Age of haste/Show your thinking/Obsessed with activity/Share your knowledge/Do nought/Best at the end Lynne Cazaly CSP
Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 5:42PM 
Show me what you're thinking...
Could you? Or would you talk about it for awhile? Or spend way too long working on a detailed pack of information - with too many charts, with pillars and cogs and pie charts?
Thinking is evolving and so can our skills -- to show what we're thinking.
Visuals, scribing and sketching have become powerful tools to help with thinking, brainstorming, communication, collaboration, learning and coping with information overload.
Given there are so many benefits to using visuals, it's a shame that we discount our abilities to sketch and draw and therefore don't use -- or wildly underuse -- these clever and powerful skills.
Is it time to add this capability to your toolkit so you can:
🧰 quickly sketch out ideas
🧰 communicate complex concepts
🧰 think more clearly
🧰 take better notes (that you'll actually use again) and
🧰 make sense of all the information you're drowning in?
Yes, totally!
And these are even more epic skills for hybrid times when some people are here, some are there and conversations are remote, online, in person or asynchronous - happening at all different dates and times and locations.
I've been helping people cut through with their thinking and communications, make sense of their complex ideas and influence and engage others with ease.
3 school students …
walking behind me along my local shopping street.
I was obsessed, eavesdropping on their conversation. They were coaching, advising and guiding each other through various parts of their school project. It was divine, clever, pointed and clear.
They were asking questions of each other. And they were eagerly contributing suggestions, ideas and insights.
One student shared a point or two about part of the assessment.
And then I heard it - another of the students said,
‘What was that? Share your knowledge?’
The student with the knowledge then delivered a succinct, clear and capsuled few sentences. Brilliant. No waffle. No grandstanding. No blah blah blah.
The group coaching was impressive.
The direct ‘share your knowledge’ request… even better.
And then the tight piece of knowledge delivered was the slam dunk, the cherry on top.
Students. Overloaded with information and learning … and developing mentally, physically and emotionally at record speed. And still this clarity in the asking for and the delivering of information.
Boom. Superb.Try it. Ask a colleague to, ‘share your knowledge’.
And if you’re ever asked, try to be succinct, clear, insightful. It’s harder than it sounds.
Obsessed with activity
Do do do do. It’s not a song! It’s the obsession many workplaces have with wanting their people to be busy doing.
As if activity = productivity.
And if you’re not busy doing then you’re not ‘engaged’ or ‘performing’.
But the cultures of interruption and disruption (and not that innovative disruption either!) are growing in the workplace.
The 8 features of a badly disruptive workplace are outlined in this Psychology Today piece — and the list is looking increasingly like the standard workplace.
Read on and then reconsider these 4 points:
▫️how you’re leading people
▫️what constitutes performance
▫️how you know people are engaged and
▫️how your work practices need to evolve.
In the age of haste
The treadmill of life is accelerating at such a pace, many of us are overstimulated, overwhelmed and overloaded. All the time.
Perhaps
▫️Timefulness
and
▫️Longstorming can help.
Autocorrect knows neither of these concepts, attempting to change them into tunefulness and long-standing!
But these are two ways we can consider how we cope with the changing world and all of its busy newness.
In redefining our relationship with time as it is whizzing by, timefulness helps us refresh our experiences of
▫️wonder
▫️curiosity
▫️awe and
▫️introspection.
And lonsgoeming, err I mean longstorming, is more about nature, the outdoors, and venturing ‘out there’ so you can
▫️step back
▫️slow down
▫️and deliberately think about the longer term.
Writer and social scientist Vincent Ialenti shares some deeper ideas, building on the philosophies of others in this Psyche article.
You’re probs too busy to read it or don’t have the mind space to change your speed and consider its suggestions.
But save it. And savor it. These might just be some ways to help us rethink what we’re doing and how we’re so hastefully doing it.
But I can’t do … nothing
Among the trends of toxic productivity, the endless workday and the society of should, lives a little thing called ‘relaxation anxiety’.
Doing nothing. Well, at least doing less.
In a recent keynote and workshop on cognitive overload, participants fessed up about the challenges of taking short breaks between meetings, work tasks, work and the rest of life, and … little breaks for no reason at all.
And they found it tough.
We’ve been so slogan-ed into getting as much out of our time that the idea of getting less out of it — or getting nothing at all but rest out of it — can feel guilty, wrong or naughty.
That’s a habit gone too far - don’t ya think?
As we continue to evolve ourselves, knowing when to stop is as important as when to go go go.
Pausing, resting and recovering are all mighty valuable uses of our life and times - so get on with it. Resting. Whenever you can.
A micro rest here, a sliver of sleep there, and a spot of doing absolutely nought … right now.
Read more about it in this TIME article
The best can come at the end
There have been a few more conferences on lately -- the events industry keeps picking up the pace, more events, more registrations, a more healthy return to eventing together ... in real life.
A quick survey of the last six conferences I presented at:
only one of them used a deliberate summary/synthesis/wrap up session that went beyond, 'Oh well, that's it, wasn't it great, see you next time.'
And the one that had the deliberate conclusion... I was facilitating it. Ha! 🤩
But seriously, it seems a waste to have a massively curated conference event program, full of speakers, panels, insights and messages, a-ha moments, learning, revelations and updates and then... what? Bye?
Missed opportunities right there. Big mistake. Big.
The collection, curation and co-creation of insights gathered at the event can be harnessed, revealed, elevated and shared.
And by more people than just the MC sharing things from their perspective.
Stop keeping all of the conference insights a secret!
The wrap-up or conclusion of the event can be a hugely impactful experience; deeper insights, more learning, sense making, ideas for application, possibilities for future connections - they're all possible.
Most conference events pack in so many speakers, presentations, panels and topics ... there's little if any time to digest, learn, share or embed the learning moments.
Facilitating a shared synthesis and a curated closing is a sure way to multiply the value people get from the event.
It reminds people of key messages, fills gaps from sessions you couldn't get to, and shows us what happened when we were distracted by emails and the love for our devices.
I can't wait to facilitate the next conference event closing this week where all my skills of improvisation, facilitation, co-creation, creativity and performance come together to extract insights -- in a friendly way -- from conference delegates.
There's so much value in that conference room at the conclusion of the event. Don't keep it a secret. Multiply the benefit and ROI of the event for delegates.
Yes... a best bit CAN be the wrap up when all of the other best bits come together!
