Patience and the Important Meeting

Last Friday whilst on my farmyard adventure we moved some sheep from one field to another. About half a mile of it was along a country road. Obviously when doing this traffic can be affected - which happened on this occasion. A queue of 3 cars developed in the 5 or so minutes it took to move the sheep. One of the drivers asked how long it would take and when told "5 minutes" promptly turned the car around. This has happened before when one businessman exclaimed "but I have an important meeting" and has been known by the farmer as Important Meeting ever since. In both instances the detour taken would have been over 15 mins vs 5 mins of waiting.

I appreciate the frustration - I've been there and done that. When we're busy it's easy to allow our journey to be the most important journey anyone has ever made. To want everyone else on the road to get out of our way. To make moving the goal - especially not moving slowly or even not stopping the goal. It does however highlight some questionable beliefs:

I am more important than anyone else

Constant moving is more effective than stopping

Moving quickly is more effective than moving slowly

Others on the road don't have a valid reason for being there

and certainly not as important a reason as yours

Next time you start to get impatient just look at the underlying belief that's generating that emotion and ask your self about the validity and truth of your thinking.

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping procurement teams take time to assess the most effective speed of progress

The right resources at the right time

Imagine the scene: I've just completed some of my personal training session and my personal trainer says we're moving onto the above exercise (ish). An exercise I've done before lifting 20 kgs. I take the bar in hand and get ready to start. I notice it feels heavier than normal (but it isn't) and already hear my internal dialogue telling me I can't do it. I change the dialogue and do the exercise easily.

But here's what I learnt. At the time just before I started the exercise I wasn't accessing any of the resources (in this case muscles) needed to complete the task. It was only in making the first move to start that those resources turned on.

Isn't that also true in life. We can talk ourselves into not being able to do something and yet that's based from a position of inactivity. As soon as we start to look for the solution we'll certainly then engage the resources we have to make it a reality.

Bad apples just get more rotten – it’s time to change the metaphor

I have been inundated with examples of the different ways we can view good and bad over the last week and thought I’d share the thoughts that have arisen for me:

One key conversation was with a friend about being a ‘good person’ vs a ‘bad person.’

I agree certain behaviours are bad (although I’m pretty sure we’ll all have different scales for what goes where) but that doesn’t make the people doing them bad. If we continue to label others as bad then it’s not long before we continue with that metaphor and believe them to be rotten, like an apple, and therefore useless. The only option then is for them to be discarded. As a metaphor it’s not got a lot going for it, it certainly doesn’t provide a lot of options other than perhaps to bury the apple and hope the seeds have some life left in them!

I wondered what might be a more helpful and resourceful metaphor – what about:

Tomatoes – because they need the right soil, nutrients, feeding, watering, heat and light. This is they need TLC and the right conditions to enable them to flourish. Although perhaps unhelpful when thrown at others rather than eaten as part of a healthy diet.

Flowers – what I like about this metaphor is flowers can flourish in many environments despite the lack of the ‘right’ conditions. But constant lack of any of the right conditions will certainly not allow for a flourishing, vigorous and beautiful flower.

With both these examples at least it’s easier to understand what is needed to ensure the plant flourishes and contributes to the garden. It’s also useful to consider the impact of the greenhouse, the gardener and tools used because ultimately these too will determine the extent to which the plants flourish.

What metaphors do you use to describe others and in what way might these be unhelpful to finding a solution to the issue.

Alison

Alison Smith
Helping Teams see the Wood for the Trees

For more on the Landscaping your Life metaphor I use with individuals and teams do visit my facebook and youtube pages. You may also like a recent blog on Growing your own stakeholders on Supply Management.

What ends up in your personal junk folder

I tweeted recently that unless we follow people we disagree with our twitter feed is likely to represent and not challenge our view of the world. That’s no different in other areas of our life. That is what we pay attention to will normally support our worldview.

There’s approximately 2 billion pieces of data coming into our senses every second!! With that much data available it would be easy to get overloaded. It’s our Reticular Activating System (RAS) that acts as a filter – it’s a tracking system that brings to our attention data that it thinks is important to us. It’s basically a SPAM filter which bases its assessment of importance on if:

• It is important to our survival
• It is different or out of the norm
• It has emotional content for us personally
• It supports our beliefs
• It helps us achieve our goals

And everything else ends up in Junk mail.

