How to Cope with Stressful Situations and Shocks

February 7th, 2010

Recently I’ve been working with a client that is having to make a large number of positions redundant. One of the workshops I ran for them was about how to deal with the initial feelings (shock, worry etc) in that situation.

Instead of going through the usual curve I decided to look at the more recent research into what’s going on in your brain and what you can do about it. People seemed to find it very useful so I thought I’d share some of the key tips with you to keep to hand just in case.

Your Brain

When you get stressed your brain is flooded with cortisol. This makes you feel stressed and, long term, can be quite damaging to your hippocampus. This part of your brain moves short-term memories into long-term memories. That’s why your memory starts to go when you are stressed.

It’s also directly related to your self esteem, so when it’s damaged, your self esteem goes down, just when you need it most.

What to do

Aerobic exercise flushes this chemical out of your system – so get some exercise as soon as you can. Keep doing it on a regular basis. Aerobic exercise also helps you to grow new brain cells (neurons) by releasing neurotropic factors (brain fertiliser as John Ratey calls them).

Your Perception

Your interpretation of inputs can start to become very negative. You see new inputs as threats. This is perfectly sensible from an evolutionary point of view, but can be very unhelpful if you are possibly going to lose your job.

This is because it can mean you simply become unable to recognise opportunities when they are staring you in the face. It can also make you a complete pain to live with. The exercise will help with this too.

Energy

Your prefrontal cortex can help you in this situation, by reasoning with your negative thoughts, but only if you are not too tired. When you are tired you just don’t have enough energy in your prefrontal cortex to do this. This is why people are generally more grumpy when they are tired. So make sure you get enough sleep.

Plan

Another problem is that you can lose your ability to set goals and plan when you are stressed. From an evolutionary perspective, this response was evolved to deal with very immediate threats so there was no point in wasting energy on long term planning. (Your brain, whist it makes up 2% of your body weight, greedily uses 20% of the energy.)

Unfortunately these days, long term planning is very much what you need to do and keep focussed on. So go through what you really want to achieve in the next five, ten or twenty years. See how the current situation can help you to do that.

Your Thinking Skills May Be Impaired

This happens because simply using up space in your prefrontal cortex worrying about things doesn’t leave much space for anything else. It really is virtually that simple.

So follow the next procedure carefully.

Emotions

When you are presented with a shock or difficult situation to handle, talk about your emotions, or, at the very least, write them down. As usual, Shakespeare was ahead of us in this:

“Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak Whispers the o’er fraught heart and bids it break.” (Macbeth)

It turns out that this is true. If you just describe your feelings they are reduced. If you don’t want to say them, write them down. This turns out to be jut as effective. Just keep a diary for a few weeks where you do this.

Friends

Have you ever noticed that, if you are ill and some friends come to see you, you don’t feel so bad while they’re there? This is because you suppress your groans and moans out of politeness (well, I’m assuming you do).

Your brain has just one part for doing lots of different kinds of suppression, including suppressing moaning and suppressing pain. The thing is, it’s an on/off switch. Once it’s on, it suppresses everything. So you really do feel better.

I hope you don’t have to use this information yourself, but please keep it to hand just in case it comes in useful one day. And feel free to share it with anyone who might benefit from it.

Please share your favourite coping strategies.

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Posted in Brain, Improving Performance, Learning | No Comments »

Problem With The In-Laws

January 22nd, 2010

To book your place on our next teleseminar,

Dealing With Difficult People, on 10th February

use this link.

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/teleseminars3.htm

You’ll find out how to deal with a whole range difficult people including?

negative people,

bullies,

nit-pickers,

thick-skinned insensitive people

and much more.

To get your discount for several teleseminars use this coupon code JAN19TELE

It’s valid till the end of January.

This week’s issue:

Problem With The In-Laws

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To add your comments and discuss the ideas in this email please go to my blog:

Last week I told you about a harrowing problem from a fellow reader. This week I have another one for you, not quite as harrowing, but still a problem for the lady concerned and rather embarrassing for me….

The Problem

We’ll call our correspondent Janet for the sake of anonymity.

Janet has a grandson. Quite understandably, she loves to go and look after her grandson and baby-sit for her daughter-in-law.

Though at first she got on extremely well with Sandra, her daughter-in-law, after a while relations became strained and she asked me for advice on how things could be resolved.

I asked what happened. (As usual I have changed a few of the details to keep it anonymous.)

The Incident

She went over to babysit and noticed that the washing had piled up rather so, as she was there anyway, she put a load of washing in. By the time Janet was home it was all done, ironed and put away.

Janet went berserk. She was insulted, furious and told her mother-in-law to mind her own business and only do the things she was asked to do.

There was a terrible phone call when Janet demanded to speak to Sandra’s husband. He went round to see if he could sort the problem out.

He failed.

There was a lot more to it than what I’ve put here, but I expect you get the picture.

How Embarrassing

As I read the email, I started to cringe. I remembered when my own mother-in-law had come to stay for the first time.

I was out for the day and when I came home things were different. Everything, including our bed and my underwear, had been ironed.

Things had been put away. I didn’t know where. Stuff had been made for tea. I could go on.

I felt insulted. Didn’t she think I could run my own house? I had lived on my own for over ten years, I knew what I was doing. And I never iron my knickers.

