Aiming for a stress-less year? January 8, 2007
Are you back to work after the yearly New Years break? Maybe you only took a few days off, or maybe a few weeks. I enjoyed a mostly quiet time with family and friends. I hope whatever time you had was enjoyable, relaxing and refreshing. And now that the New Year is already in full swing, it’s time to examine our goals for the coming year.
Most people already know about SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
Though while SMART goals are great, I have a few additional questions I add when helping people set out and achieve their goals. These questions help to direct your thinking in specific ways and gathers a little more detail. Some of these questions may save you months of wasted effort and frustration, others might help you redirect from failure.
So think of your goals going forward this year and answer these questions:
1. What is your desired outcome, stated in positive terms?
2. How do you know when you have reached your desired outcome?
2.a. How do you prove to someone else that you achieved your goal? (Hint: your feelings are not a valid answer.)
2.b. Is the outcome initiated and controlled by you? If not, how can you bring it under your control?
3. In what context do you want it? When, where, with whom?
4. How will the achieving this outcome affect your life?
4.a. Will you, or anyone you know object to the results this goal achieves?
4.b. What will be added?
4.c. What will be removed?
5. What stops you from having your desired outcome already?
6. What resources do you need?
So if you have not already written down some goals to increase your health, wealth and enjoyment then now is a good time. If you already have, pull them out and answer the questions to make achieving those goals much easier.
Technorati Tags: Business, Change, Motivation, Proactiveness, Goalsetting, Stress
How to silence your internal dialogue December 11, 2006
Your infernal internal dialogue can be brought under control. You might, at this time, think that it doesn’t slow you down that much. I can assure you, unless you have control over it, it does.
Some examples of how internal dialogue hamstrings you include:
- Reading speed is doubled if you don’t internally verbalise the words you are reading.
- You are able to reach a place of Flow much easier and your Flow states are extended (one of the most common interrupter of flow states is Internal Dialogue)
- It is often a common cause of insomnia.
- It impairs your learning by distracting you from the learning environment and by stuffing whatever the current topic is into what you already know (This is not what I consider learning).
- It often increases the stress you experience.
- It serves as a powerful de-motivator. How many times have you talked yourself out of something?
There are many more examples of how your performance can improve once you stop talking to yourself. Internal dialogue has it’s place I want you to understand that. Unfortunately most of us over use our internal dialogue, at the wrong times and wrong places.
I had breakfast the other day with friends who have an 8 month old child. I was awed by the silence in her (One of the common experiences that occurs when your internal dialogue is off, is that you can sense other people’s). She was simply there, watching, learning and experiencing the world. Of course, being 8 months old, she does not yet have the capability for any dialogue, let alone internal. And after reading Kathy Sierra I decided to build this list.
So without further delay, here is a list of methods you can use to get control over this internal dialogue. When I remember or find more, I’ll add them to the list. If you have any of your own, please add them in the comments!
- Restate your internal dialogue immediately after hearing it. This brings your internal dialogue under your conscious control by breaking the pattern.
- Move the location of your internal dialogue into your voice box. Most people listen to their dialogue coming from a specific location. Often from the back of their head and off to one side. Move that location to where you physically speak from and it usually silences the chat.
- You can also extend on #2 by moving the voice to different locations for different effects. Some locations work great for motivating you, others for de-motivating. Experiment.
- Further on #2 and #3, you can externalise the voice. Set up a chair, and hear the voice coming from that chair. You can then have a proper conversation with it!
- Pick a personal mantra, then use it. “Shut the hell up” is one such mantra:-)
- Not really a method, but helps understanding. Who, when your internal dialogue is chattering away, are you speaking to?
- Using the 6-step reframing method from NLP. This method uses a signal system to set up with your unconscious mind that allows you to negotiate the times and places to turn on or off your internal alogue.
- Imagining a volume control knob. Turn up the volume of your internal dialogue, and turn it all the way down.
- If you have internal dialogue that you don’t like very much, changing the tone often helps. Turn the tone into the most seductive, most sensual voice you can imagine. How do you feel about it now?