This is why, once we set goals, we start to notice information that will help us achieve them – whether that’s useful information or people. Or why suddenly there are more cars the same as our new one on the road.

There’s much we can do to become more aware and even set our own SPAM filter to ensure we’re not missing vital information. I just wanted to remind you that your beliefs will determine what you notice. For example I bet you can give me recent examples of drivers of white van's (hijacking a common belief here in the UK about their bad driving for a moment) who were driving recklessly and didn’t notice the larger percentage of occasions where they were courteous.

How do your criteria need redefining to stop useful information going into your junk mail?

Helping you realise the potential of Procurement

Alison

alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

Your habits are contagious - so are theirs

It's often been said if you want to be wealthy to hang around with the wealthy and certainly stop spending time with those who aren't. Having spent a day with Dr David Hamilton at the weekend I realise that’s also true for all our:

Habits – health, relationships, team working, communication, performance
Emotions – happiness, fear, anger, depression
And yes even yawns!

That is these are all catching – we can get infected by others and of course we do our fair share of infecting too. So if you have goals you want to achieve you’d best check that the habits and emotions of those around you, up to 3 degrees of separation, would be useful to you. Although the closer you are to someone the more likely you are to get infected!

David has just released his new book ‘The contagious power of thinking’. The main premise of the book, supported by lots of research and science, is that we’re hard wired to copy others! The mirror neurons in our brain pick up on what others are doing and want to copy them. So if someone smiles at you your mirror neurons will subtly copy that smile and there’s very little you can do about it. Just as there’re very little you can do when someone passes a frown, anger of fear your way – not instantly anyway.
This can have a significant impact in organisations as one study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology showed where for each one point increase in a retail manager’s job satisfaction there was 5 percent increase in customer spending. Other studies including from Harvard support the findings about the ‘contagious power of thinking’.
Who are you infecting and is it helping?

Let go of the past

Kriss Akabusi gave the after dinner speech at the recent CIPS dinner and asked us to 'reference the past don't reside there'. I shared one learning from his speech on my Supplier Management blog. However as I reflect on March's theme of well being there's something else I'd like to discuss.

I'd like you to imagine that we all have 100 watts of internal energy to use everyday. These 100 watts are available to achieve everything we want in the day: all the thinking, all the moving, all the feeling, all the doing, all the being etc. Our eating , exercise , sleeping and thinking will of course impact whether these 100 watts are available but lets just assume for the moment that we're doing all the right things and have 100 watts available.

Which brings me to what other activities will reduce the level of internal energy available to get what we want done: our emotions. Or more importantly emotions directed at the past or the future. Whether that's reliving not getting that job 3 years ago, anger at your boss for something they said 6 months ago, frustration at ourselves for not taking action sooner or fear about the interview coming up in a month? These all take some of those 100 watts. On a very basic level the past has gone and the future has yet to arrive. The problem is we can spend all of our 100 watts revisiting the past or imagining the future and then find we have no energy available to undertake the tasks of today. Emotions are great and do let us know how we're feeling in the moment. However recycling the emotion so it becomes learnt behaviour and a belief rather than real emotion isn't helpful. The key is being aware when we're in the past or future, and therefore allowing our energy to drain away, and bring ourselves back into the moment.

How many of 100 watts did you lose today? and what do you need to stop doing to ensure you do have 100 watts tomorrow?

Alison Smith

Helping purchasing relationships maintain their energy

alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

"You just needed your brain re-tuning"

My final blog this week was always going to be on exercise but I wanted it to be topical rather than just restating what we all hear time and time again about exercise. Which explains why I'm here again so soon after my last blog because I've got my example and blogging it on Friday pretending it had just happened wouldn't have felt right ......

I woke this morning in one of those moods - negative, achy, dizzy and struggling to motivate myself. I'd even managed to convince myself that I might have a cold coming. I wondered about cancelling my personal trainer and taking to my bed. I realised, however, as he is often a better judge of my health than me, and since he's got me to the other side too many times in the past to ignore, that he might help again today.

