MBTI can be a bit of an abstract concept sometimes: chatting about it sometimes helps, so we were happy to chat, here… it’s not Simon’r finest hour, in terms of dress-sense but what the heck…. š Ā
Category Archives: News
Presentations and confidence in Oxford
Hospital Entrance
Some social responsibility news! Anyone who’s worked with us for a long time knows about our social responsibility programme (we call it our 13% policy) and as part of that we’ve just agreed to do two workshops for the Thames Valley Cancer NetworkĀ at the John Radcliffe Hospital over the next couple of weeks.
We’re going to be doing a workshop session on confidence & resilience and another on presentation skills.
And at the same time stay with friends… what could be better! š
Myths in training – why researching your material is a good plan! ;)
Anyone who’s taken any training from us in confidence, credibility or communication skills will know we get hot under the collar about the myth that only seven percent of the meaning of a verbal communication is contained in the words.
Trainers who should know better cite the work of Prof Albert Mehrabian without actually checking their facts. The myth has been debunked time and time again – including by the good prof himself! – but that doesn’t stop it creeping into the content of some trainers (can you tell we’ve come across this recently and it’s pushed our “get annoyed” button? š Ā )
There are Ā a lot (seriously, an awful lot!) of places to debunk the myth, but this video is a fun way to do it… enjoy!
Time Management – deadtime tools
We ran a half day workshop session recently on Time Management – and many of the usual issues came up… Thereās no magic bullet and itās about self discipline… any system for time management works better than no system so stop prevaricating and pick one…Pomodoro, JDI, whatever feels right for you is more right for you than random nothingness! š
But one slightly unusual question did make its way to the top of the pile: how do I best use my downtime? The answer is, of course, that you donāt. Downtime is downtime for a reason and if you try and work for too long without downtime youāll become inefficient and your work will be more and more error-prone.
The reason is simple – downtime is not the same as ādead timeā and the real question should be āHow do I use my dead time?ā.
Dead time is time when youāve got enough energy (or whatever) to be productive but some logistical problem is stopping you. It might be that your laptop battery has died so you canāt access the local cafeās wifi or it might be that your phone has no signal on the train youāre on or… you get the idea. The issue is simply a logistical one, whatever the cause of the problem.
First things first – check whether you arenāt confusing downtime with deadtime. It might be simply better to stop, rest and take downtime. In fact, if you donāt you might end up with your ādoing-timeā being so unproductive it becomes deadtime!
Given that deadtime is 99% of the time a logistical issue, the solutions lie in simply being organised enough to keep on top of your logistics. I canāt promise these ideas will make every single moment of deadtime massively productive, but they work for me…
- A kindle – mine has a cover with a built in light so no matter where I am, Iāve always got something useful to read. If youāre traveling with it a lot, I turn of my wifi connection to save on the battery life. The lifeās fine but if Iām away for a week, every little helps.
- A laptop – Iām meeting someone for a coffee/meeting in a cafe; Iām ten minutes early – where do you think Iām writing this!? Again, battery life can be an issue, but my Macbook lasts for ages. I make a point of charging it while Iām packing, if Iām going away, so that I know itās fully charged as I leave the house – a simple trick but one thatās saved my a lots hour or two over the last few weeks as I travel up and down the country by train.
- iTunesU (and podcasts) – subscribe and theyāre on your phone. Pack headphones and youāve got the possibility of a lecture from some of the worldās leading experts in your ear as youāre sitting on a buss! If youāre not familiar with iTunesU, itās hidden at the back of the iStore but itās a massively useful resource of some amazing material (and some dross too, of course!). Take a while to check it out and youāll see what I mean. By the way, comfy headphones are a must if youāre trying to understand tricky stuff! š
- Your phone – personally mineās an iPhone but whatever youāre using, learn how to use it! You donāt need a notepad an pencil with you any more to jot down those moments of genius you have! There are plenty of apps that will record your voice so you can just talk to it, set the time and have it speak your notes back to you when youāre in the office. No excuses for not capturing your bright idea!
- A good diary set-up – pretty much anyone with a busy job/lifestyle can benefit from a good calendar app on their phone and Iāve taken this one step further by syncing mine with the calendar on my laptop and my office computer; there are plenty of ways to do this, but personally I use Google Calendar for extra backup. Whatās more, with a few tweaks of the settings, friends and staff can see when Iām busy, when Iām free and book me in… only those few I trust, of course!
