About Jo Clarkson

Jo Clarkson is the CEO of Meta and a frequent writer of the Meta-Org.com blog.
Author Archive | Jo Clarkson

THERE IS AN ‘I’ IN TEAM – ‘looking after you’ for the benefit of all

By on March 3, 2015 in Blog

Whilst doing a recent excellent team workshop with a large charity I was made aware by the head of the leadership team we were working with that actually there is an ‘I’ in team! – When you write the word TEAM in block capitals you’ll notice that within the A there is actually a capital I!

It was a bit of a revelation to me to find that I in ‘TEAM’ because at Meta we’ve always stressed how important it is to start with yourself when it comes to team working. Right now many of you will be working longer hours than you ever have and work no longer has the boundaries that it traditionally used to have – (Mainly that once you were out of the office the work stopped!)

It is vital therefore that you look after yourselves, and as any of you who have worked with us will know we put it at the forefront of the work we do, not just because its really important but because it leads to a greater capacity to work and enables you to be more effective and efficient.

With the advent of mobile technologies – the smart phone, the blackberry, the laptop – now office time has become extended to wherever you take your phone or laptop with you. That means that whereas before you did all your work at the office now many of you will work at home or on the way home. This extension of the office by mobile technology means the insatiable beast of our workloads now seeps into our home lives. The boundaries have become blurred between home life and work life and indeed for many of you this will mean working on the way home on the train, or finishing a report on the table in kitchen at home before dinner, or clearing your emails on a Sunday evening so that you have a clearer inbox before you start your working week in the office on a Monday morning.

Not enough of us are challenging this invasion into our home lives made by the never-ending demands of our workplaces. It leads to many of us having less time with our families and I hear all too often the complaint that children’s bedtimes are missed and weekend time with the family impinged upon.

It’s so important to start putting in firm boundaries to stop the flow of the unceasing tide of work into our personal and family time. First of all, make a record of how much time you spend working in an average week. What work is done in the office (and what times do you arrive/leave) and what work is done at home? – Be honest with yourself and after you’ve recorded it, review it and decide what you find acceptable and what is not acceptable to you.

The things that you decide are not acceptable are what I call the outer boundaries. They are the sea wall, put there to stop the excessive tides of work from overwhelming and flooding into your personal life to damaging effect. To the sports fans reading this, its like the outer boards on a cricket pitch, they don’t mark the boundary they are an outer (unmovable) boundary to protect the spectators. Then to continue with the cricketing metaphor there is the rope boundary (which is the actual scoring boundary), this is moved in and out dependent on where the cricket pitch is actually situated in the ground. Once you have established the outer boundaries – these are what I call your ‘non-negotiables’ for example – I will be home every evening in time to put my son/daughter to bed, I won’t do work on the weekends unless its an emergency, I won’t answer emails at home after a certain agreed time – then you can begin to work on the inner flexible boundaries.

What’s interesting is that when these outer boundaries are in place, you’ll soon see that actually no one is forcing you to do the work at those hours and if they are? Well that’s a conversation to be had with those that are asking these unreasonable things of you!

Then you can start to experiment with that inner rope boundary. Remember this is more flexible but no less important to creating that sense of balance in your work/life – perhaps coming home a little earlier (try 15 minutes earlier than normal at a time, not too drastic) or going in a little later. Perhaps banning work from home, or at least stopping doing any work at home? The fear is that if you’re not getting enough work done now, that you’ll get even less done if you do less hours, however the opposite is true IF it is done in the right way (See note below on state and energy) – don’t take my word for it though, do you own empirical research and see!

Now it’s all fine and dandy to establish these boundaries, but it’s important to not only establish them but also to start to look after you as well. Your state is the most influential factor when it comes to how you experience life. If you are tired and stressed its amazing how difficult and hard life can be, and isn’t it amazing when you’re having ‘one of those days’ how many irritating and obnoxious people there are in the world??

I’m trying here to lighten the mood.. Because for many of us work and life has just become heavy and hard work. This leads to us being grumpy not just in work but outside of work too, when we let the tide of work come in and never push back, then it has a serious effect on our relationships at home too.

Clearly it’s time to have a re-think. Because right now what most of us are doing isn’t working for us, our family or ironically for employers either!

Think of your mind and body as a light bulb. In order to work, it requires energy (in this case electricity) and if it does not have enough energy it does not light up. Far too many of you are running the light bulb that is you on the lowest setting on the dimmer switch! There’s not much energy in you, so you barely light up or function.

You are a being of light! – No, I’ve not just gone all airy-fairy and spiritual on you, at the smallest sub-atomic levels you ARE pure energy. So if you are energy, surely its important to keep your energy topped up?

The first and quickest way to do this is to sleep well! Research that we revealed in an update from last year says that we need a minimum of 7 hours sleep to be effective, and ideally 8 to ensure we are functioning at our best. How many hours did you get last night?

Secondly it’s important to take your breaks when you are at work, AWAY from your desk! Back to back meetings are not conducive to working at your best, regular breaks are regularly highlighted in research as being needed to ensure consistently high levels of performance at work.

Thirdly top up your fuel tanks on a regular basis – at work, on your way to and fro from work, and at home. Make a list of 20 things that give you that energy boost that can help you top up your internal fuel tank and make sure you have the list with you at all times. When you wake up in the morning ask yourself the question – “where is MY fuel tank today?” – if its low then make sure you have plenty of things to top it up before you get to work!

When you look after yourself and fill your fuel tank on a daily basis, as well as putting in firm boundaries when it comes to your work patterns, you’ll notice that work and life just gets easier. Its not rocket science, and yet most of us have let these things slip in the last few years.

So make a stand for you, and actually it won’t just be your family that thanks you, it’ll be your employer too. Why? Because working in a more natural, energy efficient way like this ensures that you’ll get MORE not less work done at a higher, more consistent quality.

