Dr Adam's Blog

Leadership Has not changed in 20 years

Mon, 14 May 2012 05:23:00 GMT

I just read the below article in Fast Company, thought you might like it. It talks about how the things we need to do as leaders today has not changed in 20 years, despite the change in environment.

What it illustrates is that we don't have an information problem we have an implementation problem. We know what we should do to lead better we are just not doing it. It shows that we need to help our leaders more with changing their behaviour.

My research supports this. In the last five years I have seen over 250 climate surveys from different companies. They all say the same thing no matter what industry. People want their leaders to do the following:
Treat me with respect
Listen and consider my ideas
Care about me as a human being
Coach me and develop my skills
Map out a career plan for me
Show me how what I do each day makes a difference.

This article supports this argument perfectly.

By Robert Sutton

http://www.fastcompany.com/1825035/good-bosses-are-the-same-today-as-they-were-in-1992

Lately I have seen the claim that management or leadership needs to be reinvented. Many reasons given for this need seem sensible: Gen X and Gen Y require different management techniques; outsourcing, globalization, and information technology means working with people we rarely if ever meet in person; the pressure to think and move ever faster is unprecedented; so many employees are disengaged that they need to be managed so they feel appreciated.

Yet, no matter how hard I look at studies by academics and consulting firms, or at contrasts between successful and unsuccessful leaders, I can’t find persuasive evidence of substantial change in the kinds of bosses people want to become or work for, or that enable human groups and organizations to thrive. Changes such as the computer revolution, globalization, and distributed teams mean that if you are a boss, staying in tune with followers is more challenging than ever. And, certainly, bosses need to be more culturally aware because many workplaces are composed of more diverse people.

But every new generation of bosses faces hurdles that seem to make the job tougher than it ever was. The introduction of the telephone and air travel created many of the same challenges as the computer revolution--as did the introduction of the telegraph and trains. Just as every new generation of teenagers believes they have discovered sex and their parents can’t possibly understand what it feels like to be them, believing that that no prior generation of bosses ever faced anything like this and these crazy times require entirely new ways of thinking and acting are likely soothing to modern managers. These beliefs also help socalled experts like me sell our wares. Yet there is little evidence to support the claim that organizations—let alone the humans in them—have changed so drastically that we need to invent a whole new kind of boss.

This isn’t a new idea, either. In 1992, two Harvard Business School professors, Robert Eccles and Nitin Nohria (now the dean of HBS), wrote Beyond the Hype. This book showed that while management thinkers (notably the much worshipped Peter Drucker) have repeatedly claimed it is a whole new world out there for managers and employees--that everything needs to be reinvented because the old ways are obsolete--the fundamentals of what it takes to lead, organize, and inspire followers were pretty much “the same as it ever was.”

Eccles and Norhia’s argument applies as well in 2012 as in 1992--at least when it comes to bosses. Just like the leaders people wanted before the industrial revolution, we humans still yearn to follow others who are competent enough to bring in resources, teach us new skills, and generate attention and prestige from key outsiders--who drive performance. We also want fair leaders who protect us, and who make us feel cared for and respected--who inject humanity. Although the ways bosses accomplish these things is and has always been constrained by technologies, culture, different kinds of work, and on and on, the fundamentals remain unchanged. Yet the hype keeps flying about how we need to reinvent management. In particular, we often hear calls for the end of hierarchy, the virtues of empowerment, and how knowledge workers need to be treated in new and different ways.

The notion that people who do creative or complex work need more autonomy than others is quite old. Thomas Edison’s lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, was decentralized; workers there were encouraged to develop their own ideas, and there were fewer and less obvious status differences between people at different hierarchical levels compared to traditional organizations of the time.

Yet, at Edison’s lab--as at today’s Apple, Google, Facebook, and Pixar and every other creative organization I know—there was a clear pecking order. Indeed, a careful review of research by my Stanford colleagues Debra Gruenfeld and Larissa Tiedens shows that we humans prefer hierarchical relationships, are happier when we work in clear hierarchies than where power differences are absent or unclear, and we experience less distress and work more effectively.

Gruenfeld and Tiedens suggest that we prefer hierarchies because they are effective for sorting people based on different skills and reduce ambiguity. The upshot is that although good bosses--especially in creative places--do encourage input and delegate decisions, little evidence suggests that the need or desire for bosses--and bosses of bosses--will disappear anytime soon.

So the challenge is not to reinvent management. Rather it is to find ways to dampen the known drawbacks of pecking orders and amplify the positive elements. That is what great bosses do and have always done.

The Google experience is instructive. In 2009, Lazlo Block, vice president of People Operations, launched a study called Project Oxygen to figure out the differences between the best and the worst bosses at Google. Since Google was first founded about fifteen years ago, its leaders believed that technical expertise was the most crucial quality of a great boss and that since such smart people worked there, a boss’s job was pretty much to leave people alone unless they asked for technical help. Project Oxygen revealed insights that surprised Google’s leaders, but it fit with thousands of studies.

Technical expertise ranked dead last among the predictors of a boss’s effectiveness. Instead, as The New York Times reported, “What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”

Google is an evidence-based place. So they boiled down their list of what good bosses do into just a few key factors, and they now work intensely with underperforming bosses to change their behavior. If you are a boss, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by considering Google’s journey.

Don’t believe the hype about reinventing management. As over fifty years of research shows, treating employees with respect, encouraging them to participate and to make suggestions, and listening to them are as important as ever. The same is true about setting a clear direction, making decisions, and taking charge.

Kind regards,

Dr Adam Fraser

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"Dr Adam Fraser's latest book - The Third Space - out in July 2012!"

Why everything you thought you knew about happiness is wrong!

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 23:13:00 GMT

We all want it but it appears that most of us don’t have nearly enough of it. What am I talking about? Happiness!
Happiness research is now big business. Where once the secret of happiness was left to the philosophers to ponder, the world of science has since joined the party. Scientists want to know what makes us happy, psychologists want to know why, and marketers want to know how to make money out of our desperate need to be happy.
Why has research is this area exploded? Despite rises in the standard of living and greater and fancier possessions, depression rates have risen to 1 in 4 people. While our external world is getting more luxurious, our internal world is struggling.
Why isn’t our happiness scale climbing in parallel with our quality of life? I set about answering this question. Having spent the last three months analysing the research, I’ve found that everything we thought we knew about happiness is wrong.
It’s time to debunk some common myths about happiness.

1.   Don’t the big things make us happy?
Major positive events such a promotion, a new relationship or house or even winning the lottery may provide a boost of happiness but they do not always promote long-term happiness – we eventually return to our previous level of happiness. Research shows that few positive experiences affect our happiness for more than three months.
The frequency of our positive experiences rather than the intensity of our positive experiences is a better indicator of happiness. A person who experiences a number of good things in one day is likely to be happier than another who has one great thing happen. It really is the little things in life that matter.

2.   Aren’t I happiest when things are easy and I am cruising along?
We mistakenly tend to think that relaxing and not working hard or cruising in life with no pressure will make us happy but the truth is boredom equals discontent. Communities with high youth crime rates often cite the root cause of crime as boredom in kids who then look for trouble to overcome the boredom.