- Training shoes and a skipping rope – okay this is an odd one, I admit, but when Iām traveling this all I need to make my hotel into a gym for half an hour. (I donāt skip in m room – I find somewhere quite outside to do this). Other people run, but Iām too lazy! Iām also experimenting with a yoga DVD to pop into my laptop for that time between waking up and going down for the hotel breakfast…… but I canāt tell you how well thatās working, yet.
- In-car radio thingy – now I have to confess I donāt know exactly what to call this little gadget. It sits in my car and broadcasts to a very short range radio signal (a metre or so) which Iāve tuned one of the stations of my in-car radio to… By attaching my an MP3 player (in my case my trusty iPhone) to this gadget, I can listen to my iPhone in the car. Books, lectures, podcasts and just plain olā music. The beauty of this, of course, is that I donāt need headphones, so I stay legal and safe!
So there you go – a quick run through a few of the ways Iām combatting my deadtime. Your mileage will vary of course, and they wonāt all be useful to you, but a couple of āem might be.
Let me know… … and if youāve got any useful tips yourself, let me know that, too!
Presentation special kit time
It’s only just a week away…. our big Bamboo and Oak delivery day for South Lakeland – and that makes it kit-testing time! š
With a big venue like this the projector will have to be a long way from the screen, obviously, to get a big enough image for everyone to see easily, even at the back. From our point of view, however, we want our laptop on the screen so we can see what’s coming up and be able to control things better.
That means the projector and the laptop will be a long way apart. Hmmmm… the solution? Our newĀ 25 metre VGA cable. The only downside is the weight! š
Bamboo and Oak, by the way, is our large scale presentation on coping with pressure and stress and being resilient – when it feels like the world is out to get you. Ā Last time out we got feedback like “Sell the Renault and buy yourselves that Porsche!”. Roll on next Friday!
A bit of a brag… :)
Some of you will know that we have up our sleeve a big presentation called “Bamboo and Oak” and you’ll know we delivered it to headline the Norther HR Briefing…… and Ā the results are in! Here’s the feedback comment section:
Very interesting, good to finish session on a high.Ā Good techniques delivered and will be tested.
So refreshing.
Different and challenging.
Very helpful, well presented – will try these things.
Fab.
Some useful practical tools that I will use back at the office.
Some really good hints and tips and I think Simon should sell his Renault and buy a Porsche!
Some useful tools/tips.
Practical.
Very helpful.
Very applicable.
Best speaker – really enjoyed.
Very useful stress busting techniques.
Excellent delivery and content.Ā Good use and explanation of tools and story telling.Ā Very engaging.
Good ideas well presented.Ā Stimulating and enjoyable.
Uplifting finish – well planned.
Great ideas for keeping sane at work.Ā
Time to break out the smarties and have a cup of tea to celebrate, I think. Ā š
Online training courses
Great new for all you time-short people!
The first three of our online training courses are now available here. There are about half a dozen more to come but for now we’ve got up three courses on confidence, designed to help anyone who needs a bit more confidence in their lives and work or who’s getting stressed about having to say ‘no’, take a bit more control of their lives or cope with the big events. Ā Enjoy!
Stress vs Pressure
Stress isnāt pressure. Thatās a simple fact, true by definition – but itās not how people perceive stress.
The definition we use is this: stress is pressure you canāt cope with. In other words, no matter how much pressure youāre under, itās not stress if you (feel that you) can cope. What that means is that thereās no such thing (in this sense) as a āhigh stress jobā. You can have a high pressure job, sure, but if you can handle it, itās not stressful.
Brain surgery is high pressure, yet Iāve never met a stressed brain surgeon. Why? Because they are confident they can do what they do. That means itās ājustā pressure.
On the other hand, if you donāt think you can cope, itās stress, no matter how little pressure youāre under, objectively.
What does that mean in practice? Well for starters it means we can stop telling ourselves weāve got a high stress job… because that builds expectation of getting stressed.
And what do expectations do, all too often? Become self-fulfilling prophesies, thatās what!
Stress training
While we might not be sure about everything, we can be fairly sure about why one of our other more popular training courses is asked for though – our stress management training courses are obviously just what a lot of organisations need at the moment, with restructuring and cuts making a lot of staff very stressed indeed.
MBTI training – step 2
Our MBTI training is in huge demand at the moment, with MBTI step 2 being particularly popular – if only we knew why!
While step one (the traditional MBTI that everyone know, giving the four letter description) is a fantastic tool, the Step 2 assessment gives a greater and more subtle understanding of your personality. Ā We’ve been using it a lot in FE and HE at the moment, where it’s been, as always, fantastically useful and popular.