Relationship Development Archives

Bright Lines

June 4, 2020/in Academy (Paid Membership), Cathy Sexton, Live Well, Personal Development, Physical Well Being, Relationship Development /by Alycia Schrader

Cathy Sexton presents "Bright Lines".

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Making Time For What’s Important

January 30, 2020/in Academy (Paid Membership), John Brandvein, Live Well, Personal Development, Personal Financial Social, Physical Well Being, Relationship Development, Spiritual Well Being /by tomruwitch

John Brandvein presents "Making Time For What's Important"

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From Relationships to Community

April 22, 2019/in Academy (Paid Membership), Bill Prenatt, Experts, Live Well, Relationship Development /by Paul Cook

In this presentation called, "From Relationships to Community", e4e partner Bill Prenatt shares how discovering a passion for building relationships and growing businesses helped Bill Prenatt create e4e, a like-minded community…and how you can use his process in growing your own expert community and unique support system..

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Develop Your Strategy to Keep In Touch

February 27, 2019/in Blog (Free Content), Karen Hoffman, Live Well, Relationship Development /by Paul Cook

In this presentation called, "Develop Your Strategy To Keep In Touch," e4e partner Karen Hoffman discusses things that we can do to help us remember and keep in touch with the other people we meet every day using some simple methods.

Listen Like A Leader

January 23, 2019/in Blog (Free Content), Brian Lunt, Experts, Live Well, Relationship Development /by Paul Cook

In his presentation, Brian Lunt gives examples of methods we can use to better understand what those around us are really saying and use it to more effectively be a leader.

The Path to Personal Relationships

October 22, 2018/in Academy (Paid Membership), Experts, Karen Hoffman, Live Well, Relationship Development /by Paul Cook

In this presentation called, "The Path to Personal Relationships," e4e partner Karen Hoffman tells the group about the benefits of knowing and building relationships with media influencers. We learn how by helping them and helping others, they can help us.

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Baseball: A Metaphor for Business and Life

April 25, 2018/in Academy (Paid Membership), Live Well, Relationship Development /by Alex Wood

In this presentation called "Baseball: A Metaphor for Business and Life," e4e partner Josh Levey describes his experience playing in the minor leagues and what it taught him about building a team. He explains his current team in business and life is largely made up of family members and life mentors, and offers advice on choosing the people who support you.

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Creating Great Stuff Using a Great Mindset

March 20, 2017/in Blog (Free Content), Judy Ryan, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Spiritual Well Being /by Alex Wood

In this presentation, culture change expert Judy Ryan presents on the transformation process for fostering free and contributing human beings. She offers key points that may challenge the status quo and offer a new perspective for supporting greatness in self and others.

Managing Transitions Life Throws Our Way

September 21, 2016/in Bill Prenatt, Blog (Free Content), Live Well, Personal Development, Relationship Development /by Judy Ryan

What do you need when your life is spinning out of control?

Sales expert and performance leader Bill Prenatt opens his presentation with the question “Have you had times when your life was spinning out of control?” He offers his own traumatic life experiences. He describes about how life can sometimes smack us in the face and what’s more important is how we react to what’s happening. Key points in this presentation include:

How to move from reaction to responding so you manage challenges effectively
Naming the seven elements of a negative spiral so you can take four steps to take charge of any situation and shorten the amount of time to be in a negative spiral
Moving from denial to acceptance and improvement
The question “What’s next?” helps you take charge
See setbacks as temporary and move forward
We can’t always see other options when we are in a negative spiral
Things are almost never as bad as they seem
The positive and negative balance in our lives
Gratitude and forgiveness can get us through hard times
We can either be a victim or a victor in difficult circumstances
How to learn from our challenges and mistakes
Adaptiveness and resiliency are key to overcoming challenges

Sales and leadership expert Bill Prenatt concludes this inspiring talk sharing about the death of his son. He invites his audience to develop tools to cope with challenges and consider your responses to them so you are more resilient in moving forward when tough times arise, which will because they are simply a part of life.