Matthew Killingsworth from Harvard university has created an iPhone web app called Track Your Happiness, tracking more than 15,000 people in 83 countries. The app queries users at random intervals on their mood and what they are doing at the time, as well as their level of productivity and their social interactions.
His findings show that for 50 percent of our day our mind wanders away from what we are doing during which time we are incredibly unproductive. When our mind wanders and we are no longer ‘present’ we experience our greatest level of unhappiness. Why? Because our mind tends to wander to unpleasant thoughts or personal concerns.
Most importantly he showed that when our attention is completely absorbed in a task we experience our greatest level of happiness.
So how does this relate in the business world?
We are happiest when we are challenged and engaged – working to achieve difficult goals, yet those within our reach. Most employees do not want to be bored at work. Bored employers are neither content or productive.
If you are a manager and want more engagement from your team give them challenging work, keep track of their progress and debrief it with them.

3. Surely you can’t be happy at work?
In terms of overall wellbeing, career wellbeing has been shown to be more important than physical, financial, social or community wellbeing. In other words, whether we are happy at work or not is more important than the other aspects of our lives. Why? Because work makes up so much of our time and we often relate work to your self image and identity. Also, it is vital for employers to ensure their staff are happy as the research linking happy employees to greater productivity and performance is so strong that it is no longer up for debate.

4. Don’t I have to focus on myself to be happy?
A study was conducted where people were given a sum of money and asked to either go buy something for themselves or for someone else. Afterwards, the group that bought a gift for someone else had much higher levels of happiness than the group that bought something for themselves. When we do things for others we get a much bigger happiness bump than doing something for ourself. Same goes for the workplace, when we help others improve and develop their skills, our happiness is far greater than if we just focus on getting ahead.

5. That’s just me I am not a happy person!
Researchers have since discovered that happiness is not solely linked to genetics. While genes and heritage determine about 50 percent, the rest depends on lifestyle decisions and daily habits. While there is no magic pill for happiness and wellbeing, we can make daily habitual changes to make a difference.

6. When I have nice things then I will be happy!
While we certainly get a bump in pleasure after we buy something beautiful for ourselves, the effect is short lived. What gives us a bigger and longer lasting impact on happiness is when we spend money on great experiences. A holiday, a concert, hot air ballooning. If you want to use money to get you happiness, spend it on experiences rather than possessions.

7. Don’t I have to be a tortured soul to be creative and successful!
Is happiness really desirable since it is often thought that to write a best selling book or song you need to have pain or heartache? There is no solid evidence to support this theory. These people are the exception, not the rule. It’s like saying my grandfather smoked every day until he died at 99 years of age, therefore cigarettes must make you live longer. Happier people are generally more creative and successful than tortured souls.

Hints for greater happiness
•   Regular exercise
•   Practicing meditation
•   Daily reflection on what you are grateful for
•   Striving to experience happiness in each moment
•   Do things for others
•   Get absorbed in each task you do
•   Invest in your personal relationships
•   Focus on experiences not possessions

Looking at that list it is a list that would make the people around you happy too and the world a better place. Looks like personal happiness is a win for everyone.

You're better off smoking pot than multitasking!

Tue, 31 May 2011 00:58:00 GMT

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.

Work-Life Balance

Thu, 26 May 2011 02:30:00 GMT

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.

It's not me, it's you!

Tue, 24 May 2011 23:39:00 GMT

I was recently asked by a law firm to come in and meet with one of their partners with a view to coaching him around his behaviour in the firm. I thought, “no problem”.

I then asked why they wanted him to be coached. “Well he has gone through 18 junior lawyers in the last 6 years, and the last one that worked with him almost had a nervous breakdown” was the reply. Mmmmmm the alarm bells went off! This could be a bigger challenge than I thought.

In preparation for my meeting I interviewed a number of people in the firm and they painted a unanimous and unfavourable picture of him. They all said he was the best technical lawyer they had ever seen, however he was the most controlling, impersonal, manipulative and critical person they had ever worked with. The interesting thing is that he was never aggressive, or yelled, or got angry – they said he was very passive, yet he subtly tore away at a person’s self worth and confidence. They even told me stories of how people are scared to send printing to the communal printer because he will pick up peoples printing that has nothing to do with him, go in to their office, tell them what is wrong with their work, and then tell them how to fix it.

I thought, “Gee cant wait for this meeting!!!”

I greeted him at the door. We had a very brief conversation about his background and what lead him to the firm. “Seems pleasant enough”, I thought.
We sat down and I cut to the chase: “We both know why we are here, it is to discuss the high turnover of staff you have had in your area. I would like to get your take on the situation.”

He then proceeded to go through the list of people and tell me what was wrong with “them”. The first one was a nut case, the second one was incompetent, and the third one was unstable. On and on he went telling me what was wrong with all these people. I was stunned.

I asked, “If they are all so hopeless why have some of them gone off to flourish in other parts of the firm?” To which he replied, “They aren’t going well, the other partners in the firm just say that to keep them happy and to make me look bad. None of these people are a lawyers boot lace.”

Part of me was thinking, “has someone set me up?” as I searched the room for a hidden camera. “Ok, ok, ok! Let me ask you this. What in your behaviour contributed to them not working out?” I was greeted with a stunned look. He said, “I don’t understand, I just told you the problem, they were incompetent, if they gave me good lawyers they would stay. What have I got to do with it?”

Getting him to admit his behaviour may have contributed to the situation was like trying to raise the titanic with a dingy. The most he gave me was he admitted that he does not suffer fools!

I asked him if he wanted to work on his behaviour and do a series of coaching sessions. He agreed. I said the first step is for you to identify a series of key stakeholders in the business to give you feedback on your behaviour. Specifically what you do well and what you need to improve on.

His response was, “No!!”
“No what?” I asked.
No, “I refuse to let anyone give me feedback on my behaviour.”
“But you will get to choose who gives you feedback”
“I don’t care”.

Still reeling I said, “Well how do you expect to be a better leader if you don’t ask any of the people you lead about how you can do it better?”

The next line was my favourite. “I am self aware enough to know what I need to improve on and what I don’t.” At this point I wrapped up the interview and left.

When I walked out I two things screamed out at me:

Number 1. How often do we come into a situation and think “Its not Me, Its You”. “I am not the problem, they are the problem”. All too often we are blind to how our behaviour impacts on our environment.

Number 2. How very few people actually get honest feedback from their environment about their behaviour. So what we can do to improve it?

In particular this second step is vital. There is wisdom in our environment; not asking for feedback is missing out on a massive opportunity. Also, don’t just get feedback from your co-workers, ask your clients as well. Ask them on a regular basis how you can serve them better, what they like about conducting business with you, and what you need to change.

I was recently talking to a CEO of a large company in Australia who said that their US office (during the GFC) told him that they needed to save 3 million dollars in one of their divisions, and this is how many people he needed to sack to save that much money. He asked for the opportunity to find a solution without having to sack anyone. He put it to the team they came up with a strategy, it was implemented and they saved 3.89 million dollars.

Obviously this example of the friendly lawyer I have given you is an extreme one, but how much do we have in common with this lawyer? 67% of leaders in this country rate themselves as good or excellent, however 61% of the people they lead rate them as poor or terrible. In fact 53% of people said they would sack their manager if they could. How we “Show Up” as a leader has a massive impact on our organisation. Gallup showed in a survey of 1 million people that the most common reason people left their last job was because of their direct manager.

