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EVERYTHING CHANGES

By on June 11, 2003 in Leadership, relating to others

We may be pleased or sad when we move from one stage to another with something in our lives, but more often than not, we relegate the experience to the past. This is great, so long as we have taken the time to first appreciate what we have just been through.

Whether the experience was bad or good, we will have gained something from it. So to stop and ensure that we really recognise the ‘treasure’ we have gained from it is vital, if we are to be truly learning and growing in our lives.

Often in business, we try to rush people into the future, without giving them a chance to recognise the value of the past. I think we have a fear that they will get stuck in the nostalgia and resent the changes even more. Yet paradoxically, the reverse tends to be true. If you give people a chance to consider what they have gained from what is now passing out of their lives, it gives value to what they have done, and helps them to move on more naturally and more confidently.

It is a natural process, just like the leaves on the bulbs dying back to feed the bulb ready for a new flowering next year.

So encourage your teams to gather the treasures from their past, as they move into new phases, and ensure that you do the same for yourself.

Homework

  1. Think of a phase in your life that has now passed. Spend a few moments recognising what you gained from that phase of your life
  2. Next time you are working with your team on something that is new for them, spend a little time at the beginning getting them to recognise how what they are now leaving behind has been valuable for them.

 

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GIVING PEOPLE CONFIDENCE

By on May 11, 2003 in Leadership, relating to others

I was running a conference recently, where I asked people to work in small groups, and then present back to the whole group. No doubt you have used this methodology. I knew there was a danger that the managers involved in the groups would be the ones who presented their group findings, and I wanted to avoid that. Yet I didn’t want to put anyone on the spot.

So I told a story about seeing Richard Branson give a talk. It was at the end of a long day, where everyone had given slick presentations, and we were all a bit mind-boggled.

He came on, and was clearly nervous. His speech was hesitant and his stammer showed through. Yet he held us spellbound. The reason? His talk was heartfelt, rather than clever, and he obviously cared about his subject deeply.

I then suggested to the groups that the person who fed back to the whole group was someone who cared deeply about what they had come up with, and that it didn’t matter how long or slick the presentation was, it only mattered that it was heartfelt.

Although I had set it up, I was astounded by the level of presentation that we had. People who had never spoken in public before were daring to speak, and the genuine involvement just shone through. We actually went past lunch time without realising it, because they were so good!

We often try to encourage people to risk stretching themselves, and there are many ways of ding it. The use of a story is just one of them. But I thought it was worth sharing, to prompt you to think about how you can encourage people, and give them the confidence to go beyond their assumed limitations.

Homework

  1. What stories could you tell to encourage people to have a go when they might otherwise not dare?
  2. How else can you give people confidence, so they feel safe in having a go?

 

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MAKING WORK MORE FUN

By on May 6, 2003 in Excellent organisations, Leadership, Meta Org Blog, relating to others, Working smarter

I have been reading the latest book by Ricardo Semler, and amongst the many themes it has reminded me of is the one of making work fun.

It is so easy for work to become tedious, the same old round of meetings, discussions, decisions, actions, email clearing etc. This problem is intensified for us as leaders, because not only do we suffer from it, we also have the people who work for us suffering from it as well.

Of course all the tedious things have to be done – well, some of them anyway. But that doesn’t mean that we have to find them tedious. We can choose to scatter rewards for ourselves in amongst the boring tasks – a walk, a quite cup of coffee, a chat with someone, and a job we really want to do.

We can also check out that list of tedious jobs. Are they all really necessary? We often develop a set of routines that are habit rather than necessity, and a check once in a while on the purpose of what we are doing may lead us to remove the task from our list.

Some of the things we do are because we don’t trust people enough. We give them things to do, then check that they know they have to do it, then ask them to report on their progress at regular intervals, and sometimes we still do some of it ourselves because we are not sure that they will do it right.

So how about daring to trust others to get on with things. You may come across the odd failure’ if you do this, but weigh that against the time and effort you could save!

And this brings us to how you can offset the dangers of boredom in your people. One way is to trust them to do something. When we have full responsibility for something, it tends to be more inspiring than when we are given detailed task lists.

Another way is to dare to allow them to manage their boredom themselves. In the same way that you will function better and achieve more if you make work more fun for yourself, your people will make their day work better and produce more, if given permission to do so.

Semler talks about treating people as grown-ups. It requires trusting people to be responsible, and to achieve while giving them the freedom to make their work life work for them as individuals. It might sound risky, but doesn’t it also sound like common sense?

 

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‘THE AWKWARD ONE’

By on March 11, 2003 in Leadership, relating to others

You know what I mean – the one who won’t participate, who doesn’t want to be there..

We all have these sometimes, when we’re working with groups. And it is easy to take them at face value, and hope you can get away with either ignoring or containing them.