Bill Prenatt is CEO of Simply Successful and Executive Director of e4e. If you are interested in learning more about the art and science of taking control of your life, contact Bill at bill.prenatt@simplysuccessful-llc.com.

What a Great Question: Game-Changing Communications

July 27, 2016/in Academy (Paid Membership), Judy Ryan, Live Well, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Spiritual Well Being /by Judy Ryan

What's the best thing that's happened? Appreciative inquiry is like enjoying flowers rather than despising weeds in the garden of life.

Einstein says we either live our life as though nothing is a miracle or as though everything is a miracle.

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Contacts, Connection and Collaboration

June 7, 2016/in Academy (Paid Membership), Dream Teams, Grow, Innovation and Creativity, Karen Hoffman, Relationship Development /by Judy Ryan

Master connector, author and dream coach Karen Hoffman opens her presentation inviting the audience to consider the difference between a single transaction and a relationship that involves an ongoing set of transactions, monetary and otherwise.

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Why Effective Communications?

April 19, 2016/in Academy (Paid Membership), Adam Kreitman, Bill Prenatt, Business Process Improvement, Karen Fox, Live Well, Personal Development, Productivity, Relationship Development, Run, Video /by Judy Ryan

Most of us think we are good communicators just because we do so much of it. Often we are failing miserably at it and need to understand important decisions and actions are needed to succeed.

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Teamwork Through Complementary Skills

April 19, 2016/in Academy (Paid Membership), Brian Lunt, Business Process Improvement, Dream Teams, Live Well, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Video /by Judy Ryan

Unique ability plus excellent teamwork equals success.

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Building & Sustaining Healthy Relationships

March 24, 2016/in Academy (Paid Membership), Experts, Larry Lukens, Live Well, Relationship Development, Video /by Judy Ryan

People don't care how much you know unless they know how much you care. Building and sustaining healthy relationships is like putting together a 1000 piece puzzle

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Video: Resilience Through Organizational Change

February 27, 2016/in Blog (Free Content), Business Process Improvement, Change Management, Grow, Innovation and Creativity, James Canada, Personal Development, Productivity, Relationship Development, Video /by Judy Ryan

Successful business owner and organizational development expert Jim Canada opens his presentation with the truism that if you are not moving ahead, you are falling behind. He asserts change is key to how well you grow and succeed in your personal and professional life. He also maintains that cultivating resiliency in the face of change is key to making changes positively and effectively.

In his talk, Jim describes that when capability is greater than challenge, people get bored. When challenge is greater than capability, people get overwhelmed and stressed. The ideal is to maintain an equal balance between capability and challenge. Then people can weather the myriad of feelings they have as they go through change. If people do not develop resiliency, they can get thrown by some of the negative thoughts, feelings and struggles that are a natural part of the change process.

People feel in control when expectations match experiences. Developing personal resilience helps people maintain a sense of control. Jim describes it as the ability to absorb high levels of disruptive change while displaying minimal dysfunctional behavior. Those who are resilient maintain their equilibrium, high productivity, good health, success and rebound well from setbacks. Resilient people are:

Proactive
Positive
Organized
Flexible
Focused

Jim Canada ends his presentation by stressing the importance of creating a strong workplace culture in which your people are able to find a new normal occurs easily because you effectively communicate the positive consequences of change and they remain inspired to stay the course through discomfort. The bottom line: learn how to be resilient and promote resilience so you and your business can move ahead successfully.

To learn more about how to enact positive changes in your workplace culture, contact Jim Canada at: http://www.alliancetechnologiesllc.com/contact-us

Creating A Strategic Plan Using The Blueprint Process

February 20, 2016/in Academy (Paid Membership), Business Process Improvement, Grow, Judy Ryan, Lori St. Clair, Organizational Alignment, Relationship Development, Run, Video /by Judy Ryan

Judy Ryan, Human Systems expert and Lori St. Clair, Chamber of Commerce President, business owner and CFO for many organizations, team up to help viewers understand the power of using a blueprint process to bring about alignment and positive, productive change.