My challenge to you is:

1. Stop your natural reaction to say “It’s not me it’s you”. First start with how your behaviour contributed to the situation.

2. Ask your environment for feedback on your behaviour. It doesn’t even have to be formal (such as a 360), survey your clients and your co-workers. Ask them what do you do well and how could you change your behaviour to get a better outcome.

How to set up your day for better productivity!

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:33:00 GMT

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. The pressure to get more done in less time is driving us to the brink of burn out, causing us to take stress leave and putting excessive pressure on our relationships. Part of the fall out from this pressure is that most people have stopped taking breaks during the day, they arrive at the office put their head down and don’t put it back up again until it is time to go home. Morning tea is a thing of the past, the lunch hour is dead and afternoon tea doesn’t even get on the radar. However is working constantly during the day the answer? I think not.

As a performance consultant working with thousands of people each year I believe the single largest contributor to stress, burn out and poor performance is an improperly structured workday. It is physiologically impossible to be productive and focused your entire day; your ability to get work done fluctuates at different times of the day and follows the natural rhythms of the body. Every function in our body (sleep, digestion, alertness, even your energy levels) is controlled by our natural bio-rhythms. Unfortunately most of the habits we have in a day actually work against our natural rhythms rather than with them. The key to lasting energy, happiness and high performance is getting the external world and your internal world in sync with each other. Here is a daily plan to help you get your internal world and external world working together.

6am: Get regular

One of the most critical aspects of a sleep routine is a regular bed and wake up time (of these two the wake up time is the most important). Falling asleep and waking up involves a number of complicated processes, for example your body prepares itself to wake up long before your eyes open by increasing body temperature, releasing various hormones, elevating blood pressure and heart rate. When you are in a regular sleep routine your body gets used to the pattern and it makes going to sleep and waking up much easier. A sign that you have your routine right is when you consistently wake up minutes before your alarm clock is set to go off. The biggest challenge in maintaining a regular sleep routine is sticking to it on the weekends. When we dramatically alter our sleep pattern on the weekend we can give ourselves a mini case of jet lag. If you feel the need to catch up on sleep over the weekend the key is to go to bed early and get up at your normal time rather than sleeping in past lunch.

6:15 am: Get moving

Some exercise early in the morning before breakfast is the ideal way to kickstart your day. First of all exercise gets more blood and nutrients to your brain and helps you to be more alert when you get to work. Also exercise stimulates the release of endorphins, which are not distant relatives to Flipper but chemicals that elevate your mood and leave you feeling good. In addition low glucose and insulin levels in the morning maximise the burning of body fat during exercise and the exercise will elevate your metabolic rate for the rest of the day.

7:00 am: Break the Fast

A solid breakfast is needed to ensure that you have enduring energy levels during the day. The two main things to include in your breakfast are protein and carbohydrates that are low in glyceamic index. Examples are: Omelette with wholegrain bread

Fruit smoothie with yoghurt and fruit

Muesli and nuts

Skipping breakfast is just plain stupid, so don’t do it!!

8am to 11am focus on the big stuff

During this time the majority of people are at their most effective. This is the time to tackle your most important tasks that require the most thought and problem solving. Don’t spend this time doing mundane tasks, leave clearing the inbox to times when you are less effective.

11 am: Fuel up and get some sun

At 11am there is a natural drop in our blood glucose levels, the result is a slump in our energy levels and a corresponding drop in performance. This is the time to have your first meal of the day. Yes you heard right! Have lunch early, this will help you to keep your energy levels high. In fact a number of schools tested 11am lunchtime and found that students were far more alert and focused as a result. The easiest choice is a whole grain salad sandwich with protein (chicken, ham, tuna). Direct sunlight each day on our body helps to keep our circadian rhythm (the rhythm that controls when you are awake and asleep, as well as hundreds of other functions) in check. Most people don’t see the sun as they get to work when the sun is rising, stay in doors all day, and leave as the sun is setting. A lack of sun puts you at risk of seasonal affective disorder syndrome (SADS). SADS increases your chances of feeling down and depressed.

1 pm: Remember to breathe

When we get stressed our body releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Prolonged exposure to these chemicals has a negative effect on our brain and our ability to focus, solve problems and come up with new ideas. When we slow our breathing down and do some relaxation we stop producing these chemicals and produce something new called Nitric Oxide, when this hits our brain we produce endorphins and dopamine which make us feel good and help us think better.

2:30 pm: Lunch # 2

At around 3pm we get a dramatic drop in glucose levels and a drop in our temperature. This leaves us feeling very tired and drowsy. We have all experienced 3:30 itis. The way to avoid this is to stabilise your glucose levels by having a meal just before this. In this meal include some protein to stimulate brain function. An easy idea is fruit and nuts (almonds, walnuts). A meal at this time will also stop your cravings in the afternoon and stop you from pigging out when you get home.

6:00 pm: Switch to home channel

As you are travelling home start to switch your mind set to fit into family mode. A lot of people rush home at the end of the day and take their office mind set home with them and they run their home like their office. The mindset of your home is a lot slower and sedate than the office, so slow down on the way home.

7:30 pm: Have a happy meal

The final meal of the day should be small in volume (this will reduce the stress on your digestive system and help you to feel more energetic in the morning) and based on vegetables. Vegetables are high in fibre as well as vitamins and minerals. Science tells us that any population who live long healthy lives has a high intake of vegetables. With dinner include a small amount of lean protein especially oily fish like salmon, tuna etc. This type of fish contains high levels of Omega 3 oils, which improve our mood and our health.

9:00 pm: Dim the lights and slow down.

Whether our environment is dark or light impacts on our ability to get to sleep. A part of your brain called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) detects light input from the eyes. The SCN controls the secretion of Melatonin, a chemical that helps you sleep. When the SCN senses light on your eyes it shuts down Melatonin production, likewise when it senses darkness it releases Melatonin. Therefore as the evening progresses, start to dim the lights around the house. Bright artificial lights will prevent melatonin release so avoid switching on the Hollywood lights around the mirror just before you go to bed.

How to Maintain your energy levels

Thu, 19 May 2011 00:48:00 GMT

The average small business owner puts in a longer day than the average employee. The fall out from this is that many people who own their own business are worn out, tired and live in a constant state of jet lag. Is the solution better time management? I think not! Time management has been around forever and has not solved this problem. The new revolution in workplace performance is “Energy management”. Personal energy levels are emerging as the new currency in the workplace. People need to consider what are they doing to amplify how much energy they carry into their business. Low energy levels cause us to unproductive, uncreative, overly emotional, difficult to deal with and have low tolerance for customers and staff. Here are 3 simple tips to maximise your energy levels that won't turn your lifestyle upside down.

