Quote Of The Week
Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.
All managers are expected to know what they are doing. But how they do it is just as important if the business is to survive and prosper. Business ethics is about that: how you do business. Read more...
Monday Tips
Politics has changed
No, I am not talking about national politics. I mean the politics that exist in the workplace.
Regardless of how the pandemic has affected your workplace, it is likely that those changes have shifted things in your work’s political landscape.
Politics arises because people bring their personal emotions, needs, ambitions, and insecurities into their professional lives and these colour the way they go about achieving success. On top of that, people’s idea of what success looks like will vary, who they are will mean their preferred way of achieving it will vary, and how they try and influence others to their way of thinking will vary.
The result… politics in the workplace.
Here are the four political animals at large within most organisations.
Which animals, or mix of them, represent your colleagues?
How have they changed their politics during the pandemic?
How have you changed?
Maybe share the above link with your colleagues and ask them?
If you don’t want to do that, which animal does that suggest you are?
The expert's trap
When an expert tackles a problem, they have many advantages, and also some disadvantages.
"In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few." Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki
As we learn more about a topic, we lose a beginner's perspective and their access to solutions we can't imagine because our expertise makes us selectively blind. Assumptions become hard-wired into our expert selves, and we don't notice what they do to our thinking.
The truth is that sometimes we don't look where we should look, we don't ask the questions we should ask, and we don't try what we should try, because our assumptions mean we think it's pointless to do so.
Are you struggling with a problem?
Adopt a beginner's mindset.
Find a beginner and explain the problem to them.
You will have to explain the problem in a different way to how you think about it, which will provide new avenues to explore.
They will ask questions which might seem stupid given your hard-wired assumptions, but what can those questions reveal about your blind spot?
Escape the expert's trap.
What's on your exam paper?
Life is a test. Or at least, it can feel that way sometimes. We are tested by relationships, circumstances, and of course recently, the pandemic.
It can be useful to copy others as they go about responding to their tests. We can learn from their experience, but it can also be misleading.
You see, the tests they have are different. Think of it this way... the questions on their exam paper are different. If you just copy what they are doing, you are answering the wrong exam!
What are the questions on your exam paper?
According to Ain Eineziz, "You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it."
In other words, you CAN pass your exam paper. Just make sure you are answering the right one.
Ready, Fire, Aim
The prevailing mantra, reinforced in the movies, is ready, aim, fire. And the hero or heroine pulls off an impossible shot and saves the day!
This mantra is based on the idea that you only have one shot to get whatever it is you are hunting.
Not so with most things. You get multiple shots, and you can adjust between attempts based on the feedback you get.
So... Ready, Fire, Aim
We are so conditioned to the movie version that Ready, Fire, Aim sounds funny, like a well-known jingle with a wrong note.
Let's try that again...
Prepare a rough draft of your intentions (Ready), take action (Fire), see what happens and adjust (Aim). Then repeat, and repeat again, and again. Deliberate practice until your aim is true. How do you think the hero got that good?
Low skills? Indecision? Procrastination?
Then use Ready, Fire, Aim, Repeat.
Here are some more tips on how to stop procrastinating.
And here are two videos on some incredible archery, and Ready, Fire, Aim, Repeat. https://youtu.be/BEG-ly9tQGk https://youtu.be/DZsQmlZclTo
Can being stubborn kill you?
Well, this billboard from the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality suggests it can.
And the graffiti artist disagrees ?
Are you stubborn?
Think of one thing that you know you should be doing but are not doing.
Perhaps someone told you to do it, and you don’t like being told what to do.
Perhaps doing it will mess up something else you like doing, and you won’t give that up.
Perhaps it does not fit with the image you have of yourself.
Perhaps you are fearful of what people will think of you if you do it.
On the other hand, stubbornly holding to a course of action against the odds can result in success.
It seems being stubborn has a light side and a dark side.
Given that thing you are being stubborn about, which is it for you?
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Marketing
Marketing is often misunderstood! It's important in all areas of the business, including L&D.
Download 50 Essential Tips for Managers
Download 50 Essential Tips for Managers
How to get better results for you and your team? The 50 Essential Tips for Managers booklet provides helpful tips and advice on key areas of effective management.