Attention - most scarce resource facing leaders today!

In a world of 24/7 activity where there appears to be very little, if any, time to switch off it’s no wonder that we feel overwhelmed and overloaded with information. We can find out almost anything at the press of a button.

I was recently reading an article from McKinsey claiming the scarce resource leaders have to manage today is their attention. The article goes on to lay out a set of capabilities about how to organise work to allow people to think. If you want to read more you can find the article here:

However, in this blog I’m hoping to provide you with some insight into what you can do to change this. What can you do to take control of your attention and help your team to do the same? 

Training your brain

Being overloaded with information leads to distractedness, confusion and poor decision making. We become paralysed by analysis and endless debate resulting in inefficient and sometimes ‘bad’ decisions and a feeling of standing still or worse being stuck!

Because your attention is fragmented you don’t quite know where to put your focus first. Your brain is flooded with data.

The thing is our brains are not designed to do more than one thing at once. As soon as it becomes overloaded it slows down and uses more of our energy (glucose and oxygen). Prioritising is actually one of the brains most energy hungry processes!

Your best quality thinking lasts for a limited amount of time, which is why at certain times it’s harder to concentrate, or even think straight.

So, how can you organise yourself so that you do your best quality thinking at the right time and deliver better results?

 Managing your attention

Here are my top 5 tips to help you manage your attention and as a consequence your energy.

•   Make a list

As one of my coaches used to say ‘Your brain is a thinking device not a storage device’. If you’re one of those people who prides themselves on being able to remember everything, bear in mind you are using a lot of your brains thinking capacity to do this. If you’ve things ‘to do’ write them down and get them out of your head so you can use your brain for it’s best work: planning, problem solving and communicating.

•   Breathe

Take a long deep breath (or two). Breathe from your diaphragm and loosen your jaw. You can do this as you are walking and if you do you may notice you slow down a little. This is OK! What this action initiates is a kick start for your parasympathetic nervous system. This calms you down and helps you think more clearly. There is a lot more science behind this but this will do for now.

•  Decide when your best thinking time is

I’m a morning person and I know this is when I do my best thinking, so if I have some important thinking to be done this is when I schedule it. Determine what works for you and allocate your meetings that require your best thinking, or attention rich tasks, to these times of the day. An example of this would be anything that requires new concepts or anything you haven’t experienced before - picturing something you haven’t seen before takes a lot more effort from your brain.

I know scheduling these things to your best thinking time isn’t always possible and if you know you’re out of sync you can prepare yourself in a different way.

•  Embed repetitive tasks where you can

Thinking about problems when it relates to things we have experienced before or seen is easy. So if there is anything that you can make a routine – do it! This helps it become ingrained in your brain (and your body) requiring less “thinking capacity”.

•      Remove distractions

Distractions simply add to the information and data in your brain that will send you into overload. You need to become really good at setting boundaries and saying no, or no not now. This may seem harsh, or selfish, and people will get used to it and it is about you operating at your best, so it will be a win/win on all sides in the long run.

Next steps

If you are feeling overwhelmed and know that you are not being as attentive as you know you can be try this out for two or three weeks and let me know how you get on.

If you know, like world class athletes, that additional support helps you become more aware, effective and impactful send me an email to set up a discovery call and we can explore your needs and how I may be able to help you.

"In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact." 

Les Brown 

The secret to creating new habits

As humans it’s very easy for us all to stick with our normal pattern of behaviour and forget to do something new.

The way we respond to situations is often habitual.

The patterns we all have of reacting to the external world have become ingrained and automatic to us.

It’s only through conscious practice we can change this.  

Through conscious practice we’re aiming to create a new habit. We’re training our mind and body to do something different, so you’re undoing 20/30 or 40 years of an old habits.

How many times have you been on a training course or leadership programme and walked away with lots of new ‘stuff’ to put into practice?

How many times have you actually followed through with this?

In my experience many people go back into the workplace with great intentions only to find these good intentions fall by the wayside.