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Leveraging Systems to Pursue Goals

February 4, 2016/in Academy (Paid Membership), Business Process Improvement, Live Well, Operations, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Tom Ruwitch, Video /by Judy Ryan

Want control, consistency, organization and efficiency? This presentation guides you to see how systems help you achieve abundance, freedom, work/life balance and respect.

Content Marketing expert Tom Ruwitch opens his presentation describing how he applied a social intelligence system that enabled him and his team at MarketVolt to consider a variety of approaches people use for solving problems. They did this with and for their team so that values and ways of operating were not inadvertently violated or neglected. By adopting this human systems process, his organization’s meetings become shorter, easier and of higher quality. He uses this story to springboard into other examples of how he has and continues to use systems to ensure his company and the clients they serve are effective in running, growing and living well in their business too. In this presentation, Tom describes the following examples of a:

RUN System: He shares how he used new systems to improve his customer retention ratings and how facing any and every business problem with a system-based solution inspires innovation.

GROW System: He shares how he used a systems approach to integrate lead generation processes from initial contact through the entire funnel cycle so he and his employees could get prospects into their database and stay on top of who is doing what and how.

LIVE WELL System: He shares a system he created and employs that enables him to personally work productively, in a healthy and balanced manner, and get more done.

Tom Ruwitch cites his many successes to his use of systems and recommends that no matter what systems chosen, it matters that each business owner determine them for how to RUN, GROW and LIVE WELL in the business. He recommends everyone to get support; the people and information to help you create a standardization approach in all areas of your life and work.

For support in defining your content marketing plans and sustainable systems within them, contact expert Tom Ruwich at MarketVolt by phone 314-993-3732 ext 18, by email at tom@marketvolt.com or visit his website www.marketvolt.com

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Video: Don’t Hold up Progress… Hold up Your End of The Bargain!

September 8, 2015/in Academy (Paid Membership), Judy Ryan, Live Well, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Video /by tomruwitch

Human Systems expert Judy Ryan opens her presentation talking with the audience about their pre-work, asking if they did or did not do it and more importantly, why? She focuses on the internal and external communication that each had prior to the program, asking each person to consider if what mindset they decided from when making a decision about this request and others. She points out how each party in an exchange has a part to play in the success of the interaction. She focuses on:

How to be authentic in teamwork. Sometimes we act like we are agreeing with someone or avoid responding to them or their request in order to avoid possible conflict, doing something they don’t want or being criticized
A tool to communicate accountably when giving and receiving a request. Not only is it important to make a request with complete clarity, it is equally important to answer a request with complete clarity too.
A tool to communicate frustrations around accountability. Judy shares ways to communicate concerning frustrations in a way that indicates what behavior is causing frustration, why you want things to be different and how to ask for specific behavior changes.
A tool to take responsibility for results you obtain when attempting to gain cooperation. The thermometer exercise demonstrates that we often blame others rather than considering our own inability to be influential or remain determined to become so through trial and error until we achieve success.

In this presentation, Judy Ryan provides participants with many hands-on tools that empower each to take full responsibility for conversations, and ensure they are likely to lead to accountable agreements.

Judy Ryan is owner of LifeWork Systems. She is an award-winning trainer, consultant, coach, keynote presenter and columnist. Judy works with progressive thought leaders, executives and change agents who want to succeed by building healthy culture and highly productive teams. If you would like Judy’s support, you can reach her at Judy@LifeWorkSystems.com, visit her website www.LifeWorkSystems.com or call her at 314.239.4727

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Three Skills to be a Successful Entrepreneur

December 12, 2014/in Blog (Free Content), Jared Peno, Live Well, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Stephen Hager, Tom Ruwitch /by Jared Peno

No man is an island. No business is either. It’s helpful to learn from those who are a few steps ahead or are walking stably beside you. Now is the time to accelerate progress through networking and collaboration in order to enjoy exponential improvements and growth. Our panel of fourteen experts offers invaluable insights into the question: What are three priority skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?

