Bill Fox

Reimagining Minds, Leaders, and Workplaces from the Inside Out

By Bill Fox

Your World Has Shifted

The world has shifted — and it’s calling upon us to shift too.

You already know and experience that. That’s why you’re here.

Yet, most of the world is still stuck in industrial age ways of thinking, living, and working.

That means when everything changes so quickly, our aim is focused on the past, not the future.

Now is the time to make the shift to creating the future.

Discover Forward Thinking

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, forward-thinking is “the act of thinking about and planning for the future, not just the present.”

Most organizations today were formed and still operate based on industrial age thinking. We rely primarily on command and control and the separation of people and functions into parts or groups where each part is optimized.

But in these times of rapid change and disruption, old-school thinking and ways of organizing ourselves are failing us.

Today’s times call for adopting a more forward-thinking mindset and approach that considers the present as well as the future.

We now need to organize ourselves in new ways and learn how to operate more like martial arts masters. Masters don’t know what they will face next, but they have trained themselves to be present and prepared. They are confident that they can handle whatever comes their way.

Learning how to be more forward thinking is key to helping us discover how to live and work together in these new ways.

Forward thinking creates a foundation for people and a culture that can thrive today and tomorrow.

Creating a Forward Thinking Workplace

When I first started interviewing leaders in 2010, I didn’t fully appreciate the enormous value multiple perspectives on a critical question (or set of questions) might bring to any particular challenge or situation.

I think it’s accurate to say that I was just seeking to do something innovative that might provide new solutions that bring lasting change and make a difference for everyone.

Now here we are, almost 12 years and 130+ interviews later, and a forward thinking narrative has emerged. The idea of a narrative was far from my mind, but this work has led me forward step-by-step, and that is what we now have.

What is the value of a narrative?

In Narrative Generation by Ann Badillo et al., we learn that we get value from narratives because they “inform and define one’s perspective.”

And in my own experience over the past 12 years, I’ve learned that a narrative also:

Pulls people to act, innovate, and learn together and are a powerful way to lead yourself or your organization forward
Can begin where you are with a simple intention and question
Create a generative holding space for new possibilities
Help us have conversations that otherwise wouldn’t happen
Foster authenticity and catalyze new leadership
Provide a framework that helps us focus our attention, make sense, and build understanding

It was David Marquet, author of bestselling Turn the Ship Around, who first brought to my attention the value of having multiple perspectives when he posted this review on Amazon for my book, 5 Minutes to Process Improvement Success:

As I’ve gotten older (and wiser), I’ve learned that most topics have multiple valid perspectives. A diversity of opinion allows me to see sides of an issue I’d missed, allow my organization to be more resilient when one approach isn’t working, and allow a more nuanced implementation of initiatives.

Real Change

Stepping into the future requires us to interact with each other with an open mind, listening to every voice — ready to discover whatever is there for us to see and giving us the freedom to act upon what we find out.

“Change — real change — comes from the inside out,” says Stephen Covey, best-selling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Change starts with us. There can be no real and lasting change until we change.

By enhancing our ability to look and listen within, we access greater awareness and creative power to shape our world and be a force for good.

An Invitation

I invite you to join me on a journey to opening up new pathways, making better decisions, and being leaders of a better tomorrow — today!

Join one of our monthly workshops where we all breathe a little more slowly to create a space where we listen to each other to allow something new to show up.

The workshops are also conducted in hybrid mode. Attend in “zoom” fashion with full-on video/audio or hang back in “webinar” mode and interact via chat.

To your forward-thinking life & great success!

— Bill

How We Help

We build forward-thinking minds, leaders, and workplaces from the inside out to help you succeed and be a forward thinking leader and workplace in the 21st century.

Forward Thinking Workplaces Workshops

Join the narrative that’s creating exciting new insights and perspectives from pioneering leaders that will prepare you for greater success in 2022 and beyond.

Learn More →

Space Beyond Boundaries Workshops

Enhance your ability to look and listen within where we access greater awareness and creative power to shape our world and be a force for good.

Learn More →

Consulting and Training

Align and build on the power of a global Forward Thinking narrative to unleash the collective voice, energy, and wisdom of pioneering leaders and your team or organization.

Learn More →

The Remarkable Insight, Power, and Value of Having Many Perspectives

By Bill Fox

The moment you walk into a problem space with a box of tools and techniques, the problem presents you with something your toolbox can’t fix. Tools and techniques alone aren’t enough to deal with the real world.

— Hillel Glazer

The Remarkable Insight, Power, and Value of Having Many Perspectives

I’m excited to share with you an interview with my good friend and colleague, Hillel Glazer. I’ve known Hillel for 10 years and during that time we worked together on many engagements and flew on many flights together because we’re both pilots. He’s one of the best consultants I have ever known or worked with and in the “left seat” of a plane, he’s one of the best.

