Do you have any idea what you're doing?

Disruption, reinvention, rapid change and transformation. How do we know what to do? And is it ok if we don't know what we're doing?

Will Dayble presented a great session last week at the Future of Leadership in Brisbane, on Disruption.  
Here's the still and below is the moving picture of my digital visuals from Will's session. 



You can check out the rest of the visual content from the event's nine brilliant speakers in digital format. When the topic was about the future, paper and markers just wouldn't do!

Over managed and under led

These words oozed from Darren Hill's mouth to a packed venue full of people who'd come along to learn and think about the Future of Leadership:

"We're over managed, and under led!"

Darren's a behavioural scientist and he's been studying people - and specifically leaders - for a few years now. 

In his presentation at The Future of Leadership event in Melbourne recently, he said that leaders have always needed to:

• manage pressure
• make progress, and
• establish connection

My visual notes from the session captured his key points.

In today's workplaces, leaders need to 'deal drugs'. No, not illicit drugs, but the human chemicals that drive our behaviour!

As Darren talked about adrenaline, cortisol, endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin, it became clear that leaders indeed need to lead, to manage the pressure that change brings and to ensure the team makes progress. 

Leaders need to be the heart of connection in the team, to help celebrate failure and to understand these powerful human chemicals and how they impact team performance, behaviour and success. 

Are you leading... or still occupying yourself with managing things? 

'One person can make a B - I - G difference,' he said.

The Future of Leadership event heads to Brisbane, Australia on October 14. Get tickets here because 100% of the ticket sales go to Hands Across the Water. Now that's leadership!

Clean up your (meeting) room!

Last week I ran a skills workshop in an organisation's meeting room. 

I could tell it was a meeting room because there was a sign on the door that said "Meeting Room". 

But if I'd been guided in there with my eyes closed and then opened my eyes, this room could have easliy doubled for the "Storage Room".

This meeting room was a dumping ground for old broken chairs, additional surplus chairs, trolleys, boxes of supplies, more chairs, some broken tables, filing cabinets, storage cupboards and other 'junk'. 

The environment this created was .... cluttering. 

I spent time before the session, clearing some breathing space, sectioning off an area and making sure the 'working space' was separate from the 'storage space'. There wasn't alot I could do about the 'rubbish space'. 

The feedback was that it was the best meeting room they'd seen and worked in. 

When space is at a premium, it's understandable that any sort of space begins to get taken over. 

But the cost on your communication, collaboration, productivity and performance suffers, particularly when you can't get things done swiftly or cleanly because the environment is polluted. 

Clean up your (meeting) room. And if you need half of it for a storeroom, then section it off so that the roles and purposes of those spaces are clear. 

How often do you hear interior designers on lifestyle shows talk about 'zones' for living. Retailers do it too. They're looking for ways to create an environment that will give you a positive reaction... not a reminder from your mum that you need to clean up your room!

So here's a reminder from me.... clean up your meeting room. It's costing you so much more than a bit of cluttered floor space. 

The best selling exhibition in town

In a busy workplace it can be tough to get people to listen and tune in to your change message, your key message or any of your messages!

How do you get people to listen to and understand what your team is working on? How do you get them to sign up, buy in and want to be a part of it?

Watch my short sketch video this week and you'll see how a clever project team got people to come along to their best selling 'exhibition'.

What important thing are you working on?

What will you do to make the people you work with want to tune in to it?

Download the video here

It's time to clean up our language

Listening to people talking is something we do every day; listening in workshops, in planning sessions, in meetings, conversations and learning environments.

I don't know about you, but I hear lots of 'dirty' language! Ok, not swearing, but rather let's call it 'unclean language'. 

This is language where people interrupt, make assumptions, give directions, tell people what to do and dish out prescriptions. Yes... how much do you enjoy being told what to do? Often we may not intend to be so ... dirty... with our language, so it's something to be aware of. 

We really do need to clean up our language!

Clean language has the capacity to break down silos, build trusting environments, boost our capabilities to think, evolve our ideas and deepen engagement. It's an approach identified and developed by New Zealander David Grove. More leaders, coaches, managers and drivers of change might like the idea of achieving those things.

You can read more about the technicalities of clean language here and here but a session presented at a conference I was at recently reminded me of the power of this clean listening and communication tool.

In short, here's how you keep it clean:

• listen using the person's words
• use 'and...' to kick off your sentence or question
• ask 3 key clean questions (where x is a word they've mentioned/used)
  • And what kind of x is that x?
  • And is there anything else about x?
  • And that's x like what ?
• stick to these three questions
• slow down.

You can get the essence of the session from my visual notes.

So... how 'clean' are you? How clean are the others on your team? 

Boost engagement, build trust and break down silos in these challenging times by cleaning things up.