So I asked her not to do anything and just have a rest while she was here.

The Need To Be Useful

But the trouble was, she wasn’t happy. She felt useless because she wasn’t able to contribute. That hadn’t really occurred to me. So now I save up the jobs for her.

We have come to an understanding. She doesn’t do all those things round the house (particularly ironing the bed – it looked like a billiard table) or iron my knickers.

Instead, she does things that really help. I save up the ironing and, on Christmas day this year I had all the vegetables ready for her to peel and chop that morning. She always wakes up early on Christmas day so was delighted to have something to do. I was delighted not to have to do the sprouts.

This works really well for both of us (and no, I’m not renting her out, so don’t bother to ask).

Oh No! Am I Turning Into My Mother-in-Law?

Then something happened. I was watching one of my favourite sit-coms: The Big Bang Theory. Anyone who studied physics (or indeed any science subject) will probably like this reminder of their old socially incapable friends.

This episode featured one of the main characters, Sheldon, doing his laundry. He had a strange device for folding his clothes. He put them onto this piece of equipment that looked like several floor tiles loosely linked, and hey presto – they all came out folded the same size and looking like something out of Benetton.

I had to have one. (If you want one they are called Star Folders and you can find them on the web. I highly recommend them…) Now I can’t bear it if the towels and sheets in the linen cupboard aren’t correctly folded and filed. I’m hoping I’ll be able to resist the urge if my own daughter ever gets married…

Are You Denying Someone The Chance To Help?

I urge you to check if you are keeping everything to yourself and not letting others contribute somewhere in your life (work or home). Just yesterday I heard a doctor talking on the radio about out of hours services.

His point was that the government had dictated what those services should be and when they should be available. But these regulations did not suit all his patients, so he had developed a service that did suit his patients but did not comply with the government guidelines.

‘Why didn’t they involve us when they designed this system?’ He asked. Make sure you are involving the right people and remember to share the load.

Posted in Communication, Improving Performance, Management Skills | Comments Off

Doing the Right Thing

January 21st, 2010

In case you are interested, our next teleseminar is on 10th Feb on Dealing With Difficult People.

I’ll be covering a whole range of really simple easy things you can do with

  • negative people,
  • bullies,
  • nit-pickers,
  • thick-skinned insensitive people

and much more.  To book your place on this or any of our teleseminars use this link:

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/teleseminars3.htm

To get your discount for several teleseminars use this coupon code JAN19TELE

It’s valid till the end of January.

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To add your comments and discuss the ideas in this email please go to my blog:

A few weeks ago I received a harrowing email from a Grapevine reader that completely grabbed my attention. I have made a few changes to keep the identity private.

A Really Difficult Problem

“I was hoping to seek your expert advice on a matter that has been bothering us. I manage an office of 10. One of my subordinates (an efficient worker) was recently diagnosed with a deadly disease. In my country the disease is much feared. None of my staff have a clue about it.

We are in a fix as to how to handle the situation. We can’t allow the person to continue without letting the other staff know about the condition, as the disease is feared to spread. We can’t even ask the person to leave, the employee is the only bread winner. My heart goes out to the person. We are based in XXXX, where lawsuits aren’t really a problem, so that is not what we are scared of. Can you help!”

Fortunately most of us will never be faced with such a dreadful dilemma. I spent a long time thinking about what to do and how I could possibly help this person.

I knew what I thought he should do: help the colleague as much as possible and educate his other colleagues. But I was also aware that it is very easy to give this advice from my safe little study where I do not have to deal with the cultural issues (which can be very hard).

What also preyed on my mind was the death, about 15 years ago, of a very dear friend of mine, from what I suspect was the same disease. Because of the stupid social prejudices of the time, our friend didn’t tell us he was dying, so we didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

Whilst I know he got the best medical treatment that was available at the time, I still deeply regret that circumstances meant he couldn’t tell us.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that our correspondent was likely to be a kind, caring person. Otherwise he would have simply fired the individual concerned. Perhaps even more importantly, I wanted his colleague and family to get the support they need.

So I cast about for examples of situations where people had done the right thing even though it was hard for them.

An Example

My mother’s mother, when advanced in years (certainly drawing her pension), was walking down the High Street one day and saw a ‘yob’ beating up a young Indian chap. She rushed up to him, brandishing her umbrella and shouted: ‘Put him down!’.

The ‘yob’ dropped his victim in surprise. They both stared at my grandmother. ‘Well run, you fool!’ She shouted, more on-the-ball than these men about a quarter of her age.

Over the years, I remember many occasions when my father made it quite clear to me that standing up for what was right was the correct course of action and nothing else was acceptable.

I knew he was right and that I had to give this advice, but had a concern that it would appear easy for me sitting in my comfortable office not having to live with the consequences. I sent some examples from my grandparents and from my father in the hope this would give our dear correspondent the support he needed.

A Week of Silence

I heard nothing for seven days. It was a long and worrying wait. Even though we had only exchanged a few emails I felt that this person was a friend in great need and I was really worried, for him and for his colleague. I wondered if I had gone too far and offended him.

