IAMX: a Leadership Process, a Compass
IAMX is represented by a compass that scales from individuals to teams and organizations - that enables everyone to be brilliant - without sacrificing health, happiness or the needs of any stakeholders in order to be more productive.
IAMX results in leaders at every level
IAMX results in leaders working to create better ways of doing business that are both meaningful and profitable at the same time.
Use IAMX for strategic planning, leadership development, organization development, career development and making sure strategy and tactics are aligned.
True Self, the center of the compass
True Self prepares you by centering your awareness in ways that allow you to feel more in control of your current situation and ready to handle whatever might happen - creating practical win/win experiences as you work instead of more conflict.
True North, the north of the compass
True North orients you by igniting your leadership in ways that align your energy, so you generate confidence in your strengths, clarity about what's most important, and courage to do what it takes to get where you want to go, both as an individual and in groups of all sizes.
True Self
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupèry
Start from Center
The center of the Compass (the "X") symbolizes the center of you, the parts of your inner self that shine when you tap into what makes you authentically you: your True Self.
Best Self
Your Best Self includes knowledge of what comes easily to you, what others come to you for, what you would do for free or forever if time and money didn't matter, because it's so good.
How much time do you spend being your authentic, Best Self?
What would it be like to be at your best most of the time?
Drama
Drama is the gray cloud around the center of the compass.
This area reflects the challenges we face that may weigh us down. These challenges could look like doubt about whether the work we're doing is having the impact we want. Or it could be conflict with a critical stakeholder.
These situations reflect the shadow aspects of ourselves - the self-critic, the blaming of others, the thoughts we have that what is happening - shouldn't be happening. These kinds of responses keep us from learning and cause us to be incapable of changing what's going on. And so the Drama continues.
All Drama is an opportunity for learning, healing, and growing. Drama informs and teaches us - to reach greater clarity on the brilliant parts of ourselves and others. Those human parts of others we judge as bad or wrong are simply a reflection of the parts of ourselves that have needs that aren't being met.
True Self Leadership
True Self Leaders are able to discern the difference between the Best Self and Drama aspects of themselves. With this discernment, you have the ability to influence what's happening, rather than reacting to the situation, circumstance, or person as an inevitable problem.
True Self Leaders are not at the mercy of events around them. Instead, they shape events - no matter what their role is in the situation because your title doesn't matter as much as who you are showing up as.
Drama is not bad!
Drama happens! We're human, so work and life are going to be messy. Your saying that Drama is bad and shouldn't be happening is getting in the way of you seeing the reality of what's going on. Denial gets in the way of your ability to influence. Stop blaming and start learning!
If Drama is not happening in your life, then you’re not stretching enough! Perfection is indeed the enemy of excellence.
How you deal with Drama is a choice. Drama is like signposts along your life journey, guiding you into deeper knowledge of who you are, what you want, and the creative expression of your most brilliant Best Self.
Increase time as your Best Self
Your goal as a True Self Leader is to be real: creating and learning. That means increasing the time you are centered in your Best Self and letting Drama be a learning experience.
The foundation of True Self Leadership includes:
- Choice: Know that pausing before you react gives you a choice in how you will influence a situation.
- Identity: Know that how you see yourself determines your capacity to achieve and create.
- Awareness: Know that awareness of where you're hanging out, in your Best Self and/or Drama, determines what's possible.
- Focus: Know that what you focus your energy from, your Best or Drama self, determines both your path and destination.
- Stories: Know that the difference between a true threat and a useful opportunity is determined by the stories you're telling.
- Action: Know that when you act from your centered Best Self, you'll create more than you could ever imagine with just your mind.
What we know matters but who we are matters more.
~ Brene Brown
True North
“Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.”
~ Jim Loehr
True North is the northern quadrant of the IAMX Compass.
Before starting any trip, it's important to know where North lies, so you can read your situation and accurately move forward toward your destination. It is a critical point of reference!
True North, using the IAMX Compass, helps you get clear about your points of reference: your values, strengths, and motivations.
If you're moving forward without first checking-in with these parts of your unique Best Self, then you risk traveling miles off course without realizing it.
True North ensures you are clear, confident, and courageous in the steps you take, rather than randomly meandering off course. It's the most effective way of ensuring you've got the energy and momentum to get to where you want to go.
To work from your True North, the following individual aspects of yourself need to align with the place or places you work:
- VALUES: Align with the people you are working with.
- STRENGTHS: Align with the core competencies of your role.
- MOTIVATIONS: Align with the purpose your work is serving.
Working From True North Creates Aligned Energy
I know, you're probably thinking but where can I find a place like that to work? Or if you're a senior leader you may find yourself too busy to create a workplace that aligns in this way!
The problem with finding True North oriented workplaces is not that they don't exist, it's that most people have never learned how to create their work this way, or their workplaces. They do exist, and you can contribute to there being more!
True North Orientation, along with the rest of the IAMX Compass, guides you to aligned energy at work: IAMX workplaces.
Now is the Time For IAMX Workplaces
Knowing and aligning the True North of individuals, teams, and organizations is critical work needed to align the passionate engagement and the potentiated energy of everyone in a collective endeavor.
At IAMX workplaces:
- Everyone is working at their best, most of the time.
- Everyone is consistently winning; there are no losers.
- Everyone is generating a healthy Return On Investment (ROI) in both life-force energy and profit.
IAMX True North Orientation works because there is a synergistic, natural flow of life-force energy that is created when we orient from True North.
