Winter has chilled Melbourne in the past week with over 1m of snow falling on my beloved Mt Hotham hills.

I’m writing from Bali, visiting a dear friend temporarily living here and celebrating my (tropical) birthday next week. The lush green surrounds are relaxing and as always the food is stylishly presented and scrumptious. It brings a grin to my face seeing so much life, relaxing on the shores at sunset.

May all be well in your environs.

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I’ve been working with three organisations to have them become more focused and agile. Interesting the topic of conversation has increasingly been about roles – new roles at that.

Here are the insights ~

The Strategic Advisor + Performance Coach

I find working with high performing leaders fascinating and rewarding. Being in strategic conversations, using natural instinct to hone people’s aspirations into realistic business plans and actions, clearing their way when needed, seeing individuals fly and surprise themselves – it’s good fun.

Recently clients have been wondering ~

a) how growing organisations with high performers set themselves up to ‘self organise’ – the impossible dream that may be possible – where individuals can be self-led in a culture and environment that has them progress, perform, develop, enjoy life,…

b) what high performers need to succeed

c) how to differentiate an organisation to attract high performers

In high performance environments trust can be built quickly as people deliver what they say they’re going to, or maturely communicate and reset if they can’t, and agility can happen in part because individuals know what they’re fascinated by and what they’re good at, and communication can be direct with this undercurrent of respect and vision alignment.

When people are operating in these environs, new ways are required to support their progress, enjoyment and development.

Instinctively, and from experience, one of the solutions is having access to strong and respected supporters, guides, leaders and trusted peers to listen, to suggest practical solutions, and nudge (kindly, sometimes strongly).

Such people can use their intuition to sense what the person needs to gain progress (as an individual AND in their projects/activities/organisations), so they feel heard, supported, weight lifted off their shoulders, understood, appreciated, have clear direction and more.

Cue: [some aspects of] Wendy from the show “Billions” who’s known for contributing value that correlates directly to the company’s great success.

She’s a strategic advisor and performance coach who meets with individuals at set and spontaneous times and does all of the above. She’s there when needed to uplift performance and outcomes and involved in strategic decisions, planning and is constantly aligning people’s direction to the detailed vision.

In high performance environments people are motivated to improve so tailored support makes a difference. Perhaps your organisation could do with a character(s) like this?

(Hey Aussies, you can watch Billions on Stan)

The Digital Researcher role.

For close to ten years I’ve encouraged clients to engage a Digital Researcher in their organisation: a person who can track and explore trends, emerging tech, products and new entrants via relevant forums and sites such as Kickstarter, social media and their (expanding) wide network of industry and market experts. As delivery becomes faster / instantaneous, having a person delivering these insights (and inspiring others to do so) seems obvious. I’ve often worked with wise Eddie Harran to provide these services for clients.

Opening up to opportunities and being aware of the risks is good business. Get started!

Your role in this research. 

Being connected to what fascinates you as an individual affords a natural tendency to the research just mentioned.

An organisation of aligned individuals, all contributing insights to what’s happening, what’s coming and highlighting risks to be mitigated sounds great to me.

What has enthralled you online recently?

Enjoy these gems ~

10X your thinking. Sounds simple. It could be!

This may have you believing your BIG ideas are possible and lead you in to protecting your crazy thinking.

I love the idea of running fast with experience and instinct – perhaps that means checking business cases/plans at the door of the “crazy factory of your organisation” and getting on with bringing your moonshots to life.

There’ll be more of this happening in the future. “Here’s to the crazy ones”, hey Steve Jobs?

“This is a very short, roughly 10-minute, episode. It explains how to ..escape incremental thinking and think truly BIG. I loved it so much that I now listen to it on a regular basis as a reminder. Perhaps you’ll end up doing the same…. Astro is currently Captain of Moonshots (CEO) of X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory for building magical, audacious ideas that, through science and technology, can be brought to reality.” Tim Ferriss

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” — John Cage 

Thanks Derek.I love that Andō posted a reply – you may be interested to become a patron..

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Hey Aussies – I hope you meet James ~