Then, on 22nd Dec I had a really bad day. My mother-in-law was staying with us and she had not put the top on some soup properly so, when I reached for it, I spilled it all over my brand new fridge. I then had to spend half an hour cleaning it all out. As a consequence of rushing to leave I forgot two parcels I needed to post.

We left late. Then we got stuck in bad traffic. Then my mother-in-law decided that she wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to go out for lunch as we had planned. Then she changed her mind again. So I ended up missing my lunch (a nightmare scenario for me.)

When I got home I hastily wrapped the parcels I had forgotten from earlier and rushed to the post office to find it closed. I called Charlie to get directions to another, but the directions were wrong. Eventually I finally found one that was open, just in time to see the postman leaving. So I had missed the post. I felt very annoyed.

As I stood grumbling to myself in the queue waiting for a woman who took a full 10 minutes, I absent-mindedly checked my emails and saw one from my dear friend. Here it is:

The Rersponse

“Dear Nancy,

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate, you taking out so much time in writing back. Especially to someone whom you hardly know! The Lord has surely blessed you with a very kind and patient heart.

Thank you a million for the words of encouragement and wisdom. I must apologize for not having responded to you any earlier. But I surely spent the week working out and deliver what I now firmly believe is the right way to handle this situation. I actually took the liberty of sharing extracts from your mail with the other decision makers here. In a gist here is what we decided & actioned:

1. The Colleague can continue to work with us as long as possible

2. The rest of the staff were apprised about the situation and also educated

3. Their support was sought in ensuring that the disease or the matter be never discussed with the colleague, and every attempt be made to make the colleague feel comfortable.

4. Also take certain educational sessions on necessary precautions that need to be taken compulsorily

5. Provide all the necessary medical reimbursements to handle the course of the medication

6. All informed were sworn into maintaining absolute privacy about the matter. Its not to be discussed for any reason whatsoever”

The Best Christmas Present

I can’t tell you how happy I was to get that email. To know that someone had taken the  challenging but right path, in spite of the personal difficulties for him was truly inspiring. That’s why I’m sharing it with you.

I hope you don’t ever have to deal with anything like this, but we do all have smaller situations when we have the opportunity to do something to make others’ lives better, even though there is a cost to us (financial or otherwise).

Bullying

Recently I’ve been helping someone deal with being bullied his their manager. Happily he was able to get a transfer to another department. The question was, should he do something about the way the manager behaved (it was pretty bad) to try to reduce the chances of it happening to someone else?

And if so, what?

He just wanted to get away from the situation and leave it behind him, which is understandable, but in this case that means it is almost certain someone else will run into the same problem (we already know who that will be).

Do You Have An Opportunity?

What can you do to right a wrong? If we all did this on behalf of our fellow creatures, I suspect there would be fewer injustices in the world and perhaps more happiness.

Have a go.

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Posted in Communication, Improving Performance, Management Skills | 1 Comment »

The Easy Things

January 19th, 2010

New Teleseminars

Today we launch our new series of teleseminars on many different topics.(You just need a phone, no special equipment to join the teleseminar.) We’re giving discounts to you if you buy places on 4 or more, and if you book places for more than one person in your organisation.

As always you get a full set of notes, a transcript and a recording of the teleseminar (as soon as they are available).

The topics include

  • Bullying
  • Objectives and Appraisals
  • Dealing with Difficult People
  • Time Management
  • Creating Tenders
  • How to Deal With a Difficult Manager
  • How to Create Effective Powerpoint Presentations
  • How to Improve Your Memory

See them here:

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/teleseminars3.htm

To get your discount use this coupon code JAN19TELE

Remember, just like any other product, these teleseminars are covered by our full money back guarantee: If you are not happy with the material, the teleseminar or any aspect, we will give you a full refund.

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The Easy Things

I expect many of you will have really useful ideas on this topic that we can all share. Please add them by going to:

Just before Christmas I went to see my old friend Lindsey. It’s always a great conversation and I come away with lots of useful ideas and tips. This time was no exception.

Lindsey said she had decided that it was time to go through the house with a paper and pencil drawing up a list of the really simple, easy and cheap things she could do to improve it.

The Impact

As a result of this list and her actions she has saved between 25 and 35% of her heating bill.

The List

The simple things included:

  • Updating the draft exclusion,
  • Double-glazing one last window (a beautiful stained glass round window in the hall)
  • Adding more lagging to the hot water tank
  • Buying a water-reducing head for the shower

I was inspired and went directly to Wicks (a hardware store) to get an extra jacket for our hot water tank.

We have a solar panel on our roof and, as a result, a control panel that gives us the temperature of the hot water tank at any time of the day or night. I noticed an immediate improvement in the water temperature. It was up by between 4 and 5 degrees, and, not altogether surprisingly, kept up its temperature overnight much better.

As we have a very large tank, we had only been able to cover the top of it with the jacket I had bought, so we got a second one for the lower half and now it’s even better. I wish we’d done it years ago.

I checked a couple of web sites and they estimate the annual savings could be around £35 with an additional £10 for lagging the pipes. The jacket I bought was under £10.

My husband decided to sort out the drafts in the kitchen and I also invested in a radiator fan that sits on top of the radiator and makes sure the hot air comes into the room, rather than heating the wall.

