Tag Archives | emotional resilience

CREATING THE [BRAIN] CAPACITY TO LEAD

By on October 20, 2017 in Blog, emotional intelligence

Capacity. Right now we’re all fighting the problem of capacity. In organisations as they have become more streamlined there is just no extra capacity other than that which is quantifiably needed to deliver what needs to be delivered.

There is NO spare capacity in organisations anymore. No buffer, no extra capacity or resource built in for when for example something unexpected happens in our business plans, no spare capacity in our teams when we have more than one person off longer-term.

The simple fact is that now most of you reading this will be doing the workload of more than one person. Admirably doing your best to fulfil a role that was originally done by two or more people. That means that what once was delivered by two must now be delivered by just one – so now more than ever we need to be working at our best, making sure that we have the maximum internal capacity available to deal with the day-to-day issues that will inevitably come our way.

When we are at our very best, when we’re firing on all cylinders, it’s amazing what we can achieve. When we are on form, there’s almost nothing that phases us and we can deal with almost any issue or problem that comes our way. That’s why in this busy, even crazy world of work that we currently live in it’s more important than ever to build our own internal capacity so that we can be at our best more often.

OK so here’s where I get a little technical, a little ‘science-y’ and explain why it’s so important to look after yourself and more importantly understand how your brain works in order for you to be at your very best. Don’t worry though, if you, like me weren’t that good at science at school, this is what we call – ‘Blue Peter Science – it should be pretty simple to understand.

During our working day we use both our conscious and sub-conscious parts of our brain. The conscious part of our brain, helps us to reason things through, communicate effectively, problem solve, be creative, make multi-level decisions, make pro-active choices, prioritise, decipher what needs to be done when, pay attention, concentrate (amongst many other things). Effectively the conscious part of your brain is VITAL for you as a leader to do pretty much everything that needs to be done in an average working day. The subconscious and unconscious control everything else, they control your neurology, all your body functions like breathing, digesting etc. and your automatic responses to things, things you don’t have to even think about, what some call your ‘auto-pilot’.

What is useful to know here is that the conscious part of your brain, the bit we all need to function effectively in our working day has a very small capacity. It is tiny in comparison to the total capacity of the brain and is comparable to your smartphone’s memory and processing ability compared to a super-computer’s.

During every night, just like your computer at home the content from the day that has been filling your conscious mind is downloaded into the sub-conscious. Both the factual content and the emotional content is downloaded and stored in the internal hard-drive of your brain.

The problem is that most people right now are interrupting their sleep at the most important part – the R.E.M, second deep-sleep stage of sleep, which means that the all important emotional download is interrupted and you wake up with your storage capacity still half–full from yesterday’s content.

Think about this a moment – What happens when you put too many photos, videos and songs into your smartphone? What happens when it gets close to full capacity, it’s memory is full? – It GOES SLOW right? It starts to stop functioning properly. It takes a long time to load information or process anything.

Well, in simple ‘blue peter science’ terms it’s EXACTLY the same with your brain! When it’s running close to its capacity, that’s when we struggle at work with even the most basic of tasks. You’ve all been there, reading that report late at the office, you know the one where you read it over and over but it’s just not going in? That’s because you’re brain is running at pretty close to full capacity. It needs downloading; it needs rest and space to recover itself.

The GOOD NEWS is that the brain is a remarkable instrument. It’s incredibly adaptable and when used well, it will serve you brilliantly. The fact is that right now, we’re not looking after ourselves or our brains well enough and as a result we’re all suffering from a loss of performance, just like our smart phones do when we’ve loaded too much content on them.

So what can we do?
Well first thing to do is to just bear in mind that your brain (and body) just like your phone or pad or computer needs energy in order to work.

What happens if you don’t charge your phone, plug it in for 24hours? Likelihood is, unless you’ve got an amazing battery life on your phone, that it will run out of juice and stop working. And yet, what do we do at work now? Most of us don’t listen to our bodies telling us to stop and take a break and most of us don’t take a lunch break anymore. Is it any wonder that we run out and can’t read that email later on in the day?

