The remarkable turnaround of the fortunes and performance of the English cricket team has not gone unnoticed, though it has been coming for a while.
Coach, Andy Flower, is renowned for the dedication he expects of the players – expecting physical fitness, determination and focus plus positive team working and behaviours.
A great example of Front Foot Organisation we reckon – see this for more www.idenk.co.uk/frontfootorganisation.
In our work – and lives – we find that the questions we focus on are usually more useful than the abundance of easy answers. Taking time to think through to the right question can be very useful – and even fun!
Working to a short, straightforward and significant question takes some effort.
Often a “how” question might be more useful as a “why” or a “what”.
For example
“How do we need to organise this project over the next 90 days to increase its value”
is quite different to
“What would it take to increase the value of this project over the next quarter”
See here for a bit more on our Question Fanning method. This is taught on our Brilliant Thinking Made Easy course. It helps get the scope of a question right (both the subject and scale of inquiry)
For example, ‘project’, ‘value’ and ’90 days’ may not be useful to focus on!
We do believe that as humans we are drawn in the direction of the questions we ask. We see this in science, business and in personal pursuits of happiness.
And a few quotes that pick up the point:
“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question” – e e cummings
“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked” – Voltaire
Tags: change, communication
We tend to take the easy route.
Humans are like that.
It is something innate in us.
Trying to take the path of less resistance.
Like water when it leaks.
When might you need to pause, think and try to take a harder road?
Starting a business?
Within a friendship?
Conflict is simply defined as any difference of perspective in terms of opinion and want.
The key challenge in many teams and organisations is not avoiding but harnessing this difference to ensure ideas are fully tested and the best outcomes are achieved.
As part of our advanced team training we introduce colleagues to the work of John Heron and Thomas (and) Kilman to provide some practice tools and ideas. One method we return to time and time again is Dilemma Resolution.
They key? How get into the 2nd person point of view (ie see things through the other persons eyes) as well as the 3rd person perspective too .
Do contact us if you want information on any of these tools.
Tags: change, communication
A bit of a surprise this morning – the loud ringing of a mobile phone and a long conversation on an early train journey.
The arrival of quieter journeys (and restaurants) has crept up on us – despite our increased connectivity with dongles, BB, iPhones
Texting and social media are now the order of the day – even for many oldies
Being still is getting to be quite popular (in literature and magazine articles) it seems.
Recently, a client group chose to pick up an offer from a funky venue in London for a 30 minute meditation session. It was very popular with this rational and scientific bunch – so much so, they have experimented with a minute of silence at the start of their team meeting.
Tags: change, innovation
Two and a bit weeks into the new year…do any of these sayings help? All draw inspiration from positive psychology.
“Motivation follows action”
“First you make your habits, then your habits make you”
“Fake it till you make it!”
“Put our behaviours where we want them, then our mind and heart will catch up”
“First hands, then head and heart”
Finally, from Ghandi…”be the change you wish to see in the world” (but that is possibly another story).
Tags: behaviour, change, happiness, health, responsibility
When facing changes in our work or personal life it helps to have a ‘Plan B’ as well as a ‘Plan A’. If we can be more imaginative in widening our ideas of what the future might look like, we can increase the repertoire of options available to us.
An example of this is personal scenario planning when facing possible job changes. ‘Plan A’ is often “I hope they keep me on, doing what I do now”.
To move beyond this, it is useful to face our fears. “What is the worst case?” By articulating our anxieties, we can move from just feeling them to confronting them and then to mitigating them. Ask yourself “what am I really afraid of, how would I cope, how could I soften the impact of what might happen?”
Now try to come up with an interesting ‘Plan B’. “What’s an alternative future career or line of work that I could envisage given the goals and resources available to me?” Try to spot the trends you see around you that offer new opportunities. Review the things you’ve done successfully which you can build on. Write down the contacts you know who can help.
It may be a time to start achieving those personal ambitions which you’ve often thought about but never really acted on.
Ask us for a for more on this or a summary of our favourite article on personal resilience.
What difference does 20 years make?
It doesn’t seem that long.
But a lot changes – often silently and unnoticed.
Comparing a few newspapers, both tabloid and broadsheets, from the same date 21 years apart reveals a few striking features:
1) They are smaller – not just the shrunken Times, but the odd inch here and there on most titles.
2) There was no use of colour, other than the defunct Today. Now it is everywhere, including the Metro, the new daily freebie in London.
In what ways do these changes in appearance reflect the changes in the newspaper market, the way we ‘consume’ news and the wider digital media landscape in general?
Well the ash cloud is interrupting flights again. We are struck by the many alternative responses that people give to this:
– compassion for the shattered dreams of those wishing to travel (an important business meeting delayed, a postponed wedding, a funeral missed, a much needed holiday lost)
– delight at the reduction in carbon emissions from grounded jets
– awe at our human futility in the face of natural wonder
– anger at “health and safety gone mad”
– frustration at our collective impotence reinforced and our insignificance historically as well as environmentally
– worry at where this will end if other volcanoes erupt.
What’s your reaction? Which is the one that is most helpful do you think?
When something frustrating happens today, try to see as many different ways of looking at it as you can. What are the hypotheses that might make that behaviour of a colleague frustrating? What are you finding difficult in that meeting?
You might find you can change your reaction.
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