Welcome to Blog 2 in the 2-part Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Blog Series. My name is Quincy McNamara, I work with Adaptas and I’m currently undertaking a Master’s Degree in Organisational Psychology. Blog 1 in this series focused on introducing the ‘Optimism and Acceptance Mindset’ (If you missed it, you can find it here). The current blog includes actionable tips in adopting this Mindset successfully.
Meditate
If you do a ten-minute meditation, spend five minutes practicing gratitude for who and what you are thankful for in your life, and five minutes acknowledging how you are feeling, without labelling it as good or bad.
As for the benefits of gratitude meditation specifically, one study (O’Leary & Dockray, 2015) found that practicing gratitude meditation four times a week for three weeks (along with keeping a gratitude diary) led to reduced levels of stress and depression, as well as increased levels of happiness and optimism.
Noting how you feel during meditation will help to build acceptance. Learning to accept your thoughts or feelings in the moment without labelling them as good or bad increases resilience, which is imperative to have when life may take a turn for the worst.
Practice Acceptance
Practice acceptance next time a difficult situation that is beyond your control presents itself. Instead of labelling the situation as good or bad, simply acknowledge what happened and move on. Your energy and time are your most valuable reserves, don’t waste either trying to change that of which you can’t control. As previously mentioned, acceptance will build your resilience to life’s difficult circumstances and challenges.
Keep a humour journal
A review of the literature around laughter has indicated that laughing increases optimism and life satisfaction whilst decreasing stress.
To this end, write down three things everyday that made you laugh. This will change the way you perceive the world around you, allowing you to be more upbeat and not take life so seriously.
Take risks
Optimists are known to be big risk takers; we can’t expect quality results unless we take risks. Becoming less risk-averse will open your mind to the world of opportunity that is right in front of you.
Understandably, risk-taking is a frightening concept to some. To clarify, we aren’t advising you to go skydiving or cliff jumping, but we are advising you to take baby steps when it comes to taking risks. It can be something as simple as taking a different route to work, or cooking a new dish.
You may ask yourself where to start when taking risks – here are three things you can do to help you along the way:
1) Assess the risk. We can do this by writing out a list of pros and cons. This will determine whether or not the risk is worth taking.
2) Move past the fear of failure. This fear will stunt us from ever making the move to take a risk in the first place, and will ultimately hinder our potential growth.
3) Think about the upside: If we are successful, we reap the rewards, if we are not, we learn.
If you are struggling with your mindset, you may think bridging the gap between where you are currently and adopting an optimism and acceptance mindset is no easy feat. However, if you do these three things consistently you will most definitely be on your way to experiencing a tangible shift in the way you perceive the world around you.
Welcome to Blog 1 in the 2-part Optimism and Acceptance Mindset Blog Series. My name is Quincy McNamara, I work with Adaptas and I’m currently undertaking a Master’s Degree in Organisational Psychology. Blog 1 in this series focuses on introducing the ‘Optimism and Acceptance Mindset’. Please continue to read Blog 2 for actionable tips in adopting this Mindset successfully.
Positive pop psychology peddles blind optimism – no matter what the situation, always remain positive. This toxic positivity that has circulated mainstream pop psychology is not good for our health. Denying our emotions is detrimental for both our body and mind. A 2013 study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Rochester showed people who bottle up their emotions increase their chance of premature death from all causes by more than 30%, with their risk of being diagnosed with cancer increasing by 70%.
Whilst optimism has been shown to promote longevity, and has myriad health and social benefits, staying optimistic in light of real struggle, despair or tragedy is not realistic. Acceptance is where positive psychology falls short. Acceptance means perceiving your experience and acknowledging it rather than judging it as good or bad. The way in which we can live meaningful lives with as little unnecessary suffering as possible is the adoption of an Optimism and Acceptance Mindset.
Hope for the best, accept the worst
This is a simple analogy to convey what I mean when I speak of adopting the Optimism and Acceptance Mindset. Be an optimist but accept the fact that there are certain things in life beyond your control, and that of which you can’t control – you must learn to accept.
As for acceptance, you must accept the situation that you are in. Resistance is the root of all unnecessary suffering, so accepting that of which we cannot change will eliminate a lot of the suffering we experience. You must be able to reassure yourself that everything in life happens for a reason. Whatever burden you are facing isn’t accidental. You must simply look at it as an opportunity for a new beginning.
