The Frequently Asked Questions
to Developing Corporate Mental Muscle

1. What is Entelechy about?
2. Who is Jim Madrid?
3. What do we know about change?
4. Why are we wired to avoid pain?
5. What happens when change = pain?
6. What is the good news?
7. What must smart leaders do?
8. How do you do it?

What is Entelechy About? [BACK TO TOP]
Entelechy provides training and development globally for companies and organizations that have two things in common:

1. They want to improve performance.
2. They identify people as their primary asset.

The Entelechy methodology is designed to maximize an organization’s potential by effectively integrating the personal and professional goals of employees with Corporate objectives. In effect, the process melds individual fulfillment with bottom line results.

Who Is Jim Madrid? [BACK TO TOP]
For most of his adult life, Jim Madrid has been in the business of helping people and organizations achieve higher levels of success. He works directly with corporate and team leaders to develop strategies that would enable their companies to achieve unprecedented productivity. As keynoter and platform presenter, he is known to audiences around the United States as a dynamic, uniquely gifted speaker who is both entertaining and enlightening.

What Do We Know About Change? [BACK TO TOP]
The first learning component of our change ready process is titled, “Take Change by the Hand.” Our capacity, as humans, to make change is enormous however, our response to change is learned and is therefore subject to development. Like most behaviors, it is shaped and justified by what we believe—our opinions and attitudes. This is particularly true for the value or risk we perceive when it comes to making changes ourselves.

There is no shortage of information about change in the world of business. Academics, theorists, researchers and, most importantly, the people in the trenches have been studying and writing about the speed of change for the last 20 years. For the most part, they have all ended up talking about the same things. Chief among them is the fact that the human capacity for change is virtually unlimited but largely underdeveloped.

During the last few years, the Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative at Harvard has been working on this challenge. The Initiative includes physicians, psychologists and others interested in understanding how thinking impacts behavior. It also includes economists and people from the business world. Their findings are important enough to pass on to our clients, particularly those who are managing businesses.

We are Wired to Avoid Pain [BACK TO TOP]
When we are threatened by physical harm or emotional pain, our system sends signals to the cerebral cortex that cause our brains to become flooded with adrenaline. This adrenaline blocks some of the brain’s function. That’s why the person who gets a negative evaluation or bad news seems to stop hearing. As soon as our system realizes that it’s being threatened, the brain flips over to what the Harvard team calls the Pain Avoidance Model (PAM) and prepares for fight or flight.

Business Implications: What Happens When Change = Pain? [BACK TO TOP]
Business people, and thus their companies, fail to learn and grow when change equals pain. Losing control, recognizing and admitting personal error, changing one’s theories of the world around us and of ourselves are all sources of pain. Even the prospect of them triggers PAM, causing the chemical response that prevents our rational minds from functioning rationally and effectively. PAM may be a very old and effective mechanism to help us survive, but unless we take charge of it, PAM can also prevent us from learning and growing.

Companies that fail to learn and change, fail to grow and prosper. If we can’t acknowledge our errors and continually avoid discomfort, we can’t change. When managers avoid taking unpleasant actions, they’re really avoiding the pain of accepting that the actions are necessary. When leaders refuse to abandon ineffective ways of operating, they’re avoiding the pain of admitting they were wrong. A financial economist and member of the Harvard group asserts: “this is no mere psychological curiosity; it costs business hundreds of billions of dollars.”

The Good News [BACK TO TOP]
We are not condemned to be as we presently are, individually or organizationally. The scientists at Harvard point out that while our system normally sends fight or flight signals to the cortex, there’s also a pathway in another direction. It allows our minds to influence our system’s instincts. It is, says a team member, “like a muscle we can train.” In other words, science is amassing more and more physical evidence to support what some people, including The Entelechy Group, have believed for years: We can change/develop/improve our character by deliberately changing the way we think.

Virtually anyone can be taught how to develop “mental muscle” strength. As they do, they become more willing and able to take on the emotional discomfort or pain that accompanies many things that need to be done, including dealing with change. When strength builds, discomfort lessens. Clearly, well-developed mental muscle is a good thing, for individuals and for organizations.

Two simple yet profound differences separate leaders of a change-ready, flexible, learning organization from those of their “me too” survival counterparts:

• Greater courage to make difficult decisions (mental muscle) based on what they see that no one else may see; and
• The ability to successfully instill that courage into an organizational critical mass.

Organizations that do this are in position to dominate their market.

What Smart Leaders Must Do [BACK TO TOP]
Constantly develop and enhance the personal and group mental muscle at every level of the organization. If you could use some help with the how-to’s, call us. Building mental muscle is what we do best.

How Do You Do It? [BACK TO TOP]
An Engagement Snapshot

Initial Implementation Meetings

We meet with selected individual team members one-on-one to listen to individual perspectives. We then meet with the management team to discuss the feedback. We formally introduce The Entelechy Group and give the entire team an overview of how what we do fits into and supports the ongoing business strategy already in place. This session includes ample time for questions, observations and concerns.

Stage 1: Ten Principles™ Leadership Seminar [BACK TO TOP]

Seminar Objectives:
The Ten Principles educational process begins with Stage 1, a two-day seminar, followed by Stage 2, a two-week personal practice period guided by audio program. These two stages focus on teaching participants how to accept accountability for and successfully manage their own lives, deal more effectively with change in their personal and professional environment, and enhance their creativity and energy level, as well as those of the entire group. Most importantly, participants will develop a clear understanding of how their thoughts determine not only their own future, but also the organizational future. At the conclusion of Stage 2, participants will:

• have a clear understanding of how beliefs affect and control behavior;
• know how to change limiting beliefs into useful attitudes;
• understand how change affects most people and know how to minimize their own down-time when adjusting to the new;
• accept complete accountability for own success and happiness;
• be able to use creative imagery to help them achieve personal and organizational goals.

