Dr Adam's Workshops
Workshops include:
FLOW the key to high performance
Today’s business environment is a competitive, fast moving environment, where high performers push and ask a lot of themselves both physically and mentally. Individuals and companies are being asked to do more with less time and fewer resources, as well as work in a world that is flat and runs 24/7. Add to this the fact that society in general has sped up and the result is a workforce that is having serious issues around sustaining their performance. The fall out is that people are losing the ability to focus, be creative, come up with innovative ideas and develop clear strategies. New research is now showing us that this frantic activity is leading adults to develop a type of attention deficit disorder (ADD) called attention deficit trait (ADT).
What is the solution?
Mistakenly most stress management techniques revolve around taking time out and doing less work. This is an antiquated and band aid solution at best as stress is usually due to a lack of time and high workloads.
The real solution to high, sustained performance, engagement, health, peace of mind and happiness is FLOW.
FLOW is a psychological state of high performance; commonly know as being “In the Zone”.
The characteristics of FLOW are:
- Clear Goals
- Deep concentration
- In the present and focused
- Time disappears
- Extremely productive
- Zero stress
- Calm
- Engaged
- Positive mindset
- Positive emotion
Dr Adam Fraser uses his background in Physiology and Psychology to explore the principles of sustainable high performance. In this he will also call on his 13 years of experience working in this area with corporate teams, businesses, elite athletes and armed forces.
All Dr Fraser’s programs are tailored specifically to suit the culture and current challenges of the organization. However the following are some specific topics that Dr Fraser addresses in this presentation.
- Understand the long-term fallout of adrenaline and fear based performance
- Looking at how individuals operate on a daily basis and which quadrant of performance do they fit into?
- Understand the Pressure/Performance curve and it can be used to elevate and sustain performance
- The impact that brain chemistry and physiology has on the ability to perform at a high level
- The Role that focus plays in performance and productivity
- Attention management and how it improves performance and reduces attentional blink
- How the brain functions and how to get the best out of it
- Why multi-tasking is a myth and bad for your brain
- How Easing off at the right points of your day leads to better performance
- How to transition between environments for maximum performance in the next environment
- How to ease off after work and engage with your family/partner/friends
- The impact of sleep on performance and how to sleep right
- Energy management how to sustain and elevate our energy levels
- How our physiology impacts on our cognitive function
- How what we eat in a day affects our brain and bio-chemistry and what that means for work productivity
- Your state of health and how that affects your ability to work
- Thinking styles and cognitive function
- The impact of emotions on behaviour and performance
Priority Management
Time management has failed us! The problem with time management is that it focuses on organising your tasks. However most people spend their time on non-critical tasks that don’t actually matter and don’t contribute to the bottom line of the business. Rather than do things more efficiently we need to stop doing tasks that are not important and start doing things that are critical.
Plan of the workshop!
Stage 1: Pre-workshop Preparation
For 1 week prior to the workshop all participants will be asked to record where their time is spent. They will each be given a day plan on an A4 sheet of paper that they will carry with them. On this they record all the tasks they are working on.
Stage 2: Critical Tasks
Each person will be asked to individually write down what they see as their critical tasks. In other words what are their activities that really drive growth and profit in the business.
Each person will present this back to the group for feedback.
Following this discussion their critical tasks will be defined and recorded.
Stage 3: Time Spent on Critical Tasks
Each person will reflect on the record of where they spent their time the previous week and determine what percentage of their week was spent on critical tasks.
Then they will group their time into categories. Eg time spent on distractions, meetings, etc.
Stage 4: Moving Forward
In pairs the team will determine what action they need to take to increase their time spent on critical tasks.
Then determine potential barriers around these actions and solutions to these barriers
Following this each person will clearly outline the action plan they are going to implement.
Finally the group as a whole will determine an accountability plan to keep them accountable.
Outcomes!
1. Get the team to raise their awareness of where they spend their time and what are their critical tasks that really drive the performance of the division and ultimately the profitability of the company.
2. Determine strategies to manage their environment better and the capacity to delegate non-critical tasks.
3. Impact of distractions and scattered attention on productivity.
4. Get them to focus on completion of tasks that directly relate to the focus of the company.
Rehab Your Habits
Many people adopt destructive habits that lead to poor performance, reduced productivity, few tasks being completed, conflict within the work place, high levels of stress, exhaustion, disengagement and negative emotion. Our habits determine our success and productivity. In most cases individuals are not aware of the fact that their habits are detrimental and even if they are, they find it very difficult to change them.
This presentation walks people through a process of rehabilitating their detrimental habits.
This high content yet tongue in cheek presentation will take you through the 9 steps to rehabilitating your habits.
They are:
• Admitting you have a problem
• Auditing your habits
• Conducting an intervention
• Getting an action plan
• Going into rehab (in - patient)
• Getting support
• Setting up your environment to support the new habit
• Coming out of rehab (out – patient)
• What to do when you relapse
Outcomes
This presentation gets individuals and teams to assess and evaluate their habits. It encourages them to be mindful and self reflective about their behaviour as an individual and a team member. They leave being much more strategic about how they are spending their time and with an action plan and tool kit on how they can alter their habits to ones that will increase performance and engagement.