But I was reminded again this week of how important it is to go behind that behaviour, and remember the human being. We had someone who really didn’t want to be there – it was irrelevant to her, and a waste of time, she said.

And we listened, and realised that it was driven by a frustration of long standing – she had expressed her ideas for improvement before, but no-one had ever taken them seriously. As it happened, we had senior managers coming to hear this group’s views. She was encouraged to speak out, and once the bit of moaning had gone through without rejection, she began to speak passionately and articulately about her plea for being treated as a sensible, committed grown-up. It was moving and powerful, and we know that, this time, something will happen as a result.

She could so easily have been sidelined. Thank God, we remembered that awkwardness is a symptom not a cause!

Homework

  1. Next time you have an awkward one, just take a little time to listen and find out what’s really going on.
  2. And when you feel like being awkward yourself, in meetings you attend, experiment with tracing it back and explicitly stating what’s really going on with you.

 

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Happiness

By on September 4, 2002 in Meta Org Blog, relating to others, Ways of thinking, Working smarter

As we start the new year, it seems appropriate to ask how we can make life a happier experience for all of us – let’s make a positive difference.

Keeping your fuel tank filled – see previous blogs – is a good start, because that will help you to be more positive in your outlook on life.

But what about those who have a negative effect on you, and seem to take that positivity away? Not only do they disturb your happiness, they also suffer a lack of happiness themselves – it is the rare person who really feels good when they are causing others to feel bad.

There are ways we can change this effect, to the benefit of all parties involved.

  1. Don’t give away your power! Remember that we choose to allow something to affect us. After all, what to one person is a disaster, to another person is an exciting adventure – they have obviously made different choices about how to react. So choose to react differently to the person. Imagine their comment or attitude as a brief rain shower which temporarily wets you and then dries up. Even better, imagine that you have an invisible shield which protects you from getting wet at all!
  2. Even more powerfully, experiment with how you can change their reaction to you, which causes them to behave in a way which affects you badly. Step into their shoes for as moment. From their perspective, what could you do differently that would provoke a different and more useful behaviour in them? We often unwittingly provoke just the behaviour we don’t like and by making a change in our own attitude or behaviour we can change theirs.

Homework

  1. Practise using your invisible shield when someone next seems to want to offend you or upset you in some way.
  2. Take a person that you always seem to have a negative reaction to. Imagine you are them, and ask yourself, ‘what would make me behave more positively with …?’ Use the answer to guide your behaviour next time you encounter them.

 

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Being a Customer

By on September 4, 2002 in Meta Org Blog, relating to others, Working smarter

I have recently been working on a proposal to help an organisation become more customer focused, and it has really made me think about the other side of the story – the customer. My conclusion is that we all need training to be good customers, not just to treat customers well!

Most of us are passive victims as customers, whether the responsiveness to us is good or bad. Yet with a little pro-active effort on our part, we can often change our experience for the better.

For example, smiling, saying hello, saying thank you, all make a difference to our server and take little from us. Imagine for a moment that you are that server. You have to be pleasant all day/evening to the unresponsive and unsmiling creatures most of us are – wouldn’t you get to the point of being unresponsive? On top of that, you maybe have a boss who never praises you, and doesn’t appreciate what you do – are you sullen and fed up yet?!

We can help people to want to serve us with a genuine smile, by treating them well, by making them feel noticed and valued. And if they do make an effort for us, we can appreciate it, rather than only commenting if we have a complaint. Let’s have a ‘Being a Good Customer’ week!

Homework

  1. Smile and say hello to 5 people who are in some way serving you this week, even if they don’t respond.
  2. Thank anyone who serves you well this month, and maybe write a letter appreciating their service to their boss.
  3. Apply the same principle to those who ‘serve’ you at work – your colleagues, and those from other departments who help you to do your job.

 

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Prejudices

By on September 4, 2002 in Meta Org Blog, relating to others, Ways of thinking

It was World Aids Day yesterday and I was collecting for Aids charities and giving out red ribbons. The city was very busy with people doing their Christmas shopping, so it would seem as if it were a good time to be collecting for a cause. And of course there were many people who gave generously.

But there were also many people who studiously avoided us, and even some who made the effort to come and tell us that we were ‘doing the devil’s work’ to cite one of them!

It made me think about our prejudices – the way we make a judgement about something on relatively little information and refuse to consider any further evidence.

We all have prejudices, and some of them are useful, because they incline us to be kinder or more thoughtful. But we need to remember that the world is full of people who are different from us – not better or worse, just different.

It is the Christmas season, the season of goodwill towards all. For the next few weeks, let’s just check out if our prejudices are useful, and if not, perhaps we can suspend our judgement for long enough to offer some goodwill towards someone who we would normally have judged as not good enough in some way…

Homework

  1. Buy a copy of Big Issue next time you pass someone selling
  2. Smile at someone you work with who has always evoked a negative prejudice in you.
  3. List your useful prejudices and use them!

