Archive for the ‘Learning’ Category

« Older Entries

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 »

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.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Brain, Improving Performance, Learning | 6 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 »

Sir Gerry Does It Again

Tuesday, 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.

Tags: ,
Posted in Brain, Learning, Management Skills | 3 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 »

Do Optimistic People Live Longer?

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Last week I was speaking to a group about Emotional Intelligence, NLP and Neuroscience. A discussion started up about the link between positive thinking and longevity. People were asking if it really made a difference to your health.

Then by coincidence there was a programme on the radio about a similar topic: learning to be optimistic.

The Nuns

You may be familiar with a study on some nuns that was carried out some time ago. When they joined the convent they were each asked to write a short autobiography. 70 years later the words they put into that text were analysed and linked with their longevity.

About one third used positive words; the others did not. It turns out that of those who used positive, optimistic words such as ‘eager’, ‘happy’ and so on, 52% were still alive at 94. Only 11% of those who did not use those words were still alive at that age.

As a result of this, people asked if you could train people to be optimistic. And if you did, would it have a similar impact on their longevity and a positive impact on their lives.

It turns out that it does improve lives.

Teenagers

According to Professor Martin Seligman if teenagers are trained in optimism, they reduce their chances of depression by about 50%.

Not only this, but optimists tend to do better than they are expected to in exams and succeed in other areas of their lives as well. Pessimists tend to do worse. Which I imagine leads them to conclude that they were right all along.

How Annoying

No doubt this is annoying for the pessimists, but Professor Seligman’s research indicates that they would be better off learning to be optimistic. This is what they have been doing at Wellington College and claim that their ‘A’ level exam results have improved quite substantially.

So, What Can You Do?

It’s not about being completely unrealistic, he says.  Here are a few things you can do.

The Worst Case Scenario

One key thing is to identify what is the worst that can happen and what is the best that can happen and then re-assess the situation.

Professor Seligman also points out that you don’t want overly optimistic pilots. He suggests that if the worst that could happen is disaster, then you don’t want an optimist. However, if the consequences of failure are not disaster, it’s good to be optimistic.

Notice what is going well in your life

Write down things that have gone well in your life on a daily basis,  or three successes, before you go to bed. Not just ‘counting your blessings’, but reflecting on them; looking at why they went well. They only need to be small things, apparently.

I remember Peter Honey talking about this kind of thing years ago. I found it quite a revelation. He pointed out that we spend much of our time looking at what has gone wrong and why. But this comprises a very small percentage of our experience. So we are limiting ourselves to learning from this small area instead of looking at what went well and learning from that.

This is a very useful strategy I have used ever since.

So, on hearing about the ‘three successes’ strategy I decided to try it out that evening. The very next day I noticed quite a strange effect. I was out on my normal Sunday run, which is traditionally slightly longer than my usual one during the week. As I ran, listening to an excellent play with Geoffrey Palmer in, I wondered what I was going to include that evening in my three successes.  I found myself working out how the run could be included. What would I have to do to make this run successful?

This is a very different thought to the usual one of ‘How can I prevent myself from stopping and taking a rest or just doing a short run?’

Resilience training

Another area is resilience training. This is all about having the mental skills to deal with the difficult situations in your life. Much of this is what is called ‘Emotional Intelligence’, which includes being able to get yourself into the right emotion for the situation you are in.

Put things into perspective

By this, I don’t mean the ‘Total Perspective Vortex’ of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guild to the Galaxy’ fame. It’s a bit easier than that.

A client of mine came to me because she was ‘useless at meetings’. I asked her to outline what had happened. Sure enough she gave me an example of a very difficult situation with another participant who had got quite aggressive. She hadn’t been able to deal effectively with it.

I asked her if this happened with everyone or just this particular person. She told me it was just him.

‘How many meetings have you had with him where there had been this problem?’ I asked.

‘Four.’ She told me.

I then asked her how many meetings she had a week. It was in the area of 25. I asked her how long she’d been working.  It was around 10 years. ‘So that’s about 1250 a year, and over 10 years, 12,250, roughly.’ I said. ‘And you’ve had a problem with four.’ She nodded.

‘And what is your degree?’ I asked.

She started to laugh, till tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘I’m a statistician.’ She confessed.

That’s what I mean about putting things into perspective.

