Merry Christmas - Making a Difference

December 17th, 2009

 

Merry Christmas! 

 

We often ask people, ‘which blog post is your favourite?’  We receive a variety of responses.  Different tips appeal to different people.  However, a common theme has emerged.  It seems that many of you like a good story!  

 

So, for our final blog of the year, we’ve decided to share one of our favourite stories.  As we enter the holiday period much of our focus is on giving and receiving presents.  The end of the year can also be a time of reflection, for creating new goals and challenges for ourselves.  Sometimes we sabotage our goals by believing they are unachievable, they are too big and we’re too small to make a difference.    This story illustrates how even the smallest steps and actions can make a difference.

 

Thank you for your support in 2009.

 

Best wishes for a happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous 2010.

 

Colin

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The Star Thrower - Making a difference

 

Once upon a time there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing.  He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.  One day he was walking along the shore and, as he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer.  He smiled to himself and wondered what the dance was about.  So, he began to walk faster, to catch up.  As he got closer he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

 

As he got closer he called out, “Good morning!  What are you doing?”  “Dont you realise that there is miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it?  You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man paused, looked up and replied, “Throwing starfish in the ocean”.

“I guess I should have asked, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”

“The sun is up and the tide is going out.   If I don’t throw them in they’ll die”.

“But, young man, don’t you

The young man listened politely.  Then, bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves.  “It made a difference for that one!”

Food for thought?

 

 

Have a great Christmas and healthy and successful 2010.

 

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Making Change Stick- The Masai and Logical Levels

November 26th, 2009

We were recently on holiday in Tanzania and had the privilege of spending some time in a Masai village. In talking with some of the tribesmen we were surprised how many had been to university. Later that day we were talking to the manager of the hotel we were staying in and he explained how the Tanzanian government were exasperated in their efforts to get the Masai to give up their traditional nomadic way of life, despite providing extensive funds for education. Many went away to university, studied for their degree, and then returned to their village and former way of life.

Research by Gregory Bateson and Robert Dilts suggests that we have a hierarchy in the way we think about things. They identified six ‘logical levels of thought’, each level providing different information and building on the level below.

The Six Logical Levels:

6. Purpose: The big picture for our life or our organisation.

5. Identity: Who are you as an individual or organisation? What role do you play to achieve your purpose? How do you think of yourself as a person/organisation - eg ‘I am a successful person’.

4.Beliefs and Values: Why do you do something? What do you believe in or value?

3. Capabilities: How do you go about doing things? As an individual or organisation, what are your capabilities, skills, strategies or action plans?

2. Behaviours: What are your typical behaviours? The things that others see you doing and saying?

1. Environment: Where, when and with whom do you display your behaviours? What are the external influences on you?

An Example: Many of us have been on a time management training programme. So, in theory, most of us have the capabilities needed for good time management. We also know what behaviours help and we know how to organise our environment to enhance our use of time. So, how is it that one of the main areas that people tell us they would like to improve upon is time management? From the logical levels model we can see that most of us only made changes at the bottom three levels in regards to time management. If, for example, we don’t believe that utilising a rigorous diary system will work, or we value spontaneity over punctuality or our identity is bound up in being open and accessible to people then, because we haven’t made any changes at the higher levels, it is unlikely that after the initial rush of good intentions the principles of time management will be embedded.

Sustainable Change

Making a change at a lower level (eg environment) may, but not necessarily, affect an upper level. However, a change at an upper level (eg belief) will have a distinct impact on the levels below it, as illustrated in the above example. (You may remember previous newsletters that dealt with the fact that beliefs are only beliefs and so can be changed.)

Using Logical Levels to Explain/Understand Change

The above leads to a number of interesting explanations/discoveries:

1. Organisational change. Have you ever been involved in change within an organisation? What are some of the more common change activities?

How about a new organisation chart? Or maybe change to the physical layout of the offices. This is change at the level of environment. Do you think it will be long-lasting? Only if the change is in alignment with the higher levels.

