How Soft Skills Can Help Us Manage A Hybrid Workforce

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

The Unexpected Side Effects of 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!

A Look Inside An Adaptas Workshop On VALUES

Updated August 3rd 2023

Values

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.

Listening Is The Greatest Sign Of Respect You Can Give Someone.

Updated August 3rd 2023

Good communication skills benefit workers, CEOs and companies’ performance.

Every organisation has its own culture. This is largely determined by how its people interact, communicate and make decisions. The tone of communication is set by leadership, ripples throughout all areas within a company and extends to its customers and target audience via its brand.

A positive and uplifting spirit of communication is the fabric of a strong organisational culture that influences job satisfaction, productivity and well-being at work. It goes even further; it improves retention of talented people and cuts down on absenteeism by creating a welcoming and open ethos where workers are happy to engage.

What is good communication?

Good communication is about much more than the practical sharing of information between individuals, teams, groups or departments. The way information is structured and shared, the tone of messages and personal communication styles have a big impact on how information is received and acted on.

As management consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker said: “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.”

Unfortunately, much of the communication that occurs at work is just the transmission of data. Many people don’t have the skill or don’t believe they have the time to make sure that their communication is understood by the receiver. This lack of clarity or misunderstanding is at the basis of most problems in organisations.

Employees and colleagues feel empowered when there are good communication lines between management and other levels. It builds confidence when truthful, transparent and current information is offered by superiors. It encourages the sharing of new ideas and creates safety for concerns to be expressed.

In reality, many employees resist sharing their opinions and ideas, because they don’t feel psychologically safe. Psychologically safety can be defined as the degree to which people view the environment as conducive to inter-personally risky behaviors like speaking up or asking for help. It also plays a vital role in helping people overcome barriers to learning and change in inter-personally challenging work environments.

Although the concept of psychological safety was introduced as a critical factor in helping people to learn new behaviors and overcome defensive routines 50 years ago, there has been a large body of further research on the impact of psychological safety over the past two decades, popularised by Amy Edmundson.

I love this quote from John H. Bryan, former chairman and CEO of Sara Lee Corporation

“You have to be willing sometimes to listen to some remarkably bad opinions. Because if you say to someone, ‘That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard; get on out of here!’—then you’ll never get anything out of that person again, and you might as well have a puppet on a string or a robot.”

Effective communication has a major impact on psychological safety. Distorted channels of communication or poorly structured information can lead to distrust, poor collaboration and a secretive, “them versus us” mentality, leading to interdepartmental friction or conflict. It can leave people filling in the blanks themselves, possibly incorrectly, and straying from the core values of the organisation.

Through inclusivity and collaboration, businesses thrive.

Leaders and managers can mistakenly believe that employees lack understanding of difficult issues or aren’t interested, so don’t share them. The same goes for bad news; sharing only the good puts working relationships in parent/child mode instead of those of trusted colleagues.

What do we mean by parent/ child mode? The psychologist Eric Berne developed the idea that people switch between different states of mind on a moment-by-moment basis, depending on what is happening around them. When we are in adult mode, we are rational and assertive, neither trying to control nor reacting aggressively towards others. When we are in parent, we either seek to control or we nurture (to the point where we often dis-empower other people) and when we are in child we shirk responsibility or let our emotions takeover. For example, when a manager takes a parent approach (controlling), the team member might react in child mode. And as mentioned above, when a manager is not transparent with colleagues this often sends them into parent or child mode, either looking to control or retreating from their responsibilities in their role.

Most employees, at every level, are more tuned in than some superiors give them credit for. Just as a customer who isn’t listened to may be lost, a colleague who isn’t heard or included in relevant issues can be alienated. Positive outcomes stem from being inclusive, knowing what needs to be shared, when and which methods of communication best convey it.

Encouraging a healthy communication culture between colleagues is equally important. Now, more than ever, cross-cultural teams with vastly differing perspectives need practices that build understanding, open and honest relationships for effective collaboration. It’s a strategic imperative in such a global, diverse and technologically dominated environment. One negative action, without a consistent culture of positive interaction, can have a domino effect throughout a team or department. A team member that ls left feeling dis-empowered is likely to pass this on and it begins a cycle of negativity, affecting collaboration and productivity.