What many people don’t know about Hillel is that he has this uncanny ability to rapidly understand what’s going on in a company, and what needs to be done to improve performance. It would amaze me because sometimes he came up with his findings in a matter of days or hours and sometimes within minutes! He intuitively and seemingly almost effortlessly sees things no one else can see.

Recently, I had the opportunity to get together with Hillel for a conversation. Since it had been a few years since we last talked, I had gained some perspective on what it was like working with him. The first question I eagerly asked him was, “Hillel, how do you do what you do and how did it start?”

I think you’ll find his responses very fascinating and instructive. Here is what he had to say:

“Early in my career, I was thrown into lots of situations where there was let’s just say not a lot of consistency or clarity on or between what was asked of the people to do and what they were being given to do.”

“I was working in a government capacity in acquisition and very young just out of college, and I was sent to go check on suppliers of what we were purchasing. It didn’t take long to realize that the contracts were written in a way that was extremely constraining. There were not a lot of positive incentives to either party. To be honest, the contracts were a lose-lose.”

“The government wasn’t going to get the best value. The supplier wasn’t going to get the best profit margin or really have a reason to do well. Then that all trickled down to the people doing the work. They were always the ones that ended up taking the brunt of these bad management decisions for lack of a better term. But really it does boil down to it’s not their fault that they have to work like this. They have to make up for the shortcomings in how their leadership, the position that they put their leadership put them in, and how the leadership decided that they were going to win this work. It didn’t matter that it was a lose-lose.”

“Ironically, at the same time, my first boss handed me a stack of books on Total Quality Management (TQM). So it was a bit of cognitive dissonance for me to be told by my supervising manager to get smart on TQM and Lean and try to bring that to the table when we work on projects with suppliers.”

“Then I’m seeing how the suppliers are set up to fail. The government wasn’t getting the best thing it could possibly get. And so right out of college, I’m being shown these are the best ways to work. And then I’m being sent off into situations where it’s the polar opposite of what’s the best way to work. And I think that grew a sensitivity in me to recognize that cognitive dissonance. What it looks like on people in their body language, in their faces, and in their response to questions in how they’re open to learning. How they think or don’t think in terms of systems thinking. Are they afraid to speak up? Are they afraid to make mistakes and learn from them? Are they given everything they need to get the job done? You can tell after a while when they’re not and you can tell when they’re trying too hard to prove a point that they are having trouble proving and we realize that the reason they’re working so hard is that they have to make up a story about it because it’s not really happening.”

“That was a bit of an eye-opening experience straight out of going from academia into the working world. I may have had some innate capabilities there to really be sensitive to people and situations, but I definitely credit that early indoctrination into, on one hand, here’s what we think is the best way to do it and we know this is the best way to work. And on the other hand, we’re making it impossible to achieve that. And honestly, I don’t think that’s improved in the 30 years since I went to the workplace.”

Hillel had a lot more insight and wisdom to share as we continued the conversation when I interviewed him for Forward Thinking Workplaces.

Get the highlights and most intriguing insights from my interview with Hillel at Why Do We Go to Great Lengths to Do Things Right Yet Make It Impossible to Achieve?

In January, we’ll publish the podcast and full interview transcript. And in an upcoming Forward Thinking Workplaces workshop, I’ll invite Hillel to join us for what I know will be a riveting and exciting session.

Until then, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Hillel at hillel@hillelglazer.com or me with any questions. We’d love to hear your takeaways from the interview.

To your forward-thinking life & great success!

— Bill

A Reset on Perspective

By Bill Fox

Strictly speaking, it is not our perspective that is creating reality but our identity.

— Robert Fuchs

A reset on perspective

The notion that our identity creates our reality may be something new for you to consider. It sure was for me.

But if you stick with me here a little bit further, I believe you will come to this new understanding as well if you haven’t already. The implications of grasping this understanding could be quite substantial in how we go about our daily lives and seek to create change.

This past June, I published a newsletter on the power of our perspective to create our reality. In The Power of a New Perspective, I made the following assertion:

“Our current perspective is creating our reality. Until we make an effort to take a different perspective, not much is going to change.”

Fortunately, there are people like Robert Fuchs who subscribe to my newsletter. Robert is the founder of the HappinessGroup, a cultural consultancy, and a consciousness researcher.

Robert’s work is renowned for integrating the latest research from topological psychology and neuroscience for sustainable decision-making and problem-solving.

When Robert read my newsletter, he emailed me this response:

Hi Bill,

Great topic, but I am sorry. Your statement in the post is wrong. Correlation does not imply casualty.

Strictly speaking, it is not our perspective that is creating reality but our identity. Perspective is simply a perception angle of a finite static 2-dimensional space from a reference point. But it is identity that creates the dynamic 3-dimensional sphere from which perspective takes 2-dimensional snapshots. So you tell me what creates reality?

Just because I can look from a certain “reference point” (perspective) does not mean that my looking creates real, physical objects. If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is listening, does it make a sound?

