Some people are here, some are there, some people are alone, some are together

This is the hybrid way of working. Remote, distributed, co-located and in person. The leader or facilitator, well, they could be anywhere!

The realities of work now mean you’ll likely have a mix of where people are located. 

How do we lead meetings and workshops like this? 

It's a new way of working for many of us and can raise questions, queries and tricky situations:

- how do you achieve and maintain engagement across all of these different spaces
- how do you know people are engaged and participating
- how do you get people involved
- how do you use breakout rooms if not everyone is on their own device
- what do we need to do differently than if everyone is in the one place (all online or all in the one location)?

Think about it and plan for it.

Explore your thinking - remember to act

If we’re the only creatures on earth who can think about how they think ... how well do we use that power? 

Because it is a power. It’s one of the greatest reflections we have available to us. 

To pause and think ... ‘wow, I wonder why or how I think about things?’

This can send us into a thinking vortex though, where we just keep thinking about thinking about thinking!

Some reflection is good but then what? 

When we are Sensemaking and not just thinking, we get to shift to some action. 

1. What’s going on here
2. What do I need to do about it
3. Now do it

If we are caught up in the first question of ‘what’s going on here’ ... analysis paralysis can be never ending. 

The second question - now we are getting somewhere - is, ‘what do I need to do about it?’ 

Here is the bias towards us taking an action. 

Thinking. 
Thinking. 
Now do it. 

...

...

...


Umm.... but then we return to thinking mode again to ‘work it out’ or ‘understand what’s going on’ or ‘run scenarios’ - more thinking. 

The ‘now do it’ gives us the opportunity to see what happens as a result of our actions. 

THEN we get some new stuff to think about ... but at least we have advanced.

Think ... sure. 
Now act. 

Working smarter, more efficiently

When our to do list is long, we can be keen to find a quick productivity fix: a better app, a new method, a new book. 

But these fixes take a process and just apply it over the top of our existing behaviours, band-aid style. 

All the years we’ve been working, we’ve been forming our own habits and ways of working. That’s how we got like this!

Meanwhile, many teams and businesses have shifted and adopted some newer ways of doing things. 

Some of these are smarter and more efficient vs what we might be doing: slower, requiring more effort. 

How are you changing to smarter ways? 

Rather than stressing over our to do list or day full of meetings, we can rework the work, re-imagining how it can be done. 

There is much to learn about these newer ways. And they can be far more efficient for us than a productivity bandaid. 

Strange times call for new ideas

When the Institute for the Future called out ‘novel and adaptive thinking’ as one of those skills we’d need right about now ... do ya think they knew just how much we’d need it?

The use of the word ‘novel’ may have become a little tainted (you know, the novel coronavirus and all).

So could we say unique? Or clever? 

The thing is, these strange times call for new and quite different ideas. 

We know the clichéd group brainstorming thing doesn’t work. 

We’re better off keeping an ideas book, capturing flashes of brilliance as they arrive. 

Or getting hands-on with an idea and prototyping it, to see how well it actually works. Although getting as practical as we can as soon as we can is a totally new concept for some people. 

- Part of a team? 
Know how to bring your clever. 

- Leading a team?
Know how to bring the clever out in others. 

- Running your own show? 
Look for opportunities to use your clever .... anywhere, any time. 

Almost anything goes!

These strange times need our unusual ideas and thinking. Be braver about that. 

Hold on the judgement that what you’re thinking isn’t ‘good enough’. 

We won’t know the value of an idea ... until it’s put into practice anyway. 

When there’s just no space

Is there space in your schedule? 
◻️Yes
◻️No it’s jammed
◻️What schedule! 

When there’s no space, no breathing or regrouping space, we’re inviting overwhelm.

‘You’re welcome here overwhelm’, we say, ‘take up residence in my diary, my world, and let me struggle, wrestle and juggle with you.’

◻️When we have ‘back to backs’ all day, we’re letting overwhelm in. 

◻️When we don’t protect time, we invite more overwhelm. 

◻️And when we cave in on boundaries or limits, we let in still more. 

It’s curious how we use the word ‘overwhelm’, as in being overtaken, flooded, inundated. Space in our life is like the sand bag to a flood.

Space serves as a boundary, a buffer that cordons off and provides us with safety. 

And space is mighty valuable too; it may not be freely dispensed or offered up. 

Those who are rushed and pressured may try to squeeze your space ... to give them more space later on. 

When we give space away and yield to this pressure, we have less space. 

Check you schedule and diary.
Put some space in here and there for the next week, at least. 

And then be highly aware of who tries to take it from you ... or how easily you’re willing to give it up.