Facilitate better/Leverage downtime/Meaning over achievement/Work funk/Take notes/Executive Overload/From do to help/Free Masterclass/My Exhibition!

Why downtime helps you carry the load

Read this one that explains why and how we need downtime a little more than we're taking it.

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Obsessed with achievement / no time for meaning

That’s it. That’s a big problem in the world today. We’re hyper-focused on do, get, have and achieve and don’t really play enough.

We’ve been sold the drive to be productive at the cost of burnout, and don’t know how to let loose, truly relax and have that lighter space of play.

Take a moment and read this one about what we might do to remedy the burnt out lives we are leading. What could we do — simply for the sake of doing it and not because it will achieve us something.

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It was a pure pleasure to join with Corrinne Armour CSP and Travis Bell at Professional Speakers Australia event in South Melbourne - dinner prior at Bells Hotel - and then into the program!
Hosted by Lindsey Leigh Hobson the program included Dr Amy Silver interviewing Michael Licenblat CSP and then Kate Dillon MC-ed Trav, Corrinne & I with our 20 mins on Facilitating for more impact - followed by a panel discussion.
Great venue at Central House and a fine example of a fresh, professional and vibrant event.

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If you know me, you know I like to take notes

And across multiple devices and surfaces. I don’t use just one tool.

Digital notes, audio notes, analogue notes, journal notes, sticky notes … they all form part of my thinking and working process.

It’s all part of generating and capturing ideas, exploring information, writing, creating and sketching, communicating, sharing, influencing.

What about you? How do you capture, make and create? What’s your process and what’s in your toolkit? Which apps and which tools?

This is an interesting write up in WIRED of writing and digital notebooks.

Whether you use them or not, keep up with how digital note taking is evolving and the uses and applications, features, pros and cons.

Also, I want them all! Shout out to the Remarkable users I know 👋 who love their devices

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Funk off work!

Mondayitis and the Sunday Scaries are familiar feelings for those who are in a funk about work.

Whether it’s related to your current role (or no role), the dread of work comes for us all at some time in our career.

It could be the tasks, the location, the commute, the people, the leader or a combination — with a dash of ‘I don’t really know; it’s just funked’.

Working for yourself - while forcefully motivating at times (‘if I don’t work, I won’t be able to support myself’) can bring some mid-week funk or a sense of doubt or confusion at times.

Perhaps it’s envy at those ‘employed people’ who have security (!) and a constant stream of salary. And still employees can watch an independent worker thinking they’re at the beach all day or driving their convertible around joyfully with the top down!

Whatever the funk you feel and whether you’re employed or contracting or looking or consulting, three things to do are:

1. Admit the funk

2. Audit the funk

3. Review the funk data… a bonus tip of

4. Break the funk.

If this is you, read more in this piece from Tim Duggan - ok he uses different terminology and much better examples but I can’t be funked right now. 😁

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Lynne Cazaly - The Executive Load Masterclass

Executives get overloaded too

It's easy to assume 'they're doing ok', 'they don't have to deal with what I'm dealing with' or 'they're on the big bucks', but the reality is we are all dealing with the overload of too much information.

'TMI' need not just refer to the dumping of too much personal information! It's the weight of the load of everyday information that becomes too much:

emails

meetings

thinking

listening

reading

reviewing

absorbing

deciding -

and on it goes. It is a stress creator for sure. Add to that some long, complex conversations and the brain does feel fried, no matter your job role or level in the business.

Cognitive overload is a problem the Institute for the Future rated as one of the top 10 we’d be experiencing in these times… and they weren’t wrong! It's like we're trying to survive this new weight of information with our old ways of coping -- and we're not coping.

It can be tackled though. This week I'm working with a senior leadership/exec/C-suite team on how to:

😩 understand old ways that cause overload;

☺️ update information processing methods;

😇 handle information better; and

😍 cope with the executive load.

Instead of information getting us down or making us think 'OMG not another piece, please!', cognitive load coping helps us understand what's happening in overload and how to mitigate it before it gets to the 'DING, your brain is cooked' stage.