I have been coaching now for over 15 years and one of the many things I have learned is that you can’t bring about new ways of being with out practice.

It takes time.

Think about how you learned to ride a bike, drive a car, learned to swim or any other activity that requires your co-ordination. It took practice, and I’m sure you made some mistakes along the way AND you still learned. You made adjustments and kept practicing.

Changing anything you do is no different. This may be the way you respond to a situation, a way of thinking, or trying out something new, it takes practice and adjustments.

To build mastery as a leader, you need to be more than just our automatic self.

So now is the time for you to consider what you want to practice on a regular basis in the New Year.

I’ve put together some simple steps to help you develop this. I hope you find them useful.

There are six steps in total, so let me talk you through them: 

1. Focus on one thing: Consider one thing, and only one thing that you want to change.
2. Make it manageable: Break it down into bite size chunks. What will be enough to take you out of your comfort zone and not stress you out?
3. Practice: Determine how often you are going to practice. Do you want to practice several times a day, or once a day? Whatever you decide do it as regularly as you can.
4. Review: After each practice reflect. How is it going? What worked and what still needs practice?
5. Adapt: What do you need to adjust? What will help you get a better result? Do you need to change the frequency of your practice?
6. Celebrate: Acknowledge the progress you have made. If you forget to practice be kind to yourself. Your aiming to do something you haven’t done before so take it one step at a time. Imperfect action is better than no action at all. 

We all work better when we have someone who will support us and hold us accountable to do what we have committed to.

If you know someone who will play this role ask them to check in with you regularly and celebrate with them.

If you know you want to create some change in 2016 and you are ready to move to the next level email me at Dawn @aurora4success.co.uk. I would be more than happy to explore with you how you can become and even better version of yourself.

Let me be the one to hold you accountable for your practices!

In the meantime good luck and have fun becoming the leader you were born to be.

Have lots of success.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." 

Aristotle 

Are you a Change Manager or Change Enabler?

Last week I (with a colleague) presented at the International Coach Federations

UK event: Inspiring Coaching - the next 20 years.

The title of our session was “Harnessing the Dynamics of the Future’ and in it we referenced a couple of reports PWC 5 Global Megatrends, and the CIPD Megatrends – The trends shaping work and working lives.

The purpose of the session was to raise awareness of the huge shifts taking place globally and then reflect on what that means for us as leaders, because we are ALL leaders.

So my invitation is for you to do the same and feel free to read the reports in full, but for now here are the key themes:

• Economic power shifts are taking place and the gap is widening
• Technological breakthroughs are occurring with greater speed and less costs
• Global resource shifts – oil and gas reserves are depleting
• Changing demographics, there is now greater diversity in the workplace, a better educated global population and more people moving to live in cities.

The pace of change is increasing and most organisations are not changing at the same pace!

As a leader how are you preparing yourself to work in a world that is becoming more agile, complex and ambiguous?

Are you thinking about creating an agile organisation with a flexible, responsive structure to the management and conduct of work?

 

One thing is for sure the future requires a different way of leading, one that enables others to be more agile and responsive rather than manage others.

Which are you?

If not sure of the distinctions, use this rather quick and dirty checklist to do a little self-assessment.

  

Change Managers

1. Initiate change work to the plan where almost everything is prescribed
2. Invite only those of a certain grade to the table to problem solve
3. Manage change through a project office
4. Communicate major changes through a managed timetable with carefully honed scripts
5. Bring back any deviations from the norm back in line
6. Manage based on past experience and what has proven to work
7. Work through the hierarchy 

Change Enablers

1. Create conversations that generate problem-solving activity
2. Look for internal activist who want to be involved and have the courage to challenge the status quo
3. Invite and encourage commitment by asking people to get involved in the how of things from the front line not top down
4. Discard the notion of the right way
5. Learn as you go
6. Experiment
7. Encourage creative thinking

These two lists are not meant to be definitive. They are presented to initiate some reflection on how you are leading change currently, and hopefully, consider how you may adapt to be more enabling. Leading by harnessing the energies of those around you.

