The Adaptas 7-Steps to Learning: #2 MOTIVATION | The Power of Knowing ‘WHY’

Updated July 28th 2023

MOTIVATION – For change, we need to be clear on our ‘Why?’
We recently published the 1st of our 7-Steps to Learning. We received a great response to our IMAGINATION blog, where we explained that ‘neurons that fire together, wire together’, so to continue as promised, outlined below is the 2nd Step – MOTIVATION.

MOTIVATION is a key factor in brain plasticity: It can be looked at as a cycle where thoughts influence behaviours and behaviours then drive performance; an inner drive to behave or act in a certain manner. It is the driving force that causes the change from desire to trying to achieve in life. If you are going to commit to making changes in your life, then it requires dedication and practice to create lasting change. Understand your motivation and you’ll understand the process that arouses, sustains and regulates your behaviour.

In Step 5, you will see that repetition is the key to making stronger connections. Repetition will only occur if people are motivated. People need to see a personal need, or a reason for them in making the change. For change, we need to be clear on our ‘Why?’.

People must think about two things in answering this question. Emotionally, what we can gain, by creating this new behaviour, and what do we stand to lose by not creating it? Performance impacts thoughts.

Our role as educators and learning leaders is to help people to become aware of what is not working for them or where the gaps exist, why they want and need to change (emotionally and logically) and where that will take them in their life and career. If someone does not want to learn, no change will take place.

The question then is, what is stopping them from wanting to learn? I refer back to point Step1: Have they been given the opportunity or given themselves the opportunity to IMAGINE & dream big?!

Click here for more Adaptas 7-Steps to Learning

The Adaptas 7-Steps to Learning: #1 IMAGINE

Updated July 27th 2023

Have you ever considered yourself and your learners as potential addicts?

Have you ever heard of the neurotransmitter Dopamine? Dopamine is a chemical released when people are doing something they enjoy. Dopamine consolidates new circuits and causes addiction.
Addiction is a plastic change in the brain.

Imagine for a moment, if you could turn all the people you are looking to develop into ‘learning addicts’. They are so addicted to learning, they cannot wait to apply everything they have learnt so that they can come back and learn more. The impact of the “learnings” would then ripple across the organisation, affecting the bottom line, as your training budgets would expand twofold, threefold and more. Wouldn’t that be something? From my perspective, we should be looking to turn everyone into addicts who enjoy learning and thus consolidate new neural pathways, which in turn leave people wanting more. We all know how challenging it can be to change an existing habit.

I recently spoke at The 2014 Learning Technologies Conference in London. Following that talk, they asked me to write an article for their Inside Learning & Technologies & Skills Magazine which was published this June. In this speech I outlined 7-Steps or areas that need to be considered and applied in learning to make it addictive, to enable people to learn and for neural changes to take place in the brain that have lasting impact. Over the coming months I am going to outline these 7-STEPS here. They all overlap as you will see:

1) IMAGINE

Neurons that fire together wire together: The brain strengthens connections between things that happen in real time and predictions of possible outcomes. The brain blends what happens and the predictions together. The expected outcome and the reality of the outcome; the brain weaves its own explanation of reality that is the basis of new skills. Therefore, people need to get clear on what the benefits of changing their behaviour will be. We need to help people think bigger for themselves. My experience of many approaches to working with changing people’s behaviour, is that the time is just not put into this. We’ve got to allow people to dream, to IMAGINE and to see all the possible outcomes. Otherwise, there is very little chance they will commit.

We look forward to sending you the 2nd-Step in this 7-Step process. We are currently delivering an interactive workshop to teams and groups in organisations to actively assist them in applying these 7-Steps. Get in touch if you’d like us to talk you through what we can do for your organisation.

The Necessity of Learning and Embracing Change

Updated July 27th 2023

Do you know what the workplace of the future will look like?
I don’t, but I do however know one thing, it will be very different to the workplaces we see nowadays.

Many would argue that more changes have taken place in the world of how we work in the past 5-10 years than had in the previous 100 years. There is new technology, new approaches to management & new roles in the workplace than ever could have been imagined in the past.

I was present at a talk Bob Savage, MD and Vice President of EMC Ireland, gave at a recent conference (National Stakeholders Conference on Science Education).