1. Manage your glucose levels.

One of the things that impacts on our energy levels is the amount of glucose that we have in our blood. The reason for this is that our brain’s exist on glucose and nothing else. Our brain makes up about 2% of our body weight however consumes more than 20% of the glucose that we ingest. The problem with this is that our glucose levels fluctuate during the day, in particular we see a slight drop at 11am and a huge drop at 3pm. How often do you get tired at 3pm? When our glucose levels are low we feel tired, cant focus, and generally our productivity stinks. When our glucose levels are high we are erratic, impulsive and often make mistakes. Obviously we are aiming for stable and steady glucose levels. Two things will help you to achieve this:

Eating every 4 hours
Having low GI foods

A classic trait of time poor busy people is that they are too busy to eat. When we skip meals our glucose levels begin to fall, therefore it is crucial to have regular meals during the day to stabilise our energy. Research tells us that eating approximately every 4 hours is an effective way to stabilise your glucose levels. This means that if you have breakfast at 7am, the next time you eat is 11am, then again at 3pm and finally at 7pm. What you notice is that this encourages you to have two lunches. Two lunches are you insaine!!! Yes two lunches. The return on this investment will be huge, and you will get back the time you spend eating back in productivity, ten fold over. Schools are now starting to get on this band wagon and they are starting to bring lunch forward to 11am. What they are finding is that their ability to focus and learn is far greater, and this is being reflected in improved test scores.

The next thing to look at is what you consume at these times. Often when we hit the 3pm slump we think “I need a sugar hit”. So we inhale a can of coke, and enough lollies to sink the titanic. When all this sugar hits your blood stream your glucose levels sky rocket, your energy levels go through the roof however it doesn’t last because insulin is secreted into your blood and it takes all the glucose out of your blood, and your glucose levels crash.

Your meals in the day should be low Glycemic Index (GI). What is GI, it is the rate at which food that goes in your mouth becomes glucose in your blood. The slower the better. Examples of low GI meals is;

Fruit smoothies.
Chicken salad sandwich.
Muesli and yoghurt.
Beef salad.

2. Ease off regularly during the day.

When we work hard during the day we get stressed and our body releases stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Prolonged exposure to these chemicals has a negative effect on our energy levels; they wear us out and leave us feeling tired and lethargic. Stress is a sure fire way to kill your energy levels. So how can we control it? One mistake people make in stress management is that they put off relaxing to a time when they can take a lot of time out. For example most people work themselves to death thinking its ok “I have a holiday in 4 weeks I will relax then”. What happens when they go on the holiday? They spend the first 5 days of the holiday sick in bed. We don’t need to put off relaxation with the belief that we need large amounts of time to relax. Small moments of relaxation are just as effective as large breaks. So how do we do this? During the day allow for small moments of relaxation, we can relax in an instant. One of the easiest ways to do this is by slowing down our breathing. When we slow our breathing down our physiology shifts to a more relaxed state. Take opportunities in your day to sit still for 5 minutes, slow your breathing down and relax. It will put your brain and body in a better state.

3. Negative emotion.

Negative emotions like fear, frustration, resentment, worry and sadness kill your energy levels. If you want proof just think of the last time you went through a relationship break up, how much energy did you have around that time? One of the most important things you can do for your energy levels is to reduce the amount of your day that you spend in negative emotion. How do we do this?

One of the easiest ways to avoid negative emotion is to maintain a sense of perspective about what is important. So often during the day little things get us off course and we slip into negative emotion. Someone drives too slow in traffic and we drop our bundle, start to get angry yell and scream and spend the next 30 minutes thinking “how could they do this to me”. This lack of emotional intelligence leads to a large amount of stress hormones cursing though our veins, that suck the energy out of our bodies. Do you really want to be that flippant with your energy levels? Start to be ruthless with your energy levels and don’t waste them on small insignificant events that happen in our day. So build a bridge get over it and get back into positive emotion.

How do we stick to making a change?

Wed, 18 May 2011 04:49:00 GMT

Ninety five percent of new years resolutions are never achieved, why are we so terrible at sticking to goals?

In a way achieving goals goes against our natural biological drivers. Our natural program is to avoid and move away from things that cause us stress and discomfort. Unfortunately most types of change and the majority of goals require a certain level of stress and discomfort. Studies have shown that the most common emotions people feel during the goal achievement process are frustration, anxiety, fear, boredom and apathy.

Therefore we have to realise that altering any habit or achieving any goal flies in the face of our normal biological desires and behaviour. Put another way its not going to be easy!! This statement is supported by research, which indicates that 85% of all goals set are never achieved.

The following research is taken from the PhD work of Dr Stephanie Burns an absolute guru in the area of goal achievement. It’s broken up into theory and strategies.

Theory is the background to goal achievement and will help you have a greater understanding of how change comes about. Action items are things you can practically do to increase your chances of sticking to a goal.

Theory
1. The amount of time you have to dedicate to a goal has nothing to do with your chance of achieving it. You can wipe someone’s day completely so they are free and this will not improve their chance of achieving that goal.

2. Having a high level of self-esteem does not improve your chance of sticking to a goal. A lot of people who have high self esteem often talk about all the grand things they will do, but don’t do them. The only thing self esteem affected was the size of the goal, the greater your self worth the grander the goal you set.

3. The main determinant of goal achievement was frequent and consistent action.

4. When people stopped taking action towards their goal they rationalised it by making up a story around why they couldn’t do it. Most of the time they said it was not their fault. They said things like, “I am just not an exercise type person”, “the family is more important and I really need to be there for them”, When analysed their stories were inaccurate and delusional. Also often people who stoped taking action towards their goal, said that they were merely putting it off and would get back to it later, which they never did.

5. When they compared themselves to other people who kept working towards their goal, those that quit perceived those that kept going as having a much easier time of it. They saw the other person’s goal as being easier, or their life as being better than theirs, or that the other person liked their goal more than them. None of these things were true. In fact those that stuck to their goals were as challenged, bored, frustrated with their goals as those that quit. They just didn’t see those things as a reason to quit.

Actions
1. Just start! Research shows that once we start the activity, momentum tends to make us keep going. For example to get people to exercise researchers got them just to walk for 10 minutes a day, however once they were out and exercising they continued to walk much longer than 10 minutes.

2. Don’t think too much! People that didn’t achieve their goals tended to think about it a lot. For example say their goal was to go to the gym, those that didn’t get there would sit on the lounge and debate over and over again in their heads if they should go or not. Finally they ran out of time and couldn’t go. Those people that did achieve their goal didn’t analyse it too much, when it came time to do their chosen activity, they just did it rather than thinking about doing it. In a way their heads were quieter.

3. Most goals are abandoned after 3 weeks. One key to achieving goals is to sustain the action long enough to see a result.

4. Consider the little stuff. When people set a goal they only thought about the outcome they will get at the end of it. For example if it was to lose weight they fantasised about how good they will look when they achieve their goal. Unfortunately they have not thought about all the little steps they needed to take along the way and all the little challenges they will have in order to get their goal. For example many people who had the goal to get fit stopped that goal because it was a pain to drive to the gym or they couldn’t get parking near by. It was the little things that they did not even consider that derailed their goal.

5. Create tension in your environment. Often children stick to new hobbies or sports because they have a lot of tension in their environment to make them keep going. Tension from parents, coaches, fellow students and teachers. All these sources of tension keep them accountable. Announce your goals to people and set up tension in your environment to keep you accountable to your goals.

How to avoid burnout in a world where work-life balance is dead!

Tue, 17 May 2011 00:54:00 GMT

Life is getting faster and faster and shows no signs of slowing down. Individuals and companies are being asked to do more with less time and resources. To be successful in this new world we need to adapt to our new environment by speeding up. In the 21st century businesses or people that slow down will get left behind and made obsolete. Also in this comoditised and competitive world staying on the cutting edge is vital. Businesses need to out create, out innovate and out market their competition. The key to staying on the cutting edge is greater and sustained performance.