Wishing you a great month,

Jo xxx

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BEING GROWN UPS AT WORK

By on February 13, 2015 in Blog, Uncategorized

I overheard a conversation on the bus the other day, where someone was talking about how she had been to see her child’s teacher, to ask her to help with some minor bullying that had been going on. She had clearly handled it well, with both politeness and firmness – a lovely example of being grown-up – and she had achieved the outcome she wanted. Her finals sentence was: ‘If only I could be like that with my boss!’ and that left me wondering why not as well?

Somehow we have generally learnt to behave more like children than grown-ups at work: there are goody-goodies, shirkers, those who hide at the back of the class, little cliques, the popular ones – it sometimes looks and sounds more like a school playground than a workplace! I know, I am exaggerating, but you know what I mean.. And we give away our control to ‘them’ – some ill-defined stereotypical people in authority, the ‘bosses’ – and then moan about our lack of autonomy.

I think this happens because of the history of the workplace: once upon a time it was generally true that bosses ram the place by command and control, and treated workers as if they were unreliable, unruly children with no intelligence or maturity. But I believe the story has changed, and there is more recognition of the importance of working together to produce results, and of the need for people to feel empowered to achieve that.

However we all then have to choose to be empowered for it to work – no-one can give us empowerment, we have to choose to behave in that way – and we are habituated to being victims of circumstance.

So how do we become more empowered? We have to take responsibility for our own actions and attitudes. If we know that we have done the best we can, we stand by that: if we know we have made a mistake, we own up, apologise, make it right. We recognise if we’re not in the mood for something we have to do, and do something to change that mood. We admit if we need help, and ask for it. And we treat others as we wish to be treated, even if they don’t reciprocate.

And if you are one of those ‘bosses’, then you need to encourage your team members to adopt the behaviours I’ve listed. Notice and acknowledge when they are behaving in a grown-up way. Encourage them to show initiative, to be proud of what they achieve, and to feel Ok about admitting to something that isn’t so good, even if it doesn’t always work out. And don’t fall into the ‘boss’ trap: remember to adopt empowered and empowering attitudes and behaviours yourself.

Most people are grown-ups and are good at making their personal lives work for them. Let’s apply the same attitudes and capabilities in the workplace, and have organisations where people feel in control and valued for being the grown-ups they are.

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HAVING A TECHNOLOGY FREE DAY

By on December 1, 2014 in Blog

These days technology is everywhere, its unavoidable and many of us live our lives through technology. You’ve only got to step on a train or a bus or the tube and what you’ll find is a carriage full of people locked into the small world of technology held within their hands. The tablet, the kindle, the i-phone they are the new newspapers, the new books and the new cinemas. It’s where we find everything we need and we have become very dependent upon them. Could you imagine a day without your phone, your email, and your computer? The answer is probably no.

There was an attendee on our Journey to Mastery programme this year, who came in distraught one session because they had lost her i-phone. A whole week with no access to that virtual world that these technologies allow us into and they were at a loss as to what to do. It started me thinking, what would we do if we gave up technology for just one day? Have we become so dependent on it that we can’t?

It’s an interesting thought.

Now I go on Facebook quite regularly and recently I’d noticed that it had crept into my life more than I’d like it to have. I found myself checking it in between my work tasks, and whereas before maybe I went online once a day I would find myself checking numerous times in one day. So I’ve decided to give myself a break from it for a while, and what I’ve noticed is that I have a lot more time to get things done! I am also having better conversations with my friends and family than I have before. It’s only been a week but I’ve really noticed the difference.

Let us look at technology in the workplace. Now we are inundated with emails in our inbox everyday I don’t know many people who get less than 50 emails a day in their inboxes at work. There is an overload of information, but not much real communication going on. When you look at the research into communication the majority of communication (65%+) is got through physical signals, and just 7% of communication comes through the written word alone. So that is a 93% chance of a miscommunication by just using the written word alone, and yet, most of us now rely on that written communication as our primary way of contacting others whether it be by text or by email.

There’s another side to technology, the fact that it drains our energy. I don’t know many people who are energised by being at their computer terminal all day. I don’t know many people who after a 30minute foray on Facebook feel ‘raring to go’. So when we are all feeling under pressure and are tired and stressed, perhaps a day without technology might just allow us to recharge and regain our energy?

My belief is that the world around us IS a place of abundance. It is designed so that it can feed us energetically. When you look at small children they know absolutely how to interact with the world so that it feeds them. They use all their senses so that the world becomes a place of adventure, fun and fulfilment. So why don’t we see if we too can tap into the wonder of the world without technological interference?

As most of you will know at Meta we talk about ‘filling your fuel tank’. We talk about the fact that most of us right now are running our own internal energy fuel tanks on empty and we need to top them up. My suggestion is that by just taking one day a week away from technology, you can top up your fuel tank more fully.

Now technology is all around us, its impossible to have a technology free day at work these days, but we could control our home environment. If you didn’t have your phone, your computer, your tablet, your kindle, your TV for one Saturday or Sunday, what would life be like? What would you do? Think about it for a moment.

If the world is a place of abundance, if it is set up to feed you and energise you, what could you do in that day to refill your fuel tank and get yourself ready for the week of work that is ahead? Remember when Sundays were a day of rest? Maybe that was for a reason! So how about we go back to a time when we got out into nature, talked more, interacted with the world more, became more involved IN the world rather than escaping the world.

The world is a big place. Vast in fact, why not tap into the potential and energy that it provides? Why not have one day a week having adventures and having fun? A day free from technology – a day of love, laughter and joy. A day reconnecting with the world, and reconnecting with those we love.

The festive period is all about reconnecting and remembering. So take just one day to refill your fuel tanks, to get them full to the brim, to get excited about life again, to just go and have FUN. We think you deserve that.

