Dr Adam Fraser welcomes you!

Dr Adam Fraser is a researcher and educator who helps employees and leaders be aware of how they "Show up" and affect the culture and productivity of their organisation. He is obsessed with helping people be more engaged with their work to improve both the bottom line of the business and the well-being of their employees.


What's new

Presentation Topics

Dr Adam presents on a host of topics such as FLOW the key to high performance, Energy Management, Your Brain - A users guide! click here for more info.


Dr Adam on Channel Nine's What's Good For You?

Dr Adam talks about the 3pm slump and how best to get through the afternoon energy dip on Channel Nine's What's Good For You? watch video


Dr Adam Fraser on Sky News with Peter Switzer

Sky NewsDr Adam Fraser on Sky News discussing how to improve the well being of your staff and managing transitions between work and home. Watch Video. 



Testimonials

ACP magazines

After quite an extensive evaluation process I've finally collated the scores and am very pleased to say you've been rated as our highest speaker across the 2 day event program. Your overall score was 9 out of 10 which has only ever been achieved three times in the last four years. You were such a pleasure to work with so thank you. I definitely look forward to working with you again in the future.
Claire Thomas |Trade Marketing Communications Executive


Suncorp

Without your contribution to our final day of the agenda, it would not have been the success that it was. People are still talking about how fantastic you were!
Candice O'Sullivan
Practice Development Consultant | Advice Solutions


Australian Human Resources Institute

Adam Fraser was amazing, one of the best speakers I have worked with. He has tools that can easily and readily applied upon return to the workplace and was by far one of the standouts of the event.


ISES Sydney

Dr. Adam Fraser recently presented at the ISES Sydney Connect event…his international knowledge, creative approach to work / life balance and desire to connect with people made him a natural fit.

Adam's speech was passionate, easy to understand and engaging with the 45 minutes seeming like only 20. Our members and guests all walked away with clear 'take outs' and the feedback ISES has received has been very positive indeed.
Jeremy Garling
President – ISES Sydney




Dr Adam's Blog

You're better off smoking pot than multitasking!

Adam Fraser - Tuesday, May 31, 2011
When you run your own business you wear a number of hats and you are often jumping from one task to the next. New research tells us that the average person in an office environment is interrupted 11 times in an hour. Sounds a lot but when you think about it most people are constantly responding to their email alert, answering the phone, having people come into their office, suddenly remembering things that they should have done and dealing with noise from open plan offices. What’s the fall out of all these interruptions? The fall out is a massive reduction in productivity and creativity. A study by Basex found that office distractions take up 2.1 hours of the average day (28%) with workers taking an average of 5 minutes to recover from a distraction and re-focus on the original task. In fact a recent study conducted by The Institute of Psychiatry at King's college London, compared the cognitive ability of people who had been multi tasking and people who had just smoked marijuana. Who came out on top? The drug affected workers. The reason why is that multitasking is incredibly stressful on the brain, it impairs short term memory and concentration. The result is that the brain is left in an impaired state. This message is important for the leaders of the business. Due to distractions and interruptions people rarely get the time to think creatively and come up with innovative ideas. We need to minimize distractions and start to focus again. A recent study by my company Dr Adam Fraser Pty Ltd showed that the top 10 distractions were:

1. Emails – office alert and volume of emails
2. People – office colleagues
3. Phone – office and mobile
4. Distracting thoughts – thinking of the next thing to do
5. Noise - in open plan offices
6. Clients expecting instant responses
7. Personal Issues playing on your mind
8. Un-necessary meetings
9. Mixed priorities from management
10.Fatigue

Strategies to minimise distractions:
Turn off the email alert
Check your email at certain points of the day, for example every hour or every two hours.
During important tasks when you need to focus block all distractions or remove yourself from the office environment.
Communicate to people around you that at certain points of the day you are not to be disrupted.
If the noise around you is too great look at using ear plugs at certain points of the day.
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Work-Life Balance

Adam Fraser - Thursday, May 26, 2011
Today's Blog answers some commonly held misconceptions about work-life balance...

1. What is your opinion of WLB?
I think the terms work life balance is negative as it implies that work is separate to our life. What we really want is work life integration where the two work together. Also with so much emphasis on balance these days the term balance almost have a negative effect as we feel pressure to get balance and fee guilty when we don't achieve it.

2. Does it actually exist anymore and why are we losing balance in our lives?
There is more pressure on the average employee today than any other time in history. Companies are cutting resources yet expecting greater outcomes, every industry is feeling the pain and no one is immune. Business guru Charles Handy said that working in the 21st century is described by the formula ½ x 2 = 3. Translated, this means half the number of people doing twice the amount of work expected to get three times the result. Yes there is a trend towards less balance.

3. Does striving for balance put excess pressure on us? Yes it does and when we don't achieve it we feel guilty. Also society makes us feel guilty when we don't have balance.

4. Do you believe WLB is achievable? I do however most people will need to alter their idea of balance, because what they expect and what is achievable are two very different things.

5. Are most peoples ideas for balance achievable? No they tend to be unrealistic. Most people think that balance is a destination that you arrive at where they will have all the time in the world and they will be calm and relaxed and serene. Balance varies each day and it is a constant battle. In addition many people off their balance for a future day. They say I will have balance when "the kids leave home", or when "they employ someone else at work to reduce my work load". Balance does no suddenly arrive one day. We need to find balance in all times.

6. Do we need to alter our goals and expectations around balance? Yes I believe that if we want more balance in our lives we start off with a very conservative goal and work up from there.

7. Is balance the same for all people? No, balance differs for different people and you need to find what works for you. For some people they need balance on a daily basis, while other people only need balance on a weekly basis. Balance is a personal thing.

8. Do you know people that get WLB right and what do they do to achieve it? They are realistic about what they can achieve and they make sure that they can integrate the balance into their life.

9. What do you think the keys to balance are? Being realistic Having a plan that is practical Set some rules and constantly re-evaluate it to make sure it is working.
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