Geronimo Leadership Coaching

Empathy Is The Invisible Hand

via www.youtube.com

Take 10 minutes of your day to stop, breath and watch this awesome animated presentation. It's  combining excellent input  with the latest studies on the evolution of civilizations, empathy and mirror neurons, and at the same time you can see, thanks to the talented cartoonist, the visual and simple representation of these complex ideas.

Brilliant! I've shared it with my eldest daughter, who is at home for the week end, and I was moved to see her moved, too (even if she added, at the end, it's all very nice "mais c'est utopique, Maman!").

It's not utopian, my dear girl, it's human, it's empathic, it's also suffering.

It also resonates with my own way of thinking, mixing intellectual concepts and comics. At last, I've found someone who thinks in the same crazy way as me!

• I already had this feeling a few years ago with The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard.

• Recently with the masterly lesson: Busting the Mehrabian Myth, by Martin Shovel and Martha Leyton, with great simplicity and fun.

• I also appreciated the cartoon corporate character with Johnny Bunko Carreer advices...by Dan Pink.

• Of course, there's also the Powerful Girl Effect Video 

• Marketing to women tips, short entertaining animated video in She-conomy Blog

• I loved the touching simplicity of For Our Daughters, about the Glass Ceiling by CatalystInc

• It all boils down to SIMPLICITY. Find the flower of simplicity inside of you :-) Here's an illustration of the Flower of Simplicity and how it all started for Yoshi Arima,

Have you noticed how essential messages cannot be expressed anymore by long speeches or power points, but need to adapt to the web format and to the new demands from Millennials, raised with video games? (I've written about The Future of Presentations, inspired by Jeanne Meister's work on the 2020 Workplace, and as I've just received her book, I will continue this other series, adapting it to women in the future workplace).

In Picture Yourself Doing a Presentation in 10 Years, we had a quick look at our crystal ball.

We found out that presentations were going to look:

• More simple
• Shorter
• More personal
• More Interactive
• Collaborative
• More Fun

Great ideas need creative and innovative ways to express them, so that they are captured by the largest and youngest audience, who shape our future.

I'm dreaming of leading empowerment trainings for young women from all cultures, using cartoons and animated videos. Designing great examples and role models for Gen Y girls and women, using comics strips!

I'm already integrating on a daily basis such tools in my coaching and training practice, via little "plastoy figurines". I guess the next step will be to play big and animate these figurines!

Meanwhile, enjoy watching the agile mind of a brilliant thinker, Jeremy Rifkin, unfolding magically in front of our mesmerized and childlike eyes...

Here is a summary in images (for those of you who don't care to click on the YouTube video and wait for it to upload...yes, I know, sometimes it's slow and we're impatient!)

If you're rather "left-brain wired", read Jeremy Rifkin's long article in The Huffington Post (no images, just 100% words guaranteed!)

Or read Jeremy Rifkin's new book 'The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis' (Tarcher/Penguin; January 2010)

All Humans are Soft-Wired with Mirror Neurons

We're NOT Soft-Wired for Aggression

 

What's Empathy?

Life is Fragile and Vulnerable

...and it's Tough to be Alive!

Empathy is not Utopia

We Are Homo Empathicus!

 

How Does Consciousness Change in History? The Fiction of The Nation

 

Oh, and I love this one!" Empathy is The Invisible hand"

Call me a dreamer,but I can feel that invisible hand wrapped around our planet, healing it by creativity, compassion and empathy!

 

"The Empathic Civilization is emerging. A younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond religious affiliations and national identification to include the whole of humanity and the vast project of life that envelops the Earth. But our rush to universal empathic connectivity is running up against a rapidly accelerating entropic juggernaut in the form of climate change. Can we reach biosphere consciousness and global empathy in time to avert planetary collapse?" Jeremy Rifkin

Will women and girls make this hand VISIBLE ?

Will women and girls start by reaching for one another's hand?

Imagine a sisterhood of women and girls holding hands around the world, bringing along men and boys, oh, what a wonderful world!