I also think you are trying to answer a question that is not very helpful to apply practically. To make this statement applicable to daily life, the important question is not “if” perspective change is useful. Everyone would agree. But “under which conditions” perspective change is possible in the first place, and how many subjective perspectives are there maximally for objective reality?

Yes, our reality looks locally two-dimensional and flat, but it is actually wrapped around a sphere to make it three-dimensional non-locally. When we open our eyes, we see a 2-dimensional image that is projected onto our spherical eyeballs. The mathematical nature of consciousness utilizes a (Möbius-) transformation, which gives the flat image 3-dimensional depth.

To make matters even more complex, you assume “free will” to change perspectives. However, whether we can change our perspective depends on the phase state of our consciousness (relaxed, tense, fixed, or injured), which depends on the spacetime orientation of our identity. Changing perspectives is easier said than done.

Cheers,

Robert

With Robert’s permission, included below is my email to Robert and his in-line comments to my responses.

I think you will find Robert’s responses fascinating and thought-provoking.

Please note: Some of Robert’s responses are a bit comprehensive, but I decided to include them here in their entirety for completeness. I have invited Robert to attend our first monthly online meeting on November 4, 2021, to discuss this topic further and answer any questions. You’ll find more on the event and how to sign up below.

Email and response

Bill: Hi Robert, Thanks for sharing your thinking on my post. The purpose of this post is to encourage people to take a more reflective higher perspective. I’m sharing what I experienced from flying as I started to look at the world and my circumstances differently. This experience began to change my thinking and change my reality.

Robert: I would still argue that you first changed your “identity.” You switched to your pilot identity and were able to fly like a change from “chicken” to “eagle.” As a result of this changed orientation angle of your identity, your perception, and therefore your experience changed (e.g., your event horizon became bigger and curved at infinity when you looked at the far distance).

Bill: While it may not be exactly correct to say that perspective creates my reality precisely and entirely on a scientific basis, this is in effect what happened and what I experienced.

Robert: It was what you experienced and how you interpreted this experience, but not necessarily what happened. Remember that ~95% of our internal processes happen unconsciously. (See Perception is Not Reality.)

Bill: On this basis, I can stand entirely behind my statement. I think it’s an appropriate and valid statement to make for a general business audience.

Robert: Sure, most people would not even notice the difference. As long as you are aware of the nuances, there is no problem. On a subjective macroscopic scale of your “flight experience,” perception creates reality, but on an objective microscopic scale, identity creates reality.

Bill: The idea that our identity creates our reality is a whole new notion to me. What comes to mind in this area are Bohm’s statements that thought creates our reality.

Robert: Yes, Bohm’s statement describes the transformation process from information to energy and finally matter across different scales. This is nicely illustrated in the Escher image, where thoughts create matter and matter creates thoughts.

But, we also need Bohm’s hidden variables to construct the whole objective reality. In effect, we contemplate ourselves into existence through interaction with nature. A weird concept, I know, but “Cognitive theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU) describes this process much better than I can.

Our thoughts, feelings, and actions are the tools to shape our reality construct, the plane or worldview we move on. But it is our identity, or “who we think we are”, that determines our perspective and therefore what we see.

Bill: The concept of a rectangular grid was intended to show that we see a much bigger picture from above. I depicted it as a rectangular shape because that was a shape I could create, and I had no clue that a circular shape would be more appropriate!

Robert: Yes, the square or linear matrix is easiest to work with and usually good enough to depict subjective linear reality. Suppose you want to know more about objective reality. In that case, it’s necessary to wrap it around a “Riemann sphere,” particularly if you want to understand the “holographic principle” and why reality changes when we discover new aspects of our identity. Space beyond boundaries is exactly the Riemann Sphere. Bound space is bound by the rectangular edges of the complex plane. The Riemann Sphere has a point in infinity, which is beyond boundaries. The sphere has no beginning and no end, hence no boundaries.

Bill: I’d love to learn more about the points you raised, so I can change my reality and share a new story and a new design from what I learned!

Robert: Sure. Information flows through our identity like light through a prism. It is then projected onto a sphere. Depending on the density and purity of the “quasicrystal,” the light is distorted (bent), leading to misunderstandings and false assumptions. Therefore, gaps and contradictions in the reality construct (sphere) indicate impurities (dysfunctions) in the crystal.

The cool thing about your “flying metaphor” is that it resembles physical realities. Nature is “dihedral,” humans are polyhedral. The dihedral angle of the wings of a plane determines its stability in turbulences.

For example, it was recently discovered that the bumps on the wings of a humpback whale cause vortexes that reduce drag, cause uplift, and save 30% energy. We will very soon see planes with similarly shaped wings. In addition, we will see wings that can change their shape and angle to improve aerodynamics between take-off and landing and flight.

So the question for leadership becomes, how to train people to use their wings properly. We just think we are chickens (perspective), but our identity is born to fly. Of course, keeping in mind what happened to Icarus.

