The thing about your head is that it’s usually attached to your body.  If you’re lucky it’s been attached all your life.  Now, here’s the funny bit…why then do we take more notice of our feet (or any other body part for that matter) than what’s in our head?  Sounds crazy?  The truth is often weirder than fiction.

Unfortunately, most of us have very little idea of what’s going on in there and even worse, very little idea of why we keep doing things.  That’s good news for coaches like me but generally bad news for mankind I reckon.  So let’s look at how, “coz it’s always been like that” has become my least favourite excuse.

What do you do?

First look at what drives your behaviour…and then change it.

Many people would say that intellect drives behaviour, but I don’t think it does because many of your beliefs & values were absorbed even before you grew an intellect.  I think that intellect tells you that the way to ‘cure’ overweight is to eat less – but don’t you think that sort of advice is a bit offensive and unhelpful to a large person!

It’s the same with being in the wrong job (“Well – change it!”) or with the wrong partner (“Well, leave!”) and …well, you get the idea.

Advice like this is worse than useless – it makes the recipient feel criticised, weak, bewildered and angry….some coaches call this ‘Best Friend Coaching’.

What drives behaviour is beliefs and values that were planted in our brains, often without us knowing during childhood and continue to be even though we’re big bad adults now (well some of us are). We’re not conscious of them, but they sit there, telling us what to do, what to fear, what to want and what to hate until we die…worse still, in extreme cases they can actually be the cause of our death (but we’re not going there in this blog).  Beliefs drive behaviour into our lives, making our lives what they are today.  Beliefs by the thousand suffuse our thinking or should I say our feeling. They keep us doing what we’ve always done and getting what we’ve always got (I wonder how many times I’ve heard that one).

What it all boils down to is the fact that knowing your own beliefs and values is a Good Thing.  So, what I thought I’d do in this blog is to explain a technique I often use to flush out beliefs. When you know what they are you will be in a much MUCH better place.

Now here’s the thing, some beliefs and values will be wrong and will not serve you well, they hinder you, they get in your way and they stop you doing things. These are called Limiting Beliefs (and values). You can easily work on reducing their influence in your life (when you know how).

What Is A Belief?

First let’s look at what a belief is.  A belief is something accepted as true without proof.  For example, ” The sun will rise tomorrow”. You have no proof, but extensive daily living has taught you that it seems very likely. This one is a reasonable belief and most of us share it. I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have this belief?  Hmmm…just a thought that I might examine at a later date.

How about this one: “Everyone I love will crush me eventually”. I know people who know this. And I mean KNOW THIS. They don’t have a niggling suspicion that it might be true, they KNOW IT just as well as they know the sun will rise tomorrow. These are not happy people. Coaches call these beliefs ‘Mistaken Certainties’.

Just so that I don’t paint a totally gloomy picture, here’s another one, “I know that everything always works out fine”.  A person holding this belief is likely to be peaceful, loving and happy – even if they’re wrong!

So – if these hidden beliefs are so powerful, how can we find the bad ones?

I use this technique regularly.  I’ll write more in a separate blog (well I’ve got to ensure you can back now haven’t I?) 

As with eating an elephant, you’ll need to do it in small pieces; concentrate on one area at a time.  If you’re working on being more sociable try listing your beliefs in the area of relationships and people.

Here’s out it could play out:

1. List the obvious beliefs about you or your world. Just sit and think about it with pen and paper. Write down sentences which start “I believe…”. Don’t think too hard – let your gut speak. Starting might be tough, but once you get going, they’ll pour out. You might come up with things like:

I believe good looking people are arrogant and selfish

I believe most people are liars and cheats

I believe I am fatter than most people

When my mum died, I finally knew that God didn’t exist

I know that no one can ever be trusted

When my business failed, I realised that I’m a complete failure

So What Now?

Once you have a list of beliefs, look at them.  You are looking at your engine.  You are looking at the things that push you forward and the things that hold you back.  Your fears and your dreams laid bare. THESE BELIEFS are what make you do what you do and get what you get.  If you want to get new and different stuff you’ll need to change some of them.

Now, this is the point you can finally get back to using your intellect…examine them in turn, evaluate them for accuracy.

Are they literally true?

What irrefutable evidence do you have?

Are they over generalisations?

Are they routed in a past which is no longer relevant?

Are they more about pain and fear – than they are about truth?

How could you modify the wording of each belief to remove the faults and make it accurate? Which beliefs need to go to File 13?

That Pink Mercedes Convertible

Now this is where you’ll be thinking “What is he on about now?  What’ve cars got to do with anything?”  Well, I’m glad you asked…

…you know how, if you’re thinking of buying a new car of a certain type you’ll keep seeing that type of car in the streets? That’s because of a part of your brain called the “Reticular Activating System” (R.A.S.). When you load your new car into your conscious thinking, your RAS will note that you have an interest in it and it will remain alert for relevant sensory data and make sure that your conscious mind is made aware of it. It will do this subconsciously – you will need no effort to make it work. Those pink Mercedes convertibles were out there before but your R.A.S. wasn’t programmed and so you never noticed them.

Well, now that you have examined these beliefs of yours, they will be in your R.A.S. and will start to trigger new awarenesses. Throughout your day, you’ll see events unfolding in which one of your beliefs is at work.

Well, I hope you get the picture. I have other exercises I use with clients, but this article is already too long, and you’ll get a good start from this technique.

That’s it for now…Stay safe.

Hey, I hope you’ve all had a good break so far.  I’ve been looking forward to putting out this blog and can’t wait any longer.

If you remember, in Part 1, we started to look into a fav area of mine, EYE ACCESSING CUES. We looked at internal representation, the lead representational system as well as a load of other good stuff.  I left you hanging with the promise that I’d explain the picture of the face and the strange set of letters that were strategically placed around the face (the more observant of you would have noticed that there’s something different about this face…can’t quite put your finger on what it is?…..I might tell you later…but first let’s get back into EYE ACCESSING CUES).