He arrived and very quickly decided to do something different and cut short the warm up and proceeded to give me my most strenuous session for a long while. Boxing - kick boxing - running!! He repeatedly asked me to push through my resistance and keep going when every muscle (and my head) just wanted to give up. At the end he just pointed out that all I had been thinking before the session was in fact not true and I had just done better than I had for many months "your brain just needed retuning."

There was a lot going on not least the need to push through but please don't under estimate the power of exercise to shift how we're feeling. I know when we're in one of those moods it's hard to find the motivation and that's one reason I have a personal trainer - but there are other means of ensuring we keep on track e.g. I arrange to go to yoga with a friend to keep us both committed etc. For others it's simply finding a more convenient time.

My plea is just ensure you do something because it really can make a difference.

Talking to yourself

The theme this week is the Mind's contribution to us having the life we want. You see for all it's complexity and ability to do amazing things it's also very simple. If your mind hears something enough it believes it. So if you say "I can't" you probably wont!

Yes it's that simple and before you start saying "I really can't" then just have a look at a previous blog that demonstrated a remarkable change around in my running times during PT. The only difference was I stopped saying "I can't", "It's difficult", "It's impossible", "But".

Dr David Hamilton has written a number of books detailing the scientific changes that take place in our body when we're positive, kind, or show gratitude. These things really are as important as our five a day. Yes they can improve our health and therefore our ability to achieve things.

So if you only do one thing this week can I encourage you to observe what you're saying to your self about: you, your abilities, your future achievements and reflect on how these are impacting how you're feeling and what you're choosing to do - or not do. If you think they might not be helping just try cutting them out of your dialogue and even better finding more positive and supportive wording instead. In fact don't just 'try' - DO IT.

Do let me know how you get on.

It's just all those (other) nutters on the road!

I landed at Edinburgh airport 12 days ago hours before the snow hit the area. Having got home safely the car hasn't moved since! I'm very excited to share that tomorrow I hope to be taking to the road again. However from other people's conversations apparently I still need to be wary of the nutters on the road! You know the ones......

Going too fast in their 4x4
Going to fast in any car really
Using their brakes when it's icy
Going out at all when it's a blizzard out there
etc etc

The difficulty I have is who are all these nutters because everyone I speak to believes themselves to be a great example of good, careful and courteous driving and it's all the others that are the nutters.

I wonder what would happen if we accepted that we too can be that nutter on the road?

On a similar vein I hear friends discuss their anger at the application of holiday due to missed days at work due to the snow. Yet I'm not sure many of those people have offered to pay the garage mechanic, milk man, newspaper man, hair dresser, cleaner, window cleaner etc for their cancelled/unavailable services.

So over this festive season before you start having a go at someone for a wrong you perceive them to have done please remember you're just as likely to have done that wrong in the past too. It might just reduce the blood pressure and provide a little more good will to all men at this time of year.

Alison
Helping purchasing relationships to take responsbility

Great expectations

I heard an interview with Howard Jacobson the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2010 as I drove home last night. After being an early favourite to win he'd been relegated by the bookies to the bottom of the list. As a result of no longer having an expectation of winning he commented that he'd really enjoyed the evening - eating, talking, drinking etc. It came as a HUGE surprise therefore when he was announced as the winner.

I wonder how often our expectations - whether good or bad - get in the way of us enjoying the moment. Howard certainly suggested that if he'd know he was a possible winner he'd not have enjoyed the evening. It's sad that such a great day might have been marred by the expectations weighing so heavily.

On a similar vein my personal trainer had me doing 10/20/30/30/20/10 repetitions of a number of exercises this morning. The dread started with my first repetition - ie before the effects of the physical exertion kicked in. I certainly wasn't happy on one exercise when I thought I was on my 2nd set of 30 to find I was only on my first.

I can think of many other instances where my expectations - good or bad - have seriously impacted my life up until an outcome is known - and who knows may have even negatively impacted the outcome itself.

My call to action today is therefore for us to release our expectations and experience the moment and lets notice what we notice.

Alison
Ensuring judgements and expectations are released in purchasing relationships
http://www.alisonsmith.eu/ alison@alisonsmith.eu 07770 538159

Stop accepting the unacceptable

I admire the athletes who this week have made the decision to not attend the commonwealth games in India. Not necessarily because I think it's the right decision but because it's the right decision for them and they didn't allow other factors to stop them from making the decision.