Here are some principles to follow that that should enable you and your brain to build capacity and lead at your best:

PRINCIPLE 1: Your brain (and you) need fuel to work at their best

If we are expected to work like the computers we sit in front of, then we, just like our computers need to be fuelled on a regular basis. Remember this isn’t just food and drink, it’s energy, and so anything that gives you and your brain an energetic boost is good.

PRINCIPLE 2: Take your breaks – give you and your brain some rest

I want you to think of your brain as a muscle. (It isn’t a muscle strictly speaking but go with me, it’s a useful metaphor). When you go down the gym, or you want to get fit, if you want your muscles to perform at their best it’s important to warm them up, warm them down and to take breaks between sessions. It’s just the same with your brain, give it time and space to ‘warm up’ and take regular breaks. When you take a break it clears capacity and enables you to come back more refreshed and work at a sustainably high performance level.

PRINCIPLE 3: Move your body, move your mind

When you get stuck on something or if you have something that you need to come up with a creative solution to, MOVE. When you move your body you move your mind, so use this as a conscious technique to get out of your ‘stuckness’ and into problem solving mode.

PRINCIPLE 4: Download and unwind at the end of your day

Because we are working later these days we are eating into what researchers say is a key part of every working day – The wind-down. This 1-1.5hour post work slot is a vital part of your day. Use it to download (write or record) anything that’s still buzzing around your head from the day and to consciously unwind and relax yourself. It will help you to get a better night’s sleep

PRINCIPLE 5: Get a good night’s sleep and let your brain recover

Sleep is our most important resource of all. Sleep is when our brain (and our body) regenerates, repairs, recovers and downloads. Follow the principles for a good night’s sleep in my previous linked in article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sleep-your-most-vital-leadership-resource-all-part-2-jo-clarkson – and you’ll find that just by getting a good night’s sleep you will increase your brain capacity’s ability to deal with everything that a challenging day at work can throw at you.

PRINCIPLE 6: Be kind to your brain and your brain will be kind to you

Trust me when I say you want your brain to be your buddy not your enemy. Right now we are being unkind to our brains and as a result our brain is sometimes not there when we need it most! So don’t let your brain go on strike, treat it kindly. Look after it and it will most definitely look after you. The good news is that generally things that make YOU feel good make your BRAIN feel good, so do things that make you feel good and you’re half the way there.

In conclusion…

So there you have it, 6 principles that should enable you to get the most from your brain and as a result, increase your capacity to lead. Don’t run on empty anymore, don’t run yourself down, now is the time to be kinder to yourself and to your brain

The result? You’ll be able to function and perform at your best, and when you’re at your best? There’s nothing you can’t achieve and nothing you can’t deal with.

At Meta we’ve been supporting leaders and their organisations for nearly 20 years. We’re passionate about what we do and we’re passionate about finding the research that enables the busy executive and the busy workplace to become a more effective one. We think that with some simple shifts in working practices, some simple principles of smarter working, every leader and every workplace can excel.

We hope that you found the blog useful and if you’d like to find out more about what we can do for you and your organisation, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’re always happy to talk about the principles of smarter working and we’re always happy to support enlightened leaders like you, because that’s what we’re in business for – We do what we do because we’re on a mission to change the world.

Happy capacity building everyone!
Jo x

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Pushing back the TIDE – re-establishing the boundaries & balance of work & life

By on September 20, 2017 in Blog

Since the financial crisis in 2007/8 there has been a gradual erosion of our boundaries between work and our personal lives. I rarely these days meet a senior leader in an organisation these days who is happy to report that they’ve got their work/life balance sorted, in fact I’d go as far as to say I’ve not met ANYONE in the last year in a senior position who felt they’d got that any kind of balance at all!

