The second blade of the Windmill Theory within Powered By Change (PBC) is the People Blade. Although the blades are not sequential, but rather, inter-related and interoperable, it makes sense that once the company’s purpose has been identified, the right team of people are in place to be able to execute this through the creation of resonant products and supportive processes. This enables the entire windmill, and indeed the company, to operate optimally.

There appears to be an almost universal mantra espoused by many organisations that its people are its greatest and most important asset. It is frequently used for…

Integration of purpose refers to how well all stakeholders across an organisation understand what it is the company exists to do and how it does this. That is, the extent to which the specified purpose infiltrates everything the company does. Integration is the third sub-blade or component of Purpose and should be completed after Elevation and Specification. It is the final requirement needed to ensure the Purpose blade is effective and optimised. Once our elevated view of our main thing has been specified into tangible terms that people can understand, it needs to be integrated across the organisation. …

Specification is the second sub-blade of the Purpose blade that is outlined in Powered By Change (PBC). Once we have elevated to discover our main thing, we need to specify precisely what our main thing has the purpose of doing. The reason for specification is to communicate the elevated purpose of your company in order to equip it with qualities that enhance its agility and ability to respond to change. It is worth thinking about whether you are doing this with your business. If not it is probably a good idea to start as there is a direct, empirical link…

In clearly defining and understanding your purpose the first consideration is elevation. That is how you can elevate your purpose. Before doing this, however, you need to identify what you are truly in the business of doing. Within Powered By Change (PBC), the first sub-blade in the Purpose blade is Elevation. It is the first for a reason. If a company is not able to elevate then it is absolutely limiting its ability to innovate and adapt to change. …

The first blade of the Windmill Theory within Powered By Change (PBC) is the purpose blade. The reason it is the first blade is that the purpose of an organisation needs to permeate throughout its entirety and to essentially become its DNA in order for it to operate effectively. Arguably the term purpose has become overused and oftentimes misunderstood. Quite often purpose is portrayed as a tagline that is used in a PR campaign. More recently companies have been defining purpose in terms of a ‘social purpose’. Whilst noble and admirable, the existence of a social purpose doesn’t really translate…

Given the current global economic crisis that has been sparked from a health pandemic, the notion or idea that change is the only constant has never been more apt. In fact, the changes that are occurring are so rapid it’s like walking on shifting sands. It is our response to how we deal with such change that will make all the difference and determine our failure or survival. Ultimately, success is about how much we change and adapt whilst failure is about how much we resist and don’t change. …

I’ve been trying my hand at improvisational comedy of late. From being a fan of London’s famous Comedy Store, I simply couldn’t resist taking one of the 20 places at their 5-week masterclass. Although I didn’t know what to expect, the insights were even more profound than I thought possible. We started with learning the principles of improv. One could think that the first rule could be to ‘think of something funny and say something funny’, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. …

In all the busyness of my life, travelling all over the world, one of the most important things I do is to stop and sit quietly. There are many techniques of doing this but ultimately it’s about the control of your breathing. This is a yogic discipline with origins in ancient India, called Prāṇāyāma.

In Sanskrit this is written as राणायाम and is composed from two Sanskrit words: prāṇa meaning life force (the Chinese call it ‘chi’, the Polynesians ‘mana’, the Native Americans ‘orenda’, and the ancient Germans ‘od’), and either yama (to restrain or control the prāṇa, implying a…