OK, so let’s start with a little exercise to emphasise the learning point here.  You’ll need to sit in front of a mirror.  When you’re properly focused and have stopped noticing spots and pimples that just weren’t there yesterday (where do they come from?), look at your face (particularly your eyes) and ask yourself the following questions:

1. How many windows does your house have?

2. What would your car look like in 15 years if you never washed it?

3. What does your favorite song sound like?

4. What would your voice sound like if you were Donald Duck?

5. What does it feel like to take a warm bath or shower?

6. What does your voice sound like when you talk to yourself?

Done that?  OK, now do it again, but this time noticing which direction/s your eyes move as you think of the answers.

(Before you get too excited, this exercise is just to notice that your eyes are moving, normally we only notice and identify eye patterns in others.)

So, what’s happening?  My eyes are moving but how does this relate to that other face and those letters?

Well…I’m glad you asked…

                 …Each of the questions caused you to either access a memory or mentally construct some experience. If your eyes do not move, you may notice that, you may have looked in a direction for only a nanosecond or perhaps defocused looking out in front of yourself. This is generally considered either visual or auditory remembered as the memory is in your present awareness.

Now ask someone else these same questions using the face picture as your reference.   You’ll have to face them directly and remember the chart is normally organised. It may be helpful to jot down your findings as you watch their eyes so you can review them later.

What happens when people’s eyes move?

Please note: The following eye movements are as you watch someone’s eyes and  when we refer to a location, this is your left or right as if the person is in front of you.

Visual Construct (Vc) – Up and to your left would be accessing an image they need to construct a picture of because they either have not seen it before, or because the picture has been stored in the past and not the immediate recall zone.

Visual Recall (Vr) – Up and to your right would elicit an image they have seen or imagined before.  It is nearly impossible to tell if someone is lying from eye patterns alone. Be careful assuming that people are lying or making things up just because their eyes move to Visual Construct. It could be they just don’t have the information readily available. For example, what did you wear two days ago? When you find the answer to this question, you may have to construct what clothes you have, use internal dialogue to ask yourself the question, you may have to remember what you did that day and even construct what you might have looked like in a certain outfit that day. So, your eyes may go more to construct although you’re not making it up. To identify if someone is lying, you would need to calibrate the whole person – physiology, eyes, tonality, etc.

Auditory Construct (Ac) – Lateral and to your left would be accessing something they have not heard before, or they have to construct a sound or conversation.

Auditory Recall (Ar) – Lateral and to your right would be eliciting something they have heard before. This could be a conversation or sound, and it could be of themselves or someone else.

Kinesthetic (K) – Eyes down and to your left would access a person’s feelings internally (e.g. emotions) or externally (e.g. tactile feel of velvet or a cat’s tongue).

Internal Dialogue (Id) – Eyes down and to your right would access the person’s self talk or internal dialogue.

Practice makes understanding eye accessing cues easy. You can learn by observing people’s eyes as you ask them questions in normal conversations; start noticing how different people use their eyes. Notice how some make big and obvious movements, while others make minimal little moves. Something that is available to everyone nowadays is television. Reality shows, talk shows, and unscripted interviews are great to use as a learning tool as they are usually spontaneous. Turn the volume down on the TV for a while and just identify where the person’s eyes move to. This is a great way to become unconsciously skilled at making meaning of eye patterns.

There are many practical uses of eye accessing cues, too many to list here.  However, here are a few pointers that I have learned along the way in the learning & development world.

Incorporating Eye Patterns into Life

Using eye accessing enables us to communicate in a way that more effectively matches another person’s current thinking style. This would enable you to respond by matching their eye movement with your words. When you do this, you will have more useful questions and replies.

Vr – Looking up to their right; it would be a clue to use more visual words and questions. Use visual aids; show them examples, slides, brochures, pictures, diagrams but be careful of ‘Death by PowerPoint’.

K – Looking down to the left; it’s a clue to use feeling words and questions. Let your students touch things or try them on or something they can thumb through; get them doing stuff.

Id – Looking down to the right; to use more logical, thinking, analytical words and questions. Use graphs, charts and statistics, you could use management theory models and hard facts and figures.

Ar – Looking laterally to the right; use more auditory questions and examples. Explain and tell them about it. Use and refer to sounds, conversations and ask what they’ve heard.

Now, this is a skill and it’s a skill you can practice and get good at in a short space of time (it only took me 20+years LoL).  If you don’t use it in a professional context or to build your communication skills…it makes a fantastic party trick!

Enjoy.

I thought I’d bash out another blog on an area of NLP that never ceases to fascinate me – EYE ACCESSING CUES.  It’s been around since as early as 1890 when James Williams an American psychologist examined it closely in his book Principles of Psychology…but the book is well boring to be honest! LoL

When people access their memories, their eyes move in quite specific and observable directions. These movements are called eye accessing cues and they correspond to the neural pathways in the brain that store and process sensory details.  Everything has a place to be stored and this is how people access stored information.

The eyes play a big part in how a person lives their lives. As much as a quarter of your brain is devoted to vision and our optic nerves are directly wired to the brain.  A person’s eyes tell a story as the eyes move involuntarily and in conjunction with whatever is being thought or felt.

Why is this useful though Shaun?

Well…I’m glad you asked…

 … This information can be useful to enhance rapport, communicate more effectively, only asking applicable questions and to build understanding.  It allows you to communicate to people in their own language as you match it back.