That means understanding information, connecting the dots and making sense becomes easier and better - and that's a key part of leadership, of self leadership too.

Notice your day and week; where are you getting overloaded? When does it feel like too much? What have you been doing that might be contributing to overload?

➡️ Read more in my Harvard Business Review article 'How to save yourself from information overload' and start saving yourself...

or invite me to come and run a masterclass on it and I'll help you save yourself; no one is going to do it for you 🤩

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From this is what I do … to this is where I help

Image by Lynne Cazaly

As job roles and businesses change, vanish and shape-shift, we need to ask ourselves how we too have to change.

That thing we did then — as easy as it was to sell or do, comparatively — needs to change too.

Not so big as a pivot. Not so small as a tweak. It’s a relabeling and repositioning.

Whatever you used to be known as, it likely needs to be renamed and revalued and possibly re-explained.

Too often we can hold our ground or remain static in what we do and what we call it. We might think ‘I just need more people to know about this’, or ‘once people understand this, they’ll know they need it.’

But the noise is plenty and the cutting through is harder when people are drowning in too much information. Look at what you do and how else you can position it, label it and name it. It has to tie in to something already sitting in people’s pain centres, you know, “Urgh this is a problem and we’ve got to fix it now.”

That signals they’re feeling it and have funds for it.

Adjust and refine what you’re doing so you meet people with what they’re battling with now — not what was the hot topic a year or three or 23 ago. We different now.

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The future will depend on how you think — and learn

Yup, read this one for an insight to how your thinking and learning might need to switch up a gear.

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Lynne Cazaly's Exhibition 

Being in the moment

Thrilled to announce a solo exhibition of something I’ve been working on quietly. And it does happen quietly. I collect fallen, gifted and pruned vines, sticks, leaves, creepers, branches and other ‘detritus’ and I’ve been making them into sculptural artworks.

It’s expanding my creativity as I’m exploring topics and experiences like uncertainty, the unknown, ingenuity, resourcefulness and improvisation.

The exhibit is happening in Albert Park, Melbourne October 8-27 at Gasworks Arts Park

Details are here

Join me on October 20, 1-3pm in person for a celebration (just show up!) or stop by and spend some time in the exhibit called Being in the Moment, October 8-27.

Refresh leadership development/Do you soak it up/The voice in your head/Not a priority/Open to the new/Meetings get you down

When they say, 'you don't need to take notes' - what do you do? 

It happens at conferences; it happened in a meeting yesterday; it happens in presentations and workshops.

The presenter/speaker/leaders suggests you don't need to take notes. You can just

• sit back and soak it up
• focus and pay attention
• read the pack/info/transcript later.

But they're not you. You know how you like to absorb information, convert it to information you'd like to keep/retain/recall - and most of all, you know how you learn.

So what about the assumptions above? 

• We may sit back and soak it up but we can only soak up about 90 seconds of information before our short term memory conks out. So while information might make sense to us as it's unfolding, we may not recall or retain it for later.
• We may focus and pay attention, giving the presenter their much loved eye contact and facial expressions (you know when cameras are off in remote meetings and people complain/ed about how they couldn't read facial expressions or know if they were engaging? Yeah, that's a post for another time) but that's also about the presenter/speaker/leader. It's not what you'd like to do or how you'd like to do it.
• We may defer to 'catching up' with the detailed content later, but few of us truly do and, not as much as our future self thinks we will. Whether you're pro notes (analogue or digital) or not, know that you can't recall all you think you will and that your brain doesn't hold as much in the moment as you think it can.

It's why cognitive load coping in this era of so much more information is such a clever skill. It's clever because we must accept and acknowledge that we need a little guidance on dealing with information in better ways.

Then we'll:

• feel better at the end of the day,
• have processed and stored information more effectively,

and

• be able to connect the dots through the information we're processing.

We become better trend spotters, insight gatherers and more able to spot cues and hints, weaving them into what we already hold.

