A CykoMetrix Spotlight Production

Every week, the Spotlight shines on an amazing professional with a story to tell and lessons to teach. Welcome to the CykoMetrix Spotlight.

The following is an adapted transcript of the exchange between Sylvain Rochon, CMO at CykoMetrix as host, and Maurice Thibodeau, Co-Creator of the Life Inventory Assessment.

www.illuminationexperiences.com 

Sylvain Rochon: Welcome to the Psychometric Spotlight. My name is Sylvain Rochon. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at CykoMetrix, a leading-edge combinatorial, psychometric, and human data analytics company that brings the employee assessment industry to the cloud with instant assessments, in-depth analysis, trait measurements, and team-based reporting features that simplify informed decision making around recruiting, training, managing today’s modern workplace.

Today, I am here with Maurice Thibodeau out of Western Canada. Maurice is the co-creator of the life inventory assessments and a person to my heart in creating assessments as well. Maurice is an entrepreneur. He’s a coach and serial creator on a mission to advance the human experience one person and program at a time. He’s the creator of the Life Inventory Assessments, a revolutionary personal development assessment that provides people with a full view of their lives and a clear path on how they can achieve greater fulfillment.

Maurice is the co-creator of the Extreme Leadership Accelerator Mastermind community advancing heart-based leadership and world impact, which is a division of the Extreme Leadership Institute, founded by leadership guru and author Steve Farber.

Maurice is also the co-creator of one of Manitoba’s most transformative wellness experiences, The I Am Festival, which I was not aware of.

Maurice’s ability to architect programs, retreats and experiences helping people expand their lives is how he impacts people. His visionary model and the balanced approach provides a powerful and practical approach to experiencing personal career fulfillment. You seem to be focused a whole lot, Maurice, on personal fulfillment. I guess the first question we should ask, given the topic is what does life fulfillment mean to you?

Maurice: Yeah, that’s a great question. I guess you asked what does it mean to me? For me, it very much means that I am living in alignment with, and breathing. Breathing, that sounds a little woo woo, but really breathing light into my gifts and my talents when I am putting them to work for people and with people that are ready to receive them. I absolutely live a fulfilled life. From a values perspective, for me, that also means being in close partnership with my wife and being the best father that I can be. That means being in alignment with my wellness. That means a lot of things in this abundant life that we get to live. I have my definition probably, actually, you know what? I will shorten that with my partner Steve Farber. He probably said it best. That’s when you are doing what you love in service of people who love what you do, for me, that really is a beautiful definition of living in fulfillment.

Sylvain: Well, I had to take notes.  That’s a great saying from Mr. Farber. I assume most people will feel some relationship with that definition. Others probably have a different idea of what that means to them because it’s a personal thing. How do you deal with the various definitions of fulfillment? It’s an impressive thing.

Maurice: Yeah. It’s to move towards that question, I look at that, that’s an immense invitation. It’s without judgment, it’s without a preconceived notion because I think that’s where a lot of the problems come in. It’s an immense invitation of, “Well, what do you love?” If you’re not quite sure, let’s explore that and let’s explore that in all the different facets that you get to live in. Where is that out of alignment? Then we move towards it. That’s how I address it. I address it without judgment and without a preconceived notion and as an immense invitation to approach that subject.

The other thing is in a great celebration, how wonderful it is that you’re going to consider that question. Because far too many of us are too busy not to consider that question. To the degree that we have the opportunity to actually do that. We are living in a time of abundance, most of us. It’s not without its challenges, but there is a huge amount of abundance available, and for us to slow down and say, “Oh, do I love what really fills me up? Then where am I not getting that in my life? Then to move towards that.”

Sylvain: Good. The invitation is there when people are working with you, I assume particularly, it’s like, “Well, let’s explore that.” What it means to them and then you start working with that, right?

Maurice: Exactly.