The bad news is that business owners and employees are not working any where near their performance potential with Hewitt’s reporting that less than 50% of us are engaged. This lack of engagement is often due to fatigue and burn out.

When we feel tired and burnt out we often say “I need work life balance”.

80% of Australians believe that it is more difficult to achieve work life balance and they are right. We are working more and more and filling our out of work time with more and more responsibilities. Our preoccupation with being busy has even changed the way we greet people. A typical greeting is “Hi, how you doing, keeping busy?”.

Charles Handy described the business environment in the 21st century by the following formula:

½ x 2 = 3

The translation means half the number of workers doing twice the amount of work expected to get three times the result.

Let’s get real here this is the reality of our situation. Balance is possible however we are not willing to compromise on the things that will give us balance. So unless you are willing to move to Nimbin don’t expect to be enjoying balance any time soon.

Yet there is no shortage of people out there who tell us that this allusive balanced life is possible. They are usually speakers and authors with big teeth and an orange tan and they tell us that we can have the perfect life and all we need to achieve it is to enroll in their work life balance course that goes for 4 months every night of the week for 4 hours.

Work life balance is dead, dead, dead, dead and it doesn’t look like there will be a resurrection any time soon.
What’s the solution? How do we avoid burnout in this time poor world?

One thing that leads very quickly to burn out and fatigue is trying to work an entire day without a break. This practice is the norm now with meal breaks a distant memory. Not only is this physically impossible it also dramatically reduces our productivity. Two Harvard researchers Robert Yerkes and John Dobson examined how to structure a working day in order to avoid burn out and stay productive.

When we focus and work hard our body gets stressed. This is a good thing as our brain releases adrenaline and cortisol which stimulates brain activity and improves performance. However this only works up to a point, after prolonged exposure to these stress hormones we reach our “productivity peak”. Following this peak the brain starts to become fatigued, we loose focus and the high levels of stress hormones start to damage our brain. An example of this is in practice is when you are in a meeting that goes for over an hour and we find ourselves daydreaming and thinking about our weekend.

The productivity research shows that when we get to this point (approximately after 60 to 90 minutes of hard work) it is important to take a short break and relax. An ideal situation is doing five to ten minutes of a relaxing activity where the mind is no longer focusing on work. To do this you don’t need to get out the meditation cushion and your incense candles. All you need to do is sit and relax for 5 minutes focusing on breathing slowly and deeply, then get up and walk around for a couple of minutes. This is an obtainable goal as it is only 5 minutes, anything more would be unrealistic in this time poor society.

Relaxing at the point of our “productivity peak” stops the production of stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) and produces nitric oxide instead which stimulates the release of neurotransmitters such as endorphins and dopamine. These chemicals make us feel better and improve our ability to focus and think clearly.

In effect what you are doing is working your brain hard then relaxing it to restore your brain chemistry and get the two hemispheres of your brain communicating. This is not about budging during your day, its about working hard and dropping out briefly to prepare yourself for the next period of intense focus.

It’s similar to exercising hard resting for a short period of time, resting and then exercising again.

What will stop us doing this is our fixation on how much time we spend at work rather than how effective we are at work. Are you time driven or performance driven?

By working hard and taking your brain to the height of potential and then suddenly relaxing it, it is possible to get greater performance out of it during your day and greater performance means we get more done in less time and only then can we have more time for ourselves.

Workforce Dynamics: The Greater Fallout from the Global Financial Crisis

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:35:00 GMT

Prior to the Global Financial Crisis we saw a shift in workforce dynamics. Historically the power was always with the employer. You were considered lucky to have a job and you did everything you could to keep it. Then we moved into a new millennium where demand was greater than supply. Power shifted to the employee and good candidates (even bad ones) could pick and choose from a selection of jobs.

As crazy as it sounds, when the “Global Financial Crisis” hit, employers breathed a collective sigh of relief, surely now the power would shift back to them?

So, has that really happened?

Recruitment firm Hudson have just published a report that indicates leaders are approaching this economic shift all wrong. Here are some highlighted challenges we are now facing.

Problem 1: A drop in engagement.
Half of all employees surveyed said that morale in their teams had plummeted since the financial crisis. In contrast only 26% of employers thought there was a reduction in employee engagement.

Clearly this shows that employers are out of touch with their staff and their attitudes. This is devastating for the company as organisations live and die by the engagement of their workforce.

Companies with a high level of engaged staff report 2.6 times more growth in earnings per share, have 12% higher customer advocacy, 18% higher productivity, 51% less inventory shrinkage, 51% less employee turn over and 65% less accidents in the work place as compared to companies with a low level of engagement.

Problem 2: The relationship has become complacent.
32% of employees thought that management no longer saw a need to reward or recognise them, because they were lucky to have a job!

It screams of a lack of empathy and understanding of their workforce. Also indicates that many managers are reverting to a 1950’s attitude of leadership where leadership is “put your head down, shut your mouth and don’t rock the boat or I will get someone else to do your job”.

Problem 3: Fear is keeping them from leaving.
Those who said they were working harder and were more motivated to get their work done since the GFC cited the driving reason as fear of job security. One thing we know about people is that fear is only a short-term driver and eventually leads to disengagement and contempt.

Problem 4: They wont stick around when the good times return!
In the past the average annual employee turnover within companies was around 25%, this year that has dropped to 15%. So how long will this last? Not long, because 47% of employees indicated that they were actively seeking a new role.

Many experts are saying that when the job market does turn around (and it will) there will be a flood of people leaving companies they felt gave them a hard time during the downturn.

Companies that got it wrong in the GFC will spend the next couple of years lining the coffers of recruitment companies rather than enjoying the opportunities that come with an upswing in the economy.

I am already hearing stories of companies who have been asked to reinstate the people they had sacked – because the overseas branch (out of touch with the local economy) reacted too zealously to the bad news and cut too many jobs.

How do we fix it? Research by The Gallup Management Journal indicates that there are four main areas to address to improve engagement in a difficult economy.

Leadership and Direction
Communicate, communicate, communicate! Keep your work force informed of the company’s situation and market movements.
Be Transparent – Be open about the decisions made and the reasons why.
Get middle managers on board – if middle managers are supportive of the executive it goes a long way to improving engagement.
Work structure
Ask your work force for innovation. I was recently working for a company who needed to save 6 million from a department so the overseas head of the company wanted to slash jobs. Luckily, an innovative mind in Australia put it to the department and within a week they came up with a plan to save in excess of this without one job lost.
Outline must win battles – in difficult times leaders must outline which priorities are critical.
Keep your head up as well as down – show your team how their efforts fit into an overall strategy for the company.
Capability
Keep training them – When people are under pressure and are fearful it is key to keep sharpening their skills to cope with this pressure
Give them feedback – outline what they are doing well and what they need to improve.
Talk to them about their career progression and identify opportunities for them.
Reward
In a flat economy it can be hard to reward your staff with money- start to think more broadly about how else can you reward them.
Thank them. It sounds so simple its offensive but very few companies and managers simply thank their staff for a job well done.

Why should I be engaged at work? Give me one good reason!