Have A Go

It may be you are already a generally optimistic person, but if not, have a go at one of these techniques. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Improving Performance, Learning, Training | 7 Comments »

Should learning be fun? The government doesn’t think so

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

When I was about nine, I came home from school one day to find that we had a family living in our spare room. They were black South Africans who had escaped apartheid. The mother, a wonderful woman called Amy, and her two children, Sheryl and Karl, lived with us for about a year, till Basil, Amy’s husband, was able to escape from prison.

Sheryl and Karl joined my brother and me at our school. They didn’t perform very well at the beginning, both coming near bottom in their classes in maths.

Improvements

Over the next term they joined in with the games we played at home, many initiated by my father, a skilled maths teacher. They all involved doing some kind of mental arithmetic, though this part of the game was never stressed, it was just taken for granted.

Our favourite game, which we would beg my father to play, was traditionally conducted while we helped him with the washing up. It generally started with the phrase: ‘Think of a number…’ You would then be led through various mental acrobatics. At the end of the game my father would ask you what the number you had was. ‘Seven’ you might answer.

‘The number you first thought of was ten.’ My father would respond. We would gasp with delight and wonder how he did it. Then we would beg him to do it again.

Helping dad with the washing up was a real treat. I’m serious.

By the end of their first term with us Sheryl and Karl were up there with the maths test results, coming around 2nd or 3rd in the class compared to 32nd or 33rd.

A Report

So you can imagine how pleased I was to hear of a report; the Cambridge Primary Review, produced recently here in the UK, that dared to suggest that there was too much emphasis on formal education in the early years and that, up to the age of six, there should be more ‘play based learning’ in schools.

Excellent, I thought.

Not only does my experience tell me that the Cambridge Primary Review has got it right, but the neuroscience I have spent the last 15 years learning about also indicates that this is the right way to go. I often wish I had known what I know now about learning when I was a student and back at school. As I write this I am on my way back from a neuroscience conference.

There has been fantastic research in this area. One of the key findings is that learning should be fun. In fact, if it is, you learn better. This is because, when your brain perceives a ‘threat’ (which can be anything you don’t like) it is less able to learn than when it is in the ‘approach’ state (feeling happy or positive).

In the ‘approach’ state, you have the capacity in your prefrontal cortex (PFC) to learn. Otherwise, space is taken up in the PFC with worrying and other negative thoughts.

Playing vs Learning

What we are talking about here is play-based learning. Dame Gillian Pugh, who co-authored the review, explained that play-based learning was not a “wishy-washy, ‘just let them get on with it’ thing”. “It’s a balance between children-initiated and adult-initiated learning,” she said.

The trouble is there are many people who don’t understand that. When I was at one of the excellent ‘Learning and the Brain’ conferences in Boston a few years back, I met a teacher, Penny. She was extremely enthusiastic. She loved the conference, where neuroscientists come along and talk about their research to teachers to explain what their research tells us about learning and how best to go about it.

Penny told me the sad story of one of her brightest pupils. Penny had been to a previous conference and taken on board many new ideas. She had gone back to her school and implemented lots of them.

Most involved using all the senses, involving the children and getting them to play ‘games’ through which they learned key concepts and ideas. The children loved the new games and the improvements in results had been dramatic.

Unfortunately the parents of this one poor girl had complained and said that their daughter was not to take part in these ‘babyish’ activities. So the poor girl had to sit on her own, while all her friends were having fun, working in her exercise book. Penny had completely failed to get across to the parents that these new tools improved learning rather than the other way around. Her parents were unable to comprehend that a love of learning is a gift for life.

A Step Backwards

It would seem that our government has a similar lack of understanding. They have dismissed the ideas in the report as ‘a step backwards’. Unbelievable.

For some reason other countries in Europe mainly do adopt this approach, it is we who are behind.

Why Don’t They Read The Research?

I will be writing to my MP about this and I know he will write back, as he has replied to all my previous letters. He usually has good answers too. But I’m really struggling to think how he can possibly answer this one well.

Another Example

I was recently working with a client on a ‘Staff Development Day’ for her organisation. She needed people from different sites to come up with ideas around specific situations.

She was planning to provide a flip chart and pens. I suggested she also provide some magazines, scissors and glue. A sad expression passed across her features.

She told me that, whilst the staff at her site had enjoyed this technique in the past, the staff from other sites had seen these tools as ‘childish’ and refused to use them. They felt this kind of thing was beneath them.