EMC Ireland in Cork is their largest manufacturing site outside the US, spanning 600,000 square feet, with 28 business functions and 44 nationalities on site speaking 26 languages. Bob leads this Centre of Excellence’s team of highly skilled people serving the global market. Bob said, “the ability to build relationships with customers, to relate to others, is one of the differentiators for employees and companies of the future. Another differentiator is a culture which encourages people to have an openness and ability to transform their skills, with a compulsion towards life-long learning”. Many people don’t see their job as a place to learn. However, in another interview Bob did last year, he was asked what he looked for in people working for EMC. He said, “The ICT area is a fast moving environment and people need to be able to handle and embrace change.” He also mentioned that he looks for a team of dynamic players and career minded people with integrity and passion who think outside the box.

Therefore, the more responsibility we take to learn within and outside the workplace, the better our chances for success are. If you have read previous articles we have written, you will know that we see one big happy connection between learning, change and relating to others. In my mind, learning in the workplace is best looked at with a sense of wonder. The wonder at the extent of endless possibilities that could be explored when we are open to change and willing to challenge how things have always been done.

What’s more, this is further charged with more possibilities because everything we learn at work about embracing change and relating to others and ourselves, can feed into our personal lives, creating even more positive relationships with our family and friends for example. John Henry Newman once said, “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” And well, if Bob and I agree with him, then he must be right 😉

Are You Still Using Your Childhood Emotional Intelligence?

Updated July 27th 2023

Educators need to put more focus on developing a child’s Emotional Intelligence, giving them the skills to assist them while in school, as well as to prepare them for the adult world.

These skills include communication and coping skills as well as helping them to build their confidence.

I remember when I was 11 years old sitting in class, and someone spotted a pool of liquid on the floor under the chair of another girl in my class.

It was class time, there was no liquid to drink and she had not split anything, if you get my drift. Everyone in the class started pointing and laughing. This young girl was humiliated. Her reaction was a mixture of fear, anger and sadness.

This girl was generally being treated badly by her classmates. She was excluded from everything in the playground, was being passed cruel notes, calling her a ‘freak’ and was generally having a terrible time of it. On reflection, her accent would have been perceived as different to the rest of us, because she had spent the first few years of her life in a different country. I think, most likely, that she was singled out based on this.

This type of exclusion and bullying is also not uncommon in the workplace, when children become adults.

Call me weird, but I remember at that time in school thinking it was strange how they didn’t teach us how to protect ourselves, how to understand our emotions, how to be confident, how to make friends.

Einstein is said to have written ‘Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school’.

Good point! How much specific information do you remember from your time at school? Or maybe I should be asking, how relevant is any of it to your life now?

Often those who have been bullied in school, see that pattern re-emerging later in life. Alternatively they become the bully themselves. Much of the behavior in the workplace echoes exactly what happened in school. What’s worse is that it takes only one person to be the bully, or one person to be negative or one person to be in resistance. Eventually many people in the organisation will be living from a similar mindset. We’ve all heard of the herd or mob mentality.

In my humble opinion, educators need to think about giving children and teenagers the skills to assist them while children in school, as well as to prepare them for the adult world. These skills include communication and coping skills as well as helping them to build their confidence.

Many of the skills needed are very different to the skills that you or I ever would have thought we needed back when we were school age, until we became adults and realized the world can be a tough place, where we often don’t feel heard, or we feel blamed, or attacked for doing the wrong thing, or for just not being in the ‘IN’ crowd.

As we can’t turn back time and revisit our school days (phew!) we need to be given or seek out the opportunity to develop our emotional intelligence, our positive intelligence, and to question our patterns of behavior as adults. Otherwise the same issues just repeat themselves over and over again.

The damage to individuals, teams and organisations is sometimes not possible to turn back. We are not children anymore, but if you can put your hand on your heart and tell me you are not repeating any behavioural patterns from your childhood, you deserve a medal!

Did Curiosity Kill The Cat?

Updated July 27th 2023

Do you remember how to be curious?

If you spend any time with children you will be used to questions, about EVERYTHING!

