Reblogged from Nico Liebenberg:

Nico Liebenberg (MA Psychology), CEO and owner of Dust consulting in conjunction with BBD, one of the largest privately owned IT companies in South Africa, developed a Personality app for the iPhone. The personality app, ‘Personality at work’ measures three major dimensions of a person’s personality, i.e. Life Orientation Thinking Process, and Preferred Lifestyle The app works on scales of opposites and gives an indication of the following sub-elements of a person’s personality: 1. Life orientation …

In this extract from the talk I give a brief overview on historical highlights that shifted our paradigms and brought us to the place we occupy today in human history.

The talk is divided in 3 ‘smaller’ segments of 6 minutes per talk for ease of download. You can either listen to all three segments on-line or download them from Box.net for at-leisure listening later.

To download the talk, click here.

It serves leaders well to see organisational change as a process.

A process is never a static event, never a once-off. It is continuous, always moving in a forward motion. All of life is a process, everything is becoming more of what it is meant to be. In every process inherent potential is released to express the true nature of being.

All living systems, whether individuals, families or our organisations are constantly in a state of change and becoming. No change initiated is done ‘from scratch’. Wherever you are today in your organisation, you are part of a varied number of processes going on in and around you. Of some you are the Initiator and of others you are a constant Participant.

It is a reality that everything happens around you – or me. This is no statement of arrogance or self-centeredness. This is a statement of truth. I am truly and genuinely the only one that can interpret my reality. The same could be said of you. All of life truly happens in and around you – or me.

This being the case, all the processes you can identify, you are part of. Either as an Observer or as a Participant. None of those processes are completely new. Not because King Solomon said there is nothing new on earth, but because all today’s processes came forth from yesterday’s. What happens today is a continuation of yesterdays happenings. Life unfolds onto itself and it is projected forward from itself. There is always a context for todays happenings and the context came from our yesterdays.  Every great achievement, every great breakthrough, every great discovery, every great process of change facilitated has a history that precedes it.

All today’s greatness was born from a process that brought it to where it is today. There are no vacuums surrounding the birth of greatness. As all systems are inter-connected, so are all time connected.

As the wise man proclaimed, ‘No man is an island’.

The parts and whole of your organisation.

It is imperative in our understanding of organisational change to recognise the parts of a system, the relationship of the parts with one another and how those parts constitute the whole. A paradigm that understands inter-connectedness can help organisational leaders recognise how different parts or sub-systems of their organisations fit together and relate to one another to form the whole.

The whole.

Some people have a preference for seeing the whole, ‘big picture’ first. Great leaders always consider the whole. This movement of thinking is inductive, moving from seeing the whole first, then the parts. Intuitive leaders have the ability to see the ‘big picture’ sooner than most.

The parts.

Some people have a preference for seeing the parts, the ‘detail’ first. Great leaders also consider the parts. This movement of thinking is deductive, moving from understanding the interaction of the parts first, then the whole. The ‘hands-on’ manager has a great ability to work the detail that serve the whole.

See the whole, because in seeing it you will be able to construct the overall strategy of your organisation. In the same ‘breath’ see the parts, because they reveal how the overall strategy can be executed.

One word of advice to leaders. Refrain from ever thinking realities in your organisation are ‘either…or’. Your contributions are much more valuable and your decision-making more relevant when you think in terms of ‘both…and more’.

A Christian mystic walks down the street of New York after a forty day fast. He approaches a hot dog vendor and says, “Please make me one with everything”. The hot dog vendor makes him a hot dog with all the sauces on his stand. The mystic hands him a $ 100 note as the vendor hands him his hot dog. After a rather awkward silence the mystic asks, “Where is my change?” The hot dog vendor replies, “You, of all people should know that true change only comes from within”.

All forms of life, including organisations, are confronted with this never-ending process of change. Change, although a  difficult experience for most organisations, is not an unique, isolated experience.

Change is always everywhere.

‘Inter-connectedness’ should fundamentally be part of the mind that thinks about organisational change. The same goes for those living and working in organisations. Especially key decision makers.

Influence always comes with the territory of leadership.

The ‘higher up’ you are in the organisation, the more responsibilities you have, but also the greater is your influence on what happens ‘further down’. Forget that reality and you will lose your ability to have significant, positive influence. Leaders have influence, the true question is, “Is it positive or is it negative? Does it stimulate growth or does it stunt growth? Are your people with you or are they against you?”

Leaders should constantly be reminded of the profound effect they have on the sub-systems of their organisations. They make one decision and it filters through the whole organisation, it touches everyone and everything. One way a Leader can stay ‘in touch’ with his influence on the organisation is by embracing the paradigm that believes everything is inter-connected.

Change is a constant. A constant never changes. Change is forever!

In life we have two critical constants – God and change. Apart from God, what won’t change is everything will change. It’s guaranteed! The past is forever flowing forward in new permutations of being. Change brought us to today it will take us to tomorrow.

For all systems – individuals, families and organisations alike – this is true.

We have more grace to influence the direction of change, than change itself. Always humbled by the truth that our visions of the future remain blurred by the current realities we see. Our paradigms, individually and collectively, are changing.

Everything – you, me, our organisations – are being moulded into another form of being. Constantly.

Today’s paradigm of preference transforms into being the womb of tomorrow’s new paradigm of liking. Our paradigms always assist us to understand the truth, but humility reveals to those who can see that not one paradigm is perfect or could be so complete that it understands all.

Not even yours, no matter how bright you become to be. “We know partly” – a paradigm always worthy of our embrace.

If you want to know your personality type, download this Excel document. After you have completed the questionnaire, send it to Nico at nicoliebenberg@dustconsulting.com and he will send you an analysis of your personality type.

After the 5-day training sessions the sales people on the course completed a survey that rated the training. Here are three of the results.

On the question, ‘Did you enjoy the training?‘, this is how they responded…

On the question, ‘Should everyone go on this training?‘, this is the response…

On the question, ‘Can you apply what you have learned during the training?‘, this is the response…

Overall it seems the people really enjoyed and benefited from the ‘Emotional Intelligence training for Sales people‘.

Thank you to GSA and everyone that attended the training. It was awesome indeed!

To see more of what GSA is doing, click on their logo (below)

Dust consulting is an Organisation Development practice headed by Nico Liebenberg (MA Psychology), an Executive Coach and Motivational Teacher.

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• Executive coaching, click here

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