Seth Godin is a world renowned marketing expert. He is a prolific published author, educator, podcast expert, and... well you get the idea - he's a pretty big deal. I follow some of his work and recently came across one of his quotes, "you are not your resume, you are your work" from his book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

In 2005, I joined Kingsley Ogedengbe (a.k.a. Kinsley O) as his right-hand man to create Ki Mantra (a concept we dubbed an Urban Spa) on Camden Passage in the heart of Islington, London. With Singaporean investors and a blank canvas we set about creating something new and exciting. In retrospect we had no idea what we were doing. I was in my early-to-mid twenties with very little business or life experience. Kingsley was older and more experienced but was also delving into new territory and basically making it up as he went along.

"They know something I don't." "There are 20 ways I could screw this up." "They are going to see things I can't that I am doing wrong."

These are just a few of the thoughts passing through my mind as I stand over the ball at the 1st tee of the beautiful Kooyonga Golf Club in Adelaide over summer. My mind was focused on the talented wonderful friends I was playing with and living up their usual level. They are mates, but mates that are 'better than me'. My mind feels inferior around them and if I am not careful, my mind will carry on down this path constantly worrying about what they think.

How to motivate others has been the number one talking point asked of me in the last 12-18 months. Leaders particularly want to understand how to activate people to proactively ‘do what needs to be done’ without the niggle (i.e. grunts, grumbles, and glitches). Businesspeople and sales staff also want to motivate their clients and external stakeholders to partners with them to achieve the desired outcome. And everyone wants people around them to buy-into their ideas and strategies.

The Australian author and business Mentor Peter Cook once told an audience I was in (to paraphrase), 'people don't buy from you because they don't trust you'. It is a harsh brutal assessment on why people may not do business with us, why colleagues don't buy into our ideas, and why people don't want to do what we instruct them to do. It may also be an underlying reason for our perceived lack of progress (or regression) over the last year or so.

Latest research tells us the workplace of tomorrow will be full of Artificial Intelligence (AI), more dispersed than ever, and will probably be spent in the meta-verse for most of the working day. A lot of it feels unrelatable to our current experience as many businesses try and pull people back to offices or on-site. But, on the other hand, technology tends to creep up on us - reflect on the phone they had in their pocket in the early 2000's.

'There is no escape!'

That was the realisation I had when the clock ticked over and the Zoom window was loading. I had booked the appointment and even though I had prepared and done all the pre-meeting communications I found myself seconds away from seeing my face up on screen alongside that of my audience.

Come September in Melbourne everyone is close to being fed up with the rain, wind, and cold. It's nothing like London in February where everyone is cranky due to all of this plus a prolonged period of going-to and coming-home-from work in the dark, but the craving for sunny warm weather is shared by all. Nothing illustrates this need for brightness more than my local golf course.

We love a rebel. The bad boy/girl. The one that doesn't play by the rules. They bring excitement and intrigue. They incite a part of us that wants to break free of conformity and ordinariness.

When my wife and I are both working from our home offices we have a cute little ritual around our daily coffee. We have one coffee a day at approximately 10-10:30am and the one of us not in a meeting at that time is the designated barista for the day. Today was my day, and while the coffee was brewing I decided to reach out to a colleague in my industry to simply ask 'how they are getting on' as we hadn't spoken for a few months.

What is it we give to our teams as leaders? Thoughts may turn to functional actions like direction, instruction, guidance, and insight. Or we may turn to the less tangible such as confidence, empowerment, inspiration, or courage.

So it looks like I've been wrong all this time...

One critical skill we teach in performance and leadership programs is the art and science of feedback. It is commonly seen as a 'Tell' mode of communication where one individual relays their observations about another person directly to them (and hopefully in a private and respectful manner). It is a powerful tool to guide people, keep them accountable, and to uphold standards.

In 2009, the UK was hurting due to the global financial crisis. At the time I was working for the premium salon and spa brand in Business to Business (B2B) sales. I was new to the job after being a floor manager in the brand's Centre of Excellence in Covent Garden, London. I had been working in luxury brands for a while to this point and it became the norm to see people spend seemingly extravagant amounts of money for products and services while the media bombarded us with catastrophising headlines.

Inspiring commitment in others.

How do I motivate my team? It is the question I get asked almost daily. And for good reason as the recently published Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2022 Report suggests. In Australia and New Zealand, employee engagement was reported to be at 17% - ranking our region eighth out of ten (only higher than the regions representing Middle East/Africa and Europe). The same report told us that 47% of us are suffering from daily stress (up 2% from the year before and higher than the global figure of 42%).

The joy (and value) of attrition.

Adelaide summer heat is dry and searing. Anything over 35 degrees Celsius is punishing as a cricketer and even more so when you are a fast bowler. Fielding in the afternoon sun with no clouds in the sky for 90 overs (taking approximately five to six hours) is one of the toughest situations in cricket.

Who is the expert in our realm?

Am I doing it correctly? Can you check if my way is the right way? What can I do better?

These are common questions I get from people when I am helping them prepare presentations, proposals, and strategies for their clients, senior decision makers, or their teams. They are good questions in this context as people are learning techniques and tools, and sometimes for the first time.

Tap into your people's intrinsic motivation.

Motivation can be a tricky subject for leaders of teams. There are many factors that can demotivate our people like fatigue, personal issues, and a dislike for some of the tasks that have to be done (or the people they need to be done with). For a leader, this is tough situation. We have our own motivation to drive while constantly trying to somehow keep our people 'up'. Carrots and sticks of all descriptions may be used to cajole and even coheres individuals to buy-in and do what needs to be done.

A worthy investment in cultural motivation.

When people perceive injustice, how do they react?

I think of times in the school classroom when a teacher sent the wrong person to the principals office (cue laughter), or when the soccer coach made us all run laps because one person was late to practice (cue growns), or how one colleague got away with not submitting their reports while others were publicly scolded (cue many emotions!)

Why so certain?

The obvious is so very tempting... Sales are down because no one has money. We're missing deadlines because supply lines are slow. People are not doing their job because they are lazy. I can't find good staff because no one wants to work.

The decision to take the game on

I had flash backs from the 1980's and 90's recently that conjured up feelings of pain and hurt as old scars were opened up.

The Socceroos (Australian men's soccer team) had another poor result losing to the Japanese national team last week, meaning Australia will have to go through a playoff tie to qualify for the World Cup finals in Qatar. But, from what I saw of the performance I do not expect qualification to be achieved.