From our Experts:

Tom Ruwitch

1. Persistence... Entrepreneurs are bound to fail from time to time in their journeys. You can't quit the first time you fail.

2. Interpersonal skills... You must work well with others if you want to be a successful entrepreneur. Working alone in a garage is a mythical image.

3. A willingness to let go and delegate… You can't do it all yourself. Build a team. Establish structure. Don't try to juggle it all.

Stephen Hager

1. Fire in your belly to do something different, better and take-on risk

2. A picture of success, vision and desired outcomes with leaky boundaries

3. Surround self with people smarter and different than you who support your picture of success

Adam Kreitman

1. The ability to sell

2. The ability to delegate

3. The ability to learn from failure (or, better yet, the failures of others)

Steve Smart

1. The ability to lead with vision: The ability to see, define and rally others to a future state is critical for long-term success.

2. The ability to incorporate the right talent: No one can do it all on their own. It becomes critical to recognize that fact, develop a high performing team and delegate well.

3. The ability to manage change: With a growing business, change is happening all over. Within the organization, within the industry and in the business world in general. Being able to manage change and lead the organization in the midst of it is important.

Jared Peno

Along with personal traits such as perseverance, self-motivation, and focus, I think having the following skills is vitally important to an entrepreneur's success:

1. First, you must have a marketable service or product. If you don't, then you have nothing to sell and no platform for becoming an entrepreneur.

2. Second, you need to have vision. When you are starting out, take advantage of your ability to adjust to demands and trends quickly; always have an eye for opportunity.

3. Lastly, and I believe most importantly, you need to be able to grow your personal network. Entrepreneurs sell solutions and the more people you know the more people you can potentially help. Your worth as an entrepreneur is directly tied with how well and how many people you can help. Creating an ever-growing network of people allows for more relationships and more opportunities for you to solve problems.

These are just a few of the Partner responses.

Check out this article in the academy to get all responses

Video: The Gateway to Dreams

December 5, 2014/in Blog (Free Content), Karen Hoffman, Live Well, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Video /by Karen Hoffman

Have a dream you’ve always wanted to fulfill but felt was impossible? Don’t be too hasty giving up on it…

Dream Champion, Queen of Possibilities, and Innovator Karen Hoffman has always looked for systems to help people discover possibilities not seen at first glance by the majority of people. She encourages viewers by her magical stories about:

Finding money for people who are not normally able to find it
Engaging in deeply satisfying exchanges of energy and services through barter
Reviewing and choosing new and often better life priorities by rallying and leveraging leveraging personal setbacks and crisis
Living from what you enjoy doing and being who you are unconditionally
Powerful books with game-changer and life-enhancing themes
Recognizing and seizing opportunities life presents even if they seem to big and scare you
Generosity and friendship that magnifies success and progress
Dreams currently being actualized due to collaboration and commitment

As founder of Gateway to Dreams, Karen Hoffman continues helping people to achieve rapid fulfillment of their dreams through relationships and collaboration. She provides the space, the connections, the ideas, the enthusiasm and proven processes for making positive dreams happen. You can contact Karen at Karen@cityofexperts.com

Video: Recipe for a Great Presentation

December 3, 2014/in Blog (Free Content), Fred Miller, Grow, Innovation and Creativity, Relationship Development, Selling, Video /by Amber Hanke

Presentations normally scare us even though they are the doorway leading to business, career and leadership opportunities. Get your recipe for confidence and success

Speaker, author and presentation expert Fred Miller is as delicious in his speaking delivery as the cake he discusses and shows you at the opening of his presentation. He packs a wealth of valuable ideas and practices into this brief topic on creating a repeatable, successful presentation every time you speak. In it, he addresses the importance of:

