The optimum ration of positive to negative thinking is 5 to 1

Interesting little review in the Sunday Times 'Style' Magazine, (22/4/2012) of psychologist, Maureen Gaffney's book, 'Flourishing'.  Apparently we need a dose of realism,  not all negative thoughts are bad and to pretend that we don't have them can lead to unhelpful strategies like denial.  So we need to recognise that we have some negative thoughts but also outweigh them with positive ones too.  Apparently the optimum ratio of positive to negative thoughts is 5:1.  3:1 is OK for survival, but 5:1 will mean you flourish and have a sense of well-being.  Not read the book yet, so if anyone has done so already, please post up your comments.  The book is 'Flourishing' by Maureen Gaffney, Penguin £15.  

Report on the North West Business Conference

We thought that the conference was much quieter than previous years, although we only chose to attend on the second day this year.  One notable change was that there was no large auditorium for the main speakers.  This was always a good opportunity to network with other attendees and a 'headline' speaker always seems to pull in the crowds.  Instead, this year there were smaller theatre-style rooms and the upside of this was that you could see more speakers, while also being able to spend time moving around the stands.  Two people of note we saw yesterday were Brad Burton of 4Networking www.twitter.com/BradBurton and Andrew Thorp of MojoLife http://mojolife.org.uk/.  Brad is a self-made business man, motivational speaker and author of two books, 'Get off your Arse' and 'Get off your Arse Too'.  The titles of his books give an insight into his approach - blunt, no nonsense and to the point.  One gets the impression that his philosophy is one of action, rather than reflection.  A Salford lad made good after being told that he wouldn't amount to anything, he takes a 'full on' approach to starting your own business ('If you have a Plan B you will never make Plan A work').  Simon Thorp gave an interesting presentation on the power of story-telling in business.  He showed what makes the difference between a sales pitch and a compelling story that actually engages the listener.  He talked about the power of viral marketing and how stories, if interesting enough, can spread quickly with the use of social media, and how the value of these can be priceless.

Although they had very different styles, at the core of Simon and Brad's messages was the same idea - that we are at our most powerful when we are acting authentically.  The days of polished presentations and slick sales pitches are over.  Your buyers want to believe in you, not appreciate how well you perform.  That is a simple message,  but remaining authentic when under pressure to achieve a result can sometimes be more difficult.  However it is an approach that we also support - we believe that leaders are at their most powerful when they are being themselves.  This requires a heightened level of self-awareness and an ability to adapt.  

North West Business Conference, 18th April 2012

Welcome to our blog!  We hope you enjoyed the North West Business Conference and thanks for taking one of our cards.  Hopefully, it has stimulated your interest to find out more about us.  

A brief introduction - We are a training and development company, providing insights into leadership, innovation, team working and personal development.  Although we design and deliver structured events, much of what we are valued for is the 'sticky stuff' - helping to work through problems that arise when individuals come together to work on a common task.  (Rather like the kind of issues we show on our cards).  These kind of things feel very real to the people involved and don't always fit nicely into a structured course.  Our clients  value us for our skills in facilitation, conflict resolution and our one-to-one work. 

If you want to know more about us click here  and you will be taken to our website.  

To get a flavour of the work we do then the click here   for a series of short case studies from our clients.

If you want to find out more about the topics we showed on our conference cards, you can download a range of summaries, hints and tips and book reviews by joining our 'Executive Lounge'.  It's free and we won't bombard you with spam.  Our interest is in sharing information and showing you what we can do.  The value we add through expertise we have built up over many years is as much in how we do things as what we do.  


Below you can find some resources to check out:

Not Getting On?

Check the following posts on this blog:
16/4/12  Enthios and Workplace Mediation
3/5/2011 The Upside of Conflict
1/4/2011  Facilitation and Conflict Management
3/3/11  Giving & Receiving Feedback
In the Hints & Tips section of Executive Lounge - 'Conflict Management'

Difficult decision?  

Check the following posts on this blog:
10/4/12  Complex decision-making - the power of beliefs
In Executive Lounge check the following 1 Page Book Reviews:
'Stop Talking, Start Doing'
'How We Decide'
'The Upside of Irrationality'


In 'What's New Pussycat?' section you can read about our own approach to one-to-one work with execs and directors.  Read 'Rubik's Cube'.

Giving bad news?

In the 'Hints and Tips' section in 'Executive Lounge' you will find a useful summary of best practice.

Toughing it out?  

There is a lot of work being done in the area of 'Mental Toughness' (or 'Reslience').  There are many approaches to this topic.  In the Executive Lounge you can read a 1 Page Book Review of Moorhouse & Jones' take on the topic.

You might want to check out our comments in this blog on Goal Setting too (see 2/8/11 - Does your Goal Setting Measure Up?')