- While rare, sometimes the voice we hear is actually another voice – a parent for example. In these cases, give the voice back to the original owner.
- Writing out the words your internal dialogue speaks often helps. Usually it runs out of things to say very quickly. With critical statements, you can also then write out counter examples stating how untrue or over generalised these statements are.
- Act. If there is something that you want to do, for example talking to a stranger, hesitation will ensure you talk yourself out of whatever action you considered. If you hear that voice, ignore it and act.
- Remember the silence. While you read this sentence, I want you to read it out loud. Half way through a word in a sentence, pause. You mind will, naturally, go on silent hold. Remember this ‘feeling’ and you can bring it back when you want by doing the same with your internal dialogue. With proper practice, you can keep that pause indefinitely.
- Wide peripheral vision. Imagine you are balancing an apple on the top of your head. Now move the apple about 2 inches back. Keep your attention on the apple. Now look at the world around you and notice your hands on the keyboard, the top of the monitor, the walls on your left and right and the other objects around you. Notice them all at the same time. Chances are your internal dialogue has quietened down.
Add your comments with your own methods for silencing the harshest of critics!
Technorati Tags: Brain, Change, Communication, Learning, Motivation, Psychology, Stress
Suffering from burnout? December 6, 2006
The New York Magazine is running a feature story on burnout.
They offer some interesting ideas, and point to some of the research that is out there. I’ve been in a similar situation and you can read part of the story here. The rest of the story I’m saving for the introduction of my book on stress reduction. Yes, it’s still being written and researched. Yes, it’ll be ready when it’s ready.
Because of the experience of that story, I’ve collected a professional group together for making sure you don’t burn out, and in case you already have, put you out and fix you up. Details can be found here.
Update: Jory Des Jardins explores the causes of worker burnout. A useful article on the interactions between company culture and worker burnout.
Technorati Tags: Business, CEO, Change, Productivity, Stress
Not getting the results you want? Remember to breathe.
The results you achieve are directly related to your physiology. What this means is that if you are tired, sore and depressed, your results will be very different to when you are energised, focused and relaxed. To put it another way, if you show me someone performing in the world, I can show you how their physiology continues to reinforce the results this person is getting.
One of the simplest things you can do to alter your physiology is to change your state. The easiest way to do this is alter your breathing. Throughout your life your breathing changes in response to your environment. If you are stressed or anxious, your breath is fast and shallow. After a run you breathe heavily. As a child, to cry you breathed in a different way. When you sleep, your breath slows and deepens. When you are surprised you give a sudden intake of breath. When you relax there is often a sigh. All these and more are common, universal changes in breath. They are automatic and unconscious, and are a response to what your body is doing. What most people don’t realise, however, is that your body responds in turn to how you are breathing.
An example you can play with yourself: your heart naturally slows as you breathe out, and speeds as you breathe in. When you think about it, this makes sense as there is less oxygen in your lungs on your breath out than on your in breath. So if you ever want to slow your heart rate, you can take a very fast in breath, and then an extended slow out breath. Or, if you want to speed it up, do the opposite.
If at any time you find your results are not meeting your expectations, change your breathing. And the easiest method I teach is one your body already knows. If you are like most people I teach stress reduction and peak performance techniques to, you don’t know you already know. Take a deep breath in, and then sigh heavily. Notice how you feel when you do this. Usually your shoulders will drop a little, and other muscles will relax. If you then consciously relax as much as you can when you sigh, you increase the effectiveness of this single breath.
Technorati Tags: Change, Presenting, Proactiveness, Stress
Three information gathering tools for negotiation and sales. August 28, 2006
As any negotiator or sales executive will tell you, information is key to good negotiating. The group with the most information is in a better position. The ultimate example of this is when you know the negotiation position of the other group.
A friend of mine invited me along to assist with one of his negotiations. It was for a fairly large contract, and included many different parts. The pair of us walk into the board room of the client, and there are three people sitting with their backs to the window that looks over the city. We go through introductions, exchange business cards, and do some friendly banter.