I see where you’re coming from.

Interpersonal communications skills training is perhaps the most important investment an organisation must consider if it wants its people and its customers to avoid many mistakes that are made in seemingly simple interactions. It builds a foundation for the principles of good organisational communication.

Maintaining consistently positive interaction in the workplace is inherently difficult as there are many intricate aspects to how we interact which are not universally taught. Without even considering the non-verbal elements of communication, speaking alone requires the speaker to perform two cognitively demanding tasks simultaneously: conceptualising the information to be conveyed and formulating a verbal message capable of conveying it. It also involves a third cognitively demanding aspect; listening.

The meaning of even the most banal utterance is grounded in a set of fixed assumptions about what the communicator knows, believes, feels and thinks. Every individual views the world from different vantage points, like background, experience, knowledge, education and gender, creating a unique perspective. To accommodate variation in perspective, communicators must take each other’s perspectives into account. As the social psychologist Roger Brown put it, effective communication “… requires that the point of view of the auditor (listener) be realistically imagined.” However, the other’s perspective is not always obvious.

As children, we assume everyone experiences the world in the same way we do. But even though we know better as adults, our judgement of others’ perspectives can be biased by our own points of view (egocentricity). Many interactions fail to achieve the objective in hand due to lack of understanding of another’s perspective and without the feedback which could give the opportunity to correct this. It can lead to poor comprehension of tasks among colleagues and clients can walk away feeling frustrated.

Listening doesn’t always come naturally

Most people speak at a rate of 2.5 words per second, often in a noisy environment with less than clear diction. We are usually unaware how unclear our communication can be. One of the vital skills necessary to be a good communicator is to be a good listener. When colleagues or those who report to you feel listened to and heard, it builds trust and respect, setting the scene for receptivity to what you communicate on an ongoing basis.

Being an active listener means paying close attention to others, including to non-verbal cues, withholding judgement and having a willingness to understand another’s perspective. Emotion expressed non-verbally can be more telling than the words people speak. Focus on tone of voice, pace of speech, facial expressions and gestures. Listen to hear the meaning behind what’s being said.

It helps to paraphrase or summarise what you’re hearing and reflect the feelings expressed. “What I hear you saying is…” When you’re not clear what’s being communicated, make this obvious. “I don’t quite understand what you are saying, could you repeat that?” When giving feedback, make it seem like it’s coming from an ally rather than an adversary.

This is easier the more relaxed you are. When stressed, communication can be abrupt, hurried or rambling, will be difficult to understand and messages may not be absorbed and applied. Your unease may transfer onto your colleague who could act this out by passing it on. Beginning with the idea that you want to help constructively will allow your colleague to pick up the value in your feedback and go away feeling supported. Many people, while listening, are evaluating or judging what’s being said or mentally multitasking and may miss important nuances.

Kevin Sharer of Harvard Business School learned the importance of effective listening while CEO of biotech giant, Amgen:

“For most of my career, I was an awful listener in almost every possible way. I was arrogant throughout my 30s for sure—maybe into my early 40s. My conversations were all about some concept of intellectual winning and ‘I’m going to prove I’m smarter than you.’ The best advice I ever heard about listening… (was) having only one objective: comprehension … only trying to understand what the person was trying to convey to me. I wasn’t listening to critique or object or convince. … as you become a senior leader, it’s a lot less about convincing people and more about benefiting from complex information and getting the best out of the people you work with. Listening … is … the greatest sign of respect you can give someone.”

How does communications training offer benefit?

As result of such a fast-paced and pressurised modern work environment, many leaders and managers are falling short of the type of communication skills that build productive working cultures. Busy people can have blind spots. A leader could be immensely talented but unaware of how he or she may be blocking personal potential with the wrong style of communication or impeding the trajectory of others in a team.

Habitual behaviour can be the most difficult to change as it becomes automatic. It’s not easy to step outside of ourselves and view our actions, and the impact of them, objectively. It can take focus on direct feedback or specialised communication training to clearly see how interpersonal relationships play out.

Well-designed processes challenge participants to complete tasks which reflect typical workplace and life situations. They focus on specific elements of communication to illuminate both positive and negative aspects of interactions. It’s an impartial and safe environment in which to explore the effect of new styles and approaches.