Tue, 03 May 2011 04:27:00 GMT

Recent research out of the US has shown that workers are becoming more disengaged during the economic challenges we are experiencing. One of the reasons for this disengagement is that many are feeling angry with their company for firing their friends or cutting benefits. Their reaction is to take power into their own hands and say I will get back at them by not working as hard and being disengaged at work.

Sounds logical, but are they hurting themselves more than the company?

There are 3 types of workers:

Engaged worker – has a strong connection to their job and the company. Constantly looking to improve their performance and move the organization forward. Are enthusiastic at work and boost the culture.

Not Engaged Employee - have “checked out”, do the job but don’t have any enthusiasm, energy or passion into their work. You could say they have quit but haven’t had the decency to resign.

Actively Disengaged – not just unhappy at work but they are “busy” sharing that unhappiness with other people in the work place. They undermine the company and engaged workers.

Currently in Australia only 18% of workers are engaged, a whopping 62% of workers are not engaged and 20% are actively disengaged (Gallup). This costs our economy 32 billion dollars in lost productivity alone.

Focusing on the wrong thing!

If you look at all the literature around engagement it always talks about how the company suffers if employees are disengaged.

A company that has 4 engaged employees to each actively disengaged employee, grows 2.6 times faster than an organisation with 1 engaged to one actively disengaged employee. In addition, companies in the top quarter of engagement out earn companies in the bottom quarter by 18%.

You can’t argue with those numbers, it is obvious that a company needs to have engaged workers.
What about the individual?
Rather than only focus on the company lets look at the impact of disengagement on the individual.

Among actively disengaged employees, 54% of them said that work stress caused them to behave poorly with family or friends (aggression, verbal abuse), while only 17% of engaged employees reported that work stress had caused them to behave poorly.

An English study followed a group of healthy men over 10 years. What they found is men who were engaged at work were 30% less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease than employees who were disengaged at work. The findings remained consistent even when the researchers controlled for age, ethnicity, marital status, educational attainment, socio-economic position, cholesterol level, obesity, hypertension, smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. What this means is that work attitude was the defining variable.

Engagement is also beneficial for your mental health. When you are engaged all you are thinking about is the present moment, you are paying attention to each detail and thinking “Can I do this better, faster more efficiently?” Research by prominent psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that people with chronic depression and eating disorders feel a predominance of negative emotions and negative self-talk. However when given a task to do that they are engaged in, their emotions and thoughts are indistinguishable from those of people free of these conditions.

In addition they found that the worst thing for people with depression and eating disorders is for them not to be engaged as their mind becomes occupied by depressing thoughts and their consciousness becomes scattered.

This is true for all of us, disengaged people in the work place often say that they are bored and disinterested. Pause for a moment to think what happens when you put two children in the back of a car and go for a long drives. After 15 minutes, what do you hear? “She hit me!” “He’s on my side of the car!” “He teased me!” A disengaged worker is similar to these children in the back of the car because when not engaged their thoughts drift and they start looking for trouble. Office gossip, turf battles and in fighting is a fall out from a lack of engagement.

Can we start to choose to be more engaged in the work place?

For most people engagement is conditional, if my team are in a good mood I will be engaged, my boss didn’t thank me for doing a good job so I wont be engaged. Obviously having a supportive and fun work environment makes it easier to be engaged. However research shows us that highly engaged people don’t necessarily work in the best work places.

Start to think: what is your lack of engagement costing you?

Neutral Plasticity: Can we change poor behaviour patterns?

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 02:08:00 GMT

One of the top selling books in Australia recently was “The brain that changes itself”; which is all about how the brain can alter its structure. Up until a couple of years ago it was thought that the brain was set and we could not alter how it was configured. What we now know is that the brain is very plastic and is constantly remodeling itself. The key to changing how your brain is wired is to change how you use it.

The brain is made up of a series of neural connections, which are simply a group of brains cells that work together. Every action, feeling and thought has a specific neural connection that makes that action, feeling and thought possible. As I sit here typing this article a series of neural connections fire to make my fingers select the right keys in the right order. When we feel anger and act inappropriately it is once again due to the triggering of a set number of brain cells acting as a team. Similarly, the way the brain stores information is that when we learn something new, say a word in French, a number of neurons are dedicated to that one piece of information and they are encoded with it. If you never revisit that word, over time those neurons split up and go off and fulfill other jobs. However if you regularly go over the word, that pattern will be re-enforced and the neural connection will be cemented down.

Think about when you were learning how to drive. If you started in a manual car chances are you would have been terrible – bunny hopping and crunching gears. The reason is that there was no neural pattern in your brain for driving; your brain simply wasn’t set up for it. You would also notice that it took a lot of effort and concentration to drive. Now, reflect on the last time you drove home? Did you think about it? No, you just drove home. Why? Because the neural pattern of driving is so engrained you don’t even have to think about it.

Strong neural patterns are like freeways in your brain, solid, deep, wide and easy to travel on. Weak neural patterns are like dirt roads narrow, shaky and difficult to travel down. It is simply easier for our brain to use the freeways and because of this they tend to direct the traffic down that route.

We are all born with certain talents and skills as well as a thinking style and an emotional bias. Some people are good at sports; some people are great at music; others are optimistic; some handle stress easily, while others fly off the handle when the slightest thing goes wrong. Think of these natural tendencies as freeways. Unfortunately humans tend to focus on the things they are good at and shy away from things that they struggle with. If we take music lessons and we don’t pick it up easily we will quit after a short period of time. All this does is reinforce our natural abilities or put another way, the freeways in our brain get all the traffic. The good news is that we can develop the dirt roads, it just takes time and effort.

Back to the driving analogy, driving starts out as a dirt road but with consistent practice and time it turns into a freeway. Neural plasticity does not only apply to motor skills. Studies have shown that pessimists (people who have a lot of freeways for negative thoughts) can alter their brain so that it begins to have a tendency for optimism. How did they do this? Normally when an event occurred they naturally thought a pessimist thought, however this time they recognised that thought, challenged it and then chose to think of it in an optimistic light. In other words they put a detour sign on their freeway and directed the traffic down the dirt road. After enough time of doing this, the dirt road starts to get wider, smoother and easier to drive on. In the meantime the freeways starts to get cracks in it and it loses its structure.

Martin Seligman took children who had a natural style of pessimism. Each evening he got their parents to ask the children 3 questions:

What did you do really well today?
What did you really enjoy today?
What are you looking forward to tomorrow?
Over a period to time they found that the children started to have a bias for optimism. They simply changed their dirt roads into freeways.

How do we do this?
Choose a behaviour, belief or thinking style that you want to change.
Start to recognize when you do this behaviour, belief or thinking style.
Challenge it and introduce a new behaviour, belief or thinking style.
Reinforce this pattern, over and over.
The difficulty with this is that it takes effort, but when was the last time that something worthwhile was easy?

Case study

Gordon Cairns was the CEO of Lion Nathan. In 1997 the company was losing market share and the share price was dropping. The HR department did a 360-degree feedback (where people at different levels give feedback on your behaviour) on the leadership team.

The results of the feedback showed that Cairns had a very aggressive/defensive style, he wielded power, was a perfectionist, demanding, task orientated and did not see value in staff development or culture. This attitude seeped down into his leadership team who mimicked his behaviour.

