Challenge yourself

Geoff Roberts choice, flexibility, opportunity

man standing out from the packI was watching the new series of Masterchef last night and was seriously impressed by the enthusiasm and commitment of the participants. Some of them very clearly knew how to shake a pan, others perhaps needed a bit more practice. I was left wondering how many of them had decided to cook something safe, well within their capabilities, and how many had decided to take risks with new and challenging recipes in the hope of winning this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Sometimes we do only get one opportunity and you might find it instructive to have a think about how you react in those situations. Do you take the safe but sure approach – which unless you are world class probably puts you in a pack with many others – or do you give it your all in the hope of creating something new and unexpected?

Heston Blumenthal did not become one of the best chefs in the world by cooking conventional French cuisine better than anyone else, he needed to find his own style and even his own techniques.

People who are different, or do things differently, are the ones that get noticed, so what do you do or are you going to do to make yourself noticeable and push the boat out?

Hunter or Harvester?

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, metaphor, selection

harvester in field
I was having lunch with my great friend Andy Green recently and, after we had discussed the current state of the market for our work and our approaches to filling the larder, he observed “So, you are a harvester not a hunter?”.

I guess that I prefer to cultivate long-term relationships, look after existing customers very well and nurture new leads and ideas. The hunter is always on the lookout for new customers and then chases them hard, bending over backwards to meet their needs. They are both active but the former waits for the customer to need what they offer whereas the latter operates more like those wonderful people in The Rhubarb Triangle who force their product before having to plant it out to recover.

Harvesters need to be aware that they need to sow seeds, water and fertilise them, prune them if necessary in order to be able to take a harvest when the time is right; they need to be aware that only by saving part of this year’s crop can they reap another next year.

Hunters, on the other hand, need to move around to find new prey, to be constantly alert and energetic just in case a prey animal or a predator appears and they have to deal with it.

Time to think – what is your approach to getting what you want? Are you a hunter or a harvester? Does what you are doing serve you well? Will it continue to serve you inj the same way? Can you keep up the pace?

Attitude is all

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, perception, selection

attitude changes everythingI make no apology for using someone else’s words today – Charles Swindoll seems to say it all…

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.”
Charles Swindoll

Are you Browsing or Seeking?

Geoff Roberts choice, flexibility, focus, opportunity, selection, time management

browsing
I am one of those people who sometimes challenges stereotypes and this is one of those occasions. This man is happy to admit that, on occasions, he just loves shopping. I would like to talk about that phrase “on occasions”. In my head, there are two types of shopping – firstly those occasions when I am quite happy just wandering around window shopping and possibly coming across something that interests me that I might or might not buy. Secondly there is that sort of shopping when I am going out to buy something specific and that is when I become a man on a mission.

The first type of shopping I am browsing, the second I am seeking. When browsing, the pleasure is in browsing in itself and not necessarily in making a purchase. When seeking, the pleasure is finding an item that meets my needs (and there is even greater pleasure in finding something that exceeds those needs).

So, how is it for you? Do you wander through life with no particular aim in mind, perhaps picking up the odd gem on the way but generally letting whatever happens happen? Or do you set out every day with specific aims and goals in mind, with your brain primed to look for opportunities and your body ready to take action on those opportunities?

There is certainly room for both of these approaches, however my challenge to you is to be clear which you are doing when and to be certain that you are doing the right one at the right time. If I want to buy a pair of shoes, it is no good me going to a food store and if I want the pleasure of just wandering, visiting a carpet warehouse is likely to be limiting my pleasure.

Without a vision and without goals all we can ever do is browse; indeed, without that vision and those goals operating in the background we might miss major opportunities whilst we are browsing. Once we are clear what it is that we want we can actively choose whether to go and explicitly seek that or just put it in the background whilst we are browsing in case some opportunity comes up. Living a life without goals is a bit like being a tumbleweed, blown where the wind takes its, trapped in some windowless corner and slowly decaying until point at which it disintegrates and is spread to all corners of the wind.

Which is relevant to your quest for a new product or business or job or mate or project worth working on…
If you’re still looking around, making sure you understand all your options, getting your bearings or making sure you’re well informed, you’re most probably browsing. You missed the first, second and third waves of the internet; you missed a hundred great jobs and forty great husbands.; you missed the deadline for that course and who knows what else while you were just browsing..

Quit looking and go buy something.

Does what you are working on excite you?

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, focus

excited child

If someone asks what you are working on, can you give them an answer that truly excites you?

I hope so, for if you cannot then surely you are frittering away your limited time here. Why would you want to spend time other than by being excited – boredom is boring!