Optimism and Acceptance – opportunities, not challenges
When we incorporate an Optimism and Acceptance Mindset, challenges present themselves as opportunities – obstacles that can be overcome. This, in turn, will help us to become more resilient in every aspect of life. Resilience is the ability to overcome hardship and is vital for our personal development. It is the spring that allows us to bounce back when times are tough. Without it, we would fold whenever life throws us a curveball.
Next week, blog 2 will delve into how to successfully adopt the Optimism and Acceptance Mindset, make sure to join us then to learn some really valuable actionable tips!
According to Psychologists Bakker and Schaufelli, work engagement is defined as a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption. What does this mean?
1) Vigour – People are energetic and have the capacity and will to fully invest and immerse themselves in their work.
2) Dedication – People are passionate and enthused about their work.
3) Absorption – People are completely engrossed in their work activities.
Why it matters
The results are in – there is a salient need for engagement within organisations. A recent Gallup study found that organisations who have engaged employees are four times more profitable than those who do not. How is this so? Engagement brings higher ownership, which can foster entrepreneurial thinking to drive innovation, continuous improvement and increased customer satisfaction. Highly engaged employees also think of novel ways to improve how we work and service customers. A further benefit of employee engagement is higher job satisfaction, which in turn keeps attrition rates low.
Given the value of employee engagement, how can we engage our team?
Two effective ways of engaging our team is through self-determination theory and job crafting.
Self-Determination Theory (SDT)
Renowned and revered Psychologists, Deci and Ryan, coined the theory of motivation known as SDT. This is a theory that claims people will become self-motivated if their needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness are met.
Let’s break this down:
As a leader, we can raise employee engagement by means of ensuring our employees’ needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness are met. Here are three examples:
1) Competence – Provide extensive training for your team so that they feel fully confident in their competence. Cultivating a culture of learning has been shown to boost employee engagement.
2) Autonomy – Allow your team a certain amount of freedom and space to make decisions around how they complete their work. Ask them what medium of communication they prefer – email, Whatsapp or phone calls?
3) Relatedness – You can make sure your teams’ need for relatedness is met by creating regular opportunities for feedback and encouraging employees to speak candidly. You may also organise team activities to boost social connections such as a zoom quiz or meal out.
Job Crafting
The second way in which we can boost engagement is through job crafting. This is a concept whereby we alter (or add to) certain elements of our role when we feel we need a change.
To increase work engagement within your team, you can speak to them about the possibility of crafting their job. There are three different types of job crafting: task crafting, relationship crafting and cognitive crafting.
1) Task crafting – This can involve adding or dropping certain responsibilities outlined in the job description in order to shape or mold the role to fit the employees’ needs. For example, an employee could offer to take over the organisation’s social media accounts.
2) Relationship crafting – This involves the employee altering the people they interact with within their role. This may look like creating interdepartmental relationships or task forces.
3) Cognitive crafting – The employee changes the way they look at or interpret the tasks they’re responsible for, such as focusing on appreciating their contribution to the big picture of the organisation’s mission.
Key takeaways
1) Work engagement is a positive work-related state of mind characterised by vigour, dedication and absorption.
2) It’s important because it boosts productivity, revenue and job satisfaction whilst lowering attrition rates.
3) Engagement can be achieved through implementing Self-Determination Theory and allowing your team to job craft.
4) Engage your team by ensuring their needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness are met.
5) Allow your team to job craft if they feel they need a change.
6) Explore with your team the three different types of job crafting – task crafting, relationship crafting and cognitive crafting.
The past year and a half has truly changed the landscape of modern working culture forever. What we have come to learn is that coming into the office is no longer necessary, as people can efficiently and effectively complete their work from home. Productivity increases with a new work-life balance that eliminates wasted time commuting and enabling more efficient self-organisation – these are both great drivers for higher quality performance. Many organisations have implemented hybrid working on account of this realisation.
Knowing that hybrid working is here to stay, it is important that we successfully navigate this unchartered territory. There is a salient need for leaders to deploy their soft skills rather than hard skills, as studies have shown they boost employee retention, engagement and job satisfaction (Zamolo, 2020). Here are three ways you can effectively manage a hybrid workforce by using your soft skills.