Here’s the science bit…

 ….In the early days of NLP, both Grinder and Bandler (you should know who these guys are) believed they had identified a pattern of relationships between the sensory based language people use in general conversation and corresponding eye movement.  In 1976, Robert Dilts conducted a study at Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco to find out if this had relevance. Using electrodes, he tracked both eye movement and brain wave characteristics of people who when asked questions related to various senses that involved both memory and mental construction. As a result of these studies, eye movement patterns or EYE ACCESSING CUES were identified.

I remember a long time ago I watched a TV crime drama where the suspect was being interviewed under caution.  Behind the mirror stood a criminal psychologist (not a real one…an actor silly) who seemed able to state categorically when the suspect was lying and when he was telling the truth.  This sort of stuff has seeped into urban myth and it seems almost everyone out there thinks they can tell what you’re thinking just by looking into your eyes…wooOOO00 Spooky!

If only everyone could do this sort of stuff, the world would be a better place.  Everyone would know when they are causing offence, when they’re not being listened to and lots of other things too.  This is where NLP jumps in with both feet.  If everyone learnt at least this area of NLP I’d be:

 a) A lot richer because of all the extra training I’d be doing and

b) Calmer because I wouldn’t have to listen to some people dribbling.

OK, so, what I thought I’d do is tackle EYE ACCESSING CUES in this blog so that I could pass on enough knowledge to allow you to practice this skill for yourself.  As with my other blogs, I’ll try and dispel the myth and secrecy surrounding this subject and simply tell you how it is.

I’ll have to do this in 2 parts or the blog will be soooo long it might as well have been an ebook (now there’s an idea).

When I went to my very first NLP event, I was excited to learn that people’s eye movements had some kind of meaning and weren’t just random.  I couldn’t wait to learn how it all worked.  This area of NLP has become a fav of mine over the years and it now filters into my everyday life of training, coaching, communicating and thinking.

Everyone has their own model of the world but memories of it can be very different.  It all depends on how somebody filters an experience. The memories of events are stored as a picture, sound, feeling or thought (this is known in the NLP world as an internal representation).

So then, each of our memories is stored as a specific set of images, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes and this is how we distinguish one set of memories from another. We mentally recreate and recall our experiences (memories) with these stored pictures, words, sounds and physical feelings as we do the thinking bit.

(There…I think I explained that quite well…even if I do say so myself)

All this stuff gives us some meaty information that provides us with clues as to whether the person is thinking in pictures, sounds, feelings or simply talking to themselves (I feel like I do that a lot). A skilled NLP Practitioner (like me) will be on the lookout for the sequencing of eye patterns.

Now…before you get excited…this isn’t going to make you a mind reader but it will give you some decent information to help discover the way the other person is thinking. (This is known in the NLP world as a lead representational system).

There’s a load of writing there.  I’m a big fan of pictures so I think it’s about time I included one.  Click here for a better pic .

This chart is read as you look at another person’s face straight on (This is known in the NLP world as normally organised).  Some people are reverse organised and the eye pattern chart is flipped and opposite.  Some left-handed people are reverse organised (but not all) and a few right-handed people are reverse organised. But, generally, the normally organised patterns are fairly consistent across all races, with the possible exception of the Basques in Spain, who seem to have some exceptions to the rule.

However, NEVER ASSUME, ask questions and watch the eyes to find how the person stores information.

So what do all those letters mean Shaun?

Well…I’m glad you asked….

But….my dinner is ready and this blog is already too long.  FIND OUT MORE IN PART 2 (don’t you just love cliff hangers?)

I’ll be back soon with Part 2 where I’ll explain what all this means and give you a few exercises to try out for yourself.

Stay safe until then.

Q:  Why am I blogging about email?

A:  I am blogging about email because I have reached a point where things need to be said.

It’s hard to find a working environment nowadays that doesn’t use email in some way shape or form.  Apart from just blogging to get things off my chest, there’s actually a more serious management issue with the use of emails.  Many studies suggest that if you sit there with your inbox open your performance is only a small fraction of what it should be.  How many people do you know who have a job that seems to be solely generating emails, reading replies and generating more?  I have seen people do this all day…for days on end!  AAAarrrgh!!! – I want one of those jobs! 

I want to get this out from the very start:  EMAIL IS NOT AN INSTANT COMMUNICATION TOOL!  If somebody emails me expecting an instant reply the only certainty is that they’re going to be disappointed…see above.

You can ‘Google it’; there’s loads of advice out there on how to manage your email, tips and advice on my favourite email management tool –  ‘nuking your inbox’ or even declaring email bankruptcy.  I get a lot of my ‘all about email’ information from here http://www.cbsnews.com/moneywatch/ And I give it credit for the bones of this blog.

If you sometimes have trouble staying on top of your inbox, here’s an approach that might work wonders for you.

Developer Matt Gemmell blogs about this.  He describes how he replies to email. Family, for example, he responds to immediately. Clients get a reply within 24 hours. He deletes a broad swath of email right away, including social network notifications, newsletters, and press releases…nice.

This is where we come to the title – Darwinian email management – If an email doesn’t immediately seem useful or something you need to respond to, simply delete it.  Don’t keep it around. If it turns out to have been important enough to warrant a response anyway, fear not. You’ll see it a second time. Specifically, Matt says:

“If it doesn’t immediately and obviously make you feel you should reply to it within the next day or two, it’s not that important to you. Archive or delete it. If it’s sufficiently important to someone else, that person will expend effort to make it come back to you. If the email does not come back to you, you would have wasted your time replying to it. Win-win.”

The Darwinian approach of deleting emails which aren’t obviously important might require some fine-tuning, since you don’t want to develop a reputation as someone who is unresponsive or uncommunicative; but in principle, it’s a sound strategy and I, for one, lurv it.

Managing email is a hassle, and sometimes it can lower, not raise, productivity.  We’d all rather be doing whatever it is we do for a living rather than answering email. For example, I estimate that I spend about half my day on email. When I tell people that I’m designing or researching, I don’t mean researching email.  But that’s often what it feels like.