My friends daughter asked her the other day ‘when trees get cut down do they hurt?’. It’s a valid question, which, depending on your philosophical or spiritual beliefs, we don’t actually know the answer to.

You’d rarely hear an adult asking a question like this for fear of seeming stupid. Young children don’t care about feeling stupid. They are curious.

I asked a client recently to ‘be curious’ about an issue he was having with his team. He replied with, what does the word ‘curious’ mean? When he asked, I immediately wondered; have we all forgotten how to be curious?!

According to Wiki, “Curiosity killed the cat” is a proverb used to warn of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. Sometimes I think this proverb infiltrates our brains as we move towards and into adulthood, and that we take it way too literally, fearing that we might get squashed on the road like our childhood cat, and in doing so, we block ourselves from being curious!

Do you remember how to be curious? Many of us forget ‘being curious’ ever existed! Do we lose our curiosity because it becomes less important to be curious? Are opportunities for curiosity being taken away from us at an early age? I often wonder, is this because of the experience the world provides us with i.e. the structure of education? Do we lose our curiosity once we are embedded in education? Or is it too important as adults to ‘appear’ like we know everything?

After this conversation with my client, I asked some trusted friends about their own curiosity. Many of them believe they lost their ability to be ‘stupidly’ curious when they were approximately 11 and 12 years of age, and more worrying they’ve noticed that their children are losing their propensity to be curious a lot younger.

Curiosity, innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving skills are all closely linked, and are becoming more and more important for every employee to have in their briefcase. In our work at Adaptas™, and also many of the projects we work on with PhathomHQ (www. phathomhq.com- optimising human potential in actively exploring and understanding innovation, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity through highly relevant work-related challenges), we find that when people are given the opportunity to be curious, they come looking for permission to really ask big questions, to move out of their comfort zone, and to try things out. In essence, they turn into children looking for permission from us, to be allowed to be curious! Is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony in this?!

Einstein said ‘Logic will get you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere’.

I recently also asked a friend to tell me what other words she thought of when I said curiosity. She said ‘enquiry’ ‘nosiness’ ‘busy-body’. When I go myself on a word association with curiosity, I think of ‘imagination’ and ‘playfulness’. Interesting the difference in associations we make to words and where our behaviour goes based on this association.

How does curiosity look/sound/feel to you?

It’s also important to note that a less frequently seen rejoinder to “curiosity killed the cat” is “but, satisfaction brought it back”. Hmmm, what can we learn from this?

The Power Of The Domino Effect in Organisations

Updated July 27th 2023

I was in Heathrow airport recently. I had just joined a fairly long queue to go through security to make a connection flight, when the man beside me gently alerted a passing staff member and asked “Excuse me, has the fast track through security been removed?”. The staff member responded defensively, and in an accusatory, bordering on angry tone “there were two escalators, you should have taken the other one!”. The man innocently responded “I wasn’t told”. The staff member looked at him, shrugged her shoulder in a ‘not my problem!’ fashion and marched off. The customer was left stunned! He had asked a valid question in a friendly manner and he might as well have been spat on.

From an observers viewpoint, this staff member treated the customer with disdain and disrespect. He looked embarrassed. Everyone in the queue who had been bored of queuing and had watched the interaction appeared to be likewise feeling embarrassed for or with him, with all of us looking at each other, wondering ‘what just happened there?’, ‘what’s her problem?’ or maybe ‘what’s wrong with queueing with us?’.

Now, this staff member might have been on the defense because she was sick to the back teeth of being asked this same question, or because a customer had previously been angry at her about the same situation, or perhaps she was just generally having a bad afternoon.

Either way she seemed to be making some sort of assumption, and living in a reactive mode in that moment. She had possibly assumed that this customer was going to be cranky or have some sort of problem; that he might in fact take out on her. The thing is, in her reaction, she turned a fairly content yet curious customer who simply wondered if there was a way to avoid a long queue (who wouldn’t?), into an irritated customer, who then took his irritation out on her colleagues as he moved through security. I watched, and I can tell you there was no more ‘Mr. nice mannerly guy’.