Then we finally finished putting reflectors behind the radiators. This was a job we had started about 15 years ago when we had the heating installed. We had done all the radiators on the outside walls, but not the others.

All very easy stuff and really cheap.

Some Simple Things

So I started wondering what I could do at work along the same lines. Not surprisingly there were quite a few silly things I had just not got round to.

The Drawer

I have a handy drawer in my desk full of address labels, stamps and other postage things. I’ve it this way ever since I got the desk, when I was self-employed. But since then I have started the company and I now hardly ever send out any mail myself.

But there are lots of other things that I do do. So I took out all the postage stuff and put it somewhere else. I replaced it with equipment I use every day, including a stick of lip salve and some emergency chocolate. It sounds so simple, but what a difference it has made. (It has reduced the amount of exercise I get though.)

The Books

Spurred on, I went for the bookshelves. In my work I collect masses of books. Often things are recommended or it may be I am researching a new topic. But whatever it is I end up with lots of them.

The quality varies from the ones I would recommend to virtually anyone to the ones I would consider I’d get more value from if I lit the fire with them.

So I pulled down all in the latter category and put them in a pile ready for the charity shop, in the hope that someone else will find them useful. Suddenly there was a lot more space so I was able to tidy up a few other areas.

My Suggestion

Instead of making life really hard, what are the really easy things you could do to make it a bit better? Do let me know so we can all benefit.

Don’t forget to check out our new series of teleseminars:

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/teleseminars3.htm

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Posted in Admin, Improving Performance, Management Skills | 2 Comments »

A Lesson In Learning

January 12th, 2010

Last week I mentioned a bit about learning to write ‘academically’ and also to ski. This week I would like to expand a little on this topic.

We went skiing with friends over the break. One of those we have been skiing with often is my friend Sam. He is 16 and I have known him all his life. I was there ten years ago for his very first skiing holiday.

Since then his level of skill has rocketed. He flies effortlessly down the slopes, swaying elegantly.  It is a joy to watch him skiing.

How Did He Do It?

How has he reached such a level in ten years? Well, there are two main reasons.

Lots Of Practice

The first is that he has been on many skiing holidays since that first year. Some years two holidays, perhaps even three. I’m afraid practising is really useful when it comes to learning a skill. But it’s not all.

Approach To Learning

The way you approach learning makes a real difference too.

You Learn By Your Mistakes

How often have you heard this? It is rubbish. But it’s close to the truth. Let me tell you more about Sam’s approach to skiing and you’ll see what I mean.

He Doesn’t Mind Falling Over

I don’t think I have ever heard Sam complain about falling over in all the years I have seen him skiing (and falling over). When it happens, he just gets up and gets going. Often he laughs.

He Is Always Trying New Things

Last year Sam was keen to try some complicated jumping. We went to the ’ski park’ and he tried many times to jump and do various twists at the same time. It looked really hard but he didn’t give up.

He fell over lots of times and didn’t end up achieving his goal before the end of the holiday, in spite of many attempts.

But that didn’t dampen his enthusiasm.

Playing It Safe

You don’t learn from your mistakes, you learn from trying out new things and finding ones that works. The key to learning from these situations is not being worried or embarrassed about making a ‘mistake’.

Knowing Your Limitations

One of the things you often come across on skiing holidays is people keen to show how good they are by being very ‘macho’ and hurtling down black slopes. Funnily enough, Sam wasn’t bothered about doing the black slopes. In fact, I don’t remember him being that concerned about doing them last year either.

He clearly doesn’t feel the need to prove how good he is.

Asking For Help

Another thing you notice about really skilled people is that they don’t mind asking for help. I suspect that’s probably one of the ways they have become so skilled. They’ve just asked for help when they needed it or wanted to know something.

So often I see people who don’t want to do that because they think of it as a sign of weakness.

Speaking German

We were in the German-speaking part of Switzerland for our holiday this year. As we had dinner one evening, Sam asked me how it was that my German was so good (it is compared with his).

I had to laugh when he asked. His German is very poor (he has less than 10 words available to him I think) in spite of three years of lessons. I explained to him that the reason I am still able to communicate in German some 30 years after learning it at school later is because I have used exactly the same technique as he has used in skiing:

I use every opportunity to practise, I don’t mind making mistakes and I’m happy to ask for help when I need it. In the many queues for the ski lifts I practised translating the posters just for a bit of fun.

The Key Lesson

So here’s the main point. There are probably areas in your life where you are applying Sam’s great strategy for learning to ski. But there are probably other areas where you are applying his strategy for learning German (do no work, take no risks, avoid at all cost).

Perhaps you could gain a great deal by changing your strategy and trying something new or taking a few risks. Research tells us that risk-taking is one of the best ways of improving performance, second only to getting clear accurate feedback. It even comes above having clear objectives. So have a go.   Let me know how you get on.

Do you think it’s good to take risks?

Posted in Improving Performance, Learning, Training | 2 Comments »

An Unfair Advantage

January 5th, 2010

First let me wish you a Happy, Successful and Prosperous New Year.

This week I was talking to Kathy, a friend in the village. Since I last saw her, she has taken up teacher training as a mature student. She’s really looking forward to teaching junior school children (8-10 year olds).

