Imaginisation

Geoff Roberts change

visualise word on sand
I was watching the skiing over last weekend and noticed that every one of the elite skiers stood at the top of the slope moving their body as if they were already going down the course; they were imagining what it would be like to ski the course before they did so. It reminded me of hearing Carl Lewis, the great Olympic sprinter, commenting that as he prepares in his blocks before a race he is imagining crossing the finishing line.

Are you using visualisation to help ensure the results you want in the future? If not, you should be.

How good is your imagination? Now, when I ask that question, many say that they do have an active imagination. If that’s true for you, too, then you should certainly be using visualisation techniques to help you get the results you want in the future. If you don’t think you have a good imagination then think again – think about your front door, your kitchen, your partner… Can you imagine them in your head? What do they look like, sound like, feel like… So you do have an imagination after all! Use that imagination to help you achieve your goals.

Why? Well, because if you do it right, it works. How do I know? From personal and my observation of others’ experience for one thing, but don’t take my word for it. Do some research of your own. Go to the library or hit the internet and see what you come up with. You’ll find more than enough to keep you busy for quite a while, and almost all of it will point to the same thing – that imagination is a powerful tool that, when used properly, can enhance the results you get. High-performance athletes know more about this than most of us but just keep in mind that visualisation isn’t solely for athletes. It is for anyone who wants to improve performance, in any endeavour.

Visualisation techniques are not difficult to learn. In fact, you already use them all the time. It’s simply a matter of bringing conscious control and practice to the process.

Trying harder is not the answer

Geoff Roberts change, choice, opportunity, strategy

snake painted on eggI am walking along holding an egg in my hand when suddenly I manage to drop it and break it. Do I tell myself “Hold onto the egg more tightly” or do I find a better way of carrying the egg?

Does a stressful event start a cascade that ends up making even you more stressed?
When someone in authority challenges you or corrects your behavior, do you to push back and make the behaviour worse?
Does a failure set you on a path to more failure?

These questions seem philosophical or even paradoxical, but in fact I think they get to the heart of why some people succeed and others don’t. We can choose to create (virtuous) cycles that move us up or endure (vicious) cycles that drag us down.
A policemen hassles a teenager who is acting up. The teenager escalates. The cop escalates. Someone gets arrested – and you can bet it isn’t the cop!.
A sales call is going poorly because the prospect doesn’t perceive the salesperson is confident. She responds by becoming even less confident. No sale.
A mistake is made. The stakes go up. Rattled, another mistake is made, and then again, until failure occurs…

James Bond is a hero because the tougher the world got, the cooler he got. Symphony conductors don’t endure the pressure of a performance, they thrive on it.

If being a little behind creates self-pressure that leads to stress and then errors, is it really suprising that you frequently end up a lot behind.
Customer service falls apart when mutual escalation or non-understanding sets in. Management falls apart when power struggles or miscommunication escalate. Education falls apart when students respond to poor exam results by giving up.

Someone who gets better whenever he fails will always outperform someone who responds to failure by getting worse. This isn’t something in your DNA, it’s something you can learn or unlearn.
The useful response to ‘failure’ is not to try harder, to buckle down and grind it out. The response that works is to understand the nature of the cycle and to change it from the start. You must not fight the cycle, you must transform it into a different cycle altogether. It’s a lot of work, but less work than failing.
When the snake pushes you to recoil in fear, that’s your cue to embrace the trembling fear and do precisely the opposite of what it demands. This won’t work the first time or even the tenth, but it’s the path to an upcycle, one where each negative input leads to more productivity, not less.
Carry that egg in a bowl.

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.

5 ways to help you achieve the impossible

Geoff Roberts change

Mission Impossible
Watching the final episode of Michel Roux’ Service last night, I was struck by what the participants had achieved over just 8 weeks. They had come from ‘less than happy’ life situations and blossomed as they were given tougher and tougher challenges. Some of these kids had never been in a restaurant other than McDonald’s and here they were serving in Michelin starred establishments.
It was slightly sad to hear, early on in the series, a couple of the participants saying “I can’t do this” and that led me to reflect a little on how we can achive the impossible. I have 5 suggestions…

1) Change your mindset about what is possible. Specifically, start to believe that it is possible and that you can do it. If you don’t believe then you will never deliver. Michel Roux was unremitting in his praise and reinforcement for the capability of his proteges – how often did we hear him saying “You can do this”.

2) What happens, happens – work with it. You cannot control very much, if anything, about what is going on around you so embrace the opportunity whether it comes your way through sheer coincidence or planning. Embrace the opportunity and use it to further your aims. You may not get the perfect opportunity at the perfect time so do the best with what you have now. The servers quickly learned that even though customers do some odd things and make some strange requests they could meet thier needs with a smile.

3) Get out of your comfort zone (yes, again). Tell other people-friends, partners, bosses etc – what you are going to do. That public commitment can make so much difference. Michel Roux certainly took these guys out of their comfort zones!

4) Take action. Thinking never changed the world, it was only when the thinker decided to take action that something in the real world changed. The sooner you start to take action, the soon you get feedback and the possibility of learning whether you need to pursue the current course or make a course correction.

5) Seek help. No matter how much you practice, there is likely to be someone or something out there who can help. Someone who shares part or all of your aim, someone who has been there before and can help you or maybe just someone to prop you up when the going gets tough. Do what is necessary. If you do not have all the answers, and you almost certainly don’t, then seek them from someone who might have. Keep going and strive for improvement. Michel constantly introduced his trainees to different mentors, each of whom brought a different set of skills to learn from.

Anthony Robbins is quoted as saying:

what we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.

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.

A quick thought on the importance of language

Geoff Roberts change, language

Question mark - WHY?
When someone else does something that puzzles me, I am often tempted to ask ‘Why?’ – and I always get an answer that justifies the original act.

Whenever you ask someone ‘why’ they did something, you are inviting them to justify their actions and, in their mind, this actually reinforces the behaviour. The question somehow invokes defensive routines in the respondent’s mind.

Rather than ask why someone did something there are more helpful questions you can pose. Ask them what they were trying to achieve, or how what they did helped them. These are quite different questions and far more useful because they activate a different part of the brain to ‘Why?’. You might get an answer that helps you understand how the original action was a good idea, or you might get a better understanding of the rationale for the action and so be able to formulate a different action that would get the result you both want.

On the other hand, it is good to ask why someone did something that turned out well, as this will reinforce the desired behaviour.

“Why do you read these blog articles?” 🙂