I see this and hear of this all the time in organisations. It’s like a domino effect until one of us takes action not to pass the blame, irritation, frustration or anger on. Are you taking responsibility and action to break the domino effect that cascades through organisations? If you can take responsibility for your own tendency to pass on the blame, or to put your own frustration and irritation onto other people, it will result in a large improvement in your general wellbeing, communication with others, and effective leadership skills! If you can get a few others to also take responsibility to be where “the book stops”, you will then work in a nicer and more successful space. Sometimes it’s that simple!

How Can We Become ‘Brainier’?

Updated July 27th 2023

Has it ever dawned on you that your brain may be the best piece of technology you have?

You might ask whether we have any control over that technology that rests on our shoulders?

The answer is YES.

Brain plasticity, is a term that refers to the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. In this technological age we live in, machines have the knowledge and know the facts. It is nevertheless down to how creatively we can use our brains to interpret and use this information to a high-level that drives our success.

This week, my colleague, Dr. Celine Mullins, is speaking at the Learning & Technologies Conference (www.learningtechnologies.co.uk) on the topic ‘Why change isn’t easy and how to help people tackle it’ Celine, together with Brid Nunn (Learning & Development Design Manager, Marks and Spencer Retail) will validate how engaging employees creatively and in a way that the brain best commits to change, makes real business sense. Positive engagement by staff inevitably leads to higher rates of customer satisfaction directly impacting on bottom line sales. Whilst all at the same time, employees are happier too!

This talk will be all about putting the employees and customers in the centre of the action. But how can we put ourselves in the centre of the action everyday? How can we engage our minds to make the best use of this technology available to us? From the latest research in neuropsychology, here are some simple no-nonsense tips:

1. Concentrate on what is working and the motivation will naturally follow When we focus on what is working more than what is not, our brains become positively charged. As a result it is less likely for negativity to set in. The brain finds it tricky to be positive and negative at the same time! When you are in this frame of mind, you will naturally be more motivated to produce really good quality work, and your colleagues and customers will enjoy being around you too. Find out what things trigger you to enjoy yourself more in general, and explore whether you can integrate them into your work in any way. That way you are creating the motivation to become the best version of yourself, inside and out. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

2. Bite-sized goals (i.e. chunking down) Why clean the house from top to bottom in one evening and be so wrecked that you are not inspired to do it again for a month? The brain likes good memories of things so when we break goals or jobs into bite-sized pieces, the memory of the ‘job’ is not so bad and we are happy to take on the task again and again.

3. Keep doing it until it becomes habit If you are having fun and chunking things down, new habits (e.g. going to the gym) will become easier to repeat. The more we repeat things and the more we want to repeat things, the more hardwired the new habits become in the brain. I liken this to programming a computer! Using this approach, we are less likely to slip into bad habits again.

4. Keep the self-judgement to a minimum Finally, if you do fall off the bandwagon with a change/new habit, don’t give yourself a hard time. Negative self-chat imprisons you in your own fear and makes it difficult to take action to get back on track again. It also blocks channels in the brain from seeing solutions as it goes into blinkered survival mode. There is always a positive way to reframe a mistake or stumbling block. Just make a decision to love learning and move on! If we are not learning we are dead!

If you have just read this entire blog, you have already begun to use many of the principles of neuroplasticity. You are on your way to becoming a very ‘brainy’ person. Go forth and conquer!

How To Thrive This Holiday Season

Updated July 27th 2023

It’s that time of year that often gets emotions whirling around in our systems for a vast number of reasons. Some revel in the excitement and buzz of the season, while others find the close proximity to family and friends challenging. Additionally, the holiday season can shed light on those who prefer a quieter existence, potentially evoking complex questions and feelings.

For some of you, it may well be just a well-deserved break at the end of the year, a time to relax and take stock. Whatever it is going on for you, we have a survival kit on hand to get you thriving no matter what.

It doesn’t have to be perfect!
The first step is to decide how you want to feel and the impact you would like to have on those around you. This step becomes easier because you will naturally be driven to be more people focused and less task-orientated. So if the decorations are not perfect or the food is overcooked, remember that the smile you bear and your ability to tap into the fun and love around you is what really matters. This will outshine any mishaps or even domestic disasters. Striving for perfection can drive us to overlook what really matters so don’t fret the small stuff!