A good communications trainer will lead by example and emulate the traits of a great communicator by:

knowing how to listen to participants’ opinions and needs
waiting until the right moment to interject
encouraging awareness
guiding role play that clearly demonstrates common pitfalls
allowing time for reflection and assessment of how problems can arise
adding professional and personal experience and knowing when appropriate
creating a place of safety so everyone feels free to express
offering challenge when it’s constructive
recognising differences and being open to new opinions
being genuine, authentic and human
bringing participants to a clear understanding of communication that works.

Training is an ideal environment to explore a tendency to jump to incorrect assumptions. Instead of adopting a victim mentality unnecessarily, the habit of looking for another viewpoint can be introduced. Taking time to think and assess before making rash judgments and drawing unhelpful conclusions can avoid needless tension.

Flowers and chocolates at work?

Many companies are aware that good relationships are central to a collaborative, engaged and productive workforce. The cognitive culture is often healthily maintained. HR departments look for shared intellectual values; for traits in thinking and behaviour that fit company culture and a build harmonious team.

But we are still learning how important the emotional culture is to success. In 2014, Barsade & O’Neill conducted research which found that ‘companionate love’— “feelings of affection, compassion, caring, and tenderness for others” at work significantly influences job satisfaction, teamwork, burnout and a company’s financial performance.

The research showed that simply taking a moment to say “thank you” or ask how someone is doing has a positive impact enough to translate into measurable customer/client benefit. It illustrated across a variety of organisations and industries that it was the strength of an organisations companionate love culture that determined employee engagement. Where people felt comfortable to express affection, tenderness and caring, there were higher levels of job fulfilment, more commitment to the organisation and accountability for their work.

In workplaces that don’t experience or promote companionate love there are minimal displays of affection, caring and compassion among workers. People tend to be more indifferent towards each other and are less equipped to deal with situations that are going badly. “It is the small moments between co-workers—a warm smile, a kind note, a sympathetic ear—day after day, month after month, that help create and maintain a strong culture of companionate love and the employee satisfaction, productivity, and client satisfaction that comes with it.” It isn’t enough that people get paid. Feeling appreciated and loved at work is necessary too.

Good team leaders don’t tell, they ask.

Clear and consistent communication is one of the main ingredients central to high employee engagement. But when communication is too controlling, and is a guise for micromanaging colleagues, it can be counter-productive.

BIAC is a thinking, behavioural and adjustment profiling tool created in Ireland and now being used worldwide. One of its most useful aspects is in measuring levels of controlling thinking. The best score in this trait is neither at the top nor bottom, but right in the middle.

To score highly means that a manager, boss or team leader tends to tell his or her people how to operate, instead of supporting and empowering them to creatively come up with strategies and solutions themselves. This approach can block the development of talented people and stifle inspiration. High controlling thinking impacts on psychological safety, mentioned earlier, in a negative way.

Remaining firmly in charge without trusting others to do a good job and use their own initiative doesn’t just affect others. The leader who is overly controlling also suffers by carrying too much personal responsibility and becoming stressed. Their high expectations create habitual and unconscious controlling behaviour and they often cannot see the lost opportunities to allow others to rise to a challenge or the negative impact on themselves and others.

Having a low score in controlling thinking and behaviour also has its disadvantages. It translates into weak decision-making which can allow others to take charge inappropriately, leading to a feeling of dis-empowerment and low self-esteem.

People who are centered in controlling thinking and behaviour, as measured by BIAC, have no difficulty in empowering others but are fully capable of being in charge, when required. They ask open-ended questions, genuinely consider opinions of others and remain calmer and more effective in their roles. They are particularly good team leaders and tend to build dynamic and productive departments.

The benefits of great communication skills can’t be over-emphasised. They improve all aspects of working life, contribute to better well-being for everyone and positively effect results.

A final few words from Kevin Sharer (Harvard Business School & former CEO of Amgen).

“The cultural environment, of course, is going to define every aspect of communication. If you’re in a fear-driven, toxic environment, listening is going to be almost impossible, and I’ve been in places like that. Being the CEO, however, means that you can define the culture by whom you pick for positions under you and by the standards you enforce. I’ve always tried to emphasize an environment of partnership, teamwork, trust, and respect—and anyone with a bullying tendency, we fire. Of course, it’s not perfect; we’re human beings. But we try hard to have every aspect of our culture and of the way we operate encourage the sharing of information—to listen to the facts, listen to the logic, and draw well-formed conclusions.”