Read about our own attempts to 'walk the talk' and raise £20K for charity on our blog http://doingthedeca.blogspot.co.uk/

Need to say sorry?

 

Check out the following posts in this blog:


7/4/11  'Need to say 'Sorry'?   Then consider your victim
27/4/11 'Leadership & Forgiveness - Part 1'

Follow us on Twitter: @enthiostraining

Giving Bad News

Not often an enjoyable task but inevitable if you are in a leadership role.  Like all things, with a bit of practise we can make this task easier and still treat the receiver with honesty and empathy.  Do your attempts to 'soften the message' actually only create confusion?  Or can you leave the receiver with a sense of hope?


Have a look at our latest 'Hints and Tips' information sheet in the Executive Lounge on our website  www.enthiostraining.co.uk.  

Enthios and Workplace Mediation Services

‘I think mediation is a good first port of call for the business. For the Ministry of Justice to have mediation is very valuable because we are investing in the staff. Conflict causes all manner of problems including health problems resulting in sickness absence and stress or anxiety. It can have a detrimental impact in teams within the workplace who are directly or indirectly involved.’                      Ministry of Justice (2008)

‘We sort stuff out’– not the eye-catching strapline to have on the website but it is what our clients say about us.  With this is mind, our mediation service is complementary to our philosophy in tackling the important people issues within a business swiftly and sensitively.  Over the last 12 months we have found a distinct increase in situations requiring mediation, some examples are;

·         Organisational and individual leadership values clash

·         Business acquisition tensions between retained Directors and incoming Leaders

·        Performance issues which have not been addressed by previous manager and incoming managers are tasked with tackling individuals

·         Inappropriate behaviour and attitudes within the workplace

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) commissioned GfK NOP to carry out a telephone interview survey of managers in 500 small/medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to assess their experience of mediation.  Of those that had used mediation almost half said that the last mediation had resolved the issues completely (49%), and four in five (82%) said it had resolved the issues either completely or partly (Johnston 2008). Conflict between individuals in the workplace can be extremely expensive.  In 2007–08, the number of individual employment tribunal claims rose to over 190,000 so not only does it make sense as an investment in the wellbeing of staff but also financially practical to engage in mediation early.

Download the full Acas/CIPD guide

 http://www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=949&p=0

Kate Peacock

Pay it Forward - progress so far

Since going public with my quest to raise £20k for Right to Play, sponsors have already started to commit to the big adventure (A Deca Ironman - swim 38Km, Bike 1800Km, Run 422Km all in 2 weeks).  


 Thanks to all the following:


Mike Barber and colleagues at NRL  http://www.nrl.co.uk/
Paul Concannon at Elysian Training  http://www.elysiantraining.com/welcome.html
Carolyn Blunt at Real Results Training  http://www.real-results.co.uk/
Liz Couchman at Alex Merlin  http://alexmerlin.co.uk/
Anthony Clarke at Design Force  http://www.designforce.co.uk/

Thanks for your support and your generosity.  It keeps me motivated to train!


I'm aiming to find 1000sponsors.  If you would like to make a donation you can do so at http://www.justgiving.com/Miles-Peacock.

You can follow my preparations on my blog http://doingthedeca.blogspot.co.uk/

Ingenuity for the sake of itself

Have you heard of the term 'Rube Goldberg machine'?  Its origins are in cartoons of over-complicated machines performing seemingly meaningless tasks.  But now people actually build these machines for real.  The latest is a balloon-popping machine that involves 300 operations!  Check it out on http://www.rubegoldberg.com/.  You can read more about the Rube Goldberg idea at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine.  Who knows what practical applications may grow from such frivolous activity, but it is surely a great way of fostering creativity.

Natural genius versus coaching

An interesting and thought-provoking article by Jim White in the Daily Telegraph, 10 April 2012, on the success of the Masters champion, Bubba Watson. 

 It is reported that Watson has never had a formal golf lesson in his life.  Watson has learned to do what he does so well by experimentation and trial-and-error.  This, in a sport which is renowned for its technical difficulty and with an emphasis on technical coaching which breaks down every movement involved in swinging a club towards a ball into minute detail.  What results is a non-conformist swing not found in any rule book, but one that is devastatingly effective.  To analyse it might be to destroy it.  (Although elsewhere in the same newspaper another journalist attempts to do just that). 

White goes on to list other athletes who have achieved great things without the need for reference to a coach.  Elsewhere, Mark Cavendish in his autobiography, 'Boy Racer' pays due respect to the contributions of Steve Peters, the psychiatrist who has helped many GB cyclists win medals.  Cavendish, on the other hand, on race day just wants someone to 'Blow sunshine up my a**e' - to tell him that he is the best there is and that no one can beat him.  What I find interesting about White's article is it is really asking the question, 'What is a coach for?'