Get Ready for The Future: Open Leadership

Open: How Leaders Win by Letting Go

Today, Monday, May 24th , is the official launch date of Open Leadership, by Charlene Li.

Here is the introduction to the book. It includes a case study of how the American Red Cross was able to become more open and embrace social technologies — and in so doing, activated a distributed fundraising machine using primarily social media.

View more presentations from Charlene Li.

It’s a great overview of the book for people who want to get a quick look.

Why do I want to read it?

• Because of Charlene Li's style of Leadership : she's a role model and an Open Leader.

• Because of her clear and concise concepts, her Optimism and her Values: Trust and Sharing.

• Because of another book I recommend, The 2020 Workplace, by Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd, where Charlene Li is also quoted, in Chapter One Ten Forces Shaping The Future Workplace Now.

"How can companies improve collaboration and knowledge sharing to achieve improved business results? Increasingly they are creating groundswells, a social trend whereby people use technologies to get the things they need from another, rather than from traditional institutions."

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Table of Contents -

Part I - The Upside of Giving Up Control

- Why Giving Up Control is Inevitable

- The Ten Elements of Openness

Part II - Crafting your Open Strategy

- Determining How Open You Will Bew

- Understanding and Measuring the Benefits of Being Open

- Structuring Openness with Sandbox Covenenants

Part III - Open Leadership: Redefining Relationships

- Open Leadership: Mind-sets and Traits

- Nurturing Open Leadership

- The Failure Imperative

- How Openness Transforms Organizations

Summary -

Great insightful and educational book. It shares real life how to's on the areas around openness, transparency, authenticity, and listening. Tackles tough questions such as failure, how to handle a curmudgeon, why your company can't be like Apple.

Real life case studies from the Red Cross, US Navy, President Obama, United Airlines, Dell, P&G, Johnson and Johnson, Comcast, SunTrust, Ford, Cisco, Zappos, Kaiser Permanente, HP, Netflix, Starbucks, Best Buy, Kodak, Bank of America, Marriott."

I wish I had done like Bret L. Simmons and asked Charlene Li :-)  for a copy of her book in advance, to review it.

He's written an excellent review in his blog, Positive Organizational Behavior.

My own conclusions and questions for YOU:

I believe Charlene Li will inspire a lot of Leaders to foster Open Leadership, by acting as one the best role models for GenY Women Leaders!

What could you do to start being an Open Leader and transform Yourself and your business or your Company?

Do you know around you other leaders who act like Open Leaders?

How do they achieve that?

What do they do, how do they behave?

What are their skills?

What are their values?

Who are they when they behave this way? What's their IDENTITY?

What's their Mission?

Hoping you will join the discussion and bring us stories and examples to inspire and help next Generation Women.

In A Silent Way : The Future of Presentations?

The title is a reference to Miles Davis 's extraordinary piece "In a Silent Way".

It is beautiful, fragile, fascinating. The tension is  built up very slowly, by each of the musicians who are  all intensely mindful of one another. We feel captured, raptured and taken to a blissful state...

Would you feel the same if you were attending this new form of corporate event, The Silent Conference?

This video was brought to my attention thanks to Angela Dunn, alias @BlogBrevity, via Twitter directing me to her blog post New "Silent" Multi-Presentation Conference Not Mindful of Speakers.

At first sight, it seems quite strange indeed...and even scary!

A bunch of people with headsets, switching channels and rotating their head, rolling their eyes silently from one presentation's slides to another... Not very different of 747 plane passengers, with a fixed menu of DVDs and music playlist they can choose from, completely indifferent to one another, but very close physically.

As I'm writing that post, I'm reminded of one of my favorite animated movie lately, another excellent Pixar movie: Wall-E.

There, the future of humanity is apocalyptic. The planet Earth is a giant bin, deprived of any form of life.The only human survivors are all on a space ship .They have become obese, boneless, passive, spending their days lying on a big "pod "connected to screens feeding them with information, commercials, food and drinks, via headsets & straws.They're indifferent to one another, unable to even stand up and walk by themselves, glued to their screens...Does it ring a bell?

Where is Miles Davis 's magic?