Your Brain - A User's Guide!
Are you running your brain or is it running you?
Our performance at work is controlled by the small piece of real estate between our ears. We are all born with 3 pounds of neurons squeezed into our skull; unfortunately it didn’t come with a manual on how to use it. To get the best out of something we need to understand it. In this high energy, high engagement, highly entertaining presentation Dr Adam Fraser will give you a users guide on how to run your brain so that you can get more done in a day, have less stress and more happiness.
Here’s what you and your brain will learn:
- Why positive thinking does not work
- How to remodel our brain structure
- Why we procrastinate and how to kick that habit
- How to make messages stick with your staff
- Why we are good at some things and not others and how we get better at everything
- Common thinking traps we fall into
- Why we should never put a label on our abilities
- Why we have brain snaps
- Why we sometimes act like a caveman
- The Gen Y brain and why they drive us crazy
Come along and be inspired, informed and surprised, just remember to bring your brain!
Energy Management
Lets face it life is getting faster and faster and shows no signs of slowing down. Companies and individuals need to out create, out innovate and out market their competition. The result of this high pressure is that many of us are worn out, tired and we often feel like we are constantly jet lagged. All this leads to decreased performance and reduced productivity.
In an incredibly fast paced and competitive industry like the financial services industry, people are faced with many challenges, some of which are:
- Juggling multiple tasks with fluctuating priorities
- Managing clients expectations during the management of various projects
- Managing energy levels during the day to avoid slumps in productivity
- Managing sleep patterns during stressful times
- How to switch off at the end of the day to be engaged at home
- How to keep focus during the day with so many tasks to manage
- How to maintain enthusiasm leading up to quiet periods like the end of calendar year
The quality of our life and the work that we produce is a direct result of how much energy we have on a daily basis. The number one cause of poor performance at work is a lack of personal energy. You have a set amount of mental, emotional and physical energy. The question is how much of it is focused on delivering mind-blowing service to your customers and clients?
You will learn:
- Why your performance is directly related to your personal energy levels
- Understand the power of physical, emotional and mental energy on our performance at work
- How to maximise energy levels through diet, sleep and exercise
- Fast and effective ways to manage your stress, without having to sit on a mountain top and contemplate your navel
Why do I behave like that?
In my experience one of the major problems facing the employees is the lack of emotional control and poor thinking styles when things go wrong in the work place. The result is conflict and low moral between workers. The way to avoid this is to have your team gain a proper understanding of emotional intelligence (EI) and cognitive regulation. In other words understanding how we regulate emotions and how we regulate the thoughts we think.
In this workshop individuals will learn to assess and work with the cognitive and emotional competencies that underpin Self Awareness, Self Management, workplace skills and Leadership.
This workshop covers:
- Current scientific and business support for emotional intelligence (EI)
- Practical implications and real-life effects of emotions
- Working knowledge to best practice frameworks for EI.
- How to measure and continually improve your own EI
- How EI drives leadership, culture and performance
- How we explain the world to ourselves
- Toxic thinking patterns
- How to develop a thinking pattern that is accurate, realistic and optimistic.
A key component of this course will be the sharing and growing that happens within the group, the result is strong cohesion between members of the team and a greater sense of team building. This context offers a rich opportunity to learn from your colleagues what works and how to do it.
Following this course you will:
- Understand how emotion underpins performance
- Significantly deepen your self awareness and EI impact at work
- Understand healthy thinking patterns
- Be able to apply these techniques to your working day, the result will be a less stressful and more productive day
Taking Control of Stress
Stress has been the buzz word for the past two decades, this workshop will show you how to control stress without having to sit on a mountain top. This seminar goes beyond stress management, it looks at how to thrive in stressful times.
The workshop will cover:
- What is stress and why do we have it.
- What stress does to the mind and body
- Effect of stress on workplace performance
- Practical and simple techniques that reduce our stress levels & give us peace of mind.
- How to improve the quality of your sleep.
Presentation Skills
Proper presentation skills are vital in todays business world. When you only get one chance at your sales pitch you want to make sure it counts. Your presentations must be poignant, direct and capture your audiences attention.
Presentations in the scientific community are also difficult as you are either presenting to a specialised academic audience or presenting complicated information to an amateur audience. In such a precise industry you must pitch your presentation on the right level to your audience and structured in such a way that they enjoy and learn from it!
This session will show you how to:
- Structure your presentation for maximum impact
- Communicate complicated ideas in a simple and powerful way
- Use your voice to get maximum attention
- Use audience participation
- Communicate with clients and upper management in a persuasive and effective way
Dr Adam has been the presentation skills coach for the Local Government Managers Association, The Liberal Party and the Sydney Roosters football team.