The simple fact is, that with the flattening of structures within organisations and the year on year reduction in head-count in most organisations, we’re all feeling that increased pressure to work harder and get the almost impossible workloads completed. That means working longer hours in the attempt to get more done, it also means going beyond our natural limits, and letting the overwhelming pressure of work dictate the pattern of our lives.

Almost everyone I meet is a hard-worker; they want to give of their best and they try their utmost to get everything done, but it’s getting harder and harder to do that within the normal working day. So, we do a little extra work on the train home, a few things off our to-do list after dinner; check our emails on Sunday evening, just to make sure we’re ahead of the curve come Monday morning. Which is fine, I guess, IF (and this is a BIG IF) we got that time back, if we got those hours that we don’t spend with our friends, families and loved ones back in lieu! As one of our favourite authors Ricardo Semler writes in his excellent book ‘The Seven Day Weekend’:

“..If we’re expected to answer emails on a Sunday, why can’t we leave work and go watch the tennis on a Wednesday afternoon?”

He’s absolutely right of course, but the tide of work is one that has gradually seeped in over the last 8 or so years since the last financial crisis, and it’s a tide that doesn’t ever seem to go out!

So what can we do about this lack of balance in our lives? What can we do to stem the tide and get work back into the right place, as a PART of our life, not the whole of our lives?

The first thing is to set what I call the HARD BOUNDARIES – the NON-NEGOTIABLES. To use the sea/tide analogy these are the sea walls that protect from the extreme tide incursions. Stop and think for a moment. Where has the tide of work seeped in over the years that affect your personal/family life? Is it that working on a weekend has become normal? Is it that you’re no longer home in time to put your son or daughter to bed? Is it that you spend some evenings doing an hour or two of work? Is that you’ve lost some of the quality time that you used to have with your family? Is it that you no longer have time to go to the gym or exercise? Or that you no longer have any breaks during the day?

Whatever the things that occur to you write them down now and make sure that these hard boundaries are enforced and kept to. I know that is easier said than done, but if you diary them in for the next three-six months (go on, do it now) you’ll be ensuring that you begin to change the habits of working you’ve gotten into and started to create a more healthy one. Seriously you don’t want to end up in the place of one senior director I was working with who told me whilst working with him –

One evening he’d gone home at his new ‘usual time’ of around 730pm and his young daughter was already in bed. He’d missed her bedtime again. It had become a pattern, not one he was proud of, but it was just the demands of his position, he felt he needed to be at work to get everything done. The following morning his daughter (aged 6 or so at the time) said:

‘Daddy why don’t you read me stories anymore? Where are you? I miss you when you’re not here, I wish you were here to help me get to sleep at night’

BOOM. How’s that for a dose of honest feedback? Doesn’t that cut straight to the heart of this? – Rest assured that particular executive made being home in time to put his daughter to bed one of HIS non-negotiables, and do you want to know the interesting thing? He told me that going home that extra half-hour or so early made NO DIFFERENCE to how much work he actually got done.

This is the delicious irony. Working harder, working longer hours doesn’t mean that we get more done. In fact there is a lot of research out there (don’t just take my word for it, do your own research) that says that those that work longer hours are not being effective, and the quality of the work done severely decreases the longer you work without breaks.

Back to that idea of balance, back to that tide that always seems to be coming in and never going out. Now you’ve put in your non-negotiables, your hard boundaries now come the soft boundaries. Soft boundaries are those that are more flexible, once you have got into the habit of making sure the tide stops overwhelming you, then you can begin to peg it back further, so that you can start to work at a more sustainable pace.

This might mean that you go home early on a Tuesday so that you can pick the kids up from school or from their post-school sports club. It may mean that Monday morning you give yourself an extra 15 minutes in bed and turn up 15 minutes later to work. It might mean that every Wednesday and Friday you go to the gym before work or that on Thursdays that you bike into work for a change. It’s about making sure that you take your breaks at work, ensuring that not only do you take your 30 minute lunch break but that you also take it away from your desk and maybe even get a breath of fresh air! You won’t get these things ALL the time, but once you see the benefit to them (e.g.: you’re feeling better, feeling more productive, more in balance) you’ll do what you can to diary them in. Of course flexibility is the key to the soft boundaries, sometimes the tide of work dictates we must work a little later but we are more in control of that tide than we think. Balance isn’t just about work and life, it’s about work and rest whilst at work.

