Creative tools / Beyond the blah blah / Atlassian community event / Ultimate skills workshop / Is it information or consultation?

Cut through the blah blah

It's a question we can wonder - how do we grab someone's attention or alert them to important information, how do we cut through all of the noise and information we're overloaded with.

If you've seen any of my 'stuff' you'll know I use visuals as a clever tool; for myself and my own thinking and for engaging, communicating and collaborating with others.

Oh, and it's a great influence tool too!

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Atlassian Community - Melbourne - Lynne Cazaly

Atlassian community - Melbourne

Join me at the next community event in Melbourne on July 24. I’ll speak about information overload and cognitive load coping as a modern way of working. The agenda is stacked with clever - not to be missed. Register here

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4 of my creative tools

This article prompted me to share some more insight about my creative processes.

This is a little more about the art we do ourselves and it doesn’t have to be that paint/draw/clay art you might think about when you see the word ‘art’.

Here are 4 ways I use art and creativity in my life and I know these help me feel better, get me through the shitty tough times in life (cancer, covid, grief), inspire and yet relax me, and give me ideas out of the … nowhere!!

Here we go :

1. SKETCHING and DOODLING

If you’ve seen my presentations, read my books, been in my workshops or read my posts you’ll see I use visuals. From originally using marker + paper 10 years ago, I’ve more regularly used an iPad + Pencil and many different apps. I make visuals for purposeful communication but also like ‘farting around’ 🤪 to see what I can do. Not trying to be perfect; just exploring and wondering. I'm running a skills workshop on this.

2. IMPROVISATION

For many years I’ve been a fan, audience member, student and now performer in shows with Impro Melbourne. There’s comedy improv we likely know but there’s also the learning and unleashing and making up stories improv. The spontaneity, narrative, stories, word play, characters and communication that improv gives me is multi-player, multi-level and multi-world stuff! There’s so much to learn yet it’s such a playful and creative art. I’m better with improv in my life and I feel blah and meh when it’s not part of my art.

3. WRITING

Yes I’ve written books, posts and blogs and some have called me ‘a machine’. But it is also creativity. I have a thought — oh my, lots and lots of thoughts — and I explore the thought with the written word. Are you imagining me sitting diligently at my laptop? No. I’m messy scribbling things in a journal, onto sticky notes all over the dining table, into a notes app. Anywhere. I love thinking deeply about things and writing with a marker from Muji and any paper or my digital device/s whether in a notes app or via voice to text.

4. FIBRE ARTS

This is my most recent creative arting. I’ve done a few basket weaving workshops and they’re wonderful but too small, constrained, prescriptive and ‘do it like this’.

I love the materials — leaves, vines, palms, sticks sticks give me sticks - I stop the car to ‘pick up sticks’ and add to my growing collection. Wonderfully surprising to me is how this art is evolving - I will be having an exhibition 7-27 October 2024 in Melbourne at Gasworks Arts Park in Port Melbourne. Details to come. I have more sticks to collect and things to make.

So there are 4 of my creative arts that mean I am a human and not a machine. That I think deeply, care even deeper and want to feel good about myself in this world like the rest of us.

Art is an essential.

Let me know, do you art, and what do you do?

And here's the article that inspired my thoughts...

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Invited to a consultation but it was an information dump - by Lynne Cazaly

Invited to a consultation -- but it was just more information

You know all of those consultations and conversations - promoted that way - but in reality, when we're there in the meeting, in the workshop, it's just more information?

If we're leading the consultation or meeting, we may not know how best to explain which pieces truly are for consultation and which bits are already set in stone.

We might fear the tension or conflict of people annoyed that they didn't get a say in a process.

Or we might ask for input secretly knowing nothing they say is going to make a shred of difference.

Sadly, then, we 'dress up' an information dump as consultation.

People give their thoughts, ideas and opinions and are of course annoyed when none of them are really recognised, acted on or implemented.

It's a modern day work pattern and it wastes plenty of time, effort, energy and ... performance theatre. It's also a part of the cynical cycle where we can't be bothered contributing to a consultation because ... 'well nothing ever happened with what we said anyway".

You can hear the cynicism and feel the defeatist feelings.

Check now:

• Where and when are you planning on consulting with people in your business?
• And exactly which pieces of information are you going to consult with them on?

If there's plenty of informing or information dumping on them, choose other ways than the valuable real time face-to-face meeting or workshop.

Make a video! A short one.