I asked her what the course was like. She sighed. She has had to do a long assignment. She didn’t mind the work; it was the writing up that was causing the problem. As an experienced scientist she is used to writing.

However, it seems that her tutor is not happy with her style. It is not ‘academic’ enough. I asked Kathy what her tutor meant by that and my friend said she didn’t know but suspected it might mean ‘use longer words’.

I asked her if she had asked the tutor to give her some more useful information. She had. She had even asked her tutor to give her an example of what she meant. The tutor told her that she couldn’t do this, because if she were to show Kathy a sample she would have to do the same for all her other students or Kathy would have ‘an unfair advantage’.  So she’d have to show the example to all the other students.

I was shocked.

What did this tutor understand her responsibilities to be? Did she think she was there to make it as difficult as possible for Kathy to learn the skills she needs? And what was all that rubbish about an ‘unfair advantage’? My friend had no problem at all with all her peers seeing an example. What was causing Kathy the problem was that the other students had all recently graduated so were much more familiar with an ‘academic style’ than she was (she graduated more like 20 years ago).

(I also wondered what possible use this assignment was going to be in giving her the skills to teach children.)

Why Do People (Teachers) Do This?

I wonder if it’s because they think learning should be hard and people should struggle. Perhaps it’s because they themselves struggled, or perhaps they think people should work it out for themselves.

Or perhaps they see their job more as marking papers and catching people out rather than enabling their students to get the best possible grade.

Working It Out For Yourself

The thing about this is that it is a very nice idea, but not everyone can work everything out by themselves every time (more about how to do this next week). A moment’s thought easily illustrates the point.

Newton worked out his laws of motion himself, but it took him quite a while (many years). Einstein worked out his theory of special relativity himself, but that took him some time too and I think you’ll find both were quite clear that they couldn’t have done it without ’standing on the shoulders’ of others.

We don’t have time to work out all these key things ourselves. The job of a teacher is to give us the tools and information we need to do this. This includes drawing our attention to the relevant specifics.

Helping You To Work It Out

In preparation for my skiing holiday I bought Timothy Gallwey’s book, ‘Inner Skiing’.  I have long admired his approach to learning and coaching. He tackles this topic with great skill. He explains that the coach needs to help the learner focus their attention in the right area (or shine the light on the right area as he puts it) so that the individual can learn.

This narrows down the field but does not rob you of the experience of working it out for yourself. What it does is make learning easier and more fun.

On a personal note, if you are a skier of any level of skill I would highly recommend this book. My friends noticed quite a leap in my skiing skills this year and it was purely as a result of reading this book. (When I say ‘leap’ I don’t mean to say I was making jumps or anything like that….). More on that next week.

The neuroscience I am familiar with (and you will have read about here on many occasions if you have been getting this for a while) backs up his approach completely.

By saying that the report must be more ‘academic’ the tutor has not narrowed the field enough for my friend. (Or for me – I don’t really know what she means.) She needs to give my friend a piece of text, it can be on any subject at all, but needs to be in the correct style (whatever she thinks it is) and then ask my friend a question that will focus her attention in the right direction.

It’s Not That Easy

Of course I’m making it sound easy, but helping others to learn is a great skill. It’s very much about asking the right question. This takes a lot of thought and practice.

But It Works

I once met Timothy Gallwey. I asked him for some advice with a client we’ll call Mike. He had a student working with him for a while. The student had a very poor level of meetings skills and was also very shy. Mike wanted to help him improve his skills, but was concerned about upsetting him.

Tim suggested that Mike ask the student to identify what he thought were effective and ineffective meetings behaviours over the following two weeks.

Two week’s later Mike gave me a ring.  ‘You’ll never believe this,’ He said. ‘That student came to see me this morning and said ‘My meetings skills are really bad, can you help me?”

With not much help the student improved drastically.

As Tim explained to me, all the student needed was for his awareness in the right area to be raised. From the neuroscience we know that this means he was then getting the correct feedback in order to learn.

Poor Teaching

Just telling someone that their writing needs to be ‘more academic’ is sloppy and lazy, or it could just be a very poor level of skill. Whichever it is, it’s a very poor example to set to someone training to be a teacher.

What’s even worse is that, when asked the right question, this tutor did not give any useful information. In other words when asked what the difference was between my friend’s style and the ‘academic’ style, she did not give an answer.

It’s hard not to conclude that she doesn’t know the answer herself.

And that’s the beauty of the questioning style to assist learning. You don’t have to know the answer. Just the question. So all the tutor had to do was to provide an example and ask Kathy what she thought the difference was.

Have you ever been in the same situation as Kathy? Let me know. What did you do about it?

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You may be interested in our:

Teleseminar on Dealing With Poor Performance

12 January (or the recording if you can’t make the date)

This one hour session will include:

  • What poor performance is
  • How to Identify it quickly
  • What to do about it
  • If you are the manager – how to manage these situations
  • If you are the individual – what to do to make sure you are fairly treated and you meet the required standards

You will also get a full set of notes and have access to the MP3 of the recording as soon as it is available, along with a full transcript of the session. You can just phone in.