Do you. Yes, do you, when it comes to notes; but also know that your future self will hope like heck that you did capture something in the now.

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Leadership development needs a refresh

This recent piece in Fast Company shares some of the reasons why leadership development could be ‘broken’.

Some of the issues include:

💀 overwhelming online learning libraries (who’s got time to explore them?)

💀 training experiences that don’t deliver change (they’re fun — but then what?)

💀 pricey retreats that don’t create true impact (but the wine was good wasn’t it?)and

💀 1:1 coaching that’s too slow and labour intensive (but coaching is so hot right now, no?)

What do you think?

We’ve all experienced the overload of learning content that does little to change behaviours or install new capability.

Learning events can be euphoric but unless there is a behaviour shift designed into the program, it’s just more and more and more information put in the hands of participants to absorb and embed.

Development tools, methods and techniques need to keep evolving. Just as new ways of working have been spreading across the world, so too must new ways of learning, and targeted at developing an entire workforce — not just leaders.

Skills gaps continue to be felt at all levels in many businesses.

And for many learning program participants, old ways of learning persist; there are too few opportunities in a business to put new skills into practice or experiment with them, with true safety.

Is leadership development broken where you are? Or is it evolving into something new and hopefully, a little different?

Whether it’s budget, time, ineffectiveness or the same old topics, leadership development — and development generally — needs a refresh, update, and probably a rebrand too.

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Is there a voice in your head as you’re reading this?

There’s one in my head; I can hear it as I’m typing/writing this and I hear it as I’m reviewing and reading what I’ve written.

Most of us have this ‘subvocalisation’ as it’s called - and gosh, I’m relieved it has a name! 😁

This human behaviour helps us with

🔅 memory and recall

🔅 understanding and comprehension

🔅processing and integrating information.

Read more — and listen to yourself 😜 — in this piece by Madeleine Muzdakis.

🎤 I’m a conference keynote speaker on the topic of Cognitive Load Coping. Open your event with a session that helps people better handle the torrent of information they’re drowning under.

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Engagement isn’t a priority

Yes there’s just too much else going on. The modern workplace is shapeshifting and right-sizing. It’s steaming ahead with priorities and results.

And engagement probably isn’t one of those must-have/must-do goals anymore.

Engagement levels have been decreasing for years and while they continue to be measured, how much do they matter?

And if they matter, how much effort do we want to put in to improve them?

And if we improve them, what difference will we notice against the goals, outcomes and results the business is aiming for?

Believe in the benefits of engagement and making it better; and don’t stop. But equally, don’t be surprised when other priorities (more urgent/more important) push engagement down the list of ‘why we’re doing this’.

Whether it’s engagement in a meeting, in a team, on a project or towards the greater goals of the business, it could be time to stop focusing on it — and attend to other more valuable needs.

Read more in this Fast Company article from Mark C. Crowley who suggests it is wellbeing that our sights should be set on improving.

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Come on - are you really open to new things

I think we want to see ourselves as open and creative and willing to try and experience the new — but are we really, truly?

We can prefer the same menu items at the same places, the same holiday experiences and the same work, friends, genres of reading and music. So how much do we really explore novelty and newness?

In this Inc. Magazine article, the trait is labeled as ‘openness’, to the new and unfamiliar. And openness is a cracking good personality trait.

Read on and consider if you’re due for some more novelty, more of the unusual. It could lead to the many other benefits mentioned like happiness, slowed ageing, more creativity and better learning. Might be worth trying something new then?

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Sync Async: Making progress easier in the changing world of work - Lynne Cazaly -

Meetings getting you down?

There’s no denying work has changed in the past couple of years.

The rise of remote work, work from home, work from anywhere, work across different time zones and hybrid work continues to create change and challenges.

What’s one of the best ways to respond to the changing world of work? It’s to consider not just the work itself … but the WAY it gets done.