Many of these athletes have worked for years to prepare for this event - for many this might be the last time for them to perform in such an event - and yet they still made the decision to not go. It won't have been easy. I'm sure there will have been many trying to convince them otherwise. So hats off, hands clapped and backs patted for their making the decision and sticking to it.

In business I hear too many times that things can't change. Normally, just as with the athletes, it's because a lot of time and effort has been invested in the current outcome. Unfortunately until we start saying NO to the unacceptable and following what's right for us then the unacceptable will continue to claim the high ground (if that's not mixing too many metaphors?).

So next time you accept the unacceptable because it will....

keep the food on the table
make things easier with others
keep your stakeholders happy
make the company money
avoid you having to re do the work

...think again. It's time to start trusting and acting on your convictions not just thinking about it.

Alison

Alison Smith
Ensuring purchasing relationships trust and act on their convictions

Who are we not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

'...we ask ourselves "who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Actually who are you not to be...' Marianne Williamson

I painted this plate with Marianne's words on my recent holiday and now have a daily reminder as I eat of how fabulous I am :-).

The quote also goes on to say
'..as we let our light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same...'

I wonder what daily reminders you have around you to ensure you too remember to allow your light to shine and remember how brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous you are?

Are you connected to or have you abandoned your personal values?

I've had lots of conversations with people over the last few weeks either unhappy and unmotivated themselves or with unhappy and unmotivated people working for them. In all cases this was negatively impacting the company's brand.

The problem seemed to be the non alignment of values between the individuals and the company. In fact not non alignment as much as they'd abandoned their values!! The WHY they had allowed this to happen had a few components.

In some cases the person just wasn't clear enough about what their personal mission statement was. So they joined or even set up an organisation that seemed to meet their needs and then became unhappy when their unconscious needs weren't being met. Understanding what motivates you and the outcome you want to have on others is really important in ensuring that you can jump out of bed with enthusiasm every day. This can take some time but is well worth the effort. I'd also suggest it doesn't have to be in words that others understand. This is about finding the words that best motivate you.

For example my personal mission is I'm a path finder - I help people transform their lives by getting them on their path. That may not make sense nor motivate anyone else but so long as that informs what I choose to do and what I choose not to do that's what's important. As you will see from my web site, blog, LinkedIn and Twitter I choose to translate this into Paddle Finder for career creeks. Clients find this description easier to understand what I can do for them and relate to.

If you're clear about your own personal mission statement it will be a lot easier to keep on track when aligning with an organisations mission. Are you clear about your personal mission?

The other type of situation was people joining an organisation where their values were not aligned with those of the organisation. They therefore then apply and operate from their values when working on behalf of the organisation. The problem here is that others then see how they operate as representing the organisation. Which can significantly and sometimes negatively impact the perception of the organisation's brand.

Agreeing values statements and code of behaviour to meet these values is one solution. However sometimes it's simply the case that the person's values will always conflict with those of the organisation and they should not continue to work there. A hard decision but one that is best for both in the long run.

How does you personal mission statement align with that of the organisation? What changes do you need to make to achieve better alignment?

Time to take your foot off the pedal or push it to the floor?

For the last 6 months it's been one thing after another giving me a reason for not pushing myself aerobically during my regular personal training sessions. Knee and then a twisted ankle etc. Although we have done a lot more weights, stretching and recently more boxing :-).

This week Gavin, my personal trainer, timed me running up and down the stairs for the first time in ages. With 6 months in the abyss I thought I'd have a big job to even get to where I had been a year ago.

Surprise surprise I beat my best time!!!!!!!!!!!

I just stood there and looked at him as the realisation dawned that life is just the same. Sometimes we just need a change of pace, to take the foot off the pedal and to coast a little. When we're ready we can come back even stronger for the rest!

So don't worry if it's time to take your foot off the pedal. Know when the time is right all your current awareness, skills and uniqueness will still be there waiting for you.

Of course for some off us it's now time to rev the engine, push our foot to the floor and see where life takes us. Anyone want a lift?