The HR manager Bob Barbour called them on their behaviour and said, “Your behaviour needs to change.” Can you imagine what he would have faced? However he stood his ground and this was obviously very confronting for the leadership team. Over time they realised that in order for the organization to change, they had to change. They took personal responsibility and accountability for their behaviour. With coaching, they started to instill a new culture around a style of education and encouragement. The result was a shift in their constructive styles, an increase of 53%. Cairns went from a tyrant to an empathetic and thoughtful leader.

When asked how he made this leap, Gordon Cairns gave the following advice.

Step 1: Get feedback on your behaviour
Step 2: Park your ego and take that feedback on board without being offended
Step 3: Have a clear idea of what behaviours you want.
Step 4: Get help – coaches, consultants, books etc.
Step 5: Keep measuring
Step 6: Understand that relapse is normal.

A great example of neural plasticity!

Find Your Third Space – to show up with the right Thoughts, Emotions and Physiology

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:30:00 GMT

Life is a series of transitions!

During our day we transition between different environments and different roles. Each environment and role requires a very different and specific mindset. For example work has a very different mindset to home, an internal meeting has a very different mindset to a meeting with a client. If you are a manager doing tasks at your desk requires a very different mindset to leading and interacting with your team.

When we can align our mind set with that of the environment or role we are more engaged and get greater performance.

If we don’t, the fall out can be detrimental!

I first got interested in this concept of transitions when I was doing work with some special forces soldiers. Their biggest challenge they face was not to stay alive their biggest challenge was to stay married. Some of their units have huge divorce rates. The reason is that their day job (if you can call it that) and their home life are incredibly different and they struggle moving from one environment to the next. In my conversations they all said, “I don’t find it hard to be away from home doing the job, the hard part is when I come home. For the first couple of weeks I really struggle reconnecting with the family, because I have to think, feel and act very differently to when I am away doing my job”.

During the day if we don’t manage our transitions right it makes it very hard to be engaged in the environment we are moving into.

Karen Matthews (the CEO of Elle bache) once said to me I used to show up at work with the mindset that I was a bad mother because I was not at home with my kids and then when I went home I had the mindset that I was a bad CEO because I was not at work. I was miserable!

Do you ever feel like you are reacting to each environment rather than controlling them?
Do you feel like you have so many different roles and not pleasing anyone in any of them?

I said to Karen “how did you fix it?” She said “I realised that I’m only human and I will no longer apologise for my life. Now when I am at work I am at work, and when I am home I am at home.

In the last 14 years I have had the honour of working with people in many different fields and many different levels. What I noticed is that some people seemed to make like look easy while others seemed to make it look all so hard.

I started to research what was the difference between the two groups.

What I found is that the people that make it look easy show up with the right mindset! Specifically they show up with the right:

Thoughts Emotions Physiology

Busy people who achieved work life balance did so not because of the time they spent in each part of their life. They got it because they showed up with the right mindset. When they were at home they were engaged, present, compassionate, tolerant and attentive. When they turned up at work they were focused, had clarity of vision, positive mindset, positive emotion and energized physiology.

Our thoughts, emotions and physiology determine our performance we need to manage these three things when we transition.

For example most people fear Public Speaking. If you fear public speaking how what thoughts are going through your head as you walk up to present? “Don’t stuff up”, “Whats my first line?”, “They are looking at me”

What emotions do you feel? Fear, Anxiety, Terror.

How is your physiology? Tense, stressed, stiff!

I ask you how do those thoughts, emotions and physiology set you up for your presentation. Well they set you up to fail!

Contemplate this how do you show up at work?

Hewitt’s survey’s have shown that 55% of the work force have no enthusiasm for their job, NONE! Not a shred! Moreover, 18% are so disengaged that the company would be better off if they stayed at home.

Now if you are in that 55% or heaven forbid that 18%, what thoughts do you have as you show up at work.
“Here we go again, I cant believe I am stuck in this crappy job!” “When is Friday coming?”
What emotions do you have? Sadness, disengagement, frustration, guilt, anger.
How is your physiology? Low energy and slumped.

How do you show up when you get into work? What thoughts, emotions and physiology do you bring into the work place. How do you affect your environment?

Many people believe that culture in an organization comes from the top down. I believe that it also comes from the bottom up. Our thoughts, emotions and physiology have an impact on our environment and the culture of our organization. You have to ask yourself how do I affect the culture of my organisation?

Even just our emotions affect our environment. Scientists have discovered mirror cells in our brain which pick up on the emotion of those people around us. Following the identification of the emotion they then replicate that emotion within us.

When you have an internal meeting how do you affect the culture of your team? Are you the pain in the bum that brings everyone down or do you lift them up by focusing on solutions, and being engaged.

The only thing you have control of is how you show up. You cant control the fact that your manager has been taking pain in the arse pills for the last couple of years you cant control that the board you report to is very intrusive and set unrealistic expectations. You can only control how you show up. We need to park the victim mentality of my life is so hard. It may be but regardless of circumstances we can control how we show up.

So what is the solution? Start to manage our transitions!

The question is what do we do in the transitional space between environments. This transitional space is called the 3rd Space. Do we use the 3rd Space where we regulate our Emotions, Thoughts and Physiology to help us in the next environment. Managing this space takes us away from having a victim mentality to an empowered mentality.

Lets look at one transition in detail. The transition from work to home.

As a workplace performance consultant working with thousands of people each year, the number one complaint I hear is that people don’t get enough time to spend with their family. Yet when most people get home what are they thinking about? ……. WORK!!!! Due to the rising levels of stress and pressure fewer and fewer people are truly engaged and present with their family members at the end of the day. Most people arrive home and even though they have physically left the office, mentally they are still there.

In affect we are taking the work mind set home with us.

For example the mindset during most peoples working day is one of fast pace, time scarcity, competition, high expectations, and decisive decisions. Compare that to the mindset of our home, which is slower paced, nurturing, supportive, and far less focused on outcomes and performance. Obviously these two environments are very different and making the mistake of entering one environment with the mindset of the other is a recipe for disaster. The research I have done into this issue revealed that most people are carrying the mindset of the work environment home with them and they are expecting their home to run like their office. One executive from a large financial institution articulated this problem perfectly. “Because I work such long hours I rush home at the end of the day, the problem is that my mind is still in work mode and I try to run my home like my office. I walk in the door and I finish my wife’s sentences because she doesn’t talk fast enough, I yell at the kids because they are not time efficient. I drive my family crazy!”

The result of this inability to switch into the home channel, leads to family tension, disengagement and a serious decline in personal relationships. The key to switching from work to home is managing your “Third Space”. Your third space is where you alter your mind set to suit that of the environment you are going into; it is a formal time where you consciously switch over. A coaching client of mine who works in a high-pressure environment has his third place down to a tee, the result is that despite the stress of his job he manages to be incredibly patient, supportive and attuned to his home environment.

When he enters the house at the end of the day, he goes straight to his room without talking to the family, takes off his suit, has a shower, does 5 minutes of meditation and then writes down all the things that were bothering him. Then he goes out to greet the family. This ritual allows him to release the stress of the day and switch onto the home channel by altering his mindset to suit his environment.

Other people I have worked with have their own variation of the third space. Some people use the train trip home, while others uses the gym. One female executive parks her car three streets away from her house and sits in her car for 5 minutes practicing meditation to calm down before she walks in the door. That is her third space.