Compelling your audience to be open, charmed and curious within the first minutes
Crafting your title and slides using images and text effectively
Impacting your audience immediately with an introduction that speaks to the needs and desires of your audience and gets their attention
Using questions to make a strong bid for audience participation and engagement
Providing valuable points and reinforcing them with powerful and humorous stories to make you irresistible to your target market
Using your presentation slides as a support tool without them being a crutch
Demonstrating cohesiveness in your message through a solid construction of your topic
Managing audience questions strategically with timing and composition of your invitation
Ending on a positive, memorable and engaging note so your audience remembers what’s best about you and your services.

Fred E. Miller is an entertaining, intelligent and thought-provoking speaker, author, and presentation coach. His website iswww.NoSweatPublicSpeaking.com and you can contact him at Fred@NoSweatPublicSpeaking.com

Video: Effective Networking

September 8, 2014/in Academy (Paid Membership), Live Well, Mark Brimer, Relationship Development, Video /by Mark Brimer

Meeting people and connecting in a memorable and caring manner is truly an art. Consistent, responsible and purposeful strategies make Mark Brimer more than qualified to guide others in the process of effective networking. In addition to running a successful business, he walks the talk, citing many examples from his own experience.

Entrepreneur and networking expert Mark Brimer provides a hands-on, strategic presentation on how to prepare and engage in effective networking before, during and after events. He helps all he meets, including those attending this presentation by immediately imploring each to consider the…

Vast amount of people you know and may not realize are in your network
Number of people who likely don’t know what you do and how to educate them
Three industries that are good referrals or industries for you
Best connected people in your network and how to approach them
People willing to buy-in to what you do and connect you to the people you want to meet
Top three people who would be the best to buy in to what you do and promote you
Places and associations that can net you new referrals and how to mine them
Hobbies, volunteers and associations that are hidden resources for referrals
List you create that best describes your ideal prospects and helps you to ask for them
Set of questions to engage your prospects in a reciprocal and supportive relationship
Value you provide when you become a rich resource for people by generously providing introductions
List of the type of people you’d like to meet and how to communicate this to others
Importance of finding a way to be memorable in a positive, creative or funny way
Quick blurb or elevator pitch you use to introduce yourself creatively enough that become curious about you and remember you
Importance of being prepared no matter how prepared others are
Strategy to get others to ask for your card and help you
Value of demonstrating your helpfulness first through helping others grow their business
Importance of asking others what you can do for them outside of what you do and then providing service regarding their answer as fast as possible
Ways to create win/win dynamics so people talk about you even when you’re not there
Commitment to find out quickly who you can introduce to the person in front of you
Importance of really knowing people in your social networks so your connections are highly helpful
Number of new customers you need within a year
Need to attend weekly networking groups and set up one-on-one meetings
Goal to leave every event with a specific number of new opportunities
Value of reciprocity thinking and behaving
Practice of considering who you can connect with next
Need to be reliable and consistent
Targets to keep in mind and doing your homework on them so you can find out all the connections
Compliments and mindfulness you need to provide your referral sources
Need for possibility thinking so you are open to connections you could never predict could happen when you bring someone or introduce people
Need to follow-up in a responsible and excellent way, including sending thank you notes
List of people you can hand out written requests for introductions within their networks
Platinum rule, which is finding out how others want to be treated and provide that to them
Consistency of habits and routines in networking and meeting with people
Tricks you draw upon in order to remain positive and personable no matter what is going on in your life
Ways to track connections and be a connection others want to track
Need to consistently be memorable enough to be in first and second place of people doing what you do
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Do you like to be catered to? Delegate the job of office supplies, including pricing, selection and delivery to your business, off your plate so you can focus on more important tasks. Mark Brimer will help you free up and better use your time. Email him at markbrimer@officesupplysolutionsllc.com, go visit his website at www.officesupplysolutionsllc.com, or call him at 314-227-6771