Don’t take it personally
My favourite expression at the moment is ‘flow like water’. You see, water is pure and doesn’t stick to anything. When someone says something negative, and family really know how to get us where it hurts, shrug and let it flow off you. The other option you have of course is to take it personally, start judging yourself and others, most likely resulting in a wicked spiral of emotions and words. When we take ourselves too seriously, so do those around us! Be like Father Christmas and laugh it off; ‘Ho Ho Ho’.

Breathe and stay in the now
Many of us shallow breathe (inhale into our chest rather than into our diaphragm), which doesn’t serve getting enough oxygen around our bodies. What happens then is that our brain believes something is wrong and injects more of the fight or flight hormone (adrenaline) into our blood which heightens stress. The more stress the less success.

Become conscious of your breathing and breathe from your belly. This will ground you in the now which will enable things come to you, including the best solution for dealing with any situation.

Exercise and keep some sort of routine
Most of us are accustomed to routine so why completely change this over the holidays? Yes, we all want a break from routine and structure but at the same time it helps us feel good in and about ourselves. So if you usually take a morning run, take it, it will help release all those happy endorphins too!

Whether you are with the masses or having a quieter time this year, these tips are all relevant. We are the only thinkers in our mind, so create the Holiday you want and love yourself and others in the process.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Holiday Season!

Judging Less for More Success

Updated July 27th 2023

There is more than one way to skin a cat

Did you know that Virginia Satir (famous american family therapist) through her research discovered that there were more than 250 different ways to clean dishes, and that in all cases the dishes got washed equally well in the end?

Story

My friend’s brother recently remarked that she is now 34 years of age, and that he would like to see her becoming more financially independent and for instance, buying a house. He said, “this is not about the money, it is about you committing to something.” She reflected that there could be a good deal of truth in what he said. She ended up feeling that based on the choices she had made in her life, she didn’t measure up to people of her age and age-based achievements. All in all, she had the common feeling of “I’m not good enough!”. In her heart and soul, she knew there were many things she had deeply committed to. Yes, financially these developments may not yet be producing rewards, but in previous years she had found out who she really was, what she loved, valued and desired from her life, and she was clearer than ever of the impact she really wanted to have on the world. In short, other than her brother’s judgement, she felt like a happy little camper; emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically, and with a new business to boot. Committing to the house or a relationship may indeed be a part of the journey, but she should be free to progress through her journey in her own time.

The psychology piece

As family, we think we understand each other. This assumption could be made because we have the same parents, the same genes and the same background. We rarely question whether our family members may want to do things differently to us, and that we may all actually have different expectations from our lives and careers. In light of this, we all have a tendency to assume that we know what’s best for each other. We believe that we truly understand each other’s deepest needs, values and motivations. We unconsciously wrap ourselves up in each other’s identity.

When help and judgment collide

When assumptions and emotions run high, a blurred line can occur between helping and judging. This is because, when providing ‘guidance’ which is often guided by our map of the world, we have a tendency to favor information that confirms our own personal beliefs (confirmation bias) and not always supports the position or beliefs of others.

Our brain’s part in all this

Our brain’s mechanism of making shortcuts to comfortably understand our reality (and cut through information overload) together with high emotions which release the fight or flight hormone adrenaline, can cause a reduction in our peripheral vision and therefore our capacity to see the entire truth (kind of like wearing blinkers). More often than not, this causes our well-meaning intention to ‘help’ to become and be experienced by others as more ‘judgmental’ and not actually all that helpful at all!

Judge less, help more

You see, we are all on our own unique journey, and as we evolve and move forward, we do so in different ways, at different speeds, with different values, motivations and desires. When we can accept this and at the same time take personal responsibility, it leaves lots of room for embracing the truth and good in each person we come in contact with. Understanding and empathy are antidotes to judgment and when we judge less, we help more. Yes Virginia, there are certainly more ways than one to do anything in this life!

Manage Your Time And Have A Life

Updated July 27th 2023

Does this look like a lady who manages her time wisely?

Somehow for years I associated good time management with being a boring sort of person, lacking adventure and spontaneity. I even had a picture in my head of a prim and proper man waiting for a train and just as it pulled into the station, he’d glance at his watch and approach the platform. However, nowadays I’m firmly convinced of the vast benefits associated with it.

