Getting Motivated (4 of 5) | Making Monday Great Again!
People experience the state of flow twice as often at work than they do at home. So, what’s the big deal about Friday? Find out how work is good for you, and make Monday, yes Monday, your best friend! IT’S ALWAYS been fashionable—and in many cases it’s probably true—to see work as a grudge activity. The words we use say it all. The grindstone. The salt mines. Sigh, you do it because you have to. And so on. Plus, [...]
Getting Motivated (3 of 5) | Getting Through the Dip
One thing you can know for sure about getting motivated: when you’re starting out with any activity, you almost never feel like it. Sadly, getting through the dip is the only way. Enter the state of animation. YOU KNOW that positive feeling you get when you’re in the flow state? Or that sense of accomplishment when you’ve finished a task? We all want that feeling, right? Well, guess what? There’s no other way to achieve it than to simply [...]
Getting Motivated (2 of 5) | It’s Not About Your Feelings
You don’t have to wait for your feelings to come right before you can get motivated. You can choose your motivational state and act to bring it about. Your feelings will follow. WHEN YOU’RE weary, as the song goes, or feeling small—or feeling down—you tend to focus on, well, your feelings. You try to nurse them into a better shape. You need to feel better, you tell yourself, in order to get motivated, to get going. Similarly, when you’re [...]
Getting Motivated (1 of 5) | The Five Motivational States
Getting motivated, and knowing how to get people motivated, is both art and science. The good news is, you don’t have to become a motivational speaker to do it. You just have to understand these five motivational states. IN THE days before actual coaching, the only option we had for getting motivated were those dreaded motivational speakers. They whooped onto the stage and spewed out platitudes like, “Today is a gift, that’s why we call it the present!” and [...]
Newly Appointed Leader? Here’s Your Most Important Play
If you’re a newly appointed leader, or even an experienced one, this might be your most important play: stop being the subject matter expert, and lead! BECOMING A leader is like being given a role in the end-of-year charity play, but with no script. You just get told, “OK, you’re playing the bad guy,” and you have to make it up as you go along. This is especially true for newly appointed leaders who get selected out of a [...]
Personal Power: It’s With You, Stupid
Each one of us has the personal power to cause positive change. That power resides not in the collective, but in the individual. That means you. Yes, you. You have the power. Not them. "MEN GO crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one." That's a line out of a song — the song All This Time, by Sting. I've used it as a quote on my email signature for some time. Recently, one of my clients asked [...]
The Enneagram: Sharpest Tool In The Personality Profiling Shed?
When it comes to profiling people’s personalities, the enneagram is probably the sharpest tool in the shed. Correctly debriefed, it can provide the key for people to free up their behavioural choices and transform their lives. I FIRST encountered the enneagram many years ago. I was browsing in a bookstore while waiting for my son to finish his ice hockey practice. The name “enneagram” itself, and the disk with its colours and lines, looked and felt strangely familiar, yet [...]
Why Mindfulness, Why Now?
Mindfulness has reached a tipping point of awareness and people are asking why, what’s the fuss all about? Here is one important suggested reason. MANY PEOPLE have asked the question that makes up the header of this article: Why mindfulness, why now? This post suggests one important reason: the state of the world right now. Most people will agree that the world is a pretty topsy-turvy place at the moment. Election results are unexpected. Think Brexit, and Trump. Terrorist [...]
The Impact of Context On Team Performance
The impact of the broader context on team performance is vastly underestimated. USUALLY WHEN a team is not performing, we try to fix the problem at the functional level. Is each person doing their job right? Are they following the process? Does the process need improvement? Most often this is done from the ground up, by looking at the individual team members - or the individual processes - first. This reflects a belief that the individuals and the processes make [...]