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Video: Connecting

September 8, 2014/in Academy (Paid Membership), Dream Teams, Karen Hoffman, Live Well, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Run, Video /by Karen Hoffman

Karen Hoffman, entrepreneur, business owner and Chief Possibilities Officer for Gateway to Dreams is sometimes referred to as the Kevin Bacon of St. Louis. Even as a child and young person, connecting was a common practice she engaged in with passion, naturally and often. These days, Karen fully utilizes technology to help her track and maintain information on those she’s met so her relationships remain fresh, real and authentic. She asserts that each of us can develop great skill in connecting with others.

Karen draws upon her copious experience as a seasoned connector and lover of people as well as industry data to express the following tips and strategies for making positive, lasting and mutually supportive connections:

The greatest investment in your business is the positive personal connections you foster through use of positive energy so commit to be positive
Recognition of the gifts and strengths in others and unconditional acceptance and love of people accelerates progress in business
Cultivating and sharing positive words, thoughts and attitudes about people is key to making connections quickly and easily
Our attitude and energy is a felt experience with others and we are responsible for what we create
Invite and share values and priorities early in the conversation so you can determine where you easily bridge with those around you and feel connected right away
Pay attention to the level of stress in your body so you can slow down, relax and be present
Pay attention to the strengths and weaknesses in your personality so we can regulate and draw upon them effectively
Practice how to catalog and track business cards you give and receive
Provide gift certificates and other giveaways at events
Cultivate the art of listening well to others, suspending judgment and paying attention to what excites and matters to them
Fall in love with people and enjoy the energy exchange you both experience
Be more interested in other people than trying to get them interested in you
Create strategies for how you want to stay connected and follow-up after an event, including how you will manage the information you collect and keep relationships alive and authentic
Use innovative and memorable ways to solidify your connections through mail or packages or other ways to impress your new connections
Engage in email introductions to support your connections

Karen Hoffman is founder of Gateway to Dreams, an organization designed to connect and promote people so they can live their dreams and provide their valuable services to the world. Call her today at 314.503.6376 or email her at Karen@cityofexperts.com

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Nurturing Customer Relationships

July 3, 2014/in Bill Prenatt, Blog (Free Content), Branding & Pricing, Cathy Sexton, Glenda Woolley, Grow, Innovation and Creativity, John Eyres, Personal Development, Relationship Development /by Amber Hanke

Learn how and why specialized experts and business owners create habits to nurture and expand relationships with their existing customers.

Serving customers and setting an intention to create a satisfying experience with them engenders ongoing loyalty and often-extraordinary results. Being grateful and mindful about your customers and attentive to their needs, translates into strong relationships that are mutually positive and supportive. Some likely results: your customers develop business for you. They like you, they trust you, they continue to buy from you and they refer others to you. Most important of all, developing caring habits that keep them happy ultimately make you happy too. Benefit from the experience of our experts who offer you a range of ideas to try out for your benefit and those you serve.

From our Experts:

John Eyres

I like to EMAIL out new and interesting trends I feel would benefit some of my current and past clients. This is a very positive way to help them and help me keep in touch with them. I think they really appreciate the way I send them specific information tidbits they can use in their business.

Cathy Sexton

I send an email every week with a productivity tip of the week that brings value and is quick and easy to read. I get a lot of positive feedback.

Glenda Woolley

I like to give more than my customers are expecting. When opportunities arise to support them in unconventional ways they don’t anticipate, more than a working relationship develops. We also become friends.

Bill Prenatt

Many years ago I had a colleague who said, "Do the best you can and do a little bit more.”

My goal in working with my clients is to make them feel special...like they are my only client in the world. I also want them to trust me deeply.

Doing what I say I'm going to do, when I say I'm going to do it, is important to me. They don't care what I know unless they know that I care.

These are just a few of the partner responses.

Check out this article in the Academy to get all of them.

