Protect ideas/Do you Kanban?/Workshops in Sydney... and New Zealand/The Great Room

Protect the airspace around ideas

Sharing ideas with coworkers or colleagues can be an exciting time. You’ve had an idea and you want to verbalize it or explain it, explore it a little more. 

But some people have that unfortunate wet blanket ability to cut down and dismiss ideas in three seconds flat! Their techniques might not be the old clichés of ‘we’ve tried that’ or ‘that won’t work’. 

No, today’s idea deflaters are a little more insidious and subtle than that. Because the first thing you’ll notice is the inspiration you had for the idea has rapidly deflated and the focus is now directed elsewhere. The vibe has gone. 

It’s like the time, space and idea has been hijacked. 

Idea hijackers love to: 

▫️contribute immediately with something they know or have done, ahhh, also known as ‘interrupting’. 

This behaviour:

▫️deflects from your idea, and

▫️distracts with new information about something, somewhere or someone else. 

They might keep hijacking when they:

▫️ elevate the something or someone else higher, greater and better than your idea

▫️ provide unsolicited comparisons

▫️ rush to premature solutions and conclusions, and

▫️ move the conversation on to other topics. 

Boom. Slash. Switch. Sleight of hand and verbal misdirection. All the while, they’ve ignored that which was in front of them: you the human, and the idea you shared or expressed. Tune in to it. Notice it. The status shift in the conversation or interaction is observable and palpable. 

Idea slashers get away with their frequent whipper-snipper action as if it’s just how things are these days. 

No wonder people don’t feel safe sharing their thoughts and ideas, contributing or participating. Whether it’s ego, discomfort, narcissism, a desire to show their knowledge and power … whatever it is…It’s a perfect reason why collaboration and conversation often needs to be moderated, facilitated and ‘air traffic controlled’ to keep a watch for these rogue craft infiltrating protected airspace!

Rather than rushing to fix, shame or remediate the hijacker/interrupter, stand by and refocus the time, energy and attention of the group back to the original contributor. Redirect to the OG and re-explore from there. 

Everyone can have their turn and have their say. But to handle these types of situations requires nuance and subtle diplomacy. Offence is everywhere. 

These situations are exactly why today’s leaders need some new ways of leading.

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Live Workshops in Sydney

I'd love to see you at these half-day public workshops; tickets are now on sale for October dates

These are high impact morning workshops - all thriller, no filler 😉

🌕 VISUAL SENSEMAKING : October 17

Use these clever visual skills every day to sketch, scribe, think, lead & manage - the perfect communication and collaboration skills

🌕 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES IN FACILITATION : October 18

Lift your capability to design processes, lead groups and achieve outcomes. Handle challenging situations, people, groups and projects.

🌕 CHANGE TOOLS : October 19

Leading change needs clever, creative, adaptive tools. Use these 10 change tools to better engage, lead & impact change & transformation.

Get tickets via Eventbrite here

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Great things in the great room

It couldn’t have been a better name for a conference room… the ‘Great Room’ at W Melbourne Hotel. 

It made me laugh with nervous expectation!

It was great because the room was full of glorious people from a great team at UniSuper. Great because they’d been learning, inspiring, advancing and working on their professional development. 

And then great for me because I had the pleasure of joining them for the closing keynote of the program. It was all primed for … greatness. 

We wanted to do more with that closing session than just the keynote speaker who … speaks. 

We went further with a facilitated experience to boost attention, engagement, connection and participation. 

And then we went further … with a co-creation, contribution and euphoric wrap-up experience that would seal the learning and carry it forward into workplace action. 

Conference delegates need more than passive listening or clichéd games. They have contributions to make, ideas to share and insights to inspire. 

This is what I call ‘The Co-Creation Experience’ and it’s available now for great teams in great rooms at great conferencing events. 

Yes … please go beyond the pale stale dot point slide shows that are too often the default. 

Great things can happen at a conference gathering … if you plan for a great co-creation experience. 

And now I need a little lie down … 💤😄

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Move this from 'Backlog' to 'To do'

Do you Kanban? 

Then join me for the Kanban Australia Conference in Melbourne October 9, 2023 - at the Jasper Hotel in Melbourne CBD.

It's a full day to connect, share and learn about the use of Kanban in Australia and neighbouring regions.