Go more asynchronous rather than a synchronous meeting.

And most of all, don't dress up an information session as consultation or worse... collaboration!

Dr Amy Silver said...

“You will want to keep this one close to hand; it could become your guide to getting more of what you want out of your life.”

Thank you Dr Amy Silver MAPS ClinPsyD MA MPhil BSc(Hons) for reading and reviewing ‘Argh! Too much information, not enough brain; A practical guide to outsmarting overwhelm’. 

She said, “In a world where overwhelm is a state that many of us suffer from, this book is the manual on how to manage it. 

“As with all Lynne Cazaly books, this is an immensely practical book, that reminds us of the power we can have over our complicated lives even though it seems, well, overwhelming. 

“With clear strategies and immediately usable tools to neutralize the sensation of being out of control, this book is for anyone struggling to keep on top of their to do list!”


To outsmart overwhelm, overwork and information overload ... have a read of ‘Argh!’  

When did you last 'inspect your equipment'?

The work we do with other humans is very 'human' work; conversations, listening, talking, problem solving, planning, discussing...

So when did you last check on the equipment you use in your human work?

Not only your own equipment - your brain, your attitude, your listening skills - but also the more tangible equipment you use: technology, collaborative tools like paper and pens, and the apps, processes, models, facilities and spaces you use. 

I was sitting at Sydney airport this afternoon waiting for a flight and I watched with interest how the pilot of the huge Qantas A380 walked down the stairs from the terminal gate, put on a high visibility vest and did a 'walk around' of the plane. 

There he was inspecting this massive piece of equipment, with so many other pieces of equipment (and people) in it. 

He walked around... stopped and looked at each of the four engines from all angles, hands on hips, peering up at all aspects of them. 

He checked the navigation lights on the wings; the wing tips, the tail elements, the landing gear. And there was a nod and quick conversation with flight engineers also walking around the plane, attending to pre-departure matters. 

When did you last do a 'walk around' of your workspace, and have a really good look at the tools you use, the space your occupy and the equipment you employ to get to your daily, weekly and yearly destinations? 

Get up out of your seat and go and have a look. Are the tools and equipment you use doing what you need them to? Are they up to the job? What more do you need? What needs fixing or maintaining? What would bring you greater efficiency with some attention and a 'look over' from you or others on the team?

Go and inspect the equipment and support materials you use that help you do your job.

When a couple of pilots walk around a more than 500 tonne plane with between 500 - 800 people on board to check it's fit for the task ahead, the least we can do is to check on our own equipment and see that it's fit for the purpose we require of it every day. 

Opening a can of worms

When your team or group gets together for some strategy, planning or important conversations, often what you plan to work on or think you need to work on is not the real issue. Real issues can be sitting below the surface.
 
In a planning session with a client recently we talked about what might be below the surface. ‘I don’t think we want to go there’, ‘that’s a can of worms and it’s more trouble than it’s worth’, ‘if we go there we’ll never get out!’ they said.
 
There can be a feeling that some of those big issues or topics will be too big and you’ll never get back on track, or it will be too touchy or difficult. Sometimes you might think it’s not important for the work you’re doing anyway… or you can plan the strategy without having to go there.
 
But time and time again in strategic planning sessions, retreats and company fireside chats with clients, the value of ‘going there’ can be seen. 
 
A board team I worked with who had a bright and creative agenda mapped out for the weekend, needed to take a right hand turn early on to deal with some fundamental financial and strategic issues. We went there.  Our original agenda and plan shifted and changed. For some, that was uncomfortable. But we did what was needed… and we got back and continued on.

One of my clients recently said : “Lynne was indeed the glue that held the discussion together while at the same time allowing the conversation to go where it needed to go, as touchy as it was...”
  
Good facilitation skills will give you the confidence to go to that topic and work with the team to address it.
But if you're not going to open up the can, then at least name and say what the can of worms is - a bit like reading the ingredients label on a product from a supermarket shelf. And there's a lot more of that happening these days!
 
A helpful meeting tool to start with the facts, move to opinions, generate ideas and commit to actions is my Facilitator 4-Step from a few issues back. 

So go on, open the can. Most cans of worms only have a couple of worms in them anyway and once they’re out, so many other things are easier to address and clearer to tackle. And the energy you now have – because you’re not stifling or dancing around those worms – is better redirected to the real game, the other issues and the important work of the team. Now where is that can opener? Oh, it's got a ring pull top - great!