Once comfortable, their lead negotiator opens his leather folder. On top of the note pad, is a single typed sheet with the 5 points they want to cover during this meeting. Along with those 5 points was a short line of what they would like and their minimum requirements. And while reading upside down is not difficult, only a few people seem to know how. Spend 30 minutes and you will be able to read upside down well enough. Luckily I learned to do it in primary school when someone dared me that I couldn’t. (This behaviour of proving people wrong has benefited me more than cost, although I do have many scars when things didn’t go according to plan). I quickly noted down a few things that I read off their list before it was turned over.
Suddenly we are in a better negotiating position, knowing where their bottom line was.
Through the course of the meeting, as the conversation continued, the other team would write notes back and forth. Another skill I learnt early on was how to read what someone was writing by watching the end of their pen. As they write a word, the opposite end writes the reverse in the air. Each letter is often exaggerated thanks to the pivot point being much closer to the paper. This enables, with a little practice, the ability for someone to read what you write, without ever seeing the page.
So as the other team wrote ‘private’ notes back and forth, I would translate and pass this information on.
Needless to say, the negotiation went well.
A third skill along these lines, lip reading, is much more difficult to learn. I’ve spent some time learning, practising and talking with those that can, but with little personal success. Part of this is the ambiguity in lip movements when making a sound. Stand in front of a mirror and read your lips as you say “Olive Juice” to understand what I mean.
Technorati Tags: Business, Communication, Learning, Negotiation, Persuasion, Psychology, Sales
What you allow, you encourage July 30, 2006
Most of my work is helping in changing behaviour. Only sometimes do I help in understanding the behaviour to be changed. The behaviour you engage in is directly related to the results you get. By extension of that, the behaviour of the people around you is related to your own.
I have discussed this before. Another example is when you allow bad behaviour, you increase the chances of it happening again.
Last year, as part of of my own personal development, I worked in an outbound call centre. As an outbound call centre, they were very focused on getting sales. As long as you get sales, the managers don’t particularly care what else you do. This lead to all kinds of hi-jinx. Some of these included:
- Coming into the morning shift direct from a night club
- Signing into the phone then going shopping
- Going to a long lunch at a nearby bar and returning too drunk to walk
- Direct lies to customers to ensure a sale
Several times the team was told to stop infringements and bad behaviour, yet there was little or no other action taken. This lead to an increase in both the severity and frequency. These events didn’t happen by accident. They built up little by little over time. And with each little incident that was ignored it gave everyone else an behavioural example of what is permissible.
Technorati Tags: Brain, Business, Change, Learning, Management, Persuasion, Productivity, Psychology
Be more Proactive for those around you April 27, 2006
Years ago now, I was working as a technical expert. I loved the work. It was exciting, I got to play with millions of dollars of equipment, and I was a key member of the team – and it almost killed me…
Being a key member had its drawbacks. One of which was that I was indispensable. I now understand that I painted myself into the indispensable position and became my own worst enemy to my growing workload. I had this strange ability to turn normal, smart individuals into five-year-old children unable to tie their own shoelaces. I was able to expertly remove their proactiveness. These previously smart people would call on me for advice, suggestions and to make decisions at any time, day or night. Very stressful, and entirely my own fault. At the time I didn’t realise what I was doing
Almost every manager I’ve ever spoken to wants to have proactive employees. Every employee I’ve ever met, or been, sits somewhere on a continuum of proactiveness. On one side you have micromanagement, on the other completely independent workers. I break this continuum into 4 main groups of proactiveness. Where someone is located can be immediately identified through his or her behaviour (and also through the behaviour of their manager) and it is possible to encourage the people you work with to move through the groups. I would expect most people would want to move into group 4, the most proactive. However I’ll discuss how to go backwards for completeness…
Depending on where your co-workers fit within these groups makes a huge difference to your working day. These groups are:
1. Wait to be told what and usually how to do something.
2. Ask if they can do something.
3. Do something and immediately check it is ok.
4. Do something and let you know the final results.
Group one usually is unskilled labour. We also see this behaviour with young children. This loads most of the thinking and decision making onto the manager (or you). Usual employee statements will be “I’m bored”, “I’m finished with this activity, what is next?” etc.