In the silent conference imagined by Patrick Dixon, each speaker is also indifferent to the others and they even cannot actually connect with their audience, who keeps on switching. What a nightmare!

So what's the point of setting up this sophisticated conference for happy few?

Reading the tweets from Patrick Dixon, the idea was to be innovative and to offer a solution to a problem of limited space. It only shows a part of the event, there were also plenary sessions and an exhibition area. Fair enough.

Overcoming my first negative impression, I can also see the benefits and future developments of this new tool.

• Imagine the impact it could have, if a real dialogue was to be fostered between people sitting at the same table, and then between the tables?
• Imagine if people were asked to immediately take action and start working in mini project teams and actively involve themselves personally ?
• Imagine the possibilities of broadcasting this kind of event in multiple cities at the same time and also facilitating a discussion, an open forum? I see huge possibilities and applications ahead!  

It's a reality that people's attention span is getting shorter and shorter, and long conferences conducted by one single speaker will become more seldom. People are already switching anyway via their blackberries and their iPhones, iPads, via twitter back Channels!

The future of Presentation is about delivering shorter and more entertaining presentations, making them more personal and interactive.

If you're planning to give a presentation soon, launching your business and wanting to be more visible, I wrote a series about it : The 6 Trends of Presentations in 2010.

How would it look like? Definitely not like a PowerPoint, but not like Wall-E either!

• More simple
• Shorter
• More personal
• More Interactive
• Collaborative
• More Fun

Here, I guess the question is : "When do they take off their headsets and stop acting like robots?!!!"

Waiting eagerly for your thoughts, stories and comments!

6 Tips To Become a Better Online Speaker - Keep it Simple

In Picture Yourself Doing a Presentation in 10 Years, we had a quick look at our crystal ball.

We found out that presentations were going to look:

• More simple
• Shorter
• More personal
• More Interactive
• Collaborative
• More Fun

What does it mean for us, NOW?

• More simple

               "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Leonardo da Vinci

We are looking for the core message. Go right to the essential.

Forget about complicated animated PowerPoints.

Forget about "looking the smartest"

Forget about "wanting to Impress "others

Don't try to say it all. You can't.

Look for authenticity and down-to-earth communication.

Find the flower of simplicity inside of you.

Nurture it. Make it grow. Share it.

Here's an illustration of the Flower of Simplicity and how it all started for Yoshi Arima, Interface Designer.

"The pivotal moment where the flower of simplicity manifested into reality was in preparing a presentation on simplicity for the Interactive Project Lab in 2007 at The Banff Centre, Canada.

Yoshi knew he had tapped into something very special when he presented it during that snowy, cold day in Banff."

Go "naked", be at ease with the few tools you are using.

Be "ZEN".

Be generous with your simplicity. Share it when you present to others :-)

Read related posts on how to be more simple :

The Naked Speaker
How To Give a Presentation Zen

Augmented Presentation

Let's imagine you're Dan.

It's 8:15 am.Dan is in his bathroom.

He's getting prepared for his next presentation at TAT.

He checks himself in the mirror, and also looks at his own reflection in his mobile mirror, (which looks like an iPhone on steroids).

He selects which social networks he wants, including Twitter, Slideshare, Facebook, YouTube,etc...

As he clearly comes out of a very joyful and busy party night, he doesn't want it to show on his public profile. So he switches off face book and Twitter and morphs into more professional appearance, leaving only slideshare and contact infos (he could have added LinkedIn)

It's 9:30 am. The presentation has started.

Through their mobiles, people can now easily find and use Dan's information.

They can also rate Dan's presentation and comment ("Backchannel on Twitter"), and even chat while Dan's presenting.

So, imagine you're Dan. How do you get ready for the backchannel?

• I received yesterday this link via Twitter " @cliffatkinson Free webinar Dec 18 "Getting Ready for the Backchannel – with guest @OliviaMitchell" 

• If you want, you can also read at Pistachio How To Present While people are Twittering by Olivia Mitchell or better, download her free ebook on her site

This is happening now, not in 2020...

When I first watched this video on Michelle Martin's  Blog, The Bamboo Project, I thought it belonged to Science fiction. Even now, I must admit it still scares me to "scan" people like  a bar-coded product...