In fact, on average corporate employees send and exchange about 105 emails a day…that’s a ‘time stealer’ if ever I saw one.

It’s not all bad though, email is sometimes better than talking.  It’s, to use a fancy term, asynchronous.  I can do it anytime, even when Roger from welfare or Debbie from reception isn’t at their desk.  Furthermore, it leaves a permanent record of your conversation in writing, so there’s never any ambiguity about what anyone said…that’s ‘an umbrella technique’ if ever I saw one.

OMG! And what about those email signatures eh?

These are quite common and deserve a mention here:

Quotes. How corny? There’s no upside to a quote, it will likely be saccharine, offend some readers, or consist of some annoying aphorism.

Images. Images, like your corporate logo, break and get delivered as attachments so frequently and on so many different email systems that you should just assume images will never render correctly.

Sent from my iPhone. Or any of its variations. If you intend this to mean, “sorry for the brevity and typos, but I’m sending this from my mobile while standing on the train,” it won’t be received that way, you tech snob.

Please consider the environment before printing this email. Look up “condescending” in the dictionary. You’ll see this sentence in the definition.

Are there others? What email signatures annoy you? Which variations do you find acceptable? Or do you disagree with my whole premise? Sound off in the comments and share your thoughts about email signatures.

Which Knives and forks?  A bit about email etiquette (if there is such a thing)

1. Reply – No matter what. Acknowledge promptly that you received a message. If no particular response is required, just say “thanks.” If you own an “action item” but can’t get to it for a while, let the sender know you saw the message and estimate when you expect to reply. But don’t let mail pile up in your inbox without acknowledging its receipt.

2. If you’re on the CC line, don’t reply. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but you’re on the CC line for a reason and that reason is “for information only.” Let the folks on the “to” line do their job, unless someone specifically invites you into the conversation.

3. Don’t forget the attachments. Sure, everyone makes mistakes, but you shouldn’t be “that guy” who always forgets to include attachments, fails to spell-check the email, or omits the subject line. If you can’t guarantee this yourself, there are tools out there to help…Google it.

4. Answer all questions. A favorite email trick is to cherry-pick a long email and only respond to the easy questions, or the issues you want to deal with, as if the sender will somehow forget that there are other questions left unresolved. Deal with each question or issue, even if it means acknowledging you don’t know the answer. But don’t make people re-ask the same questions over and over because you chose to ignore half the email.

5. Bottom line up front. The BLUF method is still very popular; don’t waste your recipient’s time. Be direct and clear about the point of the email right away, and then give additional context.  Don’t make people wade through 300 words of back-story before they reach the action item or primary request.  I have come across so many people who do this.  I had a manager once who insisted on stupid phrases such as, “I’m on this like a hungry monkey at a bag of peanuts”…there’s plenty more but I won’t subject you to his world…it’d be cruel.

6. Keep the subject line current. If an email’s subject diverges over the course of a long thread from the original topic, it’s okay to change the subject line.  Indeed, the other recipients will silently thank you for your thoughtfulness.

7. Be careful about your tone. It’s hard to read tone in an email, which is why emoticons were invented.  My personality means I have to be careful not to inject attitude or sarcasm into my replies.  Give emails that you think have “an attitude” the benefit of the doubt.  Also, be really careful when trying to be funny, it’s so easy to misinterpret humor in email. Bottom line: No matter how you feel about the people you’re communicating with or the contents of the message, go out of your way to always be upbeat and polite.

8. Lose the emoticons. Likewise, most business email shouldn’t have little smileys in them. They make you look goofy and unprofessional.

9. Know the specific cultural mores at your company. Everything I’ve suggested here has exceptions. Learn the specific etiquette of your own company.  Ask your boss or a co-worker if you’re new and not sure. Some businesses want to minimise email and frown on one-line “thanks!” emails, for example. Others like a lighter tone and encourage emoticons. There’s no one-size fits all guidance for how to communicate in email.

All that said, as I was finishing this piece I told my teenage son about this very blog post I was writing. He nodded knowingly and said: “I use email when I talk to old people.”

  Hey everyone…it’s been a while but I’m still alive and kicking.  I hope this post finds you all in good health.

According to the BBC, over 90% of the UK population watched at least 15 minutes sports action and, like many people, I was glued to the TV for the best part of two weeks as I watched Team GB’s medal progress in the London 2012 Olympic Games.  I can’t help but be impressed by the way each athlete has achieved their goal time and time again.  As a spectator the whole thing has been an emotional rollercoaster (but this time with more ups than downs) and as a performance coach I’m constantly trying to pick through what the athletes believe and say contributes to their success.

Behind each athlete, successful or otherwise, is a  dedicated team of coaches, advisors, mentors, physiotherapists, doctors…and the list goes on.  But do you know what? It only ever boils down to the individual.  No matter how much you care to analyse, it’s always down to the individual.  I got to thinking on how all this relates to the world of Learning and Development.  After a whole 2 minutes of thought,  I can see that there are some very good parallels.  Your own development, your own learning and your own Forward Motion is down to you, nobody else…in the end it always boils down to you.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people simply wait for their manager or employer to hand them training on a plate or they are simply scared to ask to attend a personal development course.  Now, there is a world recession that sits on our shoulders and you see; your employer might not be able to offer life-long employment or a full development program for your personal agenda of continuous improvement.  On top of this, there are still a lot of really poor managers out there (see my previous posts) who have trouble running a bath, least of all a team of highly motivated people.  Don’t wait for them or anybody else, take responsibility for your own career and design your own development program to stay at the top of your game. 

Here are a few top tips on how you can ensure your technical competence.