Or maybe staff are told to perform in a different way (behaviour) without receiving the necessary training (capability/strategy). Unfortunately, this happens far too often. When money becomes tight, the first thing cut is the training budget! Again it is unlikely that the change will be long-lasting.

2 Individual Change. Suppose you have a goal for yourself (health, career, …) and it is not in alignment with one of the higher levels. How successful do you think you will be in achieving your goal?

3. An often cited quote from Albert Einstein is “The problems of today can only be solved at a higher level of thinking than that which created them”. I have heard many people refer to this quote yet few can explain how you can actually do it (ie move to a higher level of thinking). Using logical levels, you can easily explain it. For example, if there is a problem at the behavioural level, to solve it we must move to at least the capability/strategy level.

4. Implementing Change. To implement change successfully, either individually or as an organisation, all six levels need to be considered. Something the Tanzania government perhaps needs to think about if they are ever going to succeed in their aim of changing the Masai.

Food for thought?

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Free Days

October 16th, 2009

Article courtesy of Bernadette Doyle

Heard About ‘Free Days’?
Imagine the following scenario. It’s Wednesday afternoon. You and a friend are having lunch at your favourite restaurant. After lunch you might go for a stroll, visit a local attraction, or just go home and read. It doesn’t matter which. Your phone and email are switched off, work is the farthest thing from your mind, and you’re committed to nothing more than simply relaxing. You return to the office the next morning, guilt-free and feeling rather energetic.

This is what Strategic Coach Dan Sullivan describes as a Free Day, a 24-hour period completely free from work-related problem-solving, communication, and action.

It’s not so easy to imagine, is it? For most business owners, the whole notion of free time, particularly midweek, is nothing less than far-fetched. How can you possibly take free time when there’s so much work to be done, money to make, commitments to be kept?

Most people think of Free Days as a reward for hard work. I don’t. Now I see Free Days as an essential precondition for achieving success and optimum productivity. The key to free days is recognizing that it means booking time to rejuvenate before — not after — your productive periods. Several years ago I started to notice that many of the successful business owners I admired talked about the importance of ‘downtime’ and blocking out periods of time where they did absolutely nothing.

Because I was interested in replicating their results, I paid attention and started to wonder how I could incorporate ‘free days’ into my own schedule. It wasn’t easy at first. On any given day, most business owners would consider themselves extraordinarily lucky (or seriously pressured) to be able to squeeze in a bit of free time, let alone a whole day. It happens only IF they can first get “a few things” done, IF there are no unexpected crises, and IF they can just clean up a few “little messes” around the office. Not surprisingly, this seldom, if ever, happens.

But if you want to improve the quality of both your work and personal life, you need ‘Free Days’. So how can you incorporate free days into YOUR schedule?

Right now, most of us figure out how much time we need to work and make money. Then, if there’s anything left over, we devote it to free time. But this concept doesn’t work for time any more than it works for money.

Successful savers know that you have to work out what you want to save, take it off the top of your income, and live on the rest. If you don’t, you’ll get to the end of the month and find there is nothing left. Free time is just like savings: it has to come off the top. So you need to plan your Free Days first, and then work everything else around them.

It won’t come easy at first. You’re not used to it. Like anything else, Free Days take time and practice. But it gets easier when you see free days as a necessity, rather than a luxury. When you’re running a business YOU are the most important asset. In the words of Coachville founder Thomas Leonard ‘Without you, there is nothing.’ So you need to make taking time out for relaxation, rejuvenation and what Stephen Covey calls ’sharpening the saw’ a priority.

How should you use a Free Day? Well that all depends upon YOU. Some people are rejuvenated by engaging in highly energetic activities. They need to be out and about, on the go all the time. Others (like me) are just the opposite. They just want to relax, curl up with a book, listen to music, get a massage, lie on a beach, or have a good conversation. Whatever you choose, your Free Day should allow you to be in a different world, away from responsibilities, concerns, worries, and goals.