This idea relates to mindset orientation or the saying: “Attitude determines altitude.” The dihedral angle resembles “attitude” For example, if our non-local/infinite orientation is toward truth and beauty (abundance, as opposed to scarcity), it is locally transformed into an attitude of “love and peace.” If your flying experience creates love in thinking and peace in feeling, you have the optimal “dihedral angle” for riding on the flow of happiness. Happiness is simply the natural product of love and peace.

Join the discussion on November 4, 2021

Robert and I had a follow-up conversation on this topic, and the discussion was riveting.

I learned many more fascinating insights on perspective and how we can bring the power of perspective to our everyday lives and work.

As a result, I invited Robert to speak on this topic at our first monthly online meetup.

Our first meeting will occur on Thursday, November 4, 2021.

If you’d like to join us, please fill out the survey to let me know your preferences, and I will add you to the meeting invitation.

As always, I welcome and look forward to your feedback. Please reply to this email or email me directly at bill@billfox.co.

Go to the Survey

To your forward-thinking life & success!

— Bill

Bill Fox, Author, and Founder at Space Beyond Boundaries and Forward Thinking Workplaces.

“Our thoughts, feelings and actions are the tools to shape our reality construct, the plane or worldview we move on. But it is our identity, or “who we think we are”, that determines our perspective and therefore what we see.”
Robert Fuchs

The Power of a New Perspective

By Bill Fox

Our current perspective is creating our reality. Until we make an effort to take a different perspective, not much is going to change.

— Bill Fox

The view from above

“Wow – what a beautiful view!” was one of several responses I received when I posted this picture below on a social media site.

I took this picture with my iPhone while piloting a Cessna Skyhawk on my return trip from Pennsylvania back to Virginia.

At the time, I was flying over the Susquehanna River south of Harrisburg, PA.

Of course, the view was even more stunning from the plane.

But here’s the sad fact that I have become painfully aware of:

Most people on the ground have no idea what possibilities are revealed when their situation is viewed from a higher perspective.

Most of us are so immersed in the details of our lives that we never see the possibilities.

We focus only on what we see right in front of us, or on what happened last week, or on what we think or fear might happen in the future.

But what if we chose to take a more reflective perspective?

What if we were able to hold a higher vision?

What would we notice? And what different choices would we make?

But here’s the important point I want to want to make:

Our current perspective is creating our reality. Until we make an effort to take a different perspective, not much will change—no matter what else we do.

We often focus on what’s right in front of us that we never allow ourselves to consider a more reflective perspective—the kind of higher perspective that would enable us to create what we truly want and open ourselves up to new possibilities.

Rather than shifting our perspective—at least periodically—we instead focus on getting all the different parts of our current reality to work more effectively and efficiently.

And we wind up making the same choices that everybody else is choosing because they say it’s right. We are not choosing for ourselves.

Sadly, I see this all the time in my work with helping organizations improve. They adopt one methodology or way of doing business that everyone else is choosing—and, more often than not, they experience repeated failures or marginal results.

They don’t allow people to collaborate and to co-create something even better.

So how do we get a new perspective to create something different and better?

Flying on an airplane is a beautiful way to shift your vantage point. But you don’t have to be up at 3,000 feet to gain a new perspective.

The best way I know to gain a new perspective on the ground is by asking questions.

But this is important:

Don’t try to answer the questions immediately. The questions themselves will change your energy and allow you to become more aware of the possibilities that can show up unexpectedly.

What kind of questions?

In her book, Conversational Intelligence®️, the late Judith Glaser says that the highest form of questions are discovery questions. According to Judith:

“Discovery questions open our minds to explore new avenues of thought with each other. They help us enter each other’s worlds, navigate each other’s thoughts and feelings, and open and harvest new insights and wisdom not yet explored by either person.”

Try these questions that happen to be a few of my favorites:

What would it take for you to feel more engaged?
What else is possible?
What does wisdom move me to do next?
How could this turn out better than we ever imagined?

Now it’s your turn

What’s your best question for getting a new perspective?

Please share an example of a question that opened up a new possibility for you.

Please email bill@billfox.co if you’d like to share.

To your forward thinking life & success!
⏤ Bill

Bill Fox, Author, and Founder at Space Beyond Boundaries and Forward Thinking Workplaces.

The Crowd Is Always Wrong

By Bill Fox

Every big success had taken place when I was going against the crowd. My trading style was clearly “contrarian,” and it taught me a key lesson: The crowd is always wrong.

— Kurt and Patricia Wright, Breaking the Rules

Going against the crowd 

Going in the opposite direction from the crowd is a great place to look for innovative new solutions to challenges that defy traditional approaches.

I was immediately attracted to Breaking the Rules by Kurt and Patricia Wright when I learned their contrarian approach to solving problems.

Through trial and error in my own career, I had learned that “doing the opposite” and coming up with properly framed questions were often very fruitful and powerful ways to get exceptional results.

One of my favorite stories in Breaking the Rules occurs when a company with a huge software development project employing 400 engineers finds itself in deep trouble.