Keep well informed

Know what is going on in your industry, with competitors and within the community.  You can subscribe to and read any industry specific journals and network outside of your usual circles when attending B2B days or training sessions.  Don’t forget to carry a notepad to remind you of useful information or websites; I use my Smartphone to make notes, calendar entries or to remind me to read up on something and so on.  You might think that you don’t have time or that your day is already pretty full, but you have the same amount of time as everyone else; everyone has 24 hours in a day…you don’t have any less.  Free up some time in your schedule, there’ll always be 15 minutes you can put aside for personal reading.

Know what you want

Once you’re very clear on which way is the right way for you, there’s huge amounts of information from a plethora of sources that will be useful to you.  You might not have noticed things before, but now is the time to print off material, to organise your time to read it and to use the new information in your day to day activities.  Don’t be afraid to have big visions for yourself.  You could take a leaf out of Google’s book, Google’s vision is simple and bold – to change the way the world uses information.  Alternatively, take a leaf out of Mo Farah’s book, it’s up to you but make sure you understand what is in your heart and know what motivates you.  Have a plan and be clear and bold about achieving it.

Think success

Or rather, ‘Don’t just think!’  Go one step further by writing down all your strengths and successes. Think about each one in turn, picture it and remember that wonderful feeling of success. This is a great exercise to boost that feel good factor and it’s especially good if you need a bit of a motivation boost.

Keep physically and mentally fit

Obviously, you don’t need to reach the peak of fitness that our Team GB athletes have reached, unless, of course, if you’re planning on entering the Olympics any time soon.  Healthy eating and exercise is just common sense.  It is well documented that exercise not only releases mood-enhancing endorphins, but allows the mind to relax and day dream – this is when creative ideas and solutions “pop into your head”.  No need to kill yourself over it, go for a walk or swim, do some gardening or clean the windows…you know what I mean…If you’re watching daytime TV, you’re doing something wrong!  Little and often is the key here, it’s not the amount of exercise you can do in one go, it’s the frequency…build it into your plan.

Keep contributing

Be aware of what is expected of you in your work environment.  Understand how you contribute to the success of the business objectives and where you fit in to the grand scheme of things.   Get to know the bigger picture…be brave and go and knock on a Director’s door and ask for a download (they’ll love the fact you’re asking…honest).

Find what works for you

There are many ways of acquiring new skills and knowledge. Formal training may not be your best way of learning but there are plenty of alternatives from books and videos, to searching the net and sharing ideas with people that you admire.  I like to active read, I have a mountain of white papers, blogs, articles and booklets that I scribble notes on, take chunks of this and that and make a point in digesting the stuff I have collected.  (I promise I am working on a way to save paper).

Apply your learning

It’s the age old story…trainers have, for decades, been trying to figure out how to ensure learning in the training session is transferred into the work place.  We might never get there, but I think I’m close…Want to know more?  Drop me a line on Linked in or by email and we can discuss it further.  Put any learning into practice as soon as you can. Try it out and see what difference it makes. The quicker you apply the learning the more you will remember and add your own experience to it.  We are all used to being given feedback, often when we want it least, but it takes a brave person to ask for feedback.  You will automatically ask someone who is credible to you and hopefully they will offer it in a constructive way, but don’t be afraid to ask for specific instances and examples, write them down and constantly refer to your notes to keep it fresh and to avoid ‘skill-fade’.

Shaun says, “Just like an Olympic Champion, commit to your self-development and believe in yourself.”

•    Plan what you are going to achieve and constantly be on the lookout for the resources you need.
•    Don’t just think it, do it…take the action that will improve your skills and performance promptly.
•    Evaluate your effectiveness regularly and make the necessary changes, sometimes a word from a trusted friend or work colleague will go further…why not come to ‘an arrangement’ to buddy up with someone?

I’m really looking forawrd to the Paralympics at the end of this month!

Stay safe.

Hey

It’s because imagery is so important to us that we can use it very effectively in the coaching world.  Imagery and visualising images is such an important tool that I can’t believe I haven’t written on it until now…Ooops!  I aim to remedy that right now with this blog, I hope you find it interesting…as always, please feel free to drop me a line if you’d like to discuss further – very competitive rates!  LoL.

So, what is visualisation?  I’m glad you asked that – visualisation is generally considered to be any technique that creates images, diagrams, pictures or animations to communicate a message.

Visualisation through imagery has been used to communicate ideas since the beginning of man (and that’s way before I was born).  We all know of cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek geometry and the list goes on.  Visualisation nowadays gets into the worlds of science, education, engineering and even interactive computer based multimedia.

The cool bit is that those images or those pictures don’t necessarily only have to live outside in the world around us; they can live inside our own minds too.  Sounds kind of obvious huh? Well, it is really; we all picture things much of the time – we even do it when we’re asleep.  So, why don’t more of us know how to control these images?  Why aren’t more of us visualising the things we want more often?  Well, maybe because I haven’t written a blog on it until now!! (Here I go again!).

Ok, so now I’ve rambled on too long.  Wouldn’t you like to know how to expand your ability to visualise?  Wouldn’t you like someone to provide you with some easy steps so that your powers of visualisation increase almost overnight?  Do you want to know how?  Ok, ok I’ll get on with it:

There are 4 real parts of visualisation that I’ve outlined.  You can learn and practice them whenever you like really, but as soon as you start I can guarantee that you’ll see things differently (See what I did there?).

1.    How Often?

Frequency – The first aspect of visualisation is frequency.  This is number of times that you visualise yourself performing in an excellent way.  Just the same way as, if you beat yourself up too often you’ll end up believing it, the opposite applies too (cool huh?).  The more frequently you repeat a clear mental picture of your very best performance or result, the more rapidly it will appear as part of your reality.

2.    How Long?

Duration – The second element of visualisation has to do with the length of time you can hold the picture in your mind each time you replay it.  If you’re really working at this, you might be able to hold a mental picture of yourself performing at your best for several minutes, or even longer. The longer you can hold your mental picture, the more deeply it will be impressed into your subconscious.