Communication
One of the biggest challenges to hybrid work is communication. Poor communication results in lack of productivity and inefficiency due to people not having the knowledge they need to carry out tasks. On account of the introduction to hybrid working, there will be a natural disconnect between those working from home and those who work in the office. Furthermore, those who work remotely may feel like they do not have the same resources at their disposal in comparison to their in-office counterparts.
How can we bridge this disconnect?
1) Make sure everyone is included and visible – The onus is on the manager to ensure that tasks are delegated evenly and appropriately between all staff, regardless of work location. It is also crucial to have regular check-ins with remote staff, as naturally you won’t have as much access to them as you would in-office staff.
2) Lead with Empathy – Actively listen to your team in check-ins, look out for signs that they may be struggling with their mental health and offer to support them in any way you can.
3) In ambiguous times that lack clarity, make sure you are being clear – say what you mean and mean what you say. Be concise with the message you are trying to convey.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is paramount when managing a hybrid workforce. One upside of the pandemic is that organisations have become more invested in the wellbeing of their staff. Developing your EQ will help you in understanding how yourself and your team are feeling.
There are a number of ways you can develop your EQ at work:
1) Collaborate and delegate
2) Do regular EQ assessments
3) Practice acceptance
4) Journal
5) Schedule time for learning
6) Explore your ‘Why’
Build Trust and Psychological Safety
Because team members are working in dissimilar situations, with differing levels of autonomy, ability to socialise and access to the team leader, it is imperative to ensure that all team members are treated equally and fairly, regardless of their work location.
Here are three ways we can build trust and psychological safety within the parameters of a hybrid work environment.
1) Level the playing field – It is important to make sure there is a sense of cohesion within the hybrid work environment and not an ‘us versus them’ mentality amongst the in-office and remote staff. Make sure an even distribution of time and resources are allocated to everyone regardless of work location.
2) Discover their preferred working styles – Find out what is working for your team and what is not. This is not solely about preferences for remote or in-office work. It can pertain to things like preferred level of autonomy, ways to communicate with you (email, phone, chat or video) to something as simple as what times of the day they are most effective and/or most creative, so you can schedule meetings and calls accordingly. Set up regular one-on-ones and check-ins around their schedule and preferences, rather than yours.
3) Discover new team rituals – To cultivate trust and psychological safety, team norms and rituals must be put in place. These can help to reinforce the team identity and cohesion, so that each team member feels included regardless of whether they work remotely or in-office. This may look like a zoom drinks or quiz, or an employee of the month award ceremony.
Key takeaways
1) Employees can work effectively from home – so hybrid working will be a permanent fixture for the foreseeable future
2) Soft skills are crucial when managing a team
3) Effectively communicate – inclusion and visibility of all employees, lead with empathy and be clear and concise
4) Work on your EQ by collaborating and delegating, taking regular EQ tests, journaling and scheduling time for learning
5) Build Psychological safety and trust by making sure all team members get equal opportunity regardless of location, discover your team’s preferred working styles and implement new team rituals
Is everyone else tired of ‘Zoom’, ‘Google hangouts’, or ‘Microsoft Teams’?
Do you feel like the connection is lost with people across these virtual platforms?
Maybe working on improving your ‘Virtual emotional Intelligence’ will re-invent the
experience for you and your colleagues.
With particular relevance now, understanding virtual emotional intelligence grows in
importance. Similar to a physical meeting or classroom, an effective virtual facilitator or
manager must be aware of the emotional dynamic.
Top Tips for Better Virtual Conversations:
Look into the camera (not at the screen).
Look into the camera (the virtual version of ‘making eye contact). Doing this is going to make your audience feel spoken to directly, thus, building a better connection. Find a balance between looking into the camera and looking at your audience’ faces. This will allow you to monitor the emotional dynamic of the meeting.
Focus on values and purpose first.
Begin conversations with discussions on values and purpose, rather than measures and financials. These discussions can come later in the meeting. For example, start with ‘what has gone well for you this week?’ or ask questions regarding goals for a project, or how the project aligns with the vision or values of the company. Research suggests, that by starting conversations in this way, you allow for open-mindedness, and prevent your colleagues from shutting down emotionally, perceptually, and cognitively (Boyatzis & McKee, 2011). It is crucial that we all feel connected to our work. When we are curious or excited about projects, we feel more engagement. Keep this in mind for when face-to-face meetings resume, as this is still relevant in that context!