“…organizations that don’t listen will fail, because they won’t sense a changing environment or requirements or know whether their customers or employees are happy. In an incredibly information-intensive, dynamic environment, you have to listen or else—to mix metaphors—you’re blind.”

Creating And Maintaining Culture: Living The Values And Behaviours.

Updated August 3rd 2023

Why Are Values Important at Work?

I’ve been having many ongoing conversations with clients recently about Culture; the Values and Behaviours that create a culture.

Working with individuals, teams and organisations to help people understand their own values and then exploring what the behaviours are that enable us to live the organisational values is something that consistently enthuses me.

The ah-ha moments that people have when they start to recognise the decisions they are making in their own lives based on the values that they either took for granted, or had never named is often mind-blowing.

The clarity that teams and organisations get from understanding how our values drive the decisions we make; and from naming the behaviours we can hold each other accountable to can be quite enlightening.

What Have Personal Values Got To Do With Work?

Too often, however, I see organisations trying to encourage their employees to live the organisations values without ever having invited the individuals to firstly get clear on what their own personal values are, and secondly investigating whether their personal values align with the organisations values.

Posner (1979, 2012) defines a value as being something that an individual will make a sacrifice to obtain; or a belief upon which a person acts by preference or an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct is personally or socially preferable.

Examples of values (of which there are hundreds at least) are accomplishment, agility, boldness, calmness, health, honesty, integrity, learning, love, playfulness, passion, purposefulness, respect, reliability, rigor….the list goes on and on.

Do We Really Know Our Values and What is Driving Us?

Generally, we take our values for granted and don’t really think about them.

I remember the first time I did a coaching exercise to work out my own personal values, approximately 10 years ago. Listing out the values that were important to me, I realised my top value was ‘freedom’. Suddenly all the decisions I had been making in my life up to that point made sense. I was being driven by my value of freedom, but it wasn’t necessarily bringing me to where I wanted to be in life. I had to become more conscious of the decisions I was making around this top value.

Our values arise from our beliefs. Many of our beliefs come from our society, our parents, our peers. And therefore some of our values might not consciously have been chosen by us personally. It’s therefore important to get clarity on our own values and ask ourselves if we have chosen them, or if they have been passed on to us by others. If we are living our parents’ values, which many of us are, unbeknownst to ourselves, we are potentially going to make decisions, consciously and unconsciously that are not what we actually want for ourselves in life.

How Can I Clarify My Personal Values

I recommend writing a list of your top 10 values in no particular order. Then re-organise the list in order of importance to you, from most important to least important. Identify your top 3 from this ordered list of 10 and ask yourself: “If I lived in an alternative universe, and I could only take these top 3 with me, would they definitely be the ones I would take (knowing I have to leave the other 7 behind)?”. If you are happy that they are the top 3 values that are most important to you, ask yourself: “Am I truly living to these top 3 values, in how I spend my time, and the decisions I make in life and work?”. You might be surprised!

Coming back to what personal values have got to do with work; Gleeson (2017) and Branson(2008) argue that the failure to align staff and organisational values removes the bedrock, the very foundation upon which all truly successful organisational operate and on which organisational change depends. This can cause a wide range of staff disengagement behaviours, most noticeably when there is a failure of the necessary two-way relationship between employee and employer. So, let’s look at this in more detail next time!

Change Is All Around Us!

Update August 3rd 2023

Change is all around us!

In a world where things seem to be changing faster than ever before, you may find yourself, like me, struggling to keep up with the rapid pace of developments in technology, global politics, and more. However, you should take comfort in knowing that our brains have evolved to adapt and re-adapt to this ever-changing environment we live in.

When we focus on learning new things or new ways of doing things, our brains grow. The size of the cortex, the length of neurons, the number of synapses, and the level of neurotransmitters and growth hormones increases. So we can make ourselves brainier, as such!

The ability to learn is dependent on modification of the brain’s chemistry and architecture, in a process called “neural plasticity”.

What is “neural plasticity” or “neuroplasticity”.?

