Bonus content from CYM Podcast episode: Crystalizing your Brilliance with Theresa Rose

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with my friend and colleague Theresa Rose on my Change Your Mindset podcast. Theresa is a brand and business Crystallizer, strategic co-creator, and Certified Speaking Professional. We had a delightful (and sometimes hilarious) conversation about strategic marketing, one of Theresa’s areas of expertise. (She’s also an improv performer, so of course I loved having her on the show! We talked about the power of “Yes And” and how it relates to her work.)

Crystallizing Your Brilliance was the topic, and we had a spirited discussion about the connection between the head and the heart to deliver great results. During the conversation I remarked, “We need a little head in the game, that’s a small portion of it. We need more heart…we need to be kind to each other in ways that go beyond cut-throat. To some degree that old school is still out there but the more collaboration, the more co-creating, the more Crystallizing, the more our businesses will grow and opportunities will grow from that.”

Theresa uses strategic co-creation to deliver her Crystallized models to her clients. As someone who has worked with her, I can attest that she works differently than everybody else out there. She actually draws PICTURES of someone’s expertise based on what hidden gems she discovers in our content. As I said in the podcast, “We remember pictures, we don’t remember words.”

One of Theresa’s gifts is to distill someone’s expertise down to its essence. Just like I recommend to my accounting students to come up with three to five words about why they got into the profession, Theresa adds a layer of context and meaning by putting the perfect image to the words.

Her challenge for those wanting to leverage their personal brands while they conduct their job search, apply for a promotion, or sell their professional services is to ask themselves, “Can I draw my Brilliance on a cocktail napkin?” As she said, “when you can draw it, you can sell it.” She believes that when you can create a visual brand, you have less words, and more insight — More insight into what you REALLY do that makes you shine more than anyone else in the world.

Here’s your thought for the day: What’s on YOUR cocktail napkin?

If you are having trouble figuring it out (most of us do because we can’t fully see our gifts and talents), check out what Theresa does with her Crystallization Process!

S6E7: Crystalizing your Brilliance with Theresa Rose

“We are strategic co-creators; that is the magic of crystallization when someone sees the brilliance in you, writes it down, and shares it with you” Theresa Rose.

Our guest today is Theresa Rose, with 20+ Years of consulting, marketing, and business management experience, drives Theresa’s strategic thinking, creativity, and sound foundational frameworks. Her career has included senior management roles in marketing and product development for a Fortune 100 company and high-growth startups. In addition, as a former Community Builder and Head of Thought Leadership for an executive network, Theresa has seen the challenges of growing a thriving business based on personal intellectual property and how to amplify it for maximum income and impact strategically.

Theresa Rose brings a wealth of wisdom on the power of strategic marketing. A business grows when finding solutions to the world’s problems by finding passion in your own life that motivates you to bring your best.

Each of us can create a memorable picture model of who we are from 3-5 words that we can come up with from so much verbiage that can give us a more transparent and more precise goal of what we want and how we can succeed with this in mind. This gives you a comprehension of the actions you must focus on to achieve your goal.

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S5E22: Laughter is the Best Medicine for Your Organization

“By injecting humor and levity into our work lives, we give ourselves an opportunity for human connection.” Peter Margaritis

According to some recent research, adding more laughter to the workplace helps improve the organization’s culture. Humor allows people to cope with stress and build relationships and is associated with intelligence and creativity.

Workplace humor is about a positive, light-hearted, open attitude and a playful mindset. One of the best ways to create a competitive advantage is to create a culture that embraces laughter. By injecting humor and levity into our work lives, we give ourselves an opportunity for human connection —something so easily lost in today’s pandemic weary and technology-driven world.

Humor has not been seen as a top leadership characteristic but rather a secondary leadership behavior. However, there is more research evidence that humor should be one of the top leadership behaviors. Incorporating humor into your company culture isn’t that easy, but well worth it. It is essential to understand your own company culture when it comes to humor in the workplace and bring it in a way that fits and enhances the culture and the people.

There is a delicate balance between creating a culture that embraces humor and developing leadership that learns how to use humor to strengthen the organization, and it’s well worth the effort.

S5 E17: Strengths of Running a Collective Intelligence Workshop with Rod Collins

“In rapidly changing times, dexterity to speed is your key to adaptability.” Rod Collins

In today’s episode, we are joined by Rod Collins, a returning guest. Rod’s initial episode was released on February 14th, 2022. The topic of conversation was ‘The Benefits of Flat Organizational Structures.’ Today, our discussion focuses on the strengths of running a collective intelligence workshop when you’re trying to solve problems or coming up with new ideas. If you have not listened to the earlier recording, I highly suggest giving it a listen and then following up with this episode.

Rod is a leading expert on digital transformation in the future of business. He is the host of The Thinking Differently podcast on the C-suite Radio Network, where he explores how technological innovations continue to transform the rules of how successful businesses. Rod is a regular blog contributor on Substack and the author of Wiki Management, a revolutionary new model for a rapidly changing and collaborative world, highlighting the innovative tools and practices used by a new breed of business leaders to sustain extraordinary performance in a world reshaped by digital disruption. Rod is the former chief operating executive of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employee program, one of the nation’s largest and most successful business alliances. Under his leadership, the business experienced the most significant five-year growth period in its 60-year history.