Elements of True North Synergy
True North Elements Defined
Strengths
Strengths are a combination of natural talent, knowledge, experience, and skills. As defined in the book, “Now, Discover Your Strengths,” strength is a “consistent near perfect performance in an activity.”
Examples of strengths: Connectedness (identifies with others and bridges gaps between people), Maximizer (notices what people do well and brings out their best).
Values
Values are those things that are most important and meaningful to us. They can be expressed through feelings and/or actions.
Examples of values: integrity, humor, trust, excellence, family.
Motivations
Motivations are the feelings of aliveness or inspiration we experience when our emotions are engaged.
Examples of motivations: resolving a workplace issue, creating opportunity for people in need, providing for our family, launching a new technology, learning something fun and new.
True North Synergies
Contribution
When we apply our strengths aligned with our motivations, we contribute to others from our Best Self. We become clearer about the ways we want to give our energies that are in integrity with who we are, and who we’re becoming and what will have the most impact for others.
Spark
When we align our motivations with our values, we’ll feel a spark of inspiration and creativity. We experience a return on investment or ROI on the energy we contribute, in the form of being engaged, alive, healthy, and nourished energetically by our contributions.
Meaning
When we find ways to use our values in alignment with our strengths, and synergize with our motivations, we experience meaning, fulfillment, or significance in what we do.
Tend to Your True North Energy
The more you tend to our True North energy, the more charismatic and attractive you will become, and things that support your creative expression and greatest contributions will naturally happen.
You will tend to your True North by to saying 'yes' to life-nourishing activities, and 'no' to life-depleting work, guided by knowing your values, strengths and motivations.
- Tend to your values and you will be clear.
- Tend to your strengths and you will be confident.
- Tend to your motivations and you will be courageous.
True North Orientation is what allows you to make sure your work and life are moving on a path that is right for you.
The IAMX Leadership Process
The IAMX Compass guides you to lead from your True Self center, feeling confident to move forward with the clarity of your True North - and from there you can lead with courage.
IAMX scales from individuals to teams and organizations, so you can create greater productivity, sustainable growth, and meaning and profit at the same time, for everyone.
North ~ Leadership
The North is where you get a lay of the land, and take a stand, where YOUR "X" marks the spot of being centered and brilliant, able to take on Drama including "unknowns" or "unpredictables," and move forward with clarity as you leverage the other features of the IAMX Compass. Because you're prepared and energized for this, your momentum is smarter and strategic, not just harder and tactical.
East ~ Vision
The East guides you to clarify and calculate both your current situation and vision/strategy/objectives that describe where you want to be. It gives you the impetus to navigate through Drama. Instead of being at the mercy of others, stuck in the churn of reacting to Drama, you're the hero(ine) of the story you want to experience.
South ~ Community
The South is where you genuinely connect with others and get clear about what support you need and who is doing what. You create strong, balanced relationships that mobilize collaboration. As a community you each learn to use your personal brilliance to successfully head in the same direction, establish a language you can all understand, and know you're on the same page together - never compromising personal integrity or sovereignty.
West ~ Integration
The West is where you establish goals and tasks in a plan that is an accurate translation of your vision/strategy/objectives because your vision hasn't been clouded by Drama! Because of the strategic and transformational leadership work you've done in the North and East, and because of the quality of your relationships in the South, you create processes and systems that can be trusted.
It's an emerging process
When using the IAMX Compass you always start from center with your True Self, and orient from your True North, and then head towards Vision, following through full cycles around the directions.
The process continues, not like vicious cycles of repeating drama, but more like the turning of each day: night, dawn, noon, dusk. And the turning of the seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall.
Access your whole self
You tap into all of the intelligences of your whole person, thus activating the highest levels of healthy and constructive power and potential of your teams.
This process amps up your success frequency, allowing you to create consistent learning and practical results.
Imagine if your professional path forward in work were to be lit up by your brilliance in an organization that can support you in being your best! It is possible and it is how extraordinary results and sustainable growth happen.
Clean and clear flow of energy
The IAMX Compass is a comprehensive and uncomplicated process that creates a clean and clear flow of individual and collective energy toward your vision.
It unites employees and organizations on a path of meaning and profitability from the very beginning of your work together. When an organization uses the IAMX Compass as a planning and discussion tool, it becomes clear that:
Alignment = All the Difference in the World
You can know that when everyone on a team, in a department, and in a organization is:
- starting from center
- using healthy and constructive power
- clear, confident, courageous
- on the same page
- using the same language
- and heading in the same direction
then you’ve got productivity and efficiency, and that means change sticks, people and profits grow, sustainability becomes a familiar well-worn path.
Isn’t that a better way to get things done? The IAMX Compass guides your work on a path where everyone wins. When an organization has a sense of both individual uniqueness and collective oneness, then:
Difference (True Self) + Alignment = Genius
The talents, skills, and perspectives of each employee leading from their unique True Self allows for creativity to flourish in how problems get solved, and innovation happens. You leverage the diversity of the genius and brilliance in your organization, while you accomplish your strategic objectives.
Companies Using the IAMX Compass Have Demonstrated Results, Such As:
- increase project completion rates,
- reduce staff turnover rates (from 100% to below 10%),
- increase employee engagement,
- creative responses to a changing and unpredictable marketplace,
- honest, productive, 2-way conversations, to increase resilience and ability to handle stress,
- sustainable growth and expansion with less work and browbeating,
- change that sticks.