Be ready to work to maintain engagement.
With communication reduced to virtual platforms, emotional cues are lacking, particularly in relation to body language. A virtual facilitator or manager must now pay attention to other cues, such as asking and answering questions, engagement with the chat feature or comment boxes, and what is being said but also how it is said (Brake, 2017). For example, speaking vaguely with little detail might indicate disinterest or disengagement. Are people looking away while they are speaking? This may be a hint that they are distracted by other items on their to-do list. Perhaps asking them a question to draw them in or ask their opinion will help them feel more involved? Paying attention to how people are saying things will allow you to better monitor the emotional dynamic of your meetings.
Don’t let ‘Zoom’ tiredness get in the way of engagement at meetings…Take ownership and develop your Virtual Emotional Intelligence to save your virtual meetings.
Interested in more tips on confidence, leadership, and engagement at work? Follow us on social media!
I’ve been having a lot of conversations about leadership and vulnerability recently.
The word ‘vulnerability’ raises so many objections. Many people who are leading others are terrified that if they show any vulnerability it will make them seem weak.
What is Vulnerability?
Brené Brown defines vulnerability as ‘uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure’.
And leadership is all about uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.
Leadership and vulnerability have a lot in common!
The Link Between Vulnerability & Leadership
Just like vulnerability, leadership requires us to step up, step forward, constantly stepping out of our comfort zones.
“Vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage.” —Brene Brown
Most of us were brought up to believe it’s not okay to admit weakness. However, we can see everywhere the most authentic leaders are the ones we admire. Authenticity requires developing true self-awareness.
This takes courage and can be challenging, and sometimes painful. In developing self-awareness, we have to admit all sorts of things to ourselves. Transformation cannot exist without courage. Courage, in turn, requires vulnerability. That is, an openness to uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. Much of the literature and research relating to creativity and innovation in organisations shows successful results from cultures where ‘risk taking (within safe boundaries) is encouraged and where there is an acceptance that not all innovation will be successful.’
This type of culture enables ‘psychological safety, such that staff feel confident speaking out about errors, problems and
uncertainties and feel empowered and supported to develop and implement ideas for new and improved ways of delivering services.’ Psychological safety evolves when leaders display vulnerability. Otherwise it will never feel okay for others to make mistakes and admit uncertainties.
When we talk about vulnerability in leadership, the objection is often the fear of having to expose our deepest and darkest fears. However, this is not the expectation.
For example, vulnerability can simply be any and all of the following three:
1. Admit you don’t have all the answers. This encourage others to share their ideas.
2. Share that you have struggled with something in the past and what you did to rectify that struggle. This encourages growth mindset and openness to learning in others.
3. Discuss what is important to you – your values. This will help others to share their values and recognise you all have more in common than it may seem.
Is doing any of the above weak? I don’t think so.
Try ‘vulnerability’ on and let us know how it goes for you…
Imagine if I proposed that the absence of a vital element could render all the investments your company makes in employee learning and development futile, both in terms of time and money.
A recent conversation with a friend got me thinking about this problem.
During a zoom lunch date (one of the things I am doing to give myself some work-life balance while working from home),
I asked her what she had going on at work that afternoon.
Her face shifted to irritation and, with an exaggerated eye-roll, she said:
“Ugh, we have another training workshop… this time on motivation during Covid-19. I could not be bothered.”
As a performance psychologist I am fascinated by motivation and so this statement made me laugh. I was immediately reminded that we should never assume people are interested in the same things as us!
Further questioning clarified that my friend had been subjected to lecture-style training sessions with little interaction and no opportunity to apply what she was being taught. These sessions felt like a waste of time to her, and in fact they were, because afterwards she never felt able to implement the knowledge.
The Power of Habits
We now know that at least 40% of our daily actions are habits. Habits are a combination of automatic
thoughts, sub-conscious reactions and established routines. The longer we have been following these
routines, the harder they are to change. Even when we have the desire and the best intentions to
change, the sheer strength of our established neural pathways pull us back to our old ways of doing
things. When we don’t understand the processes behind this, we are left feeling powerless to make our
desired changes a reality. This feeling of powerlessness feeds a fixed mindset, which whispers to us
there is no point in trying hard to change as it won’t make any difference.
But why is learning such a struggle?
