Richard Medcalf, How to Accelerate and Multiply Your Impact — InnovaBuzz 480
Richard Medcalf, XQuadrant
In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Richard Medcalf who describes himself as “what you get if you were to put a McKinsey consultant, a slightly unorthodox pastor and an entrepreneur into a blender”.
Richard is an executive coach & leadership consultant to exceptional founders & CEOs and their leadership teams. He’s the founder of XQuadrant and host of the Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast.
His clients are elite performers who’ve already achieved incredible things, and still have the ambition to 10x their impact and influence and achieve something that seems impossible right now. That can involve 1:1 coaching, taking the leadership team to its next level, or scaling high-performance culture throughout the business.
In our discussion, Richard talked to me about:
- Why focusing on Impact rather than productivity is important
- Building agreements with stakeholders to help you achieve your goals
- Starting with a mission so amazing that it lights you up
Listen to the podcast to find out more.
Listen to the Podcast
Show Notes from this episode with Richard Medcalf, Founder of XQuadrant
Key points and takeaways from this episode include:
- The perfect moment to go to another level is when you are already playing at a high game and have achieved a lot.
- Impact affects profit, people, and purpose.
- When we rarely focus on things and we’re running towards them, we don’t see the things that are in peripheral vision.
- Success and breakthrough are so often closer than we think, but we need to step out of our busyness in order to see it.
- It’s all about investing time but not using time. It’s not about doing things over and over again. It is when you invest time so that you don’t have to do it again and then using that time to do high value tasks that you can break through to the next level.
- The things that have made you successful in the past are not the same things that will make you successful in the future.
- Clearly identify what is desirable, necessary, and important for you right now. Focus on the maximum contribution that you should be making at this moment.
- Have a strong vision. Be clear about what vision is so amazing that it lights you up. You need to have that sense of purpose. Your vision is your rocket fuel. It has to be really meaningful.
- Be clear about what would be an inspiring outcome and how far you can stretch yourself in that. How do you become the person to make it happen? What do you need to do differently? And, who do you need to be?
- It’s all about being vs doing.
- Identify your high value activities. If you could only do three things all the time, what would they be? Or if you have one project that would make things easier for you in the next quarter, what would that be?
- Productivity is all about freeing yourself to be more strategic.
- Achieving next level success requires mindset, behaviour, and leadership.
- Stop telling yourself stories that you don’t have a choice and you have to do every single task for it to be desirable.
- You have to build new habits to achieve greater success and multiply your impact.
- All behaviours and ambitions that you desire aren’t going happen unless you enroll everyone in the process. Identify the people you need to have conversations with and create agreements around what you will and will not do in the future.
- Productivity is a tool. It is simply doing the things you have to do and creating time for high value activities.
- No great business or life has ever been built in the mailroom. All your constituents what you to spend your time on the transformational projects you are leading, and not on your email.
- If you have the ability, talent, and resources, then you have a duty to make the most of them and serve them to the world.
The Buzz — Our Innovation Round
Here are Richard’s answers to the questions of our innovation round. Listen to the conversation to get the full scoop.
- #1 thing to be more innovative — Go for a walk in nature. Unplug and think.
- Best thing for new ideas — Look for patterns in conversations and recognise opportunities where you can serve and make a difference.
- Favourite tool for innovation — The Game Changing Index
- Keep project/client on track — Create powerful agreements upfront.
- Differentiate — Say something that is Butt Clenchingly Awful (BCA). Be vulnerable, transparent, and honest about where you’re coming from. Let people see not just your polished self but who you really are and what’s really going on.
Reach Out
You can reach out and thank Richard through their website and on LinkedIn.
Suggested Guest
Richard suggested we have a conversation with the Head of Service Design at the Royal College of Art, Clive Grinyer. So Clive, keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz Podcast, courtesy of Richard Medcalf.
Links
How strategic are you using your time right now? Take the XQuadrant Executive Productivity Assessment to find out where you are on the journey to executive time management mastery.
Cool Things About Richard
- He graduated with 1st Class Honours from Oxford University.
- He’s the youngest-ever Partner at TMT strategy consultancy Analysys Mason.
- He’s a licensed lay minister in the Anglican Church.