Making real change is a challenge for most of us – just think of all New Year resolutions that lapse after a very short period of time.

What one thing can you do to ensure the changes you’re leading come to fruition?

"To design the future effectively, you must first let go of your past."  


Charles J. Givens

The Good the Bad and the Ugly of Seeking Feedback

Over the years, working with hundreds of leaders in business, I have found that people are hungry for feedback and yet most people don’t ask for it.  When they do they are often not clear and ask questions like:

• How did I do?
• Can you give me some feedback?
• What can I do differently?

In this blog I have provided some tips on what you can do to get great feedback – the good, and what to avoid – the bad and the ugly….

The Good

The only way to improve and be a better leader is to receive great feedback and then put into practice what is appropriate for you to be the leader that you want to be.

Start by getting really clear what it is you want feedback on. When you know this make a very clear request in positive, concrete, action language and ask for what you actually want e.g.

” I have a request for you.” (This usually grabs people’s attention and they will stop and listen).

"I have written this presentation and I’d like you to critique it in the following way:

Does it meet the needs of the target audience?" (Be sure to tell them who the target audience is)

"What do you think the key messages are?

What if anything can I do to make it clearer in the two areas above.”

This is just one example of what a request for feedback might be and how to be clear about what you want. 

If you are working at improving the way you influence stakeholders be really clear about what it is you want feedback on; is it your voice tone, volume, the way you sit and stand, the language you use etc.

Always be prepared to ask for what the other person would suggest to make it even better ensuring you get specific actions that will help you.

Remember too you don’t always need to take it on board.

The Bad

Here are some common mistakes people make;

1. Asking in a vague and abstract way using ambiguous phrasing. The clearer you are about what you want the more likely you are to get it. 
2. Approaching the person they want feedback from in a sheepish way, making little eye contact and speaking quietly.
3. Skirting around the issue by talking generically about what you are working on and saying you would like feedback and not being clear that you want feedback from this person.
4. Being too direct so that your request comes across as a demand!

The Ugly

Here are some indicators to let you know you need some help in how you go about seeking feedback:

• You don’t actually know what you want, therefore don’t know what to ask for.
• You ask the wrong person for feedback. This may be someone who is not experienced enough on the topic you or simply not very good at giving feedback.
• You ask for what you don’t want e.g. I don’t want feedback on the content but anything else would be useful….
• You just don’t ask making the assumption no news is good news… 

If this criteria applies to you ensure you get support from someone who is really good at asking for feedback, or get a good coach.

What I do know is that people rarely say no when you take the time to seek their input. They may not be able to offer you anything right there and then, but they will generally comply if you enter into a conversation with them.

Be the leader in your life and always ask for what you want – it brings greater clarity to everyone around you.

“Making requests in clear, positive, concrete action language reveals what we really want.”

Marshall B. Rosenberg

The biggest problem with feedback and how you can fix it

When was the last time you received good quality feedback?

When was the last time gave good quality feedback to a member of your team, a peer or your boss?

As a professional coach giving feedback is an essential part of my work and from working with 100’s of clients over the years one thing I have learned is that people long for feedback. This is feedback of any nature – what they are good at and how they can improve.

So if people really want feedback how come they don’t get it?

It’s simple.

• Many people don’t know how to ask for feedback.
• Many people don’t know how to give good quality feedback.

All too often I hear generic feedback like, that was really good, you did a great job with …., I really liked the way you did …, this isn’t quite right, do this instead, I don’t think that went well….. This doesn’t help anyone know exactly what it is they did well or what hey need to improve.

 

Get Specific

If you are self aware you often know what you could do differently, and there are times when you don’t. What helps in these circumstances is getting really specific feedback. The more senior you go the more essential this is as it’s often fine-tuning that is required

The two guys who climbed El Capitan in Yosemite Park are a great example of this.