Have a wonderful festive period all of you,

With love,

Jo and Di xxx

 

 

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THE CHOICES WE MAKE

By on November 4, 2014 in Meta Org Blog

What sort of a day have you chosen to have today?

Most of us would respond to this question by starting with: ‘I was OK until such-and such happened,’ or ‘Well, I had to do such-and such, so I was affected by that’, or just with irritation: ‘If only I could choose!’

I’m here to remind you that those are all choices too – that’s the bad news! And the good news is that once we really grasp that it’s always a choice, we can choose differently and feel better for it.

So what do I mean when I say that we always choose? When I first came across this concept, I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought that there were too many outside influences on my life – my work, my relationships, the weather, the state of my finances, the traffic – the list goes on and on! So I rarely felt as if I could choose what my day was like; it depended on what was happening around me. I was a fairly typical victim of circumstance.

Then gradually I began to realise that maybe it was a choice of sorts, to be a victim of circumstance, and that just made me feel worse! When you get this, you just feel cowardly or stupid: why don’t I just walk away from this job, this relationship, that makes me feel like a victim of circumstance?

Eventually I began to grasp that it isn’t necessarily about running away from things that adversely affect you; in fact, that’s not possible. If we are used to being a victim of circumstance, then we will take that attitude into any situation. It is about becoming conscious of what choices we do have in any situation.

The essential distinction is between passive and active choices. A passive choice is where ‘they’ or ‘it’ have made us feel or react this way. We allow the circumstance to be in control of our destiny, our mood, our attitude, and we passively accept its influence. We say, ‘There’s nothing I can do about it.’

Yet this is not how we are naturally wired. For evidence, look at how we handle things as children, before we learn to be passive. Children don’t think, ‘Dad’s in a bad mood today, so I will have to keep quiet and not be a nuisance.’ They think, ‘Dad is in a bad mood today, so I will see if I can make him laugh, or I may go and play with my favourite toys and leave him to it – he’ll get over it.’ Children find a way of making it work for them, by choosing how they react.

We are intended to be in control of our own destiny and we have the ability to do it, by consciously choosing how we react to circumstances. It is up to me to decide how I will react to bad news, someone being unpleasant, a traffic jam, and this is what gives me control. It becomes an active choice.

We are capable of doing this – we all do it sometimes. For example, ‘I’m tired and I had a bad day, but I want to go and see my friends and have fun, so I’ll have a good shower out on my favourite perfume/after shave and put on my glad rags, and then I’ll be up for it.’  So let’s just choose to do this more often!!

  • We can choose to make bad news a reason to allow ourselves an indulgence to make us feel better, or a prompt to make a change in our lives
  • We can choose to let someone being unpleasant keep their attitude to themselves and let it go past us – walk away and leave them to it
  • We can choose to use a traffic jam to listen to our favourite music or an audio-book

By making a conscious, active choice, we take back control of our own mood, our own attitude, our own state of mind. This helps us to make our lives work, no matter what, and keeps us in a place where we feel we can always make a positive difference, should we choose to.

Life is too short to be influenced by the negativity or adversity around us so let’s choose to enjoy our time here and make it work!!

in peace and love Di and Jo xxx

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GET THAT STRESS OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM!

By on October 4, 2014 in Blog

Yes, we are talking to you!

Even if your don’t think you’re stressed, we know that you probably are. When we talk about being stressed, we are so far out of balance that it’s hard to come back to normal. So we want to encourage you to tackle the imbalance early, and make it easier for yourself to stay healthy and happy.

What we’re designed for

You see, biologically, we are still functioning as if we were hunter-gatherers. When we find something stressful, we release a mass of adrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream. These hormones direct all the energy in our bodies into our arms and legs – for fight or flight – and to the instinctual part of our brains – for survival. Now this is really useful if you are facing a life or death situation – think of the stories of someone lifting a car off their child who’s been run over – but for most of us, the stresses are not about survival, they are more emotional and mental. So we have an excess of preparation for fight or flight that is not dissipated by using it for that purpose.

Causes of stress

And what causes that stress that we do have? Well, as I said, we are designed to be hunter-gatherers. That means we would have highly physical times, and then some downtime to recover. We would also live to the seasons, in touch with nature, awake in daylight hours, sleeping when it’s dark. We would eat natural unprocessed food, with a high proportion of fruit vegetables and grain. Instead we have become far more sedentary, we completely ignore seasonal changes, and we eat processed food a lot of the time. On top of that, we have a 24/7 culture, shopping after dark, online till the wee hours, responding instantly to communications. None of this is what we are biologically designed for, so puts stress on our system, before we even start to call things stressful.

Symptoms of stress

If you don’t think this applies to you, just consider whether you have any of these symptoms of stress in your system:

Do you know of someone who is suffering from difficulty in getting to sleep? Waking up in the middle of the night? Waking up with butterflies in their stomach? Suffering from low-level anxiety as they wake up or drive to work, for no obvious reason? Making snap/bad decisions? Not able to get over a cold? Getting ill easily and then being ill for a long time before recovering? Not being able to stop themselves saying something before they’ve said it? Feeling out of control? Wired? Uptight? Bad neck/back/shoulders? Stomach issues? Gut/digestion problems? Struggling to eat? Eating comfort food? Smoking/drinking too much? Jiggling their legs or fingers? Dropping things? These all can be signs of stress.

Effect of stress

Now you might say, ‘Oh well, that’s just the way it is’, but the effect on your physical and mental health of constantly having stress hormones in your body is significant. Those hormones take all the energy away from maintaining and repairing your vital organs, from using the evolved parts of your brain where you think things through, are creative and maintain perspective, and from your immune system which keeps you healthy. The other scary piece is that when stress hormones are in your body your cells do not regenerate. They just die off one by one and are not replaced.