The project is 18 months behind schedule, already 38 months into a 60-month project. There is also a $30 million penalty if the project fails to deliver on time.

The Wrights knew that if they could change the question the project team was running on from “What’s going wrong?” to “What’s going right?” they’d have an opportunity to turn the project around.

After several weeks of conversations with many of the employees, the Wrights’ proposed this incredible and unexpected question:

They asked, “What would it take to deliver this project a week early?”

As you can imagine, this question was met with outright disbelief and deemed not even worthy of discussion. They were even pulled aside by management on several occasions and asked not to repeat the question to anyone.

But the Wrights’ had a track record and persisted. They eventually won over the company and got others behind their seemingly preposterous question and strategy for turning around the project.

I think you know the outcome already. The project recouped the lost time and was delivered right on time and under budget!

Of course, going against the crowd won’t always be the best course of action, but looking in the opposite direction is a great place to start.

Why the question worked

The secret ingredient in the Wrights’ approach can be found in their use of a “What’s right?” question.

Most of us spend far more time asking “What’s wrong?” questions. Whenever we ask any kind of a what’s wrong question, it is processed in our rational mind.

But asking a “What’s right” question is far more powerful. A what’s right question helps us regain conscious access to what we already know intuitively.

In Breaking the Rules, we learn that there is a systematic way to increase the intuitive part of our mind using the what’s right framework.

The what’s right series of questions help us build upon what’s working right already:

The initial question is “what’s right?” or “what’s working? 
“What makes it right?” or “why does it work?” 
“What would be ideally right?” or “what would work ideally?” 
“What’s not yet quite right?” 
“What resources can I find to make it right?”

Try them out on your next challenge. You’ll discover why the authors believe the energy around an unanswered what’s right question may very well be the most powerful motivating force in the universe.

What question are you living in?

What successes have you had going against the crowd?

When I first read Breaking the Rules in 2015, I was captivated by the power and audacity of the Wrights’ question: How can we deliver this project (that’s already 18 months behind schedule) a week early?

When I applied the notion of what’s right-thinking to my work, I came up with this question:

“How can we create workplaces where every voice matters, everyone thrives and finds meaning, and change and innovation happen naturally?”

As you may know already, this question is the opening question for the interviews at Forward Thinking Workplaces and the book, The Future of the Workplace.

What about you?

What question are you living in?

To your forward-thinking life & success!
— Bill

Bill Fox, Author, and Founder at Forward Thinking Workplaces.

“Living in the question is an ever-evolving, creative process in full alignment with the wisdom of the universe. As long as we are able to stay in the question, miracles will happen.“
—Kurt and Patricia Wright, Breaking the Rules

How One Can Have an Impact

By Bill Fox

A group of people who practice being present is extremely helpful because an energy field is generated all over the planet. Go to the group to generate more presence, and then your responsibility is to live it in your everyday life.

— Eckhart Tolle

One can have an impact

Participating in forward-thinking conversations is a fascinating and powerful way for one person to impact the world and simultaneously advance the quality of their thinking, work, and life.

For the past 11 years, I have initiated and participated in an untold number of forward-thinking conversations and gatherings where there was a shared intent to make things better for everyone.

For example, the intention and opening question in the Exploring Forward Thinking Workplace interviews is:

How can we create workplaces where every voice matters, everyone thrives and finds meaning, and change and innovation happen naturally.

My direct experience from engaging in these conversations (that otherwise wouldn’t have happened) has been an unexpected and cascading positive impact on the quality of my life, work, and influence in the world to bring about change.

While this experience has been very real to me, it’s not easy to share its true depth and breadth.

This is especially true when its dimensions are beyond what most of us experience in the day-to-day world, which leads me to the quote by Eckhart Tolle featured in this article.

While listening to a podcast by Oprah Winfrey with Eckhart Tolle this week, my attention was captured when Tolle was asked this question, “What role do you see joining with others in the flowering of human consciousness?”

Eckhart Tolle responded by saying, “A group of people who practice being present is extremely helpful because an energy field is generated all over the planet. Go to the group to generate more presence, and then your responsibility is to live it in your everyday life.”

What Tolle refers to and what I experience by engaging in forward-thinking conversations goes well beyond the conversation itself. Changes are set in motion that impact many other aspects of our work and life too.

I think this is so important to grasp and understand. We really don’t have the language to convey the nature of this experience and can only point to it by sharing our experiences with it.

In the words of David Bohm, “There is a difficulty with only one person changing” “People call that person a great saint or a great mystic or a great leader, and they say, ‘Well, he’s different from me—I could never do it.’ What’s wrong with most people is that they have this block—they feel they could never make a difference, and therefore, they never face the possibility because it is too disturbing, too frightening.”

Tolle’s response has given me new insight and understanding of something I have been experiencing for almost a dozen years now.

It has also given me new energy to facilitate more forward-thinking conversations because it enables more people to be the change right where they are and have an impact.

No one’s permission or authority is needed. We become the change we want to see in the world. It happens naturally and effortlessly.