Group two will work happily keeping themselves busy. Until there is a decision that falls outside, or sometimes even near their area of control. Then they forward the decision over to their manager or some other authority. Typical statements are “Can I do X?”, “I want to X, is that ok?”
Group three is where we start to delegate effectively. This is where people start to make their own decisions, though they are usually not comfortable enough to do so without checking. Usual statements are “I’m going to X, is that ok?” “I’ve just done X, and I’m waiting on the result”. As a side note, here is where people begin to internalise the questions they asked in group two. They begin to ask themselves the questions they asked of someone else.
Group four is usually where you want most people to be, most of the time. This is where they do their job, and check in every now and again to update you on their progress. Typical statements are “Here is where we are with X” “Project Y is nearing completion and will be finished by Thursday”.
So, how do we encourage the people around us in business to move along this line to where we want them to be to enable us to most comfortable in our own work?
Step 1 – Awareness. Become aware of which group you fall into, and the groups that the people around you fall into. Knowing where you are on the line means you can make a knowledgeable decision on what to do next to get you closer to you goal. Knowing which group you are in usually matches the group of the people around you.
Step 2 – Ask the right questions, or make the right statements to get them moving in the direction that you want.
If you want someone to move to the right, a very powerful question, that everyone should know is “what do you think?” This question quickly hands back the decision and responsibility to the other person. When you do this, resist the urge to make the ‘final’ decision on what activities to perform.
If you want someone to move to the left, the usual way is to give them direct commands. “I want you to do X, Y, Z.” Begin to micromanage by asking detail orientated how questions.
Understand that when someone comes to you and asks “I’m done with this project, do you have anything else I can do?” if you give them a direct answer, or more work, you are actively encouraging them to stay in group 1 and 2.
When you answer their questions directly you are:
- making them dependent on you (which might well be your intention – moving them to the left),
- limiting their career progression,
- increasing your own workload and stress (they will keep coming to you for their next job).
When you ask them, “What do you think?” you begin to move them through to groups 3 and 4. The reason is because they begin to ask these questions for themselves before coming to you.
Moving someone along the line does not happen immediately. It might take them 20 times to move someone from group one to group two. Above all, you need to be consistent. If you flip back and forth, so will the people around you. Your results will be limited as a result.
To fix my own problem, once I realised what I was doing, I began to push back on the phone calls – if the request did not need my direct input or action, I handed it back to the questioner. It was hard to do this at the start. I wanted to answer their questions, I wanted to be helpful. The more I moved the questioners from groups 1 and 2 into groups 3 and 4, the more time I had, the less stress I experienced, and the more I got done in less time.
Update: Seth Godin re-enforces this here with the questions to ask yourself to keep yourself in group 4…
Technorati Tags: Business, CEO, Change, Persuasion, Proactiveness, Psychology, Stress
Presentation difficulties? April 14, 2006
There are many things that can be done to help if you have difficulty giving presentations. I have worked with many people with this exact same problem (with very different symptoms). One individual, for example, could not even say ‘hello’ when someone came and introduced themselves, let alone speak in front of more than 3 people… Another example is here and here.
1. Prepare your speech in a specific way. write out the speech, test it and give it a full dress rehearsal. Then immediately do another dress rehearsal, but this time with no sound … Make all the gestures, mouth and face movements etc, just don’t speak the words.
2. Once done, imagine you get asked some questions – start with simple ones like “what’s your name?” and lead up to very in depth, personal questions such as “What colour is your underwear?” When you answer these imagined questions – focus not on your answers, but on your physical state. You know what question you most want to avoid or you have the most difficulty with – have these on your list!
3. Get comfortable with silence. When someone asks you a question, and you pause to gather your thoughts (or in this case, get comfortable) you will be considered as giving a better answer.