Neural plasticity reflects the ability of neurons to change their structure and relationships to one another in an experience-dependent manner according to environmental demands. It means that everything you think you know and feel now, can change for better or worse depending on what you focus on.

How can we make it attractive to learn?

There are many ways to make it attractive to learn. Here are two suggestions:

1) Recognize the importance of learning for the longevity of your memory: Reading Norman Doidge’s book “The Brain That Changes Itself ” will inspire you.

2) Think back to when you were a child. Many of us liked making up stories and playing games together and generally using your imagination. This is how we learned as children, and believe it or not, this is how we learn as adults. Learning needs to be engaging, fun and full of “imagining the possibilities”. Experts and researchers (e.g. Caine and Caine, 1990) all over the world have found that brains grow best in the context of interactive discovery and through the co-creation of stories, that shape and support memories of what is being learned. Learning together in teams and groups therefore has a lot of benefits and long-term impact.

As adults it’s easy to get stuck thinking, “you can’t teach and old dog new tricks’. Actually we can learn new things; it just takes a more concerted effort than when we were children. What can you do today to help your brain learn and adapt and have some fun doing it?

The Power Of Mental Practice In developing Your Communication Skills

Updated 3rd August 2023

Want to hear something that I have always found intriguing?

You can grow your brain by simply imagining yourself practicing a skill, without ACTUALLY physically practicing that skill. Many studies have found mental practice to be nearly as effective as physical practice for skills from types of shots taken in basketball and golf, to movement accuracy and velocity in pianists, to technical skills in novice surgeons.

For example, Pascual-Leone et al (1995a) conducted transcranial magnetic stimulation study (TMS – used clinically to measure activity and function of specific brain circuits), which showed that imagined practice (in this case of a piano sequence) led to comparable expansion of cortical premotor areas responsible for controlling the fingers as actual physical practice.

So you don’t even have to actually move a finger to get the neurons communicating and neural pathways forming!

Athletes have known for years that visualization techniques (otherwise known as mental practice or mental imagery) improve performance, motivation and focus. Many athletes also use visualization to manage and reduce anxiety. This has now filtered into the business and the corporate world. Many highly successful people attribute their achievements to integrating this kind of neural influence with appropriate action. For example, research has shown that self-efficacy is significantly higher and communication skills improved in supervisors, when mental practice is used in combination with goal setting as a post-training intervention.

In case these terms are new to you, visualization refers to creating a picture in your mind of what you want to happen in reality. It can also be a ‘stepping into’ the feeling you would feel both during the unfolding of the goal and at its culmination. While imagining a scenario, you imagine the detail of the actions and the way it feels to perform in the desired way. This mental rehearsal helps minds and bodies to become trained to actually perform the skill imagined.

Beware though, the feeling throughout the process has to be as much as possible conducive to what is desired, otherwise it can hinder the likelihood of achieving the desired outcome. Focus on what you do want, rather than what you don’t want!

The Importance Of Sleep For Staff Development & Healthy Aging.

Updated August 2nd 2023

Many of us are bringing our work home with us, whether actively working at home or just thinking about it.

As mentioned in our piece last week, Norman Doidge’s book ‘The brain that changes itself’ (2007) is a truly inspiring collection of studies, real life examples and conclusions on the mould-ability of the brain.

It turns the traditional thinking that the capacity of the brain is fixed on its head and shows how the brain can reorganize itself and make new neural connections throughout life. Rather than being hardwired and wearing out with age, the brain is at your disposal to use and grow to YOUR benefit, and to promote mental longevity.

The only thing is, many of us are living lives that cause our brains to age quickly. For example, many people boast that they don’t need much sleep and many other people I know do not prioritize it because many work late into the evenings and therefore find it difficult to get the brain to shut off once they get into bed. Of course, having young children and many other things can get in the way of sleep, and often cannot be avoided. But long-term it’s imperative you don’t let the brief hours of sleep continue.

During sleep we discharge toxins from the brain include flushing out amyloid proteins in the brain (bad sleep increases levels of some proteins, such as amyloid that have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease). During sleep, we also regulate hormones that are responsible for satiety and hunger. Anyone who’s ever had a flu or a bad cold, knows how sleep helps recover our immune system, and this recovery is taking place either way, daily as our system is met with so many germs. Sleep also consolidates our memories and enhances our creativity. Are you getting enough sleep?

