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Why Working Memory Is So Important

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Memory

A while back I saw a TV program about Tony Buzan working with some 13-year-old children at a school. He had asked for the worst students, those who were performing poorly.

In the two part series he took a group of about a dozen of these children and, quite simply, transformed their lives.

My most striking memory of the series was a particular boy. At the beginning of the program he said to the boy:
‘We are going to do some shopping. We’re going to buy some eggs, tomatoes and crisps. What are we going to get?’
The boy could not remember a single one of the three items.

Yet, just a year later, that very same boy presented to the parents of the children in that group. He walked round the car park before the event. When he came to the front of the hall and stood in front of the parents, he recited the makes and number plates, in order, of all the cars that were parked in the car park.

His great pride was obvious. The whole audience was stunned, as was I. The boy had changed from a ‘no-hoper’ to a star, and he knew it.

Is Working Memory or IQ a Greater Predictor of Success?

This is a question that was asked by researchers recently. There have long been debates over whether IQ predicts success and we are all familiar with the stories of people in MENSA who are bus conductors.

What Is Working Memory?

It’s your ability to hold different things in your head at once. It has been described as the ‘table top’ in your head.

Most importantly it’s what enables you to remember what I was saying at the beginning of this article or even this sentence. If you couldn’t do that it would be hard for you to know what I was talking about.

Why Is It So Important?

If you are sat in class and have trouble remembering what the teacher just said, you can be judged as inattentive and having a poor attention span.

You can forget the teacher’s instructions so you don’t know what you’re doing. You can be seen as making ‘careless’ mistakes and failing to complete tasks.

Processing information also takes longer for those with poor working memories.

Given all this, it’s not hard to work out why they may perform badly at school.

From recent research by Tracy Packlam Alloway it turns out that working memory is a much better predictor of success than IQ. I think it’s pretty clear why there is such a strong link. But not many teachers focus on helping their students to improve their memory. Probably because they are unaware of the link or don’t have the time.

What Can You Do?

It has long been known that children increase their working memory capacity with age. Another ‘bit’ gets added about every year. This research indicates that if you start off with a poor working memory you stay in that category. However, this research didn’t seem to be looking at people who were making an effort to improve their memories.

From what Tony Buzan achieved, we know this can be done.

I listened to an interesting argument about this on the radio. People were arguing over whether memory improvements really improved your working memory or were just a series of ‘techniques’, implying that they didn’t count!

Clearly they had not seen the boy from my story. Yes, I know this wasn’t a controlled clinical trial, but it was quite clear that this boy’s memory had improved. There was no test (that I remember) of his working memory, but the fact that he could now carry out a sensible conversation and remember what had been said at the beginning of a sentence seemed to indicate vast improvement.

Memory and Self Esteem

Sonia Lupien, a Canadian researcher, did some very interesting work showing that there is a link between the size of the hippocampus (a part of your brain responsible for moving short term memories into long term memories) and self esteem.

The smaller the hippocampus, the lower the self esteem in the children she was testing.

We also know that the size of the hippocampus is related to memory (you’ll probably recall the research on London taxi drivers from a few years back).

This means that, as they are both linked to the size of the hippocampus, memory and self esteem are directly related to each other.
This makes it doubly worrying for those with a poor working memory.

It Can Be Done

I believe the key is working with what you have. In the memory course I run, we start off with ‘Kim’s Game’. You probably played it when you were a child. There are 20 objects on a tray. You are allowed to see them for a minute or so. Then the tray is covered up and you have to write down all the objects you remember.

Usually there are some people who excel and others who do quite badly at this task. But within fifteen minutes or so, those who did badly the first time have usually improved their scores drastically. They do this just through trying out a few simple techniques.

And I’m sure you can imagine how they feel, improving so quickly.

It’s Not Rocket Science

Many people think that some people are just good at remembering things and they themselves are not. The truth is that those who are good at it usually have some clever tools and techniques that can often easily be used by others.  Sometimes they are so used to using them that they don’t even realise they are doing it.

Don’t Just Accept A Poor Memory – or Anything Else

So often people say it’s just their age or they have a poor memory. I strongly believe that there’s always something you can do about these things. It just takes a little effort. But the payoff is huge.

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

Have You Ever Bullied Anyone?

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Have You Bullied People?

Last week there were reports of bullying by our Prime Minister,
Gordon Brown. One report I heard was of a security guard being
bullied when the PM hit the back of his seat. I didn’t hear all the
details of this, but it sounded as though this was in a car.

I was called in to help an individual who had been bullying his
colleagues (including his manager) at a site in Europe. He had
thrown objects across the room during a meeting with a client and
‘had an argument with a door’ as my client put it. The door had,
apparently, come off worst.

When I met Tony (not his real name), he was about 6′ 4″ and looked

like a rugby player. I asked him about the client meeting. He
recounted the event giving very similar details to the ones I’d
already heard.

He was convinced he was right. Unfortunately he was going to be
fired if he didn’t change his ways.