The good news is, we can do something about it, by finding ways to re-balance our system, when we notice the signs of stress. As hunter-gatherers, we would have dissipated those stress hormones by our physical activity, and a successful hunt would lead us to release the health-giving hormones – dopamine and serotonin – which biologically re-balance the system, and re-direct our energy back to maintenance and repair of our bodies, and the more generally useful parts of our brain.

It’s important to emphasise here that actually stress is not our natural state, happiness, joy and fun is. You don’t see 3-4 year old kids stressed! You won’t find a 4-year-old sitting all depressed and moaning about everything, suffering from lack of sleep and suffering from anxiety! The vast majority of young children know how to look after themselves and actually our brains are wired not to make us feel bad, but to make us feel good. We are wired for happiness but we learn how to look for what’s wrong rather than what’s right. So it’s important to have our own strategies for getting ourselves de-stressed and back to our factory default setting of happiness!

Relieving stress/getting back to normal

Sometimes it’s not easy to just go back to default setting so it’s useful to have a number of strategies for de-stressing and getting back to normal.

We need to find our equivalents and consciously do something to correct the balance and help our bodies find their preferred state.

Anything physical helps, because it dissipates the effect of these stress hormones: have a run around the block to get rid of the excess adrenaline coursing through your body. Maybe you need to do some yoga to release the energy. Gardening helps, or just a walk in the park. Swimming, or the gym if that’s your thing. Even some energetic housework, if that doesn’t add to your stress! Just get your body moving.

It also works if we do anything which has a calming effect on us – it allows our body to find its natural balance: it may be a case of just sitting down for 5 minutes. Or take a break and have a cup of coffee. Maybe you could listen to a calming piece of music or phone a friend. Or just sit and relax and just breathe deeply to relieve the symptoms of stress.

Finally we can pro-actively use ways to release the dopamine and serotonin in our bodies, which counteract the negative effects of stress and quickly rebalance us. So do anything which makes you feel good, such as a favourite piece of music, reading a chapter of a good book, watching something that makes you laugh, or eating something that tastes good and is a natural food – anything which helps to shift your mood.

Whatever things work for you, it’s important to have a number of different ways to relieve stress for you, before it gets too unbalanced to deal with easily. This is not an indulgence, it is a necessary and vital rebalancing, if we want to function effectively and stay healthy. For the sake of our long-term heath, do pay attention to those symptoms of stress, and relieve them as quickly as possible. Your body, mind and spirit will all be grateful!!

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THE BLURRING OF BOUNDARIES – getting work and life back into balance

By on August 13, 2014 in Meta Org Blog

There has been talk of work/life balance in organisations for decades now.

When it first started, it was because people had begun to feel a pressure to stay late at work, to try and finish off their tasks, with the consequence that they had less time and energy for their home life.

Alas, instead of being an improved story now, the story has got a lot worse. With the advent of mobile phones as a necessary piece of kit for everybody, the real intrusion into home life began. No longer was the workday over when you set off for home. People began using their travelling time to make calls, instead of using it to wind down from the day. And having the work mobile switched on till mid-evening became the norm, in case someone needed to contact you.

Even that was not deemed to be enough of an intrusion. When laptops became widely available, and smartphones, communication by email also became the norm – we call it communication, although we all know that it is generally poor as a means of conveying messages and resolving issues.

Now the intrusion into home life was even more pervasive – we saw the ‘important’ message from the boss on our smartphone halfway through our dinner, and felt obliged to sort it out, or at least email a response, or a message to others who needed to be involved. What’s more, we were tempted into spending an hour or two trying to clear that damn in-box during the evening or at weekends, because we knew we wouldn’t have time at work.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, not if we did have work/life balance. Ricardo Semler wrote a book called ‘The Seven Day Weekend’ suggesting that, if we answer emails at the weekend, we should also be able to go to the movies on a Monday afternoon. In other words, if we are genuinely going to work flexibly, then that needs to be a two-way agreement with our workplace: rather then stretching our hours, it should mean that we manage our work/life balance in a more creative and flexible way for ourselves as well.

Sadly, very few people have felt able to adopt this way of seeing it. Instead, we are resigned to less time for home life, and have learnt to respond, like Pavlov’s dogs, to the ping of yet another email or voice message.

This means that even when they are at home people have their attention and thinking drawn towards work. And even if responding doesn’t take them long, it pulls them out of relaxing into their home life and allowing themselves to re-energise properly.

The blurring of the boundaries between work and home life has crept up on us: the intrusion has gradually increased, so that we have come to accept each stage as normal. But it’s not!! It’s not normal, and it’s not healthy for you or your organisation.

The insistence on work/life balance was not for altruistic reasons. It was because people need to have a proper break from work, and a rounded perspective on life, to be able to perform at their best at work. We are not machines that you can switch on whenever you want and get the same performance.

The effects of the blurring of these boundaries are: the cumulative exhaustion of people; the decline of happy home relationships; and poor reaction and decision-making at work, due to tiredness and resentment.

Isn’t it time you took back control of your world, and re-established some boundaries for yourself? After all, most of us are not working in places where taking time out away from work things will result in a disaster!

So, just stop and consider the following:

  1. Your journey to work: can you use it to get yourself in a positive mood for your workday?
  2. Your journey home: can you use it to wind down, re-energise yourself, and get ready to really be at home with your loved ones?
  3. Your laptop: can you leave it at work, or at the least allocate only a set period of time that you use it at home?
  4. Your smartphone: can you switch it off by 7 pm at the latest, and leave it switched off and have a whole weekend free sometimes?
  5. And if you can’t do any of these things, can you therefore go to the movies on a Monday afternoon?!!

Think for a moment about what is going to happen if you don’t do this to take back some control of your world: the intrusion will continue to grow – and may even be on your watch or TV screen, or even under your skin in a few years’ time! You will make those poor reactions/decisions that lead to more problems, because you are tired. Your family will give up on trying to involve you in their lives. And your inbox still won’t be empty!

