WORK-LIFE BALANCE

By on April 8, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

The phrase work/life balance has been around for a long time now, yet we still don’t really pay it enough attention. For many people nowadays, it means trying to take their holiday entitlement and occasionally getting home at a reasonable hour. Yet it means so much more than this.

Yes, it does mean that working all the hours God sends is not good for your health and well-being – or your productivity! It is important to get away from work and take a break. Yet often we only use this time to do more ‘work’ – the household chores, ferrying children to and from activities, making sure we visit family. That is not balance, that is doing two or more jobs!

We find balance when our life outside work takes us out of work mode, so that we satisfy other aspects of who we are. If we do physical work at work, maybe we need something mentally stimulating in our life outside work. If work is very analytical or logical, maybe we need to do something with the creative part of our mind outside work. If work is stressful, we need things that relax us – the list goes on!

Many of us have an over-emphasis on one aspect of who we are through our work, and leave other aspects untapped and unused. Yet all of us are a mixture of characteristics, which need to be used for us to feel whole and satisfied. Research clearly shows that those who use a mixture of their characteristics are far more likely to stay physically and mentally healthy than those who are over-using one part of themselves.

And remember that being creative doesn’t have to be ‘artistic’: it could be cooking a different meal, or re-arranging a room in your house. Similarly, doing something physical doesn’t have to be exercise in the gym: it could be gardening or going for a walk in the park.

What does matter is that we engage in activities that use a different part of our mind and give us a different sense of satisfaction.

This isn’t about having to do yet more in your busy life, it’s about feeding your soul, growing into who you really are. However much we love our work, we all need to expand into a life beyond work, rather than just do what needs to be done and then get back to work.

So go on, bake that cake, arrange the lunch with friends, go for that walk, increase that balance in your life!

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COLLABORATION WORKS!

By on March 4, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

What are you good at? Most of us have some aspects of our work that we find easy and satisfying, that we do with some enthusiasm. Imagine if, most of the time, that is what was asked of you. If we really worked collaboratively, that is how it would look.

The word collaboration means working together to achieve an end goal. The implication of this is that we each bring our particular strengths to the task, so that we can achieve it more easily and effectively. We use this principle when we have different teams to design something, to implement the design, to test that it works properly, etc., but we often forget a vital element of collaboration: that they work together on it. If the end product is to be as intended, then all of them need to be involved in every stage of the process.

I’m sure you can think of your own examples of where this clearly hasn’t happened: the user guide written in language that the layman doesn’t understand; the chair that looks beautiful but is uncomfortable to sit on; the monitoring process that takes longer than the task it is monitoring.

How do we enhance collaboration?

Collaboration is a mind-set. It is about clarifying what we really want to achieve right at the start of something, and then identifying what each of us can contribute to make that happen. It requires that we let go of the drive to prove ourselves to be ‘the one’, and instead use what we’re good at to make something happen well. What we bring may be a technical skill or it may be a personal quality: how would we manage without the one who lightens the mood, the one who encourages everyone else, the quiet one who spots the way through the discussion to useful action!

Collaboration begins with seeing everyone else involved as a potential ally in achieving an effective outcome. For this to happen, we need two main areas to be built on:

  1. Building relationships in the team as a whole
  2. The ways we communicate with one another

If we don’t really know the other people in the team, then we won’t know what they can contribute, other than their technical skills, and we won’t build the trust that underlies collaboration, and enables us to know who to call on for help, or what they can bring.

And we need to communicate effectively with others, to build and reinforce relationships, and to maintain the feeling of working together. Emails being sent across the office simply don’t cut it!

It is natural to us to collaborate. We are a living model of how to do that well: our bodies are a brilliant example of collaboration, each part contributing to the whole by working together and communicating with each other to maintain the balance required for our health. We could learn from ourselves, and achieve miracles if we chose to!

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WORKING SMARTER PART TWO

By on February 5, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

Last month I looked at ways of helping yourself to work more in the flow of how you work best. This month I want to look at some of those things that stop us from applying those principles.

Let’s start with the problems we cause ourselves! We often don’t allow ourselves a realistic amount of time to be able to think about what we’re doing.

Weekly Planning

Taking a bit of time to plan your week can pay off enormously. I don’t mean that long list of things to do; I mean getting clear in your own mind where the different things to do fit in to your week. There are a couple of things to bear in mind when doing this:

  1. Where possible, put different things in slots that match with the type of thing it is, and the best times (see last month)
  2. Keep it realistic. Are you really going to feel like writing that report after 4 back-to-back meetings? Can you really do those 6 things in the hour you allotted to them?

