What have you stopped noticing?

I waschinese on mobile phone sitting minding my own business on Manchester Picadilly Station a few days ago (oh, the exciting places I get to for coaching assignments!) when an obviously ‘Chinese’ looking young guy came and sat alongside me. Well, as Manchester has one of the biggest Chinese communities in the UK, that was no real surprise. What DID however surprise me was when he pulled out his mobile phone to ring someone and this perfect Manchester accent emerged from his mouth.

Now what really surprises me about that is that I was surprised. I live in Bradford and am perfectly at home with young people with obviously Asian heritage speaking in a broad West Yorkshire accent – I don’t even notice what some might hear as a vocal incongruity, indeed the potential for noticing would be in an Asian under 30 years old speaking in an Asian accent!

Our brains are designed to notice difference, so the incongruity of the Chinese Mancunian is perhaps not surprising. But what is the process, and what are the consequences, of the incongruous becoming the norm?

Whatever the process, this is a challenge faced by anyone brought into an organisation to stimulate change. While we are outsiders we notice all sorts of things about the organisation, and the behaviours of its’ players, that the insiders miss because they have become habituated. In time, we risk ‘going native’ and ourselves becoming habituated to all those ‘weird’ behaviours we have been employed to point out and change. A change agent has a limited life in any organisation.

So, what have you stopped noticing about your world? And what are the consequences?

Are you really listening?

I hear you but am I listening?Yesterday, I was driving my granddaughter to meet Peppa Pig. The radio happened to be on and it was one of those “my favourite tracks” sessions. The subject, I can’t remember who it was and it doesn’t really matter anyway, played Michael Jackson’s ‘The Man in the Mirror’, introducing it with comments to the effect that it was a song about how effecting change in the world necessitated starting with the man in the mirror (that is, yourself). I have heard this track many times and never, ever made that connection.

Then, this morning, I am driving that same grand daughter to nursery listening to a programme about The Jam Generation – that generation brought up in the 1980s with The Jam as part of their youthful soundtrack. The commentator seemed surprised that some senior Tories claimed to enjoy The Jam, and other groups of that ilk, despite the relatively left wing nature of their lyrics. He could not understand how they could subscribe to the lyrics in the song and yet be right-leaning Tories.

What both of these incidents suggested to me was the difference between hearing something and listening to it.

I have heard the Michael Jackson track many times and many times I have explained to other people that when I am listening to music. I very rarely pay attention to the specific words in the lyrics. More, I am concerned with the patterns of sound.

In the second case there the similarity, the commentator did not seem to acknowledge the possibility that these right-wingers could be hearing the lyrics while not listening to the words.

Now this observation is no great shakes but it does remind me of the need to be clear about whether a conversation I am part of is simply part of my life’s soundtrack or something whose contents might have much more meaning if I paid attention to what the other person was saying. Listening is an active process, its demands mental effort.

So today my challenge is to pay active attention when you are listening – whether to the radio, your colleagues at work, your partner, or whoever. Maybe it’s okay to have the radio on as a background soundtrack; but surely when we are face-to-face with someone they deserve as much attention from those as we might expect from then in reverse

Life is (not always) good

Life is good
I have just read a comment on Facebook “X wishes that people would not use Facebook to moan about stuff”.

Do you know people who seem to spend more time complaining than celebrating? More time moaning about how grim the world is than doing something, anything, about it? So did I until…

He had been a friend for many years, generally hard work but occasionally real fun to be with. We had gone out for a Chinese meal one night and for some reason he took umbrage at my leaving a tip for the staff – something, I forget what, had not pleased him abut the service but I had been very happy and I was paying and so left the usual tip. He went on, and on, and on, and on, and on… about how ‘wrong’ it was for me to leave a tip when he had been dissatisfied. Something must have flipped, because I told him there and then that as I was paying I felt it was for me to decide on a tip and anyway I did not appreciate him making a major visible and verbal fuss in a restaurant that I had used for years and hoped to use again. I then chose not to see him again – I deleted his presence from my life. And how things changed; that one action of saying ‘I have had enough of this. I am an adult and I choose with whom I spend my time’ released all sorts of space in my brain. This person had been an energy parasite for years and suddenly I had freed myself.

I guess that my reflection on all this is that we can look at life in two ways (to be a bit simplistic about it!). We can notice and comment on all the bad things – and they do exist – around us, or we can notice and recognise the good that happens.
What mindset do you think develops when we notice and talk about the crap that happens (and it does happen)? How much more positive are we likely to be about the world if we develop a mindset based on noticing the great stuff around us?

Now I am not saying to ignore the crap – it happens and needs dealing with. What I am saying is twofold, firstly deal with the duff stuff and move on, secondly notice and celebrate the good around you.