Now compare this with what will happen if you do take back some control: some people may object to your lack of 24/7 availability, but they do get over it, particularly if you are clear about when you are available, and you work effectively in that time. Your family will love the ceasing of the constant interruption to life with them. And you will actually have some time to relax for a change!

Which would you prefer?!!!

We hope that you use this update to just take a little time to notice how blurred your boundaries between work and home have become and take back a little time for you, and your family.

Why? Because YOU deserve it!!

All our Love

Jo and Di xxx

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DARING TO LEAD

By on June 4, 2014 in Meta Org Blog

Right now I’m going to ask all you managers out there that read this to do something completely counter cultural. I’m going to ask you to break out of the current conformity within business and do something different.

It’s time to rebel.

It’s time to break out of the tight constraints that current business practice has you tied up in.

It’s time to release yourself from the shackles of management and step up into a leading role.

It’s time.. To dare to lead.

Right now there are many things that are wrong with business. One of the fundamental issues is that everyone is managing and no one is leading. It’s a provocative statement but in my opinion it is true, there are too many managers and not enough leaders.

So what is the difference?

Well leaders are like directors (in a film/play). Their role is to be able to have a perspective on what is going on. They are the ones with the oversight, who ensures that all the parts are working together to produce the best possible result.

Excellent directors (like leaders) play two main roles visionary and facilitator. They are always looking for how the parts could work together even better to produce even more innovative results – the visionary part – and they do everything they can to make it easy for their people to give of their best – the facilitator part.  Notice we say facilitator rather than manager. Sure its important for a leader to be able to manage in fact you cannot be a leader without being an excellent manager, however when you step up into leadership you become a facilitator not a manager.

So what’s going wrong?

Right now business is busy being busy. It hasn’t time (or budget) to develop people as they are promoted. There isn’t the time to ‘show someone the ropes’ or handover properly to the new manager, and so although the person promoted has the raw talent and skills to do the role they are not given the time to develop their managerial skills to such a level as to fit the new higher position. With constant restructuring in most organisations since the recession this means that many people are now doing the role that pre-recession was done by a minimum of two people. This means that there are many ‘leadership teams’ who just do not have the leadership skills required to lead rather than manage. This means that there is an effective ‘shrinking’ of the management structure, directors feeling they have to ‘step in’ to manage things that really they shouldn’t be managing!

If you’re a manager you probably already feel that your directors/senior managers do this too much. How does this make you feel as a manager? Well it tends to make you feel disempowered. Why bother when the likelihood is that your boss will step in and change it or interfere anyway?

On the flip side I hear over and over again from people we know who are directors that their leadership teams are not ‘stepping up to the mark’ that they feel they have to intervene and are fed up with having to do so.

So if both sides don’t like what’s going on, maybe its something that needs to be looked at? Maybe its something that needs to be paid attention to, a fundamental problem that needs to be resolved.

There is a simple solution. And it’s so simple that I really can’t understand why no one is doing it.

How about investing a short amount of time (and money) into developing your leadership teams’ leadership skills? How about getting back to having a ‘handover period’ (of a few months) when someone who has been promoted gets to grow into their role rather than just being expected to run from day one? There was a genuine reason for doing this, it meant that it could be identified what extra skills/development they needed in order to effectively do the role and meant that their senior manager could get back to what they did best, leading!

So what can you do? You, the manager, the leader within your organisation?

Well, you can either wait for someone to encourage or tell you to lead..  (Good luck with that one; you may be waiting a very long time!!) OR you can just DARE TO LEAD.

Whatever level you are within your organisation if you have line management responsibilities, then you have an opportunity to lead.

Yes I know that your organisation’s leaders may well be caught in managing too much, but if you don’t take action and step up into leading then who will?

It feels that right now everyone is waiting for everyone else to do something. Waiting for a miracle to happen when suddenly everything changes. It’s not going to happen unless someone starts to do something different. So how about YOU do something different?

How about you buck the trend and start to lead rather than manage? How about you become the director of the film of the story of your life at work? How about you start to create a new version of how work is for you. One where you empower yourself (And empowerment can only EVER come from you first!) to start leading your staff in the way that you would like to be lead?

You see we KNOW how to lead, we just don’t believe that we can in the places we work. We don’t believe we have the power or the authority to. And yet if we are not in control of our own behaviours/ways of being then who is?

Isn’t it time we took our own power back?
Isn’t it time that we decided to embody how we want leaders in our workplace to be?

If we don’t do it? Then who will?

Its time for a change and change starts with you first. So if you want to change the way that your organisation is lead, start by leading yourself. Start being the model for how it could be. You’ll soon get results and they’ll be visible (if you shout about them), you could be the example that others can follow and when enough people are daring to lead then it influences up. If people start being leaders we can change the world of business and if we change the world of business we can truly change the world.

Go on.. I dare you.

Dare to lead this month, treat it as an experiment and see what happens!

And if you need help or want some advice on how best to lead, how to take that step up into leadership, then we here at Meta are at your service. We have a vast library of research and a wealth of experience on the subject of putting leadership into action.

So please do call on us, we’d be happy to help you, why? Because our mission is to change the way we do business for good and if we can help you, then we’re doing what we’re here to do!

Much love to you all,

Jo xxx

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BEING DEAD IS BAD FOR BUSINESS

By on May 6, 2014 in health+well being, Meta Org Blog

Consider this your wake up call.

Yes, I’m talking to you.. the person reading this. If you’re working right now, the likelihood is that you’re working TOO HARD.

“What? ‘TOO HARD? What’s that Jo?”
Well it’s when you work yourself into the ground, for no real good reason. Its when you work really hard and don’t feel like you’ve achieved anything. And its when you’re working faster and harder but less effectively.

You see many of you right now are tired. Tired of work, tired even of life. Why? Because you are all working TOO HARD.