It costs £25 (including VAT) and you can sign up using this link.

http://tinyurl.com/y9lubwz

Once you have signed up we’ll send you all the details. If you come along and don’t find it useful, we’ll completely refund your money, just as we will with any product or service you are not happy with.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Dealing With Difficult Relatives at Christmas

December 21st, 2009

Back in 2003 I was interviewed for an article about dealing with difficult relatives at Christmas. I have been asked to re-publish that article, as it is nearly Christmas and some people found the advice handy.

Last week I ran a teleseminar on Feedback. One of the topics that came up from one of the participants was how to give feedback to a colleague who had bullied someone else in a meeting (of Directors) and was virtually boasting about it to others.

I have also had requests for help from people trying to deal with difficult behaviours at home. For all of you, here is the original article plus a few extra bits.

With Christmas Day falling on a Thursday this year, a leading behaviourist says the season of goodwill could actually become a battleground with families being packed together for up to four days.

Nancy Slessenger says, “Christmas is an artificial experience. It bears little resemblance to normal living. It is the one time of year when two or three generations can be packed in a house together. They start with good intentions, but tempers can flare, often sparked by trivial arguments.

“Instead of using the carving knife on the turkey, your thoughts turn to your husband – or his mother!”

But Nancy says there are ways of avoiding such extreme action and simple tricks to prevent family rows from becoming permanent rifts.

Nancy, author of ‘Understanding Misunderstandings’, says “We all know what it’s like to be frazzled in the kitchen when a family member, quite often an in-law, comes in and tells us how to cook the meal!

“Don’t shout. Ignore their advice but turn the tables by peppering them with questions such as – ‘So, what are your thoughts on stuffing? Home made or bought? And what do you cook the roast potatoes in, lard, goose fat, corn oil or duck fat? What do you think of Delia’s recipe? And do you still use Tupperware like the Queen?

“Pretty soon they’ll be sick of your questions and you won’t be bothered ever again.”

Nancy also has advice about handling the Christmas moaning Minnies.

“Don’t try and jolly them out of their misery – use the technique of being even more negative than they are!

“If they complain about the turkey say, ‘Yes, I agree it’s dreadful. We’ll all probably get food poisoning. Let’s throw it away and have some toast instead.’

“Or if they moan about their presents say, ‘Okay, we’ll take them to Oxfam next week if you don’t want to keep them.’

“Adopt this negative technique and they’ll soon stop moaning. If you try and be positive with them, you will make them even more negative.”

Some Additional Advice

That was the article, here’s an extra tip to keep you sane.

Bullies At Christmas

If you have relatives that tend to bully others, set clear boundaries. Be straight about the rules and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Bullies are people who are behaving like five-year-olds and need to be treated as such, till they learn how to behave like adults.

The reason they are bullying you is because you are treating them as though they are grown up and allowing them to behave badly.

What’s really sad is that they need love and attention but just don’t know how to get it. Everything they do means they get less love and attention, which paradoxically means they need more.

I spent five hours once coaching a man who terrified his work colleagues. He shouted at me and got very upset. After several hours he complained that ‘no one ever helped him with his problems’.

I asked him ‘I’ve been here since 9am, three hours ago. What do you think I’ve been trying to do?’ He looked at the floor. ‘After all the effort I’ve put in this morning, how do you think I felt when you said that nobody every helped you?’

His face went red and he looked at me and said ‘Sometimes I just need a hug.’ I was completely astonished and noticed that he was near to tears.

What To Say

Take the bully by the horns and be clear on what the boundaries are, just like you would with a five-year-old:

‘You can have your presents when you have finished clearing the table. Only people who help out get their presents.’

It will make your life a whole lot easier over the festive season.

To go with this blog there is s special offer, valid till 4th January 2010. This coupon gives you 25% off any of our products that help you to deal with ‘difficult people’. They are all on this page of our site:

http://www.vinehouse.co.uk/difficultshop.htm


To get the discount, just put this into the box asking for the coupon code:  DIFFICULT RELATIVES

Then click the ‘apply’ button.

Let me know what you have to put up with at Christmas and please share your tips on how to do it.

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Posted in Bullies, Difficult People | 2 Comments »

Sir Gerry Does It Again

December 15th, 2009

Last week I watched the first part of another series by Sir Gerry Robinson. This time he was trying to fix Dementia care homes.

Nightmare

He mentioned that his own father had suffered from this awful disease. We were taken to the kind of home we imagine in our worst nightmares; elderly people sat in a lounge staring bleakly into space in silence for hours.

At one point a woman cried out for help for half an hour, and nobody came. Another issue was the way the owners had taken away meals from the staff. The staff are people on almost the minimum wage who work 10 hour shifts.

Let Them Eat Cake

We saw one scene where the particular owner grilled a member of the kitchen staff on half a loaf of bread she had found that had been labelled apparently for the night shift. She was clearly convinced that the crime committed was that this bread had been left for the member of staff not the residents.

Another owner spoke indignantly saying he didn’t want the kitchen staff having to bother with food for the carers when they were supposed to be looking after the residents. This was a man living in a £4m home.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This

We then saw a very different home in Warwickshire. The residents were taking part in all kinds of activities; many of the normal daily routines that keep any house going: ironing, setting the tables and so on. It was a huge difference.

We must always bear in mind that this is TV, but even so, as my old friend Elaine would say ‘A blind man on a galloping horse could see that,’

The Manager

We met the manager, a cheerful friendly but above all enthusiastic man, who clearly cared. His approach seemed simple and straightforward.