Sylvain: How does identifying fulfillment with it, which can vary in meaning and your definition with it and how you work, and how does it translate into performance at work?

Maurice: Yeah. That’s a beautiful question. Often it’s missed. I think it’s maybe in philosophy, entrepreneurs, business leaders, the people making the decisions on how we’re going to develop work in philosophy, it’s like, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.” If you’re happy in your life, then you’re going to be happy at work. You’re going to be more fulfilled. You’re going to contribute more. The translation in the investment of helping people to really move towards their personal fulfillment, the translation of what that can mean for performance at work and what that can mean for resilience at work. What that can mean for loyalty at work. It’s huge and I think loyalty is a big one right now. That’s I think very relevant for time in the workforce.

I’ll do one scenario. You take your employee through training, a competency training, and you help them become a better accountant, a better project manager, a better whatever it is they are, that’s going to be pretty good, right? They’re going to appreciate that. Thank you very much. But it’s still very much a transactional relationship. You’re an accountant for me, and I’m going to help you be a better accountant for me. Transactional, that’s part of the work contract.

Now imagine the situation where you say, “I’m going to help you be more fulfilled.” That’s an immense invitation. I don’t know exactly what that means. We’re going to work on your competency stuff like that’s like, of course, we’re going to do that. But what makes you fulfilled? What makes you tick? If you open up that conversation and help them build bridges to their fulfillment, how do you feel, right? Your loyalty goes through the roof. It’s like, “Wow. This employer doesn’t just say they care about me, they’re taking actual steps.” When I started this, I said, I think a lot of the times, it’s they get it, it’s understood in philosophy, but in implementation and investment is usually like, “Oh, no, that’s not our job.” That’s there, that’s on them, that’s their personal life. Help them be a better accountant because that’s what they do for me.

We got to change well-being in the workplace is changing that conversation and changing it in a meaningful enough way that we’re building the bridges for our people to go through their challenges, personal or at work to build their capabilities. Not just the ones that are going to help at work, but to build their capabilities as human beings. The employers that get that and are doing that, and this is beyond the coffee bar and beyond the bagels. This is way beyond that. This is human development. It’s not HR, it’s not human resources. It’s HD, it’s human development. It’s the change in the conversation.

Sylvain: Yeah. You’re talking a change in conversation and a change in mindset. How are we evolving our staff as company leaders, right? Are we training competencies? Are we making better people, is what I’m hearing. If you make better people, then they’re more productive at work. That’s in summary of what you’re mentioning. Because people are so different and they have different needs, have different stresses, they come from different backgrounds. It’s a wild area.

Maurice: Yes.

Sylvain: If you’re working on competencies, it  is way simpler. It’s like, “Are you able to do this? Check mark. That’s easy, but when you’re trying to strive to bring fulfillment to individuals, it’s like trying to teach a group of people about life. How do you do it? What is the practical method or process to tackle this?

Maurice: Yeah, and I say with like extreme compassion when I describe it as it’s understood in philosophy, but it’s not really being practiced. It’s because that’s a huge gray area when you say, how do I teach people about life? Well, we’re lucky enough to be living in a time where this is actually the science of life. This is the science of happiness. That’s not just a woohoo statement. There is like, “I built an assessment based on my path in life of like, let’s measure these things.” When we measure these things and look at them contextually in whatever life category it is, it starts to build a picture. There are very specific competencies that can be attached to it. There are quick wins and habits that can be formed.

There’s also coaching and support. There’s emotional, a lot of it is around emotional healing and wellness, and to simplify that. Actually, my tool does an amazing job of that. But the other things that are happening in the market, companies that I see that are really, I would say building the bridges between the divide. Their HR managers are no longer doing hiring logistics and that’s part of the job. They’re building out and training coaches. They have a coaching division, coaches that are certified in helping people problem-solve in significant ways. Certified and looking for the emotional things that are happening for that person underneath the surface and helping them through it, coaching them up as human beings so they can get through business problems better, but they can get through life problems better.