If you are not sleeping enough each night, which includes relaxing the brain well before you actually get into bed, then you are going to be less alert the next day, impacting your productivity, your relationships and your long-term health.

Are you getting enough sleep?

Over the coming weeks, we are releasing little snippets and tips from our upcoming Habit Change book and sending them out to you. We would love to hear your thoughts on these, if any of them resonate with you or make you think differently about your current actions, we would love to hear from you about it.

NEW Virtual Reality Product Announcement At Adaptas

Updated August 2nd 2023

“When you are taught about something, it feels distant. By experiencing it in Virtual Reality it suddenly feels real”

NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT

Over the last couple of years, a special branch of virtual reality content creation has developed, known as Cinematic VR. It is typically based on 360-degree video and offers an affordable alternative to 2D video. It can form the foundation of eLearning that will transport learners into compelling, immersive stories and environments.

Adaptas have just completed a first person perspective virtual reality experience to be used in training for one of our clients. With the immersive potential of this new medium, trainees and low performers are able to ‘sit in the perspective’ of an expert customer sales representative and get a sense of what they need to develop in their own behaviour, in order to be successful in their role. This is a confidence building piece that is a new tool as part of the progressive Learning & Development training suite for this financial services sector client.

Research has shown to date that pieces like this drive actual behavioural changes far more effectively than previous media sources. Stanford Professor, Jeremy Bailenson has discovered that users retain 33% more from VR than standard video. This is at least in part to the finding that VR has 27% higher emotional engagement and people stay 34% longer than in a 2D (video) environment. Another study has shown that fear of public speaking can be reduced by almost 20% with VR and another that almost 9 in 10 participants reduced their fear of heights with VR.

Have you seen the film ‘Being John Malkovich’, where the character literally sees and hears the world from John Malkovich’s perspective? For the purposes of a work environment, experiencing the scenario from the viewpoint of the expert has not been possible before with any other medium. The Adaptas team responsible for designing this innovative VR experience believe it will prove to enhance an employee’s success.

This client project consists of a stereoscopic 360 interactive video where the viewer can ‘be in the perspective’ of the sales star in a busy call centre environment. The piece was filmed on-site at the clients office, working with a genuine sales call and staff to ensure authenticity. It will be used to on-board new employees as part of their 3 week induction training. Our client is delighted with the progress of this project so far. We will keep you posted on further developments with this.

If you are interested in this idea or interested in discussing how this might look for your organisation, please do get in touch, give us a call and we can brainstorm some scripting and role-playing ideas. Every organisation is different, and we pride ourselves on our ability to tailor each project specifically for the objective at hand.

Creating A Learning Culture With Our Leadership Development Program Dublin

Update August 2nd 2023

As we run our Leadership Development Program in Dublin and around the world, we have witnessed a remarkable trend towards the emergence of ‘learning’ organisations. While some forward-thinking organisations took the lead and embraced this concept over a decade ago, many others are just embarking on their journey now. The shift towards becoming learning organisations signifies a transformative movement within the corporate landscape, with an increasing focus on continuous growth and development. As we engage with diverse organisations globally, it is evident that the pursuit of a learning culture has become a pivotal factor in fostering long-term success and adaptability in today’s ever-evolving business environment.

Is ‘Learning’ a part of your company’s culture or are you just hoping it will happen?

What is a learning organisation, you might ask?
A learning organisation is one where:

“Employees continually create, acquire and transfer knowledge-helping their company adapt to the unpredictable faster than rivals can e.g. tougher competition, technology and shifting customer preferences ” (Garvin et al., 2008)

There are 3 building blocks suggested by Garvin et al. that many organisations fail to put in place, making it very difficult to achieve the ideal. One of the most important building blocks according to many global learning leaders is having the type of leadership in place that reinforces learning.

Here, the organisations leaders (including managers of smaller departments and units):

Demonstrate willingness to entertain alternative viewpoints
Signal the importance of spending time on problem identification, knowledge transfer and reflection
Engage in active questioning and listening

(Garvin et al, 2008)

When leaders actively questions and listen to employees –and thereby prompt dialogue and debate- people feel encouraged to learn. If leaders signal the importance of spending time on problem identification, knowledge transfer and reflective post-audits, these activities are likely to flourish.