Implementing new learning is, at its essence, a struggle against our established habits. It requires a
strong clarity of what you are looking to change and the sheer discipline of repeatedly choosing a new
way of acting or thinking until it becomes your new habit or way of being. Contrary to previous research
which suggested it takes 21 days to form a new habit, we know now that this process can take anything from 3 weeks to
to six months, depending on our focus, determination and how our individual brain works.
So, the problem is this: learning and development training can be waste of time and money if we do not
give people the tools to understand their own learning, take control of their behaviour and implement
what they have learned.
Figuring out how to do exactly that is a priority at Adaptas. As a team, we teach learning and habit
change as a core element in all our training, from presentation skills to higher business performance. We
have seen the benefits of this approach, with clients often reporting back to us that through
understanding their own learning and habit change challenges they were able to take control of their
choices and behaviours and make long-term, impactful changes in work and in life.
The crucial ingredient, as we see it, is habit change.
Anyone who has set, worked towards, and eventually gave up on a new year’s resolution knows that behaviour change is not easy.
We set out with the best of intentions and yet the drag of our established habits inevitably pulls us back into our old way of doing things. Habits sit at the foundation of our daily behaviour. When you look at this process closely, you see that successful behaviour change and learning comes down to successful habit change.
At Adaptas, we incorporate habit change education into all our workshops so that our clients can learn how to create long-term lasting changes and experience the benefits of positive, constructive thoughts and behaviours at work and in life. Through this work we notice that by learning how to effectively change their habits, our clients experience a host of often unexpected, exciting side effects.
Positive Thought. The way we think about ourselves comes down to habit, just like the time we wake up in the morning. Through habit change education, our clients learn to recognise and disrupt negative thought patterns. They often report to us that they feel lighter, are more content and experience enhanced enjoyment of work and general life.
Supportive Beliefs. Our beliefs about ourselves and the world are formed through habitual thought and behaviour. Challenging and changing habits around unsupportive beliefs can completely change someone’s life. Building supportive beliefs allows our clients to move away from fear-based decision making and this can have a hugely positive impact on happiness and performance.
Increased Confidence. Clients often tell us they experience a sensation of increased control over their choices, environment and emotions as a result of understanding habit change. This has a positive impact on their self-confidence as they feel better equipped to deal with challenging situations at work and in their personal lives.
Increased curiosity. Habit change work conditions us to continuously ask ourselves questions about our thoughts and behaviours. This results in enhanced self-awareness and a sense of curiosity about our own learning and potential. Approaching problems from a state of curiosity, rather than fear increases creative problem solving for our clients.
Reduced stress and anxiety. Habit change teaches us about how fear and anxiety is hard-wired in our brains as a form of self-protection. Understanding this process, recognising triggers and learning how to move our thoughts away from our flight or fight response gives our clients the power to reduce their anxious responses with time and practice.
In short, habit change is about so much more than performance. At Adaptas we believe that understanding habit change is a key ingredient to building a happier, healthier life at work and at home. Let’s get started!
In our careers, success and confidence often seem inextricably linked. This can be stressful as confidence is a tricky thing to hold on to. Too often we allow our confidence to be dictated by the events and people around us.
Here at Adaptas, we believe the missing piece is the understanding that confidence is something we control for ourselves.
At its essence, confidence is a sense of “sureness.” Feeling sure that we are equal to the task at hand. This sureness comes from preparation and deep-seated beliefs about ourselves. Confidence is not the complete absence of fear, worry or self-doubt. When we are trying to feel more confident, we often focus on technical preparation, failing to tackle the core beliefs that are fuelling our feelings of self-doubt in the first place. Why? Because they are big, intimidating things to tackle, and because sometimes we aren’t aware of them. Here is the problem: if we don’t tackle the beliefs, we can get stuck in a long game of bluffing ourselves and playing a part, all the time feeling like an impostor.
Our core beliefs act as a life blueprint. Forming the foundations of how we interpret the world, core beliefs shape how we react to success and struggle and the way that we see and understand our thoughts and actions within the context of our lives. Sound a little complicated? Well, it is! It can be tricky to identify our core beliefs and understand how they are influencing us. The best place to start is by analysing the thoughts that pop into your head un-invited.
“I won’t be able to answer the questions they ask me at the end of the presentation.”
“I don’t know enough about ________ to be in this meeting.”
