Don't be bored will you

Some days are filled with so many activities, commitments and appointments back-to-back there’s no time for anything else. No deliberate anything, not even lunch on some days. (Boo!)

As a child, I frequently said to my mum, ‘I’m bored!’ and she’d list off a few things I could do to counter the boredom. I had a creative mind and was always looking for something to work on, play with, experiment or try.

In the modern workplace, lurching from meeting to meeting, screen to screen, racing through the day, something big about this isn’t right.

It’s not sustainable and it’s not smart.

Are we allowing, creating or letting ourselves be a little bored? Even for a few minutes? Great creativity, ingenuity and insightful thinking comes when you let yourself be bored.

Your brain goes to work providing you with potential solutions to the problems you’ve been endlessly giving it. If there’s no break, there’s no space.

Rather than automatically reaching for your device to fill the space, have a go and let yourself be bored. Notice things and people; think ... whatever comes to mind. This allows us to make sharper connections when we really need them.

How could you let yourself be boredf?

'Any old map will do'

I wrote earlier about sensemaking and how we need it to collaborate, make decisions and make progress. How do we ‘make sense’, particularly in a group? Currently, we sit around a table, look at each other and talk at each other. It’s so verbal. Blah blah and blah, and some more blah blah. We’re trying to explain things, influence, persuade, educate, inform, involve and engage.

All of that with words? That’s a big ask of any words coming out of our mouth to achieve.

As if we should all be famous orators, preachers and inspirers! But some of us aren’t. And it can be unsafe in some workplaces to even open your mouth to put forward your thoughts. For making sense, you don’t need fancy drawing skills. You need a map.

Thanks to Sensemaking guru Dr Karl Weick’s advice, ‘any old map will do.’ You see, a map provides us with a point of reference, a starting point. To start to make sense, get some of the information - words, shapes, ideas - onto something map-ish; a note pad, tablet, white board, flip chart.

It need not be pretty. It needs only to be practical. It’s a starting point after all.

Could you 'Marie Kondo' (Kon Mari) your meetings?

The runaway success of the sparkling, joyous, tidying queen Marie Kondo via her book ’The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up' and now the success of the Netflix program ’Tidying Up with Marie Kondo' is giving plenty of people lots of joy in tidying up their homes using her Kon Mari method. 

Some people have suggested we can do the same in tidying up our mindsets, our diets and our relationships. 

And how about at work? Don’t just tidy up the kitchen, stationery cupboard or the print room. Could you Marie Kondo all those wretched meetings!? 

Why not? 

Instead of gathering up all of your clothes or books into piles, why not do it with all those meetings in your diary? 

No wonder plenty of us are feeling overwhelmed with the ’stuff’ of meetings: invites, acceptances, locations, agendas, calls for agenda items, minutes, meeting notes, follow up actions, follow up meetings to follow up on the actions, another meeting to follow up on the minutes of the actions of the first meeting’s follow ups. Meh!

And let’s face it, what meeting have you been in recently (or ever) that sparked joy… or even gave you a little hint of delight or a whimper of laughter? 

Meeting culture is broken in most organisations. Most meetings are dysfunctional, dated and ineffective. A little like most of the stuff people are throwing out from their home. It’s junk. This is all the more reason to find out what all those meetings are for and whether they serve you or the organisation any more. Time to tidy up. Time is way too precious. 

How might you?

So how might Marie Kondo your meetings? Here are some thoughts: 

1. Alone or together. You could do your own meeting audit and tidying up. List out every meeting you go to - particularly those recurring ones that are automatically slotted into your diary - think Steering Committees, Status Updates and anything else update-ish or information sharing. Or you could do this with others; get the team together and gather up all the names of the meetings you’re all supposed to go to. 
2. Tally it up. Work out the number of meetings and the time commitment these things are draining from your life. Just as Marie Kondo wants us to be shocked by the amount of stuff we own - hence the pile-it-up method - give yourself a rude awakening at just how much time you spend in the organisation's meetings and workshops. 
3. Do the math. What does this leave you with? How much actual working-at-your-desk-thinking-and-working time do you have left? Is this enough? What’s enough anyway? Get shocked about this. This is the catalyst to change. 
4. Ask questions. Contact meeting organisers and ask them things like: ‘What is this meeting about? What’s the charter of this group and its meetings? Why do I need to be there? What do you expect?’ When we don’t know this information we can tend to not care, not show up or not say anything. That’s not good for culture or career. Take responsibility to find out why your time is being requested. And if you’re the convener or facilitator, make it your mission to be really clear with people about why this meeting, why them and what’s the reason for it. 
5. Decide and ditch. Which meetings can go, now? Which ones can be deleted once you’re clear on the answers to #4? Which can have some of their content sorted in other ways or at other meetings (but don’t make the meeting any longer)? And which meetings are must-dos or must attends? Be ruthless and throw stuff out. 
6. Rationalise first. Rather than fixing all meetings, rationalise first, then fix those that are worthy of saving and keeping. 