We compared this to the poor woman managing one of the previous homes. She had had no training in this kind of care. She showed Sir Gerry the forms and files she had to keep on all the residents. These listed out all kinds of statistics designed to make sure they were safe. But as he pointed out, there was nothing about the quality of life.

There seemed to be no notes on the previous lives of the residents – nothing to give the staff clues that they could use in talking to the residents.

Quality of life

There was none. It had been sacrificed on the altar of safety. On a lovely sunny day the residents were all locked inside, for their own safety and we heard that you just couldn’t let them out.

As you can imagine, in the Warwickshire home, things were different. We saw the residents planting pansies and a man who was clearly very disabled in some kind of chair using what seemed to be his only working limb to paint a piece of furniture. He was clearly very happy to be doing something useful.

We saw lunchtime in Warwickshire where staff were sat enjoying their lunch with the residents. At the other homes we saw people being fed.

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch?

When Sir Gerry asked some of the disgruntled staff whose lunches had been withdrawn why they stayed, the answer was simple. It was because they really cared for the residents, in spite of the way they had been treated themselves.

What was heart-rending to me was that these very dedicated people were not given the skills or the opportunities to look after the people they cared so much about in a way that would really make those people happy.

A Free Lunch

We learned that it was no more expensive to run the home in this much more effective way.

And it’s so often the case. In fact, I would go as far as to say that running things well is almost always cheaper than doing it badly. If you find yourself cutting lunches and arguing over half a loaf of bread you really need to question what is going on.

When Gerry suggested to the ‘bread woman’ that she get some tips from the Warwickshire home it did not go down well. She responded aggressively and clearly felt threatened. She didn’t want to be ‘told what to do’.

Sometimes when people are in this situation they just can’t believe there is a solution and assume people are out to get them. Whereas Sir Gerry was just trying to help.

Dementia

As yet there is no cure. But there are things you can do to reduce the risks of getting dementia. Getting exercise, eating fresh fruit, vegetables and fish are all linked to lower risk of dementia. Vitamins C and E also reduce it.

Looking after your brain is another way to slow the onset of dementia. This means you need to keep mentally and physically active. This is not particularly recent research, yet the people in two of the homes featured on the programme were left with nothing to do and no stimulation at all for hours every day.

We know that, when you do this to any brain, within a matter of hours there is deterioration. This is why it’s so important to keep people active after operations and brain damage. Yes, they need lots of rest, but they also need to get their brains working.

Marian Diamond

In her groundbreaking research of many years ago now, Marian Diamond took some rats and put them into different environments. One group of 12 rats had toys to play with and other rats to communicate with in their cage. Another group of rats was put in isolation with nothing to do.

At the end of the experiment, there was a measurable difference in their brains. Those of the rats in the groups (the ‘enriched environment’) had more connections between the neurons than the rats that had been kept on their own.

I remember seeing Marian Diamond, who is Professor of Anatomy at Berkeley, show us diagrams of the neurons from the ‘enriched’ brains and the ‘impoverished’ brains. The difference was quite astonishing. The ‘enriched’ neurons had a forest of branches linking them. The others had a few twigs.

I met Marian Diamond several times at various conferences. One time, I went down to the gym early in the morning (about 6am) and there she was, already powering up and down the lanes in the pool. She then leapt out and did her weight training. She was easily 70 at that time.

We left the gym together and climbed up the stairs (about five floors) to our rooms. You can see some excerpts of her being interviewed here:

The Good Home

At the home in Warwickshire, they are helping their residents to keep those connections between neurons going in spite of their illness. In the other homes the problems are just compounded. But it’s not that difficult to do better.

And that’s the key point from Sir Gerry. You don’t have to be unpleasant or mean. Running things well, and making a profit can be done in a way that is fun and good for everyone. And it’s not hard. Sometimes it’s just a question of having the courage to ask for and accept some help.

If you are in the UK, and would like to watch it, the second and final episode of ‘Can Gerry Robinson Fix Dementia Care Homes?’ is on BBC2 tonight at 9pm (15 Dec). Enjoy.   Let me know what you thin.

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Posted in Brain, Learning, Management Skills | 3 Comments »

Increase Your Efficiency With Little Effort

December 7th, 2009

Recently I talked about being optimistic and how that could improve things. We’ve been doing it here and I certainly do feel more optimistic as a result.

So here’s another very simple thing you can do that really makes a difference. These days it’s called ‘mindfulness’ and is cropping up everywhere at the moment. However, it’s not new. It’s coming up again now because (after thousands of years) there is now the neuroscience to explain why it works which I suspect persuades those who thought it was just ‘fuzzy fluffy stuff’.

But in case you aren’t familiar with it, or would like a refresher, here it is. There are many different definitions. My understanding is that mindfulness is about being aware and in the moment.

The benefits of developing ‘mindfulness’

These include:

  • Stronger immune system
  • Improved ability to focus attention (concentrate)
  • Reduced stress
  • Increased ability to ‘multi-task’

I think most of us would be glad of improvements in any of these areas.

I trained in this years ago, but don’t remember it being called ‘mindfulness’. I can certainly tell you that, over the last 10 years I have had a total of one day off sick (that was made up of two half days).