ASK:

◻️ Do we really need everyone at the same meeting at the same time? (synchronous work) 🥱

◻️ Could some people contribute prior to, or after the meeting or begin working on tasks outside of a meeting? (asynchronous work) 😃

A growing number of teams and businesses are learning and experiencing the value of deliberately working in sync / async ways. That is, some work is completed synchronously — at the same time with other people; and other elements of work completed asynchronously — at a time and in a way that suits them. 😄

And the state of meetings at work is also driving this shift.

Hey, you don’t need to wait for a culture to change or for someone to give you the go ahead on this. You can start working better in both sync and async ways from today, right now.

There will always be too much to do and not enough time in which to do it.

Putting practical sync async techniques to work can make your work easier … and the rest of life better.

➡️ Read more about how to make the shift to better working practices in my book ‘Sync Async’. It’s available in paperback, ebook and audio book - yep I’ll talk to you and read it to you 😄

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Productivity is changing … to anxiety 😳

Some recent research results show this state of ‘productivity anxiety’ that many people experience. Have you felt it?

The feelings of anxiety reveal the questions that come up about work. They might be familiar.

▫️What should I be working on?

▫️What outcomes are most important?

▫️Am I focused on the right things?

▫️What is the highest priority right now?

▫️Is there anything that I can push until later?

▫️Is this the best use of my time?

▫️Is this valuable work?

While there’s always a drive to do more or better, what cost or impact does it have on us?

Remote employees are experiencing it more. It’s absolutely worth addressing when work is in any way connected to anxiety.

Read more about it in this Fast Company piece by Stephanie Vozza

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!

Age of haste/Show your thinking/Obsessed with activity/Share your knowledge/Do nought/Best at the end Lynne Cazaly CSP

Show me what you're thinking...

Could you? Or would you talk about it for awhile? Or spend way too long working on a detailed pack of information - with too many charts, with pillars and cogs and pie charts?

Thinking is evolving and so can our skills -- to show what we're thinking.

Visuals, scribing and sketching have become powerful tools to help with thinking, brainstorming, communication, collaboration, learning and coping with information overload.

Given there are so many benefits to using visuals, it's a shame that we discount our abilities to sketch and draw and therefore don't use -- or wildly underuse -- these clever and powerful skills.

Is it time to add this capability to your toolkit so you can:

🧰 quickly sketch out ideas

🧰 communicate complex concepts

🧰 think more clearly

🧰 take better notes (that you'll actually use again) and

🧰 make sense of all the information you're drowning in?

Yes, totally!

And these are even more epic skills for hybrid times when some people are here, some are there and conversations are remote, online, in person or asynchronous - happening at all different dates and times and locations.

I've been helping people cut through with their thinking and communications, make sense of their complex ideas and influence and engage others with ease.

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3 school students …

walking behind me along my local shopping street.

I was obsessed, eavesdropping on their conversation. They were coaching, advising and guiding each other through various parts of their school project. It was divine, clever, pointed and clear.

They were asking questions of each other. And they were eagerly contributing suggestions, ideas and insights.

One student shared a point or two about part of the assessment.

And then I heard it - another of the students said,

‘What was that? Share your knowledge?’

The student with the knowledge then delivered a succinct, clear and capsuled few sentences. Brilliant. No waffle. No grandstanding. No blah blah blah.

The group coaching was impressive.

The direct ‘share your knowledge’ request… even better.

And then the tight piece of knowledge delivered was the slam dunk, the cherry on top.

Students. Overloaded with information and learning … and developing mentally, physically and emotionally at record speed. And still this clarity in the asking for and the delivering of information.

Boom. Superb.Try it. Ask a colleague to, ‘share your knowledge’.

And if you’re ever asked, try to be succinct, clear, insightful. It’s harder than it sounds.

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Obsessed with activity

Do do do do. It’s not a song! It’s the obsession many workplaces have with wanting their people to be busy doing.

As if activity = productivity.

And if you’re not busy doing then you’re not ‘engaged’ or ‘performing’.

But the cultures of interruption and disruption (and not that innovative disruption either!) are growing in the workplace.

The 8 features of a badly disruptive workplace are outlined in this Psychology Today piece — and the list is looking increasingly like the standard workplace.