“I am terrible at speaking in front of people.”
These unhelpful thoughts are little clues to the core beliefs that are creating them. Identify a negative thought and ask yourself: why do I think this? Follow the thought back into your mind. You’ll know when you stumble across a core belief because it will feel 100% true, even if you wish it didn’t.
I am stupid.
I am not good enough.
I don’t deserve success.
We call these types of negative core beliefs ‘Limiting Beliefs’ because they prevent you from reaching your full potential and they are not true. They feel true but they are not. These beliefs are a habitual way of thinking about yourself, built on faulty information. Like all habits, they can be changed. Our workshops build confidence by guiding participants through the process of confronting and changing their limiting beliefs around important work-related behaviours, while also teaching the tricks and tools of long-term habit change. This empowers our clients to continue the process of developing their confidence long after the workshop is over.
Values are a buzz word these days, but what are they, really? They are identified with single words like honesty, integrity and loyalty. But even with those words to hand, we can struggle to get a handle on what a value is and what it means to us.
Often the serious ones come to mind first. These are sometimes the values we are taught to hold by our families, communities and jobs, values that are heralded in films, love stories and fairy tales. These values are valid, but do they truly represent what is most important to us? What about adventure or enthusiasm? What about stability or calmness, compassion, brilliance or wonder?
Let’s take a quick look inside an Adaptas workshop on values.
A group of coaches-in-training sit with pen and paper in hand. You can feel the pensive nature of everyone’s thoughts as they sift through the layers of words representing the many values they have heard of, taken on board or dismissed over the years. Which ones are mine? Which are the most important to me?
When they are done, each list is as unique as the individual themselves. The next step is to get to know their chosen values a little more personally. Choosing one of their top three values, everyone goes through a short interview process that allows them to dig into what that value is for them. What does it look like? Feel like? What does that value like and dislike? How does that value help? How does it hinder? Thirty minutes later our trainee coaches are deep in conversation. Someone had a burst of realisation at the end of her interview: she wasn’t living to her chosen value as closely as she thought. Another individual reflects on the contradictory nature of two of his values and shares that understanding this has illuminated the contradictions in some of his decision making.
“I find that the ‘ah-ha’ moments that people have, come in when they start to recognise the decisions they are making in their own lives based on values that they either took for granted, or had never named. And it is often a mind-blowing moment. This is because, generally, we take our values for granted and don’t really think about them.”
Dr. Celine Mullins
Orienting to our values can be a powerful source of motivation and clarity. Conflicts are often based in opposing values and by understanding our own values we can find more empathy for the other person’s values and perspective. Difficult decisions can be made clearer by following the guiding light of what is truly important to us. Here at Adaptas, we think and talk about values a lot and we encourage you to do the same!
You never know, there could be some interesting self-discovery waiting just around the corner.
Dr. Celine Mullins has over 15 years’ experience as a Psychologist, Coach and Training Consultant working across Multinationals, SME’s, Governmental and Educational agencies. Dr. Mullins is the CEO and Founder of Adaptas, a Leadership Development Training organisation, developing managers and leaders and teams, in Ireland and Internationally. She founded adaptas to put a gigantic spin on more traditional approaches to learning, which she believes often fall short of making real and lasting change happen.
With a focus on narrowing the gap between the training room and the real world, and using what we know about the brain and behaviour from psychology and neuroscience, Celine’s specialities include; leadership communication, eradicating behaviours and limiting beliefs that restrict performance and relationships, while improving team communication and collaboration.
Q & A
Q1. What led you to pursue a professional interest in business psychology?
I initially thought I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. But at the same time, I wanted to be an actress and director! I always had a curiosity around business psychology, but it wasn’t until soon after completing my PhD whilst I was working as a research psychologist, and also acting, that a conversation at a friend’s dinner party resulted in me going home and writing a business plan that lead me into business psychology. It soon became an obsession.
Q.2 You’ve written and spoken widely about the fact that many problems in organisations are due to poor communication. In your experience, what is the major reason for poor workplace communication?
I would say that 70-80% of problems are caused by communication or lack thereof. We all make assumptions in our communication. We all think we are communicating in a way that everyone will understand. But often the people around us hear things differently to the way we meant it. Many of us are not listening to the people around us, and therefore we miss really great ideas and we also dis-empower others by not being present to them in our listening. All of us learnt to communicate from the people we grew up with; our friends, families and teachers. Very few of us had role models who were excellent communicators and we do very little in school and college to get the basics of communication really working well for us.