These guys are at the top of their game attempting a 3000 foot free climb. One of them, Kevin Jorgeson, struggled with one of the most difficult parts of the climb and attempted it 11 times over a 7-day period. 11 TIMES!! Each time he reflected on what he was doing and tried again, ripping his hands in the process. It was only when we saw footage from the cameraman (a form of feedback) that he noticed his feet were the problem not his hands. By simply adjusting his foot placement slightly he could make the next part of the climb. When he made this adjustment – he made it and then progressed to the top.

This is how specific we need to get when giving feedback.

What exactly is it your team member or colleague needs to do to be even better at their job? Do they need to change their language, change their tone, take some deep breaths when someone disagrees with them, think more specifically about their audience or their message, stand more confidently by lifting their head and standing balanced, make eye contact…

So next time you are about to give someone some feedback either spontaneously or during appraisal – what exactly is it that will help them?

Make sure they are in the right place mentally to receive it, and tell them that you have some feedback for them. If they are not ready for it they won’t hear it.

Make it count!

"All employees have an innate desire to contribute to something bigger than themselves.”

Jag Randhawa,

Five Leadership Benefits of Stopping and Reflecting

As a leader we are all busy and constantly bombarded with emails, meetings, requests, ideas, projects, change of plans, budget constraints…

I often hear my clients talk about how they seem to spend their day going from one meeting to the next with very little time to think. Any thinking that has to be done is either in the moment, or at either end of the day that may be on the way to and from work or at home. I know I’ve been there! 

As a coach a conversation I have with potential clients is how we do not give ourselves the space to think things through to either develop a way forward or solve or problem, or consider how we could do things differently. Having a coach actually allows you to create this space and have someone support you in your own process.

I recognise that not everyone is ready to have a coach so an alternative is to create some space for yourself on a regular basis to do your best thinking – even if it’s just fifteen minutes.

If you are wondering why here are the top 5 benefits you will gain:

Five Leadership Benefits of Reflecting:

Clarity about where you are: Taking some time out either at the end of the day, week or month gives you the opportunity to see the big picture and where you are against your goals. You can’t do this when your head is down in the ‘thick of things’.

Increased likelihood of revised action: If you are off track, taking regular reflective periods will allow you to spot this earlier and potentially save time by taking corrective actions early. Even if you are on track it allows you to spot opportunities that may save time in the future and increase your opportunities for success.

New ideas have the chance to emerge: If you a struggling with a particular situation or feel as though you are ‘stuck’ giving yourself some time to think about it will allow some space for new options and ideas to emerge.

Develop a higher level of thinking and problem solving: Think of this as a way to train your brain. By making a habit of having some reflective time your brain will get used to thinking differently – see my points later on possible questions to ask your self in this space.

You can be more effective: You can be more on the front foot and by reflecting on your own practice you can identify where you could be more effective through either adapting your approach or your style in a given situation.

Possible Reflective Questions to ask Yourself:

• What have been my successes over the last week/month?
• What are my current challenges?
• What will help me move this forward?
• What is my job in this team/company really about?
• What s getting in the way of me making progress?
• What is my most important goal right now?
• What assumptions am I making on this topic?
• What patterns do I see emerging?

These are only suggestions to get you started – feel free to come up with and share your own.

Some tips to get started

1. Find a time that works best for you. Is it daily or weekly? Is it morning, afternoon or evening? Be prepared to play with this until you find when you can commit and do your best thinking.
2. Stop any interruptions, including those you may create for yourself such as grabbing a coffee, doing this one email…
3. Find a place where you can do your best thinking. Get out of the office if necessary.
4. Identify clear actions you will take as a result, bearing in mind this may mean you stop doing something. 

If you are a leader who recognises that having a coach for a period of time will help you be even more effective email me to set up a discovery call so we can discuss your needs further: dawn@aurora4success.co.uk

“Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.”