What is your personal Dream – for 20, 30, 40, unspecified years ahead? Do you even have one? I do – I could draw it for you but a few words will give you the gist of it. I am living in a house overlooking the ocean in one direction and the mountains in another; the weather is generally warm to hot although there is enough rain to keep the beautiful garden green most of the year; I share the house with my wonderful wife, some kids, some friends and some people who have come to study with us and use our library; we travel extensively sharing our insights into personal and self-development with others…and so on. What excites me is anything that helps me get closer to that dream.

No matter what your job is, no matter where you work, there’s a way to create a project (on your own, on weekends if necessary), where the excitement is palpable, where something that might or will make a difference is right around the corner.

Hurry, go do that. Go do it now, before it’s too late!

Competitive collaboration

Geoff Roberts change, flexibility, opportunity, paradox

Michel Roux' service 'apprentices'

One of the things that really struck me about the recent Michel Roux series was how different it was from other ‘reality TV’ shows. Unlike Ramsay’s offerings, there was no shouting, bullying or swearing; unlike Sugar’s Apprentice there were no over-confident 20-odd year old ****s biting at each other and unlike the jungle there was no Gillian Keith! More a case of a group of individuals working to become a team in the hope that some of them could win a life-changing prize.
Never once did I see or hear any evidence of an individual trying to get one up on their colleagues or to position themselves as a ‘winner’. No, it was so evident throughout that this was a team game, even though there would ultimately be winners. What a wonderful demonstration of the power of teamwork to allow individuals to show themselves at their best.

No risk, no reward

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, opportunity, Risk

risk is realityHow often have you heard the phrase no risk, no reward?

When I was at school I was quite good at chemistry, well ahead of the class. I vividly remember one practical lesson when the chemistry teacher, a wonderful man called Dave Hudson, took me aside and explained that he was going to give me a different practical to complete compared to everyone else in the class. He said that it was extremely difficult but that he believed I could do it. It turned out to be a fairly complex procedure, using some dangerous chemicals. However, I pulled it off much to my own surprise and quite possibly to the chemistry teacher’s. That practical lesson could well have been the moment that catalysed my future career. A brilliant teacher took a risk and allowed me to learn that I was capable of much more than I had so far showed. I blogged earlier about fear and anxiety in learning and this is clearly linked to the concept of taking risks. Risk creates anxiety, anxiety opens the possibility of learning.

So my challenge, whether you are thinking of personal development or the development of those with whom you work, is to think about the amount of risk you take in your daily life and to push the boundaries a little. How often have you not asked (the boss, your colleague, your partner…) because you fear the wrong response? Will surely the worst that can happen is that they say no and if you don’t even ask then there is no possibility of them saying yes.

So next time you really want to try something new, go ahead and do it – I might even suggest that you don’t even ask, just go ahead and do it because it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission and, moreover, you are much more likely to get it.

Positivity is infectious

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility, focus

I met a colleague of mine, Chris Edwards, in Leeds yesterday. Chris has overseen a fundamental transformation and improvement of education throughout Leeds over the last 10 years and is now out on his own looking for opportunities to help the world. I always find my time with Chris inspirational – he is irrepressibly positive and upbeat, his favourite word is “brilliant” and his belief in people, especially children, is awesome. We talked a lot about beliefs and how the beliefs that parents embed in their children can either help or hinder them.

I would never dream of telling my four-year-old granddaughter that the picture of a tree that she has just presented me with looks nothing like a tree and that she cannot draw. It seems almost intuitive to me that constant negative messages are likely to leave her believing that she is no good and lo and behold she will be no good. Chris tells me that there is some research that shows that the lowest performing children have parents who give them eight times as many negative messages as positive and the highest performers have parents who give them eight times as many positive messages as negative.

If this makes so much difference the children, then why not adults as well? If you work with anyone, and you don’t have to manage them you simply have to work with them, then perhaps you might like to check how often you praise them versus how often you give negative feedback. Yoou DO give feedback don’t you?

And what about yourself? What about that self talk that constantly goes on inside our heads? Is yourself talk supportive or destructive? Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe that you can take things on and do a good job or is everything too difficult? Self belief is all-important. As Henry Ford once said

whether you believe you can
or you believe you cannot
you are probably right

Believe in others, believe in yourself and be sure to give yourself and others great feedback.