Today’s challenge – spend 15 minutes during which you actively notice and say out loud something positive every minute.
Tomorrow’s challenge (and every day thereafter) is to notice at least one high point of every day and to record it somewhere.

Isn’t life great 🙂

Finding that creative spark

creative spark between fingersI spent yesterday morning with a group of colleagues who are members of a Net2 group. The me, this group acts partly as networking but more significantly as an informal personal development network where I can share my expertise, have it challenged and add to it on the basis of the work and presentations that we do in the sessions. After yesterday’s meeting I commented to several people how pleasant it had been to share some time with like-minded individuals who operated in similar spheres and had a degree of intellectual and practical capability that offered me a challenge.

I really enjoy these meetings and found myself reflecting on the paradoxical nature of my attendance. On the one hand I have no doubt whatsoever that there is value in this group of like-minded people. The other hand suggests the value of diversity and the importance of exposing myself to new ideas and new people. So perhaps you to need to pay attention to both aspects of your learning. Perhaps you need to be challenged and challenge yourself within your domain of expertise as well as stimulating your creativity by exposing yourself to ideas and experiences that do not seem to be immediately relevant.

For those of us that operating in an essentially data rational world, it is the second aspect that might be particularly challenging. How might spending an afternoon in an art gallery or reading about the history of the Roman Empire or simply going for a walk along a beach help me design a better road, build a better sewage works or facilitate a meeting more effectively? The whole point is that we do not know. It is a simple fact that I often find interesting ideas popping into my head whilst I am doing these off-topic activities and it is received wisdom in creativity circles that both incubation and diversity of experience are important in generating creative ideas.

I guess another paradoxical aspect of the whole experience was that it boosted both my ego and my humility by helping me realise that not only am I rather capable but I also still have quite a lot to learn.

So, my challenge to you is, and this is perhaps especially relevant if you are in one of those are driven jobs or lifestyles where everything is planned and there is no time for anything new. Find creative ways to meet your peers (professional associations, networking groups etc) and also make time to do something that is out of the ordinary. Do both of these knowing that in some way, perhaps not known beforehand, both of them will add value to your life and help you do a better job.

Do let me know what you do and how it goes.

Assumptions and not-seeing

assumptionsIt’s 9:15 in the morning and my gorgeous little granddaughter comes running through all ready for nursery. “Would you like me to take you?” I ask and hear from the kitchen (her father) “You can’t because we don’t have the child seat”. Well I knew we did and I knew that it was in the kitchen and I know that he had put her coat on it when she came in the previous evening; so we put it in the car and off we went.

And then I ended up wandering around the centre of Bradford (yes, it is quite a sad life!) reflecting on this. How come a perfectly functioning adult fails to see a substantial child seat even though he has several times been within inches of it? And I thought of the many times I too have lost something only to have a colleague find it in the same place that I have been unsuccessfully looking … and of course the times that I pointed out to someone else that what they are looking for is right under their nose. So this is a fairly common pattern it seems – we can fail to see something that is physically right under our noses. So what’s going on?

Well, there are lots of things that could be going on and the one that I want to talk about today is assumptions. Where is the child seat? The working assumption, which is is correct 99% of the time, is that it is in my wife’s car. She was away and so a reasonable assumption would be that the car seat was not with us. If I am subconsciously assuming that something is not present, it seems quite likely that my consciousness is not going to be looking for it and hence will not see it even when it is there. I assume that tickets that gig I wanted to go to have sold out, so I do not even enquire – only to find out after the event that the hall was half full; I assume that that beautiful young woman/man would not consider going out with me and so I do not even ask.

Assumptions get in our way and part of my daily challenge is to identify some of the assumptions that I am running at any particular moment. Remember, we all run a series of assumptions all the time. Assumptions, call them beliefs, influence our thoughts and actions in ways that are sometimes incomprehensible to both ourselves and others.

Even my four-year-old granddaughter is running them. She (implicitly) assumes that when she asks “Why?” there is an answer that can be given in terms and a timeframe that a four-year-old will understand. Maybe there is and maybe my assumption that that is not always true is wrong.

So the story has two thrown up two challenges. Firstly to notice more actively what is around you. To use your eyes and ears and smell etc actively rather than in the passive way that many of us operate most of the time. Secondly to stop occasionally and explore what assumptions you are holding about a situation. What do you believe to be true in this situation? What would have to be true for what is happening to make sense? When you surface these assumptions you will have a different perspective on what you are observing and hence more choices about how to live willfully and thoughtfully this world.

(Oh, by the way, one of my assumptions is that if you have read this far you must be interested in the topic. So how about taking a couple of minutes out to write your comments or share with me some assumption that you found to be less than helpful.)

Are you Browsing or Seeking?

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.

No risk, no reward

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.

Metaprograms – Sameness or Difference

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

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

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.