New tools, thinking and support to deepen our capability.

I'll be closing keynote speaker on 'The 3 Futures of Work'. And there'll be no photos of robots or AI, promise! 🤩

Get tickets for $275 - and it includes lunch. What's not to like? 

Pull it pronto into your To Do column, no ... straight into Doing, now!

Get tickets here

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And I'm returning to New Zealand November 2023

Yes it's all happening! So many in person events, conferences and workshops are filling up in calendars everywhere. 

After running workshops recently in August, a return visit is planned in November 2023. 

There are 3 x half-day workshops

➡️ Visual Sensemaking

➡️ Advanced Techniques in Facilitation

➡️ Change Tools

Learn more / Plan ahead / Get tickets!

Here's the LINK

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But you do need to capture something...

I've called out the information overload behaviour we have of writing too much down in a training program, meeting or at a conference. We don’t need to write it ALL down. But we do need to write something.

To all you ‘sponges’ reading this who sit in meetings and conferences thinking you can ‘soak it all up’, without actively capturing any notes... ummm you can't. This is precisely a behaviour that can worsen cognitive overload.

We do nothing, sitting passively, letting information supposedly flow over or through us, thinking we’ll remember it and absorb it. But like all sponges, we fill up - and sooner than we think.

A participant in a workshop sat all day with arms crossed, nothing written down. ‘I can remember it,’ she said, ‘I have a photographic memory.' But she didn't remember it and later showed how she'd missed plenty. Given her leadership role, number of direct reports and her responsibility in the organisation, it was poor role modelling and self-management.

It’s a foolish denial - and a cognitive load coping error - to not write something.

Don’t write everything.

And don’t writing nothing.

But absolutely... write something. 

Lose the list

Most of us are drowning in information, slurping from the firehose, not coping. And in that, lists don’t work. Well not for making sense anyway.

Yes, ok list-lovers, lists are wonderful things, and here’s where and how they work best ... for actions.

📍To do lists

📍Shopping lists

📍Task lists

The list is the ultimate tool for managing, measuring action.

✅ Tick, tick, tick. Done, done, done.

The BIG but: a list is not the best tool for learning, making sense or connecting dots. The only way you can ‘connect the dots’ on a list is down, down the page. It’s tough then to find lateral, horizontal and reverse/upward connections of information when your eyes and mind are drawn down down down. We can find it harder to discover connections, insights and ideas in a list.

Love lists? Great, but keep them for actions, to tick off and track progress.

When it comes to capturing information, making sense, connecting the dots and managing cognitive load, leave lists out of it.

One or two takeaways - are you joking - that’s all!

The cost of attending a conference or training program is significant. There’s the registration fee, perhaps an airfare, accommodation, transfers and the cost of time away from your role, the business and your home and family life.

What’s the ROI, the return on investment you’re going for? Have you thought about it, planned for it?

Most of us are so burned out and overloaded with information that the best we get from conferences or training are:

😩A few bent business cards from networking

😩3 pages of scribbled notes from sessions

😩Swag and merch - a pen, a few brochures and a stress ball, ironically in the shape of a brain!

Back at work, we have just a couple of key points that are tough to put into practice. It’s an underrated experience that we can get so much more out of than we currently do.

'Cognitive load coping' is a skill to learn and apply to achieve a massive ROI on attending a conference or training program.

→ Do you need help with the fuzzy feeling of all that information?

Send me a message and I'll send a link to three options for learning this new way of working in our world that's overflowing with information.

Lynne Cazaly - Keynote at Agile Alliance 2019

What a privilege to be at Agile 2019 in Washington DC and today, to take to the stage and deliver a keynote.

The topic was ‘ish: The problem with our pursuit for perfection and the life changing practice of good enough.’

Here's a visual summary of the key points I presented. You can get the book, ebook or audiobook - yes with me narrating - wherever you normally buy your books!

The bottom line is, perfectionism is a problem that is on the increase. Most of us have a little bit of perfectionist in us. When we are encouraged to bring our whole selves to work, that means we will be bringing some of our perfectionist traits as well. Sometimes that can slow down our abilities to achieve, collaborate and deliver great value to our customers.

It’s worth our while to find alternative ways of working that don’t involve the pursuit of perfection (which is impossible to achieve.)

Are you a 'bit of a perfectionist'?