As someone who coaches in the world of business and who has an interest in sports psychology, of course, I'm going to say that a coach can be a useful asset.  But I don't believe everyone needs a coach.  Some people may want technical advice which is provided by an expert.  (Some call this teaching or mentoring).  Others may just want a quick confidence boost, like Cavendish, a reminder of their extraordinary talents before the race begins.  (What is crucial to Cavendish is that this confidence boost is provided by someone he respects).  But there is also the science of what people need to learn and how best to learn it.  In the world of sport and in business there is a commercial/economic element to be considered, so we also need to pay attention to the most effective ways of learning.  (If you are first to learn something, you can also be putting yourself in first place in the race).  The work of Wulf (on external focus) and of Masters (on reinvestment) are two approaches which look at the best ways of learning so that expertise can be acquired effectively and, more crucially, not lost under moments of pressure.  (These two approaches are more concerned with the outputs achieved rather than the motor-movements involved in the performance).   The renowned sports psychologist, Ken Ravizza, says that before working with an athlete or a team, the coach has to be clear what he/she is there to do.   (It's not always straightforward to find out!)

Finally, there is the issue of replication.  If Bubba Watson, for example, has stumbled on the new template for playing championship-winning golf, then other people are going to want to learn it too.  If what he does is 'natural' he may not be the best person to explain how he does what he does.  So, let's leave room for the natural geniuses - that's where creativity and innovation are going to come from, but let's also tip a hat to the role of the coach too.  It's not always about giving advice.

Complex decision-making - the power of beliefs

We've been doing a lot of work around how people make decisions, often where there is a mass of (sometimes conflicting) information or where there is a great deal of uncertainty, risk or ambiguity.  A new book, published in February this year, 'Market Mind Games' by Denise Shull puts another perspective on the topic.  (We will be posting up a review in the near future).  She looks at both the emotional and cognitive aspects of decision-making in one of the most high-pressure business environments, that of financial trading.  The subject of this post is her take on beliefs, which I found highly interesting, a great summary of what they are and how they work and importantly, intuitively sensible!  She says that beliefs are formed from both internal and external sources, and that once formed they influence our behaviour and are the source of what gives as that feeling of whether something is 'right' or 'wrong' when we are facing a novel situation.  She also adds that they contain both a cognitive and an emotional element.  As she puts it in her chapter, 

'Is it possible to believe in something that you simultaneously feel is incorrect?'  

Hence, we can decide on a course of action not just because the data suggests it is the correct thing to do, but because it feels right too.  In fact, when the pressure is on, making decisions based on feelings may be the only way of performing well.

But, interestingly, she also points to research that since it is possible for an external agent to easily manipulate our feelings we can be also be mis-led.  The context provides a 'feelings state' which then influences our perception and ultimately the decision that we take.  It seems that feelings play a vital part in making complex decisions, but we also need to be aware of just why we are feeling any particular emotion at any particular time.  Perhaps this provides a reason for why Emotional Intelligence is such a hot topic at the moment.  Without self-awareness, can we be trusted to do the right thing?

If you want to know more about decision-making, have a look at our '1 Page Book Reviews' in the Executive Lounge section of our website www.enthiostraining.co.uk, in particular 'How we Decide' by Lehrer and 'The Upside of Irrationality' by Ariely.

Pay it Forward

One of the things we believe in at enthios training and development is the idea of 'Pay it forward'; acting unconditionally, in service of someone else, in the simple belief that it makes the world a better place.  In pursuit of this idea we raise money for charity, by taking on various challenges and events.  This year, Miles is taking on the  Deca Ironman, where over a two week period you are required to swim for 38Km, cycle for 1800Km and run for 422Km.  We aim to raise £20000 for Right to Play.  Check out what they do on their website, http://www.righttoplay.com/uk/Pages/Home.aspx.  Why Right to Play?  Well, the truth is that there are many charities that we would like to support and we have to choose one.  Play is an important developmental tool - it helps children learn the social rules of cooperating with others and is also the source of creativity.  If we want to make the world a better place then these two qualities will be important in instigating change.  Finally, sport at its finest can teach people of all ages about honour, respect and achievement.

There are 12 weeks to go before the big event.  Miles is scheduled to start at 9pm on 26th June 2012. 

If you would like to make a donation, you can do so at http://www.justgiving.com/Miles-Peacock.

If we can get 1000 people to sponsor Miles at 1p per kilometre, we will exceed my target by £2600, so tell your friends and let's get this crazy idea going viral!  

Thanks everyone for your support. You can follow Miles' progress, on his blog http://doingthedeca.blogspot.co.uk