Making an overall plan for the week helps you to build in some of those things that do matter, but often drop off the list: starting something before the deadline looms; preparing properly for an important meeting; spending a bit of time with a colleague that isn’t driven by an urgent request. It also helps your mind-set for the week, by giving you a clear intention rather than ‘just getting it all done’.

Daily Planning

Applying the same principle on a daily basis also helps. Just take 5 minutes at the end of the day to check out where you are up to. Don’t forget to be pleased with yourself for what you have achieved or made progress on – that gives you a bit of a boost!

Then assess what didn’t get done, and whether it is possible to fit it in to the next day, or if you need to reassign the tasks for that day. By taking a moment to do this, you set yourself up to be ready to go the next day.

Moving

During the day, we often spend the majority of our time sitting – and even worse, in front of a computer! I talked last time about knowing when to stop because you’re no longer being effective. We are not designed to just sit all day, so when you ‘run out’, move. There is a lot of research that suggests that most of us don’t move enough, and that it adversely affects our health, and it is a good way to help yourself to recover your flow. When the body moves, the mind tends to ‘unstick’ itself as well. If you feel you need a reason to get up from your desk, go for a pee or to rinse your face, make a cuppa, pick up some papers and walk briskly through the office – it all helps!

Interruptions

Those are all the things we can do something about, but what about those interruptions that disrupt our train of thought or our concentration?

  1. If you operate an ‘open door’ policy, remember that it doesn’t have to be ‘open all hours’! You can allocate times when it’s OK to interrupt in a day, and make that clear to others.
  2. You can move away from your usual space to do work that requires concentration for an hour or two to the café, a meeting room, or work from home.
  3. You can ask the person if their query could wait for 30 minutes, so you can pay them proper attention.
  4. And turn the ‘ping’ off that signals emails or texts arriving!

Applying the principles of working smarter

It can be hard to be the one who isn’t rushing, busy, stressed, if that’s the general environment you’re in. You feel guilty for being less ‘busy’ than the others. So experiment with introducing just a few more of these ideas into your day; change it a bit at a time. And notice the positive effect on you, and on others. I guarantee you will feel better, and others will benefit from you being more present when you’re with them.

Go on, work a bit smarter – you deserve it!

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WORKING SMARTER PART ONE

By on January 8, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

Happy New Year! So, after a break over Christmas, have you come back to work or normal life and just resumed your usual patterns, or are you going to work smarter this year?

By working smarter, I mean working with your own nature, rather than forcing yourself on, and wearing yourself out – it seems like a good idea to me!

Knowing your own way of working

We have all developed habits of working harder not smarter: we infect each other with busyness, and become used to being stressed and pushing ourselves beyond our natural limits. Yet this set of patterns is unhealthy longer-term, for us as individuals and for the organisations we work for. We are setting ourselves up for chronic exhaustion and stress-related illness, and the organisation doesn’t get us at our most productive.

We can do something about it, if we choose to, by recognising ways in which we can help ourselves to be less stressed and more effective. We may not be able to control how our time is used fully – we have meetings that others arrange, tasks we have to get done urgently, etc. – but we all have some level of control. By stopping to think about how you would prefer to work, you can begin to slightly re-arrange the way you tackle what you have to do, so as to make it a bit easier on yourself.

Here are a few areas to look at, to start you off.

Knowing your ‘peak time’

All of us have a ‘best’ time of day, or probably several! For example, I find I write most easily in the morning before I do anything else; I am at my most creative before I clutter my mind with the routines of the day and the demands of others on my time. Yet I am more social and good at interaction in the afternoon, once I have cleared my own thoughts and important tasks. Routines and tedious tasks fit well towards the end of the day for me – I get stuff done without needing to use my mind much.

So what’s your preferred pattern? When are you most focussed, most creative, most sociable? We’re all different, and we can work smarter by organising our days to fit our preferences whenever possible. If you have a list of things to do, you can identify which of these require you to be at your most productive, your most creative, and arrange them to suit. And if you have to attend an important meeting at a time when you’d prefer to be getting on with clearing some stuff, then at least allow yourself ten minutes of ‘prep’ time beforehand – have a cup of tea, get yourself in the right frame of mind.

One thing at a time or several?

No, I don’t mean multi-tasking – no-one does this very well: just watch the car in front of you when the person driving is also on the phone! I mean do you prefer to take one task to completion at a time, or to do a chunk of one thing and then a chunk of another, so they all gradually get done. Again, if you can match your own preferences, you will reduce the level of stress you feel.