As we talked it became clear he was unhappy and frightened. Over a
few sessions we worked together and he learned some more effective
ways to negotiate. I remember one day him asking me: ‘Nancy, why do
I make things that are so simple, so complicated?’

By the end of our work together he was so keen on what he had
learned that he asked me to come in and train the rest of his staff
on these techniques. I was delighted. But the most touching comment
of all was when he told me that, thanks to what he had learned, he
now had a really good relationship with his daughter.

Have You Ever Bullied Anyone?

I’m afraid any of us who answered this question with a ‘No’ would
be lying. Even the best of us did this at some time or other.
That’s because, when you are a baby, it’s the only way you have to
get what you want.

Babies don’t have the language skills we have as we grow older.
Mainly they can cry and bawl when they are unhappy and need
something, or look cute if they are happy. If you are a parent you
will know how much it means when your baby smiles at you.

So, unless you were never a baby, you will have bullied someone.
The thing is, it’s OK when you are a baby to behave like this.

It’s not OK when you are an adult.

So Why Does It Happen?

When you’re a baby your only negotiation skills involve crying and
smiling. As you get older your parents help you to learn better
negotiation skills. They remind you to say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’
(probably hundreds, if not thousands, of times).

You start to learn bartering skills. Your parents get you to think
about the needs and feelings of others:

‘How do you think Anne felt when you took her tractor without
asking?’

If you are lucky and your parents have good negotiation skills you
will see examples of excellent tools and strategies for difficult
situations.

If you are not lucky, your parents won’t have any negotiation
skills to speak of and you won’t have the opportunity to learn any.
So all you’ll have is bullying. That’s one way it happens.

Another way is when you are stressed and tired.

In these situations, the reasoning part of your brain, the
pre-frontal cortex (that eats up energy) does not have enough
energy to overrule other parts of your brain that just want you to
behave like a three-year-old. So that’s what you end up doing.

It’s compounded by the fact that, when you are feeling threatened,
stressed and tired, your ability to be aware of, and objective
about, your own behaviour is drastically reduced. (Sometimes to
about zero.)

As a consequence of this you think you are being quite reasonable.

What Can You Do?

People who bully others need help in learning how to negotiate
effectively. Just like Tony, they need to move on from their
childish fallback position of bullying people when they can’t have
what they want, to learning to negotiate properly.

They also need to learn to recognise the triggers; the situations
in which they are most likely to bully others. Once you are aware
of the triggers, you can be prepared and be ready to handle the
situations better.

Effective negotiation is about finding out what everyone’s needs
are and working out how they can be met. Bullying is about putting
your needs ahead of everyone else’s and not even considering their
needs.

Once Tony had learned how to negotiate properly he realised that
his life was much easier and nicer. There was no need for his
previous behaviour.

Having a ‘no tolerance’ policy on bullying is all very well, as
long as it’s backed up with the right kind of support for both the
individual being bullied and the one who is doing the bullying.

We can all learn how to stop bullying. It involves responding to
the bullying in a helpful way that doesn’t encourage bullying.
Unfortunately what many people do is respond in a way that makes it
worse, because they don’t know any other way.

Here’s one very simple thing to do if you are faced with someone
who shouts and bawls at you. I call it my ‘tantrum technique’. I
observed someone do this once and was so impressed I made notes and
honed it so I could pass it on to my clients.

Tantrum Technique

  1. Listen to what the person is saying. Do not interrupt, however
    tempting
  2. Summarise what they have said, using their name, language and
    intonation. This tells them you have really listened and you
    understand how bad things are:

    ‘So Tony, you are really upset because this report has not been finished yet and it’s causing your department severe problems.

  3. Wait for them to indicate if you have got it right or not. If
    not, don’t worry just go back to step 1 and repeat till you get a
    ‘yes’ at step 3.
  4. Ask them what they would like you to do about it. This sounds
    frightening because you imagine they will kinds of demands you
    can’t give them. Strangely this doesn’t happen. They generally
    don’t know what they want and you have taken the wind out of their
    sails.
  5. Wait for the response. When it comes, summarise it and let them
    know exactly what you can and can’t do, by when and (if
    appropriate) the cost.

One of my clients got £27,000 extra put onto their contract as a
result of using this technique with a very difficult client who was
as calm as a kitten by the end.

You may have to repeat a few of the steps again, but don’t worry,
just stick at it.

There are many other simple tools and techniques you can use in
these situations. If you would like to know more, see below.

Remember, there is ALWAYS something you can do in these situations.
You do not have to put up with this kind of treatment.

Please do pass this on to anyone you think might find it useful.

To find out more on how to deal with bullying at work, come to my
teleseminar at 11am on Thursday 11th March, UK time.

It’s just £25 including VAT. You can sign up using this link:

If you can’t join live on the day, you still get the recording and
all the materials.

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

(Edited by Caroline to correct formatting)

Posted in Bullies, Difficult People, Improving Performance, Management Skills | 4 Comments »

What’s Your Top Priority?

Monday, February 15th, 2010

It is a truth universally acknowledged that many people who need to improve their time management skills don’t have enough time to do it (and consequently don’t come on time management courses).