Breaking down the blocks between us

New possibilities open up when people join together and go beyond their habitual ways of being together and interacting as a group. This has been my experience repeatedly.

Our mind has powers that allow us to go beyond our routine or habitual way of thinking and being and beyond what we think is possible.

In Synchronicity, we learn from Joseph Jaworski and David Bohm that people create blocks or barriers between each other by the way we habitually think.

Most of the time, we are operating separately in our own world of thought. We think we know what is right and true and come prepared to defend our point of view.

However, when we learn how to come together in new ways, those barriers can break down, and the notion of one mind comes into existence.

What is one mind?

One mind allows us to operate as one unit, but each person still has their own individual awareness.

We see examples of groups operating as one mind when we see championship sports teams performing flawlessly in perfect coordination with each other.

In a past newsletter, I shared a personal experience of how the crew on a nuclear submarine came together as one unit to get us out of a bad situation.

But here’s the fascinating thing that happens when we learn how to come together and achieve a state of one mind, that one mind will still exist even when people separate to go about their ordinary everyday life and work!

I’ve experienced this repeatedly. When I’m more active in groups that are coming together with a shared intention to make things better for everyone, there is an uncanny impact on everything else in my life.

How does it get any better than this?

David Bohm describes one mind as follows:

“A single intelligence that works with people who are moving in relationship with one another. Cues that pass from one to the other are being picked up with the same awareness, just as we pick up cues in riding bicycles or skiing. Therefore, these people are really all one.”

Imagine the impact if more people pulled together and worked together in this way.

It would be remarkable.

Moving forward

As many of you know, I’ve experimented with various ways to bring more people together more frequently to interact with greater awareness.

I believe there is sufficient interest to establish such groups. I simply haven’t come up with the best approach.

My intention this week is to send out a survey to see if there is interest in establishing a monthly online session that would occur on a regular basis.

And of course, if there’s interest in anything more regular than a monthly session.

As always, I welcome and look forward to your feedback. Please reply to this email or email me directly at bill@billfox.co.

To your forward-thinking life & success!
— Bill

Bill Fox, Author, and Founder at Space Beyond Boundaries and Forward Thinking Workplaces.

The more spaciousness you create, the more effective your thinking will be when you start thinking again because thinking can then link into this creative intelligence that is the unconditioned intelligence in you.
— Eckhart Tolle

Get to the Point

By Bill Fox

A point is a contention you can propose, argue, defend, illustrate, and prove.

— Joel Schwartzberg, Get to the Point

Get to the point

In his book Get to the Point, Joel Schwartzberg tells us that most of us don’t know how to make a point. I was skeptical at first, but after reading the first three chapters, he had me convinced.

Fortunately, I read Joel’s book several days before hosting a webinar last week on Will Forward Thinking Narratives Define the Great Workplaces of the 21st Century?

I thoroughly revised my presentation when I applied what I learned from Joel. Below are six points from my presentation:

I believe that Forward Thinking Narratives Will Define The Great Workplaces of the 21st Century and are:

A powerful way to lead yourself or your organization forward into the future.
Can begin where you are with a simple intention or question.
Create a generative holding space for new possibilities.
Help us have conversations that otherwise wouldn’t happen.
Help us move from living in the past to creating the future.
Provide a framework that helps us focus our attention, make sense, and build understanding.

I highly recommend Joel’s book. It’s a quick read and will immediately help you make better points. Dean Rotbart did an excellent interview with Joel on his MondayMorningRadio.com show that you won’t want to miss.

If you missed the webinar and would like a copy of my presentation or a link to the recording, please reply and let me know.

The inner path is the way forward in the 21st century

On Wednesday, September 29, 2021, I’m hosting a webinar on the inner leader’s journey.

In this 45-minute session, we’ll explore together:

What is the inner path?
Why is the inner path the Way forward, and what are the benefits?
The five dimensions of space beyond boundaries

I’ll also share a preview of my upcoming new book, Space Beyond Boundaries, coming later this year.

This event will be an interactive event with opportunities for attendees to speak or ask questions.

This event will take place on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, at:

4 pm GMT (London)
11 am US ET (New York)
8 am US PT (Los Angeles)

My apologies if this time is inconvenient for anyone who would like to attend. If that’s the case for you, please let me know what works on your schedule, so I can work to accommodate your schedule in future events.

I hope to see you there and please get in touch if you have any questions or if you would like to schedule a private session for you or your team.

To your forward-thinking life & success!
— Bill

Bill Fox, Author, and Founder at Space Beyond Boundaries and Forward Thinking Workplaces.

“Without a point, everything you say is pointless.”
— Joel Schwartzberg, Get to the Point

Where We All Must Go

By Bill Fox

Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, is the story of one man’s journey toward the place we all must go in the century ahead.

— Dee Hock, Founder, President, and CEO Emeritus, Visa International

Where we all must go

At the Forward Thinking Narratives Will Define the Great Workplaces of the 21st Century webinar I hosted this week, one of the attendees had this to say:

“As a low-level employee at my company, I’m not sure what to think. So many of these “initiatives” have come and gone, and nothing changes for the lowest of us.”