Knowing when to stop

How long can you be effective for? Research suggests that all of us have a natural ebb and flow and no-one stays effective for more than an hour and a half at a time. If we take a short break, we can often extend that effective time, although we will still begin to fade out more quickly.

You know when you’ve pushed yourself too far: you lose concentration, get fidgety, or just don’t take in what you’re hearing or reading. It isn’t productive to push yourself on- everything is more difficult and takes longer when we are in this state.

So stop, take 5 minutes, make a cuppa, go and talk to someone, go and splash your face with water, breathe, turn your chair away from the computer – anything to allow yourself to regain your flow.

 

Next month we will look at a few more ways you can help yourself to work smarter. In the meantime, experiment with discovering your peak time, with working out whether you prefer to be single-focussed or a ‘butterfly’, and with stopping for a short break – and make your life a little easier!

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TAKE A BREAK!

By on December 8, 2015 in Meta Org Blog

It’s December, almost Christmas – do you remember how exciting that was when you were a child? And now how do we react to it? For most of us it means extra stress in our busy lives: shopping, planning, preparing, visiting or arranging for others to visit – it’s exhausting!

And we’re doing all this when the days are shorter, the weather is often unpleasant, on top of our normal busyness. It’s no wonder that we creak under the strain!

So we have a recommendation for you: plan in one day of your time off as a real day off. Decide now that one of those days is for you to do just what you feel like doing, and choose a day which could work, like the day after Boxing Day or the day after New Year’s Day – days that are often quiet anyway.

You have worked hard all year and you deserve something to really look forward to. You could have a duvet day, read a good book, watch a whole box set, go for a pleasant walk, indulge yourself in a relaxing way for the day.

If your reaction to this is: ‘ I can’t. There’s the family, my partner etc. to consider’, then you definitely need to do it! By deciding now, you can plan to swap kids with friends for a day, so you both get a break, and suggest to your partner that they plan a day off as well.

We all need to have a bit of time to ourselves before we launch back in to our normal busy lives, and it is important for our health and balance. Give yourself a lovely Christmas present this year – take a break!!

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CONVERSATIONS

By on November 6, 2015 in Meta Org Blog

Last month I suggested that we ensure that our interaction with people is not transactional, and that we remember to engage with our hearts and not just our heads. This month I’m going to take that a stage further and suggest that we give more value to our interactions by engaging in real conversations with others.

The original meaning of the word conversation is that we turn together, and it always makes me think of dancing, where we take it in turns to lead, and enjoy being together and seeing where the dance takes us. Conversation has a flow to it, and a rhythm is created which has a special value.

In conversation, we learn about and from each other, and thereby enrich both our awareness and our relationship without effort. It doesn’t matter what the topic is to start with – it can be the weather, a TV programme you watched, or how you spent your evening. What matters is that you have the intention to engage with the other person, and share something of your self – then the magic happens.

I have stood at the bus stop, and begun with complaining about the poor service and ended up finding out what it was like to be a prisoner of war in Germany in World War Two. I have begun a conversation about having to do a lot of driving with a taxi driver, and ended up discussing our similar philosophies of life. Of course, not all conversations take us to such fascinating places, but they do always enable us to understand more of other people’s worlds and to be more sympathetic, at a minimum, and they can be a simple means of enhancing our lives and relationships.

So don’t ignore the opportunities to have a conversation every day. Stop for a moment and talk to the shop assistant, the work colleague, the person behind you in the queue. We seem to have got out of the habit in our culture – too busy, too rushed, too immersed in our phones – and we are losing out by not taking those 5 or 10 minutes. They are not a waste of time; they are a way of building relationship and awareness that comes naturally to us. Be interested in others and their lives and ideas – they’re fascinating!

Take a moment to think of a couple of real conversations you’ve had recently. Feel again the glow of being in that flow with someone else, the energy of it, the fun of it. And remember the after-effect on both of you: the warmer greeting next time you meet, the smile of recognition. Don’t deprive yourself – get out there and have a conversation with someone!

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TRANSACTIONS

By on October 2, 2015 in Meta Org Blog

Recently there has been a lot of news about artificial intelligence – robots. It made me think about the essential differences between artificial intelligence, and us as humans, no matter how it develops: we have a heart. By this I mean that we have an emotional reaction and connection, as well as an intellectual one. And this emotional reaction is important to our well-being and personal growth.