We forget that actually simple things can make a big difference to how ‘in balance’ we feel. Listening to our favourite piece of music, flicking through some photos of our loved ones, getting out in the fresh air and having a walk, choosing something different and tasty to have for lunch, having a natter with our dearest friend on the phone, making sure we end the day with something that makes us laugh.

It’s not rocket science, it’s common sense when we stop and take the time to think about this isn’t it? So I’d encourage all of you to look at your life and how big a part work has become. Isn’t it time to stem the tide? To push back and get your life back in balance? It’s important, not just for you, but for those around you too! When you are happier, when you feel like your life is in better balance, then that happiness spreads and infects those around you, those people you love. So don’t just do this for you, do it for your son or daughter, your mother or father, your sister, your brother, your work colleague, and yes, even your organisation! – You’ll be more effective, productive, creative, positive and just a nicer person to be around.

At Meta we’re on a mission to change the world of work. We think it’s about time we all started working at a sustainable pace, working in a smarter more effective way. We write these blogs to help start to shine a light on current outdated working practices and invite you into a more enlightened way of working. It’s our job, our mission to help and support leaders and organisations that want to work in a smarter way, so if you’d like to find out more about us, please feel free to contact us.

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WHAT DID YOU LEARN TODAY? – consciously learning from what work and life sends our way

By on October 31, 2016 in Blog, emotional intelligence, health+well being, Meta Org Blog, Reducing stress, Resourcing yourself, Working smarter

We may ask this question of children when they’re at school, but we rarely ask it of ourselves on a regular basis. And yet it is an essential aspect of being human: our continuing to learn and develop ourselves. Now when we’re at school, there is an expectation that we will learn new facts and new skills, and we are tested and judged on our ability to do so. As we grow older, there is not generally the same encouragement – or pressure! – to continue to develop our skills and capabilities. One of the things we seem to learn at school is that learning is about coming to grips with something new, and there is less necessity for that as we settle into our particular career and way of life.

However, learning is so much more than that! When we talk about learning from experience, we are talking about the real process of learning: it is the gradual refining of our awareness, our understanding, our skills, and applying them to enhance our lives. We do this by reflecting on what our experiences are like, then taking the parts that work best for us and looking for ways to improve things that don’t work so well.

You may not realise you do this, because it is a natural process – our brains are designed to help us to do it. It is what Darwin described as the survival of the fittest – the process of adapting and refining the way we live our lives, so as to fit into and thrive in our world. We can’t help but do it as we go through our experiences.

So the question is not whether we have learnt anything today, but what we have learnt. When we are not conscious of what we are doing, we can be learning things that seem useful to us, but are not really helping us to be the best we can be and live our lives well. We may have learnt that it’s a good idea to keep your opinions to yourself if you want the boss to approve of you; or that you always have to put others first and be useful to them if you want to be seen as a good person; or that suppressing your values of what’s right and wrong is necessary to fit in. Of course, you will also have learnt some more useful lessons that do help you to be more of who you really are, but for many of us, our continuing learning has diminished rather than enhanced our lives and the way we live them.

It’s important that we set time to reflect on our learning. It might be at the end of the week or perhaps at the end of a month. When we become conscious of this form of learning, we are constantly evolving ourselves, refining our approach to work and life to ensure it becomes better and easier for us. When we learn from our mistakes, and as importantly when we learn from what we do well, then work and life just works!

It’s easy to dismiss our personal development as something that is a ‘nice extra’ to our life and work, however if we don’t give it any importance or any time, then we can get the feeling that we are going round and round in circles, hitting the same blocks and making the same mistakes. It can be very disheartening.