Start NOW. Don’t let this be a ‘good idea’ that you’ll get around to ‘when you have time’. Take out your calendar and mark out your next ‘free day’. Keep it sacred! If a whole day seems like too much to start with, then start with an afternoon. I promise that when you make a habit of ‘free days’ and you notice your creativity and productivity soar as a result, you’ll be hooked. So start TODAY.
© Bernadette Doyle, 2009
WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE? See more articles at my website - google me now.

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A Summer Walk - The meaning of the communication is the response you get

October 7th, 2009

We recently held a communication skills workshop for some senior managers in the public sector. Part of the day involved looking at beliefs of ‘excellence’ of great communicators (some of which we have covered in previous newsletters). Whilst these these beliefs may not necessarily be true, it can be useful to behave as if they are!

These beliefs include:
The map is not the territory.
The meaning of the communication is the response you get.
You cannot NOT communicate.
If what you are doing isn’t working, change what you’re doing
The person with the most flexibility in their thinking and behaviour has the best chance of succeeding.

To illustrate how these beliefs can be useful I went on to tell the story of a walk I was on….
We recently joined two of our friends on a walk in Derbyshire. After lunch four of our party continued the walk along a very well defined bridleway. Meanwhile Alan, the leader and the only one of us with a map, stopped to chat to some fellow walkers. We assumed they were just passing pleasantries and he would soon catch us up. After about 20 minutes it became clear that our leader was not following us and we retraced our steps a few hundred metres to see if we could see him. He was nowhere in sight. The leader’s wife, exasperated that he had spent so long talking, offered to call him on her mobile. This is a rough translation of the conversation that followed:

Alan: Where are you?

Julie: We are on the path.

Alan: No, you’re not. I’m on the path. You missed the turn.

Julie: We didn’t see any turn.

Alan: Where are you now?

Julie: We are still on the bridleway, we have been on it all the time.

Alan: Whereabouts are you?

Julie: Just coming up to a bend and there is a footpath.

Alan: Are you facing up or down the path?

Julie: What?

Alan: If you are going in the direction you left the village is the footpath on your left or right?

Julie: We have gone around a few bends, so, I don’t know, I don’t know why you are making it so complicated.

Alan: It’s not complicated to me. Have you turned back or not?

Julie: We did but now we are stopped.

Alan: I need you to tell me where you are in relation to the sun.

Julie: We are in the sun!

Clearly exasperated Julie holds the phone away from her ear and mouths that Alan isn’t making any sense. Eventually she puts the phone back to her ear and Alan, equally exasperated, says: “Let me talk to someone who speaks my language!”

Thinking back to the beliefs of excellence:
The map is not the territory.
The meaning of the communication is the response you get.
You cannot NOT communicate.
If what you are doing isn’t working, change what you’re doing
The person with the most flexibility in their thinking and behaviour has the best chance of succeeding.

Which beliefs would have been useful for Julie and Alan? How would stepping into one of the beliefs of excellence have influenced their interaction?

Which beliefs would be useful for you? How could you try them out this week?

Food for thought?

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Are we are all biased?

August 3rd, 2009

In his latest article for People Management magazine Binna Kandola explains that “psychological research quite clearly demonstrates that all human beings are biased”. The key, he contends, is that we need to be aware of our biases in order to maximize our opportunities and performance in a diverse society.

Self awareness is one of the cornerstones of emotional intelligence which in turn has been shown to correlate with leadership success.

http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2009/07/under-the-skin.htm

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Apollo 11. 40 years on – Leading Teams with a compelling direction.

July 30th, 2009

Over the past few weeks you have no doubt seen some of the coverage of the 40th anniversary of landing on the moon. You may have noticed that much of the coverage has focused on how such a difficult goal could only be achieved through teamwork.

One thing that struck me was the compelling direction that President Kennedy gave the NASA team in his speech in May 1961, declaring:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

In his book, ‘ Leading Teams’, Richard Hackman argues that, in all successful teams, leaders set a direction for their team which is clear, challenging and compelling. I would also add that they present the direction with impact as Kennedy did.

Kennedy’s goal was clear - notice he didn’t simply give the goal of landing on the moon it was landing on the moon and returning safely to earth. This clarity served to mobililise attention. (In previous posts we have commented that you need to be careful what you wish for when setting goals.)