Fixing the culture of the meeting

When there are meetings that you know need to be held or you need to be there - to lead them and facilitate them or to attend them - now it's time to ‘fix’ them. Don’t try and fix every meeting without first tidying. Otherwise it’s like going out and buying storage boxes for all the crap you have when Marie Kondo clearly says we need to reduce first, then store. 

I see there are four ways to fix meetings that go beyond the lightweight ‘how to run better meetings’ articles out there. 

Make your meetings fewer, shorter, better, easier 

1. Fewer. The number of meetings you’re having can change. You’ve rationalised - hopefully via a Marie Kondo tidy up. This is also about the frequency for repeating meetings and the initial decision that a meeting is even required. Phone hookups, online chat, messaging and groups on an app can help get sh*t done rather than sending an agenda and booking a room. 
2. Shorter. Make some meetings shorter. Some meetings can absolutely take less time. With focus, clarity about the agenda and good facilitation, it can be done. Not all meetings but try some and see. Donna McGeorge’s book ‘The 25 Minute Meeting’ can help you do this. 
3. Better. What are your meetings actually achieving - what’s the impact or the output of them? Do you know? Most people judge the success of a meeting by what it achieved, the outcomes and results. Meetings will remain as time-wasting talk-fests unless you change something fairly significant about them. Tinkering around the edges doesn’t usually change much culturally in the longer term. 
4. Easier. We make things harder than they need to be. And sometimes we’re unaware we’re doing that. The way the meeting is run needs to be easier, more pleasant to experience (is that near some joy perhaps?) How easy is it to get work done, make decisions, collaborate, share, design, think, debate…? How a meeting ‘feels’ and how it goes are about making the thing easier. A meeting leader with some effective (not cliched) facilitation skills can make that happen. This is what the Leader as Facilitatorconcept is all about. After all, facilitation means ‘ease’. 

Then keep it tidy

Just like any transformation, the work is in the habit or the ongoing activity. 

Don’t just accept meeting invites; ask questions of the organiser or convener. Speak up. Find out why this meeting, why you and what are they expecting to get done in this time-taking activity. 

Not every meeting type needs to live on forever. Many meetings serve their purpose but they keep being run over a period of months and years. No more. Regularly review and get rid of those that don’t serve, or the situation has changed or the project has ended. 

One in, one out. And if you’re going to bring a new meeting in, get rid of one. We simply can’t keep meeting the way we are and expecting to add to the list AND be more productive about it. Buy a new pair of shoes? Then get rid of a pair to keep it manageable. 

Take back control of your time and where it’s being spent; particularly at the request of other people and the meetings they’re calling. Apply some gentle pressure to find out why this meeting and why do I need to be there. When you’re able to get more of the things done that matter, yes, that does spark some joy!

That New Year 'stink' of perfectionism and expectations

If you’re reflecting and resetting goals with a new year upon you and then reading all those posts about needing to make things measurable and achievable and to do this and that, please… hang on a moment. It’s being reported more frequently in those 'new year/new you' types of articles and stories that many of us don’t quite hit or stick with the resolutions as we’d like to. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt a reset or a new way of thinking, living or working. 

But can you smell it? Lots of things stink of perfectionism and expectations at this time of year. 

Perfectionism isn’t a one size fits all; there are different types of perfectionism, but the one that I see running rampant at this time of year with resolutions and drives for new habits and resetting on our hopes and dreams, is what’s known as ‘socially prescribed perfectionism’. 

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I want to change my life too; get fitter, eat better, live better, etc. We can all have aspirations and goals and the start of a new year is a great time to do that. 

But my point is, perfectionism is poison. I’ve been researching it over the past year or so as I’ve been writing the book ‘ish: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough’.

The book tackles the problems we face when we chase the elusive ‘perfect’ - whether we’re preparing a report or presentation at work, making something or working on any of our projects in life, including ourself. Excellence, quality and continuous improvement are important. But the pursuit of perfection …not so much.