3.    How Clearly?

Vividness – This third element of visualisation has a direct relationship between how clearly you can see your goal in your mind and how quickly it transfers into your reality.  When you set a new goal for yourself, your image of this goal will probably have been vague or fuzzy, or even in black and white or grey…just not too clear at all. However, the more often you repeat it mentally, the clearer it becomes for you.  Have you ever witnessed this?  Try imagining the image as a TV picture…Huh?  What are you talking about Shaun?  Haha, relax…with a TV picture you can simply pick up the remote and alter any of the picture qualities whenever you wish…can’t you?  Well, the cool thing is that you can do this with your mental images too.  Just form the image of a contrast switch, a colour switch, a volume switch or any switch that you can control.  If your image appears in black and white simply adjust your colour switch, if the image is fuzzy simply adjust the contrast and so on…try it…it works!  Eventually, it will become crystal clear. At that point, the goal will suddenly appear in your world exactly as you imagined it.

4.    How Intensely?

Intensity – The fourth element of visualisation has to do with the amount of emotion you attach to your image.  Some people might argue that this is the most important and powerful part of the visualisation process. Sometimes, if your emotion is intense enough and your visual image is clear enough, you will immediately achieve it.

Watch out though, the whole process can help you or it can hurt you. Like nature, the power of visualisation is neutral.  It’s a double-edged sword so make sure you appreciate that it can cut in either direction.  Visualisation can either make you a success or make you a failure – like always, it’s up to you really. Visualisation brings you whatever you vividly and intensely imagine, whether good or bad.

Have fun with this, but first another word of warning – if you’re practicing this on the train make sure you know the person sitting opposite or those faces you’re pulling are going to attract more attention that you’d like.

Stay safe.

NLP offers many things to its followers and practitioners.  It’s all about expanding choices; wouldn’t you like to have more choices?

One way to expand thinking and to reveal other choices that might have been previously hidden from you is to think ‘differently’.  The process of reframing can be as complicated as you like, but essentially it’s about looking at things in a different way, it’s about taking yourself out and looking back into a situation as an observer…to be honest, it’s about lots of things that I’ll hopefully get around to writing about one day (hopefully).

Here’s a little metaphorical tool that I came across a long time ago and have used to great effect in many situations.  You will have read my past posts on the use of metaphors and you already know how powerful they can be.  This one is a metaphor that helps to reframe thinking and provide motivation.  Feel free to use it with your clients.  It works especially well for those who are stuck in a rut or require a kick start to examine their options…ALL of their options.  I’ve made it into a Pdf for you to save you a bit of work –  just click here.

It goes like this:

Imagine that you have won money in a competition:

Each morning your bank will deposit £86,400.00 into your private account just for your exclusive use (for those of my readers in the USA insert $). 

However, this prize comes with conditions.

The first set of conditions :

1. Everything that you didn’t spend during each day will be taken away from you.
2. You may not simply transfer money into some other account.
3. You may only spend it.

Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another £86,400.00 for that day.

The second set of conditions:

1. The bank can end that game, without warning; at any time it can say, “It’s over, the game is over!”
2. It can close the account and you will not be able to open a new one.

What would you personally do?

You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right?   Not only for yourself, but for all the people you love, right?  Even for people you don’t know because you couldn’t possibly spend all that on yourself, right?  You would try to spend every penny and use it all, right? 

ACTUALLY, THIS GAME IS ALREADY YOUR REALITY!

Each of us is in possession of such a magical bank.  We just can’t seem to see it. 

THE MAGICAL BANK IS TIME ITSELF.

Each awakening morning we receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life and when we go to sleep at night any remaining time is NOT credited to us.  What we haven’t lived up that day is lost forever.  Yesterday is gone forever.  Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time…AND WITHOUT WARNING.

Well…what will you do with your 86,400 seconds?

Aren’t these seconds worth so much more than the same amount in pounds? 

Think about it…and while you’re doing that always rethink about this:

Enjoy every second of your life because time races by so much quicker than you think. 

Take care of yourself and enjoy life…go on, try it, I promise it’ll be good.

Until next time.

I haven’t written much on the L&D side for a while so I thought I’d put something together that dealt with one of the fundamentals of the L&D world.  This blog is designed for those L&D Professionals out there who have years of experience (us old ones) and those that are relatively new to the game (you keen ones).  We’re in a world of ‘weights and measures’, of squeezing ‘more bang for your buck’ and of accountability; Return On Expectations (ROE) is one of those measurements that, if done correctly, will keep those in the boardroom happy (well as happy as they’re ever going to be) by demonstrating the degree to which your training satisfies their expectations.

I’m still surprised to this day of how many ‘Train the Trainer’ packages out there simply miss out a whole block of learning around evaluation and measuring stuff in general.  If you’re looking to develop yourself into the training world then my advice would be to steer clear of training courses and packages that fail to even mention Kirkpatrick’s tried and tested model of evaluation.  Now, I can’t claim to own any of the Kirkpatrick model, but I’ve given you a brief rundown on the elements below to help (Well, this is as good a place as any to throw it in):

The Kirkpatrick Model

Level 1: Reaction

This measures to what degree participants reacted favourably to your learning event.  This sort of thing is usually measured on a ‘happy sheet’ or ‘not so happy sheet’ if you’ve messed up.  I can tell you though, in my experience, the CEO is not interested in whether or not your delegates liked the finger buffet or that there was a bulb out in the training room.

 Level 2: Learning

This measure illustrates to what degree participants acquired the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes based on their participation in your learning event.

Level 3: Behaviour

(sometimes spelt ‘behavior’…it’s American!)

This level is about measuring to what degree participants apply what they learned to their job.