Read on and then reconsider these 4 points:

▫️how you’re leading people

▫️what constitutes performance

▫️how you know people are engaged and

▫️how your work practices need to evolve.

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In the age of haste

The treadmill of life is accelerating at such a pace, many of us are overstimulated, overwhelmed and overloaded. All the time.

Perhaps

▫️Timefulness

and

▫️Longstorming can help.

Autocorrect knows neither of these concepts, attempting to change them into tunefulness and long-standing!

But these are two ways we can consider how we cope with the changing world and all of its busy newness.

In redefining our relationship with time as it is whizzing by, timefulness helps us refresh our experiences of

▫️wonder

▫️curiosity

▫️awe and

▫️introspection.

And lonsgoeming, err I mean longstorming, is more about nature, the outdoors, and venturing ‘out there’ so you can

▫️step back

▫️slow down

▫️and deliberately think about the longer term.

Writer and social scientist Vincent Ialenti shares some deeper ideas, building on the philosophies of others in this Psyche article.

You’re probs too busy to read it or don’t have the mind space to change your speed and consider its suggestions.

But save it. And savor it. These might just be some ways to help us rethink what we’re doing and how we’re so hastefully doing it.

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But I can’t do … nothing

Among the trends of toxic productivity, the endless workday and the society of should, lives a little thing called ‘relaxation anxiety’.

Doing nothing. Well, at least doing less.

In a recent keynote and workshop on cognitive overload, participants fessed up about the challenges of taking short breaks between meetings, work tasks, work and the rest of life, and … little breaks for no reason at all.

And they found it tough.

We’ve been so slogan-ed into getting as much out of our time that the idea of getting less out of it — or getting nothing at all but rest out of it — can feel guilty, wrong or naughty.

That’s a habit gone too far - don’t ya think?

As we continue to evolve ourselves, knowing when to stop is as important as when to go go go.

Pausing, resting and recovering are all mighty valuable uses of our life and times - so get on with it. Resting. Whenever you can.

A micro rest here, a sliver of sleep there, and a spot of doing absolutely nought … right now.

Read more about it in this TIME article

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The best can come at the end

There have been a few more conferences on lately -- the events industry keeps picking up the pace, more events, more registrations, a more healthy return to eventing together ... in real life.

A quick survey of the last six conferences I presented at:

only one of them used a deliberate summary/synthesis/wrap up session that went beyond, 'Oh well, that's it, wasn't it great, see you next time.'

And the one that had the deliberate conclusion... I was facilitating it. Ha! 🤩

But seriously, it seems a waste to have a massively curated conference event program, full of speakers, panels, insights and messages, a-ha moments, learning, revelations and updates and then... what? Bye?

Missed opportunities right there. Big mistake. Big.

The collection, curation and co-creation of insights gathered at the event can be harnessed, revealed, elevated and shared.

And by more people than just the MC sharing things from their perspective.

Stop keeping all of the conference insights a secret!

The wrap-up or conclusion of the event can be a hugely impactful experience; deeper insights, more learning, sense making, ideas for application, possibilities for future connections - they're all possible.

Most conference events pack in so many speakers, presentations, panels and topics ... there's little if any time to digest, learn, share or embed the learning moments.

Facilitating a shared synthesis and a curated closing is a sure way to multiply the value people get from the event.

It reminds people of key messages, fills gaps from sessions you couldn't get to, and shows us what happened when we were distracted by emails and the love for our devices.

I can't wait to facilitate the next conference event closing this week where all my skills of improvisation, facilitation, co-creation, creativity and performance come together to extract insights -- in a friendly way -- from conference delegates.

There's so much value in that conference room at the conclusion of the event. Don't keep it a secret. Multiply the benefit and ROI of the event for delegates.

Yes... a best bit CAN be the wrap up when all of the other best bits come together!

Future different/10x your takeaways/Awaken perfectionist/Unfinished yet?/Skills future/Can't be Meh/New HR Ways

The perfectionist’s awakening

The sayings and clichés are many — about progress and good enough and done is better than perfect. But despite us kind of knowing this, we’ve still got some generational perfectionism biting at our heels.