As human beings we love to learn and grow and when we aren’t consciously learning we can feel that we are not moving forward, that we are in stasis. Organisations rarely have the funds these days to do much more than the most essential of technical training, and so our personal and professional development is often left down to us. So what will you do to ensure that you are consciously learning?

At Meta we are committed to identifying easy and useful ways in which people can develop and grow into being the best of themselves, and sharing those ways with as many as possible. We know it’s possible to learn in ways that transform your life into one of possibilities rather than constraints. Isn’t this what we’re really here on earth to do?

Our Journey to Mastery programme is one of the vehicles we have developed that helps you to identify ways of enhancing your life through conscious application of your natural learning process, and we are starting a new programme in January 2017.

So if you’d like to kick start your own personal development plan for 2017, why not consider joining us for this transformational programme?

For more information and some testimonials from those who have already done the programme check our events page – www.meta-org.com/events

And we are not just pushing our programme, we believe its time for everyone to start reviewing their own learning. This year? I’ve learnt so much (often through adversity!) and you know what? When I stopped recently to say ‘what did I learn from all my challenges this year?’ it really amazed me just how much I got from it, and it really made me feel better to know just how much I had learnt. I’m also sure that as a result that NEXT year will be far better as a result.

So why not put aside sometime in your work-diary to review what you have learnt this year, we think that if you do, it’ll give you plenty to think about and might just make you feel a lot better about the year you’ve had!

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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)

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EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE

By on October 25, 2013 in emotional intelligence, Meta Org Blog, Ways of thinking

How many times in a week, a month, do you find yourself thrown by something you weren’t expecting: a negative reaction to something you said; someone being awkward when you were expecting co-operation; an extra meeting put in the diary in the space you were going to use to catch up – the list of possibilities goes on and on!

An aspect of emotional intelligence that we don’t often pay attention to is our emotional resilience when something unexpected happens. The word resilience means originally to bounce back

It is so easy to get knocked back in our culture. We tend to see the world as conspiring against us anyway, and so fall too easily into self-pity and being a victim of circumstance. This is not because we are naturally pessimistic, but because we are surrounded by confirmation of the cultural belief that most things don’t work in our favour, unless we are very lucky! The media, the news we are given, our everyday comments on events, all suggest that the world is not on our side.

Resilience has a foundation in the belief that things do work out, and that we can have control of how we live our lives. Although you may have evidence given to you that this is not true, when you stop and examine your history, you will realise that there is also evidence that it is true, that things do work out as often as they don’t if not more so.

The belief that things work out is very useful, because it prompts you to find a way to make things work, no matter what happens.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be happy about everything that happens, or positive – that would be being a victim again. After all, resilience is bouncing back – you need to fall or hit the wall first!

When we develop emotional resilience, we react differently.

a.       We forgive ourselves if our initial reaction is negative, and just let it go.

b.       We pick ourselves up and get on with things, just like a child who has fallen over when learning to walk

c.       We take a deep breath and choose how to respond to the situation, in a way that leaves us feeling OK with it.

d.       We consider what the learning is for us in the particular circumstance, and actively take the learning.

So this month, take a little time to develop further your emotional resilience:

  1. Take an example where life dealt you an unexpected blow in the past. What have you/could you learn from it, in a positive sense?
  2. Identify 4 ways in which the world has conspired with you, by offering you unexpected changes that were useful to you.
  3. As you receive some ‘knock’ this month, stop and go through the process stated above.

 

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SLOW DOWN!

By on June 20, 2010 in health+well being, Meta Org Blog, Reducing stress, Resourcing yourself, Working smarter

You can also listen to a podcast of this Workshop

[audio:metahome_podcast_slow_down.MP3|titles=Slow Down!]