Henry David Thoreau

The Bigger and Bigger Challenge

Leaders face a constant demand to exceed performance of the previous year regardless of the environmental factors; bigger numbers, bigger teams, bigger roles…

As a leader you probably take it on and do this seamlessly based on your current skills and abilities or, cope as you grow into the challenge.

It’s easy to say that you have learned a lot from experience, and I am sure you have. However, you don’t know what you don’t know. You can actually be limited by your experience. It can also be a reactionary process, learning in the now, rather than a proactive process, thinking about what you need moving forward.

People expect skills gaps for lower level managers yet as you develop your career, and transform into a senior manager, there is an assumption that you know everything and have a full ‘toolkit’ on leadership and management!

I’m not saying this is wrong – it can however be exhausting if you constantly feel as though you are playing ‘catch-up’. You may also be unaware that you are in this place as it’s become a way of operating - and this doesn’t make you a leader in your own life.

Recognising you are in this Challenge

This may be the perfect time for you to take a moment and reflect. You are likely to be caught in this place if you are doing any one or more of these:

• Working increased hours – you’ve taken on the additional responsibilities and find that you are going in early, working late and weekends to keep up.
• Taking on increased responsibility – you’ve taken on additional responsibilities without considering what this means to how you work and utilise resources.
• Have an increased revenue target to achieve and/or a reduced budget to deliver with either no extra resources or reduced resources.
• Increased expectations that may be explicit or not – you are not really clear about what is expected of you and are working harder – just in case.

If you recognise yourself in any of the above, rather than play catch-up I’d like to encourage you to take a more proactive look at your needs.

Start by looking 3 years from now. What would you like to be doing in 3 years time? Think of the role you’d like to be doing and how you want to be operating both in work and out of work. Take some time to do this and list the skills and attributes you want to be demonstrating. Then identify the gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

• Where are you now and what would be the priorities for you?
• Are there opportunities in your current role to start developing these?
• Do you need to get some honest feedback on where you are and how you may be demonstrating these?
• Is there someone you need to ask to be your mentor?
• Is there someone you need to ask to be your coach?
• Is there someone you could shadow?
• What are the priorities and next steps?

Costs and Benefits

There will undoubtedly be costs and benefits to your choices, both hard and soft.

What would you gain by addressing these challenges and what would it cost you?

Take some time to understand if there is a broader need to be met. Sometimes there is an issue that underlies what you’ve listed and this may be the very thing that needs to be addressed. Be sure to take a holistic view and consider life outside of work. Be sure to include the cost of taking no action too!

Do the benefits out way the costs?  

If the answer is yes then all that remains is:

• To be clear about the priorities
• Take action
• Get support

‘Challenges are what make life interesting, overcoming them is what makes them meaningful.’

Joshua J. Marine

What is your Pruning Practice?

As we are now in the middle of autumn, and most of the trees have lost their leaves, I can actually ‘see the wood from the trees’ in my garden. I have a much clearer picture of what needs to be pruned back to allow more space for new growth, or where there is dead wood that is no longer serving a purpose.

Now I know that pruning in the garden doesn’t happen once a year, it really depends on the plants I have at any one time. However, autumn is the time when I can take a more strategic look at what needs attention so I can plan for next year and decide what areas I want to change and what I want to create.

Through this process my garden becomes an ever-evolving space and I’ve learned over the years which plants love their position and thrive and which positions in the garden need a certain type of plant.

It’s been more a process of trial and error than strategic planning and when I’ve neglected it it’s required a lot more work from me to get it back to be ‘fit for purpose’.

And the relevance to business is what I hear you ask?

How often do you as a leader take time out to look at your business or your team to reflect on what is no longer adding value?

Is it:

Monthly,

Quarterly,

Annually, or

Never?

Proactive Change

Many organisations and teams plan ahead. Usually this is around what activities are required to deliver your targets. Rarely is it about stopping things because they no longer add value.

