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!

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.

Leadership in the middle

Geoff Roberts change

LeadershipI posted a week or so ago about that challenge of becoming a leader, commenting how effective leaders become more of themselves rather than copying someone else. The rest of the programme caused me to wonder yet further.

The whole programme concentrated on iconic leaders in industry and politics. This is fair enough and I do not want to deny the role of such leaders. However, the majority of leadership roles sit much ‘lower down’ in organisations and I would love more attention to be paid to leading in/from the middle of an organisation.

Every team and department has its leader, every social club, every boozing party, every sports team… – and that leader faces many challenges familiar to the iconic heads of the organisation. Indeed, one might argue that, because they have to deal with their own bosses as well as team members, they have bigger leadership challenges.

Very few of us will ever reach the dizzy heights of Prime Minister or Chair of Marks & Spencer, yet many of us will face leadership challenges as we try to take others with us on our journey. Many of the attributes and capabilities are likely to be the same, but how does leadership from the middle differ? I will be looking out on this topic over future months, expect to hear more…

Metaprograms – Sameness or Difference

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

brain, metaprograms

The last in this short series of blogs about metaprograms explores ways of thinking that notice the sameness or difference in the world.

Until a few years ago I had lived in the same house for 26 years and most of those years my next-door neighbour had gone to the same Mediterranean island for the holidays. Not only had they gone to the same island, they had gone to the same hotel during the same two weeks of the year and it also turns out that many of the same people were in that hotel when they got there. I just couldn’t understand this, I had rarely been to the same country on holiday twice and when I did go to the same country it was to very different parts to that I had visited previously. I have no objection to going on holiday with people I know, and what I find really interesting is meeting new people and doing new things is trying new phone.

That same neighbour had the same job from almost all of those 26 years, whereas I had a new job every two or three years, including one major career change.

When you think about your team, what types of thinking do you need? Is the team charged with developing and implementing a radical new future with no reference to the past or are they opening the 475th Starbucks, with exactly the same layout and stock as the previous 474?
When you are selling change, some of your audience will want to know the ways in which the future is going to be the same as the past and others will want to know how the future is going to be different to the past. Effective communication is addressing both of these audiences.

Hidden Resources have deep expertise in metaprograms, why not ring Suzanne and see how we can help?

Metaprograms – Compete or Collaborate

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Brain, metaprogramThis week we’re looking at people’s thinking preferences-those inborn (or perhaps learned – that’s a different blog!) filters that influence how we think about and subsequently act in the world. We know that everyone is different, and an understanding of metaprograms is one way in which we can start to understand what might lie behind those differences. Today we will explore the extremes of collaborative or competitive thinking.

The construction industry is well known for its competitiveness, contractors shaving pennies of prices in order to win business. How difficult was it for them when many of the big clients decided that the most effective route to high quality and low costs was for clients, consultants and contractors to work together, not only within an individual project but across projects that may have different consultants and contractors? The move towards collaborative working in major construction projects over the last 10 to 15 years has been and continues to be seriously constrained by the fundamental competitive mindset of those involved.

Let me be clear, I have no problem with competition or collaboration in the right situation-I cannot see Olympic sprinters collaborating to produce the lowest overall time of all competitors added together although we can and do members of cycling teams collaborating for the benefit of their star rider.

What might your predisposition be? Do you seek opportunities to work with other people inside and outside your organisation? Are you an active networker always on the lookout for opportunities to help each other? Would you rather work with others in a team than on your own? Are you constantly on the lookout for how you can not only achieve your goals but help others achieve theirs as well? If so, then you exhibit collaborative thinking.

Another position in the spectrum might be that you find yourself constantly competing with yourself to do better than before, regardless of what other people are doing. Or maybe you are driven to beat others, perhaps regardless of the cost because after all’ it’s about winning not making friends’. You are likely to look towards getting your own needs met regardless of anyone else.

If you have people with these different ways of thinking working for you, you might easily see how you would need to do different things to motivate them. The collaborator will value opportunities to work in a team for the greater good, the competitor would want challenging personal goals

So, now might be the time to consider your own thinking and how that might be similar to our different from those of your colleagues and the implications of that how you are working together.

Suzanne Wade at Hidden Resources can help you to learn more about metaprograms, she can also offer you an great pyschometric exploring how you ‘rate’ on the ‘Top 15’.

Metaprograms – Conforming or Challenging

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Brain, metaprograms

More exploration of metaprograms today to help you understand yourself and others more thoroughly and so be able to manage better. Today we are looking at whether your basic thinking stye is one that Conforms or Challenges.