Working hard is fine, WHEN you get results. But when you are working apparently for no good reason, it gets soul destroying after a while. Every day you work hard and all your bosses can pick up on is what you didn’t do or got slightly wrong, rather than the shedloads that you did do. Either that or they then ask you to do more.

Business right now has reverted back to its own etymological meaning: no longer is it a place where we get things done, it’s a place where we are busy, being busy! (etymology – Business: a place where we are busy)

You see when the financial crash happened we were all happy to step up, chip in, do that bit more to ensure the survival of the businesses that we worked for.

“Of course I’ll work that extra hour to get the project done,” you’d say, “Yes, its OK I’ll take a pay freeze if it means that the business stays in business.”

“Yes, I’ll work longer hours if it means that I keep my job.”

Why did we do that? Because the vast majority of staff are essentially good people who want to do the best they can in their jobs. They are not ‘shirkers’ who avoid work, the majority of people want to do a good job and will do what it takes to get the job done well, even if that means staying after hours or putting the business first over their personal lives. Learn more about business handling at https://www.paystubcreator.net/.

So what did businesses do during the recession?

They streamlined, they restructured, they stripped themselves back to the bare bones so that they could reduce costs and keep their losses to a minimum. Sound business sense you might say, and indeed it is. However the new structures relied on the remaining staff working flat out, often doing the jobs that were previously done by two or three people.

That kind of workload is perhaps sustainable for a little while, 6 months, a year – we can all understand the need to do that for a short while. But it’s been 6 years now, and people are just worn out, dog tired, knackered.

You see as soon as businesses moved back into profit, rather than re-investing in their staff (the people that helped keep the business afloat through their tireless working in the recession years), they carried on reducing costs and streamlining their businesses, so that their shareholders/owners could recoup their capital from the profits that started to come through before giving anything back to their staff. The result? Those that were left staffing the by now anorexic organisational structure had to carry even more of a burden. They were loading their staff up like pack horses, and rewarding them not with a carrot but a stick.

“Well if you can do that, you can do this for me too.”

“I don’t want to hear the reasons why you can’t do it, I want to hear that you will do it and when it will be done by.”

“How about you step up into a interim senior manager role? We can’t pay you any more, but you’ll the have the experience and it’ll be good for your career.”

“It’s just one more project in your portfolio, I don’t see what the problem is.”

AND to top all that off, no pay rises (or minimal ones) or bonuses, for the majority of staff – the organisational machine was an insatiable beast, hungry for more, in less time, for less money, with just as good a quality, to create more profit for the business.

Now why am I saying all this?

Because it is WRONG.

Someone needs to say it. So I’m saying it. How business is being run right now is just plain wrong.

It’s not the way to treat people that have helped you out of difficult times, and it’s not the way to do good business. It’s not sustainable, and people are becoming ‘resources’ not real human beings and are being treated like animals.

“WOOOAH!” I hear you cry! “Jo, that’s a bit emotive isn’t it?”

Yes it is, but isn’t it time that we put a stop to bad business practices? Isn’t it time that we at least had a frank discussion about what’s really going on?

On the television every couple of months we hear that the economy is now nearly at the level that it was pre-financial crash. Now I don’t know about you, but that just makes me angry. To hear that ‘the good times’ are here again, is just ridiculous, because I don’t know of ANYONE right now who is in a better position than they were before the financial crash. Never mind that, I don’t know of ANYONE who feels GOOD right now, full stop!

So if the economy is really that good (and let’s bear in mind that the economy figures do come from the office of statistics – a governmental department), where has the money gone from the profits in business? It certainly hasn’t filtered down to most managers and leaders that we know. Isn’t it time that businesses began to pay back their employees for the selfless work they have been doing over the last 6 years?

It’s not happening at the moment, and the likelihood is, that sadly, its probably not going to happen. In fact most managers/staff that we know are working longer hours and working harder than they ever have.

So what to do?
Well, when we are stressed and overworked, we tend to narrow our focus, it tends to become about ‘me and my to-do list’. We don’t think about the wider picture or the grander vision, we just have to get through today and ensure that our boss is happy and that my to-do list just gets a bit shorter. We haven’t got the time or the energy to do much else. Work becomes all-consuming, its demands mean it ends up being a tide of work that never quite goes back out again. We let it slip in to our personal lives, we don’t push back, we just let the tide come in more and more and more. The result is that now most people will work when they get home in the evenings, and most people will work at least to clear emails on the weekend.

The problem is, that we don’t know how to say no anymore. And as a result work has become the main time consumer in our lives.

“Well Jo, its always been like that, it’s just how it is.”

Actually it’s not always been like this. Yes we worked hard, but we also worked in a way that was more natural. I was watching a documentary on the first world war recently and the government ministers would clock off at around 4pm to ensure they got home for dinner! Even factory workers had shifts that are probably a lot shorter than the ones that we have now!

You see bio-chemically we are not designed to work these sorts of hours consistently. The amount of sustained stress that our bodies are currently facing is greater than probably ever in our histories. We just don’t know what effect those stress hormones have on our bodies when sustained for so long, however one thing is for sure, it’s making us very sick.

Right now everyone reading this will know of at least one person who is off sick with stress. Everyone reading this will know of at least one person who is seriously ill as a result of overworking/stress. I’ve been working at Meta for 13 years now and during that time I have seen a tremendous increase in the amount of stress related illnesses and I’m seeing a worrying trend of people that we know and love getting serious, life threatening illnesses as a result of their work.

So I want to tell you something, something that I’d like you and any  organisational leader that reads this to hear. This is something that needs to be said and it needs to be read out at every staff meeting and every board meeting and every shareholders meeting: to remind those that are at the very top that their staff are not just a ‘resource’, they are human beings, human beings that are reaching their limits of capacity and in many cases are already beyond them.

“BEING DEAD IS BAD FOR BUSINESS” 

It may seem shocking for you to read. But I know personally of at least 10 people from the Meta Family who have had life threatening conditions brought on by work related stress in the last 5 years.

