So don’t we need to change the way we are doing things?

Which ever way you look at it we are facing the most challenging time of our lives. VUCA times. We are over using our head brains with  massive consequences building for us all. We have created exponential change!

We are seeing it in the way our economies are performing, we are seeing it in the ecology of our planet, we are seeing it in ourselves. Stress, burnout, low levels of satisfaction in life, and all these when we have the largest leaps forward in technology.

People suffering from a meaningful lack of connection yet spending more time with their heads in devices!

Its time to change, to do things differently.

So if this has perked your interest or maybe your already  interested in neuroscience and the impact the latest discoveries have on learning, decision making, leadership and living your life, have a look at http://www.mbraining.com

How Compelling are your Objectives in 2016

I was listening to the news the other day when the subject of New Year Resolutions came up, interestingly according to the reporter 80% of those who make a NYR either break it or give up on it by the 10th of January. This of course has been long known in the fitness industry and gyms in particular, where memberships and subscriptions are taken out and then hardy used past January.
So why does this happen? Probably because the resolution made is not compelling enough for the person and is overtaken by a more compelling reason to go back to what they were doing! The classic example of this is in weight loss, where there is a desire to lose weight and all the evidence for the person is there i.e. cloths not fitting comfortable, breathlessness under exercise, tiredness, more effort required than before to achieve the same outcome etc. but the person does not do what they committed to doing i.e. more exercise, change diet etc.
So can you make outcomes more compelling for yourself?
Well Yes you can!
Why would you want to do that?
Well in the many clients I have worked with over the years, once we have checked out what they want is definitely what they want, and we have done the ecology checks to ensure that when they get it, it won’t have a negative impact on other areas of their life, making their desired outcome more compelling has in fact ensured their success!
Working with a client to help them alter how they represent their desires, targets and objectives is only a small part of using NLP techniques to assist clients in their lives and businesses.
If you would like to find out more about how we can help you to achieve what you want, then checkout our website http://www.revealsolutions.co.uk for coaching, Therapy, NLP training and certification, leadership and management development.
Something to try
How do you represent succeeding in achieving something? It may be a picture you can see when you close your eyes, you may here yourself talking it through in the privacy of your head or you may have a feeling that comes on when you think about doing it, or it may be some other way. Whatever way that is, what happens if you alter that representation? i.e. if it’s a picture increase the brightness or bring the picture closer to you.
Happy experimentation

Hit Those Targets

Unbelievably only a month or so after the VW saga broke, we have another example of chasing targets and taking actions that are for the benefit of the corporation, both financially and with market share, but with no benefit to the consumer. In this new reported case, an Australian court has ruled the same product was labelled as 3 different targeted pain killers & sold at twice the price as the base product, with the same active ingredient.
With so many businesses including Ethical Trading policies in an attempt to convince the customer that they are not there just for their own benefit and those of the shareholders, it is not SME companies demonstrating this gulf between espoused values and actions; somewhat disappointingly it is the very companies who should be showing leadership due to their mass influence, blue chip multinationals.

Christmas Time Mistletoe and Wine

How quickly we find ourselves at this time of the year once more. Xmas decs up in the office, parties and get togethers to celebrate and have festive fun.
It is the one time of the year that people come together and I can’t help to notice that people actually engage in more conversation, finding out more about those that they work with and spend time getting to know others that they see about, but maybe have the briefest of conversations with while at work.
We are in the people business, and while virtually every manager I have ever known acknowledges that people are our biggest asset when we talk specifically about employee engagement, satisfaction at work, productivity etc. many lose sight of this important fact and can get fixated on KPI’s, KRA’s, SLA’s etc. back in the workplace.

Why Flexibility is the key in building and maintaining relationships

Last week, we were in France following Gloucester in their European Challenge Cup match with La Rochelle. It’s a great social occasion and an opportunity to strike up new friendships with both fellow Gloucester supporters and French citizens alike. This, of course, came in the wake of the atrocious Paris terrorist attacks and meant that we all stood for a minute silence before the game and then all sang the Marseillaise.
What was so humbling, was the response from the French citizens, pats on our backs, handshakes and deeply meant thanks from those around us, for coming together and demonstrating our flexibility to learn and to sing their anthem. Apart from it being the most natural and obvious thing to do, it led to broken French and pigeon English conversations at half time, the dance of rapport was in place. Later in the bars and restaurants, many more would use all their best efforts to understand, challenge or agree points of view regarding the match, often with very limited understanding of each other’s language.
In a bar, my wife (who, it has to be said, claims not to speak fluent French, but is definitely more than competent at getting the grammar correct) enjoys a conversation with an elderly gentleman regarding the smell of wild herbs in the air in the hills of Provence, and with a chink of their glasses and the consumption of a little wine, they acknowledge each other’s appreciation of this great experience.