I’m seeing that take the companies that really get it, they’re doing that. You’ll see it, the titles are changing, but I think the titles that’s a great step, but the depth of actually moving towards that most companies are still figuring that out. I think a lot of it is we can, as companies are divisions, the leaders in a division are usually experts and they’re competencies. I can go and train that with confidence, take any one person and be like, “Well, are you an expert at life? What gives you the right to train that? It gets a little bit scary. “Well, do I have a right to do that?” Talk about imposter syndrome. Well, I’m actually, “Well, yes, you have a right,” and a responsibility to at least create the container for how people end themselves.

If you’re the CEO or Chief development officer to continuously be raising your game as a human being because when we do that, it’s expensive. I think it’s the most resilient business strategy as well. Because when you are leveling up your people from a human approach, they’re more innovative. They’re nimble, they can move, and they can make it through immense change. They can build better, more cohesive relationships. It’s very substantial when we vertically develop.

That’s another term that I might have to explain, but when we develop our people vertically, everything else benefits. When we develop our people horizontally, competency by competency, then it’s like, well, they’re a better accountant. They’re a better software developer. What about the rest? When we do the rest in alignment with that competency, then we have our best, most resilient people.

Sylvain: The implication of what you’re saying is that, if we build people up, in a general sense, the assumption is that you make sure they’re more content, happie,r more comfortable, and less anxious, which are all emotions of comfort. Then their competencies will benefit.

Maurice: Yes.

Sylvain: Through I guess additional motivation, less stress, and all that stuff as well, which translates into productivity and so on. How do you, in practice, aside from the partnership with the company, help them understand what you’re trying to achieve here? When you engage, how do you actually do your job, do that work since everybody’s different, and as you said, are you going in there to teach them about life? Well, they probably look at you sideways like, who are you to teach me? Are you a guru? How do you approach them to train the individuals once you got the buy-in from the company?

Maurice: Absolutely. Make sure I answer that question. I just wanted to add one other thing around the competency versus as you were summarizing that.

Sylvain: Sure.

Maurice: If you think about the abundance of learning and information that we have, anything I’m interested in learning more about tonight, I can go and start my learning path for free and I could probably find a path that’s accelerated, but we can level up our competency really easy today when we’re motivated and engaged in whatever that is. I think the need in terms of how we’re building up people is a lot less competency-based. Hire the right people that are and give them the motivation to solve real problems. They’ll find the training. That’s all around the self-led leadership and self-managed teams. You can make the path easier.

Anyway, when I mention that, how do I do it? I have a workshop called the Integrated Leadership Workshop. What does that do? I actually tie my assessment into it to have everyone go through and do a life assessment and after they’ve done that, it’s their private information. They look at it but it bridges the conversation of, “Hey, we’re all humans here.” We are all different and what the assessment does is it really clearly maps out where your gaps are. Your greatest gaps in fulfillment might be work but it might also be in your intellectual and creative contributions as an example. It might be with your relationship. It’s just going to map it out. What that does is in terms of when I do that in creating psychological safety, it really levels the playing field of, “Oh, we’re all actually on a path of being the best humans and living the best life that we can.”

Work is part of that path so depending on it, right? The partnership with the company, if we want to just look at the work bubble, we can do that and we’ll blow that up and I’ve got five dimensions that we look at and say, “How are you doing?” If someone’s scoring in the 80 or 90 percentile in how they’re feeling at work, it’s actually not in the bet like, “Where were we going to go with that?” We’re going to say, “Continue to do it. Celebrate your successes and share.” But chances are that person has another part in their life that is out of alignment.

If we expanded that and gave them a path to move towards greater fulfillment, all the other things change. Particularly to do that without a structure, anybody is really hard because we have all these things that we get to manage to do that with a structure where you can look and see. You can expand, you can see the graphs, you can look at your base level of happiness against all the other areas.