Our drive to make things (including ourselves) look, feel or seem perfect is dangerously on the rise and has dire consequences for how we feel about ourselves and how well we live, work and collaborate with others.

New year’s resolutions included. 

Perfectionism is on the rise

So back to this socially prescribed perfectionism; it’s when we (usually, wrongly) believe or perceive that ‘other people’ hold high standards for us… and we will indeed struggle to achieve them. Who are these other people, anyway? And none of us can achieve perfection because it doesn’t exist!

You see, of all the types of perfectionism, this is the one that's on the rise. Up 33% over the years between 1989 - 2016 when 41,000-ish people were studied. We are increasingly believing that others set or hold high standards and expectations for us that we need to achieve… or else. 

The other types of perfectionism - where we hold high standards for ourselves (up 10%), and where we have high standards for others (up 16%) - are also both on the rise, but only at half the rate or less of this one, the socially prescribed perfectionism. 

The research associated with the increases in perfectionism reveal that yes, the environment is more competitive. The environment we see and experience on social media, the job and career environment, the mainstream media, our local community, at school or university, at the beach, on the sports arena, on the road, in the air and at the holiday destination. It’s all more competitive. 

Coupled with this, expectations are more unrealistic. Someone showing you their super-fit body, their multi-million dollar startup or their make-up free selfie sets an expectation that we too can achieve that if we’d only do the program, use the product or like and share the post. 

Beware The Curse of Discernment

Just remember that the Curse of Discernment is at play here too. This is the idea, the reality, the science - from Barry Schwartz’s ’The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less' - that as we have ‘contact with items of high quality’, we begin to suffer the ‘curse of discernment’. Lower quality things that used to be acceptable to us are no longer good enough. The base point keeps rising and ‘expectations and aspirations rise with it.’ Higher experiences are met with higher expectations and we want higher experiences which drive higher expectations. It’s an endless loop. Unless…

Unless you be aware of it. 

You ain't broken

Just take every Instagram post, social media share and mainstream media article encouraging you to ‘live bolder’ and ‘be better’ and ‘change this’ or ‘become that’ with a splash of reality and science. 

We’re being conned that we need to 'be better' or ‘get more' or to fix our broken selves. And it’s just not true. We are wonderful as we are; imperfectly human, changing, growing and living. 

There are many other movements underway that are showing us how we can snap out of this push for more/better/perfect and go for things like slower living, detoxing, tidying, minimising, simplifying, switching off from technology and reconnecting with humans … and other trends and ways of living and working. There’s an awakening going on. Are you on to it or are you still on the drug of more, better, perfect at all costs? 

There are many problems of going for perfect; we’d do better to care less and be a bit more ‘ish’ – ish means somewhat, more or less, to some extent - because it's a w-a-y more flexible, helpful and happier way to think and work.

ish. Near enough is so often good enough on the things that don’t matter as much as we think they do. I think we need to care less about more, and care more about less. Across the board, in so many aspects of life. (Ok if you’re a surgeon, an engineer, a pilot, or manufacture anything, please continue to adhere to your increasing standards of quality.)

But if you’re going to make this the year of anything, make it the year of ish; where you ease the pressure off yourself - and others - and stop buying in to the perceived pressure for perfect anything. Relax the expectations of how things have to be or what they need to look like, feel like and when it needs to be done by. Live a life more ish-ly. 

Reference: Psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett’s - The ‘Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale’ and research by Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill.

Leader as Coach: T-o-o s-l-o-w

The Leader as Coach approach has been a leadership staple in many industries and organisations for years.

This is where a leader schedules one-on-one conversations and meetings with their team members. These conversations may be about helping that team member progress and develop, help them uncover ideas and actions to tackle challenges or barriers getting in that person's way or to perhaps have a tricky or difficult conversation about behaviour or performance.

'Train the Coach', 'Coach the Coach' or 'Leader as Coach' programs have been a popular part of the learning and development offer for years.

I recall delivering a coaching training program for leaders for a large banking and financial institution about ten+ years ago. They wanted to ensure their leaders adopted a coaching culture and in turn, help them be more effective at those crucial one-on-one conversations. 

So, yes, coaching is a highly valued and valid leadership tool.

But there's a but: it can be so. freakin'. s-l-o-w.

