter how we get the ball in the hole? Let’s take it even a little further. How many players out there are impressive in every aspect of their game, except when it comes to winning? Hope you get my point. Don’t take me wrong all these aspects are important but are we not losing sight of the purpose?

Now, let’s move our attention to the game of leadership. It just amazes me how many leaders are driven by the acceptance of the people around them, focusing on getting a raise or coming up with the best solutions. So many times they lose sight of the purpose of leadership, which is simple—to lead your people.

Here is my question to you. What will happen in your game of golf and leadership if you focus your attention on your intention? Intentions on: to get the ball in the hole and to lead your people? Period.

Would love to hear your thoughts…

This experience caused me to ask the following question. What is motivating these people to give this kind of service??? I decided on the spot to contact the owner of this gas station to ask him some questions. I made an appointment for the very next day.

His name is Riaaz Jappie and his family has owned this gas station for more than a decade. He told me that the year they bought it, they pumped about 107 000 liters of gas a month, after one year in business they pumped over 350 000 liters a month and currently they pump a little less than 600 000 liters a month! Wow! He also told me that in 2001 they were nominated as the 2^nd best BP gas station in the nation and in 2004 they were aggrandized to the best in the nation!!!!! Obviously this BP gas station located in the Aqua Mall, Gordon’s Bay was doing something right.

Riaaz explained to me that their business model is built around customer service, but customer service can only truly be obtained if their employees are happy and motivated. This is what I learned from Riaaz:

• As a leader, you need to be committed. Not only to the business but also to your people. You need to be around to coach and teach your employees.
• As a leader, you need to create an environment where people want to work for you. This is something that is much easier said than done but can be created. Riaaz uses some financial incentives but also makes sure that his people become empowered through his communication and leadership style. They want to work there, because they know he will be behind them through thick and thin if they do their part.
• As a leader, you need to communicate to your people regularly. Riaaz learned over the years to communicate to the level of each employee. Meet them where they are and not where you think they should be. Take time. Not now and then, but regularly.
• As a leader, you need to be open for outside input and coaching. Riaaz regularly gets someone from the outside (sometimes a family member) to spend a couple hours just watching how not only the employees interact with customers, but also how Rihaaz or his manager interacts with their employees. You might just gain a new awareness that was in your blindspot.

As a leader, how do you motivate your people???? I would love to hear from you.