I know of few organisations that change proactively, and as a consequence there is a mismatch between what is happening internally and the pace of change externally. The result is that when something does need to change it requires some form of change programme that takes more time, more resources and often a degree of pain.

Consider for a moment how different this would be if somehow we’d manage to evolve with the environment? What if we had a regular pruning practice?

Here are the benefits I see and the action you can take

Regular review of what’s working to achieve your goals

Consider:

• What is thriving and what do you need to do to maintain this? Does it need feeding? Regular pruning?
• What needs support to grow and flourish? Do you need to add some structure or additional resource to help it on its way?
• What needs digging up or pruning to allow space for something of greater value to grow?

An opportunity to consider what’s missing

Ask yourself:

• Where are you lacking creativity?
• Where is there under performance?
• Is there a clear path laid out?
• Do you have the right skill set available?

Weeding

A weed is anything that you no longer want. From an organisational perspective what behaviours are you noticing that do not support the culture you are wanting? What systems or processes are no longer delivering what you need? What teams or individuals are no longer performing?

A time for some self-reflection

Having considered all of the above some questions you may want to ask yourself are:

• What am I doing that is supporting this?
• What am I creating?
• What am I tolerating?
• What do I want to be new/different?

As a leader what action do you need to take to start a regular pruning practice?

I love to hear your thoughts so feel free to email me at: dawn@aurora4success.co.uk.

“Today may be the enemy of your tomorrows.”

Dr. Henry Cloud

Mind the Gap

If you are anything like me you are a bit of a learning ‘junkie’. Always looking for the next thing to learn, or ways of getting new insights whether that be a course, a webinar, a conference, a seminar, reading a book or hiring your own coach.

We are always setting targets or goals and then when we get there set new ones, often without celebrating how far we have come. We focus on filling the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

I have spent part of this week with my mastermind group reviewing my business and how I operate and identifying what I need to do in the next quarter. An additional element was a day looking at how you communicate to create a powerful partnership.

It’s easy to think you have learned a topic and there is no need to revisit it. WRONG!

Just the way the concepts and exercises were presented allowed me to look at what I do differently.

What I took away was some ideas for coaching. More importantly it allowed me to identify a blind spot I have around my own expectations when communicating with others and how I can improve on a particular communication skill.

Blind spots – the biggest growth area

Our blind spots are the things we don’t know we are doing or the things we don’t know we don’t know – and neither to do others. So, when they are revealed to us, no matter how small, they help us make progress and grow in areas we never imagined.

The very reason that you don’t know what you don’t know makes identifying your blind spots difficult and the only person getting in the way of them is you! You can see the conundrum…..

And it’s worth saying that blind spots can be talents as well as development areas.

So how do you open yourself up to them?

Here are my tips to help you:

• Be prepared to revisit topics, tools you’ve used before to review how they are working for you. If you know someone who is really good at these things, go and talk to them. Find out their approach, how they think, what they do that is different to you.
• Be honest with yourself. We can be our own worst enemy and skirt over situations and topics that we are uncomfortable with. Give yourself some space to really explore what might be going on for you.
• Conduct a review after meetings and events. Ask your self:

         What went well?

         What didn’t go so well?

         Knowing what I know now what would I do differently?

         What action will I now take to do things differently moving forward?

     It can often help to involve others in this to get some different perspectives.

• Take 100% responsibility for every situation. If you are not getting what you want, what can you do differently to make it clear what you want? This may mean that you still don’t get what you want and you may learn something about yourself in the process.
• Get a great coach to support and challenge you. They will see things in you that you and those close to you don’t, or aren’t prepared to tell you about.

Celebrate!

Continuous learning and growth is a bit like peeling an onion. The first few layers come off really easy and the closer you get to the centre the more patient you need to be and the shifts are more subtle.

Be kind to yourself - recognise your progress and celebrate. Focus on how far you have come as well as where you want to get to and own your success.

‘Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.’
Winston Churchill