Developing and demonstrating talent is a key part of our individual happiness, and the workplace is of course the most common environment to focus on our key areas of talent. We expect to achieve results at work, and the ideal is when we can fully use talent to enable those results.

Often in the workplace we find ourselves doing things we are not particularly talented at, or perhaps don’t particularly like doing. Attending some of those meetings comes to mind as a common example! Or perhaps admin work, or performance management issues. The greatest buzz we can get is when our full talent is used, stress seems to be more invasive when we are doing activities we are not particularly suited to or enjoying.

Viktor Frankl was a concentration camp survivor who became a psychologist and wrote the astounding book "Man’s Search for Meaning". I would personally put this book as one of the ‘must reads’, Frankl’s observation was that with a sense of meaning we can endure anything, without it we are lost.

Using Frankl’s principle, I would suggest we need a sense of meaning to achieve great results at work. This is more than a sense of purpose (after all, a sense of purpose could simply be “work hard and get my work done on time!!). Meaning is a sense of purpose along with a satisfaction that we meet our own personal values.

I am in a restaurant in Russia. (OK, I’m not, but imagine I am.) I hear arguing from a couple on a table behind me. I don’t speak Russian. I can’t see them. So, how do I know they are arguing?

Pace, tone articulation. 

Sound advice
When we have a job interview or an important business meeting what do we plan? We plan what clothes will be suitable and we know that what we are wearing can affect how comfortable and confident we feel, and therefore appear to others. We think about body language and how to use this to appear a certain way. We prepare what we will say because we know that using the right vocabulary will communicate exactly what we wish to. But how many of us think about the way in which we will speak the words? Are we aware of what tone of voice to use? Do we know that we can consciously adapt our voice to communicate so much more than the meaning of the words? 

Returnship programmes set to increase within the UK…

‘Returnship’ programmes are set to rise further into 2019 with the government having already invested £5million into them in the 2017 budget, and further investment in 2018. Returnship programmes haven’t been around for very long, having been first introduced in the US by Goldman Sachs in 2008, the first UK schemes were only launched in 2014. 

Some of us use a communication App called WhatsApp, it’s a cool tool because you can set up friendship groups for swapping comments / messages. In our family, which is dispersed across the planet, we have a few of these groups going. One for recipes for Indian cooking, one for photos of family events etc. One of the groups we entitled ‘Bizarre Stuff’. It started out as a group to share amazing things we find out, such as discoveries by the Hubble telescope, developments in medicine etc. Over the last year most comments in that group have been about Donald Trump.

Most people I know, and me personally, abhor what he seems to stand for. But I’d like to tap briefly into what he seems to be good at.

“An estimated 137 million working days were lost due to sickness or injury in the UK in 2016, according to a new report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This was equivalent to 4.3 days per worker, the lowest recorded rate since the series began in 1993, when the number was 7.2 days per worker.”

Commenting on the findings of the report, ONS statistician Brendan Freeman said: 

“Since 2003, there has been a fairly steady decline in the number of working days lost to sickness, especially during the economic downturn. In recent years, there has been a small rise in the number of days lost, but due to an increasing number of people entering the workforce, the rate per worker and overall sickness absence rate have stayed largely flat.”

The story we are familiar with is of an increasingly tense workplace which demands more of us. It is a good thing to question assumptions sometimes, and the above quote is fascinatingly challenging, and suggests it is possible that things are getting better not worse.  

Have you been here as well?

I'm sure you have heard of the saying 'If you carry on doing what you are doing, you will keep on getting what you are getting'.

Behind the scenes, L&D folk are masking the resistance, working miracles with slashed budgets, doing more and more internal delivery and covering the cracks of inconsistent internal messages from senior leaders delivered to the grass root business levels.

Our minds are incredibly clever things. But if your mind is like mine, it needs directing from time to time.

 In Hardwiring Happiness 2013 Dr Rick Hanson outlines how the most basic primitive brain at the top of our spinal cord, is the driver of much of our behaviour. Evolution has built onto this brain stem of course, the latest addition being the cerebral cortex and all its logical capacity. Wouldn't it be good if we could apply this logical capacity first, but we are simply not wired that way. Logic enters our thinking only after emotion and reaction has run its course and had its way.

 

Some voices seem to command instant attention. Actors and singers spend a lot of time learning how to do this, often we forget that the voice is based on muscles, and muscles can be trained. So all of us can learn, should we choose, to have voices which command attention.

 The tone of our voice is important of course, and muscle structure helps with this. But pace and volume matter as well, and these can be adjusted perhaps more easily. We dress for the occasion, perhaps we should think of adapting our voice for the occasion!

Here are some thoughts on how we could do that. 

We always assume that personal performance improvement involves significant shifts in the way that people behave.  Some delegates on my programmes are concerned about having to ‘alter their personality’ in order to be successful.  From my experience, and from my studies into taking time out in the week to reflect, I have noted that small incremental shifts can reap huge benefits in peoples’ effectiveness. 

Taking time out to reflect regularly is not confined to leaders and managers, but can improve personal impact for anyone.  In fact, the roots of reflective practice can be found in professions such as the medical and social services.  Reviews of social and medical cases often create learning opportunities, avoid significant mistakes in the future and improve standards.

So how can anyone use reflection in their day to support their personal impact at work?  There are a number of scenarios which provide opportunities to develop personal effectiveness....