Kennedy also provided clarity around the timescale associated with the goal. Without the ‘before this decade is out’ time limit NASA would arguably have taken far longer to achieve the goal.
The goal was challenging with a real chance of both success and failure. Hackman suggests that a goal needs around a 50/50 chance of success to be truly challenging and, of course, there were tragedies along the way to the success of Apollo 11.

Finally, the goal was compelling, invoking the importance for mankind as well as for the USA and so emotionally engaging for all those involved. It was also compelling because it was made clear that the means would be provided, but the NASA team had to figure out the way to do it. Clearly they would also be held accountable and the missions would be very open to public scrutiny.

I am reminded of a story, that you may have heard, about a visitor who was touring NASA during the heyday of the manned space programme. The visitor met various engineers. When he asked them what they were doing, they replied, “We are helping to put a man on the moon.” On his way out he passed a janitor who was sweeping. When the visitor asked the janitor what he was doing there, the janitor replied, “I am helping to put a man on the moon.” Everyone in the program was focused on the mission. That’s real employee engagement, isn’t it?

Forty years on I believe there are still powerful lessons that we can take from Kennedy’s ‘Man on the Moon’ goal when thinking about our work, our goals and those of our team.

How engaged are we at a personal level?
How engaged is our team?
Do we have a clear, challenging and compelling direction?
Do we set a clear, challenging and compelling direction for others?

Food for thought?

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Recession - A recruiters dream?

July 21st, 2009

See :http://www.fpb.org/hottips/451/Recession___a_recruiter_s_dream?.htm

Call us for advice on personality profiling for recruitment

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Monty saves England - Who is your buddy? Who could you buddy with?

July 12th, 2009

You may have just watched the end of the first test match with Australia.

Monty Panesar, the England cricketer, has gone from batting no hoper to England saviour through having a buddy (Paul Colingwood) to help him improve his batting.

Who could you buddy with?

Who could you be a buddy for?

Are you critical of someone’s ability without offering to help them improve?

Food for thought?

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Michael Jackson, Iran and Discursive Leadership

July 1st, 2009

I’m sure most of us have been touched by some of the news stories over the last few days. The death of Michael Jackson has provoked a worldwide reaction and a reaction that many of us may not have expected, in that it has been so positive in remembering him for his talent. You may have seen one of the documentaries about Michael that ended with the words;

“How Michael Jackson will be remembered will depend on who tells the story”.

This got me thinking about how we construct our reality of events through discussion, negotiation and discourse.

Another item of news that you may have seen was the description of the initial phase of demonstrations against the presidential election results in Iran. The BBC’s correspondent, Jeremy Bowen, described how there were “two narratives” vying for supremacy through discourse. The official governmental line was that ‘the elections were fair and democratic and the demonstrators were terrorists’. The narrative from the demonstrators was that ‘the elections were rigged and they were fighting for the good of the country, to ensure Iran became a modern state free from the tyranny of a dictatorship’. Bowen suggested that, through debate, people were constructing their polarised versions of reality based on the narratives being proposed.

Gail Fairhurst, in her book ‘Discursive Leadership’, suggests that leadership is also constructed and negotiated. Her favourite definition of leadership is that;

“Leadership is exercised when ideas expressed in talk or actions are recognised by others as capable of progressing tasks or problems that are important to them”.

Fairhurst suggests that this definition takes some thinking about. Firstly, she says, it acknowledges that leadership is a process of influence and meaning-making between people. She goes on to argue that, therefore,

i) anyone can be a leader,

ii) leadership is a process, not just about one way communication.

and iii) leadership is an attribution made by followers or observers. (Just because you have the title does not mean you are accepted as a leader.)

All of which raises some though provoking questions for us as individuals and leaders.

•Are we aware that our words, our discourses and actions are constantly being evaluated by others?

•Are we aware of how we come across to others?

•Are we aware of the way we make attributions?

•Do we actively seek feedback to increase our self awareness?

Food for thought?

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Leadership lessons from Obama

June 18th, 2009
Leadership Lessons From Obama

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