Conforming thinkers can be flexible and adaptable, they will flex and adapt to match the culture of the organisation or team where they are working; they avoid confrontation and might agree superficially but then fail to implement the agreement.

On the other hand the challenging thinker is likely to be overtly confrontational, constantly pushing the boundaries; they dislike being told what to do and can adopt high risk approaches to achieving their objectives. They can exhibit an intriguing habit of saying ‘no’ in the first instance to any suggestion (because of their initial inclination to challenge) before changing their mind and saying ‘yes’ on reflection. They can be perceived as argumentative and can be difficult to manage, however this is the sort of thinking that is fundamental to achieving change. The, former is happy with the status quo, the challenger is forever looking for something different.

If you want to learn more about metaprograms, perhpas by completing a pyschometric exploring how you ‘rate’ on the ‘Top 15’ then contact Suzanne Wade at Hidden Resources.

Metaprograms – Detail or Strategy

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Brain,metaprograms

Here’s another great metaprogram pair that, when you appreciate and understand it, will help you become more effective as an individual and part of a team.

A close friend of mine was telling a story about how she learned to manage the new boss who came her way some years ago. She clearly had a great relationship with her old boss, to whom she took her ideas and was generally given the nod to get ahead and implement them. What a surprise to find that her new boss was not as amenable and constantly came back asking nitpicking questions about her proposals. There was a risk that all these nitpicking questions could be interpreted as a lack of trust, however my friend knew different and she was familiar with the different ways that people thought, in particular how detail conscious thinkers differed from strategic or big chunk thinkers.

Her old boss was happy to hear the general idea and recognise how it fitted into the long-term plans; when thinking about an idea they wanted to be presented with a few bullet points that included how the proposal fitted into the broader context of the business. The old boss’ preference was for strategic or big chunk thinking.

Along comes a new boss who was more tempted by details; who needed bite-size chunks and to be told exactly how the proposal would be implemented and exactly how it contributed to the broader picture. This new boss became frustrated when such detail was not available and, perhaps not surprisingly, would generally not agree to my friend’s proposals going ahead.

So this pair of metaprograms has detail conscious thinking at one extreme and strategic thinking at the other. The detail thinker being frustrated by the strategist and a strategist being bored by the detail. Where do you sit? And what about your boss, your team members?

Until I understood about this stuff I used to treat everybody the same, and most likely to assume that what they needed, how they thought, was the same as me. I now find myself actively thinking, does this person require 10 bullet points or a 10 page report. My flexibility in meeting other people’s needs improves my chances of achieving my goals. The person with the most flexibility is most likely to get what they want.

We can help you learn more about metaprograms. Have a look at Thinking Styles.

How to become a leader…

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Yesterday afternoon I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 about the development of leaders. The programme had the inevitable leadership coach who not only claimed that he could make anyone into a coach but that he could do so in a single day! On hearing this I fluttered between being hopping mad and dismayed. The dilemma was resolved to dismay alone when he suggested to the interviewer that she can become a better leader by modelling herself on someone she admired – Winston Churchill in this case.

Well, I am all for modelling – indeed this forms a core part of some of what we deliver – and would even agree that we can learn lessons from others in leadership positions, whether we admire them or not (it might be sacrilege to say so, but that bloke Hitler knew a thing or two about organising mass support and even though I was fundamentally opposed to much of Margaret Thatcher’s policy I certainly recognised her leadership abilities).

When I examine the many leaders I have admired over the years, and you can create your own list, I find that some are outspoken and some are quiet, some are highly numerate and some are almost numerically illiterate, some did extremely well at school and some left with no qualifications, some could do every job that their subordinates were required to do and others would barely know one end of a factory from another… The one and only common attribute that these leaders had was integrity – that centredness that allowed them to consistently say what they meant and mean what they say, do what they say they would do when they said they would do it and to be willing and able to explain themselves. These people had a deep knowledge of their own values and motivations and lived them out daily; they recognised that they were not always the experts on a topic and valued everyone’s inputs even when that input challenged their own way of thinking, above all they exhibited a humility akin to that propounded in Greenleaf’s exploration of Servant Leadership.

My own reading of the path to great leadership is that yes it is possible to learn some of the behaviours necessary to act effectively as a leader but learning those behaviours alone cannot make a true leader. True leadership comes from inside, it comes from becoming more of oneself. Richard Branson did not succeed by following Margaret Thatcher, she did not lead by following Winston Churchill, he did not lead by following Gladstone and none of them would have been appropriate role models to Nelson Mandela.