It’s an indicator of the failure of one of the most essential time management skills – that of the ability to prioritise (or prioritize if you are in the US).

Why does this happen? Why are so many people so bad at this?

An Example

I was once coaching a client who was in a really serious depression. I asked him what he wanted.

He described his life. It was ghastly as far as he could see. He was sharing a house with his ex-girlfriend. They could not sell the house and spent many hapless hours trying to get it into a state that was saleable.

So he was unhappy at home. He hated his current work project, he hated his manager and he saw no prospect of improvement. After listening to a stream of depressing examples for nearly an hour I said: ‘You’ve told me all things you don’t want. Now tell me what you do want.’

He paused and took a deep breath. Then he looked wistfully into the distance and told me:

‘All I want is to be able to go home in the evening, sit in my comfy armchair with a glass of wine, put some good music on the stereo, and enjoy reading a good book.’

It’s not much to ask, is it? But as I pointed out to him, he’d had 42 years to arrange it. So what had he been doing all that time?

How It Happens

We very easily get distracted from what we really want (often nothing more than a good book and a glass of wine) by lots of other ‘important’ things.

A friend of mine who I saw last week in the US sent me an email:

“The more time that goes by the more I’m seeing “objectives” as absolutely central to everything, upon everything, that I do.”

I’m not talking here about all those work objectives that come down from on high. I’m talking about those little things that you would like for yourself. That quiet evening reading, or that new hedge-trimmer. It’s easy to forget that the reason we do all the work, earn all the money and put in all that effort is often so we can have those little moments of enjoyment.

Prioritisation

This is all about deciding what you do next and when you do all the other tasks that have mounted up on your desk and in your inbox.

How To Prioritise

Before you can prioritise you need to identify what it is you want to achieve (your objectives). Hence the quote from my friend. Once you have done this, you are part way there. But there’s something else you must do first.

Criteria

Prioritisation is about having clear criteria for what you do and what you don’t do. The trouble is that the criteria change as time goes on, and that’s where most people fall down.

When you were at school (if you can remember that far back) you were more than likely able to do just about every task that came your way.

This probably included homework, sports activities, chores around the house and your social activities.

It may be you then went to college. The same was probably true. However, as soon as you got to the situation where you had more to do than time available, you had to decide which things you were going to do and which you weren’t.

Falling Off The Edge

If you don’t make a conscious decision about these things then some stuff just drops off the edge in a completely random way (for example: your mum’s birthday present, the assignment you were supposed to finish, cleaning your room and so on).

However, if you have clear criteria, you end up getting the important things done and lose the less important ones by choice, rather than accident.

Criteria

Criteria are just sieves that you put everything through so you can see what’s left. For example you might, if you were a very diligent student, decide that your top priority was things that would help you get your qualification.

So before doing anything you would ask yourself ‘Is doing this going to help me get my degree/certificate/grade 7? If the answer is ‘yes’ you do it. If not, you don’t.

Where It Gets Hard

That’s easy as far as it goes. The trouble is that as our lives go on, circumstances change. This happens especially in our working lives as we move to different jobs. Usually the next job is more complicated/senior than the last. This means it encompasses more stuff.

As a result of this, you need to change your criteria every time you change job, or your job changes so that you can get everything done and you are not swamped.

An Example

If you started as an HR admin person, you might read every letter or email that came in. You might handle every enquiry of a specific kind personally.

If you were promoted, you might no longer read all the letters, just ones from people complaining about something. You might just answer these personally, and delegate the others to an assistant.

A further promotion might mean you were responsible for a large budget and several staff as well as policy issues. At this stage you would need to have very clear criteria for which issues you got personally involved in, otherwise you would be overwhelmed.

Letting Go

People often see this as letting go or losing something. But they forget that they have taken on lots of other things and, in order to cope, must re-prioritise.

When Did You Last Reprioritise?

I recommend that everyone should at least check their criteria for prioritisation at least every six months. It doesn’t matter if you think they need to stay the same. It’s just a few minutes work. But I think you’ll find you do need to update – let me know if I’m wrong.

The Book, The Wine, The Music and the Comfy Chair

You’ll be pleased to learn that my client did successfully reprioritise his life and is now extremely happily married with a son. He sometimes even gets to read a book (well, he did before his son was born).

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Don’t forget to sign up for my Time Management Teleseminar

Tuesday 25th February, just £25 including VAT

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

You will discover

  • The two main things you can do to give yourself more time
  • How to deal with interruptions
  • How to say ‘no’
  • How to plan more effectively

And much more

If you don’t find it useful – you get your money back.

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Posted in Improving Performance, Management Skills, Objectives, Time Management | Comments Off

How to Cope with Stressful Situations and Shocks

Sunday, 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 | 6 Comments »

Problem With The In-Laws

Friday, 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

—————————————————–

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

Thursday, 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.

—————————————————–

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

Tuesday, 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

Tuesday, 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 »

Increase Your Efficiency With Little Effort

Monday, 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?

Monday, 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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