Scores, maybe even hundreds, of people have said something very similar to me over the past eleven years. My work attracts people who have similar things to say.

It’s not surprising since I had very similar experiences in the workplace. However, I decided to try to do something about it, which led me to my work.

What I didn’t expect when I started on this path was that it would trigger the inner leader journey. I had never heard of it before.

The inner path of leadership will redefine your understanding of leadership. You can be a leader at any time and any level. You don’t need anyone’s permission.

You will inspire people, and they will appreciate your authentic leadership.

We begin to change from the inside out, and our world begins to change around us as a result. It’s a different way of being.

Like Dee Hock, Founder of Visa International, I now believe the inner leader journey is where we all must go in the 21st century.

The leadership we’ve been waiting for isn’t showing up. If we truly want things to change, we will need to step into our own leadership.

The inner leader journey equips you with the power to shift your world more to your liking in alignment with a future that works for everybody.

The inner path is the way forward in the 21st century

By enhancing our ability to look and listen within, we access greater awareness and creative power to shape our world and be a force for good.

On Wednesday, September 29, 2021, I’m hosting an online event on why I believe the inner path is the way forward in the 21st century and what’s in it for you.

In this 45-minute session, we’ll explore:

What is the inner path?
Why is the inner path the way forward and what are the benefits?
The five dimensions of space beyond boundaries

Attendees will learn five ways to expand the space beyond boundaries that they can bring to their work and life.

I’ll also share a preview of my upcoming new book, Space Beyond Boundaries, coming later this year.

This event will be an interactive event with opportunities for attendees to speak and ask questions.

This event will take place on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, at:

– 4 pm GMT (London)
– 11 am US ET (New York)
– 8 am US PT (Los Angeles)

I hope to see you there and please get in touch if you have any questions.

To your forward-thinking life & success!
— Bill

Bill Fox, Author, and Founder at Space Beyond Boundaries and Forward Thinking Workplaces.

“Change — real change — comes from the inside out.”
— Stephen Covey

Find Your Own Way

By Bill Fox

Find your own way to go deeper to go forward.

— Bill Fox

Where It Begins

I could hardly believe what I just heard. One of my project team members had rushed up to me with a very distressed and unsettled look on his face. He anxiously told me that they canceled our project!

What?

I was shocked to hear what he just said.

As the project leader for one of the organization’s key strategic projects, shouldn’t I have known about this before he did? He must be mistaken.

He had just rushed out of a meeting led by a mysterious person sent in by corporate headquarters. Her exact role was unknown, but there were rumors she would be in charge of this group’s operations in a few months. She was apparently calling together groups of employees sowing distrust and dissent right under the current leader’s nose.

Sadly, this is the shocking activity and behavior that goes on in so many companies. It’s behavior that destroys morale, robs people of their dignity, and deadens the soul.

How many times have you experienced or seen something similar in your career?

How many times have you tried to change your workplace — or found yourself in a companywide transformation process? Did it succeed? Did it last?

As you probably know, this behavior is common and most attempts at change fail. I know this all too well.

This event with my project team member occurred back in 2009 when I was experiencing one of the most satisfying accomplishments of my career. I had just played a leading role in a strategic transformation project for a well-known U.S. corporation. But the satisfaction didn’t last long because politics would soon sideline a celebrated and successful project.

For the third time in my career, a strategic transformation project I’d helped lead to success came to an abrupt and sudden end. A new executive stepped in to replace the leadership team, and this project was no longer a priority. They wasted all the hard work and commitment by so many people over the previous 18 months.

Unfortunately, this is all too common occurrence in too many workplaces.

A Better Way?

After experiencing my third heartbreaking end to an organizational change initiative, I looked for a better way to transform and improve organizations. But how?

As Tom Thomison, a leading voice on Holacracy said in my interview with him:

“How do we start? By making it real for ourselves first.”

To make it real, I interviewed leading change practitioners and other experts in a series I called 5 Minutes to Process Improvement Success. I asked, “What is your best improvement strategy?”

Remarkably, I rarely got an answer about process improvement. People didn’t talk about Agile, CMMI, Lean, Six Sigma or the latest silver-bullet solution.

Instead, they talked about something deeper: about trust, reflection, new questions, new leadership, understanding the status quo and much more. People shared fascinating and surprising new strategies and insights with me.

I published 23 of those interviews in a book called 5 Minutes to Process Improvement Success. A review by David Marquet, leadership expert and author of Turn the Ship Around, is typical of the feedback:

“Most topics have multiple valid perspectives. A diversity of opinion allows me to see sides of an issue I’d missed, allows my organization to be more resilient when one approach isn’t working and allows a more nuanced implementation of initiatives. This is EXACTLY what you get with this book.”