Level 4: Results

And finally, this level is designed to measure to what degree your targeted outcomes occur as a result of your learning event(s) and subsequent reinforcement.

You’ll sometimes see Kirkpatrick’s levels of evaluation the other way round, starting at level 4 and moving back to level 1 and there’s a reason for this.   You can see that these levels (3 & 4) are really the juicy ones that the CEO, Directors and all the hangers on will get excited about.

So, let’s go a step further now and look into the juicy levels in more detail.

Start at the end! (Huh?) 

Ha ha… let me explain… Showing the value of training begins before your programme even starts.  You need to be absolutely clear on the Level 4 results that drive your organisation.  This is why any L&D professional worth his salt has several fingers in several pies all at the same time!  Don’t panic though because these drivers are nearly always associated with sales and profitability or mission accomplishment in a non-profit organisation.

You could consider such things as retention, customer satisfaction and/or sales targets.  Concentrate on these sorts of ‘bigger picture’ elements and you’re well on your way to generating ROE.

You can’t go far wrong if you sit down with any stakeholders during the planning and investigation process and establish clearly what evidence is required at each level to show your training is a success.  Don’t leave that meeting until you pin them down in defining measurement methods, tools and techniques before you even start designing.

In the past, (and I’m guilty of this too), learning professionals have focused most of their efforts on training events (Levels 1 and 2).  It took me a while to realise (isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?) that the largest ROE actually occurs after your training and on the job … this is the Level 3.  It’s kind of a ‘no-brainer’ then that you must work closely with other managers who will be overseeing work on the front line.  This is easier said than done because managers are very busy people and a significant proportion of them are looking for some level of improvement in performance near to the bloody miracle level!  Beware of weak managers who only too quickly blame your training for low levels of motivation, performance and communication in their team…this is down to them!

So, in order to get the best possible results (and to provide you with an umbrella) all of those things needed to drive things forward must already be in place.   These things include any processes and systems that reinforce, monitor, encourage or reward the performance of agreed critical behaviours on the job.

As a consultant I’ll always look at those relationships between the training department and other departments around the business because these relationships are the best predictor of programme success.  Only a joined up approach to training is going to deliver ROE, if this isn’t in place then you’re training programme is more of a jolly than a professional learning intervention.

Here’s some figures ZZ^zzzZZZ_z…

Training events alone typically result in only 15% transfer of learning to on the job behaviour (Brinkerhoff, Robert O., “Training Impact Evaluation Senior Managers Believe and Use,” Get Zeroed-In on Learning and Measurement, Issue 6, 2006). Yes, someone has actually measured it…rather them than me!!

Here comes the interesting bit though ‘The successful implementation of the required drivers creates the other 85 percent of learning transfer required to accomplish ROE’.

So, there you have it…Spend less time on cutting the crust off the sandwiches (Levels 1 and 2) and more time thinking about on the job involvement after training (Level 3).

Some people love lists and bullet points, so I’ve summarised my ramblings below…with bullets:

• Make sure that the evidence to be collected is defined clearly at the beginning of the project by the stakeholders and your data/evidence/feedback is collected throughout the process.
• Make sure you have a variety of such evidence so that it creates a story that is easy for everyone to understand and appreciate.
• There will be no ambiguity surrounding which evidence is important and what results should be highlighted because you’ve created the plan and carried it out in partnership and agreement.

If all else fails…make sure you ask the boss, “What will success look like to you?” 

We

Haha, I can hear you all now, “Bendiness? That’s a new word, he’s finally tipped over the edge, Shaun – has officially – lost – it”.

I thought I’d explain a few things about comfort zones, as I understand them. Those trainers out there can use this explanation when setting out your ground rules at the start of your sessions. Those coaches out there can use this information to safely stretch your clients and those psychologists out there can…well…just can.

It speaks for itself really; a comfort zone is an area where we feel comfortable. In our comfort zone we perform well and feel confident. We begin to feel uneasy and even frightened when we move outside this zone. People get anxious and fearful simply because they’re stepping out of the psychological boundaries they themself have created.  Limiting ourselves in this way prevents us achieving our ultimate performance and success (whatever that is!). Therefore, it’s wise to clearly identify, challenge and expand personal comfort zones.                                                                                                                  

So, why do we need to expand our comfort zones at all?

Well, because what is comfortable for you now will, at some point, become a limitation. We all had to leave the comfort of the womb in order to grow and develop our potential. Think of another, more recent time when you were forced to move out of your comfort zone, for example when accepting a promotion or bungee jumping, now think about where it took you and the final destination.

So, here’s my take on it…

…It helps to think that there are actually 3 zones:

1. Comfort zone
2. Stretch zone
3. Panic zone

Now, if you think of these 3 zones set up as concentric circles. The inner circle is your comfort zone, the second circle your stretch zone and the outer circle your panic zone.  Can’t think?  Here’s a picture – Click.

The best place to learn is in your stretch zone. We don’t learn much in our comfort zone…we’re generally lazy like that. We also don’t learn much in the panic zone, or at least we’ll concentrate on only learning what we need to escape the panic zone; this learning doesn’t have to be permanent. So it makes sense to help people come out of their comfort zone and sit in their stretch zone. However, the stretch zone isn’t really that comfortable…come on… if it was comfortable it’d be called the comfort zone surely?
Because the stretch zone isn’t normally that comfy, we don’t have to stay in it. We can dip in and out. When we dip out of our comfort zone into the stretch zone the boundaries are blurred and, if done correctly, the boundaries between the two zones can be flexed… or bent. ‘Bendiness’… Things are sounding better now aren’t they?

When working with a client or group of learners, it’s your job to bounce them into their stretch zone and then return them safely to their comfort zone, keep doing it and the boundaries between the two flex and the result will be an expansion of the comfort zone… so, in other words, the more you do this bouncing the more you become comfortable with whatever you’re bouncing with.

