Test, don’t judge ideas

Working on something and wondering how it will be received? 

It’s so easy to swing into judgement mode and decide how it’s going to end up. 

That they won’t buy it. 
That they won’t like it. 
That they don’t need it. 
That they won’t understand it. 

And we haven’t even tested it out yet! 

We can spend a lot of energy thinking and rethinking, assessing and judging. But we may not be the best judges of the things we make ourselves. 

Much better to test our ideas out on people... the people who we are working with or targeting with our ideas. 

Otherwise we may think what we’ve done isn’t good enough.

Until we’ve tested it out, it could be better to hold that judgement. As hard as that is. 

If you or your team have got something you’re still thinking about, wondering how it will go ...put it out there and test it. 

Get some valuable insights and feedback - then you can be more objective about your ideas. 

Try again tomorrow

If something is tricky, sticky or difficult to decide or work on, leave it for now and try again tomorrow.

We do wonderful sorting, synthesising, problem solving and integrating when we are asleep. So we can let go of it today and tackle it again tomorrow knowing our abilities can be even better.

For the procrastinators among us, who often leave the sprint to the finish line until the last moment because ‘pressure works for us’ well, we’re missing out on the overnight gold mining that gets done.

If we can get started on a task, project or activity a day sooner than we were planning, we can let a night’s sleep do some of the genius work for us. All that automatic sorting, searching and sensemaking could be more productive, creative and effective than the drag of pushing on through.

Another reason to seek out decent sleep: it makes our ideas, thinking and solutions better.

Getting closer

Rather than pushing my group workshops and group training programs all online in groups ... I’m going the other way. I’m going 1:1 or a small group of 2, 3...

Sure it’s taking me longer but I’m not going anywhere, and the closer conversations, engagement and interactions have been more personalized and joyous. We find out more about each other, how we’re managing, what our world is like ... and I set about transferring my skills and knowledge directly to you on capabilities like:

🌟Facilitating

⭐️Sensemaking & Cognitive Load Coping

✨Visuals - analogue and digital

💥Developing your own ideas and thinking

☀️Adapting your positioning and brand

💫Boosting your creativity and idea generation.

We don’t need to do what everyone else is doing. It’s easy to copy, follow a herd or pack or think ‘oh that’s what I have to do too’ in times like these. It’s equally a time when trying something different could be just what’s needed.

Are you experimenting or just following what others are doing in response to change?

Experiment, adapt and respond in line with who you are and how you think and work. It’s time to be even more a part of your services than less. No need to default to ‘copy’ because it’s not the only way. 

Thinking and working in uncertainty

It’s mindless to just wander, lost, meandering along a path of uncertainty. Just because you don’t know what’s going to happen doesn’t mean you are powerless.

Some of the most adaptable leaders, teams and organisations work with uncertainty and are ‘good’ with it.

The work I do with these leaders and teams involves working through this kind of mindset and approach: ◽️Uncertainty - we don’t know

◽️Discovery - we can learn

◽️Ingenuity - we can respond

And repeat. As we see new things - via sensemaking, making sense of happenings in hindsight - we’re learning, ready to respond with our collective smarts to solve problems, deliver value and improve situations.

And repeat.

This isn’t fear based but practical skills put to work problem solving, thinking, questioning, collaborating, designing and responding.

Rather than getting in a flap about not knowing ‘anything’ or thinking we need to know ‘everything', these are the ways of working in uncertainty. As we discover, we learn and we can change how we respond. And if we don’t, we’re not such a smart species after all.

Half speed

If you’ve felt busy anxious overwhelmed worried or hyper ... you might be running at twice the speed.

Thinking at 2x

Speaking at 2x

Walking and talking at 2x

Jumping to conclusions at 2x

Interrupting quicker than normal

Getting frustrated sooner than usual

Losing patience quicker than usual.

If and when we experience any of these ‘faster than our normal’ responses or reactions, it’s a great opportunity to take a speed check.

Rather than thinking ‘Oh I need to slow down’, try thinking ‘half speed’.

Half speed.

Half of the current crazy speed of thinking working talking juggling leaping and reacting. At half speed we begin to notice more, we’re tuned in to other people better and things can become clearer for us. It might not *really* be half speed, but it’s an easier mark to reach for.

Is this a new way of thinking for you? Rather than staying busy frantic and overwhelmed, it’s worth slowing down when other things seem to start going faster.