ROI & Planning [BACK TO TOP]

This session enables the senior management team to connect the Entelechy education and your leadership to the organization’s mental and financial health. The next steps will be outlined and accountabilities defined.

Leadership/Facilitator Development

Course Objectives:

• The participants will be able to properly present “The Ten Principles of Entelechy” to others
• They will be prepared to be accountable for the successful implementation of the process in your organization.
• Foundation Seminars
• Introductory Seminars
• Follow-up
• Integration in Organizational Activities

They will understand how to incorporate facilitation skills into their communication and management style.

• Identify the skills and techniques needed to properly facilitate, i.e.: role, style, qualities, knowledge, attitudes
• Integrate these skills into their sales meetings and presentations, etc.
• Using facilitation, their causative power will increase

Sub Objectives

• Identify the skills and techniques needed to properly facilitate, i.e.: role, style, qualities, knowledge, and attitudes.
• Understand the basic process and purpose used to present each Principle.
• Demonstrate by planning and presenting an assigned unit in a setting that simulates the facilitator’s actual environment.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the affirmation/visualization process through participation in the Affirmation Workshop.
• Demonstrate ability to execute certain awareness exercises and activities in a classroom setting.
• Demonstrate ability to utilize reference material.
• Identify the value of the audio-assimilation package and other follow-up training designed to reinforce the basic curriculum.

In-House Roll-out of The Ten Principles of Entelechy

Total implementation of the curriculum delivered to the entire organization.

Vision In Process (VIP) Preplanning [BACK TO TOP]

An organization focused on results creates a clear, overarching corporate vision, but expects teams to build their own compelling vision in order to achieve individual, team and corporate goals. In this session, we collectively define the terms of organization’s vision document. These elements must, of course, be congruent with shareholder’s desired results as set forth in corporate strategies and action plans. Defining the terms of the vision document is an important prerequisite to being able to clearly and compellingly communicate the corporate vision. Clear communication is essential to achieve a high level of buy-in from all stakeholders, particularly individual team members and the team as a whole. At this point in the process, the leadership team is now in a position to carve out a clear, compelling and executable vision.

Vision Building [BACK TO TOP]

Key to achieving organizational goals and objectives is the ability to develop and successfully execute a cooperative vision. This vision must appeal to people who are directly or indirectly involved with the day-to-day functions of organizational members. We know that when jobholders and customers participate in the development and execution of a vision, something is created that’s big enough to achieve defined goals and objectives. Goal achievement is a continuous process of becoming different, improving, changing! That kind of work is necessarily personal.

This session applies what the team has learned so far to identifying specific behaviors and attitudes needed to accomplish every goal/objective that has been individually and collectively set, both now and in the future.

This session transfers what the team has been learning about goal-setting etc. to identifying the behaviors and attitudes that are necessary and needed to accomplish every goal and objective individuals are setting for themselves and for the organization. We meet with senior management one-on-one to listen to individual perspectives. Then, we meet with the management team as a group to discuss the individual feedback.

Organizations implementing plans for continuous quality improvement or any other change process, i.e., re-engineering, etc. are falling short of achieving full success for a simple but profound reason: Poor articulation of the vision at the top and lack of middle management and employee buy-in and commitment. Using the concepts learned in the preceding workshops and seminars, the organization now develops strategic goals. The Vision Building process draws from The Ten Principles key concepts and thinking skills for long-range planning. This process will enable you to make bold choices that have a higher probability of success. This session captures the energy, drive, creativity and enthusiasm which accompany the vision building portion of planning sessions and channels them into action and goal accomplishment essential for success.

Vision Building shows organizations how to become collectively confident and action oriented while implementing their own strategic vision.

Participants can expect to:

• Take an internal and external scan of the organizational environment.
• Determine organizational strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
• Define the key elements of previous successes and identify critical success factors for the future.
• Determine the cultural elements unique to your organization.
• Achieve consensus and shared accountability for key result areas.
• Create an action plan that is consistent with the organization’s vision and culture and that identifies key activities, assigns accountabilities, and sets time lines for completion.

The most effective Vision Building Task Force is comprised of not more than 49% of corporate leaders and senior management, 51% of middle management and employee groups all of whom are held in highest esteem as credible, trusted, dependable associates. These people should be sold on the organization’s purpose and direction and naturally influence others both internally and externally.

Each participant should be empowered to contribute to the discussion and suggest action plans. Managers who are responsible for establishing policies and those who have accountability for their implementation should be present. Each person will receive pre-work prior to the session. The completion of this pre-work will focus and prepare the participant for full, purposeful participation. The quality of preparation and participation of each participant, combined with their spirit of intent, will determine the success of the session.

Mentoring and Coaching [BACK TO TOP]

People want and need to feel that the work they do is significant, meaningful and valued. Often, when an organization asks for improvement or change (which, these days, is almost all the time,) people start to question the organization’s motives. More particularly, they question the motives of the people who are perceived to be guiding and shaping the organization’s direction. Anyone with influence or span of control in your organization needs to be involved in these Mentoring and Coaching sessions. Their design will be directly tied into an organizations’ strategic direction. The sessions will include: Coaching Effective Outcomes (CEO); Building and Managing Long-term Relationships; Principled Negotiation; and Facilitating and Achieving Individual and Group Buy-in to the Organization’s Philosophies, Strategic Direction, Goals and Objectives.

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