Tag Archives | changing behaviour

YOUR NEW NORMAL

By on January 5, 2018 in Meta Org Blog

As you restart ‘normal service’, how about making it a new normal? We’ve all slipped into habits that are not useful to us, so let’s not fall back into those same habits as we begin our normal life routines again.

Have you been working too hard and exhausting yourself? Work smarter: take breaks, do something different when you’re fed up, get more sleep.

Have you been feeling stressed? Take more care of yourself: allow yourself to stop sometimes, give yourself some treats, do something that relaxes you.

Have you been finding it hard to fit in time with family and friends? Timetable them in your planner: make one night a week your social time, your family time, and stick to it.

Have you had so many items on your list of things to do that it’s overwhelming? Pick three out each day that you’ll do and leave the rest on a different list in a different place. Choose one that has been hanging over you, one that really matters, and one you fancy doing. And if you have time to spare, do a bonus one from the other list!

Have you had days where you didn’t have a moment of happiness or laughter? Make it a priority to find something that makes you smile, gives you a warm glow every day.

Above all, remember that this day is your life – keep some perspective. Each day can give you a sense of satisfaction, of achievement, and of loving and being loved. If you put off the things that really matter to you until you have time for them, they may never happen.

Make each day count in making your life happy and fulfilling – we never know if it may be our last chance.

Happy New Year – and new normal!

Comments are closed

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN!

By on December 8, 2017 in Meta Org Blog

Every year in December, we like to just remind you that this is a time of year to take more care of yourself, rather than become even more frenetic and busy.

We are heading towards the shortest day, and those extra hours of darkness do have an effect on us. Biologically we are still designed to sleep when it’s dark, so when we push ourselves past that internal ‘clock’ we are using extra energy, even if we don’t realise it. It takes a toll on both our bodies and our emotions.

And we have the added pressure of getting ready for Christmas – it’s supposed to be a celebration not a pressure! Yet all around us are adverts suggesting that others are choosing the perfect (and expensive!) gifts for each other and preparing to give their loved ones a banquet fit for a king.

Christmas also seems to create a deadline for all sorts of work and home projects. We tell ourselves we have to get stuff finished and give ourselves even more stress before we have those few days off.

 

We can take a different perspective:

  1. Give yourself a little more leeway, to account for the extra stress of our natural reaction to shorter days and cold weather. Sleep a little more, take a few more breaks, have that cup of hot chocolate, sit in front of TV and watch a good movie.
  2. Remember that, above all, Christmas is about spending time with loved ones, being loving, having fun, and relaxing. No one has that perfect Christmas – it’s a myth – and it certainly won’t happen because you’ve spent heaps of money – it’ll happen if you decide to make it enjoyable and full of love.
  3. You are going to have a few days away from the computer, the emails, the projects. If you use those days well, you will come back to it all refreshed and re-energised, and it will be easier to be productive. Everyone else is doing the same, so nobody is waiting for you to do your bit. Most of your ‘deadlines’ can be relaxed.

We all need to revise our perspective and take it easier at this time of year. Be a little kinder to yourself, take a breath, and prepare yourself to have a relaxing and refreshing break for a few days. Make this a fun time of your year and take some care of yourself.

 

We at Meta wish you a peaceful and joyous Christmas period..

Comments are closed

BREAKING THE SILO-MENTALITY – 4 ESSENTIALS FOR CROSS-FUNCTIONAL WORKING

By on August 4, 2017 in Meta Org Blog

When we have lots to do, never-ending tasks on our lists, it seems easier to just get on with it and stay in our own silo. But if you stop and reflect on it for a moment, you will realise that a lot of the obstacles you encounter in your work are caused by ‘them’ – the people in other teams or departments. ‘They’ don’t respond quickly enough; ‘they’ don’t understand how important something is; ‘they’ are not easy to get hold of; ‘they’ are asking for something urgently that you haven’t got on your priority list – because of course, ‘they’ are also working in their own silos!

Most of us cannot effectively do our work by staying in our silo, because the majority of projects these days involve a network of different roles in the organisation, so working cross-functionally is built in. Unfortunately the habit of working together cross-functionally isn’t.

