The most important person to influence

Much is written about influence: how to use it, who is impacted by it and how to get more of it. 

Of all the people you focus on influencing, do you put effort into influencing yourself? 

Do you know what to do to change your state, how you’re feeling, or what you’re doing? 

Rather than just accepting things for how they are or ‘going with the flow’, a more deliberate practice is to be able to influence yourself. 

To shift and change how you think and respond to things. 

For example, if you have times when you’re anxious or overwhelmed, what do you do? Do you have a go-to list of remedies and reliefs? 

Sniff an orange. 

No, that’s not a typo. It’s one of the suggestions in this neat list of 28 ‘little’ things to do in times of anxiety. 

There are some we might have heard of before like writing things down, exercising or being grateful, but there are some wonderful new tips too 

Bookmark it if it’s something you - or someone you love, live or work with might benefit from. 

It could help you be more influential. 

Work that works

So says PepsiCo with their new flexible working model, ‘work that works’... in this article

80,000 staff will never work a standard 9-5 working week again. 

“Instead, the business has empowered its managers to determine which of their team members are needed in the office and when, and what work can be completed remotely, on a project-by-project basis.”

Wow! It’s pretty big isn’t it. And yes, plenty of companies have been working like this for awhile (some for years) but for most leaders, this is new. 

This strategy has been 8 months in the planning and is rolling out across 200 locations. 

2.5 days in the office and it’s now all about ‘outputs’. 

Leaders will need to step up to higher levels of communication, engagement … and leadership! 

Good for employees? Yes, and PepsiCo says hybrid working is good for business too. 

As each company expresses publicly its hybrid strategy - or its ‘forever work from home’ strategy (hello Atlassian Twitter  Facebook  Unilever  Spotify  Square Microsoft Slack Google … and many more) - the competition for talent increases. And this could be some of the talent that’s currently working for you, with you. 

Don’t be complacent. What’s your ‘work that works’ strategy, PesioCo-style? 

Do the switcheroo on your thinking

How readily and easily might you be able to change your mind? What would it take? 

The more cognitive flexibility you have, the better able to respond and adapt to change you’ll be. 

It makes sense, right, but still we see people ‘dig in’, ‘stick to their guns’, ‘hold the line’. But in these times of crazy change and uncertainty, convicted beliefs may be more practical if they loosened up a little. 

Rather than being hung up on building your smarts and clever, are you cognitively flexible?

This article from The Conversation UK by Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Christelle Langley and Victoria Leong shares more detail. 

In essence…

“Cognitive flexibility provides us with the ability to see that what we are doing is not leading to success and to make the appropriate changes to achieve it.”

How easily can we switch between concepts and adapt our behaviours? 

Or do we defend, resist and stay? 

Perhaps we could trick or hack ourselves to try some different ways of thinking. 

What would it take for you to try?

Too much information

The answer isn’t to communicate less. It’s to adopt some better practices. 

This article from the World Economic Forum ties nicely to some of the thinking in my book ‘Argh! Too much information, not enough brain’. 

There’s plenty of information to be had. There’s so much that it even has a name : infodemic. 

And synthesising or reducing information all the time isn’t the answer either. Abbreviated and reduced summaries have caused and created more information issues for us. 

We can’t take it all in, all the time. 

How might we think and work with information in better ways? 

➡️ And have you got your copy of ‘Argh!’ yet? It’s getting some great reviews from people who’ve bought it and put the practices to work to outsmart their overwhelm. Ebook and paperback are out now. Audio book is out there too …

Resisting the flexible future

It’s not that we have to work remotely, it’s that we are ‘clinging’ to office based practices. 

At least someone or some people are clinging. It may not be you. You might be good to go with a more flexible working arrangement. 

But clinging to old practices has happened for centuries. The new is uncertain. 

‘We’re not adopting new ways until we have proof that they work’, said a leader recently. ‘I’ll wait to see what the results are for others first, then I’ll consider whether I will adopt the new way,’ said another. 

These are examples of clinging. 

Waiting. 

Waiting to see. Watching others. Potentially you watch competitors moving first. And because there is greater flexibility on offer, many many more companies become your competitors …in the war for talent. 

The when, where and how we work are still clinging to location. 

And the meetings drain persists. 

There are absolutely better ways. I work with teams and leaders every day, helping them learn and experience new and better ways of working. We try things out, learn, experiment, get comfortable and do some new things. We do less clinging. 

This article in The Guardian by Alexia Cambon, Research Director at Gartner shares more. I’m keen to read her research, ‘Redesigning work for the hybrid world’. 👏🏽 

Let go some more. Experiment, learn and adapt with this change we are in. Less clinging.