After spending 14 years in corporate America, Geoff Bellman launched his consulting firm - 40 years ago. His consulting has focused on renewing large, mature organizations the likes of Verizon, Shell, and Boeing.
Geoff is also an author and has written such books as, The Consultant's Calling: Bringing Who You Are to What You Do, which is how I was first introduced to him. His most recent book, Extraordinary Groups: How Extraordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results, explores teams, families, and groups that perform beyond everyone's expectations. In this book, Geoff seeks to find out what enables such breakthrough performance to happen. Listen in to learn more about Geoff and his insightful views on this fascinating topic.
- How do ordinary people achieve amazing results?
- "Through the exploration of shared purpose that we followed intentionally, we became fond of each other."
- "I saw myself as an observer of what other people were doing."
- "The great thing was that other people asked this of me. I was so fortunate that people sought me out to do this work."
- "I was approaching 40 and I thought if I am going to try this consulting stuff I ought to try it now."
- "What I was looking for is in the subtitle of my book, The Consultant's Calling: bringing who you are to what you do. I was looking for the opportunity of being more of myself."
- "People struggle with, and look forward to discovering who they are more deeply."
- "I enjoy the work most when the future is unknown, and we are creating a new future- we are not following a path, we are cutting a path. That's the most exciting work, when together with a client group we are helping a new future emerge."
- "There is excitement when people feel that they've signed up for an important purpose, a noble purpose, a purpose that the world needs."
- "True friendship creates a space that allows for everyone to grow."
- In this work, I am called to bring my best self to it. I remind myself what could I do if I acted more in concert with our larger reasons for being."
- "When we create organizations that expect perfection, we move people to pretending."
- Your presence and perspective are as important as your skills.
- "What is not just the identity that I have but what's the identity that I want to have? What is my unique contribution to this world?"
- "Integrity for me has to do with integration of purpose with method. How do we go about doing what it is we want to do? The alignment of action with higher purpose."
- "Finding and agreeing on purpose is more difficult, potentially, than many people think."
- "One of the great things about groups that work extremely well together is not just their unity around purpose, but beyond that, their pursuit of the deeper aspects of it through time."
- "If we allow people to present themselves as they really are we'll do better."
- You become stronger and more whole when you bring who you are to the work you do.
- Dare to step into open, ambiguous, and uncertain terrain where a new future can be fashioned.
- Let yourself discover the creativity and energy that gets released when you work together with others to cut a new path forward.
- Do the work of integrity. What purposeful alignment are you ready to create? When you do the work of integrity and purpose, you change the world in small and big ways.
FULL SHOW NOTES: http://www.avivconsulting.com/cnf23