Going Deeper

After 50 interviews, I discontinued the 5 Minutes to Process Improvement series because it wasn’t about process improvement. Something else seemed to happen, and I needed time to reflect on it.

In fact, conducting those 50 interviews was so powerful that it triggered my own inner transformation. My mind became noticeably quieter. I became a better listener. I was less reactive to my circumstances. I also realized there was an enormous power in my intentions — and in the questions those intentions led me to ask.

These inner changes allowed me to have a new conversation. As I became less judgmental, more open and a better listener, people seemed to feel freer and safer, and they shared deeper insights with me.

I was experiencing what Michael Neill, transformational coach and author of The Inside-Out Revolution and five other books, describes in my interview with him:

“A good meeting is a meeting where everyone is listening, and there is space to hear something new beyond what anyone brought into the room with them.”

I also knew how rare that was in the workplace. And I recognized that I and so many others felt like aliens at work.

On the surface, we may have seemed happy, committed and motivated. But look a little deeper, and there was more unease and dissatisfaction than most of us will admit.

Questions that Open Up New Pathways

Because of the deep and pervasive need for transformation in most workplaces—along with the changes occurring within me and the kinds of insights people were now eager to share—I came up with a new series of interview questions.

With that, the Exploring Forward-Thinking Workplaces interview series was underway.

I wasn’t sure these questions would work, so I did an experiment: I selected three very successful executives and thought leaders to see if they would answer my new questions. To my surprise, they enthusiastically embraced them and shared intriguing insights and wisdom.

A collection of 30 of the interviews was published by Apress in October 2019. You can learn more at The Future of the Workplace book website.

As always, I welcome any feedback or suggestions that may come up from reading my newsletters.

Until next time, to your forward thinking life & successs!

⏤Bill

Bill Fox, Founder at Forward Thinking Pro

Looking Forward into the Future

By Bill Fox

We look at the present through a rearview mirror. We march backward into the future.

— Marshall McLuhan

Which way are you looking?

Andy Raskin is someone who has significantly influenced my work. Andy is a strategic marketing consultant and has a podcast called The Bigger Narrative.

Raskin’s approach to marketing seems right for our world today. Andy asks, “What shift has occurred in the world that creates a need for what you do?”

I like the approach because it helps us look forward rather than through the rearview mirror.

We are programmed to tell and hold on to our stories and the way we’ve always done it.

It’s not as easy as it sounds to break out of that pattern. It took about six months for me to develop the messaging and strategy that seemed to fit in my case.

When I applied Raskin’s approach to my work, I came up with the following narrative (brief version):

The world has shifted, and new rules apply. It used to be you would win by managing change, following best practices, working harder, or even smarter. It was the age of Industrial Thinking and people as profit-producing units.

Now you move forward with new questions, synchronicity, and one mind to allow the collective voice, wisdom, and energy of everyone to emerge for the benefit of all. It’s the age of Forward Thinking and allowing people to be themselves.

What do you think?

What would your message be using Raskin’s approach?

The Forward Thinking Journey

The fascinating thing about the inner leader journey is that it changes you from the inside out.

By inside out, I mean that it doesn’t just change how you think, what you think, what you do, and how you behave.

It changes your beliefs, worldview, and state of being. When your state of being changes, things start to change naturally and seemingly effortlessly.

When I went through this exercise to identify my “bigger narrative,” I identified six beliefs that informed my message.

WHAT KEEPS US STUCK
When everything changes so quickly, things like managing change, best practices, working harder, or even smarter are no longer enough and keep us stuck living in the past.

NEW ENERGY FOR CHANGE
When we authentically engage with each other, we create new possibilities and new energy for change.

QUESTIONS, SYNCHRONICITY, ONE MIND
In today’s new world, you move forward with new questions, synchronicity, and one mind. It’s time to allow the collective voice, wisdom, and energy of everyone to emerge for the benefit of all.

LEADERSHIP ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE
Insight for new leadership resides not in the other but is accessible to everyone. By enhancing our ability to look and listen within, we shape our world from the inside out.

LISTENING TO EVERY VOICE
Stepping into the future requires us to interact with each other with an open mind, listening to every voice — ready to discover whatever is there for us to see and giving us the freedom to act upon what we discover.

SPACE FOR THE EXTRAORDINARY
Engaging in genuine dialogue creates a space for extraordinary performance and truth to emerge. This emergence occurs within the dialogue and reaches beyond to touch all other work and life activities.

What are your core beliefs? Have they changed in recent times?

Would you like to engage in more discussion on this topic?

I would like to invite you to join our monthly workshop at SpaceB. The one-hour workshop occurs on the first Wednesday of every month and is included as part of the monthly or annual membership subscription at SpaceB.

Learn More

I hope you will join us and please get in touch if you have any questions.

To your forward-thinking life & success!
— Bill

Bill Fox, Author, and Founder at Forward Thinking Workplaces.

“Our Age of Anxiety is, in great part, the result of trying to do today’s jobs with yesterday’s tools!”
Marshall McLuhan