Instead of resisting the cross-functionality, it genuinely makes our life easier if we work with it. It’s not difficult and it saves us time and energy in the longer term, if we choose to come out of our silo and work collaboratively and co-operatively with all those involved.

 

4 ESSENTIALS OF WORKING CROSS-FUNCTIONALLY

  1. Building your cross-functional relationships

The first essential is to build your cross-functional relationships. Get to know the people whose work interconnects with yours. Find out what matters to them, what their obstacles to progress are, what makes life easier for them. A bit of time spent having quality conversations with them is well worth it, because it means that now you know them as more than just one of ‘them’; they’re a human being, they’re John not that ‘guy in accounts’.

  1. Planning what needs to be done together

The second essential is to plan with them the work you need to do between you. Again, time spent talking about how you can respond to each other, taking account of each other’s workloads, can save time and energy chasing each other up.

  1. Having an agreement of how you’re going to work together

The third essential is to have an agreement of how you’d like to work together. So few people when working with new people actually tell them how they like to be worked with. Do you like it direct and to the point? Or do you like someone to give you a general pointer in the right direction? Do you like to do things last minute or are you someone who likes to do things before deadlines are looming? All these are useful bits of information if you’re to work together effectively.

  1. Got a problem? Talk it through!

The fourth essential is to have a conversation when a problem arises – and I mean talk and listen, not exchange emails! Problems can often be resolved on the spot if you voice them early enough, before they become too big to deal with. Even the biggest problems are more quickly solved when two heads are working on it rather than one and it’s easier to come up with ways to avoid it happening in the future.

 

An organisation is a living system of inter-connected parts. It is only successful if those parts work smoothly together. And we are the embodiment of those inter-connected parts. The simple fact is that the more we come out of our silos and start to view others’ perspective, the more effective we will become. If we actively improve the way we connect with others whom we help and who help us to make the whole thing work, our work life will get a whole lot easier.

Over the years at Meta we’ve developed some really effective ways to break down the barriers between departments, and help people to get beyond their silo mentality. There is no doubt that it is essential in today’s slimmed down organisations to be working cross-functionally, in order to be more productive and effective – so if you’d like help getting your organisation to work more cross-functionally, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we’d love to help.

Have a great month everyone,

In peace,
Jo & Di xxx

Comments are closed

NEW YEAR, FRESH CHOICE

By on January 6, 2017 in Meta Org Blog

We have an opportunity, every year, to make some fresh choices. We can go back to work and resume where we left off, or we can decide to make it work better for ourselves. Those few days away from our normal routines give us a chance to notice how well or poorly those routines work for us. Stepping away for a little while always gives us more perspective. So before you just fall back into old habits, stop and assess.

Firstly, notice what really works for you, what allows you to be at your best. Do you prefer working to a deadline or being prepared and having things sorted in advance? Do you function better at a particular time of day? Do you have some meetings that really feel productive, and what makes them different? We can learn from our own preferences and find ways to implement them more often.

For example, if the meetings that work for you are shorter, or have less people involved, maybe you can transfer that awareness to other meetings and suggest that they are shorter, or that they involve less people.

Then look at what puts you in a bad mood or makes you irritable. The question is less about what it is than how you can make it a bit better. Maybe you need to take a few more 5-minute breaks, to recover yourself before you tackle the next task. Or maybe you need to spend a bit of time just improving your relationship with a colleague, so it is less transactional and impersonal. Just getting to know each other a bit more can change a relationship and help you to have fewer misunderstandings.

Maybe you need to find a quiet space where you can complete difficult tasks in peace, or talk things through with a colleague to clarify your thinking. No matter what we are doing, we can all find small ways to improve the way we work, so we can feel better about it.

And what’s one way you can contribute to making work feel better for someone else? Can you encourage or overtly appreciate someone more often? Can you give someone your attention for a little while when they ask for it? Making life feel better for someone else also makes us feel better – it’s always good to treat someone else more kindly, and helps our own spirits.