So i’ts time for you, the reader of this update, to do something about what is happening to you. You may not be able to change your organisation, but you can change how you treat you. You are tired, you are worn out most likely, so it’s time to begin to look after yourself again. If your work is demanding more and more of you and you cannot see that stopping, then consider your health, consider your family. Being dead is not only bad for business its also bad for families, loved ones and bad for you!

You may think that I am over reacting, but I am not. I am seeing too many people that I love getting seriously ill and it’s time we said something very loud and clear about it. At Meta we stand for a different way of working, a way that is more natural, sustainable and less stressful, where MORE gets done because we are working more effectively, with the natural ebb and flow of our own working patterns, where organisational structures are not based on reducing costs but what will be the most effective to get the work done and where people are thanked for their hard work and rewarded properly for the time and effort they put in.

It’s time that businesses started thanking their staff for frankly saving their skins these last few years. Shareholders, think for a minute, haven’t you earned enough? Isn’t it time to reward your staff for bringing you and your organisation back from the brink to profitability? Directors/Chief executives, isn’t it time that you started thanking your staff for all the hard work they put in and started looking at how to work effectively rather than just harder and faster? Managers/team leaders, make sure that you are looking after yourselves, so that you can find the time to notice, thank and develop your staff and treat them in the way that you would like to be treated.

So what I am saying is this:
It’s time to start looking after you, time to revisit all those tools you’ve learnt from Meta over the years that are to do with self-management and filling your fuel tank. Most of you are now running beyond empty and you really need to take time to refuel and recharge. When you are fuelled up, when you feel that you are in a better more resourceful state, THEN it is easier for you to start standing up for yourself and for your staff. You will start to believe in yourself again, and perhaps you will start to put in some boundaries to stop the tide of work overwhelming you and taking up your precious personal time with your family.

When someone writes your epitaph, you won’t want them to write “He was a bloody hard worker.” Or “She gave her all to that company.”

So let’s put work back into perspective. It’s not the be all and end all. Yes it pays the bills, but it’s not worth killing yourself over and it’s not worth losing quality time with your loved ones either.

Remember the mantra:

‘BEING DEAD IS BAD FOR BUSINESS” – (and it’s even worse for you..)

Got it?? 

If there’s one thing you take away from this update, it’s to look after yourself better and to make sure you begin to create time for you and your family/loved ones. It’s time to re-balance, time to re-focus on what really matters. I’ll leave you with this thought..

How would you like to be remembered?
As a hard worker?

Didn’t think so..

Time for a change, don’t you think?

And you don’t have to do this alone by the way!
Oh no, if you’re reading this you are part of the Meta Family, so if you don’t KNOW how to get the balance back, if you don’t know how to get out of the place you’re in, if you’d like some help or advice, a rant buddy or just a friendly ear, then both me and Di are ALWAYS available to you. Just give us a call or arrange a catch up over a cuppa. We’d love to hear from you, and we’d love to help if we can.

Much love to you all,

Jo xxx

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ARE WE LOSING OUR HUMANITY IN OUR DRIVE FOR MORE?

By on April 2, 2014 in Blog, Change, emotional intelligence, Excellent organisations, Meta Org Blog, Self awareness

In the last few months, I have come across worrying signs in the meetings that I’ve had with our valued customers. Not only are we struggling out there to keep our heads above water, to weather out the current storm of difficulties and demanding organisational needs, but this constant drive for more for less (and with less) from organisations at the moment is leading to us losing our humanity.

That’s a bold statement I know, however I have recently been working with people maltreated by their employers, I’ve seen how people are off with serious illnesses (cancer, pneumonia, strokes) as a result of stress and work, and I’ve seen first hand how callous and inhumane some CEO’s and leaders feel they have to be in order to get the job done and deliver what needs to be delivered.

Now I believe that no one wants to be horrible. No one wants to be inhumane, but when we are set impossible targets, when we are under more pressure to deliver than ever before. Sometimes we get caught in the story, get caught by it all, and perhaps we ignore things that we really shouldn’t ignore. Tolerate things that we really should not tolerate.

The system at the moment is one that doesn’t want us to think or care. It wants us to deliver – to give more and more, faster and FASTER, with less people, less time and less budget.

So how can this system work? When we look at it like this surely this is untenable, surely this can’t work? Well it can’t work long term. It can short term, but that is only if we treat people as a consumable resource. One that is ultimately replaceable when one is worn out or not of use anymore – (sound familiar the contractors amongst you out there?)

However on a more positive note, people are remarkable, and at the moment they are the glue that keeps organisations together, the oil that keeps the cogs of the machine running, even though they are severely understaffed, is the will and power of their people. So isn’t it time that organisations said thank you to their people? The people who enable the business to keep in business? Who deliver, who go beyond the call of duty to ensure the mission impossible is fulfilled and made possible?

Isn’t it time that we actually brought the humanity back into business? A business where we dared to care, where we stood up for a work colleague, where we stood up for each other?

There is some interesting new research that shows that people are losing their ability to empathise. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the workplace. We don’t see the ‘work me’ as who I really am. So we do things at work that we’d probably never do in our personal lives. We also forgive behaviours that we would find intolerable outside of work, because ‘that’s just the way it is here’.

You see, as we are put under more and more stress so we become more individualistic, we rightfully look after ourselves first because we do not have the resources in our fuel tanks to protect more than just us. We can’t look after everyone anymore, we’re so busy trying to get our own impossible to-do list done, that we struggle to find time for anything else.

So sometimes we might send a snotty email or have a curt conversation with someone that with hindsight we regret. We might say yes to something, when actually we wish we’d said no! And what about when we witness other people being treated in a way that we wouldn’t want to be treated? Do we turn a blind eye? Do we look the other way? Do we not make a stand for fear of being picked on next? It’s totally understandable, but is it right? Is our silence allowing our natural empathetic responses to be dampened and lessened?