 

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HOW I AM AFFECTS HOW I WORK WITH OTHERS – REALLY!!

By on September 4, 2002 in emotional intelligence, Excellent organisations, Leadership, Meta Org Blog, relating to others, Working smarter

‘I’ve always prided myself on being good at analytical/logical thinking, and when I was asked if I would like to go on a programme on developing my skills as a leader I thought I would learn to be even more logical and analytical. Half way through my first day all I could do was shake my head in disbelief.

We had spent the whole morning looking at ways I could make myself feel good and, although that was very pleasant, it felt both selfish and irrelevant to me as a leader.

The workshop facilitator persisted in looking at personal stuff for the rest of the afternoon, which was spent on how I think. Analytical? Nope! My intuition, for goodness sake! I haven’t used that since I was a child. I went home and told my wife that it was a most unexpected day. Two hours later she told me to shut up.

I was curious about the next day and had to admit I felt rather good about myself. As we began to explore what made a good leader I realised that I had what it took, but it wasn’t what I thought it was.

Since that five day session I think I have used about half of what I learned with Di – which is about 100%, at least, more than I have taken from other courses. It makes more and more sense, and it works. No, it really works.’

—————

Di says:

Adam spent the whole of the first day staring at me and shaking his head in disbelief. I could feel his gaze on me the whole time.

It’s a common reaction. At first many people think I am crazy. And I remind them that, when they do get themselves in a state where they feel good abut themselves, they are in a superb position to help others get more from their work.

Western society’s love affair with logical and analytical thought reflects a belief that science could solve all of our ‘problems’ This ‘logic’ breaks work down into boring and meaningless tasks, so that the work does not inspire and motivate, and ultimately the work gets done badly. Nice logic!

We have got to the stage in our culture where many of us think that work has to be boring, hard, stressful. If not, the story runs, we are not earning our money or our leisure time: “work hard, play hard’.

Homework

1. Enjoy your work today.

2. Give yourself some treats: stop and smell that flower, smile at that toddler, use your favourite soap, wear your favourite clothes.

3. Take a risk: go in after the traffic, leave your tie at home, leave your e-mails until you have spoken to everyone face-to-face

Enjoy your work today.

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Friendship

By on September 4, 2002 in Meta Org Blog, relating to others, Uncategorized

Over the last couple of months I have really become aware of just how many wonderful friends I have. They come from all the different stages and environments of my life, ranging from people I’ve known since school days, to people I have met through work, to the people who run our local general store.

And they have made my somewhat turbulent life easier in all sorts of ways: by giving me a delicious sandwich for a picnic lunch as I was rushing off; sharing a laugh and a bottle of wine; listening to me when I was upset; doing a task they knew I would put off – the list goes on and on.

This has made me realise yet again just how precious friendship is, and what a difference it makes to our life. It is vital to reaffirm friendships, and continue to build them.

At Meta we firmly believe in making friends with our customers and suppliers. It is much more fun than having a distant, purely professional relationship, and brings joy into parts of work that people often have problems with. When we phone or make direct contact with people, we look forward to the conversation, and we believe that they usually enjoy the chat too.

Wouldn’t life be different if most of those you dealt with in your everyday life were friends of yours??

Homework

  1. Express your appreciation of the friendship of those around you
  2. Treat a customer or supplier as you would a friend – just chat to them like a real human being and be interested in them and their world.
  3. Be a good friend to someone by just doing a little something which makes a positive difference in their lives.

 

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Appreciating Difference

By on September 4, 2002 in Meta Org Blog, relating to others

As we start a New Year, we usually all resolve to do something different. Most of the time, our resolutions are about being a better person in some way.

For me, a speech given by Bill Clinton as the Dimbleby lecture made me think about how judgmental we can be. It is so easy to, as he said, ‘put people in boxes’.

I have seen and spoken to a variety of old friends this Christmas. Some of them are housewives, some are chief executives, and some have still not decided what they want to do with their lives. They provide me with plenty of opportunities to put them in boxes: good/bad use of their talents; boring/interesting; as they were/changed – the list goes on and on.

But whatever it is that they are doing or not doing, they are all special human beings. And if this is true of so many different people that I know, perhaps it is true of those I don’t know so well.

So my New Year’s resolution is to be more appreciative of the value of people’s differences, and to delight in our common humanity. It’s easy with some, and harder with others, but it is undoubtedly a great way to change the world a little more!

Homework

  1. Look at yourself and notice where you judge yourself to be lacking in some way. Now appreciate that quality in yourself – it makes it easier to do the same with other people.
  2. Take 3 people you know and identify what makes them special
  3. Smile with an open heart at the next person you see whom you have judged to be deficient in some way

 

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