I’m not denying the usefulness of computer intelligence – it makes our everyday lives easier. We can go to an ATM and it will recognise our id code, and the amount we want to withdraw, and within moments the transaction is complete. We can dial a phone number and be connected to anyone in the world accurately and quickly. The important distinction is that these are transactions: I take an action which produces a reaction and the result is achieved. It gives us quick results, but there is no emotional exchange at all, so nothing to delight or upset us (unless it doesn’t work, in which case we get angry at the machine!)

However when we are dealing with human beings as opposed to machines, it’s a different story. Think of times when you have been treated like a machine: no hello’s or good mornings; no eye contact; straight to a question or something to be handed over. It makes you feel un-noticed, mistreated somehow. It also affects how you view the other person in a negative way. And that transaction has a negative effect on your mood, and your behaviour with that person in the future. Don’t do this to anyone – it’s not how humans naturally behave.

As human beings we are hard-wired to make an emotional connection with other human beings. This doesn’t have to be a major effort – we are not trying to make everyone fall in love with us! It’s about remembering that friendliness can bring a smile to the grumpiest face, that what we call ‘common courtesy’ – greeting people, saying please and thank you – is so-called because it is acknowledging and recognising the other person’s active part in your exchange.

A moment or two acknowledging the individual you are dealing with can enhance the day for both of you, and will gently build a relationship where you both feel respected and comfortable with each other. It is time well-spent, because it leaves us all feeling better.

So next time you are about to expect someone to do something, connect with that individual first, whether they are a work colleague or shop assistant, and save the transactions for machines – otherwise we all lose out.

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ARE YOU GOOD AT CUSTOMER SERVICE?

By on September 10, 2015 in Meta Org Blog

During August I’ve been doing some work in Glasgow, and staying in the Citizen M hotel. Their staff are called ambassadors and the customer service is way beyond the call of duty. Of course, I was curious about what prompted the level of friendliness and helpfulness they demonstrated, and asked the questions.

So, the answers were consistent, and showed that it’s not hard! Firstly, they are recruited as ambassadors, which means that their job is to make guests feel welcome and looked after, rather than do reception, or bar work, or any other specific role. They are selected for their personal qualities of a positive attitude, a friendly disposition, being prepared to help each other out and work as a real team, and flexibility in the roles they play depending on what’s needed to serve the guests.

They are led by example, with management demonstrating those qualities with guests and with their team, encouraging the team to give of their best, and trusting them to take the small actions that can make such a difference to the guests at their own discretion.

And it is delightful to be in a hotel where all the staff greet you, respond positively to any queries or requests, and enjoy their work.

Two particular aspects stand out for me: the way their role is defined and the way the team is managed.

The role is defined as caring for their customers. It is not implicit in the role; it is explicitly what is important. So they don’t just check in the guests when they arrive, they greet the guests and help them to check in if that is what the customers want. They don’t just serve drinks, they assess how that person asking for a drink is, and respond with conversation, speed, whatever feels right for that person. Their first thought is for the customer, not just getting the transaction with the customer done.

And the manager is not someone in a back office who appears when there is a problem. They are out there helping out when it’s required, and demonstrating the behaviours they want to inculcate. They notice and overtly value the customer service their team gives, and encourage them to take the initiative.

I saw a lovely example of this one evening. There was a big event on downstairs, and a couple of ambassadors who were in the bar area upstairs came down and told the manager that they were quite quiet up there, so they’d agreed that two of them would come down and help out those who were looking after the event. They could have just taken advantage of the quiet time, and the manager could have told them that he had enough staff in the event. Instead he said, ‘Great idea! Thank you’ and they took an extra dose of positive energy into the event space.

Everyone’s a winner with this approach to customer service. The customers are happy and want to go back. The staff are happy in their work because they feel valued for what they do and trusted to do a good job. The organisation is happy because happy customers and staff means more business.

Wouldn’t it make sense to apply these principles whenever we are serving customers?

 

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THE MAGNETISM OF EXISTING CONDITIONS

By on August 7, 2015 in Meta Org Blog

I love this phrase! It’s a quote from Russell Brand, and perfectly describes how we all get pulled back into the way things are, rather than the way we want them to be. We are used to our existing conditions, we have adapted ourselves to handle them, and we have habits formed around them, so we go with the familiar attitudes and behaviours, even when we don’t like them or feel right with them.

It’s no wonder that we find it hard to change things, because we have to re-consider more than the simple change itself. Think about it: if you decide to enhance your physical fitness, you have to revise your attitude to exercise and your diet, you have to find the right form of exercise for you, the different foods, and then you need to find time to put it into effect – and all that in the middle of an already busy life!