You can really get into it. You can study your life and then that’s all great, but we have to integrate the learners. Integrated leadership, now that you know that, what are you going to do? Where are your biggest focus points and your biggest area of growth? Let’s just focus on moving them forward. Everybody walks out with a very specific area of focus and a very specific growth action. Even if they don’t, depending on the cohesiveness of the group when they start will there be an invitation to share, but even if none of them actually share, like, “Ah, actually mine’s around X,” even if none of them share, everybody knows that everyone’s working on their life.

The cohesiveness goes like this and then that can be extended. That can be extended if they have coaches, man, this is a major coaching tool. If they don’t have coaches that can be extended into a coaching engagement or a mastermind cohort where everyone moves towards building their integrated leadership path and living that, living that at work, living that at home, living that in their communities it’s very much, it’s a holistic framework that is action-oriented that produces significant results.

Sylvain: Yeah, that’s really interesting. It’s you’re building work groups where they can identify and share and learn from one another, that alleviates some of the burden from you doing one on ones, one at a time which may be very impractical. Can you tell me or give me an example of an engagement where you were impressed, surprised, or amazed, or tell me a story of how in practice this can work, with real people and real examples?

Maurice: I think I’m going to do group one. Inside the Extreme Leadership Institute, the mastermind that I partnered with was my buddy, Steve Farber. It’s another one of his quotes. One of the companies we worked for was a bank in the Midwest. I have their permission because they’re a testimonial for me. They took their entire C-suite executive through this program. It was a 10-month program, meetings every month. These are people so like the CEO, CFO, Vice Presidents, and their entire senior leadership group. There’s 14 of them in two different cohorts and these are people that have been working together for many years.

There’s some geographic separation, but people have many years of experience. By the end when we did our award ceremony and to hear these leaders talk about their level of connectedness, their level of understanding, and their level of feeling supported from people whom they thought they knew. Some people, if you think about our work relationships, so many of them are down the hallway.  For a lot of them we put on our masks and they’re not there, the depth of them is pretty horizontal.

I’m not talking this group of leaders come out and they’re all having barbecues every Sunday. It’s not about friendship. It’s about really understanding. It’s about compassion, it’s about connection and sometimes friendships will result from that. It’s when we grow our capacity to be compassionate, to understand, and when we see other people’s struggles in a way that’s safe in a way that’s like, “Oh, you’re going through that too,” in a way that’s collaborative. The results blew me away. I couldn’t have been more pleased to have co-created a container, and then seen what had been done. It was like, “Okay, we need more companies to do that.”

Sylvain: Good. That sounds great. Thank you for sharing this story. This was a bank?

Maurice: This was a bank in the Midwest of all things. They have 14 different locations, I believe. I’ve got videos and videos and videos of testimonials from that award ceremony, which happened by accident, which I can give you in links later. But it was what they were saying. I’m like, “Okay, we get that, that is gold.”

Sylvain: Well, I think that’s the best way to wrap up, let’s wrap up with a good example of how it’s received, right? By a bank no less, you think like banks are going to be uptight and not really into that approach. At least the image of that comes to mind. The development of the self is something that is trending, right? It’s becoming more important as companies realize that people want to be empowered. They want to improve themselves and they want to make choices. It is more and more an employee market, less so an employee market. Companies realize that too.

Have you seen this trend and how it’s still moving in that direction? From your perspective, when companies are realizing that they have to train their people to be better people, what have you seen and how it’s trending and how long is that going to trend in that direction?

Maurice: Yes, I believe it’s still very much trending. You can see that with the job titles. You can see that with some of the structural changes. I believe the struggle is still there, so I still think it’s just starting. I think we’re just at the start of that early adoption curve. I think there’s a layer of “I believe” in it. Okay. Actually, the first layer is like I believe in it. I think it’s like imposter syndrome, not really sure how to do it. Like not really sure if this is my business to be in. I think that’s the first layer and a lot of people still just aren’t there. A lot of companies are just like, “I’m going to wait this one out. I got bigger things that I know how to solve,” and for that I say bring in if you believe in it, move towards it.