Dendrites

The job of any educational institution, school, college, university or training department, is to help learners to grow new dendrites. Dendrites are the links between your neurons. Even as you read this, new dendrites will be forming, linking hitherto lonely neurons together in your very own head.

Well, when I say ‘lonely’, a neuron can be connected to 10,000 other neurons, so I am exaggerating a bit.

If you are a trainer or a coach or fertilise learning in any way, this is your ultimate goal. It’s just like your old teacher told you. You are creating paths through a forest and the paths most trodden are the ones that form memories and learning.

Why Do Some People Think It Must Be Hard Work?

I can only imagine that they themselves had unpleasant experiences at school when they were younger and feel that, because they suffered, so should everyone else. Or perhaps they believe in the ‘no pain, no gain’ mantra. Whilst this may be true for exercise, it’s not true for learning.

Unpleasantness of any kind reduces the ability to form new memories, to be creative and to problem-solve. The opposite is true of positive emotions and what is called the ‘reward state’ in the brain.

Making Success Easier

If you can help people to be happy at work and in a learning environment, your results will improve. It’s not that hard, give it a go.

Let me know what you think abou this? Do you agree? Or should learning be hard work?

Posted in Learning, Training | 14 Comments »

Why Don’t Leaders Have The Skills They Expect Us To Have?

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

This was prompted by a comment in my blog from Dave McCoy, a long time contributor:

‘As always I am struck by the irony that “leaders” rarely show the qualities they expect in their staff…’

Let me know what you think.

This is something I have seen more often than I can count and I imagine you have too. But Dave’s point is why is it the case?

I think there are six main reasons:

  • Lack of awareness
  • Not taking responsibility
  • Poor feedback
  • No example to follow
  • Lack of training
  • Poor recruitment

Let me start with a short story. I was at the sixtieth birthday party (yes, another party) of a friend recently. He is from Jamaica and told a great story about one of the people who influenced him in his life. It was his grandmother.

One day she said to him:

‘You’d better get yourself an education, man.’  He paused and we all held our breath as we waited for her words of wisdom, so we could pass them on to our own children.

‘Coz you’re USELESS!’ he bellowed, impersonating the great lady.

‘You can’t even climb a tree like your brother…’ The tirade continued.

I was stunned, as was the rest of the audience. Then we all laughed. It was this piece of feedback that had prompted our friend to pull up his socks and, eventually, get a good education.

Sadly many leaders do not have as perceptive a grandmother as our friend did.

None Of Us Is As Self-Aware As We Could Be

This is the first reason, I think. No matter how skilled we are, there are faults we have that we are blind to.

It’s Worse For Leaders

However, most of us have the benefit of the odd piece of feedback from friends and family, or even colleagues.

How we respond to that feedback determines how much feedback we get in the future and whether it is reliable.

Unfortunately for leaders, the quality and objectivity of the feedback they get is often dubious. The paradox is that the worse their skills are the less likely they are to be given objective feedback (and to act on it).

This is because people are frightened to give them feedback or don’t have the skills themselves. The reason they don’t have the skills is because they have not been developed by their managers (because the managers don’t have the skills….)

Blame The Middle Managers

Many times we have heard of swathes of ‘middle managers’ being cut from an organisation that has become ‘top heavy’. In the health service in particular people are always concerned that the money goes ‘directly to the patients’, not to bureaucracy which, to them, is ‘middle management’.

But you must ask yourself: Who appointed all the middle managers? Who decided they were necessary? Who identified the skills required and drew up the organisational plans?

Yes, it was the senior managers. The ones who are so often immune from the cuts.

Why Don’t They Realise It’s Their Fault?

If you have children you will be familiar with the difficulty of choosing a school. Even when you’ve got a good one, if the head or principal changes, you know the school will too.

Like any organisation, the school is only as good as the person at the top.

The problem for the person at the top is that they have no example to follow. Whereas people lower down the chain can raise their game, can learn from their manager and be inspired to greater things by them, this option is not automatically open to someone at the top.

They have to make a conscious effort to do it. And many don’t. It simply doesn’t occur to them.

As a consequence of this, they do not improve their skills and this lack of development is cascaded down the organisation to the detriment of all.

Why Don’t They Go On The Training Courses Like Everyone Else?

They have lots of excuses but I think the main reason is fear. They don’t want to be found out.

One of the most successful programmes I have ever run was successful because the Managing Director (a man who had several glaring faults) insisted that all employees went through the programme and that included the directors.