And all those small improvements can be made at home too. You could indulge in things that delight you in your life a little more often. You could go home a little earlier more often, and spend time with the children or your partner. You could appreciate the things that friends and family do for you that you normally take for granted.

If we all made a few slight improvements to our own lives, it would make a big difference to all of us: so much better than big resolutions that we don’t maintain, don’t you think?

So make a fresh choice for 2017, and help to make the world a better place.

Comments are closed

YOUR NEW NORMAL

By on January 5, 2017 in Meta Org Blog

As you restart ‘normal service’, how about making it a new normal? We’ve all slipped into habits that are not useful to us, so let’s not fall back into those same habits as we begin our normal life routines again.

Have you been working too hard and exhausting yourself? Work smarter: take breaks, do something different when you’re fed up, get more sleep.

Have you been feeling stressed? Take more care of yourself: allow yourself to stop sometimes, give yourself some treats, do something that relaxes you.

Have you been finding it hard to fit in time with family and friends? Timetable them in your planner: make one night a week your social time, your family time, and stick to it.

Have you had so many items on your list of things to do that it’s overwhelming? Pick three out each day that you’ll do and leave the rest on a different list in a different place. Choose one that has been hanging over you, one that really matters, and one you fancy doing. And if you have time to spare, do a bonus one from the other list!

Have you had days where you didn’t have a moment of happiness or laughter? Make it a priority to find something that makes you smile, gives you a warm glow every day.

Above all, remember that this day is your life – keep some perspective. Each day can give you a sense of satisfaction, of achievement, and of loving and being loved. If you put off the things that really matter to you until you have time for them, they may never happen.

Make each day count in making your life happy and fulfilling – we never know if it may be our last chance.

Happy New Year – and new normal!

Comments are closed

STAYING WELL

By on October 7, 2016 in Meta Org Blog

Have you noticed how colds and unspecified viruses seem to have become illnesses that last for weeks, not days? When I was young, a cold was a nuisance for a few days, not something that keeps recurring over weeks, and if you did get flu, you stayed in bed for a few days until you felt better. Now we have undefined viruses that go on for ages, and that most people just keep going with.

I don’t believe that this is because there are more viruses: I think we are not taking care of ourselves like we used to. There are several factors in this.

  1. We don’t stop when we are feeling ill

We keep going and dose ourselves with tablets to relieve the worst of the symptoms. So we don’t give our bodies the chance to heal themselves. In fact, we add to the stress we put ourselves under by keeping going, which reduces the effectiveness of our immune system and means it takes longer to recover, and the virus can take a stronger hold.

  1. We take our illness into work

Not only are we less effective in our work when we do this, we are also giving all those we work with the opportunity to have the same illness! Viruses are contagious or air-borne, so they spread through being in the same space as others – and if those people are stressed, their immune systems are lowered, and they are more likely to be unable to fight it off.

  1. We live in a constant state of stress

We work longer hours, don’t take breaks, are busier than ever. This makes us more vulnerable to illness, because the constant adrenaline and cortisol we produce to deal with stress is at the cost of the health-giving hormones that support our immune system and the renewal of our organs.

So how do we stay well?

It’s obvious isn’t it!

Firstly, if you feel awful, have a day off, and doze your way through the day. Sleep allows our bodies to heal themselves and recover more quickly. One day out of work at the start of feeling bad is more productive that going in and struggling through, and eventually needing five days off! It’s also more considerate of your colleagues. And don’t say I can’t because of this meeting or that report – they can usually wait a day for you to be fit to do them properly.

And longer-term, find ways of reducing your stress, so that you have a stronger immune system, and can resist illness more easily. Take breaks in your day, give yourself relaxing activities outside work, let yourself have some breathing space!

There is little in life which is really either an emergency or a tragedy. Let’s ease up on the urgency, rush and anxiety, and allow ourselves to stay well.

(By the way, Meta is great at helping you find practical strategies for reducing your stress and caring for yourself better)

Comments are closed

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!

Comments are closed

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!

Comments are closed

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!

Comments are closed

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!

Comments are closed