For further information, support and advice from thirty experts on this topic and many others, become a member of the e4e community by visiting our website at www.e4ecommunity.com

Moving from Victim to Victory Consciousness

March 21, 2014/in Blog (Free Content), Change Management, Judy Ryan, Personal Development, Relationship Development, Run, Spiritual Well Being /by Judy Ryan

The job of a good leader is to help a person become responsible by transferring responsibility to them so they live their purpose.

As a child deeply in love with nature, living on the edge of a park, and the fifth of six children, I knew a lot about chaos, the beautiful, free, creative and exhilarating kind. Starting out free to explore from infancy, school at age five felt like bitter confinement and at times crushing domination, and was the first time I was acutely aware of the down-side to our civilization process. As a result, I have always been drawn to unorthodox concepts of how people might form community, develop into good, contributing, caring citizens who are empowered to be victorious in their lives. In the last 30 years I have turned that awareness into an obsession (and a company), leading to questions that have since liberated my life and the lives of others.

How can we shift the civilization process so that rather than diminish people and demean the human spirit, each person is assisted in expanding into their wholeness?
What can we do to create a world in which it feels safe to be powerfully influential, inventive, vulnerable, creative and collaborative so that we are authentically free co-creators?
What does an organization look like in which people thrive rather than simply survive?
How do we avoid that which makes us feel and act like victims and rebels and absorb that, which makes us empowered, contributing and accountable?

It’s clear our current organizational structures are not working well. News headlines make us all too aware of the meaning of the term dysfunctional within schools, families, businesses and institutions. Schools struggle to effectively educate, many businesses, marriages and families are in a state of crisis. And then there’s the current state of health care, the economy, welfare, our judicial systems, the environment, and governments, to name a few.

Additionally, a requirement for mutual cooperation is essential as we expand our increasingly technological and global community. We are evolving at an accelerated pace which creates greater stress and a pressing need to be more inter-dependent and streamlined in our evolution. What once took years and even decades to create now takes only months or days and our outdated organizational systems can’t keep up with our present or future. What’s the answer?

Recently, in studying a variety of organizational models, I was delighted to discover a human system that is synonymous with the work of my company LifeWork Systems. The model is called a chaord, derived from a combination of the words chaos and order. In a chaord, all the best within human beings and all manner of systems are honored and focused towards what is both most meaningful and effective.

Leading scientists from many disciplines have recently discovered that life itself thrives on the edge of chaos with just enough order to give it patterns we have taken for granted and assumed developed in a linear, plodding manner. It’s just not true. Much of what exists in nature formed in both a complex and simultaneous way. In other words, a variety of systems acting independently worked in harmony to rapidly collaborate and create what could not otherwise occur. Nature literally explodes with creativity and cooperation. What’s key is that each element involved in any healthy system not be confused nor impeded in living to their distinct purpose, values and vision.

A chaord is similar to this beautiful discovery in nature; when people share power, are equipped to co-create change, and independently self-govern, then everyone can harmoniously blend available chaos with order for rapid, effective change. In ordered chaos, each person is first and foremost purpose-oriented, focused on individual and group purpose, values and visions. Next, everyone is organized to expediently harness the creativity, gifts, initiative and collective talents available in service to that purpose or vision. Ordered chaos is to vision what a bow and arrow is to a target. Control is released so the arrow can literally fly to the target. This is the path from victim to victor.

What does this mean specifically? Organizations operating as a chaord function by a set of principles in which power is shared, knowledge and initiative are distributed at all levels and self-governing, socially and emotionally intelligent individuals and teams work independently to accomplish their goals with faith in each other to deliver their part. Imagine homes, educational institutions, community organizations and businesses in which adults and children learn to share decision-making, governing, and whole tasks are delegated to individuals and teams independently and yet, interdependently.

In this system internal motivation, purpose, vision and self-management are top priorities that replace traditional command and control, linear top-down managing so that joyful participation from passion and purpose reign. I have successfully created this very system in my own family and in client sites, including businesses, non-profit organizations, churches and schools.