In the workplace, when people attend development programmes which include a communication module or they work with a coach, it is often the first time they have really thought about their listening skills and how they are communicating. At this stage it’s very challenging to break the communication habits that are in place.
In most cases, we will only change our communication habits if we believe it will benefit us personally. Changing communication habits are some of the toughest ones to change. It takes real commitment and often requires shattering some deeply held beliefs we are holding on to about ourselves.
Q3. In addition to poor communication, as a psychologist working in organisations worldwide with individuals, groups and teams, what would you say are the most common issues you have to address?
At the moment, aside from communication, there are three main things we regularly find ourselves helping people with:
Educating people on stress management and resilience skills. There is a lot of ‘busyness’ and expectation for us always to be on (digital communication etc).
Supporting individuals, teams and organisations to clarify and maintain the types of behaviours that enable that team and organisation to be a place where people want to be i.e culture. There are a lot of toxic organisations where blame and fear is rife.
Developing Emotional Intelligence. It may not appear to be the case sometimes, but many of the people who are rising to the top of organisations are those who not only communicate really well, but also understand their own emotions and can manage the emotions of other people.
Underlying all of this is helping people to really understand the psychology and neuroscience of how they can make habit change and embed it long-term.
Q4. You’re renowned for employing new technologies such as Virtual Reality as part of your organisational learning and development work. What are the major benefits of these new technologies as far as employee training is concerned?
Going back to my passions in acting and directing, for many years we have written and produced training and educational videos for our clients. So in ways VR was a natural step for me as it brought together theatre, film and psychology – VR has been dubbed the empathy making machine. When my friend and colleague Camille Donegan called me up after experiencing her first ‘hit’ in VR, I knew we had found a way to create training experiences that were more true to life and immersive than many other approaches.
VR is when the viewers audio and visual senses are taken-over by a VR headset display and headphones. This enables the viewer to be transported anywhere, even into the perspective of another human being (known as embodiment).
Training and Learning is one of the best use cases for VR. When using VR headsets, the brain is tricked into thinking that the input being received by the visual and auditory senses is real. This is thought to be due to the spatial nature of the medium. The only other dimension where our brain has experienced 360 degree, 3-dimensional content before was in Real Reality (RR)! So, providing the content is created adhering to design principles to prevent motion sickness, and designed to make the viewer feel ‘present’ in this alternate reality, the brain believes the simulation to be real.
VR is being used for training in pretty much any sector or industry you can think of – healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, military, and of course corporate training. Since we started using VR at Adaptas, we have created VR training tools with the insurance industry, healthcare, and currently progressing tools in the legal sector.
One of the benefits of VR is consistency across all learners. And recently released research shows that training in VR is 40% faster than traditional training, which can result in a real and tangible cost savings for an organisation.
Compare the cost of a VR simulation and some headsets to the cost of video production, textbooks, and trainer/ facilitators and VR will be cheaper in the long run.
Our VR training tools for FBD Insurance was shortlisted for an IITD (Irish Institute for Training & Development) ‘Excellence in Digital Learning’ award in 2018 and again in 2019 when it WON the award. The judges commented that it was important that the tool was proven to be useful and sustainable for the organisation, which it had by year 2.
I’m excited to see what happens in Augmented reality (AR) in the coming years also. AR is when the viewer can still see the real world (their physical environment) but some extra information, such as video, imagery or audio is overlayed into that view. AR content is primarily experienced via mobile phones or tablets, but in the not too distant future, it will all happen via AR glasses. I believe AR is going to be a real winner for training as it becomes less glitchy in coming years.
Q5. What is neuroplasticity and why do you think it’s so important in relation to adult learning?
Neuroplasticity is the ability of neurons to change their structure and relationships to one another in an experience-dependent manner according to environmental demands. This means that everything you think you know and feel now can change, depending on what you focus on. This capacity for learning and change is available to us throughout our entire lives.
As children, we learned by playing, making up stories, creating games together and actively using our imagination. This is how we best learn as adults; when learning is engaging, fun, and full of “imagining the possibilities”. But as adults many of us stop imagining the possibilities and are very stuck in our habits and our beliefs and biases, many of which are unconscious.