When I reviewed Curran and Hill’s research on perfectionism a few years ago it rang bells and raised flags for me. Actually, it put a big freaking mirror in front of me and urged me to truly look at how I thought, worked, lived … dreamed, hoped and expected.

I knew perfectionism. Well. Yet I’d also been dodging, weaving and working around this perfectionism much of my life. I’d been finding hacks and short cuts and tools, methods and sneaky ways of outsmarting my perfectionist self … so I could get up each day and get things done that had to be done to … live.

I connected a number of other complementary angles and practices - about focus, creativity, imaginination and improvisation…And I wrote a book about it all — ‘ISH : The problem with our pursuit for perfection and the life changing practice of good enough’.

That was 2019-ish. Perfectionism is still on the rise. And there are different types of it. And sometimes I need to re-read my own book… to remind me there are ways around the different elements of perfectionism that can arrive at different times or show up with different tasks and situations.

Even if you think you’re not perfect, in my keynotes on the topic I’ll mention phrases like ‘dishwasher stacking’ or ‘laundry folding’; they always gain a knowing laugh that we all have standards, expectations and visions for how things should be done. Have to be done.

Get to know your flavour of perfect because it can be a life-changing moment when you realise the platitudes, memes and clichés about perfectionism only truly make sense when you’ve been through a kind of ‘perfectionist’s awakening’. And until then you’ll always think you have to go for perfect without knowing why you do.

Read more about perfectionism in my book ‘ish: The Problem with our Pursuit for Perfection and the Life-Changing Practice of Good Enough’ or in this article that spurred me to write this post.

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10x conference takeaways

I’m ready this morning to kick off a team learning event. These events are an opportunity to do a lot of things at once.

Learning days, weeks or months are a big investment for businesses.

In person events rake up the tech AV, travel, accommodation and catering costs.

Remote events still require the time commitments and organisation investments for design and hosting.

When you bring a team together to learn, naturally you want to give them everything you can. And often these events can be stuffed with content, presenters and topics.

But before you do bring people together … please prep them for all the goodness/information overload that lies ahead. And prep them right at the start of the event.

Help your people help themselves with information overload coping. We know we get overloaded.

It happens to all of us. It’s what you do in situations of overload that either:

✅ leads you to have a great experience with the event goals realized, or

❌🧟♂️it’s just another zombie get-together with too much information.

There are many modern day clever skills that we need. ‘Cognitive load coping’ or being able to save yourself from information overload is a key skill of today. And most of us don’t know how to save ourselves.

And the drowning metaphor — drowning in information, overwhelmed with … — is all too real.

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The great unfinished

In a cognitive workshop for teachers recently, we tackled how to handle information overload better. When teachers are better able to cope with information, they have more cognitive power for teaching.

Cognitive load coping asks ‘how do I save myself and cope with all the information, stimulus and insights flying about in life every day?’

When we understand how information impacts us and what our default or habitual responses are … then we can save ourselves from the overload of too much information, thinking, tasks and ideas.

If you’re not clear what overloads you, you’re at the mercy of it. You’ll notice that you can panic, check out, scroll or just deny it.

A common overloader is the unfinished stuff: incomplete tasks, jobs, projects and admin. Thanks to Dr Bluma Zeigarnik, there’s a name for it.

Read on and think about how you currently handle your unfinished stuff. It’s dragging you more than you know.

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Cognitive Load Coping is available as a workshop, keynote or masterclass. Develop your people, equip your teachers or support conference delegates with the modern skills, methods and tips to cope better with information.

➡️ Message me for enquiries and bookings.

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Facilitating a board strategic planning session recently in Sydney.

Lynne Cazaly - Speaker & Facilitator -

It’s such a pleasure to get to know the directors and their experiences.

Facilitating is a nuanced balance of many things, most obviously:

- making progress

- retaining engagement

- gathering contributions and yes,

- keeping an eye on the time.