One thing that the third space does is that it helps you to be more “present” when you are with your family. “Being Present” is a term to describe living in the here and now. It’s about focusing on the current task so much so that you lose yourself in what ever you are doing. If you are writing a report, focus entirely on that report without thinking of the other things you need to do later in the day. Likewise if you are having a conversation with someone totally immerse yourself in that conversation, don’t let your mind drift. So often we have conversations and we are not really present, we might be talking to that person but we are thinking about other things. Business is built on relationships, the greatest complement you can give another person is your undivided attention. We all have a highly tuned BS detector, and we know when people are not truly engaged or listening to us. Some people believe that being present is the key to team building.

In addition some psychologist are now talking about the concept that people are creating fewer and fewer memories. The reason for this is that memories are created in the present and the fact that most people are either obsessing about the past or worrying about the future means that they are not laying down current memories.

The third space facilitates the chance of choose how you show up and what thoughts, emotions and physiology do I bring to my new environment or role.

Are you managing the Third Space?

Is my computer making me dumb?

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:38:00 GMT

An article from the Guardian Newspaper on the 24 of Feb 09 quoted Susan Greenfield professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, as saying that Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are “Rotting our Brains”.

In a presentation to the House of Lords she was quoted as saying, “social networking sites are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance. As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilised, characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity".

Before we go any further there is no hard science behind any of her claims as social networking sites have not been around long enough to measure their impact. However it is important to have the debate.

In particular the Prof was concerned about their impact on children. She says "If the young brain is exposed from the outset to a world of fast action and reaction, of instant new screen images flashing up with the press of a key, such rapid interchange might accustom the brain to operate over such timescales. Perhaps when in the real world such responses are not immediately forthcoming, we will see such behaviours and call them attention-deficit disorder. It might be helpful to investigate whether the near total submersion of our culture in screen technologies over the last decade might in some way be linked to the threefold increase over this period in prescriptions for methylphenidate, the drug prescribed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Greenfield also warned there was a risk of loss of empathy as children read novels less. "Unlike the game to rescue the princess, where the goal is to feel rewarded, the aim of reading a book is, after all, to find out more about the princess herself."

Before we climb on her band wagon we have to make sure that we are not just falling into the “kids of today”, style view of generational decline. When the clock was developed, society predicted that people would no longer enjoy the moment, the printing press was touted as making us all intellectually lazy, and finally the telephone was going to make us all anti-social. With any social change we often predict that everything is going to hell in a hand basket.

Having saying that networking sites don’t get off the hook that easily and we need to be aware of some of their dangers.

Common concerns are:

1.    Online experiences are superficial and do not lead to cognitive development.

2.    Instant response and high accessibility will lead to poor attention spans and difficulty interacting with people face to face. Also they feed a preference for immediacy.

3.    Reduced social intelligence through poor awareness of social cues, inability to read facial expressions and a lack of empathy for other people.

4.    Long screen time is directly correlated with obesity and metabolic disease in both adults and children.

Even though these concerns seem to make logical sense it is only point 4 that has some hard research behind it. Having said that previous research has proven that days of constant interruption and distractions leads to poor attention control and focus. Therefore the big question is, am I using these sites as a tool or are they running my life.

So what is the verdict? Well if we want hard facts the only thing is we can say is watch this space, to see what new research comes up with.

However intuitively we need to be discerning about how much time we spend on these. Social networking sites can be great to develop relationships and they can even be used as a business tool. But they can also take over and reduce our productivity.

Are you a Twit?

Another player in the market is Twitter (Twitter.com). Twitters tag line is “What are you doing?”. In a nut shell you update your profile (under 140 characters) so that people can find out what you are doing at any moment, from “Mowing the lawn” to “Having coffee”. The number of people using Twitter is growing at 1,382 percent.

The question is do people really need that information?

Milwaukee Bucks (basketball) forward Charlie Villanueva got a severe talking-to from his coach when he learned that Villanueva posted a message to his Twitter feed — a “tweet” — from his mobile phone during halftime while he was playing Boston.

Some celebrities are using it too, you can find out what Brittany Spears is doing with her time, mmmm maybe not the best choice, as well as Hiliary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Is Twitter keeping us connected or is it unnecessarily distracting us?

With any tool we have to be discerning about the impact it has on our lives and whether it is adding to our quality of life or diminishing it.

Intention vs. Behaviour

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 23:16:00 GMT

Why do I offend people with my behaviour when my intention is good?

I have never met a CEO whose intention was to drive down share prices, create a bad culture, or lose market shares. However, I have met many who have done this unintentionally!

I have never met a manager who wanted to disengage their staff, destroy team cohesion, and ‘drop the ball’ on projects. However, I have met many who have done this by consequence.

I have never met an employee whose intention was to create trouble in their team, undermine their manager, and bitch about their co-workers. However I have met many who have fallen into this trap.

I recently spoke at a conference for a large organisation that was implementing a new strategy whilst moving into a very bold and exciting new area of business. In fact, I was very excited to talk to the employees of this organisation because what the company was trying to achieve was ground breaking. Before I presented, the GM of that area got up and spoke to the team about this new venture.

It was a disaster! He came off bullish, gruff, and his sentiment was, “We are going in this direction and you better get on-board or else”. After he finished I asked him (very carefully) what his intention was for that presentation. He replied, “I wanted to show them how important this move is for the company and how I am 100% on-board, as they should be. They are such a great bunch of people, and I wanted to motivate them and show them how passionate I am about this”. I was amazed that his intention was so pure, yet his behaviour conveyed anything but.

From this, I realised that intention is very different to behaviour. This is a problem because we judge our own behaviour on our intent, yet we judge others on their behaviour. We find that if we say something with good intentions to someone and they get offended, our internal response is, “Why did that person become offended? I was just trying to help!”

Perhaps someone in our team is curt with us and we think, “Why are they being so horrible to me?” when really they just have a lot on their minds and their intention is only to be efficient in their response. Why does this mismatch happen? Because we know our intent, yet all others see is our behaviour.

I brought this up during a workshop I was running with a leadership team. It had a profound impact on the mood of the room and you could see them take a collective sigh of relief. Following this people were far more open to talk about some of the behaviours they were displaying that may have a detrimental impact on the team. In addition, the atmosphere lightened and they didn’t take offense when other people mentioned some of their personal behaviours that were challenging for the team. It was one of the most non-judgemental interactions I have ever seen.

There are two things to learn from this:
1.   We need to be more self aware about our behaviour because it may not be aligned to our intent. How do we do this?
a.   Have greater consciousness about your behaviour and its possible impact – think about how you ‘show up’.
b.   Ask for feedback from people about your behaviour.
c.   When they give you feedback on your behaviour, put your ego to the side and don’t take offense. Remember that behaviour is different to intent.
d.   Set up a culture around yourself where others find it ok to give you feedback on your behaviour. Don’t create an internal ‘black book’ whenever someone feeds back anything that you don’t like.

2.   That we shouldn’t be so quick to judge peoples’ behaviour because their intent may be pure.
a.   Be honest and ask people what their intent was.
b.   Tell them what the impact of their behaviour was on you and ask yourself if matched their intent.
c.   Cut the people around you some slack and realise their intent may be good.