Bring in somebody you trust that has that bigger picture. Even if it starts with a workshop. Bridge that conversation. The next layer, like the early adopters that are doing it, I think they’re in the ‘how’ phase, they’re in the, “how do we do this at scale? How do we train? Is this an external thing that we bring people in?” I think they’re developing the programs. They’re developing the systems. That is a wonderful thing for me to see from an evolved business because the role of businesses when they do this in society, I think it creates a different equation. I get goosebumps when I talk about that.

That’s a start. I think there still is a huge number of businesses, I guess that is on this side that isn’t, they’re not moving over yet. It starts with the leaders, the very leaders at the very top, their mindset, and their personal development path. I think that one of the easiest bridges to start is at the executive level to be like, how are you looking at life? Because when those leaders bust through call it vertical development, then all of a sudden it’s like everything changes because everything changes. Just like the competency of, I have an idea and I’m going to go for it or I know this, and I’m going to build a company around it.

Well, when leaders burst through their developmental levels and see what’s available, they want that for their people. The scary stuff in between doesn’t matter. Just like if they didn’t know how to build the company before, it didn’t matter because they cared enough about the thing they saw, and they went after it. That’s so I think that’s happening. I think that’s happening at rapid levels and that excites me.

Sylvain: We’re talking about the evolution of the workplace.

Maurice: Yes.

Sylvain: Perhaps even in so far as the evolution of humanity.

Maurice: Yes.

Sylvain: As we are people at work and at home it’s the same person, right?

Maurice: Yes.

Sylvain: Thank you so much. Maurice.  Maurice Thibodeau as the co-creator of Life Inventory Assessment. Doing wonderful work helping people becoming better individuals so that they can perform better at work and at home as well, to do whatever you need to do.

Improving humanity, evolving us. That’s great. If you want to contact Maurice, I’m setting up some links so that you guys can communicate and link up. That’ll be great. Thank you so much Maurice for being in the Spotlight and answering my questions.

Maurice: Thanks so much. This was a lot of fun.

About Maurice Thibodeau – www.illuminationexperiences.com 

Maurice Thibodeau is a creator and a connector on a mission to help people live the greatest expression of themselves. He does this by helping people step into the awareness of their life opportunity, which includes illuminating their highest areas for personal growth and activating their purpose.

He is the creator of the Life Inventory Assessment and the Life Activation Process, a self-reflection process that guides the opening of personal awareness and creates what he calls the “Immense Invitation” to life. The life review process points the user to the specific areas of personal growth so that they know whereto focus to get unstuck and activate what Maurice calls, “their inner source, the most powerful fuel to living in abundance.”

Maurice co-founded and is Chair and Creative Director of I Am Events, a not-for-profit community group dedicated to creating transformational experiences…with love. They host an annual wellness Festival, hosted in Manitoba on his property, where he, his wife Tracy, and three daughters enjoy country living on the 80-acres site.

Maurice has a degree in business administration, he is a former business banker and spent most of his career as a tech business leader where he specialized in building partnerships and corporate contracts. He is a master hypnotherapist, a certified CCF life coach, and he’s been coaching and training in the business world for over15-years.

Co-creator of Life Inventory Assessment & The Life Mapping Process

Founder and Chief Illumination Officer of Illumination Experiences

Co-founder & Creative Director of I Am Festival Co.

Creator & Director of The Extreme Leadership Accelerator

About CykoMetrix – www.CykoMetrix.com

CykoMetrix is a leading edge combinatorial psychometric and human data analytics company that brings the employee assessment industry to the cloud, with instant assessments, in-depth analysis, trait measurements, and team-based reporting features that simplify informed decision-making around recruiting, training, and managing today’s modern workplace.