Q6. What can readers expect from your book ‘Our Learning Brain’?
The idea with Our Learning Brain is that reading the book will help you to see learning from a new perspective and enable you to fully engage your brain for learning & habit Change.
The feedback I have received to date is that the content is clear, accessible and covers salient points about habits and learning; that it is grounded in research and well laid out, while being easy to read. Readers from all types of backgrounds, from engineers, to therapists, psychologists and coaches, to auctioneers, (the list goes on) tell me that they are learning a lot, that there’s good practical strategies in it, which they can implement quickly, and that it makes them look at things in a different way and raises questions and thoughts they hadn’t considered. Many people are saying that it should be available in secondary school and for all adults in the workplace. Many of them agree that we are not acting on the learning science that is available to us, whether we are the teacher or the learner. And this book now makes this accessible.
Q. 7 If you had to pick just one defining characteristic of a great leader, what would it be?
Curiosity. If we can live from a place of curiosity, we ask more questions, we live from a growth mindset and we can overcome obstacles easier. The best leaders I have met are naturally curious or they have worked on creating a more curious approach, with both themselves, the people around them and the challenges they face. This is why I have been writing another book, currently titled “The Ignited Leader’, which help people to understand, explore and embed a mindset of curiosity.
Q.8 What advice would you give to someone considering a career in workplace psychology?
Go for it. When you get to work with people, helping them to grow, with teams helping them to work together better and with organisations looking to change their ways, everyday flies by. I get to the end of every day wondering where the day went. I can’t imagine working in a role where I was clock-watching. If you are looking to get into the area just do it, even if it means interning for a few months. If you are waiting until you have a masters in organisational psychology, stop waiting. You’ll learn so much by ‘doing’.
Q.9 What projects are you currently working on?
Where do I start. On my list this and coming weeks: VR training tool pre-production with a new insurance client; 2-D Video shoot with a healthcare client; design and start delivering a year-long programme for managers in a technology company; write a report on sales teams progress and development needs in a tech client; coaching client meetings; supervise 3 masters theses who are moving to completion; prepare an outline for a programme with a healthcare client; finalise workshop outline for managers with an insurance company client re. culture; deliver sessions with a law firm client; finish edits on Book 2 ‘Developing Learning Addicts’ in the Maximising Brain Potential series and send to publisher; finish edits on ‘The Ignited Leader’ and send to publisher; Finish bringing the Maximising Brain Potential series online so that people can progress through the information and make real change from anywhere in the world. And that’s all just a quarter of where my time is spent.
‘Immersive Sales Star’ is an IITD Training Award winner.
Institute of Training & Development, National Training Awardsis recognised as the premier Learning & Development event for industry. The purpose of the IITD National Training Awards is to promote excellence, best practice and innovation in Training and Learning & Development, and to highlight the importance of this area in today’s business climate.
Excellence in Digital Learning Award.
We are delighted to announce that ‘Immersive Sales Star’ won the ‘Excellence in Digital Learning’ award from the Institute of Training & Development Awards 2019. Adaptas created ‘Immersive Sales Star’ with the Learning and Development Team at FBD Insurance. ‘Immersive Sales Star’ is a number of Virtual Reality simulations of Sales Call conversations being utilised for motor and home insurance customer contact centre training. It is being used to scale best-in-class behaviours and competencies and replace the need for the shadow sessions.
What do FBD say about this VR training solution?
“Great solutions in business are never created by a single individual; they are done by a talented and committed group. This is why we chose to partner with Adaptas Training. Adaptas have been early adopters of using Virtual Reality technology, a medium which enables more immersive staff training. The Adaptas team helped us create an innovative, practical and results orientated training solution to overcome a real business challenge. The ‘Immersive Sales Star’ tool has improved product knowledge which in turn is improving Sales Performance and has eliminated the cost associated with employing a full time Sales Coach”
-John Mulreid, Learning and Development Manager, FBD Insurance
What are the learners saying after using ‘Immersive Sales Star’?
“When I made my first real call, I felt like I had done it before”
“It brought all the jigsaw pieces of the training together for me”
”It makes you feel like you have done a call and achieved the sale”
“It made me feel like I stepped into an expert seller’s shoes”
“It trains you in the exact environment that you’re working in rather than a meeting or training room”
“Rather that skating around the question, I now go straight in and ask directly for the sale”