If you want to be a leader learn to become more of yourself.

The habit of learning

Geoff Roberts change

I, along with many colleagues in the profession often encourage coaching clients to start a learning diary. There is plenty of evidence out there that if we spend a few minutes every day sitting down reflecting on what has happened to us, trying to make sense of it and deciding how that is going to affect our future actions then we will become more effective in our lives generally. Strangely enough most clients do not actually do this, despite our exhortations, even though they will happily act on advice from other people on saving for a pension or what qualifications to study for next.

Then I started reflecting on what I had learned at school, that 2+2 = 4, that the French for The Sun is Le Soleil, that acids turn litmus paper red and lots of other facts. I do not recall ever once, in that alleged hotbed of learning, being asked to keep a learning diary. Yet there I was surrounded by teachers who, in principle, are familiar with the works of Piaget and Kolb yet don’t seem to want to pass that information on to the students. (There is a separate discussion about whether the teachers really understood these learning theories, or whether they regarded them purely as theory with no practical value!Perhaps that is the paradigm repeating itself?)

I recall someone asking me shortly after I completed my Masters degree what was the most important thing that I learned. Well, that masters degree was in change management and I learned loads and loads of change management theory but I remain convinced that the single most important thing I learned in two years was that when handling change one must start where one is. This very practical piece of advice came from trying to use the various management theories in my work as a change leader and realising that none of them actually recognise that the real world was not as pure as the theoretical world in which they had been formulated.

I recall a colleague on that masters course who was daunted by the reading list; he needed to sit down with one of the tutors and be taught that it was not necessary to read a text book from cover to cover, but that it was okay to work from the contents list and the first few paragraphs of each chapter to identify those parts of the book that might be particularly relevant. He, nor indeed I, had not been taught this at school and certainly for me the lack of instruction in learning how to learn led to a major disconnect when I went from the structured instructional environment of a grammar school to the unstructured find-your-own way environment at the University with the results that I failed my first year and subsequently the degree. My grammar school thought that all I needed to learn was a load of facts, not how to learn.

So to go back to school. My question to you is what do you think is the most important thing for young people to learn at school? You will no doubt have your own answer, mine is that every young person needs to learn how to learn and to acquire the habit of learning

In much of our lives we acquire learning passively and collect habits good and bad without really thinking about how those habits have developed. But how would it be if Boeing designed an aeroplane passively, or an engineer designed a bridge passively? No, they actively learn about how to be more effective at designing aeroplanes and bridges by studying the successes and failures of themselves and others.

So let’s apply this discipline more widely in our lives. Let’s take five or 10 min at the end of every day to reflect upon what happens to us that day, perhaps the most significant incidents or the unusual ones. Write it down and write down what actually happened and how you felt abou;t it think about how it was the same as or different from your previous experiences and feelings and write that down; work out how it fits with your current understanding of the world (or not) and whether it might be necessary to change your opinion or understanding in order to fit this real new experience into your world; then finally work out some way of testing this new world map and using this new knowledge

Your learning diary and the habit of learning may well turn out to be the most valuable 10 minutes you spend every day of your life. Actively acquire the habit of learning. Do let me know how you find your experience of writing a learning diary.

Stretch your brain

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Energised brainIf you are anything like me your brain will have been on ‘idle’ for the last week or so – occupied with eating, drinking, socialising…and if you are anything like me, it now needs waking up – the metaphorical stretches that we do before exercise to make sure our muscles are warmed up properly. Anyone who has ever done yoga or other forms of exercise knows that unless we use and stretch our muscles regularly they tighten and weaken. Well, the same applies to our brain. Just imagine what your brain might be like if it was NEVER challenged and stretched from childhood – it’s the challenge and stretch that helps us learn and keeps our thinking gear fit and able.

One of the exercises we often challenge our coaching clients to complete is to do something different(ly) every day. It might simply be to read a different newspaper, or travel to work via a different route or mode of tansport, it might be to brush your teeth with the ‘wrong’ hand or to spend 10 minutes just watching the birds instead of the television…there are thousands of ‘differents’ that you could think of and do and any one of them offers the prospect of some learning and certainly keeps the brain agile.
So our Level 1 exercise is simply to do something different every day.
Level 2 is to record it and consoider what you learned about yourself or the world as a consequence of the action – and there is always some learning.

Go on, have a go – do something different every day for a week and record your feedback as comments on this article.