Why every leader should know about Modelling

Leaders must influence; they have the opportunity to make change happen, they often have both connection and power but must be careful on how they use it.
I guess your interest has been captured by the title!
We are all expert modellers, or at least we were! We are born with the innate ability to copy; it’s one of the ways in which we learn as a child. We see those who are around us the most, do things and we copy it, this extends to the way in which we learn language and one reason why a child can learn multiple languages at an early age simultaneously and easily.
I was reading an article on CEO strategy the other day by Roger Martin, a professor at the University of Toronto. In it, a small sentence caught my eye; “everybody watches the leader of his or her organisation. If the leader is successful, everyone will attempt to mimic them”. Never has a truer statement been made and this is where the importance of understanding modelling comes in.

Leadership of a Country

Whilst many of us have wrestled and struggled with the intricacies of leading teams through change, there surely can be no greater challenge than to lead a country. Whilst government is generally elected by the people on a mandate usually laid out in an election manifesto, the complexity of turning those visions and commitments into action and delivering them before the electoral cycle starts again has been the Achilles heel of many an elected government.
So refreshing it is to see a different approach being taken by Wales. In April 2016 The Wellbeing Of Future Generations Act 2015 is enacted and I thought it would be useful to look at what this act is designed to do, how it will affect every public body in Wales in the way that they work and how the citizens of Wales will benefit.
Leadership is never easy, it requires many skills and has many attributes, most have been written about by a great number of people, yet it is in the mechanics of organisations, the behaviours, the culture started and maintained by those in it that provide the biggest challenge to change. When we look at leading a country there are so many public services and bodies, partners and stakeholders that make up the infrastructure to a country, to influence and direct cultural change becomes more challenging.

Putting the Customer at the centre of everything we do

In a week that has again seen VW in the news for further irregularities with its cars’ emissions and Thomas Cook coming under heavy criticism for their handling of the deaths of two young children from carbon monoxide poisoning while on a Thomas Cook holiday, this is a good time to think about the focus of our businesses.
No one is denying that a business should make a profit, in fact without sustainable profitability; there can be no long term security of employment, confidence from potential customers that the business is strong enough to deliver goods and services, conduct research and development, honour warranties and long term commitments to contracts. However, if the primary purpose is making money and the focus of the business is solely directed towards achieving management targets and goals, there are likely to be problems ahead.
Having worked in the retail industry for a number of years, I can’t help bringing another example into the debate, that of Tesco. For well over a decade, the march of this retail giant seemed unstoppable. First they developed the very large out of town sites with thousands of additional lines, bigger pack sizes & expanded non-food sales, then came the in-fill stores, lots of them mainly on former petrol stations and then closed pubs, efficient merchandising and self-serve checkouts. The foreign operations were expanded and eventually the lure of the US became a jewel to have in the crown. All good, I hear many saying, but then why did the customer leave them in droves, why did they become a ‘Marmite’ company? Like the two other examples earlier, could it be because they became too wrapped up in what was best for them and that their focus had been on the achievement of the goals which they had set themselves and not serving the customer! They stopped putting the customer at the centre of everything that they do? The desire to be bigger better, more successful became the culture.

Doing The Right Thing

How refreshing it is to be around people who do the right thing!
I have experienced several instances of this lately and seen some reported, so thought it would be a good subject both to challenge ourselves, our businesses and the organisations for whom we may work.
Last week the BBC screened the second of two DIY S.O.S television programmes where they had undertaken to not just to improve one home for a single family, but a whole street in Manchester to turn run-down properties into homes for ex-service personnel. Tradesman, suppliers, and individuals arrived on site in order to make it happen, willing simply to do what they could do and even whole families; because it was the right thing to do. As businesses, we have the opportunity to become involved in projects where there is no financial incentive, where our efforts will be hugely beneficial to the project and where the visibility of our efforts will or may never really be seen by a broader audience. We have the opportunity to do things because it’s the right thing to do. We know when it’s right, not because we have to think it through; we just instinctively know, we feel something that chimes with our values, it makes a connection with our heart and our gut feeling commits us to take some action.

Patience is a virtue

This week we received a broadband hub upgrade, twice as fast as the previous unit, delivering 200mb speed. Impressive as that may sound, it crystallised my thinking on the speed in which we live our day-to-day lives. Outside, the traffic starts earlier and earlier, the speed at which people drive down the road certainly increases in the peak periods, as people hurry to get to work and mothers (no doubt balancing the multiple roles of mother, employee, partner, etc.) rush to get the kids to school or drop-off point before getting into work on time and then to get to the shop, pick the kids up, and maybe go onto another job later in the afternoon.
I see this same rushing to complete, multiple meeting days, pressure to make instant decisions and quick analysis of results in the working environment on a regular basis. The other week I saw a post from a senior police officer on Twitter “Reminded of the need to create time to stop and think and allow others that time too. It leads to better decision making”. So I am interested to explore if the deadlines and expectations that we seem to be treating as givens or even as rules are both beneficial and supportive to a) good decision making and b) wellbeing. The answer, I fear, may well be not!