Images of Minority Report, George Orwell's 1984 and even excellent Wall-E rush to my mind (as you can see, my tastes are quiet soft, because that's the scariest it gets!)

• Read in Fast Company  if you want to understand what augmented reality is

" Augmented Reality Is No Longer Science Fiction" 

• Oh, and just when I'm writing this, on friday afternoon, I google "Augmented Reality" and discover an Article by Kit Eaton, from Fast Company, written today... Read more Exciting new examples of applications to travel and Art...

As he says    "The mind boggles as to how this will get used." 

Change  is happening now. Let's understand it and be prepared.

Picture Yourself Doing A Presentation...In Ten Years!

Picture yourself in 10 years...

 

You've been selected to present for a major professional event, high stake for you and your company.

 Chances are high that your presentation will be live and online.

It could be broadcasted on many media, corporate social networks, may be on The Next Corporate "WeTube" and directly on personal mobile electronic devices, in your clients' pockets.

Your presentation will be at the same time global and local, "glocal". You might even perform from your home office, or from any virtual room, rather than from a big convention center.

You're likely to reach thousands or more rather than dozens. Their attention span might be even shorter than it is now...They (your audience) will be able to switch and zap you in seconds, too! They will comment and even grade your presentation, publicly chatting while you're speaking...

You'll have to be entertaining as well as informative!

It's likely that the content will be completely free and sharable on web 2.0.

How would it look like? Definitely not like a PowerPoint!

• More simple
• Shorter
• More personal
• More Interactive
• Collaborative
• More Fun

Why?

Because Gen Xers, Millennials and Gen 2020s will integrate at work their social and personal lifestyles, the totally Milennial approach.

What is " a totally Millennial approach"?

" It's optimistic, proactive, innovative, and it utilizes social media."

(Quoted from MillennialGeneration.org)

Here are some questions for you:

• What does it mean for presentation training , NOW?
• What are the skills we need to develop to be ready?
• How to protect professional data?
• How to deal with challenging  time zones? (you're in US, east coast , your team is spread between San Francisco, India and Europe )
• Will pandemic diseases reduce dramatically the corporate travels?
• How will the companies be able to pay the ecological and financial costs for travel expenses?
• When will face to face meetings and presentations will really be essential?
• Will physical PRESENCE become the ultimate luxury?

I am sure you have other ideas and suggestions in your own crystal ball, please add them in your comments!

Meanwhile I'm going to answer my totally Millennial Birthday Card!

Five Generations of Speakers. Which one is Yours?

Are you a Traditionalist, a Baby Boomer, a Gen X, a Gen Y or Millennial, or a Gen 2020? (well, I doubt you're reading my blog now if you're under 12...)

In 2020, companies will have to adapt to five generations at work. Read in the excellent Harvard Business Blog the article by visionary writer Jeanne Meister Are You Ready To Manage Five generations of Workers?

 

Quick recap (and ages do change according to the sources, this one is from Grown Up Digital, by Don Tapscott, quoted from Jeanne Meister's fantastic blog, New Learning Playbook.

1. Traditionalists, born prior to 1946
2. Baby Boomers*, born between 1946 and 1964
3. Gen X, born between 1965 and 1976
4. Millennials, born between 1976 and 1997
5. Gen 2020, born after 1997

How will it impact you and your business presentations?

• Getting familiar with each generation and developing curiosity and tolerance
• Developing flexibility to adapt to different generations
• Adopting new technologies (mobile devices, interactive presentations on line, podcasts...)
• Integrating social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn,You Tube, etc...)

Are you ready?

If not, what new skills will you need to develop?

What other skills do you think we might need in order to better collaborate together, all generations ?

*I thought I was a Gen X. Born in late 1962 (my birthday's tomorrow!), I definitely identify with Gen X"s tastes and preferences  The proof is that I used to love Scoubidoo!:-)

I think generation isn't so much a matter of chronological age, as it is a matter of what your cultural touchstones are. What events define your personal recollection, the differences in upbringing and outlook on history. But that's another story...