We had one director on each module. Initially this was a struggle for some of the people there (not just the directors). But it soon started to work. They just mucked in with everyone else and the benefits were tremendous.

The Benefits

During a time of recession we increased orders and market share, whilst halving the number of complaints received.  (Their competitors all made cuts in staffing levels.) Having the directors on the programme meant that they knew what everyone was talking about and got help in implementing the new ideas.

It’s no good keeping them separate in some ivory tower so they can be allowed to imagine they don’t need to learn new skills.

Recruitment

Perhaps one last reason why you get this problem is the poor recruitment processes often used at senior levels. This can include badly drawn up person specifications so that the management skills required are given a very low priority if any value at all.

The worst case of this I saw was a man, apparently a ‘technical expert in his field’, who had previously been in academia and was recruited to run a massive department. Before this he had managed one secretary.

The HR representative warned the directors not to recruit him due to his appalling level of management skills but they ignored her advice. I was asked in much later to see what I could do to retrieve the situation. By then the damage had been done and it was far too late. I’m sorry to say that he was not able to learn the skills he needed to master in time; it would have taken years.

Looking at this list, perhaps it’s surprising that we have any skilled people at the top at all! But I think if they are prepared to accept the salary, they should be prepared to learn the skills and this should be made clear to them at the start. The trouble is, the rest of us let them get away with it.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Feedback, Improving Performance, Learning, Management Skills | 7 Comments »

What Do You Need To Know About Managing Performance?

Monday, October 5th, 2009

A Really Good Manager

One of the best managers I ever had the good fortune to work with was Ken, who was the production manager where I was the manufacturing director.

I am convinced he was virtually telepathic. He always seemed to know about everything before anyone else. He had the ability to walk onto the shop floor and know instantly if there was a problem.

One day a member of another team in my department came to see me. He asked me if I knew that one of the lads in the production department had been ‘bothering’ one of the younger women. Apparently he had been following her home and kept asking her out.

I was thrilled. At last, I was ahead of Ken. I wasted no time. I thanked my informant and went straight to see Ken. I was trying hard not to let a grin of satisfaction intrude on the conversation – after all it wouldn’t look good if I was smiling when I broached the subject with Ken.

‘Ken, did you realise Paul is causing a few problems with Marie?’ I asked innocently, holding my breath as I waited for him to ask me what it was about.

‘Spoke to him yesterday.’ Said Ken. ‘I think that’ll be an end to it.’

I have no idea how he did that. However, the rest of his tools were more obvious to we mere mortals.

What Is Managing Performance?

Managing performance is what a manager’s job is all about. He or she is responsible for getting the performance they need from their team.

Unfortunately not every manager is like Ken. Over the years I have encountered many examples of very skilled managers and also many examples of the complete reverse.

We have often been asked to run workshops on various aspects of managing performance. These cover anything from dealing with poor performance to delegating and empowering people.

New Tips Booklet

After several prompts I thought it was about time I put all the key points into a tips booklet to go with the others, but covering aspects of performance management that are not included in our material on objective setting, performance reviews, motivation or giving feedback.

However I want to make sure that we get everything that you need into the booklet.

So now it’s over to you.

What Do You Want?

What are your most important questions about this area? What is it you’d like to know? Or what would you like the managers in your company to know?

Please let me know by adding your ideas to this blog so that others can see them for inspiration.

One of the biggest problems many managers face is not being able to deal with poor performance. Probably about 90% of the performance issues I come across could have been tackled easily if they had been dealt with at the initial stages. But many managers either don’t notice or hope they will go away. I think this is because they don’t know how to tackle problems.

So let me know what it is you’d like to see in this new booklet – if it’s about tackling and spotting problems or about how to set things up so you don’t get them.

We have always had a great response from you whenever we’ve asked for your thoughts on these kinds of areas so I look forward to getting your questions and ideas and perhaps an interesting discussion on the blog.

Many thanks in advance.

Posted in Improving Performance, Learning, Management Skills, Objectives, Training | 13 Comments »

Is Your Memory Fading?

Monday, September 14th, 2009

A few weeks ago my mother called me to let me know my father had forgotten something. I was a bit surprised. I wondered why she was calling me on such a trivial matter.

Then it became a bit more obvious. She was just letting me know because he never forgets things, so that I would know for future reference. I quipped that she should try living with my family who I constantly have to remind about most things.