Even if you succeed in doing all this, you then have to deal with others questioning what you’re doing: why are you going swimming twice a week instead of coming out for a drink with us? You could skip it this once. Why don’t you want a curry? You used to like that every week. So it’s not just your habits that pull you back, it’s also the expectations of others, who know you as you were, and try to keep you in the place they understand and are familiar with. This applies even more if you are making a change to something which is not the norm in our culture, because then the pressure to return to the norm comes form everywhere, not just family and friends.

So how do we break the magnetism of existing conditions?

  1. We identify what we’re aiming for. Before we start to implement any change, we write down what it is and how we will benefit from it when we achieve it. We can then refer back to this to remind ourselves why we’re doing it, when it feels a bit hard.
  2. We become aware of when the magnetism is at work.

We recognise that we will tend to go back to default habits, and that others will also pull us back to what’s familiar for them

  1. We use what we already have.

We notice anything we already do that fits with how we want to be, and build on that. Fro example, if you leave work at 6 pm instead of 7 pm on Fridays already, you could leave at 6 pm on one other day of the week.

  1. We adopt a gentle approach to changing things.

We take simple steps towards what we want: we take 5 minutes in the morning to meditate; we walk upstairs instead of taking the lift; we only answer emails in the afternoon.

  1. We find allies.

We actively seek out people who will support and encourage us in the change we’re making – friends, work colleagues, people who are doing something similar.

  1. We have another go!

It is normal to slip back into old habits, to ‘fail’. We don’t progress and develop lineally, and we do have to deal with that magnetism! So don’t give up, dust yourself off, and have another go.

Over the years, you have successfully adopted new ways of thinking and behaving. It happens naturally to us as human beings – so you know you can. As a child, we do it all the time, but not consciously, by active choice. Now we’re grown-up, we can make conscious choices to improve our lives in ways that work for us. It’s not necessary to either have to fight to make a change, or to have to give up because it’s too hard. Just use the natural way that we have as children, and gradually break that magnetism. Go on, make that first step now!

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BUILDING TRUST

By on July 6, 2015 in Meta Org Blog

All of us would prefer to be considered trustworthy, wouldn’t we? It is one of the fundamental principles for being able to work together, that we feel we can trust each other. Yet we rarely stop and consider how we create trust between us. It certainly requires some building – it is rare that we will feel an immediate trust of someone we’ve just met. And that is even more true in the workplace, because the people concerned have not generally chosen to work together: we’ve been given those work relationships as part of the deal of having the job.
When we feel that we do trust someone we work with, or we are trusted by them, we do not usually analyse what happened to create that trust. We just assume that there are some people who are trustworthy and some who aren’t. If that were true, our level of trust would never change, yet it clearly does, so what happens? By looking at how we can actively encourage others to trust us, we can also identify what helps us to trust others – the same things apply. And one of the features of building trust is that if we behave in ways that help others to trust us, we also will tend to enhance our own trust of them – it’s a two-way thing.
Ways of creating trust
1. Getting to know people as individuals, rather than roles.
This is central to creating trust. When we feel that someone understands us and our world, we are more likely to trust them. Think about it: we automatically relate more easily to people who have something obvious in common with us – a similar sense of humour; a shared background; a similar attitude to their work. This is because we assume they will understand us better, although that is not necessarily true.
By getting to know the others you work with as individuals, you discover some of the things you have in common that aren’t as obvious, and find some common reference points. At Meta we encourage people to ‘chat’ – talk about themselves, their interests, their lives, their views, and they often say that this is one of the most useful things they do on the programmes, because it makes them feel more comfortable with work colleagues they didn’t previously know very well.
2. Do what you say you will do.
We all need evidence that someone is reliable and consistent, if we are to trust them. So turn up on time for meetings, do the actions you’ve promised, and if you slip occasionally, don’t make excuses – apologise and do it now. We all accept that sometimes that happens, so long as the person is honest about it.
3. Don’t gossip or whinge about people.
If you are doing that about someone behind their back, you might do it about me with someone else, and I will be wary about telling you things.
4. Be genuine.
We all spot it when someone is pretending, and it affects how much we trust them. So don’t give effusive praise when a genuine thank you is appropriate, don’t pretend to be in a good mood – just admit that you’re not, so they don’t think it’s their fault.
These simple everyday behaviours build the foundations of trust between people, and they’re not difficult. We do them automatically with some people – why not apply it more generally? The pay-off for consciously working on building trust is that you establish a firm basis for a good working relationship, and once there is trust, you have taken away one of the main obstacles to effective cooperation.

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