First step: Find your value behind this commitment
Finding your motivation to internally commit to good time management is key to your success at it. You need to see what values you have that are congruent with adopting this behaviour. Having a look at some of the advantages listed below could help you with this.

Be less stressed and in the flow
A focused mind
Less procrastination
Achieving your goals
Better finances
Greater self esteem and confidence
Better relationships with others
Less guilt/stress due to respecting other people’s time
Increase your productivity
Feelings of accomplishment
Enjoy and appreciate your leisure off without worrying
….And all without taking yourself too seriously because that is a serious matter!

80% of your productivity is down to 20% of your efforts
The 80/20 principle refers to the phenomenon where 80% of your productivity is brought about by 20% of your efforts. Being successful isn’t just about working smarter or harder; it’s about working smarter on the right things. The key is to focus your energy on producing the 80% of everything you do – which is also the 80% that matters.

The best time managers spend more time planning and training staff to take on delegated tasks than in a flurry of email and phone answering activism.

Some questions to ask yourself:
What is the best use of my time and energy this week?
Will doing this make a difference in the next 6 months?

The Key is Planning
With planning you can get a lot more done, more effectively and in less time. Because of this, I now find myself putting aside time each Sunday to plan my week. I begin by sourcing a piece of foolscap and creating headings which sum up the main areas of my life:

1) Family
2) Friends
3) Career/Work
4) Health
5) Significant other
6) Finances
7) Spirituality
8) Physical environment
9) Fun & relaxation 🙂

Then come the bullet points
Under each heading, I list what I would like to get done this week as it relates to each area. For example, if you would like to make more money, under the heading of finances you could write, ‘time for creative brainstorming around sourcing better leads’ and under health, ‘less burgers and more green veg’. Then with seven days to play with, you slot each ‘to do’ into a day and time. For example, go to that vegetable shop around the corner on Monday evening on my way back from work.

WARNING: Prioritisation
If your goals have taken steroids, I advise highlighting the most important ones to take precedence in your diary. We don’t want Mrs Doyle from Father Ted creeping her ugly head so there is no need to mend the roof, build a shed and organise a rock concert in one week.

With the Sunday best approach (above) however you can seriously give this theory a Father Jack kick up the backside. This is because, using this tried and tested approach, it quickly points out when you are on the wrong track.

Now you have time for a life
You cannot sustain the same output endlessly without rest and fun. Not only that but what’s the point in living life without having a life? So while you are scheduling enough time for bedtime, I urge you to put to bed the idea that work defines you or without you, things will fall apart. Apart from the fun part of being able to live a bit, when you get a rest and have fun, the brain performs better. Better still, inject fun into your work and success will come more easily to you anyway.

The Man Who Was The Victim Of His Own Assumptions

Updated July 27th 2023

Setting the Scene

Yesterday morning as I arrived into the train station, there was a young man ahead of me about to put his ticket through the machine to go on to the platform. Mid-movement (his ticket had not entered), there was an announcement on the tannoy; something about the trains being delayed. I couldn’t make out what the man on the tannoy was saying but I noticed the look of displeasure on the young man’s face. I asked him if he had heard it properly as I had not. He rolled his eyes to heaven, he sighed, and said ‘the trains are running 30 minutes late! I can’t believe this! It’s f***** ridiculous!’. He then stormed out of the station. I took my phone out and looked up the train timetable.

Another Perspective

According to the timetable the trains were running on time. Another woman came into the station behind me. She was looking to purchase her ticket. I was about to tell her that there might be a delay with the trains when she started giggling. I looked at her, and she said ‘yer man’s asleep’, referring to the guy at the ticket desk. We both giggled. I noticed how different her reaction was to not being able to get what she wanted compared to the young man before her.

The Journey

Anyway, I took my chances and proceeded through the machine and towards the platform. Just as my foot lifted from the last step a train pulled in!

As I settled into a seat with a perfect view of Dublin Bay, I reflected on my good luck and found myself thinking about the young man who had rushed off in a huff. He was now off somewhere, finding alternative arrangements to get to his destination. He probably had to walk to the other end of the village to get the bus or go home to get a car to drive to the city and park. Either way he had probably added at least a half hour to his journey, and cost himself even more money if he was making alternative arrangements having already paid for his train ticket.