My father is in his 80s now so I suppose he’s allowed to forget the odd thing here and there. Once she had reminded me, I realised that, yes, I couldn’t remember him forgetting anything. He just seems to have that sort of brain.

I remember asking him once how he remembered things. He laughed and told me how he had explained to someone a way of remembering a particular number. The number was 119. ‘It’s easy.’ He told them. ‘It’s just 7 times 17.’ I laughed at that point (he’s a mathematician). Funnily enough I’ve been able to remember that ever since.

Then I started thinking about my own family and why I’m constantly having to remind them about things. So I decided to do something about it.

When you get stressed, this can have a bad impact on your memory and you start forgetting things like a birthday or where you put your keys. As many people are stressed at the moment I thought it might be useful to share a couple of strategies with you.
I’m running a workshop on this soon for one of our clients. It’s not for a month, and it’s already full, so I suspect there are quite a few people keen to improve their memories out there.
What’s great about the course is that, whenever I run it, people are already reporting improvements after just three hours. It’s all simple stuff that you can use safely at home, so here are a few tips for you.

What Most People Don’t Know (or have forgotten) About Memory

People who have good memories don’t just do it ‘automatically’ they have ways of remembering things.

These techniques can be learned by anyone, no matter how old they are.

An Easy Strategy

I taught my daughter one of these techniques. After just a couple of hours she was able to remember a list of 20 unrelated items in about 3 minutes.

I set her a task of being able to remember 30. A day later she was up to 28 and the following day she was able to remember 30.

I won’t pretend she was keen to learn, but she was certainly pleased with her new ability once she’d done it.

A Bit About Your Memory

Memory isn’t just one system; it’s lots of different systems. Most people with poor memories are just relying on one. That’s a bit like only having one route to a destination. When there is a block on that route, you can’t get there.

Having many systems means that even if one route is blocked you can still retrieve your memory through another route.

Some of Your Memory Systems

* Visual – you remember what something looks like
* Auditory – you remember the sound
* Procedural – the memory in your muscles of what you do – like inputting your PIN into a key pad or riding a bike
* Smell – the only sense that connects directly to the brain
* Contextual – where you were or the context for a particular event
* Emotional – what you were feeling at the time – humour is one of the most effective for memory

Any good memory system uses as many of these as it can.

A Simple Memory System

The first system I taught my daughter is one with numbers. You simply write down each digit from 0 to 9 and turn each one into a picture of your own choosing. So ‘0′ could be a plate, ‘1′ in my case is a bottle of beer, and ‘2′ a swan.

Once you have finished your pictures you need to memorise them. However, this should be reasonably easy; you are able to use several systems:

* Visual – you remember the picture you drew
* Auditory – talk to yourself while you do it or, better still, think of a sound that links to the picture
* Procedural – you have physically done it
* Smell – if you have used something with a scent
* Contextual – where you were when you came up with the pictures, or some context around the number that is meaningful
* Emotional – if you make the pictures funny in some way or interesting, they will be more memorable

Once you have done this, then whenever you need to remember a list of items, or even tasks, you simply link each one somehow with one picture. Do your best to make it funny and include sound and some kind of movement.

Another Technique

It turned out my daughter had used a different technique to get up to her list of 30 items. It’s one I had come across years ago called the ‘Roman Room’. You simply remember a room, (or a building or place, like your garden) and put the things you are trying to remember in places in that room. Then, to remember everything, you simply take a mental walk around.

Personally I have never managed to get it working satisfactorily and prefer the numbers method. But she found this technique worked better for her. The key is to find a system that works for you and use it.

But It’s So Much Effort

Yes, the initial stage of learning a system is a bit of an effort, I concede that. But it’s worth it. When you know you can remember things, you feel more confident and your stress levels go down. And, most importantly, life becomes easier because you are able to remember things.

Once you get used to using a memory system, it becomes easy.

You can find these techniques and many others in Tony Buzan’s excellent book ‘Use Your Memory’.

If you do any training or educating of others, you can find out more about your memory and how to help participants remember what they have learned in ‘Memory Tips for Educators’ by Lew Miller, one of our range of booklets. To find out more about Lew’s book go to

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

where you will find that and my booklet on improving your brain.

Remember

There is always something you can do about your memory. It’s a system that can be improved with a little effort. In fact Tony Buzan claims that if you put in this effort your memory can actually improve with age rather than getting worse. I agree with him.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Brain, Improving Performance, Learning, Training | 2 Comments »

« Older Entries