As you know, I’m always looking for ways to improve, especially ones that are simple and easy to apply, so let me share this with you.

What Does It Involve?

Meditation

One aspect is meditation. At their most basic, many forms of meditation involve repeating a word or sound many times either in your head or out loud. You just let any other thoughts drift in and then away, like clouds. I was told that all I had to do was to do this a couple of times a day and I would see benefits.

I noticed a big drop in stress levels. I didn’t really measure my ability to focus, but I think most people who work with me would say I can generally do that quite well. (Though there is always room for improvement!)

Directing your attention, and holding it in place, re-wires your brain. This happens during the meditation, but just repeating it regularly (daily if possible) changes your brain in lasting ways. The executive systems, including the cingulate cortex, become better at paying attention. This new skill is then applied across everything you do.

Being able to focus your attention is crucial to just about everything you do at work (and probably out of work too).

Wider Awareness

We often do things ‘without thinking’. So we don’t notice what is going on. Simple exercises to improve awareness can have big benefits. Again, they can reduce stress, but they can also help us to notice how we are thinking and improve our thinking.

This skill can help us to spend less time in negative cycles of thought, worrying about things or brooding on past problems.

I learned some exercises in this area from my singing teacher. We did breathing exercises. Now don’t worry, they are not difficult. All you have to do is, when you are walking (preferably outside somewhere nice) slow down your breathing.

One exercise I learned involves breathing in for two steps, out for three, in for three, out for four, in for four, out for five and so on. My teacher could get up to 40 steps for one breath. I have never made it that far.

It doesn’t have to be that hard. You could just have a go at breathing in and out every three steps. As you do it, really expand your rib cage. If you can breathe with your diaphragm, do that.  Notice any areas of tension and relax them. Smile. Pay attention to the objects you are walking past.

Notice the feelings in the different parts of your body as you do it.

Do this for just a few minutes. Even if it’s as you walk along a corridor at work, it’s still useful.

The Research

The reason why this is now becoming so popular again, I think, is because the advanced methods of research available to neuroscientists mean that people can say why it’s working.

The insular cortex becomes better at sensing the interior state of your body, your primary emotions and at recognising the emotions of others, which improves your emotional intelligence.

Focusing on your breathing and slowing it down sends messages to the heart to slow down. Breathing more deeply increases the blood supply to your brain, which increases the oxygen supply to your brain (no bad thing).

Why Do I Like This So Much?

Simple. Because you don’t have to work hard to get the benefits. Amazingly, even just a few minutes a day will give real benefits. This is why I’m passing it on to you. A really simple, completely free couple of techniques that are virtually guaranteed to improve your life. What could be better?

Let me know how you get on. And if you have some exercises you would recommend, please share them here. I feel sure that there are some great ideas out there.

Posted in Improving Performance, Learning | 6 Comments »

Does 360 Degree Feedback Work? What Do You Think?

November 30th, 2009

I had an email from a Grapevine reader a while back asking what she could do about some very unpleasant feedback she had had.

Roughly, it suggested that she did a poor job, was bad at prioritising and often missed important things.

In the past, all the feedback she had had was about how well she was doing. She had never had any feedback like this before and was completely distraught. Worst of all, it was anonymous and there was no way of finding out what the individual meant, who they were or what they were referring to.

The feedback had come through a 360 Degree Feedback process that her company had introduced.

360 Degree Feedback

Just to clarify, 360 Degree Feedback refers to getting feedback on your performance from all levels of people you work with; managers, peers and those working for you.

Another Example

I worked with a client that had called me in because they had introduced a 360 feedback system and it had caused some serious problems. The MD had decided to ‘have a go’ first himself to show that it would be fine.

Unfortunately he got some feedback indicating all was not well. He then went on to ’share’ the information he had been given, but omitted to mention any of the less favourable comments.

Unfortunately, for those who had written those comments, this immediately destroyed the credibility of the whole system.

The Problem

In this case one of the main problems was the design of the system and the poor quality of the questions. They were really a licence for anyone to launch a rant about whatever they liked, instead of a way of getting useful, factual information that would help people to develop.

Training and Guidance

In my view people should not be asked to give this kind of information without, at the very least, some kind of guidance on how to do it. I have trained enough people on giving feedback to know that many people need some help in this area.

This is particularly true when they are looking for improvement or have problems with an individual. Any fool can moan and complain, but it takes a little skill to be clear about what is required in a helpful way.

The system (or ’solution’ as it’s often called) also needs to be very carefully designed, especially the questions. If not, it can cause many problems.

A Question For You: What Are Your Experiences of 360 Degree Feedback?

I’m asking this question because it came up in our Appraisals Teleseminar last week. Rachel, who works for the Alzheimer’s Society, and was taking part in the Teleseminar, wondered if anyone had got experience of this they were willing to share.

I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who have had both good and bad experiences in this area. So, please let me know, on the blog so we can all share this, what those experiences are and what you would recommend/not recommend.

I’m sure many of you have opinions on this topic. You probably also have your own questions. Please add them here.

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Posted in Appraisals and Performance Reviews, Feedback, Improving Performance, Management Skills, Training | 15 Comments »

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