His journey could have been so much simpler if he had just stopped, taken a breath and used the resources to hand (e.g. his phone), or woken the guy at the ticket desk up to ask his advice (another resource), or even asked me to check the timetable on my phone (I am happy to be used as a resource sometimes). I also reflected on how his reaction appeared to be one of victimization at the hands of the rail system, as though they planned for the trains to be running 30 minutes behind schedule.

My Question To You

Where in our lives and in work are we playing the victim? Where are we not checking the facts? Where are we making assumptions based on initial information and getting angry or upset about it? And are we actually making choices about how we react to situations and people?

Take a few minutes to reflect, because almost 100% of people we work with, regardless of background, organization, culture, and experience, rarely catch or are aware of themselves doing these things, until we draw their attention to where all these things are showing up for them. If you take the time, your train might just come in when you want it to 😉

How to Bore Friends and Lose Employees

Updated July 26th 2023

Only a select few can successfully “talk at” others, relying on their charm and storytelling prowess to captivate their audience. However, the majority of us lack such innate abilities, yet we often find ourselves constantly talking at others instead of engaging in meaningful conversations by asking questions and actively listening. True active listening means dedicating genuine attention, not merely waiting for the other person to pause so that we can interject with our own thoughts. Regrettably, this skill of truly listening eludes many of us.

Not knowing how to listen is doing massive damage in organisations: “Not being really listened to by my manager/s” is one of the most common complaints we hear from the people and teams we work with. This is no trite matter. The extent of this is losing people to absenteeism, and more long-term losing them forever to other organisations. When it takes on average 25,000 euro to recruit and train a new person, it is quite incredible to think that we are losing this money spent over something as humanly basic as listening, don’t you think?’

You may be thinking to yourself that the people who say they are not being listened to are just playing the victim, but we see it with our own eyes all the time. People think they are listening to others, but in actual fact they are not!

Research in neuroscience (Spunt, 2013), indicates the presence of two large-scale systems in the human brain that play a major role in successful listening: the putative mirror neuron system, which likely facilitates the relatively automatic perception of the how of speech (i.e., how it is being said); and the so-called mentalizing system, which likely underlies our ability to actively reach conclusions about the why (i.e., why it is being said) of speech behavior. The dynamic interaction of mirroring and mentalizing processes may be pivotal for successful listening and social interaction more generally. Often managers are more focused on the tasks that must be achieved, thinking about their next meeting or worrying about something they can do nothing about, than fully engaging these systems.

Neuroscience has confirmed what we have always known, that there is an important difference between hearing and listening. Neuroscientist Seth Horowitz: “While it might take you a full second to notice something out of the corner of your eye, turn your head toward it, recognise it and respond to it, the same reaction to a new or sudden sound happens at least 10 times as fast.” Horowitz says hearing has evolved as a more essential tool for survival than sight. So we have no excuse. We have the hardware , we just don’t have the focus and we don’t take the time.

However, we humans are not totally at fault. Some would argue that the technological age we live in, where we are constantly looking at screens (computers, iPads, texting on phones) is etching away at our ability to listen. Horowitz says ‘The modern world of sound—and more often, noise—is being overrun by digital distraction and information overload’.

Many managers wonder why their teams aren’t as productive as they might be. In our experience, we see time and time again that when managing performance, as with much of the interacting we do in life, people often “wait to speak” rather than listening attentively and actively. Yet listening tunes our brain to the patterns of our environment faster than any other sense, and paying attention to the nonvisual parts of our world feeds into everything. Our reactions to what we hear are less processed and more instinctive than our reactions to what we see.’ Horowitz describes the auditory sense as the human “alarm system” that operates constantly, even while asleep.

If we truly listen, we can tune into what might be holding a team member back, that small nudge that someone needs to help push them over the finishing line. Ask questions, and listen to the variation in people’s words, and their tone of voice NOW instead of waiting until they are shouting for attention or worse still, they’ve left the building, and you’ll never hear their voice again!

The Adaptas 7-Steps to Learning: #2 MOTIVATION | The Power of Knowing ‘WHY’