How do we expand our comfort zones?

Try this exercise on for size:

1. Identify 3 of your comfort zones…and write them down.

This first step will allow you to identify and examine your limitations. What is holding you back? Are there things you want to do, places you want to go? Yet somehow you speak about it, know the theory, but just don’t take action. These are your comfort zones. For example, you may lack discipline in your fitness plan, or, as in my case, you might be fearful of letting go of your monthly salary to start your own business. Come on…You know where you are holding back!

2. Name a comfort zone you are ready to challenge…and write it down.

Pick one comfort zone you are ready and willing to change. Break it up into chunks by answering the following three questions (you can add more):

How does it hold you back?
What are your fears?
How do you know you are ready to change?

3. Face the fear and expand.

You see, the thing is, comfort zones are relative; they are merely the limited perceptions of our minds. Comfort for me might be stagnation for another and my advance is another’s retreat. We have nothing to fear in overstepping the boundaries we have created in our own minds.

Next, clearly list the actions you could take to expand your comfort zones. What are you going to do differently in the next 7 days?

You’ll need to be specific about dates and what support you will need.

I hope this article helps. Remember, you are the author of your own life; you create your own destiny. As you break down your barriers and allow for bendiness, confidence and passion emerge and grant you nothing but Forward Motion.

Hey

People frequently use metaphors to describe how they feel and what they want.  As a coach, it’s all well and good knowing the theory behind things, but unless you practice, practice, practice the best you can ever hope to be is a book worm!  I think there are enough worms out there in the world, so what I’m going to do in this post is to develop your understanding of HOW to use metaphors effectively.  If you’re coaching already and not using metaphors to their full potential this will rocket you to another level (anybody see what I did there?).  To paraphrase Einstein’s thoughts of creativity: no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

So here goes…

You might be one of those people who think of metaphors as simply a creative way to get a message across or just a story, a tale, or a load of mumbo jumbo.  If you think this way you might also be asking, ‘Why is Shaun writing about this subject in the first place?’  And I’m glad you have asked because nowadays many linguists and psychologists believe that metaphors are far more than this; you should jump aboard.  I agree with the chain of thought that metaphoric description may be a closer representation of what’s really going on in our minds. They’re more about describing our thinking patterns and structure and less about fairy tales and stuff like that. 

Now, it has been estimated that the average person uses several metaphors in every minute of conversation, but, in my opinion, this isn’t the whole story.  This statistic doesn’t really tell us how many unexpected metaphors are used.  By ‘unexpected’ I mean the metaphors they don’t realise they’re using but still use them as an integral part of their thought structure.

Like me, the best facilitators and coaches are discovering that Clean Language can have extraordinary results (well…if I don’t blow my own trumpet, who will?).  Clean Language is a questioning process created by the psychotherapist David Grove.  It enables a deeper self-examination and investigation of a client’s own thought, habits and perceptions and allows them to go on to find their OWN unique solutions.  Just click on David’s picture to check out a bit more about Clean Language.  

This is the cool bit…By asking clean questions relating directly to the metaphoric content of a client’s conversation you will automatically deepen thinking.  I guarantee you’ll be astounded at the deeper level of thinking and understanding you can achieve in your sessions…and more importantly, so will your client.  It works because you’re focussing attention on the structure of their thinking and experience, rather than the same old problem-content thing that they’ve thought of in the same old way many times before.  The different level of thinking can’t do anything but lead to different kinds of creative solutions.  How cool is that? 

So, have you ever come across a client who has…well…sensitive issues?  I can tell you that this is a really useful way to explore difficult or sensitive issues because the client gets to describe the metaphors in detail without needing to worry about explaining the ‘sensitive’ stuff to you. 

Here’s how it goes…

Right away you can begin to take notice of how often metaphoric descriptions come up in day to day conversations.  Just start listening to other conversations- I find MacDonald’s is great for this.  The way the seating is arranged (back to back) just lends itself to ear wigging…Umm…I mean coaching development…LoL.  Here are some examples you’re likely to hear:

‘I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall’

‘She’s closed herself off from me and I don’t know how to break through’

‘I need a bit of a jump start’

In a coaching session you need only ask a few simple Clean Language questions when you hear a metaphor.  Ask questions that’ll enable the client to become more aware of their metaphoric thinking.  I apologise to the more seasoned coaches out there for teaching you to suck eggs, but a reminder never did anyone any harm; when using Clean Language in this way, generally you want to repeat the metaphoric words to the client EXACTLY how they used them, don’t worry about bad grammar or misplaced words, repeat it EXACTLY.  Even better if you can match the tone, volume, pitch and speed too.  Here’s an example to give you a better idea of what I’m going on about:

“You’re off balance today.  What kind of off balance is that off balance?  Make note of whatever the client says next and repeat back their words.

Then ask, “And when you are feeling off balance, is there anything else about feeling off balance?”  Continue to explore whatever the client says, paying particular attention to the metaphoric language they use.

So there are only two questions to remember:

1.  ‘What kind of ***** is that *****?
2.  ‘And is there anything else about that *****?’

Shaun says:  Some people just don’t use metaphors so frequently.  It doesn’t mean that they don’t think this way, just that they may not be able to consciously access these thoughts too easily.  When you ask questions around any metaphors these people do use, they’ll skirt around and offer lots of conceptual descriptions or they might even try to completely change direction…anything rather than develop their metaphor further.  If this happens to you, work with them on whatever comes up, even if there are no metaphors.  Be very patient and wait for when they do give you a metaphor, don’t miss it, work patiently on it.  When these types of people eventually ‘get into’ their metaphors, they get a massive kick out of it… Result.

Hope this helps.

Have fun on the metaphor rollercoaster.