Many leaders find the drain, drag and pace of one-to-ones across their team less efficient than they'd like ... and less efficient for the time they have available. 

As one leader in the bank's coaching program I ran said (in objection to doing coaching):

"It takes so long to get that person to realise what needs to be done, to go through the GROW model or whatever tool we're working on. I just don't think I have the time or the patience for this all the time".

While that type of comment may run counter to what leadership or leaders should be like (read: more patient or more effective at coaching or more 'something'), the realities of pressured schedules, busy teams and project deadlines mean many leaders avoid the one-on-one or push it out and delay it or try and reschedule it time and again.

As a result, communication, leadership, colalboration, performance and engagement all suffer.

Rather than telling leaders to coach more or insisting they must coach more, I believe we need to acknowledge that leaders have time to leverage and the better they can do that, the greater impact they'll have - certainly more than what a raft of one-to-ones can achieve.

To all the coaches or pro-coaches out there... relax, this is not to say one-on-one coaching conversations aren't needed; they are. For things like performance and development and tricky situations, sure; book a room, one-on-one and go coach. They will always be needed.

But for some organisations who adopt and prioritise coaching, it can seem as if every conversation a leader has to have with their team members has the danger of turning into a book-a-meeting-room-for-a-one-on-one kind of meeting.

When a business decrees that coaching or one-on-one conversations are the priority to lift performance or address issues, it can begin to chew up a lot of time in the diary.

As a leader in a tech organisation said to me recently,

"I've got a team of 12. When you add in the time of having heaps of one-on-ones with them, along with the team and group meetings, and the other responsibilities I have influencing and managing stuff, it all gets too much. I find myself thinking how else could I be leveraging this time".

Not more meetings

Please don't assume we're talking about running more meetings here. Meetings are already under pressure for wasting time, running off topic and being dominated by the loudest voices.

But what I do think can be done is having more group conversations and sessions - small or larger groups.

These small or larger group sessions can be focused on the same sort of development, barriers, progress... whatever other topics need to be managed for that team - but done in a group setting rather than always believing it needs to be done via a bunch of one-on-ones.

This is where the leader as coach, shifts into a leader as facilitator.

For some leaders there is a fear there; 'I don't want to be running a group session' or'Then the whole thing will get out of control; I'll never reign them in!' or 'How do I shut them up?' or 'I don't want things going off-track or getting to negative or turning into a whinge-fest'.

Still other leaders are nervous in front of a group or worry about the questions they'll be asked or if they'd ever be bombarded or ambushed by a team of clique of people.

But these are simply some of the fears of facilitation, the fears of working with and leading a group... and these fears can be allayed when you know what to do with a group or team in a group setting.

Leverage for impact

Indeed it's time for leaders to better leverage their time as well as the time of their team members. Rather than going s-l-o-w with lots of one-on-ones, leaders need to bring those individuals together to have more effective and impactful group sessions: both small group: twos, threes or fours... and larger groups seven, 10, 12, 25, 40 people.

Time gets leveraged for all. Rather that 12 x 1 hour meetings, get everyone (or groups of everyone!) in the room and have a 15, 30 or 45 minute engaging session and conversation - well-facilitated by the leader.

Lift the game

Lazy leaders limp into meetings, slump into chairs and bark commands or tap their pens on the table. It's old school, last century and not facilitative. At all. Lazy leaders interrupt, bluff and bluster their way through BS jargon and wonder whey they have a disengaged and disempowered team.

The leader as facilitator is a different way of behaving and leading. It requires a lift in your thinking and capability.

The shift from 'Leader as Coach' to 'Leader as Facilitator' is underway and I see it as one of the most exciting shifts in leadership today.

When a leader facilitates, group harmony and cohesion is strengthened and the sheer energy or vibe of the team, tribe or group coming together lift people to higher levels of performance. 

Facilitators make progress easy... or easier. They run a process, respond to what happens and draw on very cool tools to make progress. 

As a participant in my Leader as Facilitator program said:

"Now I'm able to get stuff done; we talk as a team, I can help remove barriers across the team, we can make decisions as a team and I'm better able to handle the general sh*t that goes down daily in our team."

(Note, this leader wasn't naming his people as sh*t; it was more about the finicky, challenging issues and hiccups that happen throughout a typical day when leading a diverse team).

There are authentic, empathic and realistic ways to get stuff done in teams and keep the team connected to the work to be done, all via the power of facilitation. This is about being more of a Leader as Facilitator.