Inside Outside

What a great quote: "While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us." -- Ben Franklin

Old Ben lived and died over 300 years ago, way, way before any New Age guru started sharing "mass spirituality" and yet, nothing could be more spiritual in my eyes than this great quote. Great leaders and figures share great wisdom in different forms, different "brands" perhaps but the wisdom endures. What a guy was this Ben Franklin…

I ask you and I ask myself: how much effort are we putting into controlling what happens inside us and not just outside us in our daily routines, jobs and managing others?

And at times a Mastermind member needs to take a break…

Recently I received an e mail from one of the CEOs in the veteran DunetzMastermind group which I founded and have been running, now in its eighth consecutive year…
Parting is always difficult, but here is a way one of the other veteran CEO members put it in a return e mail: "…It was a pleasure having you with us and I believe that it will also be so in the future. In any case, he who enters our group is there forever, he can't leave, he just doesn't show up to the meetings."

I think this says it all..
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Dear friends,

It has been more than 2 years that I have been with you, two very significant years from my point of view.
After serving for 17 years in one place of work- rising to the position of a CEO of one of the corporation's subsidiaries, I found myself at a junction in my career, one in which I needed to make important decisions regarding my future path.

This group, the environment, this extraordinary group of people influenced me greatly over the last two years.
I found in this group a very heterogeneous mix of individual managers and business owners, some of whom may have very different views about certain subjects, who together, helped by superb and sensitive facilitation and management, offer a feeling of stability to each other.
I found myself sharing dilemmas and issues about 3-4 times during my period here, each time I was totally overwhelmed: by the openness of members, about the degree in which I was eager to share and open things up, and of course it goes without saying- what people had to say about it all.
I must say that I heard more than my share of "pearls of wisdom" that I am using today on a day to day basis.

Life takes us all on journeys to all kinds of places, I find myself today needed a break in the action.

I would like to thank each and every one of you that I was privileged enough to be a member of your group.

A special thanks to Ronnie, the mentor, the facilitator, the one whose hand steers and conducts it all. At times, he needs to discipline us when we revert to "misbehaving children" but he is always there to successfully bring us back to focus.

We shall meet again soon, all the best ahead."

C.

Just how powerful is storytelling in business?

VERY powerful… this short article is EXACTLY what I mean when I say storytelling- in its many variations- is really powerful in a business setting!
The more I hear presentations and people trying to make them, the more I am convinced that they are so far from understanding that a picture tells a thousand words and "painting a picture in a person's mind" does things a thousand times better!

Check it out:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3020606/dialed/nail-your-next-pitch-in-60-seconds?partner=newsletter

NAIL YOUR NEXT PITCH IN 60 SECONDS

WHY DID APPLE LOSE ITS HUMANITIES?

THE cASE CONNECTING THE LIBERAL ARTS TO TECHNOLOGY-EVEN IF YOU'RE THE BIGGEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3020609/leadership-now/why-did-apple-lose-its-humanities

When I read this article recently I immediately flashed back to 1989 when my good friend and housemate, Chris Bell, and I developed a concept at developing workshops on "global education" in schools and social settings.
It was our hope to get support to teach kids to understand the world more and more from a "we" perspective rather than a parochial, "I" and "you" are different so I need to "outdo you".
Our short-lived fundraising networking tour took us to a place I would never have thought of "Apple", to be more precise, "Apple University".
We spent an entire day with two fascinating Apple-people, just talking about our idea, our vision, our backgrounds and our hopes.

It was really strange getting so much time from a hi-tech company and even more strange to figure out what was "in it for them".

After reading this article I can re-connect… Apple used to believe that technology does not live alone but it is engrained in the life, mind and culture of human beings.
That was 25 years ago… according to this article, it is no longer… too bad, I thought it was really a fascinating journey to somewhere different, one close to my heart and vision…

What is always under our control?!

I got a great quote in my inbox today, a Chinese proverb:" "You cannot prevent the birds of sadness to fly above your head, but you can prevent them to nest in your hair."

What is it that we can always control,  and I mean ALWAYS?....
It is of course our reaction to things, we can't control anything else, there has never been a person on earth who can control the future.
Let's remember that the next time something gets dumped on our head that we did not ask for and never would...

To get out of "we are alone"…

Copernicus was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a  model of the universe which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center.
And yet how often do we find ourselves thinking that "we are the earth" and everything revolves around us.
Well it just ain't so…sometimes I think we need to be reminded that our "4 corners" is really rather limited- if we open up to the fact that there is a "sun" out there we may learn better, faster and more from others.

Of Course you are Creative, man!

Of Course you are Creative, man!

There is this thing that people think that they are not creative…not like "those guys".
I think that this is a bunch of nonsense! Of course there are and always will be people who excel at certain things more than others, creativity being one of them, but that does not mean that we are not all creative!
The biggest problem is the way we approach things- we don't know how to get the best out of ourselves, our employees, our situations, our opportunities.
 What we need is to learn to dialogue, question, approach and listen to things creatively….by the way, did you know that is exactly what happens in good coaching and masterminding?