Download the podcast

Have you noticed how the days have become a non-stop dash for many of us, much of the time?  We jump out of bed, do our morning ‘stuff’. Hurry to bus or train or car, get to work, and start immediately on the ‘to do’ list.  Even after the daily dash through as much as we can get done at work, we don’t often slow down.  It’s home, tea, maybe more work, the children, and finally we collapse in bed, to have a rest ready for the next daily dash.

Are weekends any better?  Gardens, housework, kids’ activities, socialising, maybe some of the jobs we didn’t get done this week at work – the weekend can easily turn into another list of chores.

Your poor bodies and minds and hearts!!  What happened to us?  We wouldn’t fit in breathing if it wasn’t automatic!!  And we are paying a high price for all this dashing: high blood pressure, bad backs, viruses that knock us flat for days, barely surviving relationships, poor digestion.  It doesn’t even give us real compensatory rewards:  do you ever finish that ‘to do’ list, at home or at work?  Do people praise you and love you for your out-of-control Protestant work ethic?

I know, I know, it’s hard to break the habit; it seems to be what’s expected of us; if I don’t, what might happen?

So my challenge is this: can you find a few spaces in each day to just slow down for a while?

  • How about 5 minutes in the morning, just tasting your breakfast/coffee/tea?
  • How about 10 minutes around lunchtime, just walking slowly and noticing what’s around you?
  • How about 15 minutes when you first get home, sitting quietly or strolling round the garden?
  • How about 20 minutes before bed, just relaxing?

 

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How is your world today?

By on July 7, 2006 in Meta Org Blog, Ways of thinking

This morning the world feels good to me. All my useful beliefs are running well, and I feel able to do anything that comes my way, and bring the things I want my way. Mornings like this are lovely, because I am more effective, happier, and just good!!

So why aren’t they all like this? I have the evidence that this attitude works well for me, and for those around me, yet I still slip into old habits of feeling the pressure, and running less than useful beliefs about it. And I am one of the lucky ones – I have more freedom to do my work the way I want to than most, and also do work that I really love and care about.

We are so well trained into the belief that things are how they are, that we don’t make a choice about how they are, but simply have to put up with it. Most of us have heard it all our lives!

We need to be constantly reminded that we do have a choice, and that overall, life is good, if we want to live by our own set of rules. I find it useful to have tapes, cd’s, books that remind me, and to take a little taste every day. It is also useful to have some people that you can contact when you are slipping, who will hep you to remember that there is another way.

And finally, it is vital to forgive ourselves when we do slip – beating ourselves up only perpetuates the bad feelings. So next time you realise that you have forgotten to choose to make your life feel good, congratulate yourself, and laugh and have another go!

So, how is your world today? If it’s crap, remind yourself that it doesn’t have to be, laugh, and start again. If it feels good, delight in it, and use it well – you have come past that age old conditioning yet again – how excellent!

 

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DO WE NEED A CRISIS FOR CHANGE?

By on February 11, 2005 in Change, Excellent organisations, Leadership

There is no doubt that a major crisis is often the prompt for fundamental change of some sort, whether that be in our personal lives, in organisations, or globally.

What I wonder is if that is the most effective way to be prompted to make a change.

Britain  suspends the debt repayments for the countries hit by the tsunami for ten years – if we had suspended the repayments five years ago, would those countries have been able to deal with the disaster better?

A person is told they have a life-threatening illness and changes the way they live their life – would they have even had the illness if they had been prompted to change their lifestyle earlier?

A business makes a loss and can make no payments to its shareholders, so changes its structure to become more efficient, cutting staff in the process – if those staff had been motivated to become more productive, would the business have made a loss?

As leaders, we are often in the position of responding to some form of crisis at work: a supplier lets us down, key staff are off sick, a customer is threatening to withdraw their custom. Many leaders say that they do not have time for forward thinking, because they are too busy firefighting.

Yet what could we achieve if we concentrated on the possibilities rather than the contingencies?

As a leader you have the opportunity to make a significant difference to how we approach change.