When people in power demonstrate through their own behavior and willingness to entertain alternative points of view, employees feel emboldened to offer new ideas and options.

What are you doing to create and maintain the type of leadership that reinforces learning?

National Well-Being DAY – Working Together For A Healthier Future!

Updated August 2nd 2023

What would I see if I walked into the reception of YOUR organisation between 8am and 9am this morning?

Would I notice an atmosphere of positivity and well-being.? Would I notice people who are well, happy and healthy, milling through reception? Or would I see over-tired, stressed, coffee-fueled zombies shuffling around the front doors?

As today is National Workplace Well-Being Day, it is more important than ever to reflect on the well-being of your workplace.

The Tagline is ‘Working together for a healthier future!’ What do you think of this statement?

Do YOU work together with YOUR colleagues to create a healthier future?

We’ve been talking about employee engagement, leadership, companionate love, ‘spirit of work’, communication, happiness, thinking, behaviour and all sorts in our recent blogs. Ultimately, we talk a lot about care for ourselves and for our colleagues.

Did you know that Gallup* found that Managers can greatly impact employee well-being, as well as engagement? Ultimately this all plays an important part in the performance of an organisation (Krueger and Killham, 2005).

*(Analytics and advice to help leaders and organisations solve their most pressing problems)

Improving employee engagement needs involvement and commitment from the leaders and manager (Mann & Harter, 2016). Of course it requires ownership and commitment outside of the workplace from the individual also. In my experience, work and home always impact on each other. What is important, is that to improve engagement, you need to improve well-being.

Did you ever consider that?

When I walk into an organisation that practices these things, I can feel it. From the moment I walk into reception, there’s a difference; a difference in how people greet me, and greet each other.

What are you going to do today to improve your well-being and the well-being of those around you?

What If You Are Low In Controlling Thinking And Behaviour?

Updated August 1st 2023

It is important to make people aware of where their thinking is in this area.

Referring to the BIAC Thinking Styles process, a Team Leader or manager who is Centred in their ‘Controlling’ Thinking and Behavior will have no difficulty empowering others, but is fully capable of being in charge, if required.

They are particularly good team leaders and will tend to create the right, most effective team dynamic. So what about if you are ‘low’ in ‘Controlling’ Thinking and Behaviour?

Let’s take the case of another senior manager I worked with recently:

A finance accountant, in another global organisation, let’s call her Flo. When I first met her, she expressed that she was feeling very stressed. She also talked about two of her peers whom she was ‘afraid of upsetting’ because they are both ‘strong confident characters’, who ‘do not react well to input or feedback’. Flo never makes a decision without consulting these two peers, and often ends up performing items that are their responsibilities, even though she is extremely busy with her own activities.

Flo, on being measured by BIAC, came out as ‘low’ on ‘Controlling’ Thinking and Behaviour. What this tells us, is that she gives way and allows others to take complete control, and dictate her approach to making key decisions.

Very ‘low controlling’ belief leads to thinking and behaviour which empowers colleagues or customers to the point where they take over and dictate to you the terms, conditions and overall approach on most issues. Describing very ‘low controlling’ thinkers, customers or indeed colleagues will say ‘he or she cannot make a decision or a stand on any issue’. For the person themselves, the stress from this type of behaviour can be quite severe, as there is often an inner feeling of disappointment with their own performance and a sense of being put upon. This person will often end up doing the work of others as well as their own. They will often hesitate when faced with a decision and let others do their own thing.

Flo, I learn, has been extremely stressed and had to take a few weeks off for stress leave a few months back.

I also later find out that these two peers are, in actual fact, two of Flo’s direct reports! Her ‘low controlling’ Thinking and Behaviour has allowed her to fool herself into thinking they are at the same level of management as her!

Believe it or not, our thinking and the beliefs that they stem from, can absolutely convince us of things that are not in fact true, about ourselves and others.

Realising that your beliefs and your thinking are not useful or optimum sure is frustrating. But it is progress, and awareness means you can change your behaviour. Flo has been working on this and I am happy to report she is making great strides, and is healthier and happier in recent weeks!

How Soft Skills Can Help Us Manage A Hybrid Workforce