During the first half of the 21st century, it was the practice of parents to shape the minds and hearts and lives of their children and to a large extent this is still a worthy role. At that time however, this was out of balance. There was something crucial usually missing in the formula for influencing children’s lives. Too much emphasis was focused on the shaping of the child and not enough on the child’s individual internal motivation, inductive reasoning and discovery and development of their unique purpose, values and vision for their life. They were not developed into leaders and proactive participants as part of their rearing. The result: Many adults turn into people who are out of touch with their ability to make choices from internal motivation and instead feel like “victims” to the whims and preferences of others. Their internal roadmap is buried and their power atrophied.

A result from my experience of my childhood and the well-intentioned, control-driven attempts by my parents, other adults, and educators, to make me a good citizen, was an unbalanced need to do what my parents and other authorities wanted from a sense of fear and disempowerment. I have come to realize many others experience the same. Maybe that’s why Brene Brown, renounced expert researcher on Shame and Vulnerability states,

"We are the most over-weight, over-medicated, in-debt, addicted cohorts in the history of the world."

The emphasis on shaping human beings from the outside in, is costing us more than we could ever imagine and at the root of co-dependency, shame, repression, suppression, addiction and many neuroses. It is at the root of victim consciousness. When parents raise children this way and educators teach students this way and managers manage employees this way, there grows a disconnection between the one leading and the one being led, and a disconnect within each person.

During that era and today, the mainstream methods for how to lead others is still a source of much dysfunction. When we use a control-based approach for leading others, this is a form of over-protecting, pampering and spoiling. I’m not referring here to spoiling others with too many material goods but rather, with taking too much responsibility for the ideas, happiness, behavior, choices and results of those they lead.

In the words of psychologist Alfred Adler (father of individual psychology), “people often make the mistake of taking too much responsibility for other’s achievements and too much blame for their mistakes. They forget the person is always observing, interpreting and deciding for him or herself.” When we leave out the purposes and subjectivity of the individual, and don’t guide others in the wise use of their power, we are teaching others to be less responsible. What we protect we make weak and we should never do for others anything they are capable of doing for themselves.

The job of a good leader is to help a person become able to respond (responsible) in their life; to help them by transferring responsibility to them in such a manner that they discover their own high purpose and how to live it. Then they can do the same for others. It’s been my life’s work, first with my family, then in over 70 schools and now with many business and community organizations, to provide the missing tools and information that allows leaders to improve success in others and bring out the best already residing in those they lead.

We live in exciting times with tremendous opportunity to expand into the amazing, capable, creative human beings we are and to have fun alone and with others. A chaordic model is exciting because it provides meaningful uncertainties, risks, challenges and opportunities to develop leaders who contribute in ways that cannot be found in traditional models. Vision, with action, leads to infinite possibilities. It’s time to buckle up, and go for the ride of our lives. We are designed by nature itself to function within organized chaos on purpose when we are given the appropriate training and support for how to do so! We are meant to be victors, not victims!

Judy Ryan is Owner of LifeWork Systems and a human systems expert. Executives, community leaders and educators hire Judy and her company because they want the advantages of a healthy workplace. To contact her, you can call her at 314.239.4727, by emailjudy@lifeworksystems.com or on her website www.lifeworksystems.com

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What's the best thing that's happened? Appreciative inquiry is like enjoying flowers rather than despising weeds in the garden of life.

Einstein says we either live our life as though nothing is a miracle or as though everything is a miracle.

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Have a dream you’ve always wanted to fulfill but felt was impossible? Don’t be too hasty giving up on it…

Presentations normally scare us even though they are the doorway leading to business, career and leadership opportunities. Get your recipe for confidence and success

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Learn how and why specialized experts and business owners create habits to nurture and expand relationships with their existing customers.

The job of a good leader is to help a person become responsible by transferring responsibility to them so they live their purpose.

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