A collective intelligence workshop gets a microcosm of the business in the room. Everybody who would touch on the business’s project, process, and initiative must be in the meeting room. We come up with a way to develop good ideas where we put them into groups to discuss their ideas. At the end of the sessions, each table reports the vision they have settled on. As a decision-maker in a rapidly changing world, you want the best picture, which helps move things along.

After identifying the ideas, we open them up to agreements and disagreements because we want creative energy. The members are also allowed to present their grievances to uncover unknowns that always mess up projects. By having the whole system in the room, things get to be handled in real-time and rapidly, and it helps to drive unanimous consensus.

In rapidly changing times, dexterity to speed is your key to adaptability. My experience is that collective intelligence is more significant than one person providing answers, and frequently this is the power of a network. 

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Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Flat Organizations.

I recently interviewed Rod Morris on my podcast, and our discussion centered around “self-managed distributed network corporate structure, a.k.a. flat organizational corporate structure.  I was immediately intrigued by this idea and decided to learn more about it.  You can listen to our interview on February 14, 2022.  

The traditional hierarchy organizational structure has been around since the 1950s, and so have many of the strategies developed to make it work well. As time goes on, though, some of these strategies are becoming less effective, while others are simply out of date. 

What is a flat organization? A company that doesn’t operate on strict hierarchies like most traditional businesses. In these companies, decisions are made at an operational level rather than from senior executives managers in the C-Suite or regional offices with little contact with worksites employees. Everyone should be involved in developing solutions to customer problems, which means that everyone has an equal say about what customers want.

To achieve the right balance between leadership and organization, here are four things you probably didn’t know about flat organizations.

Not all companies can be flat.

Not every business model is suited to a flat structure. Businesses operating in highly regulated industries, for example, may not be able to eliminate hierarchy and authority structures that ensure compliance with rules and laws. In these situations, it’s OK to be flat-ish. But when your company isn’t in a tightly structured industry, using a flatter organization can help you become more agile and responsive while reducing hierarchy-related costs. And if moving to a flatter org seems impossible today, try making room for some small experiments. Start by delegating decisions from your boss; give employees the authority to make confident choices—without requiring permission from higher-ups first—and monitor results closely so you know whether or not those decisions are right for your business. Just because everyone in an organization has titles doesn’t mean they have power over others; they control their roles and responsibilities.

How to start implementing a flat organization

There are numerous advantages to implementing a flat organization, with notable examples from start-ups like Google. Below are tips on how to start your company down that path. In addition, there is also the advice given to companies already moving in that direction; ideas for keeping morale high and employees motivated within non-hierarchical structures. 

Many companies have tried experimenting with flatter organizational structures, but few have mastered it. Yet some organizations are very successful in doing so; they have implemented policies and protocols which have allowed them to maintain a happy employee base while still producing outstanding results – even without bosses monitoring every move or workers jockeying for promotion. Let’s take a look at some of these positive trends. The last few years have seen an increase in companies pushing towards flatter organizational structures; teams where job descriptions focus more on duties than hierarchy. That’s not to say that everyone’s title is Director of Nothing or Head of Indeterminate Anything. Managers might be reduced, and everyone has an equal say regardless of experience level or tenure at the company.

The ten elements of a flat organization

#1. No strict hierarchical layers; 

#2. Everyone is responsible for what everyone does; 

#3. Each employee’s opinion matters, regardless of rank or seniority; 

#4. Decisions are made as close to customers as possible; 

#5. One-size-fits-all isn’t a good approach. 

#6. Teams across geographies come together regularly, if not daily;

#7. Employees can take their leave whenever they want—and are encouraged to do so 

#8. Employees are encouraged to use their initiative and don’t feel micromanaged; if something needs doing, they take care of it—and are rewarded for it in some cases (e.g., bonuses)—

#9. Employees wear many hats: They might be cross-trained to step into roles occupied by colleagues when someone is out sick or on vacation; and 

#10. Collaboration and teamwork are emphasized within functional areas such as marketing or accounting and across available lines such as between engineering and sales

Rules for Successful Collaboration

We all think that we embrace the concept of collaboration, but ego and office politics kill successful collaboration. In a flat organization, these hierarchies collaboration killers rarely exist, and if they do, they are addressed immediately.      

Collaboration is one of the underlying principles in improv leadership.  To achieve a successful partnership, there must be a foundation of respect for the other party; each party is trustworthy, and each party supports the team. If any of these three foundations are missing, collaboration ceases to exist.  

Here is the superpower to improv leadership with this foundation in place – become an active listener where you are focused on the conversation all the while eliminating distractions, such as internal dialog, biases, and the need to be correct, while removing external distractions, like your smartphone for a starter.  

Finally, adopting the Yes! And philosophy where – Yes, I hear what you are saying, And did you consider… The goal is to move the conversation forward positively and collaboratively.  

Flat organizational structures are not for every organization.  However, can your organization adopt a flat-ish approach and become more nimble by distributing the power and authority to others to make decisions without your approval.  In the book, A CEO Only Does Three Things by Trey Taylor, a CEO works on the company culture, hiring the right people, paying attention to the numbers, and putting other decision-making away from the CEO and to those managers responsible for the departmental expectations.