In every group there are always:

- varied personalities and perspectives

- different styles of thinking and communicating

- evolving motivations and beliefs.

Balancing all of this is a rewarding — if not a step by step — achievement.

Some facilitators most certainly apply too much pressure and too many rules - it can hurt you. You feel like, ‘nope I’m not contributing. It’s easier to just sit here’.

Other facilitators are a little too hands off or distracted by games and activities.

If you focus cleanly and openly on the work the group needs to do, you don’t need games. It becomes a purposeful process, high on engagement and rewarding with outcomes.

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What skills will the future need

Of all the questions about AI and work, this is a good one :

“What steps can we take now to futureproof our workforces and equip them with the skills and know-how they’ll need …”

There are issues and questions businesses need to be thinking and responding to… now:

- job reconfiguration

- future skills shortages

- skilling up

- lack of education and training options

- new skill opportunities

- lifelong learning & continuous upskilling.

The realities of work are changing — and so must the development and training of workers.

New approaches are needed to rapidly and continuously upskill people. And greater collaboration and partnerships are going to be needed too.

No one business can do this alone, for all that their people might need in the future. The future will reveal new collaborations, new ways of learning and a changed attitude toward development.

Read more in this piece from the World Economic Forum.

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9 ways things will be different

The scale of change that’s coming to human lifestyles between 2000 and the 2060s will be as transformative as that experienced between 1900 and the 1960s … so says this insightful piece from Catherine Taylor.

Which of the 9 resonate for you? I love the intersection of clever human thought AND technology - so there are some telling ideas and predictions here for the 2060s.

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Can’t be … meh

Disengagement, disinterest and a drop in motivation — there’s plenty of this in the workforce today. To tackle your own version of ‘where did my motivation go?’, check out the range of great suggestions in this article from Harvard Business Review … if you can be bothered 😁

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New Ways in HR - Program with Lynne Cazaly

HR is too retro, and not in a cool way

Visiting a vintage store last weekend I saw bread bins, fashion, workshed tools, old signs, cupboards and crockery -- where everything old is new again.

But at work, aaaah no, many old ways are rusted on and need to be grinded off!

New ways are about more than return to work discussions and more than any legislation or policy changes, important though they are.

It’s a deeper issue that (and focusing here on HR) HR may not be leading or modeling new ways of working; the ways that have been moving through the work world over recent years.

Potentially distracted by helping others and overwhelmed with serving all the other people in the business, HR teams and their leaders are frequently overloaded.

Evolving their own work practices can seem too big a task or an ask.

Is HR so busy helping everyone else they’ve sacrificed themselves and their own practices?

As Lynda Gratton commented, these times are “forcing us to test long-held assumptions about how work should be done — and what it even is.”

Now THAT could be a tricky conversation: what work is and how should it be done.

Lucy Adams declared “HR is stuck in the 1980s.”

And that’s not the 80s in a cool or retro way.

HR remains a sector that can default to dated (vintage?) work practices … learnt from the old stalwarts; yes, as any field of practice can and does.

How do you shake those off and bring in fresher ways?

Could more HR teams benefit from working in new ways ... remembering that new ways aren’t about software, apps or AI/tech-based products. It’s the “ways" of ways of working that modern teams and businesses are learning and using.

I’ve worked with multiple HR teams over the past few years helping them evolve their knowledge, skills and practices in up to 9 specific areas of new ways of working. And I LOVE doing this work because it brings immediate, practical results to busy teams. The teams bring new ways to their individual, daily work. They don’t have to wait until they all agree on a new practice. It can begin with an individual.

David Ulrich suggested “2024 should be the year of opportunity for HR.”

And it is. It has to be. The organisation they support needs it to be. It’s time HR served itself some hearty and rapid evolution … to lead, model and advocate new ways of working across the businesses they support.

And yes, starting with themselves.

➡️➡️ I’ve put together a pack on how and why HR has to adopt new ways of working. Message me or get in contact and I’ll send you the pack.