  • You can look forward and try out ways of improving what you already have, so that it becomes more robust and able to ride the crisis.
  • You can inspire your people to give of their best at work, so that there is less need for fire-fighting
  • You can aim to have the best possible service rather than one which is generally good enough, so that customers want to stay with you.

In our personal lives, we achieve most of our change and growth gradually, driven not by crisis, but by a desire to make things even better. If we applied the same principle at work, perhaps change would become an automatic gradual part of our work lives as well and there would be less crisis.

 

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WHEN TIMES ARE TOUGH

By on April 11, 2004 in Excellent organisations, Leadership, Working smarter

We are all capable of leading well when times are good, even if we don’t always practise it!  But what happens when times are tough?  These are truly the times that test our mettle as leaders.  Tough times can be two kinds:

  1. When we are personally finding things difficult for whatever reason.
  2. When external circumstances are putting pressure on us.

1.    PERSONAL TOUGH TIMES

Let’s look at the personal aspect first.  We all come across this one!  It can range from a short-term demotivated mood, where you really don’t feel like bothering, to a more generalised feeling of being demoralised or fed up.  As a human being, we are entitled to have fluctuations in mood, confidence and motivation.  As a leader, we need to know how to handle these in such a way that they do not cause damaging effects that make the situation worse.

When I was a college department head, we had a drawer in my filing cabinet that was apparently empty.  I say apparently, because actually, we all used it to vent our frustrations, angers and anxieties.  We would open the draw, and tell it exactly what was on our mind, asking others to leave the room if necessary!  When we had finished, we would give it a short burst of air freshener or aromatherapy oil to ‘clear the air’ ready for the next one!  This is one way of satisfying the first need – to express whatever it is you’re feeling.  You can use writing it down, telling a confidante – a trusted friend – or even a filing cabinet drawer!!

Then we need to have techniques to help ourselves to change our state, and help us to get some perspective.  Going for a walk, remembering times when we have felt good about ourselves and our work, and finding something to laugh about all helps.

Finally we need to minimise the situation that will make us feel worse, and maximise those that will make us fell better.  For example we may delay the difficult appraisal interview by a week, and instead talk with one of our most motivated members of staff.  Or we may just clear that damn back log of mails to deal with, so we can feel a sense of achievement!  What we are looking for are the situations which will increase our motivation and perspective, by reminding us of the good bits, and those which will give us a feeling of success.

2.    EXTERNAL TOUGH TIMES

When the toughness comes from external circumstances, we may need to start by getting ourselves feeling ok, using some of the techniques suggested above.  This is because we need to be able to set the example of how to react, and we can only do this when we feel good.

Often we have a knee-jerk reaction to tough times.  We make rash, short-term decisions, and don’t consider the wider context.  We also frequently forget our values, and look for fixes without considering the consequences.  If we are in a good state, we can take a more fruitful alternative route to decide what we are going to do.

We obviously need to face the situation.  This is best done on your own, or with a team of trusted colleagues first.  Begin by reminding yourselves of what your organisation stands for: your purpose, your values.  Ensure that you remember that your people are not objects, they are human beings, and how you treat them now will have an effect in the future.

Then the questions to ask are:

  • What are the likely and possible scenarios?
  • How can we handle them as well as possible?
  • What influence can we bring to bear to optimise the possibilities?
  • What are the most useful actions to take now?

We all want our leaders to have wisdom, and use their experience well, particularly when times are tough.  You know what would motivate you to do your damnedest to help in tough times.  I know, for me, that I want some straight talking – not pretending everything will be ok – and then I want some constructive thought through things we can all do.  Offer your people something they can act on, and the majority will.  They will certainly respect you as a leader and support you, rather than adding to your problems.

Tough times are bound to happen.  It’s the nature of the dynamics of human beings and organisations.  If we have a ‘tough times’ strategy, we can continue to enhance our abilities as an excellent leader.  Don’t wait for them to happen – start planning your strategy now!!

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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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