Release Your Brilliance

 

About the Author 

Simon T. Bailey is the founder of The Brilliance Institute, an organization dedicated to building the world’s most valuable resource—people. He has worked with some of Fortune’s 100 best companies to develop programs that encourage their workforce to release their brilliance, which has lead to an increase in productivity and employee retention. 

Simon developed his unique leadership and speaking style during his 20 year tenure at Hyatt Hotels, Walt Disney World Resort, and the Disney Institute. In addition, he has written four books, including, Simon Says Dream: Live a Passionate Life, Brilliant Service Is the Bottom Line, and Success Is An Inside Job. 

Simon also has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Faith Christian University. Moreover, he was named Central Florida’s “Man of the Year” for 2000, and Speaker of the Year by the San Diego, CA Chapter of Meeting Professionals International. 

If you are a SHRM member, you may have watched a presentation given by Simon during a webcast a couple of years ago. This is when I was introduced to Mr. Bailey and his passionate and engaging speaking style. I was immediately impressed and quickly went out and purchased a copy of his book, Simon Says Dream: Live a Passionate Life.  As a result, I was made a fan for life.

In his new book, Release Your Brilliance, Simon presents the HR Practitioner with a 4-Step process for transforming his/her life and revealing his/her genius to the world. The 4-Step process is paired with the metaphorical process of mining diamonds. This makes the process easier to remember and apply. The four steps consist of the following:

Step One-Clarity: Seek Profound Insight. Our goal is not perfection, but discovery.

Step Two-Color: Discover Pure, Unwavering Belief. Believe in ourselves and our intuition.

Step Three-Cut: Take Bold Action. In order to release our brilliance, we must take actions that polish our relationships, fears, habits, language, and influence.

Step Four-Carat: Decide How Big You Want to Be. Cease letting the expectations of others determine our belief in ourselves and what we can become. We need to get out of our current comfort level of thinking about ourselves. 

Each step provides the HR Practitioner with “personal appraisals,” “diamond polishing,” and “a gem for you.”  

The personal appraisals are designed to help us identify and clarify our value and worth through a series of questions and written responses.

Diamond Polishing is a tool containing three action steps for unlocking our potential. A Gem for You is a quote that sums up the essence of the concept presented. 

My favorite part of the book is Simon’s own personal account of meeting his life coach Dr. Mark Chironna and being transformed from a struggling young man from the ghetto full of self-hate into a man filled with the belief and confidence that he could transform his life and be successful. It invoked memories of some of my own moments of self-doubt and insecurities. But at the same time, it made be remember events in my life that were truly transformational. Furthermore, it made me realize that there were things I could do in my life today that would help me live an even more brilliant life. 

Of course, Simon knows how important we, the HR Practitioners are, because he makes it a point refer to us directly in his book. He says,

“It’s not the HR department’s responsibility to promote you or show you how to get ahead. It’s up to you to create your own career path.” Furthermore, “…to survive in the workplace of the future, it will be crucial to do four things: take responsibility for yourself, remain nimble, keep a great attitude, and constantly learn new skills.” How many times have employees in our organizations come to us and told us we must promote them? I agree with Simon that we, and our employees, promote ourselves. 

The HR Practitioner must know how to release our brilliance and the brilliance of those in our organizations. The business world has become more global and more competitive. There is always someone else ready to deliver the same services and products delivered by our organizations. For the most part, the products are the same. However, the people that deliver and sell them are not. Our competitive advantage is the people we employ. Helping employees discover their talents and strengths will ultimately make them more content in their careers. This leads to increased productivity, greater customer satisfaction, and a reduction in employee turnover. All you have to do is read about some of the “success stories” Simon has had in working with some of the world’s most prestigious organizations to confirm that this is true. 

The guidelines offered in Release Your Brilliance truly do work. I challenge each of you to read Simon’s book and implement the concepts and see how your life, and the lives of your employees, are transformed.

 

It’s the Economy Stupid

In his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton frequently used the phrase “It’s the economy stupid” as a central theme to his campaign. It was a phrased coined by James Carville and was put on a sign and hung at campaign headquarters to keep everyone “on message.”

 

In this time of economic uncertainty, our employees are much more concern with paying their mortgages, paying higher fuel prices, and a host of other economic woes. As a result, the HR practitioner shouldn’t continue the “business-as-usual” approach for keeping our workforce engaged. Instead, we need to focus on ways to help our employees get through this time of uncertainty.  But how do we do this?

 

In a recent article, “Managing Amid Economic Uncertainty” by Liz Ryan featured on Business Week Online, she discusses some things we can do as HR Practitioners to address the economic concerns of our workforce during this economic crisis. Liz suggests that we begin by talking about the company’s current state of affairs honestly and often. In addition, we must provide as many details as possible and what the future holds for the company. Moreover, we need to talk about current projects that may possibly generate additional income. And, we must discuss how our organizations are faring compared to our competitors—maybe everyone is having a rough time.  And if they are, we need to make sure our employees know it.

 

We all know that until the basic needs of our employees are addressed, it would be fruitless for us to attempt to get them engaged in the company’s mission and give it 100% of their attention and energy. It’s something we all learned about in Psychology 101 and from Maslow’s pyramid. As Liz says, “When a person is worried about his ability to take care of basic needs, his attention to lesser matters—the new product launch being one example—goes out the window.” It’s human nature, which time has proven over and over, to focus on our primary needs before focusing on anything else.  

 

A few years ago, the company I was working for laid me off. When the company’s stock went from $60 a share to $2 a share essentially overnight, we all knew that most of us would be looking for a job. Up until the day this happened, the CEO was still telling us that the company was doing well and was still growing. Of course, once this happened, senior management had to come clean about the situation, but it was too late. We turned from the company’s mission to our own missions—finding a job. Thus, productivity plumented, because everyone was looking for a new job. No one was telling us who may go and who might stay—the job sites must have seen an increase in traffic by tenfold, because we all got nervous and didn’t want to be unemployed. I believe that this organization would possibly still be in business today if they had handled things differently during this time of crisis–the cubibles were replete with layoff gossip.

 

The HR Practitioner must remember that it isn’t always about “us” (the organization). Although we want our employees to stay on task, and continue to deliver 100%, it’s important that our employees feel that it’s really about them.  Once they believe it’s about them, they can make it about them, and the organization, and its mission.

 

 Now that you have read this blog, I won’t have to come to your organization and put the same sign Bill Clinton had at his campaign headquarters to keep you “on message”.