Learning to Learn

Geoff Roberts change, flexibility

When I was at school, and it is not all that long ago, the careers advisers could look at our academic and other strengths as well as our preferences and make a pretty good stab at the sort of careers for which I would be most suited – chemist, bank manager, bus driver, dustbin men etc. And indeed for most of my generation that is what happened. I was a keen little amateur chemist, with a chemistry set that would probably get me into trouble with the anti-terrorist squad these days, and I went on to be an analytical chemist before extending my scientific education into sewage science and other aspects of environmental science and regulation. It was only towards the latter part of my career that I started to take a serious interest in organisational change and personal development, the fields in which I operate nowadays.

It would not have crossed my careers adviser’s mind that I might want to be a online games designer or a developer of operating systems for mobile telephones (which did not exist when I was at school) or even an engineer fitting satellite receiving dishes to individual domestic properties to allow them to receive the several hundred television channels available these days. None of these jobs even existed when I was at school. This is the dilemma that so many of today’s schoolchildren face.
It has been suggested that the pace of change in technology and society if such that most of the children starting school today need to be prepared to do jobs that do not even exist and cannot currently be envisaged. So with what skills do we equip those schoolchildren? Yes, they will need to be literate and numerate and the ability to speak Chinese or Spanish or one of the Indian dialects is likely to prove more helpful than speaking French or German. However all of this is just the fundamental basis upon which more specialist knowledge is likely to need to rest. So what specialist knowledge? How can we know if the jobs, and even industries, which will employ today’s schoolchildren have yet to be invented?

Well it seems to me that there are two core skills that will be needed. Firstly the ability to work constructively with others – fields of knowledge are getting ever smaller, we know more and more about less and less, and effective work in the future will require comprehensive collaboration amongst different people with different knowledge bases. Secondly, and arguably the most important attribute of all, if the ability to learn. The HR pundits have been talking for some years now about lifelong learning and the more forward of my colleagues have recognised that they need to keep their skill base topped up. In my lifetime, I have had three fundamentally different careers each of which necessitated learning substantial new knowledge and skills; in the lifetimes of children at school today they might expect a fundamental career change every 10 years or so. I vividly remember introducing a computer-based customer complaints and operations management system which required many of our frontline staff to operate keyboards for the first time in their lives. Today’s generation grow up with keyboards and Xbox controllers almost as appendages to their hands. But what will they need to learn to use so that they can do the job they will be fulfilling in 20 years time?

It has become increasingly clear that the one sustainable Advantage that education can give our children, and we can give ourselves as adults, is the ability to learn quickly and effectively. This does not just happen. We can no longer ‘finish our education’ after university and today’s kids can no longer simply fill their head with facts. I was never explicitly taught how to acquire knowledge or a skill, let’s make sure that today’s pupils are being equipped for the unknown world into which they will be ejected all too soon.

Metaprograms – Towards or Away From

Geoff Roberts change, choice, flexibility

Donkey with stick and carrotIn yesterday’s post I thought about whether or not we see the world as full of problems to avoid or opportunities to take. I also mentioned that there was a link to metaprograms dealing with Towards or Away From motivation.

I have spent a lot of my career dealing with change at both corporate and personal levels and can now easily recognise two different types of thinking when faced with change. There are those who look at situations and can readily list all the problems that we currently have and perhaps how the change might be able to help solve them – their motivation is to move away from problems. On the other hand there are those who will look at the situation and will be primarily motivated by the wonderful bright new world into which we are sailing – their motivation is primarily towards the future.

Away From or Troubleshooting thinking is great at identifying what is currently wrong, what might go wrong in the future and how we might prevent previous problems recurring. Those who process in this way tend to be risk averse, to excel in a crisis situation and to be good at making contingency plans. Because they are so good at this, there is a risk that sometimes they identify problems that aren’t actually there and fight fires that don’t exist or don’t need putting out. They can slow down change and sometimes this is helpful because the towards thinker can become a bit gung ho.

Towards thinking is typified by the person who still smiles even when they are up to their neck in the crocodile filled swamp. This type of thinking is extremely future focused, concentrating on achieving goals and positive thinking. However these thinkers can be so enthusiastic that they overlook actual or potential problems and pitfalls and need an away thinking colleague to complement their approach.

Perhaps you will do both of these, although experience indicates that it is rare for someone to excel at both types of thinking, or perhaps you sit closer to one end of the scale than the other. Remember that both types of thinking are helpful, the towards thinking provides the enthusiasm and drive to move forward and the away from thinking provides the caution necessary to avoid the towards thinker falling down a dirty great hole that they just didn’t see because they were focusing on their goals.

So here’s the exercise – think of a change that you would like to make. Now list two or three current problems that the change will solve and one or two potential pitfalls that you will need to be aware of. Next list three or four compelling reasons for making the change, three or four improvements that will be recognisable once the change has been made. Using both types of thinking gives you a more comprehensive view of the situation.