The Larsen Group

The Power of Authentic Partnerships:  The highest levels of partnership from personal life connections to those that fuel successful business start with our operating with a mutually agreed upon intention, including both parties taking care of themselves and one another, and never “keeping score” to find evidence of one party being right/the other wrong.  Partners focus on transparency, and spend time articulating the behaviors to support the intention – from how to make decisions, resolve conflicts, celebrate successes, to importantly course correct or recover from setbacks.  Mark and Zara have done 130 segments together – not that’s partnership!  

Do You give up Your Power to Others?:  In order to not fall prey to comparing ourselves to others or second guessing ourselves, trusting in our better selves and doing the very best we can at the time is quintessential to maintaining a positive influence and be in service to others.  Appreciate your own uniqueness, the good qualities and the flaws, which add value and are the root of self-confidence.  A true position of power encompasses helping others be the strongest they can be – be in your strength vs. it ever being all about you.   

Being You Instead of Being All Things to All People:  Despite the fact we enroll in leadership development and training programs, or as an athlete or performer enlist the assistance of skills-focused coaches, it is very important to not lose sight of who we are.  Be wary of measuring your worth against others such that you get trapped into “not being enough” thinking.  Instead, identify what your unique qualities and abilities are to serve others and move forward.  p.s. Just because you are unique, however, don’t think the world revolves around you. 

Healing the Three Organizational Diseases – Judgment, Fear and Rumor:  During times of internal and external organizational change leaders need to be on the watch to prevent the viral spread of the cancerous diseases of judgment, fear and rumor.  Once we form an opinion against another person that they are not doing enough, we tend to want to prove ourselves right and only see the flaws vs. the 95% they may do right.  Add in fear and there may not be a safe way to clear the air, but instead we fall prey to rumors that then mask what truth is.  Having the courage to own our own behaviors and enlist the support of others to create recovery plans leads to accountable actions.

Leading Urgent Business Transformation:  Leaders are expected to take ownership for new levels of performance, cost savings and responsiveness, often in an environment of rising demands and limited resources.  The rapid implementation of new solutions and technologies in the face of legacy systems, resistance and old behaviors requires new habits of collective execution – how we treat each other, coordinate, communicate (and not over communicate), practice handoffs and recovery. In essence, working together in new ways can in a short amount of time enable sustainable transformation – organizational culture change – to emerge.

Dealing with Life When It Gets in the Way of Living:  Despite our best of intentions and diligence in constructing plans, life shows up.  An unexpected incident can feel like an interruption or an annoying-to-threatening disruption, when in truth even the best-of-intentioned plans are temporary!  Recovery plans include more than framing up risks and mitigating, they include acknowledging human error, being flexible and how disruptions and how we handle them are necessities and opportunities to be positive, take a deep breath, learn and potentially redirect – in a more compelling direction with richer outcomes than we could have possibly imagined at the onset.

You Really Can Walk Up an Escalator, Play Big by Keeping the Big Picture: Sometimes our history can really get in our way and keep us playing small.  We get caught up in worry and fear, or our “old” selves show us getting us caught up in the situation.  This prevents us from thinking clearly and finding an easy solution to a challenge, restricting an ability to show up much bigger than we used to be.  Be bold.  Embody a stronger sense of purpose to stay true to our mission.  Being prepared for an opportunity does not mean thinking in terms of your agenda, but rather staying anchored in the new or even better you.

Turn Your Plan for Change into an Experiment for Improved Results:  A plan is desirable to advance from setting a vision to putting things in motion, but if we are not careful the plan can take on a life of its own and make us rigid, with expectations of perfection and pretending to know what we don’t know.  This is particularly worrisome when our desired outcome involves achieving stretch goals. Shifting from the bounded frame of a plan to a more flexible frame of experimenting levels expectations and guides our ability to maintain a level of curiosity and try different approaches “in the moment.”  Some of our best work surfaces while performing live as opposed to rehearsing.    

Building Your Inner Strength: Once we set a vision picture for success and surround ourselves inside and out with the right support systems, the real work begins.  Building muscle to maintain the course is not unlike athletes who first break down muscle to build new capability.  Things aren’t always going to go smoothly.  It is best to be prepared for downturns or upsets, not viewing such as negative or “the enemy”, but opportunities to build strength.  We don’t have to worry about understanding it all, but rather spotlight the disturbance, emotionally release it, take the next step to keep moving, and reflect on what we learned. Keep focused on your intention.

Creating the Support You Need to be Successful in 2014 (Part 2):  Equipped with strength first from our inner support system, there are four levels from which to develop support from others: 1) Circle of Influence with those who share our vision, 2) An Accountability Partner, friend or colleague with whom we meet regularly to keep on another on track, 3) System of Support from those more senior in such a way that we are actually serving their needs along the way, and 4) Mentor or Coach, someone from who we expect guidance to help surface and address out blind spots. 

Creating the Support You Need to be Successful in 2014 (Part 1): In December, 2013, Mark discussed a process to acknowledge our 2013 successes from which to then frame up 2014 by starting at the end – how will we talk about ourselves and business change in January, 2015? To be successful we must create inner support to be able to course correct throughout the year. Normal mental frailties and "bright shiny objects" will show up to distract us, and we need to be prepared to stay clear, not become confused and fall in conflict with ourselves.