At what point do we say no?
Where is the line that someone has to cross before we say that’s not OK?
When we lose our empathy, we lose our humanity.

You can deliver more, if you care and look after your staff. Investing time and effort into your staff isn’t a luxury it’s a necessity for ensuring a happy, successful and productive organisation! There is so much research on this, and yet right now there are few organisations that are putting this into practice.

I mentioned earlier that its time for us to not tolerate things we are currently tolerating. To challenge what we feel isn’t right. There are basic human values that are being tested here today in today’s business practices. Inhumanity is being tolerated, and that’s something that has to be checked. Has to be stopped.

So how do we do that?
Well, release the hand of fear for a start.. Fear has been controlling many of our lives for too long. And.. get together to say NO.

When we are running the story that it is just us, just me vs. the organisation then if I stand up and say no then I am just a trouble maker. However, if I find like-minded people, people that believe in what I believe in then we can ally together. If we stand together, we are stronger, its hard to call you trouble makers when you have a team of 20 allies!

So how about making that list of allies right now? How about getting together with others to share the problems and difficulties you face? Remember a problem shared is a problem halved, and a monster shared is a monster halved too!

Find you own ‘rant buddies’ people at work that you can just go and have a good 5 minute rant about something with.

Find people that have witnessed similar bad behaviours and band together to do something about it together. You don’t just have to have one group of allies, the wonderful thing about allies is that you ally together over one cause, so if you have more than one cause, you can have a different set of allies for each!

Too many people right now are making passive choices. Its time to be pro-active, time to make active choices to change the way your workplace is.

The only way to change the way we work is to band together and to work together in a different way. To actively champion the causes and values that you hold dear and prove that working in a more caring, supportive, encouraging way is the way to get more done!

So let this month be a month that you find and get together with like-minded people in your organisation. The time for isolated working is over, its time to band together for a common purpose, a common goal. And I think that standing up for what is right, standing up for real human values, and treating people fairly and equally is a darned good common purpose to have!

If you can’t make that group in your own organisation, remember that here at Meta we are happy to be your rant buddies, and we’re happy to put you in touch with other people that feel just like you.

We are passionate about doing all we can to change the way we work. Its time for a more evolved way of working, and if you’re willing to make a stand for that, then we are with you every step of the way.

So call on us for support or guidance, we are always here for you, our valued customers and friends, and we always will be.

Wishing you a wonderful month!

Jo xxx

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WHY WE NEED TO TAKE OUR SLEEP MORE SERIOUSLY

By on February 26, 2014 in Blog, health+well being, Living fully, Meta Org Blog, Reducing stress, Resourcing yourself, Working smarter

Why one hours extra sleep is good for you and good for business! 

Right now at Meta we see so many of our friends and customers suffering. You’re tired, actually forget tired you’re exhausted and the work/life balance well lets just say there’s not much balance in it at all! So what can you do about it?

Well, one of the places we THINK we can save time is by shaving time off the amount we sleep, however if we interrupt our REM sleep (which if you have 7 hours or less a night you ARE) then your mind doesn’t get the opportunity to process the information/emotions/problems from the day before, so when you wake up you’re still processing the information from the previous day. Think about that for a moment – as you read this article do you struggle to absorb the information? When you get to work, do you already feel like your mind is half full and that it won’t take much to fill it? That’s because it is!

You see because many of us are under medium to high level stress it means that the stress hormones in our body are controlling which part of our brain is activated. When we are not stressed we utilise our conscious brain (this is about 1% of our brain by the way). Its used to analyse, process and is good for making good, thought out and rationalised decisions. However when we are under the stress that most of you will be feeling right now the body shifts to the ‘fight of flight’ response and switches to use the sub-conscious part of our brain (the other 99%) that is excellent at making quick decisions (should I fight or should I take flight?), but not about thinking things through! The sub-concsious brain, although able to process things  about 1 million times quicker than our conscious brain, does not have the capacity/ability to think things through and analyse the data to come up with an informed response. Its an instant YES/NO, this or that – its binary thinking. So when you think about this for a moment, it makes sense of some of the short-term knee-jerk decisions that are being make in the workplace and indeed in the wider world!

Our body requires sleep, its not a luxury, it’s a necessity! We are an amazing feat of co-operation; 60 trillion cells all working together to make us. Those cells need time to regenerate and get themselves working properly and that is why we need to sleep. We need time to absorb and process the day and to heal and regenerate at a cellular level.

In recent sleep research it has been proven that just ONE hour more sleep has an exponential effects on the body. Not only does it enable our conscious mind (that bit we use in our work day to day) to analyse, make good decisions, be more effective, process things quicker, and improve problem-solving skills. But when we get more sleep it re-activates our immune system (which for most of us is not working due to the amount of stress hormones running around our bodies which shut it down – more on that in another update) and it activates genes in our DNA that are beneficial to our health.

The study compared those that got 6.5hours sleep compared to 7.5 hours sleep, so 7.5 hours sleep is what we all should be aiming for. Personally I’m a big guy and I KNOW I need my sleep, I get at least 9hours which according to the research is what teenagers need  – so I guess I’m just a big kid! However many of you will be reading this getting an average of 7 or less hours sleep. So if you want work and life to feel easier, if you’re sick of being tired, getting sick and feeling like there’s not enough hours in the day to get everything done, then get yourself an extra hours sleep!

Don’t take my word for it, do your own empirical research and see what that extra hour of sleep can do for you. Ever since I found out about this I’ve been passing this information on to people that I’m working with. The response I’ve got from those that have given it a go has been really encouraging, it really does seem to work!

For more information on this check the BBC website where the programme ‘Trust me I’m a doctor’ explored this very research in a brilliant episode at the end of last year – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24444634

Have a great month,

Jo xx

CEO of Meta

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