Always on the the run…what about NOW?

It seems like we are always planning, figuring, anticipating and getting ready for something to take us a step to somewhere else.
Most of the time, however, we miss out on what is happening just NOW, seeing, hearing, relating to it----try looking at it a bit differently today and see what you find.
There may be some important insights just there in front of you- for your career, your job, your business and ….yourself!

Insights from yet another superb meeting of the "Managers Mastermind"

Just the other day I sent off a short e- mail to the participants of one of the wonderful "Managers Mastermind" groups that I facilitate and run. The e-mail contained some reflections of my own that I wished to share with the group…I am putting it up on my blog as I feel that it gives some insight as to what the actual value is in these unique groups:

From the e mail that I sent out:

1.    "I would like to point out that ,in my opinion, both of those members who shared their individual dilemmas did not come out with any "clear path" of what they need to do…this is not  the way of the mastermind in my book, this is not the value we must seek here! What DunetzMastermind does, when done professionally and correctly, is to empower the individual with new perspectives, vantage points, it challenges them and focuses them on questions from places they may never have looked! They get this from people who may know them exceedingly well as well as from people who just met them a few minutes back!

Uri and Osi (names have been changed for confidentiality) came to the group with their respective dilemmas or deliberations about making a decision, they had their own take on it…once the group started "to work" you can see that suddenly they had more options, they themselves decided  when and where they needed to put the foot on the gas pedal, suddenly they had feedback from 11 other managers at once (something so rare that most people don't get such a thing during their entire lives!). The minute they began sharing this out loud in the group (and I stress GROUP because many of us are accustomed to one on one discussions only with "confidantes"), that very minute something started to change for them, a certain clarification was in the air and it was really all theirs…

2.    Regarding the exercise we did in the group, in pairs and then with the full group, "One time I really screwed up…"- did you guys notice a certain pattern? Nearly all of us, in retrospect of course, had the feeling that "If I had only checked more, deeper, longer…or at all…with the customer, the employee, my boss, my partner, my supplier….things may have been different". There is a phrase that is found in the Jewish prayer of "Lecha Dodi" (as well as other places)- " The action always begins with the thought"…I am wondering as managers: how often does this really take place? How much thought, how deep and comprehensive are the thoughts that go into our actions? Are we really investing our time and energy in seeing the whole picture, different perspectives, asking others and gaining wisdom in making our decisions? Do we really have a hold on what is the price we pay for NOT doing this?

I think this is where DunetzMastermind is at its best for managerial discussion as a tool that does precisely that: brings perspectives that are often disregarded, passed over and not even given thought to…and these perspectives can make all the difference!

"Things that you see from "there" you can never see from "here".

Managers, listen up: learn relationships!

As one goes up the ladder of management technical expertise becomes a lot less important, knowing to communicate and build relationships A LOT more important.
This is a fact often overlooked by technical managers, about half of what we have in hi-tech, what a shame! We need you guys to be more aware of this earlier on, don't wait till your 45 and feeling like the "elder statesman", go out and build those relationships from the start. Don't know how to do it?
Drop a line, we will put you in the right frame of mind with the right tools real quick.
There is a huge price to be paid for those who don't get it- do you get it?

Success rate of 100% in job-hunt coaching with Ronnie Dunetz?!

This is something that I would never say and if I would hear it from somebody else, I wouldn't believe it- sounds "fishy" to me, arrogant, exaggerated marketing hype.
I don't say things like this, it is not professional in my book and it only creates illusion and lack of trust….however…on the other hand, if I look at the facts….

That is exactly what has happened with the last 6 people this year who came to me to help them find a job!
There is no doubt in my mind, as well as in the mind of the coachee, that our coaching process was critical in getting him/her to succeed.
I always caution coaching clients in saying that our coaching process is not a "contractor relationship", it can never be that way because there are so many parameters involved and the bottom line is that the coachee is the one out there doing (or not doing), moving things or not, changing paradigms or not, and most importantly, getting out of the comfort zone to make things happen!

Just the other day I got a phone call from a client, in his 40's, who who was coming off about 5 years of not really working as he was involved in his own start-ups that unfortunately did not come to fruition (you can imagine the stress on the him and family in such a situation). He came to coach with me so that he would have the benefit of a powerful, practical partnership to get him back into the work world.
I got the call, yesterday, "Ronnie, you aren't going to believe it, I got the offer I really wanted, a package that I could only have dreamed of, it's my life's dream!"

I couldn't stop from smiling for a long time afterwards, he went off to celebrate with this wife, I could only sit and recall the reasons why I had come to the coaching profession, what had driven me so ten years back and where I am today.
This was precisely it! A hundred percent success is something that does not exist in reality, but the many successes that I am part of, the tremendous changes that I can assist with, the transformation process in clients that manifest in the practical stuff (getting a job!) but also go much deeper…this is why I became a coach, this is where the thousands of hours of coaching have revolved around, this is why I am coach today and hope to be so for many others and many years ahead…