4. More preparation. Independent of your speech, practice changing your emotional state. Pick two emotions, happy and sad, for example. Imagine you are happy, stand and move and act as if you are. Do that for 2 minutes. Then change to ’sad’. Move, talk and think as if you are sad. Do that for 2 more minutes. Then go back to happy for two minutes. (finish with the enjoyable one…) Really amp each state up, even if you don’t feel it. How will a world class actor do it?
These are just a few drills from a long list that will give you the skill of intentionally being able to keep control over and change your state quickly and easily. At the start it might be slow and difficult, the more you do it, the better you will get…
Technorati Tags: Business, Persuasion, Presenting, Stress
RIFed? April 12, 2006
Pink slips, reduction in force, headcount adjustment, retrenchment, termination, lay-off – whatever it’s called means a lot of fear and confusion for employees. Not just for the individuals involved in these events, but every other person in the company.
The knowledge that retrenchments are coming is, in my experience, usually known about long before it happens. Sure, there are often employees that are surprised, confused and angry that they are on the list, but they knew there was a list.
I remember back to my first retrenchment, many many years ago. I walked into the office one morning and there was a feeling, a smell – something was wrong. I ignored it for an hour or two, thinking it was just me skipping breakfast. Then there was a strange general meeting of all employees. We were collected from our desks and marshalled in the large cube farm in the centre of the office. After an extended wait, with growing unease, the CEO then explained the situation – the parent company was reviewing performance, nothing firm as yet, 3 months grace, I’m in the same situation, you’ll all be looked after…
The rumor cycle starts from anywhere from a year to three months before the event. Then about a month before the actual retrenchments, there are general comments made that there ‘might be retrenchments’, or ‘we are reviewing headcount’… And with today’s corporate environment most employees knows that their job is on the line. And the thing that causes them the most stress is not knowing their position is tentative, but knowing that there is nothing they can do to change their predicament. They are not being fired for poor performance, not because they made too many mistakes, but because they are in the wrong place, at the wrong time. To them, some manager that they may have not ever met is striking a pen through their career. This can build a situation of learned helplessness and depression, neither of which is desired in an employee or workforce.
A month later the same CEO called another meeting. Everyone was given a months notice. Usually the company doesn’t got out of business like this. Usually there are people left behind.
During the time of retrenchments the managers in the company need to speak plainly and clearly. It’s not enough to say that there has been retrenchments, and the company will grow stronger for it. Often the people you are saying that to know that they have just picked up someone else’s workload.
Too many times I’ve seen and heard a ‘management whispers’ (similar to the childhood game of Chinese whispers) scenario. The CEO will say one thing, and as it filters down the chain of command it changes and shifts. I’ve even experienced first hand the information to employees changing from “there should be no more retrenchments” to “there will be more retrenchments”. For two months the employees were expecting to be out the door at any time – not surprisingly their effectiveness and productivity dropped. At another time, I watched the management team say nothing – and listened to the rumor mill grind down the company morale. There is also research that shows morale has an effect on stock price.
Management should be transparent in their decisions. Explain clearly why the people that have been retrenched were chosen, how that relates to the company as a whole, and how that relates to each individual. If the reason is a corporate restructure, then explain why there is a restructure. Cialdini discussed in his book Influence how this is so effective. If you want to cut in line, asking to will work about 60% of the time. Asking to and giving a reason, any reason, will work over 90% of the time… Sure, the employees don’t need to know why, but it helps them feel more comfortable and it will stop them from making up their own reasons.
Technorati Tags: Business, CEO, Change, Psychology, Stress
Social conditioning binding March 25, 2006
Steve Paulina has an interesting write-up about how you can get many benefits in your life by expanding your perspective.
You can read it here.
Interestingly, he does not talk about changing your perspective. Usually the most useful and powerful method to help you sell more, get you out of a depressed state, understand someone else’s motives, relieve stress, reduce performance anxiety, learn new skills and much much more.
I’m working on a nice write up of how to actually change your perspective in a useful and effective way. I’ll put a link up here once it’s finished…
Technorati Tags: Brain, Persuasion, Presenting, Psychology, Stress
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